Little Fortress Read online

  About This Book

  Based on the true story of the Caetanis, Italian nobility driven into exile by the rise of fascism, the long-awaited second novel by award-winning author Laisha Rosnau follows this once glittering family to British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. When Ofelia Caetani takes her daughter, Sveva, into seclusion after the death of the duke, they are cared for by their personal secretary, Miss Jüül, who brings her own secrets to their twenty-five-year retreat from the world. As the stories of these three remarkable women unfurl in unexpected and often tragic ways, Little Fortress is revealed as a graceful and intricate tale of friendship, class, trust, betrayal and, ultimately, love.

  Praise for Little Fortress

  “There’s something wonderfully subversive about Laisha Rosnau’s new novel, Little Fortress. Her women, driven by passion and pain, live on their own terms in a world that would reduce them to eccentric curiosities when they are so much more. Rosnau does a brilliant job of resurrecting and reimagining this piece of Canadian history.”

  – Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl

  “Little Fortress is a sublime novel that asks what happens when you rebel against the narrow strictures of your life. When Miss Inger-Marie Jüül rides away from her family’s farm, her story spirals through time, through two world wars, ranging from lonely Danish lighthouses to Cairo, from Italian villas to Okanagan orchards. This is a haunting, sweeping story, both mournful and stitched with a lilt of hope.”

  – Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift

  “Little Fortress lives and breathes. Based on real people, it builds a deep and convincing world of its own. Rosnau’s portraits of three women, especially her voicing of Miss Jüül, are indelible. An unforgettable novel.”

  – Alix Hawley, author of All True Not a Lie in It and My Name Is a Knife

  Also by Laisha Rosnau

  Fiction

  The Sudden Weight of Snow

  Poetry

  Lousy Explorers

  Notes on Leaving

  Our Familiar Hunger

  Pluck

  For Sveva Caetani, Ofelia Fabiani and Inger-Marie Jüül

  Contents

  Cover

  About This Book

  Praise for Little Fortress

  Also by Laisha Rosnau

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Canada, 1945

  PART ONE: Precinct of False Gods

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PART TWO: We All Found Small Kingdoms

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  PART THREE: Elegy to a Neverland

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Afterword

  Notes and Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Canada, 1945

  Could you call that singing? I suppose, though that might be overstatement. Ofelia has tried her voice at opera, to varying success. Once her voice was said to be lovely, but this sound is more like squalling. I try to ignore it, go about my morning. I am in the kitchen, rewashing china and silver, my hands pink and raw in scalding water. The window faces east and a blurred hem of sunlight has begun to saturate the top of the hills along the back of the property.

  Ofelia asks that we do this – wash everything after it’s been used and once more before we drink or eat from it again. I suppose she wouldn’t know if we didn’t do so every time, yet I feel as though I should. There are larger things I keep from her. I can be truthful about fulfilling her smaller wishes. When she woke, she sounded so strange. I mean no disrespect to Ofelia. She’s still every part a lady, but grief moves through her as feral as a cat. Every few minutes, she lets out a yowl, just as I do when Sveva startles me, suddenly at my shoulder. “Can you not hear that, Miss Jüül?”

  I turn from the sink and take a step to the side to give myself some space. I clutch silverware wrapped in a towel between us, the warmth dissolving in the cool morning air.

  “Can you not hear her?” Sveva’s hair is loose, a mess, her eyes circled in a faint burgundy as though bruised. It is early for her; she was probably still awake until only a few hours ago. Ofelia likes her daughter to sleep beside her each night, but lately Sveva has been staying up well into the night to read, likely to avoid this. She’s twenty-seven years old, after all, and her mother is not a sound sleeper.

  “I can.” I unwrap the spoons, place one on the tray with the teapot and cups. “I hear her.” From the clock in the hall, six round chimes. When I was first up, I let the dogs out of their kennels and I can hear them circling the house, barking. “Be thankful it’s not earlier.”

  Sveva blinks, runs her palms over her hair, then reaches for me. “Oh, my Miss Jüüly-Jüül.” She pushes me into her chest as though I am the child. She is so tall and I so small that there I am, against the buttons of her gown. “I’m sorry. When she started I was in the middle of a dream, all these garish spirals and spikes folding in on me. I woke up panicked.” Sveva lets me go. “I’ve been up reading physics again. I know, I know. I shouldn’t. I should read dear Austen before I sleep – she leaves me with better dreams.”

  Upstairs, her mother is still keening, although what began as a howl has lessened to moaning. I pick up the tray. “We should go to her.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  By the time we reach the top of the stairs, Ofelia’s sounds are more like a kitten’s mews, and when I knock on her door, it’s silent except for her faint, “Yes, come in,” in Italian, always Italian. In my lifetime, I’ve taught
myself English, French, Italian, even a little Arabic. We’ve lived in Canada for over two decades and Ofelia still will not speak much English.

  She sits up in bed, pillows behind her, palms smoothing the white bedding. “Oh, look, you’re both here!” I see a slight jump in her hands from her lap. “You are both here,” she says again with less enthusiasm.

  “Of course we are, Mau.” Sveva moves around the room, swaying slightly as though she may begin dancing. I wait with the tray; I don’t want to be intercepted by her. Ofelia’s head is high on the pillows, her lips a slack line.

  Sveva drops her shoulders, rolls her neck slightly. She shivers once, rubs her arms. “And I, for one, do not want to be awake this early – let me into bed!” Sveva leaps onto the bed, a six-foot girl in a too-small gown.

  Ofelia puts her hand on Sveva’s head. “Oh, my Beo.”

  “My Mau-Mau.” Their terms of endearment have no translation, but they’ve been calling each other these names for years so it doesn’t matter. Sveva closes her eyes, her head large against her mother’s slim shoulder. I stand beside the bed without pouring tea. I don’t want it to cool too soon, though it is already losing some heat.

  Sveva opens her eyes, tips back her head and lets out one sharp laugh. “Oh, Jüül! How ridiculous we are! Two crazy old ladies and yet you stay with us – she stays with us, Mau! Where did you find her, our blessed Scandinavian Virgin?” This is one of their nicknames for me, as inappropriate as it may be.

  Ofelia reaches for her daughter. “You are not old, darling. Don’t say or believe that for a moment.” She lays her hand on Sveva’s forehead as though conferring a blessing.

  Sveva stretches her arms, twists her wrists. “I may not be old, not technically, but I can feel old, can’t I, Mother?”

  I’ve poured the tea now, hand them each a cup. Sveva looks at it as though it’s foreign to her. She isn’t old, the age that I was before I left for Egypt. At that time, though, I was already considered in danger of becoming an old maid.

  “Is it your joints again, Beo?” Ofelia asks.

  “No, no.” Sveva sits up in the bed, holding her cup and saucer in front of her like a ballast. “Well, it is – it’s always my joints to a certain extent – but more than that, it’s my mind, Mau, my blasted mind!”

  “You and your father and your minds.”

  “Indeed.” It’s the first thing I’ve said in minutes. I open the window. With the rub of window against frame, the dogs start up. “I’ll go see to Baby and Onyx. They probably need a good long run today. I may even go out with them.”

  “A run?” Ofelia asks. “You won’t let them out of the gate, will you?”

  “Oh no,” I say. “No.” I shouldn’t have said anything. I forget myself sometimes. I’ve spent years trying to forget myself and at times, it works. “I’ll just take them round the property while you two get some more rest.”

  Ofelia’s eyes are already closed. “You’re too good to us, Miss Jüül.” Perhaps I am. I bend to pick up their teacups, mostly full. Sveva is still lying beside her mother. She looks directly at me, half of her face visible on the other side of Ofelia, and holds her stare for a moment before blinking in rapid succession, as though to communicate something to me. What, I don’t know – and I could be imagining things. I often am. I turn and carry the tea service out of the room.

  * * *

  When I open the back door, both dogs are there, panting. They are tall and slim, these hounds. They each reach my waist, but then, I am a small person. Their narrow haunches sway from side to side as their tails wag and they circle me, eager to go. When I let them out of the kennel earlier, it was completely dark, stars sharp against the sky. Now, it’s beginning to flush with light, though it’s still so cold. It’s as though winter is hanging on. Spring would be too much to take now, a reminder of how the war goes on regardless of seasons, years. I walk down the drive, the dogs looping around me. First, I will check the mailbox, then I will decide whether or not I will leave the property. I could skirt the trees and then slip out, hoping my movements would be obscured by foliage, although I’m not sure that there’s enough this time of year, the branches skeletal and grey.

  We planted more trees nearly a decade ago – and by we I mean I told the cook, George, by then the only one in our employ, where to plant them. He muttered the entire time, cursing me in Cantonese, I’m sure, but I didn’t leave his side, telling him that it was as the ladies wished. Imagine, staff! They once seemed so plentiful. Now even George is gone, though the trees he planted have taken root. They are lovely little things, but not yet big enough to conceal the house entirely. I know that Ofelia wishes they would grow taller faster. Sveva likes the trees as they are; from the house, she can still see to the street.

  A large fence with a gate is our concession for gaps in the trees. Near the end of the drive, I see something move between the slats of wood. The dogs are in a different part of the yard. Between their barking, I hear crunching footsteps on the other side of the fence. I whistle for Baby and Onyx, wait for them to circle back before I open the gate. As I wait, I listen. I don’t hear the scuff of gravel as I would if someone was walking away. When the dogs are by my side, I ask them to heel and they do their best, though both are unable to do so in any conventional way. Then I open the gate. A man is there, standing beside the mailbox. A soldier, in uniform. He backs away when I come out with the dogs.

  “Officer.” I nod my chin toward him.

  “Ma’am.” It shouldn’t surprise me anymore, this term, but it does. To those closest to me, I am forever Miss. I suppose I am to myself, as well.

  An officer at the end of the drive during wartime can’t be bearing good news, though there aren’t any men in our household to lose.

  “Is there anything wrong, Officer?” The dogs are twitching, shifting on their haunches, readying to bolt, it seems, but they don’t. I put a hand on each of their heads. They pant, lick and snap their mouths.

  “I have a piece of personal correspondence for a Miss Sveva Caetani.” I wonder why an officer would be delivering her mail, but I don’t say anything, wait for him to continue. “I am an old friend of hers from school – well, an acquaintance, really, a school chum – this is the last address I have for her.”

  In the first couple of years, people stopped by, but it was easy enough to let them know that the ladies were resting or otherwise occupied. Sometimes, a visitor would jot down a note. More often, they would leave their names and best wishes and carry on. Now, here is a man in uniform with a sealed envelope.

  “Do I have the correct address?” he asks. “Does Miss Caetani still reside here?”

  I am an honest person. I would prefer to say nothing than to speak a mistruth, but I have figured out how to do both, how to say just enough that I am not lying. “A school chum?”

  “Yes, well, not exactly. She was at Crofton House – all young ladies, as you may know.” He pauses here as though to gauge my reaction. “I was at the brother school, Saint George’s. We had the same circle of friends. I –” he stops himself here. “Is she at this address?”

  “The girl you knew doesn’t live here anymore.” This answer isn’t completely untrue. “Baby!” I snap at one of the dogs, hold her collar. “Heel.” She does.

  The man looks at me then away, runs his fingers up the buttons on his coat, adjusts his collar and clears his throat, all as though he is biding time. “Oh, I see.” He looks back to me. “Do you know her?”

  This isn’t as easy a question to answer. “I did.”

  “Do you have a forwarding address for Miss Caetani?”

  “No.”

  The officer moves the letter from hand to hand, looks toward the dogs, which are still at my side as though they recognize a uniform and have decided to behave. “Well.” He turns and looks down the street, as though he’ll discover where she is. �
�I’ve nowhere else to send this.”

  I wait.

  “This may be an imposition, ma’am, but perhaps I could leave this with you. Perhaps Miss Caetani will be back through the area and may stop by.” When he says this, I don’t know whether he is hopeful or whether he has seen through my charade. I’m a terrible liar, I know. H once told me.

  “Yes, I can do that.” The officer looks beyond me, toward the house, then hands me the envelope.

  “Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

  As though the dogs know that some sort of transaction has taken place, Baby takes off after something down the road, and Onyx follows, barking.

  The officer tips his cap, takes a couple of steps then turns around. “I was here for training camp in ’41. I thought I should look up Miss Caetani then, but there wasn’t time. We were deployed so quickly. I rarely left the front – a medic – I was discharged early for service.

  “It’s a different world over there.” He pauses. “I am trying to find those I knew before. I know it won’t make a difference, not really, but I am trying.”

  I hear the sound of the dogs running back and then they are circling me. I know, I think. I want to tell him that I understand what he is talking about – about war and dislocation and trying to find those you used to know – but all I say is, “Good luck.”

  The officer smiles weakly, doesn’t tip his hat again, turns and walks away. It isn’t until then that I notice that Baby has a squirrel between her teeth. Onyx pants and jumps a quick little dance around us. The sun has broken over the trees. “Let that go,” I scold. “Come, you two.”

  * * *

  You may think me complicit in our situation, and perhaps I am. After all, what happened to us can’t have been from one person’s will alone.

  “You are so good,” a man once told me. “Better than me, stronger.”

  When I wrote to him about my body wracked with pain, my mind muddied with grief, he repeated: “Be good. Be strong.” The words were clear on the page, between those that had been censored by authorities during the war. Soon, more phrases, then entire sentences were blacked out, until one day the letters stopped. When they did, I lay on a terrace in the lovely sunshine and thought of how easy it would be to die. It was cowardly to think like that. To die is easy; to have the courage to keep living is what is difficult. I promised myself then that I would become good at living.