Page 28 of Daughter of Genoa (Escape to Tuscany)

By the time Vittorio has met the lady and her children at Brignole and walked them to the apartment at via Peschiera – a mercifully short distance, but uphill all the way – he’s starting to suffer again.

Not from shortness of breath; that, thankfully, seems to be staying away.

No, what’s paining him this time is the fiery itching under his arms and elsewhere, which only grows stronger the further he climbs and the more he heats up.

It’s as if he has been relieved of one torment only so that he can more fully experience another.

Via Assarotti is just around the corner.

Couldn’t he call in on Dr Rostan just once, have him deal with the dressing and look at the skin problem, too?

How wrong would that really be? He stops right there on the pavement and briefly closes his eyes.

He knows the devil is tempting him, and he tries to fight it, to recollect himself.

But blocking out the outside world only leaves him at the mercy of the itch.

There’s a bar up ahead. Before he can think, Vittorio goes in and asks the man behind the counter if he can make a telephone call.

‘Of course, Father,’ the man says. He nods to the telephone that hangs on the back wall. ‘It’s all yours.’

‘Thank you,’ Vittorio says, so fervently that the man gives him an odd look. The card Dr Rostan gave him with his office and private numbers is tucked into his breviary; he thanks God he thought to put it there. He lifts the receiver and places it to his ear.

‘Number, please,’ the operator says. He gives the office number, and thanks God again when the doctor answers on the second ring.

‘Rostan here.’

‘Good morning, this is Father Vittorio. May I come and see you today?’

‘Certainly. Come by in an hour,’ the doctor says, and rings off.

An hour seems interminably long, but at least he’ll be seen. Vittorio replaces the receiver. ‘Thank you,’ he says to the man behind the counter – the owner, it must be.

‘It’s no problem, Father. Though if you wanted to buy something…’

‘Oh,’ Vittorio says, stricken. Of course, it’s only good manners to buy a drink when you’ve been allowed to use the telephone. But he hasn’t any money. He never carries any, except to pass on to others.

‘He’ll have a drink with me,’ a frail voice pipes up. Fulvio, the only customer, is sitting at a table by the window. ‘Give him a glass of that Vermentino, and another for me, too. Sit down, Father Vittorio, and let’s talk for a little while. If you’ve got time?’

He has time. He can’t deny that he has time, and some conversation might keep his mind off the itch. ‘Thank you,’ he says, and sits down.

Fulvio gives him a wide, rather gummy smile.

He’s genuinely pleased, Vittorio realises – he wants the company, perhaps even needs it.

The bar owner comes over with two small glasses of white wine and removes Fulvio’s empty one.

The moment he’s gone, the old man says: ‘Well, now, how’s it going with you?

Still got girl trouble? Oh, don’t take offence.

’ He chuckles. ‘I’m only saying that to tease you, friendly-like. I don’t mean to suggest anything.’

But Vittorio isn’t offended. He’s imagining what it would be like if he spoke to this kind, lonely old soul as if he really were a friend, the sort of bosom friend Vittorio has never had.

If he said: As a matter of fact, yes. I think I’ve fallen in love with someone and even if I could do anything about it, which I can’t, I’m fairly sure she’s fallen in love with someone else.

He longs to say it. For a moment, he fears that he really will.

Fulvio’s looking at him. Not like other people do, not with concern or alarm, but with dawning compassion. ‘Oh, Father, the look on your face. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.’

Vittorio picks up his glass and takes a gulp of wine. He feels hot and sullen and there’s an ominous pricking behind his eyes. Fulvio leans forward.

‘Look,’ he says quietly. ‘You don’t know me and I don’t know you.

We’re first names only, right? So if you want to tell someone about it – about her – without being judged or made to do penance or whatever else, then you can tell me.

I don’t go to church. I haven’t been to church since 1871.

I know the Angelus because it was drilled into me as a boy, and I like you, Father Vittorio, so it gave me pleasure to say it with you.

But with all respect, I won’t set foot in a church until I’m dead, and maybe not even then.

So if you’re thinking that you could spill your guts to me and then find me on the other side of the confessional grille or staring back at you from the front pew at Sunday Mass, you can lay that worry to rest right now.

Whatever you say to me, I’ll take it to the grave, and I shall be there soon enough. ’

So will I.

‘Her name’s Marta,’ Vittorio says. It’s a common enough name, so why not allow himself to say it? ‘She’s… she’s clever. She reads everything.’

‘Ah.’ Fulvio sucks his remaining teeth. ‘Bluestocking, eh?’

Vittorio ignores this. ‘She loves to work,’ he says. ‘She loves to work, and be useful, and help others, even when she’s in difficulty herself. That’s one of the things I… it’s one of the best things about her.’

‘Is she pretty, though?’ the old man asks.

‘I think she’s beautiful.’

‘And what does she think of you? That’s the question.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Vittorio says, feeling very bleak all of a sudden.

‘Oh, but it does,’ Fulvio says. ‘For all you know, she’s secretly pining over you. Some girls love a man in a cassock.’

‘Not her.’

‘You don’t know for sure.’ Fulvio gives him a broad wink. ‘Believe me, you can’t know what’s going on in a woman’s head. You might find that she’s very interested indeed if you ever decide to kick over the traces.’

It’s a dreadful affront to his priestly dignity. Vittorio should object, but he’s too busy thinking about it. Just for an instant, of course, before he remembers his vows, and Mr X, and Marta’s desperation. Tell me he’s safe, Father Vittorio, please.

‘I won’t do that,’ he says.

Fulvio sighs. ‘I know. You’re a good man – too good, in my opinion. But I hope it feels better to talk about it, at least.’

Vittorio manages to smile and say that it does.

And in a certain sense, that’s true. Talking about Marta out loud to someone feels like that first moment when his lungs opened and took in air.

He’s alive and in love. And he tries to see that love as sinful and misdirected – a disordered attachment, Ignatius would call it – but he can’t. Not now, not any more.

But talking about her has also made it all real. He can’t unsay what he has said; he can’t force it back into the depths of his awareness. He’ll have to live with it, carry it, for what remains of his life.

He and Fulvio lapse into silence after that.

Vittorio is used to silence as a particular, set-apart thing – a spiritual practice, a form of deprivation, the place where he meets God – or else as the natural corollary of living in a community of self-contained men, dividing so much of his time between the library work he does alone and the clandestine work he can’t talk about even with his spiritual director.

But this silence is different: companionable, undemanding.

It’s a friendly silence, and he’s grateful for it.

When he finally gets up to go, Fulvio says: ‘Be nice to yourself, Father Vittorio. Won’t you?’

‘I’ll try,’ he says, as much to reassure the old man as anything.

‘Good lad.’ Fulvio nods. ‘And if I don’t see you again, good luck.’

*

‘Intertrigo,’ Dr Rostan says, inspecting Vittorio’s left armpit. He’s already removed the dressing on the puncture wound and pronounced it satisfactory. ‘You can put your arm down now, Father.’

Vittorio gratefully lowers his arm. It aches from being held aloft even briefly; his right one is still aching. ‘What is that exactly?’

‘It’s a very common condition – don’t worry.

Essentially, you sweat, and that makes your skin stick together.

Then you move around, creating friction.

’ Dr Rostan rubs his palms together to demonstrate.

‘And that’s what makes this nasty, prickly rash.

If you’re unlucky, you get a nice infection to go with it – but in this instance, you’ve been lucky.

Yours doesn’t look infected, only angry.

I know that doesn’t count for much in the current situation… ”

‘It does, believe me,’ Vittorio says. He can’t imagine what that itch would be like.

‘It’s not surprising you’ve got it,’ the doctor says.

‘If you’re sweating at night, and your system is under stress, it’s easy for something like this to crop up.

Add in this warm weather and that… thing you wear all day—’ he gestures to Vittorio’s cassock, which lies draped across the end of the table ‘—and it was pretty much a certainty. The only thing I cannot understand is why you didn’t tell me about it yesterday. Were you embarrassed? Afraid?’

‘It didn’t seem too bad,’ Vittorio says. ‘I was in too much discomfort with my breathing. Now you’ve fixed that, I’m noticing other things more.’

‘I didn’t fix anything,’ Dr Rostan says sternly.

‘I gave you some temporary respite from just one of your symptoms, but you need diagnosis and proper care. You know that perfectly well, so I shan’t keep bludgeoning you over the head with it.

But I can’t believe for a moment that a rash like this didn’t bother you until today. Wasn’t it driving you mad?’

‘No. It did bother me – I was uncomfortable, but I managed to ignore it.’ Vittorio can’t begin to explain just how divorced he is from his body and its sensations; how two and a half decades of strict discipline have made him not just able, but inclined to disregard all but the most urgent physical signals.

He’s only just starting to realise it himself.

‘It didn’t start driving me mad until I looked at it. ’

‘Until you looked at it,’ the doctor echoes. ‘I see. And have you got it anywhere else? Or is it just under the arms?’

‘Just under the arms,’ Vittorio says. It’s another lie for the list, he knows, but he can’t strip off below the waist and let this man look at his intimate parts. He simply can’t.

‘Right. Well, if you did have it anywhere else, assuming it wasn’t infected, then the treatment is the same and it’s really very simple.

Keep the area clean and as dry as you can.

Wash at least twice a day, and certainly before you get into bed.

Don’t scrub or scour yourself, and dry the skin by patting, not rubbing.

Apply some medicated talc each time – I’ll give you some of that – and petroleum jelly, to help with the friction.

I’ll give you a cream to leave on overnight, too.

Ideally you’d start wearing nice, light, breathable summer clothing instead of that get-up of yours, but I expect that’s out of the question. ’

‘It is.’

Dr Rostan makes a regretful face. ‘Worth a try. But if you do everything I’ve told you to do, it should improve quite quickly. If it doesn’t, of course, let me know. Have you any questions?’

‘May I put my clothes back on?’ Vittorio asks, and the doctor laughs.

‘Yes, of course, unless you’ve got any more surprises in store.’

That night before bed, Vittorio carefully washes, dries and powders himself, then smooths on cream.

He makes himself look as he does it, taking care to find and cover every bit of red, itchy skin, and it feels wrong to pay such close attention to his body.

It feels like a breach of every rule he’s absorbed since he entered the novitiate at seventeen.

But he knows that if he wants to keep going for as long as he can, to wring every bit of use out of these last months of his life, then he must learn to pay attention; to be nice to himself, as Fulvio put it.

And there is no question now that he wants to keep going.

*

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s drenched in sweat as usual. But the rash has already started to fade, and the itch has dulled to a nagging hum. It feels like a sign. He rises and prepares for his day.

After breakfast, don Francesco asks to see him again.

‘Excellent news,’ he says, once they’re alone in the parlour.

‘It’s taken a certain amount of legwork, but between us, Mr X and I have managed to reconstruct the list that was lost the other day.

’ He takes a folded piece of paper from the breast of his cassock and hands it to Vittorio.

‘If you’d be happy to start work on those… ’

‘Of course I will. I’ll go right away. I’m sorry I left it behind,’ Vittorio adds, hot shame rising. ‘I should have thought—’

Don Francesco raises a hand. ‘Please, Father Vittorio, don’t you start excoriating yourself. I already had to reassure Mr X in that regard. We can remake a list, but we can’t replace either of you. As far as I am concerned, the discussion ends there.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. Ego te absolvo . Go forth and continue your work.’

As he sets off towards via Assarotti, Vittorio feels his spirits rise.

He’s been forgiven – at least, for the mistake he’s admitted to – and the damage repaired.

The morning sun is warming his limbs, his breathing is easy and rhythmic and, for the first time in weeks, he feels comfortable in his skin.

And beneath it all is the knowledge that he’ll get to see her .

He can’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it.