From contemporary Bordeaux and Picardy to Mussolini’s Rome, from the present-day vineyards of Sauternes to wartime Tuscany, Medieval Naples and a fortress in Gascony, the same story repeats itself. It echoes back and forth, in half-remembered faces, among the emblems of a forgotten house, the tumbled stones of a ruined château, by a dark river at dusk, in a betrayal. Caught in the meanders of time, a host of Alines and Dianas, Alexandres and Louis play out the tragedy of one woman. The woman is Verdiana, and she is eternal.
Verdiana
Aline’s fingers riffled along the spines of books she had no interest whatsoever in reading. The touch of leather was smooth, cool, but mostly the bindings were a grainy sort of cloth, between canvas and cardboard. Dusty and dull. Her fingers slowed, lingered on the spine of a leather-bound volume. It was the colour of walnuts with the same watery markings, and the title was stamped in gold. Verdiana.
Verdiana slid from its place on the shelf, slipping neatly into her hand as if it owned it. Warm. Something whispered. A nondescript shrub tapped against the window. She ignored it. Most of the bushes in the garden could do with a good pruning. It was summer, a warm day, but nobody ever thought to open the windows in this house. The air was stale with a faint scent of tobacco and eau de roses. The title rang bells. She could almost hear them ringing. Or tolling. The name was oddly familiar, and curiosity stirred. A mystery on the point of being revealed? Aline opened the book.
The paper was thick, discoloured, the print greying, type-face small. She let the pages turn, fluttering, releasing their own faint perfume that she couldn’t put a name to. She frowned. It reminded her of something. The fluttering stopped, like a bird settling its wings, at a folded sheet of very fine paper, so fine, she could see the marks made by a steel nib. Nobody who finds an old letter in an old book can resist opening it, especially not someone as bored as Aline. She turned it over. A name was written on the back fold. Aline.
Was she intrigued? Uneasy? Probably no more than curious. She unfolded the note with difficulty. It had been too long pressed between the pages of the book, the fold was knife-sharp, the paper reluctant to be parted from its other side.
Meet me at the jetty tonight at sunset.
There was no signature, just a sort of flourish that might have been intended to be a flower, a rose perhaps. Instead of disappointment that the note was so short and unrevealing, Aline felt her heart beat quicken with excitement. Had that unknown Aline gone to her assignation? The note wasn’t dated, but she knew without knowing, that the unknown Aline was long dead. The shrub tapped at the window again, and the paper in her hand whispered in reply. She folded the note, slipped it back between the pages and made to replace Verdiana on the shelf. The movement stopped, and instead she placed the book on the table in the window.
Dapples of moving leaf shadows played across the gleaming walnut leather, and an image of the jetty, overhung with willow and alder trees, appeared behind Aline’s eyes. The river water was deep and green, splashed with gold in the setting sun. A rowing boat was tied up, still as a heron, waiting.
“I’ll go,” she said aloud.
Outside, in the lime tree, a jay laughed.
The Four Swans 