stupid! I love him!” Caterina cried. Matilda took a step back and continued to stare at Caterina as if she were seeing her for the first time.
Meanwhile, bag in hand, Damiano had retreated to a corner and was quietly observing the scene.
“When did it happen?” Giuseppe shouted, pulling on the hair harder and forcing Caterina to bend her neck all the way.
“You are hurting me…” Caterina moaned.
“When did you lose your virginity?” he boomed, pulling so hard now Caterina was bending sideways.
“Let her go,” Matilda intervened. “Caterina,” she continued once Giuseppe had loosened the grip on Caterina’s hair, “talk to me. Tell me what happened. And when.”
Caterina whispered, “Long ago.”
“Long ago!” Giuseppe exclaimed. “You are seventeen! Is this baker of yours a sick man who seduces children?”
Caterina looked Giuseppe in the eyes. “He’s not a sick man!”
“Yes, he is!” Giuseppe insisted. “I’ll call the police and have him arrested. Men who seduce children belong in jail!”
“Don’t!” Caterina said. She paused then spoke faintly. “It wasn’t him. There was someone else, long before I met Ivano.”
“Someone else?!” Giuseppe shouted. “Are you running a whorehouse? Tell me who he was! Tell me at once!”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t.”
“Say his name!”
She sobbed, “Don’t ask me to tell …”
Giuseppe turned to the silent Damiano. “Please leave the room.”
“And the house as well,” Matilda ordered. Her voice sweetened when she addressed her daughter. “Caterina,” she said once Doctor Sciaccaluga had left, “please tell us what happened. Are you telling the truth? Have you been intimate with a man long ago, when you were still a child? I don’t believe you …”
Giuseppe grabbed Caterina by the shoulders. “Tell me who he is right now!”
Caterina shook her head.
“Speak!”
Caterina shook her head again.
Giuseppe slapped her on the face. Then he turned to Matilda. “I’m going to the reading room to think this over and make plans.”
7
GIUSEPPE’S SHORT-TERM PLAN, Matilda soon found out, consisted of keeping Caterina locked up in her room without food or water until she’d reveal the name of her seducer. The long-term plan was to send her to an isolated place yet to be determined, where she could repent her sins and meditate over the meaning of life. Matilda’s attempts to change Giuseppe’s mind, as usual, didn’t succeed. In the confusion she was experiencing following the discovery of Caterina’s secret, she told herself that Giuseppe’s rage was temporary, an irrational state due to the unusual and stressful circumstances, and that within days such rage would diminish and perhaps subside. Then he would listen to her arguments for keeping Caterina at home and consider alternative solutions. So she kept quiet, waiting for her husband’s fury to evaporate. Meanwhile, to Giuseppe, one thing was crystal clear: whether or not she’d tell who had seduced her, Caterina had to leave town. With her at the palazzina, sooner or later the story of her adventure and lost virginity would surface, endangering the law-firm’s future. The firm’s clients would turn away should a scandal suddenly break out. Already the servants were talking about Caterina’s strict confinement, and it wouldn’t be long before some maid overheard a compromising conversation. That night, before going to sleep, he spent a few hours in the privacy of his reading room analyzing various options to ban Caterina from Genoa and segregate her from her socially-unacceptable, perverted suitor.
While at the palazzina Giuseppe plotted his daughter’s future, at the bakery a flustered Ivano and an astounded Corrado were discussing the meaning and consequences of Caterina’s kidnapping from the oven room.
“Didn’t I tell you that you should date only working-class women?” Corrado lamented.
“I love her. I want to get her back and marry her,” Ivano stated.
Corrado shook his head. “Forget about her and go on with your life.” He paused, realizing that his son had no intention of following his advice. His voice softened. “If you really think you can’t live without her, put on some good clothes and go to her house. If you apologize to her parents, perhaps they will let you talk to her. I doubt it, given the family they are, but you can give it a try.”
Following his father’s suggestion, in the morning Ivano put on his best suit and went to the palazzina with the intention of apologizing to Giuseppe Berilli first and then asking formally for Caterina’s hand. When he knocked on the door, Guglielmo kindly informed him that Miss Berilli wasn’t home, nor were her parents.
“May I see Lavinia?” Ivano asked.
Guglielmo shook his head. “She’s gone,” he stated,