Solitaria (22 page)

Footsteps on the stairs. Teresa hangs back, her hands trembling. Mimí comes forward and opens the door. “Renato!” she says, about to embrace him, then stops herself.

Renato is wearing a priest's habit.

He opens his arms. “Mimí.” He hugs her, his eyes searching the others.

They're all overcome, their eyes glossy, as each of them embraces him. There are introductions — Fazio, Oriana, Marco, David. Renato greets them all with the same warmth, the same pacific expression. Teresa is last, and the rest move away, to give her and Renato this moment alone. Oriana positions herself down the hall and uses her telephoto lens to film.

“
Per carità
, Oriana,” Fazio says, his hand covering her lens. “Is nothing sacred?”

She continues to film, and David thinks about the resulting sequence of a palm, its lifelines and semi-circles. She'll probably weave that into her film.

“Let me be, Papà,” she says. “Besides, there's no sound.”

Teresa and Renato are standing close together, speaking softly, staring intently at one another. First love, David thinks, casting his mind to his own when he was thirteen. She was the daughter of a mezzo-soprano who sang the role of Flora to his mother's Violetta in
La Traviata
. They met backstage, and he recalls three weeks of stolen kisses and tortured bliss before they both moved on to the next country, the next city, the next rehearsal. They exchanged fervent letters, daily at first, then weekly, then monthly, until they lapsed into birthdays and Christmases, and finally, silence.

He steps in front of Oriana's camcorder. “Give them some space,” he says.

She blinks at him, amused, keeps filming.

Teresa and Renato turn, as if suddenly aware they're not alone. She whispers something. He takes her elbow, and they leave together.

“Now see what you've done,” Oriana says. She sets the camcorder on the telephone table in the hall and gives him a disapproving look.

“You need to respect others' feelings,” he says.

She doesn't respond, continues to stare at him until he feels his face flushing.

He goes back to his room, dons his running gear, and slips out, though it's late. Across the street, at the tobacconist, he buys a phone card, then sets off toward the Piazza ai Caduti, where he recalls seeing a phone booth. A procession of cars slowly snakes up the one-way street beside him, in a nightly ritual of seeing and being seen. On the narrow sidewalks — sometimes no more than a couple of feet wide — young men and women saunter past, or stand in the doorways of shops, illuminated by the light emanating through the glass doors, their faces expectant. So much life awaits them. He thinks of his own home, Vancouver, of the disaffected youth roaming the downtown core, their bored expressions, their heads bent forward, staring at the small screens of their cellphones, thumbs texting. What nostalgia to want to return to these rituals, the promenades, the motorcades, the looks, the intense pleasure of anticipation, something that may well still exist in small towns back in Canada.

At the Piazza of the Fallen, a bustle of men smokes and chats on benches, in small groups, while at the periphery, near the market, young girls in twos and threes walk together, arm in arm. He finds the phone booth and dials into his past; Bernette six hours behind. It's early afternoon in Illinois and her voice is chirpy, expectant across the hollow line. “Hello? Hello? David? Is that you?”

“I'll be done in a few days,” he says. “I was thinking I could fly direct to Chicago.” He pauses. “Or we could meet somewhere, if you prefer.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice tinged with alarm. “I thought we were going on holidays.”

He sighs. “We need to talk.”

“So talk.”

He pauses. “We need to talk face-to-face.”

“Since when?” she says, a shrill tone creeping into her voice. “Since when have you ever needed to talk to me face-to-face?”

“Bernette —”

“You're going to dump me,” she says. “And you think doing it face-to-face is going to make it ok?”

“Bernette, please —”

“You bastard!” she says. “You lying bastard!”

“I never lied to you,” he says. “I never promised anything.”

“You said you
loved
me!” And she begins to cry.

“Look,” he says, “can we do this while we're looking at each other?”

“I don't ever want to see you again,” she says. “Don't you ever call me again!”

“Before the undoing, there is always the doing.

“We were all living alternate lives, as if the ones doled out to us were meant for others, as if God had made a series of errors we now had to pay for. Do I believe in God, in Providence, in Fate? I was raised to believe. Look at these saint cards. Given Clarissa's beliefs, I'm sure you don't believe in any of these saints' power to protect against a variety of things. I'm not sure I do either now. These were inserted into small frames on the walls of this bedroom. I took them down, finally, some years ago. St. Flora of Cordoba, St. Maria Bagnesi, St. Gemma Galgani, St. Francis of Assisi, St. John Nepomucene, and Saint Bibiana. None of them protected us from anything, least of all my brother Vito.”

‡
1953. Belisolano, Italy.
I had not seen or spoken to him in two years, not since Tricase, although I knew that he had been living here in Belisolano the past four months. He stood in the
sala d'ingresso
, hat in hand. The chairs were all occupied by townspeople waiting for Sandro's advice, money, signature, interpretation of legal papers, for whatever he could — in his legal capacity — do for them. Vito shifted his weight from foot to foot, flattening himself against a wall. The sombre portraits stared down at him, their mouths set, their eyes unflinching. He brushed something off his jacket sleeve.

I watched him through a sliver of open door, and my heart lurched. Duty, duty, duty. I had seen him across the street, leaning in the tobacconist's doorway, looking up at my window. Why couldn't he go away? Why did he have to taunt me? No one spoke about him, of course, because Papà had forbidden it. I combed my hair and applied fresh lipstick. “Show him in,” I said to Domenica.

“He's not here to see you,” Domenica whispered, head down.

The office door opened, and Sandro came out, hand extended, took Vito's and shook it, walking him into the office. Neither of them saw me. I closed the door and sank into a chair. Why was he here? What had he done now? I took a deep breath, reached for a cigarette on the end table, and lit it. Domenica flitted about the room, in search of an ashtray. She laid it on my lap, under my hand, and skittered to a chair opposite, where she sat, knees together, hands clasped, and watched me as if I were a television program.

I let out a long, irritated sigh, got up, and began pacing. Domenica followed me, the ashtray in her hand.

“Domenica, for the love of God, stop it!” I said.

“Please, excuse me… I'm sorry to be — ” Domenica said.

“For goodness' sake, Domenica, it's all right. There's no need for apology,” I said, my tone a little harder than I meant it to be, but Domenica was driving me to distraction with her constant apologies, her constant meekness. She was a child trapped in the body of a forty-seven-year-old. She hardly spoke, and when she did, it was only in apologies, or to condemn some innocent thing.

I stopped in front of Domenica and stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray, in multiple stabs, during which the hem of my sleeves fell over my forearms, frayed loose threads. “Domenica!” I said immediately. I had been finding my skirts unhemmed as well. “What was the meaning of this?” I held out my arms, ragged-edged sleeves skimming my elbows.

Domenica reached out and tugged them down. “
É peccato
,” she whispered.

“And just what sin is this?” I asked.

“The elbows,” Domenica whispered, as if the word itself could conjure Satan. “You must cover the elbows. It's a sin,” she repeated.

I burst into laughter, and Domenica crossed herself, then scurried off. God might have said the meek will inherit the earth, but I didn't believe it one bit, not if Domenica were any indication. The meek got trampled. If they wanted to survive, they had better grow backbones. Everything was a sin in this house, in this town, my whole life a turning away. I rolled up my sleeves, walked to the common wall between this room and Sandro's office, and put my ear against it. What were they saying? But I heard only a drone of voices, and couldn't even be sure that Vito was still there.

“That's that,” Sandro said later, when Vito had gone. “Your brother will do the right thing this time.” He removed his jacket and laid it over back of the chaise lounge. Then he unclasped his cufflinks, set them on the side table, and began to roll up his sleeves.

“What has he done now?” I asked. I lit a cigarette and sat at the edge of the couch.

“That girl, Teresa,” Sandro said. “It's not enough that Renato compromised her. Now Vito too…”

I fell back into the couch, my heart beating erratically. “What do you mean? What has he done?”

“She's pregnant. He has seduced the poor girl, and now her father has threatened to charge him.”

“She's the one who seduced him,” I cried. “Just like she seduced Renato! Oh, she's a clever one. She couldn't get one brother, so she went after the other.” I suppressed my urge to scream, and went outside on the balcony where I leaned down and deadheaded flowers while I counted to calm myself.

Sandro followed me outside and leaned on the balcony railing, staring out past the roofs of the town, his eyes distant. “Vito has agreed to marry her,” he said. “We will provide a dowry and I'll find him employment. I will speak to your father.” He sighed. “Let's hope that Vito lives up to his responsibilities this time.”

I remained silent. All I could think of was
Teresa and Vito
. How could he do this to me? Oh, how I hated them both! I turned and went into the bedroom; sat on the bed and stared at the macabre memorial to departed saints, who Domenica believed would protect me from harm: on the walls, under glass, paintings of saints with relics pasted into the corners — hair or clothing, or bone fragments — St. Flora of Cordoba, patron saint of abandoned people, St. Maria Bagnesi, patron saint of victims of abuse, and St. Gemma Galgani, purest virgin, who died of consumption when she was twenty-five but was more consumed by the fire of divine love than by her wasting disease; on the dressers, saints stared out from under glass domes: St. Francis of Assisi, birds at his feet and on his shoulders, protector against a solitary death; St. John Nepomucene, protector against indiscretions, who was burned, tied to a wheel and thrown off a bridge into the Moldau River, and for whom, on the night of his death, seven stars hovered over the place where he drowned; and Saint Bibiana, protector against insanity, whose body was scourged and left to the dogs, but none would touch her; on the posts of the bed, rosaries in various sizes and beads of semi-precious stones; and on the wall above the headboard, a crucified Christ, bleeding onto a thick cross. I threw myself face down on the bed. Martyrs. Gruesome lives. This room, a monument to sacrifice.

On a cool, drizzly day in December of 1953,Vito and Teresa were married quietly in Lecce, where Sandro had arranged a job for Vito. None of the family attended the ceremony, Papà's shunning still in place. Soon after, Aldo wrote to say that Renato had left the army and moved to Australia. Although no one mentioned it, I felt they all held me responsible for Renato's unhappiness. Under this guise, I indulged in crying myself into migraine after migraine, welcoming the searing pain, which paled in comparison to the one in my heart. At first, Sandro was sympathetic to my “melancholy.” I went to bed and refused to get up until, finally, one morning, two months after Vito's marriage, Sandro stormed into the bedroom, and drew the shutters so that sunlight filled the room. I shrieked, and pulled the covers over my head.

“That's enough,” Sandro said. “Get up.”

I stayed under the blanket, new tears streaming down my face.

Sandro pulled down the sheets, seized my shoulders and shook me. “Piera! You have to stop this. Renato is an adult and he made the choice to go to Australia,” he said, totally misunderstanding my despair. “You have to respect other people's choices in life.” He paced around the room. “We are all tired of these scenes, Piera. Perhaps it's my fault, because I've spoiled you too much and treated you like a child. But you are
not
a child, and you can't go through life crying at foolish things. There are too many important things to cry about. And you have a duty to me and to your family. This nonsense has to stop.”

We knew nothing of depression back then. Melancholia was a woman's affliction doctors cured with tranquillizers. Somehow, I managed to resume living, but I did so from a dark and bitter space.