Free The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O'Melveny Page A

since the death of my beloved Maurizio. I was wedded to the work of physick, which now stood as my husband and keeper. One who wouldn’t die and leave me bereft.
    “Good-bye, then, Gabriella, and keep well upon the road.” Dr. Cardano composed himself and leaned upon Giannetta’s slender but strong arm. “Remember the salutary qualities of lemon balm for your spirits.”
    “I thank you for your kindness, dear sir.” Without warning, my eyes welled with tears, for I suspected we might never meet again. The hardship of old age was not far from him, and an uncertain journey lay ahead for me.
     
    After three days of climbing, our little company traversed Passo Rolle and descended between the mountain ranges toward Val di Fassa, our animals glutted on abundant grasses and wildflowers. I grew dizzy from the high mountain air and profusion of green, as if the succulent saxifrage, campanula, and yarrow were intoxicant. Lorenzo and Olmina rode before me and sang all the way up and then down the switchback path.
    Sometimes I joined them in my dusky voice, in songs for mending nets, caulking boats, or stanching high tides (which I’d overheard on the Zattere), siren songs of boredom, songs for lulling babes, drawing lovers, or scorning those in high places. All this salty music high in the Dolomiti, as if we were rocking upon the sea instead of mule and horse haunches! What a pack of fools we must have looked, a commedia dell’arte. Olmina an earthy maidservant, Lorenzo a manservant of supreme alacrity—and how would I cast myself? Headstrong Isabella or shy Pedrolino, energetic observer of human follies? Or as la Dottoressa, pompous pedant, extemporizing at every moment, spouting great gobs of Latin? There was something of my father there, and something of me (though I winced to admit it).
    At last we glimpsed a village below, really just a huddle of single- and two-story wooden houses with steep mossy roofs and crooked walls, balconies hung with ragged, faded old rugs, for fine weather meant a good day for rug beating. A young woman with heavy arms stood on a balcony with a flat wooden bat, her hips swinging to the right as her arm swatted left, and Lorenzo let out a shout: “Oh, wonderful town! I feel I’ve come home!”
    “Looks like a bunch of rickety henhouses,” Olmina teased good-naturedly.
    “But what a farmyard, eh?” He waved his arm to include the lush green valley rimmed with jag-toothed mountains, the river ribboned with light, the forest that gave off a sweet resin scent in the waning heat of the day. “Just smell those woods, that meadow.” He took a deep, noisy breath that made us laugh.
    Olmina rode up next to him, and their mules jostled one another.
    For a moment as I ambled up from behind, I could have taken them for young lovers, their knees barely touching. Lorenzo reached across to touch her hand upon the saddle. If I weren’t there, perhaps they might have kissed, and this both astonished and delighted me. But he quickly withdrew his hand and the mules parted.
    The sun slid like a coin behind the sleight-of-hand peaks before us, and we all joined in on a lullaby Olmina had murmured to me since I was young.
     
Fai la ninna bebé
che ora viene Papà
e ti porta din-don
fai la ninna bebé.
     
    My father wandered somewhere ahead of me, a thousand miles or ten. Perhaps at this very moment he was returning. He could be rolling slowly upon his own barge of a horse, that black monster Stelvio. Though now that Stelvio was older, his manner might be softened, the edginess in his eyes gone docile, if indeed, poor creature, he was even alive. My father always warned, Let him see you. Don’t sneak up on him. But I was afraid of that horse’s stare, just as I feared the abrupt rebuke of my father’s rage.
    He could be approaching me now with his two attendants, if they still accompanied him. Though really I had no reason to question their loyalty. We’d always assumed they’d send word if something