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LADY CATERINA (a day in the country…estate)



When I was about 12, Lady Caterina, that's how we addressed her, took me, my sister and her nephews, who happened to be my cousins, to an old country estate partly in ruins, which had belonged to her family since 1861. My cousins and I used to spend a lot of our pleasurable time with her and we loved her very much; everything about Lady Caterina was fun and an adventure. She could be bossy at times −used as she was at giving orders− but she laughed a lot and liked children. The appearance was that of a prima donna and her manners matched her looks: her silvery hair had a strange touch of purple, she talked incessantly in a high pitch voice and was always ready for action, which could take the form of an exquisite cake, a trip to the country or improvised sonatas on the grand piano in her sitting room.
That day she came around with her driver in her big car and took us to a sunny, remote and enchanted place. There, the smells and the light, the barking of dogs and the whispering of the wind, the singing of the crickets and lady Caterina’s voice swirled in my head for the whole afternoon. We saw the baby pigs, tiny, black, and defenceless; we entered the chapel opposite to the pigsty decorated with old frescos of saints of whom I no longer recall the names. It was little but lovely and light, the ceiling was high and the windows let the sun rays in without touching the floor − they rested their fingers on the peeling walls, powdery and disintegrating like the cheeks of the old lady.
Later on, I climbed the long ladder lying against the tower −the only remain of the old castle− to pick some roses. It was very high and perhaps a bit dangerous for a young girl but I was only too glad to oblige Lady Caterina’s request and she wasn't sensible enough to stop me. It all went well but it could have been a very different story.

Pigs, chapel and the old tower built in the XV century: it all happened, but I don't know in what order.
This is the older part of my map and things are fading away really quickly. In my map I can see myself with all my other selves holding hands and forming a chain, breaking the solitary confinement of existence −one person and one person only− multiple personalities being the only escape, not a happy one, as many believe. The limitation of our body seen as a cage from which we would like to escape at times is something that has accompanied me in my years, with more or less intensity depending on the state of my mind and on the condition of my life.
How can you describe your own life when you cannot step out of your body to look at it? It's a collage of events; some of them might not even be real or not as they really happened.


Was it Lady Caterina who asked me to go up the 100 steps ladder or was it me who wanted to go and conquer the tower, win the flowers and come down to receive the admiration of my younger cousins? Memory can trick you like this, you can only believe what you choose to believe. But one thing I know. Without history there is no plot and no story (for any of us). The problem is, can you remember what really happened?
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