A Roman Rhapsody

by Sara Alexander

  Alba felt her eyes sting with tears she refused to let fall.

  “I’d pay you back,” Alba whispered.

  “I know you would. I don’t think I can buy your ticket, Alba, send your parents’ girl away like that. This has to be your decision. All the way.”

  * * *

  The next day Alba begged Mario’s father, Gigi, to give her extra shifts on the pump. She nagged him to let her work through lunch even though there were no customers, asking to sort parts ahead of the next day, clean some of the ones brought in for repair, any little extra he would allow her to do.

  “Why all the hours, Alba? I’m not expecting you to pay for your own wedding, you know that, right?” Bruno joked, loud enough for Gigi to hear and be forced to laugh.

  “Your father’s right, Alba. You look exhausted.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, trying to suffocate the panic bubbling.

  “You can today, but then I reduce the shifts. Doesn’t look right, a girl on the pump.”

  Alba knew better than to start an argument then and there. Once her father left, she would convince Gigi by herself. She watched Bruno walk away and headed straight for the pump. Mario was already standing there.

  “Go home,” Alba called out, “your dad’s put me on today.”

  “Says who?”

  “Who does it look like?”

  Gigi stepped out of the showroom with a fresh cloth for Alba. “I told you about the shift change, son.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I’m not going to argue. You’re on the late shifts.”

  Gigi turned and walked back inside.

  “What the hell has got into you, Alba? You hate the pumps, you hate me, now you’re like some kind of gas junkie. Anyways, shouldn’t you be looking after your piano fingers? Lots of accidents can happen around here if you’re not careful.”

  Alba willed herself to ignore the snarl creasing his lips, but it was impossible. Another day she might have smacked the nozzle she was cleaning over him. She was desperate to save up enough for the fare to Rome. If she carried on at this rate, she still wouldn’t make it. That’s when her expression gave away more than she would have liked.

  “Someone told me they’d heard you were going to that fancy music school anyways. What you hanging around here for?”

  “Shut up!”

  “I won’t as it happens, because I know you’re not going to lose it here.”

  A car pulled up much to Alba’s relief. The driver rolled down the window and she set to work filling the tank, offering a clean of the windscreen too, which didn’t interest the driver until Mario piped in with his patter and convinced him of a quick clean wash. He paid Alba, handed her a five thousand lire tip, and drove off.

  “Fifty-fifty, right?” Mario asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re desperate for money and I don’t know why, but I’m enjoying the look of desperation on your face.”

  Alba felt anger surge through her bones.

  They worked in brittle unison for the next two weeks, sometimes even through the lunch hours to catch the odd stray traveler or commuter returning to town for lunch and siesta. Tiredness crept around Alba, tightening like a vine, but she charged on because the alternative was incomprehensible. Dizzy from the heat and lack of sleep she slammed the pump back into its slot and caught the tip of her finger. Blood spurted out. Panic bolted through her as she examined the tip, then unexpected tears followed. Mario came over to her.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Nothing!” she spat.

  “You bleeding?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  He left and returned with a crushed clump of toilet tissue and threw it at her.

  “Don’t thank me,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  She blotted her hand and watched the droplets spread along the fibers. When she saw the cut looked superficial, her panicked tears became those of relief, and then smarting embarrassment. She tightened the knot of tissue.

  “You look like crap. Go inside and clean up before your dad thinks I did it.”

  “I’m fine,” she managed, just before more tears fought their way out. The tarmac heated underfoot; she longed for it to become molten so she’d be swallowed inside.

  Bruno walked across the forecourt. He looked down at his daughter’s hand.

  “Get home, Alba.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re a mess. Get home. Now.”

  Alba refused to look at Mario’s victorious expression. She walked over to her dad. “Please let me stay,” she begged under her breath so Mario wouldn’t hear. “I’ll be more careful. The customers like me. I’m doing well.”

  Bruno leaned in. She could smell aqua vitae on his breath. “Be happy we’re not at home so my hands can’t say what they’d like. If I say go home, you go home. You want to work? You’ve got to listen to your boss. You barely know what you’re doing inside in the office. I’m not having any child of mine make a fool of me outside too. Do you get that into your thick skull? Walk with me to the car. Now.”

  Alba felt his hand on her elbow, pressing harder than he needed. He slammed the door after her. Alba could picture Mario’s face now. They stepped into the cool of the house, Alba’s face oil-smeared, her overalls damp with gas stains, her hands still smelling of the metal pump.

  “O Dio, look at the state of you, go and get clean, child!” Giovanna yelled.

  “And don’t come down until we’ve finished lunch!” Bruno added.

  Alba shot a look to her father.

  “You heard! You should have seen the way I had to drag her away, Giovanna. Talking to me like I’m some idiot. You think that’s alright, do you?”

  “I just want to work!” Alba blurted.

  “Why? You have a house! You’ll have a rich husband soon enough once he graduates with his finance degree. What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing is wrong, Bruno,” Giovanna interrupted. He swung back to her so fast Alba almost didn’t see him take his hand to her face. “Shut up! The girl is not right. Never has been!” He switched back to his daughter. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to save up to get the hell out of here!”

  “That’s crazy,” Giovanna whimpered, her cheek red, “she’s going to be a good girl now, aren’t you, Alba? Everything is planned out.” Her begging descended into sobs. Bruno grabbed her chin. “I told you quiet!”

  Alba lunged at him. “Let go of her!”

  He swiped back, pushing Alba against the wall.

  “If I find out you are lying to me,” he spat, pressing his thumbs either side of her clavicle so deep it made it hard to breathe, “if I get even a sniff of that being the reason you’re so desperate for money, you will not be my daughter any longer. You hear me?” He gave her a shunt and she felt the wall hit the back of her head. Alba fought the ferocity of her tears, the red heat of anger cramping her chest. When he pointed toward the stairs, she did what he asked because her bones ached, because she craved solitude, because the thought of her dream being bullied away from her made life one she couldn’t trust herself to bear.

  * * *

  The next day Raffaele came into the officina during her morning shift at the spare parts counter. On her break they scurried to the bar next door and ordered a couple of espressos.

  “You look awful,” he said, dipping into a concerned whisper. “What’s happened?”

  “My dad knows.”

  Raffaele blushed.

  “What did he say?”

  “More what he did. Or threatened to.” Her eyes filled with angry tears. “I’m working like a slave up here, Ra’, but I’m never going to have enough. He’s forced Gigi to cut my shifts. Doesn’t want me on the pump. I’ve only got a few days before I have to get to Rome. I’m falling apart, Ra’.”

  Raffaele hugged her. “Meet me at the cemetery this evening after you close up.”

  Alba’s eyebrow raised.

/>   “It’s the only place I thought your ma would let you go without her. Signora Elias asked me to get you the message.”

  Alba’s eyes stung with salty excitement.

  * * *

  Raffaele was right. Giovanna let Alba leave without a second glance. She even gave her some coins for fresh flowers. Bruno’s mother was laid to rest in a tomb that since her death had been developed into a small but elaborate house, an ornate iron gate to match, angels swooping with grief on either side and within, a minute chapel with glass candleholders. Alba lay the yellow chrysanthemums inside. They sprouted in hapless angles out of the heavy glass vase.

  “Glad you’re keeping up the charade to its potential, Alba.”

  “Swallowing my guilt,” she replied, the iron gate creaking closed.

  “Follow me,” he said, leading them down the central aisle of the walled cemetery toward a far gate that opened onto a patch of unattended grass. Signora Elias sat in her car parked in the shade of the wall. Raffaele opened the door. They both got in.

  “Well done, Raffaele,” Signora Elias began, “have you got the envelope?”

  He nodded and pulled it out of his leather satchel. Before Alba could speak Signora Elias ploughed on, “Alba, here is a ticket for the crossing to Civitavecchia. Raffaele has helped you with the balance you need to afford it.”

  Alba felt her face blanch with disbelief and excitement.

  “How?”

  “No time for questions just now, Alba. We can’t stay here long. Talk to him about it once I’ve left, yes? This ticket is for this Friday. There’s enough there for the train to Rome’s Termini station, and the rest will see you fed and watered for a few weeks, until you find a small job to support you beyond the tuition and lodging that the conservatorio has arranged. Celeste will meet you at Rome Termini at the end of platform two, which is where the trains from Civitavecchia pull in. She estimates that you will catch the eleven a.m. train from the port and arrive with her in time for lunch. I understand this will all come as a bit of a shock. Time is of the essence. You cannot wait another week or your offer will be withdrawn. You know this. I know the hell you have been through these past weeks. Simply getting a message to you was difficult enough, let alone buying a crossing ticket without news of the fact reaching your mother and father. You’ve worked hard for this, and your friend has been your angel. I know you want this more than you’ll ever be able to describe.”

  Alba nodded, determined that her tears fall ignored.

  “There is a paper with her number and mine. Everything you might need.”

  Alba smiled and felt her cheeks become wet.

  “You have a very special friend here. I don’t know what we would have done without him.”

  “I won’t take all the credit,” Raffaele whispered from the back seat, his face scarlet.

  “I will meet you here on Friday at this hour. It will give us enough time to reach Porto Torres for your night crossing.”

  Alba forced a breath. “I don’t know what to say. You’re giving me my life, Signora.”

  “And you mine, Alba. Don’t dwell on me now. This is about what you want.”

  “How do I thank you for all this?”

  Her eyes twinkled with irrepressible joy. “You already have, tesoro.”

  Raffaele glanced at his watch. “We’d better go, if you’re here too long they’ll get suspicious.” Alba kissed Signora Elias on both cheeks and cranked open her door. They watched her maneuver over the grass and turn back toward the town.

  Alba couldn’t decide if it was the light, the danger, or Signora Elias, but Raffaele stood taller just now, like he’d conquered a mountain and was surveying his land below.

  * * *

  On August 11th Alba Fresu boarded the Tirrenia line ship for Civitavecchia. Raffaele point-blank refused to say how he’d got the money, but assured her he hadn’t stolen it, nor begged for it and that it hadn’t been Signora Elias to foot the bill, of that he needed her to be clear. Alba sepulchred the memory of her father announcing she was no longer his daughter if she entertained any further the idea of leaving. She let her brothers’ final insistence that she was making the biggest mistake of her life lift like dying leaves on the wind. She blocked out the pictured of Bruno slamming the door closed in front of her, blocking her inside, the way he lunged at his wife for not controlling his daughter, and how Alba used that as her chance to run out. She thought only of the way Signora Elias’s face had crinkled into the easy joy of youth, explaining that sometimes life shunts people to a fork in the roads, forcing them to listen to the muffled little voice that always knows which way their compass points. She held on to the feeling of her best friend wrapped around her, trying to swallow his tears and failing, muttering promises of visiting, writing, protecting their getaway plan. She felt his clammy fingers in hers, the quiet insecurity within the tiny beads of sweat upon their palms. Alba took a last look at her island, the port of Porto Torres and its primary jagged freight-stained noise around her. The people saying their last farewells, others leaving their lives behind for another, or returning to reality from their island escape. She heard the memory of her mother’s wooden rosary beads click-clack against one another. Her prayers would not be answered. All these pictures rose like a mid-measure swell, a crescendo exploding toward an unexpected space, a measure of expectant silence before the orchestra sings riotous life. Alba hung in that soundless place for as long as she could, as the ship pulled away from the turquoise bay, as her family became an ever-decreasing haze, disappearing into a past she decided was no longer hers.

  II Movimento

  9

  Sostenuto

  a very legato style in which the notes are performed in a sustained manner beyond their normal values

  The huge wooden doors of Santa Cecilia on the narrow Via dei Greci were opened and a river of new students flowed through. Alba pressed into the center of the crowd, listening to the reverberating nervous voices, trying to quash the sensation that everyone knew one another and none felt the same fizz of disorienting terror and excitement as she did. The throng wove on through the courtyard just beyond the doors, the grass stretching the length of the open space, fruit trees in enormous pots at regular intervals providing sporadic branching shade.

  “You a starter too?” a girl asked her.

  She turned toward the voice, her face a sun, lit from the white light above and luminous with uncorked enthusiasm. Alba nodded, blinded by the young woman’s unrestrained effervescence.

  “I am a total mess,” she flapped, before Alba could answer. “I’ve worked all my life to be here, now it’s actually here I think I can hardly remember how to breathe, let alone play, right?”

  Alba smiled, noticing the way the rays played upon the rainbow of tiny beads dancing down from this girl’s ears. Her neck was adorned with worn leather strips aching with the weight of several crystals wrapped in fine wire, projecting purple and orange citrine light upon her chest.

  “I’m Natalia. My parents named me after a Russian violinist. Sort of mapped out my life from day one, I guess. Do you believe in all that predestination stuff?”

  Alba swallowed, trying to comprehend how to mirror this stranger’s effortless dip into conversation, as if she was watching her step into a warm sea.

  “Not sure,” Alba mumbled.

  Natalia stretched out her hand. “I didn’t catch your name, sorry. Should have asked before. I trip into the middle of thoughts all the time. Rude, I know. It’s a compulsion. I’m rubbish at the order of things. All the how-do-you-dos and don’ts feel so dull, don’t you think? I like to jump into the middle of people. Your eyes are amazing. Where are you from?”

  “Sardinia.”

  Natalia took in a sharp breath and let out a warm sigh of pleasure. Several students ahead of them turned to see who was expressing at great volume.

  “Only my family’s favorite place in the world! We camp there most summers. The most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Serious
. Oh God, what’s happening now?”

  Natalia’s attention was directed to the bottleneck ahead.

  “I guess we’re having the talk first, then they’re dividing us up into some smaller groups. That’s what my brother’s friend told me. He studied here too. Gave me the lowdown. I hope I’m in your group. We have small study groups of mixed majors, you know, then we split into our personal timetables. I didn’t catch your name?”

  “Alba.”

  “Sunrise. That’s so beautiful.”

  Alba felt Natalia’s gaze penetrate a little too deep. Her abrupt intense stillness was unnerving, a sudden dam to halt her determined cascade of words and scissoring thoughts. Her attention diverted away just as quickly when another student waved across the throng to her.

  “I’ll catch you later, Sunrise!” she called out, swerving around instrument cases perched on the backs of the students ahead to reach her friend.

  The students filed into the main hall, taking tentative seats upon the red velvet hinged chairs, expectant faces toward the stage at the far end where the silver pipes of the organ dominated the entire back of the stage rising toward the high ceiling. Alba gazed up at the heavy ornate squares of cornices and rosettes above, then traced the balcony that ran the length of the long narrow auditorium lined with fat white balustrades and giant swirls of stone supports below. It was like church, not only the palette of colors, the stony air, the marble and gilt presentation, but the same lofty feel, a space that had once sung with music. Instead of a dying man before her though, bleeding for mankind upon a cross, Alba saw an empty performance space, dominated by a full-size grand piano gleaming its open onyx lid like a languid invitation. Her body scored with white light.

  A file of teachers walked onto the stage and took seats in the arc of chairs laid out in front of the piano. Alba spied Celeste at the center amongst the others who surveyed the crowd with dour eagle-eyed precision. She replayed their warm greeting earlier, a beam amongst the stone modernist anonymity of Termini station, so welcoming after the long, rough crossing, seated upon a brown velveteen chair, the memory of stale smoke in the air and waves of rosary intoned in her periphery by older, God-fearing grandmothers. She thought about the light bowl of spaghettini Celeste had prepared for her in her apartment before taking her to her new landlady. Her new home was a perfect cloister of white-walled solitude; a single bed, a long window with shutters that opened up onto a breathtaking view of the aqueduct that stretched out of the suburb of Lodi. Her landlady, Anna, greeted her with warmth but a cool businesslike handshake, reassuring Alba that she didn’t have plans to become her second mother. Alba’s bed was clean and comfortable, but sleep, that first night, had eluded her. She’d been awake to watch the dawn, the ancient stones of the aqueduct dipping red, orange, then tan, as the sun stretched its rays. The electric anticipation of her first day tingled through her.