The American Lady(122)

It hurt to have nobody here to talk to, nobody who could help her remember times past. How she and her sisters had built up the workshop together. And then her great journey to New York. Seeing Ruth again, so elegant, so different but still a sister whom she adored. Then the grand new feelings when she met Franco! The memories were mingled with pain, with the knowledge that she was now more alone than she had ever been—but the pain told Marie that even here in prison she had not lost her ability to feel.

Once all the old stories were in the pages of the notebook, Marie slowed down a little. It was enough to write a line or two every day for her unborn child. She didn’t write about how she was, how she felt. Her child must never learn how unhappy she had been during the pregnancy. Instead she wrote about the new beginning that they would make together as soon as Franco was back, once he had let her out of this prison.

She and her child. A new beginning, like a sheet of blank paper. She didn’t know where yet. Perhaps she would settle on Monte Verità for a while. And then? It didn’t matter . . . as long as it was away from here.

Marie sighed and hid the book under her bedstead again. Then she looked at the pendant watch that hung around her neck. Four o’clock in the afternoon.

She went into the workshop. Just that morning the glowing colors of her work had granted her a few hours of blessed relief from prison. She felt better when her head was filled with colorful images. The mosaic pictures that she had made over the past few weeks were propped up all around the walls—bizarre, almost abstract compositions that not even Marie herself could explain. It was as though the pictures had created themselves. Now she ran her fingers through the bowls where she kept the pieces of colored glass and felt nothing. Just so that she had something to do, she began to arrange pieces of glass in various shades of green, putting them together to make leaves.

These afternoon hours were the worst. When her strength from the morning had left her but she had not yet grown tired with the approach of night. As the weeks had gone by, something like a routine had developed, a semblance of normality that lent shape to her days. She got up around nine o’clock when Carla came in with breakfast—it was always Carla, never one of the other maids. Two slices of white bread, butter, honey and some fruit. Then Marie washed. Carla took the pitcher and basin away along with the breakfast tray around ten o’clock. Marie had been very pleased to discover on her arrival that there were five toilets with running water scattered throughout the palazzo, but now Patrizia wouldn’t even let her leave her room to use the toilet. “It’s not good for you to walk so far,” she said primly. “You have to save your strength for the bambino.” What hypocrisy!

Marie spent the rest of the morning in her workshop until the door opened again around one o’clock. Sometimes Patrizia brought lunch and stayed for a few minutes. Marie was so lonely that she began to look forward to these moments despite the hatred she felt—after all, Patrizia was her only connection to the outside world. Most of the time it was Carla who brought lunch, though, and she simply stared at Marie as though she were scared of her. Marie had no idea what Patrizia had told the girl—probably that their guest had some infectious disease. Or that she was mad. More likely that, since Carla never responded when Marie begged desperately for help. She just flinched and turned away.

After she ate, she took a nap. How she would have loved to lie down on the wicker chaise longue in the orangery! To smell the scents, to hear the palm leaves rustling around her as they waved in the breeze from the open panes in the roof . . . But Patrizia ignored all her pleas and refused to open the door to the orangery—she was probably afraid that Marie would smash one of the windows and run as fast as her legs would carry her! She would certainly have tried. The panes weren’t as thick in the conservatory as they were in her room or in the workshop, and there were no bars. She would have run like the wind. Away from this prison.

In the first few days she had thought of nothing but escape. Once she had shoved Carla aside, lunch tray and all, and run to the front door of the palazzo as fast as she could—only to discover that this too was locked tight. She had collapsed in floods of tears. How humiliating it had been when Patrizia and the count had led her back to her room like a criminal! Patrizia had cried as they went, acting as though Marie had devised some dreadful insult for her.

She could have simply stopped living, refused to eat even a bite—but for the child in her womb.

Fetch help from outside? No such hope. Whenever the gardeners came past the window, Marie hammered like a madwoman on the glass and tried to show them that she was being held against her will, but not a single one of them reacted. What had Patrizia told them?