The American Lady(139)

Tomorrow, she decided, she would hire a cab to take her from the hotel to the palazzo.





29

The sun hangs low in the sky, shining through beneath the trees. Their long shadows stretch out like grasping fingers, reaching out to . . .

Let me go!

Marie ducks away, beneath the branches. She has to get out of this darkness! But the shadows are faster than she is; they slip ahead and are lying in wait wherever she steps. I’m here already, you cannot get away . . .

A game that Johanna’s twins used to play. The pictures flash through her mind’s eye . . . chalk circles on paving stones, skirts swinging, and children’s songs . . . one, two, hop! and the shadow eats the words before she can remember any more.

“Marie, come on, get undressed! You have to be naked if you’re going to sunbathe.” Sherlain’s voice, chiding her as she always did for not following Monte Verità’s rules. Hands pluck at her clothes now, and a cloth slaps at her face; she’s gasping for air, but she can’t breathe. It’s so cramped in here, so narrow and tight; she’s scared but . . .

“No, don’t undress me! No . . . ! The man with the beard! He’s coming for me . . .” The thought blurs at the edges like ink on wet paper. What man?

“Quiet now, Marie! Nobody wants to undress you.” A hand pushed her back down into bed. “Let me put that cloth back on your brow. We have to drive this fever away.”

Marie sat up, soaked with sweat. “Fever . . .”

For a moment she didn’t know who the woman was, dipping the white cloth into a china bowl, wringing it out. Then the memory slowly came back to her: the birth, the terrible pain, then at last, from one moment to the next, merciful oblivion in which she felt nothing and nothing hurt anymore . . .

The man with the beard . . . there he is again, hiding in the forest, hiding in among the blue and green and . . . He waves to her, she can see him clearly . . .

She remembered something. Something so important that she struggled to sit up again so that she could think clearly. She fought with all her strength against the dizziness that threatened to overcome her. These moments of wakefulness were a rare gift; she had to use each one to the fullest.

“My baby. Where is my baby?”

How could she have forgotten her daughter? She had to look after her. Her Sylvie.

Soothing words reached her ears as though through cotton, calming the panic that rose within her.

“Your baby . . . is well . . . She’s well.”

Marie’s eyes drooped closed. There was nothing she could do to stop them.

Sylvie, like Marie. A short name. Her baby didn’t need anything more than that. A good name. Sylvie Steinmann . . . The dizziness was there again, stronger than before, her head was so heavy . . .

Something is sparkling behind her eyelids, like droplets after spring rain. But they are not drops of water; rather they are polished prisms of glass that catch the sunlight and refract it in a burst of color.

Georgie is at Marie’s bedside. She’s holding up a necklace of glass beads in front of her face. “You see, the shadow’s gone away!” She laughs and her skin shines in all the colors of the rainbow.

“Now we can have some fun . . .” She swings the necklace back and forth, the prisms melt and flow together, growing rounder and rounder until they become a globe.

“That’s the paradise of glass . . .” Marie murmured.



“Please believe me, Signorina Miles, this really is the worst possible time for you to visit your aunt! The birth was unusually hard on her, since the baby was not in position. We had to take . . . certain measures to save the life of both mother and baby.”

What measures? Wanda frowned in concern. She couldn’t imagine what the word meant but it sounded awful. Or perhaps the countess had picked the wrong word? Her English was rather broken.

“And how are the mother and the baby now?” she asked, sick at heart. Why was the countess so tight-lipped? How could she sit there so calmly on that dainty little chair and not even tell Wanda what Marie’s daughter was named?

Patrizia shrugged noncommittally. “The doctor was here this morning and examined Marie and the bambino. The child is very well, and a wet nurse is taking care of her. Thank heavens that we found her—she lives just a couple of houses away, and she is quite willing to nurse Sylvie alongside her own child.”

Sylvie. So that was what Marie’s daughter was called. “And what about Marie?” Wanda asked urgently.

Patrizia heaved a great sigh. “She has an infection and a high fever. She sees things in her sleep; it seems that she is having hallucinations. The doctor says that the most important thing now is for her to rest.”