Rococo

by Adriana Trigiani

  “It’s the refugees!” I say gaily.

  “Don’t even kid. Mom sent a private investigator to talk to us,” Capri says.

  She kisses me and Eydie, Pedro shakes my hand and then Eydie’s, they sit down, and I pour them each a glass of wine.

  “So the P.I. hears the whole story and feels so sorry for us that he tells us he’s going to call Mother and tell her he couldn’t find us. Can you imagine?”

  “Any sensible person is on the side of true love,” I tell her.

  “Thank you for keeping me off the market, B. You saved me for Pedro.”

  I try not to be insulted. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Wait until you see Pedro’s windows,” Capri gushes.

  “I’m almost done. Your nephew has been a great help,” Pedro says to me.

  “I was happy to send him to you. He is talented, isn’t he?”

  “He has a good eye.” Pedro smiles. “Like you.”

  “I hope he has a better business sense. B is going to give all the money he made on Little Mary to the church renovation. I think he’s crazy!” Eydie pats me on the back.

  “B is one of those people who will give you the shirt off his back. And if that’s not enough, he will also give you his pants.” Capri smiles.

  “Enough about me and my pants,” I say impatiently. “How is married life?”

  Pedro and Capri look at each other. “I was born to be with Pedro,” she says.

  “Can you top that, Pedro?”

  “I don’t think so. I love her very much.” Pedro takes Capri’s hand and kisses it. “But I want to make things right with Mrs. Mandelbaum. I don’t like that I came between a mother and daughter. It’s wrong.”

  “She made it impossible for you to be happy. I think Aurelia is the one with the problem, and she’s the one who has to make it right.” I tap the table with a soup spoon for emphasis.

  “It’s hard for her, B. It’s just been the two of us since Dad died.”

  “Oh, please, Capri. Please. Your mother knows better. She is a fine person who, in a panic, said things she shouldn’t have. She owes you an apology, and you”—I look at Pedro—“a new car. She was totally out of line. Here’s a woman who suffered discrimination over her marriage to your father, and she turns around and persecutes you? Nuh-uh.”

  “I would like to go and talk to her,” Pedro says.

  “Take the priest. And if you know any cardinals, that’s even better.”

  I roll into my driveway around 2 A.M. Toot’s car is parked by the garage. She is fast asleep in the front seat, wearing a kerchief on her head and sunglasses. I rap on the window, and she awakens with a start. Through the glass, I see her mouth “Jesus.”

  “Don’t you have a key?” I help her out of the car.

  “I couldn’t find it. Why are you so late?”

  I ignore her question. “What are you doing here?”

  “Doris and Lonnie are getting a divorce. She thinks he’s having an affair!”

  “Well, he is.”

  “I know that, but she doesn’t. I can’t risk my happiness. We’ve got to get the two of them back together.” Toot follows me into the house. I flip on the lights as we go back to the kitchen.

  “This is insane! Why don’t you just let them divorce? You keep your house, he keeps his, and you continue this hot thing you two have without the hatchet of marriage hanging over your heads.”

  “God, B, don’t you understand? It’s the thrill I’m after. It’s sick, but I like the cheating! And believe me, it does a world of good for Lonnie too. He cuddles and he compliments and he buys me things—it’s what I always dreamed of. Now she’ll leave him and he’ll be at loose ends and looking to me to entertain him. As long as he’s married, he has to go home sometime, which leaves me the bulk of my week to do what I please. If he’s free, he’ll be hanging around here and the starch will go right out of our relationship.”

  “Calm down. You’re almost hyperventilating.”

  “You would be too! I don’t want Lonnie full-time, B! I don’t want to do his laundry, set his doctor appointments, and wash his car! Help me!”

  “Okay, here’s what you have to do. You have to break up with him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cut him loose. If I know Lonnie, it will take him a month to replace Lady Sylvia with another pretty Irish lady who likes Italian men. He’ll marry number four; you lurk around in your teddy and mules, and pretty soon your hot affair is resumed.”

  “Honest to God, you’re a freakin’ genius. Maybe I’ll go and see Iggy With The Asthma for a month.”

  “Good idea. By the time you get back, Mr. Lonely will have a new woman, and you can make a fool of her behind her back.”

  “I like this. I like this a lot.”

  “Okay, do you feel better?”

  “A hundred percent.”

  “Good. Call him up and break his heart—first thing in the morning. Now get out. I’m tired.”

  Toot gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You always know the right thing to do.”

  The first thing I do at 9 A.M. is go to the bank and deposit the check from Sotheby’s. The poor cashier almost faints. When I used to work behind that counter, I wondered what it would be like to have more money than you could possibly spend. Now I know. And I can’t wait to unload it for a cause I believe in.

  When I drive over to the church, I notice that the streets around it are filled with cars, which is very odd since it’s not a holy day of obligation and no one called to say there was a funeral.

  I pull up in a free space near the cemetery. I see Rufus’s truck parked in its usual spot. I can’t wait to tell him that Modigliani saved the day. We won’t have to let the crew go—we can finish the job.

  When I walk into the church, I hear the murmur of voices. I enter the nave, and the chattering stops. There must be a hundred people here, the very same faces that filled Toot’s garage for my birthday party. This time, however, nobody’s dancing. They’re working.

  Lonnie leads a line of men, including his sons, Anthony, Nicky, and Two. They pass large fieldstones to Gus Lascola, Zeke Nero, and Tulio Savastanno, who pass them on to the men of the Knights of Columbus. They look like Egyptians building the pyramids. When the stones reach the altar wall, another group of men, headed by Rufus, place them in a configuration that will become the Wall of Water.

  Norman, our engineer, with the help of more parishioners, is mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow to point the stones together. Uncle Petey helps Pedro remove the wooden slats from the holes where his stained-glass windows will go. Capri stacks the wood carefully off to the side. Aunt Edith, cousin Marlene, and Nellie Fanelli polish the new stained-glass windows under Pedro’s supervision.

  Christina is on the scaffolding, showing the ladies of the sodality how to paint the pillars with a striae of faux marble. Oh my God! And there is Eydie, suspended high in the air, applying gold leaf to the molding. (What is she doing here, and who called her?) Near the sacristy, Toot makes coffee and puts out Danish on a bingo table in the alcove where the Blessed Lady shrine will go. Zetta stacks cups and napkins for break time.

  I feel like I’m in the middle of a dream, where everything around me is moving but my feet are rooted in the ground. My heart is bursting in my chest like the sun breaking through heavy black clouds. I am so filled with awe and love that I cannot speak. I thought renovating this church mattered only to me, that I was the only one who had the pure heart to make beautiful the place where I learned how to pray. But I see now that I was never alone.

  After a few moments, Toot sees me. “Hey, everybody, he’s here! B is here!” They stop their work and look to me. When they see that I am moved beyond words, they leave their posts and walk toward me, until I am surrounded by the faithful. Christina pushes through the crowd. “Don’t be mad at me. I felt so badly for you. I didn’t want to see your dream end before the job was finished.”

  “Screw the diocese!” Gus Lascola pi
pes up. “We don’t need their money.” Everyone cheers.

  I wipe my tears on my sleeve. “What are you looking at? Get back to work!”

  Laughter fills the church like music. As the teams return to their tasks, Rufus puts his arms around me and gives me a hug. “Come and help with the wall. I want to make sure we do it right.” But it doesn’t matter what I think. Everything is more than right.

  Rufus has hung clean muslin drapes on rods in front of the frescoes so prying eyes will not see them until they are dry. It has been a week since everyone pitched in to finish construction. I agreed to give Rufus the church to himself so he could complete the frescoes.

  Like me, Rufus has a streak of the temperamental artist in him, and he alone decided when he would unveil his work. Between the money from the sale of Little Mary and the help of the parishioners, we had enough funds left over to replace the front steps and renovate the church plaza, which we had not budgeted initially. I was able to extend the black-and-white checked marble floor from the foyer throughout the nave. As eager as I was to see the frescoes (I suppose I could pull rank as The Benefactor), I didn’t ask, out of respect for a man who has become a good friend.

  As I walk down the side aisles, I can see the vivid tones of the murals through the flimsy muslin. How marvelous these bright colors are against the black-and-white checked marble floor (à la Westminster Cathedral) in the nave and foyer.

  Rufus has been working day and night. He approached the frescoes like a Renaissance artist. He used traditional dry paint pigment and then painted every inch of the wall himself.

  I go to the sacristy. There are three dress bags marked LUCIA, FRANCISCO, and JACINTA with a note attached.

  CLOTHES FOR THE FATIMA KIDS. FROM AUNT EDITH.

  I open the bags. The outfits for the statues are the same design as the originals, except that instead of being made from burlap and cotton, they’ve been redone in velvet. Tiny Francisco now sports beading on his shepherd’s cap. These poor Portuguese sheepherders have become Italian American icons.

  “Okay, B,” Rufus says when he meets me in the sacristy. “It’s just us for the first official tour of the frescoes. Now, if you don’t like something, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “Rufus.” He turns and looks at me. “You’re nervous.”

  His face bursts into a grin. “I guess I am.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. It means you care. This is like when Michelangelo”—I point to Rufus—“sweated bullets when Pope Leo”—I put my hand on my chest—“came through Saint Pete’s to see the Sistine Chapel for the first time. It was a genuine tension convention.”

  Rufus puts out his cigarette and opens the side door of the church. “Let’s enter from the front.” I follow him outside, and he doesn’t say a word as we climb the steps. We enter the foyer. “Here we are,” he says as he flings open the door. I go in first.

  The first thing that strikes me is the intense butter-yellow morning light shining through glass ceiling; it fills the church like an open field in summer. I catch my breath. The pits and shadows and Gothic somberness of the old place is gone, replaced by this heavenly light. The new pews of polished cherrywood with gold velvet seats and matching kneelers add to the spacious feeling of the church. The clean, soft sound of water cascading down the rock wall brings nature indoors.

  The craftsmanship is breathtaking. I have never seen anything like it.

  “You have to see the altar,” says Rufus.

  I follow him up the main aisle, inhaling the sweet smells of oil paint and plaster—the smell of something new. The altar is a simple oval Quaker cherrywood table. Hanging from a piano wire, just a few feet above it, is Monica Vitti’s chandelier. I knew I would find the perfect place for this glittering jewel, and here it is.

  “Look at the stained-glass windows. Pedro made them rustic on purpose. I wanted the feeling you have in the village churches of Mexico. See the shards of color baked into the glass? That’s an old technique from Spain. It gives dimension, makes the images almost dance in the light.” Rufus points out the symbols of local life: the fish, the boat, the hammer and nails.

  “Wonderful. No one will miss Saint Rose of Lima, who used to stand there in her window and look at you like she wished you were dead.”

  “Oh no, the messages of guilt and shame are gone now,” Rufus promises. “This is all about rebirth and renewal. Just like you envisioned.”

  I follow Rufus to the Wall of Water. I touch the water as it flows over the rock wall like a sheet of sparkling rain.

  “Step back,” Rufus instructs me. “Can you see what we carved on the rock under the water?”

  I see the word “Credo” in simple script. “I believe,” I say. Looking up at the Wall of Water, we are as small as the base stones that make the baptismal font. I feel like I’m at the foot of a mountain waterfall.

  “I know,” Rufus says, reading my mind. “It turned out better than I hoped. Now come and see the frescoes.”

  I follow Rufus to the back of the church and he begins to yank away the muslin curtains. The walls are awash with brilliant colors, such a change from the dusty hues that were there for years. Rufus has painted the scene of the miracle, a hillside with the three children kneeling in prayer. On the hill itself, we see the observers, the townspeople. I am astonished to see that their faces are familiar. It’s us! All of us. In the crowd I see Lonnie, Toot, Gus, Anthony, Nicky, Zetta—face after face of the people of OLOF. Rufus used the faces of the parishioners in the frescoes. The Blessed Lady hovers overhead. She is far more sleek and modern in Rufus’s rendition. Gone are the pencil-thin eyebrows and veil. In its place, a real woman in a blue flowing gown and a crown of stars. “It’s Christina!” I gasp.

  “Who better to show the sadness of the world?” Rufus points to the ceiling. “Did you find yourself?”

  I look up at a flock of cherubs peeking down from the clouds of heaven. I see my face as a boy, smiling.

  “Toot gave me your First Communion picture.”

  “I’m stunned, Rufus. This is beyond anything I dreamed of. It’s truly the church of the people. They will be overwhelmed.”

  “Most painters in Italy during the Renaissance used real people from their families and villages. It’s an old idea, but it seemed to fit here.” Rufus indicates that I should follow him to the side altar. He pulls the muslin away from the wall. He has angled the statues of the children of Fatima (in their new clothes!) on a small grotto of stone. Instead of the usual votive-candle trays, he has candleholders nestled into the rocks, so that when they’re lit, they’ll give the effect of a real cave grotto. It looks just like the cathedral in Santa Margherita; Rufus brought my sketches to life! What a perfect touch for this Italian American parish.

  “Did you see Father Porp?” Rufus smiles and points. His face is near the baseboard, looking up at the Blessed Lady. “I put him in the most southern corner.”

  “Closest to hell.”

  “Yoo-hoo?” A voice calls out from the sacristy. I am so overwhelmed that my eyes are full of tears and for a moment I can’t focus. I dab my eyes with my handkerchief.

  “Hello, Aurelia,” I say after a moment, wondering why she has to ruin such a perfect moment by showing up.

  “This is spectacular,” she says quietly, looking all around.

  “We aren’t showing it to the public yet,” I tell her. After all, she did give us a substantial gift to start the project. I don’t mean to be unkind. “Rufus gave me the first tour.”

  We stand awkwardly for a moment. So many years of history between us. Capri and me, playmates since we were toddlers. I was just a boy when I went to work for Aurelia’s husband. Her house was one of my first projects as a designer, and became the endless job, one I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s hard for me to hold a grudge against a woman who has been so good to me. Finally she says, “I want you to have this,” and hands me an envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the money
I promised for the renovation.”

  “But we don’t need it anymore.” I give the envelope back.

  “I heard about the statue and the money, and it’s wrong, B. You shouldn’t have to pay it.”

  “Why should you have all the fun?”

  “Excuse me?” she says.

  “No, really, Aurelia. Why should you have all the fun? In my life, with all the rooms and all the homes I’ve decorated, I’ve never been so moved by a place as I am by this church. It was worth every penny. It was even worth the hell you put us through.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” She looks away.

  “I’m sure you are. And since you’re sincere, I forgive you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I’m not the person you need to ask for forgiveness. You need to talk to Pedro. Look at his work!” I point to the windows. “Only a great man could make such art.”

  “I miss my daughter.” Aurelia begins to cry.

  “There’s only one way to fix that.”

  “I’ll do anything. I thought giving you the money was a start.”

  “Oh, Aurelia, I don’t care about money. It’s just another way to keep score. Don’t get me wrong. We needed it, but I learned a big lesson here. If you do your work, money follows. It shows up. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the magnificence of a person. It doesn’t. What matters is what you make. Whether it’s a cake for bingo night or a costume for a saint or a wall of water—whatever you pour yourself into in this life is what makes you rich.”

  “I’ve made terrible mistakes.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Capri won’t have anything to do with me.”

  “You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Although she is half Italian, and you know how Italians are. We love not speaking when we’ve been slighted. You know, there’s nothing more effective than the deep freeze, or sending you to the island—that sort of thing. But her lucky break is that she’s half Jewish, and in that respect, if you’re lucky, she’ll throw her arms around you and let bygones be bygones. But I can’t be sure, because I haven’t asked her.”