Death of a "Queen Mother"

A very old Signora lay slowly dying in a country villa which had belonged to her parents and before that to her grandparents, great-grandparents and their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents as far back as the most remote of times. As with a sovereign, there had come to be by her bedside, besides her now old daughters and her also old and rather sorely beset sons-in-law, an assemblage of granddaughters and grandsons, not to mention a goodly number of family friends, proof - if one were needed - of how, during the span of her now long life, she had really become truly, a queen, or better, a "Queen Mother."

The villa, well-known to the townspeople, was situated on the slope of a vast semi-circular hillside, and was spacious enough to house them all. Three kitchens (one on each floor) provided amply without obvious commotion to the needs of that ever-famished small community (food, psychologists assure us, being the best antidote to grief) that awaited, without harboring the slightest doubt, the solemn outcome of what seemed an inevitable event. Except for the very much older of the sisters, the others seemed resigned, not to say downright cheerful.

The Signora's room - on the second floor - looked out on the garden. One of its two great windows, facing west, was almost blocked by a giant magnolia whose stiff, poison-green leaves barely allowed the shattered sunlight to penetrate into the room; while from the second, to the right of the bed, the view swept toward the north over and beyond the lawn and gardens as far as the farthest end of the valley with its slope studded with chestnut and assorted trees and dotted here and there with hamlets and country churches - a magnificent view. A pity that the Signora - during these last days - could not enjoy it along with the memories of the infinite numbers of holidays spent in this spot since her childhood. As a matter of fact, her eyes suffered from semi-blindness as her tired mind floated in an undefined nebulous space, shattered by sudden, unexpected lights, words, noises, some of them nearby, others farther away, and at times by the crowing of a cock.

After the last crisis which had alarmed her daughters, ever-present either in their mother's room or in the adjacent small salon, the doctor had given up all hope. "At this point, I can do nothing more." This did not mean that he was deserting the battlefield. Far from it. No. He was a friend. He was what you might call part of the family and could be depended on always to be present, if only to witness what no longer seemed avoidable and that everyone should recognize was not worth delaying. It was useless for the patient three times a day to take medication she could no longer tolerate nor swallow, let alone the scant food she found repellent.

The daughters could not but agree in silence with the doctor's reasonable conclusion. Fearful perhaps of betraying the relief they felt, they sedulously avoided looking at one another. Once the doctor had left, the younger, giving way to a corroding sense of guilt, protested. She said she wanted to do everything possible and burst into hysterical sobs.

"What do you mean? And for what?" asked her niece, a young and beautiful woman, opening wide her great dark eyes in wonderment. The question threw open endless vistas where thought wandered off aimlessly without there being any point in following it to its logical conclusion. Upon which the daughters went off on their separate ways as if ashamed of an ill-defined "something", leaving their mother for a few moments to the care of the nurse on duty.

That night, the Signora's pulse plummeted well below twenty and her blood pressure plunged to such a low level that she barely seemed to be alive.

But she finally dropped off to sleep and a great peace fell over the ground floor of the house where the guests had gathered after having dined with undiminished gusto. No one dared hope or even acknowledge that it might perhaps be "nice" if "it" could happen during the night when everyone save the nurse on duty was asleep.

The younger of the daughters slept on a divan in the little salon next to the bedroom - perhaps to punish herself for having given up hope like the others - where she claimed to have spent all her nights. A peace flowed from the imminence of the death that they all hid from one another, even those who, like the dashing playboy grandson (for that very reason his grandmother's favorite) had not given up on his regular evening pleasures: a post-prandial scotch and detective film on television in the downstairs salon and a bit of gossip before bedtime. Nor did he deem it unseemly to end up by slipping into his fianc‚e's bed.

The Signora did not die that night nor during the next ones.

A vague sort of disappointment crept over the villa. As people spoke to the daughters and the closest relatives about the strangeness of the whole situation, their voices broke and took on odd inflections. The beautiful period of waiting which had enveloped the household and its inhabitants in what one might call a mantle of solemnity began to unravel. They all began to feel as if they had lost something. And although not willing to admit it, not even to themselves, nagging thoughts began to creep into their minds about the consequences of these delays (the costs, the strains, the half-truths, etc . . .) and they felt themselves starting to bear silent grudges against the "Old Lady" as one peevish guest had called her.

It was also embarrassing for the doctor. What more could he do? There was no point resuming the treatment which might only inflict further suffering on the dying woman. And yet . . . he intimated . . .

Her relatives stood silent and looked away.

The community of guests did not dissolve but the prolongation of a hospitality whose only justification was the ever-imminent death of la Signora provoked a creeping malaise in the more distant relatives, let alone among the others who were mere friends. Every morning, upon waking, the face of each guest asked the same question. And each, on not getting the expected answer, found it hard to conceal the disappointment which, in a few of the other guests, was starting to skirt the rancorous.

Then, one morning, the old Signora, upon perceiving the early light filtering through the blinds and discovering that she was still alive - she had never once doubted the gravity of her condition - quivered with contentment. The night before she had fought off sleep for a very long time with every ounce of her strength, fearing that should she give in, death would take advantage of her weakness and grant the wish of one and all.

Death had spared her. She was still alive. That ray of light was truly real. It was neither an illusion nor a first glimpse of paradise. Through the rarified shadows of her room shafts of soft light fell here and there, on the mirror of her dresser, on the headboard of the bed next to hers (the nurse slept there), on the marble top of her vanity covered with perfume bottles and vials.

This was life! Not the last dream of a corpse, lying on a bed with eyes closed, hands crossed over its bosom, with skin as shriveled and yellowed as dried husks, surrounded by dour-faced but relieved relatives and friends beset by guilt at not feeling sufficiently overcome with grief.

"Poor things," she thought. For her, they all were now little more than shadows while she - under the spell of the invisible fingers in the air that were tearing away little by little the tattered tissue of darkness that had fallen during the night over her body, her face, her forehead - reeled with happiness.

"I am alive, I am alive, I am alive!" It was a feeling of incalculable strength and joy. Never in her now long and fortunate life had she felt anything like this. It invaded her whole being, infusing her with the absolute certainty that the actual present in which there would henceforth be no yesterdays, no tomorrow, would last unto infinity.