Skylight

23

Amélia whispered in her sister’s ear:

“The girls have had a falling-out.”

“What?”

“A falling-out.”

They were in the kitchen. They had finished supper shortly before. In the next room, Adriana and Isaura were busy sewing buttonholes in shirts. The light from there poured out through the open door into the dark passageway. Cândida looked at her sister incredulously.

“Don’t you believe me?” asked Amélia.

Cândida shrugged and stuck out her lower lip to indicate her complete ignorance of the situation.

“If you didn’t go around with your eyes closed, you would have noticed.”

“But what’s wrong?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“It’s your imagination…”

“Possibly, but you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of words they’ve said to each other today. And not just today either. Haven’t you noticed?”

“No.”

“See what I mean? You walk around with your eyes closed. Leave me to tidy the kitchen, and go in there and observe.”

Taking her usual tiny steps, Cândida walked down the corridor to the room where her daughters were sitting. Absorbed in their work, the two sisters didn’t even look up when their mother came in. Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor was playing softly on the radio; the shrill tones of a soprano were filling the air. More in order to gauge the atmosphere than to make any proper critical comment, Cândida said:

“Goodness, what a voice! She sounds like she’s performing somersaults!”

Her daughters smiled, but their smiles seemed as forced and effortful as the singer’s vocal acrobatics. Cândida felt concerned. Her sister was quite right. There was something odd going on. She had never seen her daughters like this, reserved and distant, as if they were afraid of each other. She tried to come out with some conciliatory phrase, but her throat, grown suddenly dry, could not produce a single word. Isaura and Adriana carried on with their work. The singer’s voice faded out in an ethereal, almost inaudible smorzando. The orchestra played three swift chords, and then the tenor’s voice rose, strong and compelling.

“How well Gigli sings!” exclaimed Cândida, simply in order to say something.

The two sisters glanced at each other and hesitated, each wanting the other to speak. Both felt they should reply, and in the end it was Adriana who said:

“Yes, he does. He sings really well, but he’s getting on a bit now.”

Glad, at least for a few minutes, to be able to resume their usual evening banter, Cândida hotly defended Gigli:

“What does that matter? Just listen. There’s no other singer like him. And as for being old, well, old people have their value too. Who sings better than Gigli? Tell me that. Some older people are worth a lot more than many younger ones…”

As if the shirt she was working on had presented her with some unexpectedly intractable problem, Isaura lowered her head. Although her mother’s remark about the relative values of old and young could only remotely have been a reference to her, she turned bright red. Like everyone who has a secret to hide, she saw insinuations and suspicions in every word and glance. Adriana noticed her embarrassment, guessed the reason behind it and tried to bring the conversation to a close.

“Oh, you old people are always complaining about the young!”

“But I wasn’t complaining,” said Cândida.

“Hm,” Adriana responded with a somewhat impatient gesture. She was normally calm, almost indifferent, quite unlike her sister, in whom one sensed a kind of constant tremor beneath the skin, signaling an intense, tumultuous inner life. Now, however, she, too, was agitated. All conversations irritated her, and what irritated her even more was the eternally perplexed and anxious look on her mother’s face, as well as the humble tone in which she had spoken.

Cândida noticed the brusque note in Adriana’s voice and fell silent. She shrank back into her chair, took up her crochet work and tried to disappear.

Now and then she shot a furtive glance at her daughters. Isaura had not as yet said anything. She was so absorbed in her work that she seemed barely to notice the music. Gigli and Toti Dal Monte warbled a love duet, but all in vain. Isaura was not listening, nor, really, was Adriana. Only Cândida, despite her concerns, allowed herself to be bewitched by the sweet, easy melodies of Donizetti. Taken up with her crocheting and keeping time with the music, she soon forgot about her daughters. Only the sound of her sister’s voice calling to her from the kitchen roused her from that abstracted state.

“Well?” asked Amélia when Cândida joined her.

“I didn’t notice anything.”

“I should have known…”

“It’s all in your imagination! Once you get an idea in your head…”

Amélia rolled her eyes as if she considered her sister’s words absurd or, more than that, annoying. Cândida did not dare to finish what she was saying. With a shrug that indicated her displeasure at being interrupted, Amélia declared:

“Leave it with me. I was a fool to think I could count on you.”

“But what exactly is it that you suspect?”

“That’s my affair.”

“No, you must tell me. They’re my daughters and I want to know…”

“You’ll find out in time.”

Cândida experienced a flash of anger as unexpected as a furious outburst from a caged canary.

“I think it’s all nonsense, another of your foolish obsessions!”

“‘Obsession’ is a very strong word to use. So my being worried about your daughters is an obsession, is it?”

“But Amélia—”

“Don’t ‘Amélia’ me! I’ll do my job and you do yours. You’ll thank me one day.”

“I could thank you now if you’d tell me what was going on. Is it my fault I’m not as observant as you?!”

Amélia shot her sister a suspicious sideways glance. There was, she felt, a note of mockery in those words. Maybe she was being unreasonable, and she was almost on the point of confessing that she knew nothing. This would reassure her sister, and then, together, they could perhaps find out what lay behind the disagreement between Isaura and Adriana. However, pride stopped her. It was quite simply beyond her capabilities to confess her ignorance after having given Cândida to understand that she knew something. She had grown accustomed to being right, to speaking as if she were the oracle, and she was not in the least inclined to relinquish that oracular role. She murmured:

“Fine, be ironic if you want to. I’ll manage on my own.”

Cândida rejoined her daughters, feeling more anxious than she had before. Amélia knew something, but didn’t want to tell her. But what could it be? Adriana and Isaura were sitting in the same places as before, but Cândida had the feeling now that they were separated by leagues. She sat down on her chair, picked up her crochet work, did a few stitches, but, unable to go on, dropped her work, hesitated for a second, then asked:

“What’s wrong with you two?”

Isaura and Adriana both panicked. For a few moments, they didn’t know what to say, then they both spoke at once:

“Us? Nothing.”

And Adriana added:

“Really, Mama, what a silly idea!”

“Of course,” Cândida thought, “of course it’s a silly idea.” She smiled and looked first at one of her daughters, then at the other, before saying:

“You’re right, it’s just one of those silly ideas one gets sometimes. Pay no attention.”

She picked up her crocheting again and resumed her work. Shortly afterward, Isaura left the room. Her mother followed her with her eyes. Adriana bent still lower over her shirt. The radio was now a cacophony of voices. It must have been the end of the act, with a lot of people onstage, some with high voices, some with low. It sounded confusing and, above all, noisy. Suddenly, above the clash of brass overwhelming the singers, Cândida called out:

“Adriana!”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Go and see what’s wrong with your sister. She might be feeling ill…”

Cândida noticed Adriana’s reluctance to do as she was asked.

“Aren’t you going?”

“Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

Cândida’s eyes had a strange glint in them, as if tears were welling up.

“Whatever are you thinking, Mama?”

“I’m not thinking anything, love, nothing…”

“Believe me, there’s nothing to think. We’re fine.”

“Do you give me your word?”

“I do.”

“All right, then. Go and see how she is.”

Adriana went. Her mother let her crochet work drop into her lap, and the tears she had been holding in finally fell. Just two tears, two tears that had to fall because, having reached her eyes, there was no going back. She did not believe her daughter. She was sure now that Isaura and Adriana had some secret they could not or would not reveal.

Amélia entered the room and cut short her thoughts. Cândida picked up her crochet needle and bowed her head.

“Where are the girls?”

“In their room.”

“What are they doing?”

“I don’t know. If you’re still determined to find out, you can go and spy on them if you like, but you’re wasting your time. Adriana gave me her word. There’s nothing wrong.”

Amélia pushed a chair roughly aside and said in a cutting voice:

“I don’t care what you think. And I’ll have you know, I’ve never spied on anyone, but if necessary, I’m willing to start!”

“You’re obsessed!”

“Maybe I am, but don’t you ever say such a thing to me again!”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“But you did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s too late now.”

Cândida got to her feet. She was slightly shorter than her sister. Involuntarily, she raised herself on tiptoe:

“If you won’t accept my apology, that’s your loss. Adriana gave me her word.”

“I don’t believe her.”

“But I do, and that’s all that matters!”

“Are you saying that I’m of no importance in your lives? I know I’m only your sister and that this isn’t my apartment, but I never dreamed you would treat me like this!”

“You’re misinterpreting my words. I never said any such thing!”

“A word to the wise—”

“Even the wise make mistakes sometimes!”

“Cândida!”

“You’re surprised, aren’t you? But I’ve had enough of your stupid suspicions. Let’s not argue anymore. It’s dreadful that we should quarrel over something like this.”

Without waiting for her sister to answer, Cândida left the room, covering her eyes with her hands. Amélia stayed where she was, not moving, grasping the back of the chair, and her eyes, too, were wet with tears. She again felt an impulse to admit to her sister that she knew nothing, but again pride stopped her.

Yes, pride and the return of her two nieces. They were smiling, but her sharp eyes could see that their smiles were false, that they had applied them to their lips before they came in, like masks. She thought: “They’re determined to keep us in the dark.” This only made her all the more determined to discover what lay behind those fake smiles.