A Woman In The Shadows. Maria Pia Oelker
Oh God - I thought - here we are.
- “I know many things about you as an Archduke and Prince, about your brilliant studies, your culture, but, sincerely, I don’t know anything about you as a man; I imagine that also you don’t know much more about me.”
He insisted as if he had not heard:
- “What else?”
Then I gave a start - “Do you want to refer to what you mentioned in your letter?”
He stared into my eyes so intensely that I found it hard to bear that look. He made me stay calm whatever thing he revealed to me.
- “No” - I murmured - “they haven’t told me anything about that story and I, notwithstanding I was burning with curiosity, haven’t asked anyone anything. It seemed to me indelicate towards each other and I have decided that I would have learnt it only from you. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, don’t worry, I will respect your discretion and your wishes. Talk to me about it only when and if you wish. It’s your right to not say anything if it’s so painful for you. Because it is, isn’t it? I understood it as soon as I read those words.”
Peter Leopold did not reply, he only grasped my hand and brought it to his lips. I saw that his eyes were moved to tears.
- “I thank you for your sensitivity. I swear to you that I will tell you everything, one day. It’s not easy for me, but perhaps with you I will do it. I hope that we will be friends.”
- “Friends?” - I murmured and from my voice there must have leaked out the delusion that, notwithstanding everything, had invaded me at those words.
- “Is that not enough for you? Do you want” - he hesitated a moment - “love?”
I remained silent and thought of the only love that had lightened my life and, comparing it at this moment, felt a cold chill in my heart.
We sat down facing each other and not one of us had much desire to eat. We looked at each other, scrutinising each other in silence and chasing each other’s thoughts, while the waiters bustled around us.
I found him quite pleasant and interesting, in his manners and looks. Sensitive and sweet, which moreover confirmed the impressions his letter had made on me, but also direct and frank when it was necessary.
I felt a little embarrassed before his gaze, which was examining me with scrupulous attention, even though not arrogantly.
I hoped that I did not seem too insignificant to him nor too foolish. The extended silence at a certain point seemed intolerable to me and, I do not know why, I began to tell him about my childhood in Naples and the games in the park at the royal palace at Caserta, the marvellous climate and the sea.
- “Have you ever seen the sea?”
- “No, never.”
- “Oh, - I smiled - “in Naples it’s marvellous. Blue and green, transparent and warm. At sunset, the sun leaves golden stripes on the water that appear to contain all its light, almost to console us for the night that is coming and, in the evenings with a full moon, it’s a dream. Also in Vienna does the starlit sky appear to be a golden quilted blanket?”
He smiled, resting his chin on his hand, “Are you always so poetical?”
I do not know if he said it ironically, but by now the memories of my past, which was around the corner and yet it seemed to me centuries ago, crowded my soul so much that I could not stop. In the end, I had told him more than I would have wanted, but I did not regret it. I felt lighter and calmer now.
- “Have you ever been in love?” - He then asked me.
- “No” - I lied.
H blushed and closed his eyes - This however was a lie. I did not believe I deserved it.
- “Why do you want to know about me what you do not want to tell me about yourself?”
- “You are right, I apologise.”
- “And yet I want to be sincere with you. I was sixteen years old when I fell in love with a young gentleman in my brother’s entourage.”
- “Do you still love him?”
- “No; it was, I think, an adolescent thing, a little too much daydreaming. Or perhaps it was only a way of saying to myself that my soul and my heart were mine only and no-one could have them if I did not allow it - well, life is not like that, I know, but at times you need to just delude yourself in order to not die.”
- “Die? Did you die when they told you that you would have to marry me and not your lover? Certainly, you would have preferred it to have been him to give you your first loving kiss and make you dream and not an Austrian archduke, surly and cold, a little sad and certainly not handsome like your Spanish gentleman.
I thought of the resentment smouldering for days inside me at the idea of not being able to realise a dream and end up in the arms of a stranger and I kept quiet to not hurt him.
I now felt suddenly tired and I no longer had the desire to open up my heart to someone who did not intend to open himself up at all.
Peter Leopold noticed and apologised.
- “I have been indiscreet, excuse me”. “You have been sincere and I instead cannot manage to tell you anything about myself.”
- “My love was a dream, almost a fine game, I knew it from the start; even though I suffered enough, it did not leave too painful wounds in my heart. I did not add “Like yours”, but he understood.
Contravening every rule of etiquette, he took my hand again and kissed it. I felt his lips slightly trembling. I looked at him and saw that he was pale and his eyes seemed lightly circled with dark and misty, like from a fever.
- “Do you feel well?” - I asked.
- “Yes, why?”
- “Excuse me, you are so pale.”
- “I am well, I am just very tired. - If you give me permission, I will withdraw.
- “Certainly, your Highness. I also, indeed, am tired and over the next few days many commitments await us.”
- “Right” - he said, bowing his head respectfully.
I saw him furtively pass a hand over his forehead and, when he got up to leave, he seemed to me to stagger slightly.
- “Your highness” - I called him back
He turned round again to me and, in that moment, I thought – “He’s really not well.”
- “Tell me.”
- “Sleep well”.
- “Thank you, I wish you also a good rest. Do not dream too much of the beautiful gardens of Madrid. Here we are in Austria and the weather is really very bad. The Spanish sun is by now far away.
I also got up and took two steps towards him and he shook my hand, this time not in a formal way, but almost comradely: “Anyway, thank you for everything. You have been a pleasant discovery.”
Then he went off quickly, before I could add anything more.
The next day, someone said to me that, in fact, Leopold had not been very well in the last few days before our meeting, but that now he was much better. I thought, I do not know why, that it was not at all true and that his indisposition was still present and that it belonged more to his soul than to his body.
Going from Bolzano towards Innsbruck, it seemed to me that the mountains hung threateningly over me; the dark colours, only rarely and for short moments illuminated by some ray of sun, that managed to escape from the low blanket of cloud that hid the mountain peaks, gave me a sense of oppression and melancholy. Inside myself I compared that severe and dark world with the sun which had shone on my days, sometimes burning, but so bright and vital. And it seemed to me that my most pessimistic expectations were coming true. Even he had seemed to me cordial,