Savages, Page 2

  “Darling Mama, don’t worry.” Lorenza’s indulgent voice didn’t quite hide her irritation. “I have total faith in Andrew.”

  * * *

  Silvana shrugged, remembering that she had once had total faith in Arthur. She recalled the angry scene with her father when she had carefully, casually told her parents over breakfast—one warm autumn day like this, years ago in Rome—that she wanted them to meet an American friend. Yes, a man. No, she had met him on the beach. (Because husky, blond Arthur had followed her from the café to the sand.) Her father had turned the page of his newspaper and said sharply that well-brought-up girls did not pick up boys on the beach, and he certainly did not wish to meet a young beach bum. So seventeen-year-old Silvana blurted out that Arthur was not young—he was quite old, thirty-four, and she was going to marry him!

  The result had been like pushing a flaming rag into a jar of kerosene. Her father smashed down the paper, leaped out of his chair and yelled, “When is it due?” Her mother said, “Tulio, lower your voice or the servants will hear.” She then looked reproachfully at Silvana and asked, “When is it due?”

  Amused at being taken for a parvenu, Arthur (whose girlfriend had flown back to New York after a quarrel, leaving him alone on vacation) had taken care to get Silvana pregnant as soon as she had explained that she was—sort of—engaged to be married, to the son of the family whose beautifully tended estate in Tuscany bounded theirs. Without a word Arthur had turned down the next country lane, stopped the car and thrust himself upon her. Silvana had willingly thrust back, then and subsequently, in the backs of hired cars, under hedges, in vineyards, legs waving from the bottom of a motorboat, and once behind a village bakery. Silvana had been thrilled at being made a proper woman by a proper man—not a boy. She thought that Arthur had all the sophistication, vitality and glamour of the U.S.A., a country that Silvana knew only from the movies and the advertising pages of Life magazine, a country which seemed glamorous and as distant as Mars from shabby postwar Italy, where an unmarried girl meekly obeyed her father.

  After her father stormed from the breakfast room, followed by her mother repeating, “At least she says he’s a Catholic, Tulio,” the weeping Silvana had been examined by a strange physician—not the family doctor—then locked in her bedroom while her parents argued angrily. Nella, the kitchen maid who brought her meals, took Silvana’s note to Arthur, who read the sad, crumpled letter, grinned, then telephoned his mother in Pittsburgh.

  Not astonished by his news, but astounded that this time Arthur actually intended to marry a girl he’d gotten pregnant, Mrs. Graham had sighed, telephoned Nexus Tower and told the office to book her a seat to Rome. After the eighteen-hour flight, during which she had plenty of time to realize that she would, as always, be unable to dissuade her only son from doing what he wanted, Mrs. Graham stepped into the waiting maroon Rolls-Royce, thinking, Well, at least she’s a Catholic.

  Upon arriving at her usual suite at the Grand, Mrs. Graham wrote a short letter of invitation to Silvana’s parents, which was delivered by hand to the crumbling Palazzo Cariotto just off the Borghese Gardens.

  Count Cariotto went alone to meet the tragically widowed Mrs. Graham, who wore a navy Mainbocher dress, one long string of 16-millimeter pearls—she liked the fact that it never occurred to people that they were real—and her engagement ring, which was the biggest diamond the Count had ever seen. He found his eyes repeatedly drawn to it as they talked, with formal delicacy, of the inexorably approaching event. Eventually it was agreed that their lawyers should meet to discuss the suggested, generous marriage settlement upon Silvana, and the Count returned home to tell his wife that it could have been worse, at least the mother was a lady.

  The engagement party was held on a starlit September evening in the interior courtyard of the Palazzo Cariotto, where careful spotlighting drew eyes away from the decay. White satin streamers fell from tubs of dark-green yew trees; marble statues were hung with garlands of white flowers; the many servants wore livery with waistcoats striped in the dark green and yellow Cariotto colors. All the delicious buffet food—the trout, the huge hams, the smoked delicacies, the fruit and the wine—had come from the Cariotto estate in Tuscany. Although the Count’s business schemes invariably failed—someone he trusted always let him down—his farms ran as smoothly as they had always run, administered by the land agent who had inherited the job from his father, to whom it had been handed down by his father.

  As swiftly as was decent, the engagement party was followed by the wedding—the bridegroom had business commitments, the Countess explained to her friends, who nodded understandingly. Following the elaborate Roman ceremony, Silvana and Arthur flew to India for their honeymoon. Thirty minutes after the Karachi stopover, Silvana had the first of her miscarriages. This had upset the food service and sanitary facilities in the first-class cabin, but music was played to drown the noise of her pain and an ambulance was waiting at Delhi, where she spent a depressing three weeks in King George Hospital, before being flown in cautious stages back to Pittsburgh.

  Silvana had now seen that Arthur was wonderful in a crisis, and fell even more deeply in love with him. “Arthur says … Arthur thinks … Arthur wants me … Arthur insists …” she told her mother over the long-distance calls that grew increasingly frequent. Her mother, correctly diagnosing homesickness, dispatched young Nella to help Silvana settle down in Arthur’s family mansion in Sewickley, but Silvana never felt really happy away from the cheerful noise of Rome or the serenity of the Tuscan countryside where she had grown up, and flew back regularly to visit. Twice a year she observed her mother and father growing smaller, thinner and grayer. At first she clung to Arthur, seeking the support and security of his enfolding arms, but those strong, blond-haired, muscular arms enforced as well as enfolded. Silvana soon found out that she could do anything she wanted—unless Arthur wanted something else.

  Arthur’s mother had moved out of the English manor house in Sewickley before Arthur and his bride returned from India. Happily she commissioned Philip Johnson to build her a long, low house of glass, high in the hills, which is what she had always wanted, rather than that gloomy pile of thirty rooms with diamond-paned windows that never let in enough light and heavy carved furniture—much of it supposedly sixteenth century—faded tapestries, brocade upholstery in several dingy shades and heavy, dark velvet curtains.

  While Silvana recovered from her first miscarriage, she lay in her four-poster bed and scribbled notes about her pending transformation of the gloomy house. But when, one morning, she casually told Arthur what she was doing, he stopped dressing and looked at her sharply, tie tack in one hand, its stud in the other. “This is one of the best houses in Pennsylvania,” he had said. “I grew up here and I don’t want anything changed. You can replace things when necessary, but the replacements are to be just that—not changes.”

  Silvana tried to protest, she even made the mistake of saying that most of the expensive furniture was fake—or, if not, then greatly repaired. Arthur listened in cold silence, turned his ice-blue eyes toward her without moving his head and observed, “At least it doesn’t have to be propped up with somebody else’s money.” A large part of Silvana’s settlement had been “loaned” to repair the Palazzo Cariotto. For a week after that, Arthur did not speak to her. In bed, he treated her as if they had not been introduced. They made up, but things were never the same again.

  In romantic fiction, which Silvana loved, the hero is always permanently obsessed by the heroine, whereas in real life, once passion fades, a woman always comes second to a man’s career. Silvana never came to terms with the fact that her romantic ideas were unrealistic, so without noticing it she gradually became permanently depressed—a condition that evinced itself in weariness.

  By the time Silvana managed to carry a baby to term, she had been married for four years and had been pregnant, sick or recovering from a miscarriage for almost all of that time. Arthur no longer found Silvana’s pink, moist mouth
a novelty, and his interest in her had dissolved like the morning mist that rose from the river at the foot of their estate. The twelve evenings that followed the birth of their daughter were spent by Silvana alone (so that she could rest, Arthur had said). On the thirteenth evening, Silvana realized that Arthur must be doing all those wonderful things to somebody else. She tried to discuss this with him, but if Arthur didn’t want to talk about something, then it wasn’t discussed. His job at Nexus Mining International—the firm started by his great-grandfather—was an excuse for any absence. If Silvana telephoned him at his downtown office in Nexus Tower, then he was at the plant, or vice versa. On his frequent trips to the Nexus offices in New York or Toronto, Arthur was absent all day, and in the evening he left orders at his hotel that he was not to be disturbed.

  But, although Arthur didn’t bother to hide his lack of interest from Silvana, he seemed to want to hide it from Pittsburgh. He was never seen with another woman, and he and Silvana made regular public appearances, at which he insisted that Silvana be exquisitely dressed. However, it was noticed that the couple rarely talked to each other when they were seated in the cream-and-crimson velvet Graham box at Heinz Hall, waiting to listen to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra or watch the Pittsburgh Ballet Company.

  By that time, Silvana found that she could no longer speak up for herself—the words would not come. She had been frightened of asking Arthur for the truth, but now she was frightened of being told it. She was terrified that one day Arthur would divorce her. She would wake up in the dark with the words Then what? whispering in her ears. She felt panic at the thought of being without a husband, of being sent home to Rome like some export reject, of hearing her father say, “I told you so.” So, after a few timid attempts at discussion had been expertly turned aside by Arthur, Silvana shut her eyes to her marital unhappiness. After all, passion never lasted longer than two years, did it?

  But in Arthur’s case, passion had not been replaced by affection. He simply disregarded his wife. Increasingly, Silvana felt insignificant and without hope. She trembled when spoken to, and to speak was a great effort. To outsiders she appeared vague, absentminded or aloof. She felt that real life was on the other side of a glass wall, but she could never decide whether she was looking into the aquarium, or looking out. She confided her humiliation to no one, feeling that pity would render it intolerable.

  She clung to her baby, chubby Lorenza who blew bubbles and dribbled down fragile clothes that had been embroidered by Italian nuns. Everyone at Nexus knew that Arthur had returned to his bachelor habits and was once again using his old apartment below the hotel penthouse that was permanently reserved for visiting Nexus VIPs. But, surprisingly, he had felt possessive pride as soon as he saw his baby daughter’s red, screwed-up little face and heard her yell. “She takes after you,” said Silvana, and he beamed.

  Within three months of Lorenza’s birth, Arthur’s old nursery suite of four rooms had been redecorated in pale pink, and from that moment Silvana knew she could have anything she wanted, provided that it was for the benefit of Lorenza. Anything, that is to say, except money.

  Arthur allowed Silvana no cash. Everything had to be charged. Arthur’s secretary paid the travel bills to Rome, the accounts from Valentino, the bills from Elizabeth Arden on Fifth Avenue, where Silvana bought all her Christian Dior lingerie. Not that Arthur was cheap. If Silvana wanted a new car, she had only to say so in September, when Arthur ordered his next year’s models. Schooled by his mother, Arthur had good taste in jewelry and loved to buy it, so Silvana had plenty of everything—emeralds, pearls, sapphires and diamonds (not rubies, Arthur thought them vulgar). However, Silvana never had any cash.

  Arthur knew that cash meant freedom. With even a little stash, flight would be possible. If Arthur didn’t want Silvana to stay, he also didn’t want her to go. The fact of Silvana’s existence prevented Arthur’s mistresses from being too demanding, because Arthur always made it clear that, as he was a Catholic, there could never be a divorce. So Silvana was not allowed the one thing that might have powered her flight from humiliation—she was dependent upon her husband’s whim and her husband’s money. How could she leave him, with no self-confidence and no cash? Silvana felt ashamed of her powerless situation and dealt with her timidity and insecurity by withdrawing from the world. She tried to become nothing, so that nothing could hurt her. Her body was present, but she was not, and Arthur didn’t want her body. Biologically, Silvana was alive, but emotionally she felt dead—she went through the motions of living like a languid sleepwalker, and at all times, behind her exquisite manners, she suppressed her rage toward her husband.

  Except on one occasion.

  * * *

  The Grahams kept a ten-berth yacht at Monte Carlo and generally spent the month of June cruising the Mediterranean with a few friends. One starlit night in 1968 the party went ashore at Cannes to dine at the Carlton and Arthur drank too much Laphroaig malt whiskey after dinner. As they were returning through the moonlight in the launch, he made the mistake of telling Silvana that everyone knew she’d married him for his money.

  Silvana, in strapless emerald satin, jumped to her feet—dangerously rocking the launch—and cried, “My father called you a beach bum, and as far as I knew, that’s what you were. This is what I care about your money!”

  She pulled off her emerald earrings and flung them overboard.

  In the stunned silence that followed, Silvana tore off her emerald bracelet and tossed it into the black, lapping waters. As the launch droned on slowly toward the yacht, Silvana licked her finger—she had put on weight and her rings were now tight—and yanked off her huge emerald engagement ring. She held it up in the moonlight and asked, “How much did you pay for that, darling?” Over the side it went, as Silvana laughed.

  One of the male guests grabbed Arthur as he lunged toward Silvana, and the sailor at the wheel yelled “Attention!” as they nearly rammed the stern of another boat. Silvana was the first to climb aboard their yacht. Heedless of her guests, she scrambled below to her stateroom, locked the door and with trembling fingers opened her safe. Because of her agitation, she had to dial the combination twice. Carefully she withdrew the green Moroccan-leather jewel box and hurried back up the companionway to the deck.

  Holding up a pearl collar that had belonged to Catherine the Great, Silvana yelled, “How much did this cost you, Arthur?” She threw it overboard—as far as she could.

  It now took two male guests to restrain Arthur. “Now, Arthur … Careful … Arthur, get a grip on yourself.”

  A diamond necklace flew among the stars, then fell into their reflection. “How much did this set you back, caro?” Silvana shouted. She held up a set of Edwardian diamond star brooches.

  Sleepy voices called from neighboring yachts, requesting silence in varying degrees of politeness, as Silvana, with surprising speed and relish, flung all her jewelry into the silver and black Mediterranean. Then she yawned, stretched and tripped off to her stateroom, feeling physically lighter and exultant—her humiliation had dissolved like sea-mist at sunrise.

  Inside her stateroom, Silvana hesitated, then double-locked the door. Her ebullience drained away as she sat slumped on the end of the bed. For the first time, she seriously considered leaving her husband, but she realized that would also mean leaving her small daughter. She knew that Arthur’s lawyers would, by expensive, legal and ruthless methods, gain custody of Lorenza for him.

  Eventually, Silvana curled into an unhappy mound of crushed emerald satin and fell asleep, resigned to the continuation of her empty life. She had completely forgotten about the jewelry, now settling into the black silt of the harbor.

  By four in the morning, Arthur had located two professional scuba divers. Abruptly sobered, he had first telephoned his broker in New York (where it was still only 10 P.M.) to check the insurance situation; he had then wakened the harbor master, and subsequently the Mayor of Cannes. Before first light, a rope cordon was bobbing around the Graha
m yacht (curious onlookers thought that someone must have drowned), and within two days every item of jewelry had been recovered. Apart from her emerald engagement ring, Silvana had never again worn any of the jewelry except at Arthur’s specific request. She had inherited from her grandmother a row of exquisite but discolored sixteenth-century pearls, and it was these she now fingered in the pale-gold autumn light that flooded the library.

  By the time Lorenza left home, her mother had lost her nerve and wouldn’t have dared face life alone—didn’t even dare wonder why not. As for Lorenza, she had never thought to wonder whether her mother was happy. Her mother was just … there.

  * * *

  Lying on the silver brocade couch in the library, Lorenza pulled a pillow toward her and fitted it under the small of her back. She held a sheet of paper—a typed guest list for her father’s birthday party, which celebration was the reason for her trip home.

  Lorenza skimmed the list. “What a bunch of bores! Isn’t there going to be anyone here who’s not Nexus?” She peered closer at the list. “Hey, I thought you said you were never again going to invite Suzy the Blond Bimbo, after the way she behaved last time.”

  “Your father wouldn’t like you to use that word. And I suppose that anyone can accidentally fall into a pool at a party.”

  “Into the shallow end, of course. And in a white dress with nothing under it—as we had all noticed before she fell into the pool. Don’t you remember Suzy standing up, dripping like Raquel Welch in one of her Grade B movies. And how every man in sight rushed to help her out, poor thing.”

  “Your father particularly wanted me to invite Suzy because the other wives aren’t nice to her.”

  Lorenza yawned. “They hate her guts. With good reason.”

  “Lorenza, you must remember that Suzy is a distant relative.”

  “She’s married to my second cousin by marriage. That’s pretty distant.” Suddenly Lorenza sat up. “I hear Papa’s car. He’s back early, isn’t he?”