The Scent Of Rosa's Oil (15 page)

“Help me, then,” Rosa said.

“This,” Maddalena whispered, caressing the black wig, “is the best wig I have. The hair belonged to a rich woman from Montenegro who washed it every day with chamomile to bring out the shine and jasmine essence to perfume it. It’s so lush no one will ever know it’s not your own hair.”

“Why did she cut it off?” Rosa asked.

Maddalena shrugged. “Rich people do the darnedest things. Now, let’s put it on,” she said, placing the wig on Rosa’s head. She pulled and stretched for a while, then took it off. “No way,” she said. “No wig will fit over your hair. It’s too thick and long.”

From her post next to the stove, Isabel said, “It’s the hair of a goddess.”

With no hesitation, Rosa walked to a shelf and took the long scissors Isabel used to cut the leaves and the stems of the flowers. She handed them to Maddalena. “Cut it.”

“Are you crazy?” Maddalena said, not taking the scissors. “I heard that the last time someone tried to cut your hair you screamed like a stuck pig.”

“Cut it,” Rosa ordered. “I won’t scream.”

In silence, Isabel and Maddalena looked at each other quizzically.

“So?” Rosa insisted, forcing the scissors into Maddalena’s hands.

“I’m not cutting your hair,” Maddalena said firmly, dropping the scissors on the stove as if they were a hot potato.

Rosa turned to Isabel. “What about you?”

Isabel shook her head no.

Crossly, Rosa grabbed the scissors. She grumbled, “Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

Worriedly, Maddalena and Isabel watched Rosa as she separated a strand from the rest of her hair and set the scissor blades about it. As the blades closed in, Rosa pursed her lips. Her eyes became wet as the lifeless strand fell to the floor. “It’s not that bad,” she murmured through her teeth. “Really.” Then she cut a second strand of hair, and two large tears slid down her cheeks.

“She’s doing it!” Isabel said incredulously. “We’d better help her. She looks like she might faint.”

Gently, Maddalena took the scissors from Rosa’s shaking hands. “Of all the silly things you’ve done, Rosa, this must be the silliest. Don’t move till I’m done, or it’ll hurt more.”

The haircut was over ten minutes later, with a pale Rosa staring at the red fluffy pile gathered on the
graniglia
floor. The hair that was left on her barely covered the nape of her neck. “Was it painful?” Maddalena asked gently as Isabel wiped the scissors clean.

Rosa looked at her through teary eyes. “Put the wig on,” she said. “It should fit fine now.”

The following day, Renato and Giacomo walked out of the port at the end of their shift at three in the afternoon. Giacomo said, “Drink?”

“Not today,” Renato replied. “I’m tired.” He waved at Giacomo, who crossed the street headed for the Grifone. Alone, Renato began to walk east along the shoreline. He had hardly taken ten steps when he noticed a beautiful young woman standing on the sidewalk. Her shiny black hair gently brushed her shoulders and her large aquamarine eyes glowed, enhanced by a light gray powder on the eyelids. He was entranced by the way her eyes changed colors. They were blue one moment, green the next. She smiled at him, and when he passed by her, she dropped a handkerchief to the ground. Immediately, Renato bent down. At the moment he picked up the handkerchief, his heart skipped a beat. It was that fragrance again, the one he had smelled outside the Grifone, and it was in the handkerchief, making his head spin and his legs weak.

“Thank you,” Rosa said, taking the handkerchief from his hands.

“What’s your name?” he asked in a quivery voice.

“Tramonto.”

He smiled. “I never met anyone named Tramonto.”

“My mother named me that,” Rosa explained, “because while she was pregnant with me she liked to sit on the steps of our house and watch the sun set behind a hill. Are you all right?” she asked, seeing that Renato was pale and there were tiny sweat drops on his forehead.

“I’m fine,” he said weakly. “Would you like to…take a walk with me?”

She smiled at him coquettishly. “I don’t go places with strangers. How do I know that I can trust you?”

“I’m a nice guy.” He smiled back. “Ask around.”

“Let’s go watch the ships,” she said. “It’s my favorite pastime. Do you like ships?”

“I do when I don’t have to be on them.”

“Have you been on a ship?” Rosa asked as they started to walk.

“A small one. When I was a boy my parents took me to some island. They thought it’d be fun.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Halfway to the island, we ran into a storm,” Renato said, “with howling winds and big waves. I was so sick and scared, I swore to myself I would not set foot on anything that floats ever again. But I had to, three days later, to come back from the island. The sea was calm then, but I remember shaking the whole time. I couldn’t stop crying, not even after I was safe on the pier.”

“That’s too bad,” Rosa said. “I always thought that roaming the waters on a ship would be a lot of fun. I have been dreaming of it since I was a child.”

“I have been dreaming of meeting someone like you since I was a child,” Renato said, looking her in the eyes.

Near the access to the busy and crowded Ponte Spinola, watching the moored cargo ships, Renato and Rosa talked a long time. He told her about his job at the warehouse and about the fight he was leading against the greed of the shipowners. “Ten years ago,” he said, “in nineteen hundred, there was a big strike in Genoa. I was in high school at the time. I’ll always remember the clamor and the articles in the newspapers. It was almost Christmastime. I was amazed at how many people came together to fight for a common cause. I thought it was beautiful. Someday, I told myself, I was going to be part of it.” He paused. “Life should be fair to everyone.”

Rosa whispered, “Hasn’t been fair to me so far.”

“Why?”

“I can’t complain too much, though,” Rosa said. “I have good friends.”

Renato nodded. “Friends are important. My best friend is Giacomo. We met when I first started to work at the warehouse. He’s also interested in politics. We are like brothers. We both like to help people.”

“I like the fact that you help people,” Rosa said.

“Some of the older longshoremen,” Renato explained, “worked so hard for so many years and have nothing. They deserve better treatment after giving their lives to the shipping companies. I look out for them. Sometimes they seem so tired I think they might suddenly drop dead.”

“I know an older longshoreman,” Rosa said, “who goes around telling lies about people and hurting them for no reason.”

Renato looked at her inquisitively.

“I guess not everyone is good at heart,” she said.

“True,” Renato said. “But you can’t worry about other people being good or bad. To me, the only thing that matters is that I do something good for the people, especially for those who don’t have the strength to stand up for their rights. It feels good. They look at me as their hero.”

“I have a hero, too,” Rosa said. “My mother. She was beautiful. She had long red hair. She’s buried on the hill behind our house, so she can still watch the sunsets every night.”

“Tell me the story of your life,” Renato said.

“I was born into a family of Gypsies,” Rosa recounted after a moment of reflection, “who traveled the world right and left. My parents stopped traveling shortly before I was born.” Straight-faced, she continued on with a made-up story that was a mix of Isabel’s, Antonia’s, Margherita’s, Maddalena’s, and Stella’s lives. “We lived not too far from Genoa, on the coast across from the Gallinara Island, in the house that had the hill behind. My father was killed in a fight, so my mother and I were left alone. My mother knew all along this would happen because she could read the future with the cards and with two sachets filled with sand. She loved to read me poetry aloud. Together, we made necklaces with brown and black beans and we sold them at the market once a week. Then my mother died, and I came to Genoa. By myself.” She sighed. “I haven’t been back to the house by the hill in a long time.” She looked at him and smiled. “And you? Where were you born?”

“In Genoa, close to the port, in a house on Salita Santa Croce. Five years ago my parents moved to Marassi, a different part of town. I never see them, mostly because they don’t want to see me. They wanted me to be a lawyer.”

“Tell me about school,” Rosa said. “Did you like it?”

“A lot. I guess because I like to learn things. I went to a
liceo
and then to the university for one year, studying philosophy. That’s when I discovered who I really am. I read books written by the French utopists and by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, and many articles that talked about making people equal and giving everyone a chance. I read the
Communist Manifesto
at least ten times. I decided I had to do something to make those ideas become real. So I attended a few meetings of the Socialist Party, but was disappointed right away.”

“Why?” Rosa asked, confused.

“They promoted violence as the weapon of choice for the working class, and violence is one thing I won’t endorse or condone. And the party leaders were intellectual bourgeois who had no idea what it means to be part of the proletariat and be exploited. I grew tired of their long-winded, evasive speeches and made up my mind that I was going to fight within the working class, using the two weapons I believe in most: unity and strike. I quit the university, went to work at the warehouses, and joined the labor union. My parents were distraught, but the warehouses are the only place where I feel at home.”

“It’s good to have a place where you feel at home,” Rosa said, having a hard time following the details of a speech filled with so many unfamiliar words.

“Do you have one, Tramonto?”

Rosa pondered a moment. “I do now.”

“I must ask you,” Renato said, “what’s the perfume in your handkerchief?”

“A friend of mine gave me that perfume,” Rosa said. “It’s a mix of apple blossoms, lavender, basil, and a fourth ingredient my friend couldn’t remember. Do you like it?”

“When I smell it,” Renato said, “I feel like I’m entering paradise.” He looked her in the eyes. “I smelled it once before, in front of the Grifone. Do you go there?”

Rosa shook her head. “I pass by Piazza Banchi sometimes. The wind must have brought it to you.”

“There was a breeze that day,” Renato said, continuing to stare into Rosa’s eyes. He stopped talking, then took Rosa’s face in his hands and pulled her close.

Rosa closed her eyes, her cheeks flushed by a sudden heat, not knowing if the fluttering in her heart was excitement or fear. Then Renato’s lips touched hers, and she surrendered to him, savoring his soft, moist skin for a long moment. As he kept rubbing his lips against hers, she felt her whole body become light and float above the ground, as if she were riding a cloud. She had no idea of where she was and why. A flock of white and gray seagulls landed nearby, tucking in their large wings, protruding their webbed feet. Their squawking brought Rosa back to earth. She stepped back, her breathing fast, eyes open wide. “I h-ave to g-o,” she stuttered.

“Wait,” he said. “Where do you live? How do I find you?”

“I’ll find you,” she yelled, as she ran away from Renato along the pier, in the direction of the crowded street. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

“I work the evening shift tomorrow,” he yelled back. “I’ll be off at nine.”

In the morning, at the stall, all Rosa did was give people explanations. “I was tired of combing it,” she’d say to the stunned customers and shopkeepers, who were used to the red waterfall of her hair. “This,” she’d say pulling on the tips that barely covered the nape of her neck, “is so much easier to untangle and wash.”

“What an insane thing I did,” Maddalena had said after she had performed the operation.

“He must be someone very special,” Isabel had commented in her usual wise way, “for you to be doing this to yourself.”

“He who?” Maddalena had asked.

“No one,” Rosa had said, frowning at Isabel when Maddalena couldn’t see.

Caught up in her oil demonstrations and explanations about her hair, she almost missed Renato when he showed up at the Grifone at noon. She decided to test him on her disguise and waited by the bar door for him to come back outside. “Hi,” she said.

He looked at her with a half smile. “Haircut?” he mumbled, then headed for the port, mingling with the crowd of workers, sailors, and passersby.

At nine in the evening, in her disguise, her skin softened and scented by her perfect oil, Rosa arrived at the port entrance. It was dark, but she knew instinctively that he was there. It was the end of the last shift, and all the longshoremen were leaving. She felt a hand stroke her back, and her legs quivered as she turned around and saw him. He was holding a red rose. Without a word, he grabbed her around the waist and kissed her on the cheek. “I have been thinking of you all night,” he whispered in her ear, “and all day long as well. This is for you.” He handed her the rose.

She brought it to her face. “It smells beautiful. Thank you.”

“Where would you like to go?” he asked.

Rosa pondered a moment. “There’s a place I’d like to see. It’s a belvedere up on the hills. I was there once during daytime and it was beautiful. I have been wondering what the view would be like at night.”

“I know the place,” Renato said. “Let’s go.” He signaled an empty carriage that was passing by.

In her seat, Rosa cuddled up next to Renato, and he held her in his arms with gentleness, breathing in the smell of her, moved by the light build of her bones. As the carriage moved along the quiet streets, enveloped in the warmth of Renato’s strong body, holding the red rose against her heart, Rosa thought back on the ride she had taken months earlier with Madam C, amazed at how much her life had changed since the day the two of them had gone to the hills to pick flowers.

In the carriage, Renato and Rosa didn’t move or speak, lulled by the movement of the horse and by the beauty of the starlit sky. At the belvedere, they stood at the edge of the piazza, breathless at the sight of the city at night. The glow of the streetlights rose toward the sky in a yellow smoke, and the moon cast its golden reflection on the sea.