“Thank you very much,” said Randall shyly, and stood by listening as John told her his name, though she had asked the question of Randall. She broke into a smile as the boy spoke and exclaimed, “But he understands Italian!”
“A little,” said Randall, and explained in a few words about the ship.
“He must be intelligent.” She studied John’s face. “He is—what? Not quite three years old?”
“In four mouths.” He did not know how much she knew.
“John,” she said phonetically, shaking her head a little. “That is Giovanni, is it not?”
“Yes, Signora.”
“Who chose San Giovanni?”
Randall was nonplussed. Here was a whole aspect of life with its imminent impact upon John which in his preoccupation with everything else, he had never thought about. He realized now its supreme importance to these people here. He was afraid to answer, unwilling to say the wrong thing.
“John was my father’s name, Signora. I—”
“But San Giovanni is a saint, first.” She looked suspicious. “When was he baptized?”
Randall was not perfectly sure of the word battezzato, but he guessed at it. My God, he thought, how is it possible this question never entered my head before? How can I tell her I don’t know? What does she know about Renata’s actions beyond the fact that she had this child? Randall did not want to prejudice the aunt. He decided to take refuge for the moment in simulated confusion about the language. He said, stumbling over his words, “Signora, there are so many things to talk about, many important things like this. Perhaps a little later, when your son—when I can—” he broke off.
Zia Paola got to her feet, not very well satisfied as he could see. “I must start the polenta,” she said uneasily, and then stood listening to the sound that Randall also heard, the clattering of wooden clogs on the stairway. Her face had turned tense, her mouth was closed hard, and John, who had begun to take to her quite cosily, turned to Randall with a puzzled look on his face. Randall was standing there wondering what had happened, whether his pretense about misunderstanding Italian had not only failed, but had offended her. He was thinking about her, and not about the footsteps which rattled along the passage, coming closer. Then the door opened. He was stunned. Without volition his astounded eyes stopped short of the face, and took in first a long black skirt, a coarse grey blouse, a little knitted shawl. Then and only then did he look up straight into the face of Renata Tosi. She stood enormous-eyed, dead-white, bent a little forward, staring at John. She was holding a straw bag in her right hand and he saw the hand tense until the tendons swelled. Her mouth opened, she dropped the bag, he saw her pale lips form the syllables: mio bambino. She fell on her knees with her arms round John, holding him in a vise of an embrace with her face buried in his neck. Randall heard her weeping. He turned aside, almost equally overcome himself. He covered his eyes with one hand, not only to avoid the heartrending sight of Renata and the portentous scrutiny of the old woman over by the stove; he was utterly bewildered. He stood trying to fight down the turmoil which catapulted through him. He was beyond thinking, torn in mind, aware only of his enormous blindness in not having foreseen this. When he could think at all, he asked himself how this could never have occurred to him. I never once imagined she could be here. She went to South America, I always thought she stayed there. Why? My God, his mind went round in a circle; my God, why didn’t I think of this, what have I done? What have I done …
He had to raise his head then because John was asking, “Who is it, Uncle Ran? Who is this lady?”
Renata Tosi knelt with her arms tight round the child, looking up at Randall with tears running down her white face. No particle of his memory could find a parallel for the way she looked now. The features were the same, the deep dark eyes beautiful behind the tears; but she was a different woman.
“You brought him,” she said in Italian. “You brought him.” She raised one hand in an unconscious gesture; it might have been pleading. “May God bless you,” she said. She laid her pale cheek against John’s fat red one. “God bless you, my friend.”
“But who is she, Uncle Ran?” John’s piping voice pierced the solemnity. He seemed content with her embraces, but his little face was puzzled. The aunt stood in the corner watching; her face was expressionless but Randall heard a telltale sniffle. Randall put his hand for a moment on John’s head. He looked hard at Renata Tosi.
“She is your aunt, John,” he said slowly. “Your Italian aunt.” Her eyes widened in surprise, he saw what went through her mind. “Tell him, Renata,” said Randall. She bowed her head slightly with a suggestion of obedience.
“Zia Renata,” she said tenderly to John. She spoke in Italian; she looked at him with adoration, and told him to repeat her name.
“Zia Renata,” he said, with his usual interest in anything new, and she wept again and covered his forehead with kisses. When Randall looked at the old woman, she was standing there with a frown on her face, squinting. She might as well have asked aloud what was in Randall’s mind, what did he mean? Why start off by telling the boy that his mother was his aunt? Randall gave Zia Paola a meaning look which conveyed clearly, “I knew nothing. It was you I came to see.”
She turned to her cooking. She had a hot fire burning now. Renata was still kneeling with her left arm round John. Her right hand caressed his cheek and brushed the curls back from his forehead. Zia Paola came across the room, carrying her empty iron pot; she had been on her way to fetch water when she encountered Randall on the steps. Renata started to rise and take the pot, but her aunt waved her back and went on out of the room. Randall stood and watched Renata. Her tears had stopped and she was gazing with delight at John. She smiled once tremulously at Randall, raising her head, and as she did so her glance fell on the calendar on the wall. The renewed color drained from her cheeks. Once again she turned perfectly white, her mouth opened wide, she stared as if at something altogether extraordinary, which nobody else could see. She pointed, trembling, at the calendar; then she crossed herself slowly and bowed her head and began to weep again. Randall was mystified. He waited; John started to squirm with impatience; Renata said nothing. At last Randall asked, “What is it, Renata? What do you mean?”
She looked up, kneeling there, and crossed her hands on her breast with unaffected sincerity. “It is a miracle,” she said quietly in Italian. “A true miracle.”
“But why? How?”
She kept her eyes on the calendar and said, “Today is San Sebastiano. The twentieth of January. You could not know—” she blushed with shame and hung her head and whispered, “That is the name I chose when he was baptized.”
“You had him baptized, Renata?” Randall did not know, and for some reason also did not care, how much John could understand of this. “But of course, yes.” She spoke quickly. He had always understood her when she spoke Italian, his feeling for her had filled what might have been gaps in his understanding of anyone else. “You could not know,” she said, her head still bent. “But you should have guessed. Already so deep in sin, I could not imagine how I could ever atone. But one sin I need not commit—allow his immortal soul to be lost? No, of course I had him baptized.”
“Why didn’t you—” he broke off. He could not bring himself to refer to the note in the basket.
She shook her head a little. “The name was not the most important thing. He would be American. I—” she made a gesture which meant, “I left everything to you.” She had been right, he thought. Suppose she had told him the Italian name she had chosen; would he have paid any attention to it? Not any more than he would have consented in the beginning to raise the child as a Catholic. She had been realistic and knowing and consistent; she had always been so.
John had left her side, tired of standing still, and had begun to trot round the room, examining everything within his reach. Renata still knelt there, genuinely unconscious of the saintly picture she made. Randall was touched by it, but baffled when he tried
to relate her to the woman he had last seen. There was no time for questions now, he knew her aunt would return in a moment. He only said, because other questions of greater urgency would require more time and more thought and more privacy, “Why did you choose the name Sebastiano?”
She smiled a little. “It was always my favorite name. I like it because it is so musical, so harmonious. But how could I know it would be the miracle that would bring him here? You do understand what I mean? To me this is—” she broke off, shaking her head with wonderment. Then she said, a complete afterthought, “But what have you called him?”
“John. And it would be difficult to change now, to explain to him.”
“That is unnecessary. He is used to it. Let him be called Giovanni, John—here they will call him Giu’an in the dialect. But his baptismal name is Sebastiano. Thank God,” she said softly. She rose to her feet. She had spoken with such simple conviction that there was no question in Randall’s mind of differing with her. Although he was confused about every aspect of this situation into which he had blundered, he felt an instinct that it would be best to let these questions take the direction in which she had—innocently or wisely—set them. She had not spoken a word of English and perhaps in that too she had known the right thing to do.
She began to take things out of the bag that she had carried in. She said, “We must hurry, we should not be late with dinner.”
Randall realized that he still had his overcoat on. He took it off slowly, looking round the primitive kitchen. He asked softly, “Do you stay—do you live here, Renata?”
She pointed to the cot in the corner. “I sleep there. This kitchen belongs to my uncle and Zia Paola. They have two other rooms along this passage. In one they sleep, in the other my cousins, their two youngest sons. All the rest are married.”
Randall was afraid to talk any more, he was listening for Zia Paola’s return. His thoughts were a turmoil, everything had been swept from his hands by this wildly unexpected ending to the journey whose purpose from the first had been, he saw now, much too vague. He could not see beyond the next minutes, beyond the aunt’s return; all he could think was, “What have I done? What have I done!” He folded his overcoat slowly and laid it with his hat beside John’s coat on the end of the cot. He looked at Renata with such visible bewilderment, sweeping the room and her plain poor clothes with his eye, that she said, “I will tell you later, another time. Now my aunt—”
“How much does she know?” he asked. “Did she—does she—”
“They all know,” she said quietly. She looked at John, who was standing at the window watching something outside. “They have not been pleased with me. But they will love him. I told you long ago, they are good. Such people are not confused.”
Zia Paola came in. She carried her pot and a metal milk can. She said something to Renata in dialect which Randall did not understand. Renata smiled and said to Randall, “She says we will cook the polenta in milk today because it is a special occasion, also it is good for the boy. Later I will tell her what a special occasion it really is. She will be moved.”
John turned from the window and stood on tiptoe by the table and peered at the things on it. Zia Paola smiled at him, saying, “He is hungry, he has a good appetite.” She sliced a heel off the round crusty loaf and offered it to him.
“Grazie,” said the child gravely, and the woman bent down and kissed him delightedly. Randall was uncomfortable; he should be relieved, but he found himself troubled by her unquestioning acceptance of the boy. It did not seem even so pliant a thing as acceptance, it more resembled seizure. Love any or all children as she might, he knew she regarded this one as her own flesh and blood. He was uneasy. He had given neither her nor Renata any reason to suppose that he had come here to hand over the child. He wanted to warn them right now not to think so. He wanted to invoke Renata’s help, and he saw that in Zia Paola’s presence, from every motive of discretion he must keep a wall between himself and Renata. Then suddenly, in utter consternation, he saw the most appalling thing of all. The aunt knows none of the story behind this. She can suppose nothing except that I am John’s father and have brought him here because I am unequal to taking care of him by myself. He felt the sweat breaking out on his forehead and the palms of his hands, he was quavering inwardly with nervousness. He told himself he must stop any such misapprehension right now, before it was too late. He bit his lips and swallowed and said, “Renata.”
“How?” She turned and looked at him. For the first time he caught in her face something of the vivid expressiveness which in the past had held him fascinated, had kept him watching every mood of her deep-set eyes under their level brows, every angle of her fine high-bridged nose whose slanting nostrils had spelt mischief like the smiling curves of her wide mouth, now closed so firmly that in this strange moment he knew one certainty which she would not have to tell him. She no longer sang. How he knew this he could not tell, nor whether she was silent from choice or because she had lost her voice. Why else, he asked himself, looking at her peasant’s clothes, her hand stirring the polenta with a curiously-shaped wooden paddle, would she be here? She was looking over her shoulder at him, her arm working the paddle in a slow steady rhythm. “How?” she asked again; “com’è?”
“Would you,” he said uneasily, speaking English. “Renata—would you please explain something to your aunt?” He gave her a kind of smile which was meant to be reassuring, but this was difficult because he felt so nearly helpless himself. “All this, you see, is so unexpected. I didn’t realize—I wasn’t sure—just who I would find here.” He thought for a moment and said quite flatly, “I didn’t expect to find you. But I came because I wanted to see your people and talk to somebody here.”
“You must have had a reason,” she said in Italian.
“It was very difficult in New York. I had to take him away. This isn’t the time to talk about that. I just want all of you here to know I haven’t made any decisions about anything. This is a visit, do you see?”
She nodded, sighing.
“I’m awfully grateful to your aunt.” Randall’s face was solemn; drawn. “She’s been so good. I wish you’d explain to her.”
Renata told her aunt quickly, in dialect. Zia Paola frowned a little, perhaps more puzzled than annoyed. So long as this had appeared to her a clear-cut situation she had reacted directly and naturally, in spite of her original hesitation. Now if it were going to become clouded or complicated she would be less approving. But, with her eyes on John happily munching his bread, she said in Italian, “In any case, it is almost midday and you will eat with us, you and Giovanni. Afterwards—?”
“Where would you go after dinner?” asked Renata. “From where did you come this morning?”
“From Bellagio. I have a room in the small hotel there, the one that is open all winter. We arrived last night by the boat from Como.”
Renata shook her head slowly in wonderment. He saw that his warning had made her too timid to ask him any further questions. He said again, “I just haven’t decided anything. But I might stay a while in Bellagio.”
His voice sounded slack and tired, and his few words told the Renata who was no longer visible, the hidden woman who knew him well, that he had been struggling with a burden much too heavy for his gentle nature. His bare hint at the impasse of strife and worry from which he had fled caused her a painful twinge of conscience. But this was not the time, as he said, to dwell on any of that. She smiled a little and said, “I hope Giovanni will like our food. He has surely never eaten this before.” She indicated the polenta and a second pot, giving forth a savory steam.
“He loved the Italian food on the ship. I was sick most of the time,” Randall laughed, “but Donata the stewardess told me he ate everything he was given and often asked for more.”
Renata told her aunt, and Zia Paola, who had been listening to Randall’s English with an uneasy expression, relaxed a little and nodded her head.
The hoarse, humble voice
of the church bell in the piazza began to sound noon. It had not finished striking when the door opened and three men trooped in, Renata’s uncle Gandolfi and her cousins Nino and Domenico. They were strapping, brown-faced chaps with brilliant white teeth, smiling and curly-headed; Nino about eighteen and Domenico somewhat older. Zio Gandolfi was a bent, dignified peasant of indefinable age, with a straggling moustache and abundant white hair. All three men stood staring at Randall and the boy. For a moment nobody spoke. Then as Renata with a helpless look turned away to attend to something at the stove, Zia Paola said in dialect in a flat, heavy tone, “This is Renata’s boy, Papa. And its father.”
Randall understood her but hoped that John had not; in the same moment he saw the uselessness of these devices of his. He might as well chuck them all aside. He knew he had turned red, his face was burning. He did not know where to look; surely not at Renata, more surely not at the Gandolfis standing there agape. John had sidled close to him, faced with a new influx of strangers, and stood there chewing the last of his bread. Domenico was the first to recover, perhaps because he was used to the sight of new faces, and always ready to show off his English. He glanced at his mother for a cue, and when he saw her shrug faintly as if to say, “What can we do about it?”, he went over to Randall and held out his hand.
“You are American, Signore?” he said in English as they shook hands.
“Yes.” Randall managed a smile. “How do you do? My name is Randall Holt.”
“Gandolfi Domenico,” replied the young man politely, with a slight bow curiously elegant in a peasant, dressed in his rough working clothes. “My father, Gandolfi Luigi. My brother Nino.” Papa and Nino made noncommittal sounds. “You have just arrived? You come from Bellagio?” He offered the banalities that one always had ready for travellers. Randall answered briefly, aware that Renata in the corner was keeping her back turned, and that Zia Paola was putting dishes and spoons on the table with a good deal of noise, as if to cover the awkwardness.
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