and discerning taster, guzzled the wine and pointed to the empty glass.
“Fill it up,” he said.
An astounded Viola obeyed the order and filled Giuseppe and Matilda’s glasses before returning to the kitchen.
“What’s the matter with you?” Matilda asked once Viola was out of sight. “You haven’t even tasted the wine today. You’re drinking it as if it were cappuccino.”
“Please, Matilda. I have no desire to discuss my problems with you at this moment.” He waved his hands in the air. “Or with anyone else.”
“Well,” she said, raising her voice. “There’s something I would like to discuss with you.”
“What might that be?” he asked.
“Caterina.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. Caterina is dead.”
“Caterina is not dead. She may be dead in your mind, Giuseppe, but not in mine. I want her back. This is her home.”
“Out of the question,” Giuseppe stated.
The argument died when Viola came in carrying a rectangular silver tray. Matilda watched her in silence as she served the appetizers and refilled the wine glasses.
“I know you’re still upset about what Caterina did,” she whispered the moment Viola left the room, “but over two years have gone by. Don’t you think it may be time to forgive her and let her live her life again?”
Giuseppe remained silent.
“Say something,” Matilda begged.
He kept his eyes fixed on his plate. “I have no daughter.”
Matilda squeezed her hands into fists; her pointed nails sank into her skin. Nothing and no one, she knew, would ever persuade her husband to let Caterina come home. She bit her lips, but couldn’t hold back her tears. “You never listen to anything I say,” she sobbed.
“Stop whining!” Giuseppe exclaimed. “All you do is complain, complain, complain! You should be grateful to me for having married you in your condition. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be an old spinster now, with an embarrassing past and no future.”
Matilda paled, her lips quivered. “How can you …”
She went no further because Viola had come in again with the main course. She changed the topic of the conversation. “At least tell me what worries you, Giuseppe. Your shoulder?”
He shook his head.
“Is it your heart, darling? If that’s what bothers you, we should call Doctor Sciaccaluga. I’m sure he’d see you this afternoon.”
“No doctor,” Giuseppe said firmly. “I’m not sick. I mean, I’m sick, but I don’t need a doctor.”
“Then what do you need, will you tell me?” Matilda asked, her raspy voice showing the extent of her exasperation. “You’ve been inside that room of yours since last evening. You didn’t sleep in your bed last night. I have the right to know what’s on your mind.”
Giuseppe sprung to his feet. “I told you! I want to be alone!” He threw his linen napkin, pushed the chair aside, and dashed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“You, you … You’re an impossible man!” Matilda burst out. Then she retired upstairs so the servants wouldn’t see her cry.
On the second floor, in her south-facing bedroom, she took a lavender-scented handkerchief from a drawer. She sat by the bow window, on an upholstered rocking chair, and stared emptily at the sky. Her eyes were wet, her throat swollen. Her fights with Eugenia years earlier had been a forewarning of the misery of her married life. Giuseppe was a difficult man to share life with, always busy, uncommunicative, and showing little or no interest in her personal struggles. The past two days, she thought, had showcased Giuseppe’s selfish disposition: something was wrong, and he wouldn’t say one word to anyone. All he could do was lock himself in the reading room and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. At twenty, she had willingly accepted her parents’ suggestion that she marry Giuseppe. She had been happy to get away from Turin and the sad life she was living after the end of her engagement to Arnaldo Della Tessiera. Now she wished she had never left. Yes, she lived in a palatial home, was in a socially-enviable position, and had all the material possessions one could imagine: money, clothes, maids, coaches, jewelry, even the luxury of a private automobile. She had electricity in every room and invitations to every party in every home that counted, but she was sad. She had been married less than a year when she had come to realize that by joining the Berilli household she had fallen into a worse misery than the one she had left behind. And all because nature had played a trick on her by