Free Nun (9781609459109) by Simonetta Agnello Hornby Page B

clear to her sister-in-law that she and her family couldn’t stay any longer as her guests in the
palazzo
. The
piano nobile
, or master floor, where she had always lived, was now occupied by her stepson’s family and she already felt like she’d been exiled to the third-floor apartment, where she claimed that she lacked enough room for them to stay on permanently. Actually, though, there was plenty of room, in Agata’s opinion—it was just that her aunt didn’t want them in her house: they were poor relations, and therefore a source of embarrassment.
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    In mid-October 1839, the Padellani women went to live in an apartment on the top floor of Palazzo Tozzi. The apartment was above the building’s cornice and directly beneath the roof. It was rented to them by their aunt, Clementina Padellani, and her husband, the Marchese Tozzi. They lived on the main floor—the
piano nobile
—with their daughters, Eleonora and Severina, who were the same age as Anna Carolina and Agata. It was a small, shabby apartment, but the rent was low and Donna Gesuela was happy to take it.
    Palazzo Tozzi was enormous. The front hallway was as large as a cathedral and required two doormen, so many people came and went. It lacked the lovely terraces of Messina, with a view of the Strait and Calabria in the distance; still, the terrace on the
piano nobile
, which overlooked the vast inner courtyard, was luminous and covered with climbing vines and plants. From the courtyard a great many staircases ran up. At the far end of the courtyard was the master staircase, scissors-shaped, made of spectacular white marble. Then there were two others, broad and with marble handrails, and they looked like a master staircase you might see in Messina, and there were others still, modest and almost concealed, for the servants or for apartments like the one they were living in. Right at the foot of the staircase leading up to their apartment was a camellia plant shaped like an elongated egg, with fleshy glistening leaves, concealing the entrance from all eyes. The chief doorman had taken a liking to Nora and he explained to her that the old Marchese Tozzi had built that apartment in empty roof space and by borrowing a room from his own living quarters for a
femmena
—a woman—who had cast a spell on him; once he was a widower he brought her to live in the
palazzo
, up where they were living now. She had borne him two daughters. He went up to eat with her every day at noon, and that’s why there was a fine kitchen and a handsome drawing room—the bedrooms that the women slept in, in contrast, were what you’d expect to find in the worst parts of Naples. That
femmena
kept him tied to her by the magic of food. Her minestrone was better than any other soups in Naples. When she died, the apartment was given to obnoxious widows and old maids: it was so high up that it was difficult to go there to visit, and they invariably died alone and forgotten.
    All the rooms, except for the kitchen, overlooked a cramped inner courtyard and were lacking light. Nora slept in the kitchen, and the dining room did double duty as Agata’s bedroom. In the large, beautifully furnished parlor, there was an interior window overlooking a narrow airshaft, which was connected via mysterious passageways to the choir of the convent of the Poor Clares, adjoining the
palazzo
. The melodious chants of the nuns wafted up the airshaft.
    All things considered, the three women were satisfied with their independent living quarters. At first, the hospitality of their Padellani relations had been warm if overwhelming. The family had behaved impeccably at the funeral and during the brief period of mourning visits at the
palazzo
. After that, however, their relations had vanished from view one by one, offering Donna Gesuela neither consolation nor assistance. In fact, she had been forced to struggle along on her own in her quest for a gracious royal