SOMEWHERE AROUND US
Historical fiction:
Italian ambassador, 40 years old Count Giovanni Di Castellano breaks all the rules of his world when in New York in the 1930s he meets Sofiana Assenova, an opera-star at "La Scala". After two years of efforts, Giovanni and Sofiana succeed in obtaining permission for marriage from the Italian King Victor Emanuel the Third and from Vatican in spite of the protests of the Di Castellano family, because she is divorced and of Bulgarian origin.
She gives up her brilliant career and is converted to Roman Catholic religion. Count Di Castellano works in Paris, Moscow, London, Morocco and Rome. He is viewed as a Don Quixotte by political circles of that time. After his resignation, the couple returns to Sicily.
After the death of Count Di Castellano, Sofiana finds herself in Sicilian mental home and tries to understand what has happened with her and why. Seven years later she is saved with great difficulties and being treated in a catholic monastery before finding the path back to her grown-up son.
CHAPTER ONE
1991, Italy
One morning, several voices burst into a room of an old Sicilian palace. A boy and two girls were standing at the doorstep anxiously. "Dad, we are going to be late. Hurry up!" The single son of countless Sofiana and count Giovanni, Michelangelo De Castellano opened the door to his three children Augusto, Sofia and Sofiana. He chose a few photographs, scattered on the table among some papers with writing, and envelopes.
"Go, Augustino, take the girls! Be careful to recognize each other! I will welcome everyone here."
“If they would not see you there…”
"I have to check something. My memory served me just minutes ago. It could be very important!"
Augusto was stamping his feet impatiently, opened the door briskly, and the young company run.
Michelangelo walked to the entrance hall and stood there, staring at the car that drove off on the main alley of the estate. Enwrapped in his thoughts, he raised his warm eyes towards the family portraits in the gallery and started ascending the stairs.
The serious man in his late forties set the door slightly ajar just like his mother had done once upon a time. Then bravely, he pushed the door and came to a halt on the garret, and saw the forgotten, dusty chest.
The key! He could not remember any word about the key. But why, for God's sake, did he need the key to the past of his own mother? Who should have the right to know her but him? And who would give a damn for a broken chest in his own home?
A slog and the rusty the padlock, unused for years, fell on the floor. He lifted the lid, it creaked, and he jerked back to avoid the thick cloud of dust, which filled the air. The brilliance of the clothes inside had faded away. The newspapers and photographs were yellow with the ages. By the paled light of the window, he took in his hands each object in succession. His eyes moved from her personal diary with the tarnished covers to the photographs. For a long time, he stood staring at an article in an old magazine with glossy pictures of the star Sofiana Assenova, the best opera singer of Bulgarian origin, a soloist at the Italian "La Scala", the greatest opera theatre.
1937, Milan, a home close to “La Scala”
The last moment, in which Sofiana Assenova could say farewell to that part of her life, had arrived. She was always certain she would be proud of her achievement to be the brightest star on the stage. Yet confusion occupied her loving lodgings, before she left them lonely and abandoned by stealth like a thief. She could never learn to relieve easily sorrow from her spirit. Therefore her heart urged on escape as soon as possible and to remember them brimming with bright feelings, which she would like to experience again in one more life. They were a big gift of fortune.
The attractive woman touched her beautiful stage costumes, photographs, and articles and placed them very carefully inside a large chest. For the last time Sofiana cherished her artistic world, in which her heart had found its refuge in the past. At only thirty-four years old and despite anguish and sadness she left her pursuit of success, of fame and the constant struggle to win the love of public at every single performance because their adoration replaced her need of love in her private life. A beloved singer and a lonely woman she welcomed the moment she trusted her second marriage with the seventeenth Count Giovanni De Castellano from Sicily would fulfill the emptiness somehow.
Thereafter her brilliant career was over.
She closed the lid and locked it with a small padlock. The key remained locked in her cupped hand for some time.
Some days later, in her new bedroom, in the palace of the distinguished De Castellano family in a Sicilian town, Sofiana was secretly writing in her diary:
“Acquaintance with the whole of Gianni’s life is the only pleasant time to me now. He has known my past and I have been searching for his here. Many people tell me my husband was tenacious since his earliest years and his leadership qualities were indisputable since childhood. How could he understand that living in Sicily is a challenge for me? I was born an ordinary girl in all aspects and now I need tenacity more than those who were blessed with it at birth, the strength that lasts for a lifetime."
She was startled by footsteps entering the room. Her husband, the diplomat Giovanni De Castellano, looked at the open lid of the full chest and kissed her tenderly:
"Are you tired? Shall I call your maid to finish the work?"
"No! I am used to coping with everything by myself." She grew sombre and swallowed with difficulty: "This chest holds all things to which I could say goodbye but could not discard them.”
"I see." Count Giovanni nodded with understanding. "I will order the servants to move it to the attic. You would feel better if you do not see it every single day.” Her opened notebook also attracted his attention.
"Do you replace singing with writing? You always have a surprise that draws my interest."
"This is no book, just my personal diary for my hours of loneliness..."
"Loneliness? You have me," His warm brown eyes darkened.
"Gianni, I thank God for having you."
The two exchanged tender smiles before he left. Thoughtfully she looked at the diary in her hands. Gianni was right. As the costumes from her past on the opera-scene proved to be intolerable for her new relatives, here it would also be best for her to avoid her diary full up with sentimental thoughts. She placed the notebook on top of the chest.
Shortly thereafter, the Countess and two servants climbed the stairs between walls decorated with old icons and goblin tapestries dating back to the eighteenth century. Sofiana's eyes rested for a while on each one of them. She was searching unconsciously for something to ease her strained mind.
The servants carried the wooden chest to the attic of the palace and climbed down. Some minutes later the door creaked slightly and someone set it ajar. A streak of light poured through the thin slot. Sofiana Assenova stood there with her eyes fixed upon the chest. She did not dare to take a step further. Instead, she slowly left and closed the door. Forever! She convinced herself that she should forget. Who would ever care to remember what gave meaning to her days in times gone?
1991, Italy, Sicily, on the attic
"That is you, that were you, mother, my dear mother," the whisper was full of worship and sadness. “You were so beautiful, so popular and so much loved. Why were they and you hiding this from me?" Michelangelo began to turn the pages of the old diary at random then he approached the window of the attic. It surprised him that all of the content was written in Bulgarian. With regret, he returned to the previous articles in the Italian press.
And in those distant years nobody in his native house would experience the need to open the chest as if it was personal offence to her son. Their behavior was the reason for his expectations of discovering some guilt of hers. Fears had all been in vain. He felt proud of what he had found, and he could not forgive the foolish thoughts was assumed and throve in his mind. Why had he remained all unveiled at such later date so it was still forcibly enough to destroy the balance inside him? Rage, powerful rage shook him all over, and he clenched temperamentally his fists. Who had deserved the might of the passionate explosion of hatred inside him?
His spontaneous wrath gushed forth to the surface and Michele started a new journey to reach for the beginning of the story, which he regarded as his legacy. From this day ahead, his mind was feverishly penetrating into the vaguer memories, which were his beacon on the gloomy road of challenges. He should find out the answers, of which he used to get afraid.
He needed to find the truth!
The same need since his childhood…