“Alberta would like to ask a favor of you,” Dolores said, giving me a look. “About her stay at the castle.”
“Of course,” Vita said, as she lumbered across the room, her gait uneven. She lowered herself slowly into a chair and stretched her legs, her large, flat feet proof—if I had needed it—of our blood relationship. She placed two glasses of wine on the table before us.
“No wine for me, Vita?” Dolores asked.
Vita gave her an amused look. “You are too ill for wine, Dolores.”
“On the contrary,” Dolores said, “I am too ill to abstain.”
Vita laughed, her earrings sparkling in the firelight. “Then, of course, you must have a glass of wine. It is a rare one, too, from my mother’s dowry collection. I asked Sal to bring it up for this very special occasion.”
As Vita went to the cabinet and poured another glass, I stole a glance at my great-grandmother, endeavoring to reconcile the expectations I’d had of Vita with the reality before me. She was very strange looking, yes, but the portrait in the gallery had caught a certain truth: her magnetism. An intensity in her manner. Her power.
Vita returned to the fireplace, the glass of wine in her hand. Dolores reached for it, but Vita swept it out of reach. “Let it breathe,” Vita said, as she placed the glass on the mantel. “It is an eighteen ninety-nine Chateau Margaux. It needs air. We will all drink a toast together in a moment.”
By then, Greta had the fire going strong. The room had begun to warm. In the light of the fire, I looked more closely at my ancestor. Vita’s skin was pale and deeply wrinkled, giving proof to her age. Her white hair was thick and glossy against her black dress. When she smiled, her teeth jutted this way and that, sharp and crooked and yellow. Yet, she was so filled with vitality that it was hard to believe she had been born a full century earlier.
“Alberta,” Vita said. Her eyes lit up upon her saying my name. “Alberta Montebianco. Here you are. The granddaughter of Giovanni. Alberta.”
“She’s not the first Alberta in the family, you know,” Dolores said, glancing at the wine.
“The second child of Isabelle and Frederick was Alberta,” Vita said. “Back in the Middle Ages.”
“Correct. The name has been used many times since then,” Dolores said. “The Montebianco family has a rather limited imagination when it comes to the naming of offspring. They just recycled names ad infinitum.”
“True, very true,” Vita said. “We are not artists, the Montebianco family. We are nobility. Now, come, let me have a look at you.” Vita leaned close, so that her large blue eyes were level with mine. “I have waited so long to see you.”
I averted my eyes as she examined me, feeling something ferocious in her gaze. Maybe she was as curious as I about our resemblance: the large blue eyes, the white-blond hair, the broad shoulders, the cleft chin. Our peculiar feet.
“Now,” Vita said, smiling. Her mouth twisted, as if the jaw had been broken. “What was it you wanted to ask me?”
“She wants Zimmer to come with the helicopter,” Dolores said, speaking before I had the chance. “She feels like a prisoner here and would like to leave.”
Vita gave me a look of surprise. “Is it true that you feel like a prisoner here, Alberta?”
“Well,” I said, feeling blood rush to my cheeks. “It’s true that I would like to go back home.”
“Then, of course, you must call Zimmer,” she said. “Basil will assist you.”
“Thank you,” I said, embarrassed by how easy it had been to make my request, and reproaching myself for waiting so long.
Suddenly, Vita leaned to me and took my face between her hands. Slowly, she brought her eyes in line with mine. Closer. Closer she bent, so that the proximity became awkward, uncomfortable. Her perfume grew heavier; below this, the strong, animal smell of musk and sweat seeped from under her dress. Closer. Closer. So close, it felt as though she meant to kiss me. Then, closing her eyes, she took a long, slow inhalation.
But I was too flustered to ignore Vita. The blood pulsed through my body as Vita pressed her lips to my ear. “You are one of us,” she whispered. “I smell it in you.”
“Smell what?” I asked, my heart pounding. My hands trembled. “What do you smell?”