A Life Apart by Mariapia Veladiano Page A

Maddalena is placing the teapot and cups, and suddenly feeling as if the floor were the black surface of the Retrone washing under my blue shoes, the silver buckle sinking fast out of sight and taking me along on its downward plunge.
    “Help!” I call out, reaching out and catching hold of Miss Albertina.
    “Holy Virgin of Monte Berico, she’s dying!” Maddalena shrieks. And she lies me down on the floor that once again is solid as it should be.
    “Rebecca is coming back to school tomorrow,” I can hear Miss Albertina say. “Let her father know. If I don’t see her, I shall call the police. She cannot be left locked up in here.”
    “She will come, rest assured,” Maddalena says determinedly. “And if you do write a report for the social services, I shall sign it too.”
    An astonishing alliance was thus forged by chance on that day, one that would play a decisive role in my future. That threat of a report, something too frightening for me to ask about, was hardly ever voiced but only half mentioned in a whisper, one single time, in my father’s presence. It was Maddalena who did it one day, after some disagreement of which I had not been aware. She did it casually, with her back to him, as she washed something in the sink with exaggerated care. Yet from that moment, that threat took up silent residence in each corner of our house, ready to be floated fearlessly whenever a decision needed to be made. A powerful weapon in Maddalena’s hands.
    When Maddalena came to collect me from school, she would often stop to talk with Miss Albertina. Normally I could not hearwhat they were saying, and whenever I did, it was usually some harmless exchange of information about homework or the weather. Yet I knew that their curious alliance was about me, that they were keeping watch over something, without perhaps even knowing exactly what it was.
    A few days later Papa returned home, without any explanations, and resumed work between his clinic and the hospital. Aunt Erminia also reappeared: she arrived one evening at suppertime, tanned and perfumed, more beautiful than I had ever seen her. She spoke little, and mostly about music, the
conservatoire
and her untalented pupils. Throughout the evening, each one of her remarks went unanswered. When she left, we did not feel in the least reassured.

Ten
    Aunt Erminia moved in with us a few weeks after Mamma’s death. She came trailing a swarm of perfumes and colours that left their wake in each room of the house. I knew the one she loved best, a brand new, luscious fragrance dedicated to Chopin by a French
parfumier
: a mix of jasmine, orange and rose fading into Oriental notes of ylang-ylang and sandalwood. It had the texture, magical to my eyes, of an invisible veil that spread around her with every step she took, when she played, when she turned to smile at us, when she said goodbye. But the bathroom also overflowed with the mix of scents from her bodycare cosmetics: the passionflower cream she spread on her legs, the almond oil she used as an overnight mask for her hair. Often in the evening she would take me into the bathroom with her and talk to me as she tended to that body brimming with beauty. She would tell me about her pupils. Some were at school with me, and I liked to hear that they were much less gifted than I was, that they had made a huge mess of their end of year show, that they were unable to get going again if they missed a beat. I was still dreaming of the
conservatoire
, but Aunt Erminia would not budge on that.
    “It’s as your father wants: not until you’ve finished primary school,” she says firmly. “And anyway, the less you mix with that flock of trained geese who only get in because their parents push and kick them, the better chance you’ll have to develop your ownstyle. Anyone can play well, but what matters is finding your own music inside.”
    “Like Bach, you mean?” I needle her because the pitch of her fury gives me a shiver of