well, Giovanna, but I want you to send Alba down when you begin with the bleach in the bathroom. Those smells are toxic for young noses. She will sit down here in silence, of course, until you come down again, yes?’
This time Alba knew her mother could not refuse. A victory. She would have grinned if she knew it wouldn’t lead to mild physical harm.
Giovanna raised her eyebrows in unspoken agreement. When Signora Elias turned away to walk to her piano, Giovanna gave Alba a glare. In the utility cupboard Alba found all the cleaning equipment from the week before. This time she took a moment to commit the kitchen to memory. The white-tiled counters stretched one length of the facing wall with a window at the far end, which opened out onto the valley. Beyond lay the purple hills of Tula surrounding Lake Coghinas. A small wooden table beside the wall opposite the range was covered in baking parchment and topped with perfect medallions of almond paste sospiri, dipped in white icing. They were uniform in size and the morning light cast a tempting gleam across the tops of their perfect levelled surfaces.
‘Run on up to your mother before she calls now, won’t you, Alba.’ Signora Elias’s voice made her jump round. Her guilt dissipated on seeing the old woman’s grin. ‘You’ll have some when you come down, I promise.’
Giovanna gave Alba several more chores to do before she at last allowed her downstairs with a squinty-eyed Sardinian glower. Alba left, trying not to look too happy about the fact.
‘There you are at last!’ Signora Elias called out, coming in from the kitchen with a porcelain plate of sospiri. She placed it down on a lace doily, which sat at the centre of a spindle-legged side table, a pink velvet hall chair beside it.
‘Do sit down, Alba, we were never meant to digest standing up, you know.’
Alba took a tentative seat.
‘Those are for you. And yes, I will be offended if you don’t finish them all. You’ve lived on our island long enough to know that, surely?’
Alba wanted to join her laughter, but the corners of her mouth clamped down the impulse, in case her mother heard.
‘This is my practice time, Alba. If you don’t mind, I will carry on as I always do. I don’t do very well if I don’t stick to my routines. I don’t go to church often like the other women my age in town. But if I miss my morning practice my day does go off track somewhat. Perhaps I’m getting old after all.’
Her smile lit up her little face, her eyes a dance of sagacity and infectious childlike joy. Alba took her first bite. It was perfection; sweet, nutty, smooth.
‘Glad you like them,’ Elias said. Alba looked up. The signora must have other magic powers beyond the songs her fingers made.
Signora Elias sat on the piano stool. She turned away from Alba now and let her hands rest on her lap. Alba watched her breathe in and out three times. For a moment she wondered if maybe the old lady wasn’t falling asleep. No sooner had she thought that, the woman’s hands sprang to life. Her wrists lifted and her fingers touched the keys, soundless, elegant as a ballerina’s silent feet.
They gave a twirl upon the keys, followed by a fierce, effortless run of notes. In her left hand, the notes spaced at even intervals undulated up and down towards the centre notes. In her right, her fingers trilled into ripples of watery movements as if the two hands fought to be heard over each other; a heated conversation. The music rolled on, in waves, urgent, chasing, till Signora Elias reached up for the higher notes, spreading her palm wide and playing stacked notes at the same time. The tune from the earlier passage repeated, fuller for the addition of the lower notes, emphatic. The scarlet sounds burst with passion, insistence. And then, as quick as the storm blew over the instrument, it fell back, like a tide fast retreating. The reds were replaced by golden yellow tones, making Alba think of how the sun shines all the warmer after a summer downpour. Yet beneath the hope, Alba heard nostalgia, as if the song harkened to a lost peace. The tune was a bitter balm. An involuntary tear left a wet streak on her cheek. Then the waves crashed in again, Signora Elias’s fingers racing, till, at last, her rocking hands wove an ending, the repetition of the midsection playing over echoes of the tumultuous start, reaching a truce, both points of view sounding in their own right.
And then it was over.
Signora Elias looked at Alba’s face.
‘The first time I heard Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu I cried like a baby. You show remarkable self-control to shed only a solitary tear.’
Alba laughed at that, in spite of herself.
‘That’s the piece which made me want to become a pianist.’
Signora Elias held the silence, unhurried, as unflustered by it as the great splash of sound she’d just made. Then she stood up from her stool. Alba took it as her signal to leave, and she jumped up from her seat and pounced towards the stairs. Elias called out to her.
Alba turned back.
‘My piano. Would you like to play it?’
Alba wanted nothing more than to know how that magic poured out of her fingers, but she stood, frozen between terror and embarrassment.
‘Mamma will be busy for a while yet. I can show you some things. Only if you like, of course?’
Alba glanced towards the stairs, imagining the look on her mother’s face if she came down to see her daughter fingering this magnificent instrument.
‘Here, take a seat and I’ll adjust the stool to your height.’
Alba felt the thickness of the plush rug beneath her feet. She walked to the stool as if drawn to it by an invisible cord of golden thread. She listened to the metallic squeak of the stool as it rose.
‘Now, just place your hands on the keys, see what they want to naturally do.’
Alba did. They reflected back to her in the polished wood; twenty expectant fingers.
‘Have you ever sat at a piano, Alba?’
She shook her head.
‘Goodness. You hold your hands as if you have, my dear.’ Elias reached over and lifted her hands and moved them a little to the right until they seemed to be at the centre of the keyboard.
‘Why don’t you go ahead and play a few notes then?’
Alba turned to face Signora Elias, feeling like a trespasser.
‘Any note at all, any order, doesn’t matter, just feel the weight of them.’
Alba looked down at her hands. She pressed her second finger down. A bright sound rose up from beneath the lid, a fizz of yellow.
‘And another,’ Signora Elias encouraged.
Alba pressed her little finger down. This one was higher, prouder, a more certain sound.
‘What happens if you play one at a time starting with your thumb all the way up to your little finger, do you think?’
Alba felt the smoothness under the pads of her fingers, the thickness of the key, and let her fingers press down on each note in turn. A ladder, stepping-stones, sounds stacked on top of one another like building blocks.
