The Manuscript I the Secret Read Free Page A

she was older than what she looked. That was another secret. But I think that all women get to a point in their lives when they just decide to not get any older. She was at least thirty-eight, likely older, but it was not her muscles, which were taught, nor any defect in her body with its smooth, firm skin that let me know. It was her breasts. I have learned that women show their age in that telltale curve more than anywhere else. That is why it is so jarring to see an older woman with breasts as perky as a teenagers’, because they do not fit with her body, her face, her gestures. Nor with her experience. Irene’s breasts were full and slightly sagging. Their volume could only be appreciated when unclothed. They disappeared almost entirely under clothing, hidden in that mysterious way that only nature can pull off. She was a passionate lover, and I realized from the get-go that she needed a young man like me to satisfy her desires, though she would never have admitted it. She used to say she was very selective. She would rather go for months without sex than sleep with just anybody. And I believed her.
     
    I left on the first flight to Rome the next day.

3
    Rome, Italy, Villa Contini
    November 10, 1999
     
    I felt like I had arrived back in Villa Contini as soon as I saw the two stone lions at each side of the entryway to the long wooded drive up to Uncle Claudio’s mansion. Some wrote him off as eccentric because he held onto customs that most of the family now considered absurd, like having all the villa’s servants stand in line to greet him at the front door when he returned from somewhere, and how he greeted each servant by name. But things had changed. Before I left for America, I found out that Uncle Claudio preferred to live in his apartment in Rome. He explained that it kept him closer to his work; I think the real reason is that the villa felt too big for just one man.
    When I entered the great hall where part of the family was gathered, I realized that the inevitable had already occurred. My mother’s face could hardly have been more eloquent. She was beautiful, more beautiful than my sister Elsa, despite her age. When my mother was sad, her eyes took on a different hue and saw as if from a distance, the way famous actresses expressed their grief in the old movies I used to watch with Uncle Claudio. Everyone agreed she looked strikingly like Ava Gardner. Today, her typically pale skin was tinged with blue under the eyes. As soon as she saw me, she came up and hugged me as she had not done since long before I left for America, and I felt the depth of her pain. But I could not divine its exact cause.
    I knew her too well to believe she was grieved by the loss of Uncle Claudio. Children know the dark sides of their parents. I think the real reason for her anguish was that she had no way of knowing if Uncle Claudio had included me in his will. I was not happy to see her. Dark memories I had tried to bury through every available means reared up and invaded my already dampened spirits. As if sensing I needed support, my sister came over. She was two years younger yet had always been a refuge for me. Elsa was the exact opposite of my mother. Her serene gaze was reminiscent of a Boticelli Venus. She squeezed my hand in greeting and moved to stand beside me as mother gave a half-turn and tended to two older gentlemen in the family with whom she seemed overly comfortable, probably because of their lascivious glances. I preferred to avoid the inevitable flirtation to come. Mother was like a queen bee attended by solicitous worker bees. I had never liked the way she acted. Sometimes I think she does it on purpose, just to show us she is still young and desirable. Since my father’s death, she had always treated me like the man of the family, and the constant pressure pushed me ever farther from her.
    Elsa dragged me by the hand toward the private rooms in Uncle Claudio’s mansion and stopped at his bedroom. I was