AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At 6 pm, sharp, Luigia placed a plate of food in front of me and forced me to swallow every grain that was in it so that, at six thirty, she took me back to my room and locked me there until the next morning, at six.
This routine was repeated every day, with the exception of Sunday when I discovered that the regular clothes in my closet could be worn. I spent the whole day stuck in my room, since at six in the morning no one came to get me. That was definitely the only kind of torture I'd been subjected to since I got here: being locked away with nothing but my own thoughts.
“Luigia...” A woman enters the door, and I stop my steps immediately.
She stops talking when she realizes the scene before her eyes, which first stop at me, and then at the armchair. I bite my lip, disappointed in myself. It's pure stupidity, I know that, but Ihate the feeling that I'm going to disappoint the housekeeper even though I know she doesn't expect anything from me.
The woman approaches and I don't know what to say, if the last seven days have taught me anything, it's that no one wants to upset Luigia by talking to me. All the attempts I’ve made were doomed to failure, since no one here speaks Portuguese, it's true. But they were also flatly ignored. People barely look at me, unless, of course, it's to make fun of whatever they find funny about me.
The uniform cap doesn't let me see the color of the visitor's hair, but her eyebrows suggest she's blonde. The woman goes to the cart and takes out a cleaning product labeled “lucida i mobili.” She pours some of the liquid onto a clean cloth, then kneels in front of the chair and carefully slides the cloth onto the wooden surface.
The off-white color gives way to the shiny tone that the rest of the armchair has, and relief fills my chest, even though I have no idea why this woman is helping me. When she's finished, she stands and puts the materials in the cart before coming towards me. I remain silent.
The woman reaches into her pocket, takes out her cell phone and types something. I'm almost certain she's calling Luigia when an artificial voice sounds between us, in Portuguese.
“Hi, my name is Rafaella, but you can call me Rafa. That's what everyone calls me.” My mouth opens in astonishment, and the woman smiles at me, before she offers me her cell phone.
I look at her hand and shake my head, denying it. I don't want to get her in trouble, and I really don't think I'm allowed to put my hand on a telephone. The woman doesn't accept my refusal,she takes my hand and places the cell phone in the middle of my palm.
“Di il tuo nome”[54]she asks and, although I don't understand the beginning of the sentence, she speaks slowly enough so that it doesn't get confused with the rest and I can deduce her request without needing a translation.
“Gabriella. My name is Gabriella.” Rafaella takes her own phone back, types a few more words and then the artificial voice sounds again.
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Gabriella. Don't worry about the seat. You used chlorine bleach on the wood, but it was nothing that a furniture polish couldn't fix,” she explains what I had already imagined, and I nod.
“Grazie[55]” I say one of the few words I've been able to learn in the last few days. “Grazie,” I repeat, nodding my head, and Rafaella shakes her head slowly, no. A few taps on the screen later and the artificial voice sounds again.
“You are welcome.” Rafaella giggles, finding the situation funny, but it doesn't take long until we hear the sounds of Luigia's heavy steps.
The housekeeper enters the living room a few moments later, with the same grumpy expression on her face as always. Rafaella is standing next to me, looking straight ahead, as if nothing that happened before Luigia entered had actually happened.
However, when the housekeeper begins to make her rounds and utter the words that, although I don't understand, I begin to get used to hearing and to be sure that they are complaints about any of the services I have done, Rafaella turns her face in my direction just enough to wink.
And for the first time in a week, I feel, even though I'm being held hostage by a cruel man I don't know, a feeling I never felt when I was free: gratitude.
CHAPTER 19
________
Gabriella Matos
“So, you spent four years living in the United States?” the robotic voice says in Italian. And I only know that's what it’s asking, because I wrote the message in Portuguese on a piece of paper, and Rafaella typed it into the translator.
Sitting at the table in the corner of the kitchen, the blonde and I talk following this scheme: she types what she wants to say on the phone and the device says it out loud and in Portuguese. I write my questions on paper, in capital letters, and she types them into the translator, who asks the questions aloud and in Italian.
I resisted her approach, as grateful as I was that she literally saved me three days ago, the last thing I wanted to do was get her in trouble for talking to me. The woman, however, knows how to be insistent.
Daughter of one of the family's cooks, Rafaella grew up on the property and, after some time away, has just returned. She arrived the day we met, which is why I hadn't seen her before.
After she repeatedly refused to accept my denials, I told her we would only talk if we had Luigia's permission. The housekeeper didn't seem too happy with the idea of me having company, but when Rafaella said she would teach me Italian, some of Luigia's resistance was disarmed. But, as Iimagined, she was adamant in saying that I could not, under any circumstances, have access to a cell phone, and that my conversations with Rafaella should happen in a place where she could see and hear, the blonde told me later, using the online translator.
The solution we found was this, I write it down on paper, Rafa types it on her phone and we only have lunch time to talk about whatever it is, since giving us permission to talk, Luigia has insisted on allocating us in different wings of the house.
This was one of the things I learned in my conversations with Rafaella. The truth is that there weren't many, because of time and because I'm afraid that if I ask too many questions she'll decide to ask too.
I don't know what I can or can't answer, and I'm definitely not going to ask Vittorio, or Don Vittorio, as I now know people call him. I don't think it's a secret to anyone how I got here.
The house is not a castle, it is a rural property. The smell of fresh grapes comes from the vineyards that I can see from my bedroom window, according to Rafaella there are miles and miles of them, and we are close to harvest time, so the smell is everywhere.
