Across the Table

by Linda Cardillo

  But I didn’t want help. I ran out onto the sidewalk, screaming at my brother, screaming at the mess my life had become.

  Claudio strode away from me, putting the winter city landscape—of slushy paths and buttoned-up people, hurrying with their heads down—between us. When I reached the corner, shivering and hoarse, he was already two blocks ahead of me. Whatever had fueled me was used up and I felt the cold, the throbbing in my head, the sticky matting of my hair.

  Broken, I turned back—again—to the sudden, solid presence of Paolo.

  Chapter 17

  Tears and Blood

  PAOLO TOOK ME to his sister Flora’s house. She drew a basin of warm water and sponged away the blood from my face and hair.

  “Ai, you poor child,” she consoled me as she ministered to me. I could not see the wound, but I’d felt it with my fingers, felt the flesh ripped jaggedly apart exposing something soft and wet. My head throbbed, my throat ached. I wanted to lie down and pull the covers over my face.

  Flora did not have the skill of Giuseppina, but she had a gentle touch and a kindness I hadn’t experienced since setting foot in America. She turned to Paolo.

  “What Claudio has done to this child is a sin! You find him and tell him that! And tell him you’re not bringing her back to his house.”

  I wasn’t afraid to go back to Claudio’s. But to defy Claudio, to fling his anger back in his face by not returning home, was an idea that seized me.

  Paolo was silent. Did he agree with Flora? Would he shield me from Claudio, even though he was Claudio’s best friend?

  I looked at his face, so familiar to me. The neighborhood saw my brother Claudio with respect—for his success, his powerful friends. But for Paolo they had a kind of deference—for his intelligence and his learning. It was Claudio they came to when they needed a favor, but it was Paolo they turned to when they couldn’t understand something—a paper from the government, a letter from home they couldn’t read or respond to. It set him apart, put him a little on the outside of the everyday life we were all caught up in. It made him lonely, in spite of his connection with Claudio.

  I had for so long purposely ignored Paolo’s presence in my day-to-day life or, at least, treated him lightly. A friendly voice, a smile, a hand with my packages, a handkerchief for my tears, an arm to support me over the rutted ice. I had only seen these small parts of him, offered with such restraint and graciousness, because I had not wanted to see the passion and the will restraining that passion. I had not been willing to see the whole man.

  Flora’s baby started to wail in her crib. Flora put aside the cloth and went down the hallway to tend to her. The blood was still trickling down my forehead, mingling with my tears. I grappled for the cloth and held it against the wound.

  “Here, let me help you,” Paolo whispered. He eased the cloth from my hand and tentatively dabbed. “I don’t want to hurt you. Let me know if I do.” He was hesitant. Almost afraid to touch me—not because of the blood but for other reasons.

  Paolo stood before me, his head and heart filled with words that he did not utter out loud to me, and his hand—in a gesture that felt, at that moment, closer than an embrace—stained with my blood.

  The intense pain of the last hour, the gnawing emptiness of the last weeks, even the longing for my home and family in Italy that I thought I’d put behind me after all these months, suddenly filled my vision. I began to cry, wildly, unrestrained, huge tears spilling down my face.

  I felt Paolo’s hand lift from my forehead in a moment of confusion. “Am I pressing too hard?” I shook my head, not knowing how to express my own confusion—sadness, despair, loneliness, gratitude, hope. How could I be feeling so many different, conflicting emotions? I did not know myself. I had always been so sure, the roots of my self so well-planted and nourished by Giuseppina’s teaching. Perhaps in this cold and lightless city I had lost my bearings. I did not know which way to turn toward the sun and so I revolved as if on the carousel that came to Venticano every August, dragged in pieces in a wagon pulled by four massive horses and assembled in the piazza before us eager and curious children. It spun us around and around until we were dizzy with glee and abandon and the delicious fear that if we let go of our painted horses we’d be thrown off over the edge of the cliff to which the piazza clung. That was how I felt at that moment with Paolo—dizzy with the fear that I was about to be hurled into the unknown.

  And just as I was about to fly out of control, engulfed by my pain, Paolo caught me. He reached out his arms—his confusion and hesitancy wiped away in an instant of recognition and understanding—and pulled me toward him. My tears and my blood mingled on his starched white shirtfront.

  There, within the circle of his arms, I stayed.

  Chapter 18

  Yolanda’s House

  “YOU’VE DONE A GOOD job in my absence, Paolo,” Flora said when she returned to the kitchen with the baby in her arms. “Not only has the bleeding slowed down, you’ve actually brought a smile to Giulia’s face.”

  Paolo and I abruptly pulled away from each other, away from warmth, from the sound of his heart beating beneath my ear, from the threshold we had apparently just crossed. I looked into his eyes and saw my own reflection.

  “I think I can bandage that now, Giulia.” She handed the baby to Paolo, who nuzzled her belly and then balanced her on his knee while Flora wrapped a strip of torn toweling around my forehead. When she was satisfied with her work, she knelt in front of me, took my hands in hers, and spoke to me intently.

  “Giulia, I told you when Paolo brought you here that I would not willingly let you return to Claudio’s tonight. I mean that. But I don’t think it’s wise for you to spend the night here. I am not your family. Perhaps they’ll understand if you don’t go back, but I know they won’t understand if you stay here. They won’t trust me if they suspect even a fraction of what I saw a minute ago between you and Paolo. They’ll think I’m offering you a haven for lovemaking.

  “I’m sorry if this is embarrassing you. But you both know that’s what they’ll think. And Claudio could come storming up here demanding you back. We must find another place for you, safe, with family. Is there anyone we can turn to?”

  Who in my family would shelter me against Claudio? Tilly had hidden herself in the back room. Pip, when she heard what had happened, would purse her lips in a thin line and think I got what I deserved for being Roberto’s girl. My cousin Peppino, who did Claudio’s errands, fetched him his morning coffee? His father, Tony, Papa’s younger brother? Maybe. He admired Claudio’s shrewdness, his success in making a life for himself in America. That was why Uncle Tony came here in the first place, awakened by Claudio’s success, tempted to create his own out from under Papa’s shadow. But Claudio had become another Papa. Peppino worked for Claudio, not for his father. Perhaps Uncle Tony was the right choice, in fact, my only choice.

  Flora bundled up the baby, and she and I set off for Tony’s apartment. Paolo left with us but then turned off to his own pursuits. It was best that he not be with us, that he not be the one standing between my brother and me.

  Zi’Yolanda opened the door with a shriek.

  “Giulia! Giulia! What has happened to you? Did you fall in the street? Come in, come in. And who is this with you? Ah, yes, Flora. God bless you for bringing our Giulia…but isn’t Angelina at home? Why didn’t you go home, sweetheart? Wasn’t Tilly with you? Oh, my God, oh, my God. Something terrible has happened, hasn’t it? Shall I send for Claudio?”

  Zi’Yolanda twisted her hands in mounting confusion and concern as she asked her questions without stopping for answers, racing from one possibility to another, a crescendo of disaster and the incomprehensible rising in her voice.

  “Tell me, tell me everything. Someone, not something, has done this to you, am I right? I knew it—I knew it as soon as I saw your face. Here, here. I just made a pot of coffee. Have a piece of anisette bread—it’s all I have in the house. I don’t bake until Friday. Uncle Tony like
s his ricotta pie fresh for the weekend. No, you’re not hungry? Of course not. But tell me. Oh, wait till Claudio finds out! Was it one of those DiDonatos looking for information about Roberto? As if you knew anything—”

  “Zi’Yolanda, be still for a minute. Listen to me.”

  “I’m trying, sweetheart, I’m trying. Do you want a glass of brandy?”

  “Zi’Yolanda! Come away from the cabinet for a minute. Put the glass down. Claudio did this to me, Zi’Yolanda.”

  She dropped the glass.

  Flora’s baby started to cry.

  Zi’Yolanda, finally, was speechless.

  “I need a place to stay, Zi’Yolanda. I don’t want to go back to Claudio’s house tonight. May I sleep here?”

  Zi’Yolanda knelt down to pick up the glass shards.

  “Claudio? Claudio? In all my days, I would never have thought… Your father is a loud man, he pounded his fist on the table now and then, but something like this, never, never. Uncle Tony, too. He barks a lot, but raise his hand to me—I swear to you on my mother’s grave—never. Where does this come from? How does Claudio think he can do this? Of course you can stay tonight. And if I know your uncle Tony, he’ll go get your things out of Claudio’s house and move you in here permanently.”

  She got out her dustpan and broom and swept up the splinters. She looked up at Flora with the baby on her shoulder.

  “You’re a good friend to Giulia?” She wasn’t sure, I could hear it in her voice, see it in the narrowing of her eyes.

  Flora nodded as she patted her daughter’s back.

  “Then you’ll keep your mouth shut about this? This kind of thing, it shouldn’t go outside the family.” To me, she said, “Why didn’t you come here first, sweetheart? Didn’t you trust Uncle Tony and me to take care of you? You had to go to a stranger?”

  I started to explain that it wasn’t my choice. I was going to tell her that Paolo had brought me to his sister, but Flora interrupted me.

  “Signora Fiorillo, Giulia meant no disrespect. There was a lot of blood at first. I live close to the store—that’s where it happened. I think Giulia realized how much attention she’d attract if she came all the way here with a bloody head. So I cleaned her up a little before bringing her to you. I don’t know much more about what happened. I’m a good friend to Giulia, Signora. And I’m not a gossip.”

  Yolanda emptied the glass bits into the bin. She seemed satisfied with Flora’s answer, but I could see she wanted to hear more about what had happened and didn’t want to ask me in Flora’s presence, especially if Flora knew as little as she professed to know.

  “No, no. Please don’t be offended, my dear. I’m grateful to you for taking care of her and for bringing her here, you with the baby, too. Your first? No? So, you must have a lot to do at home, supper to prepare, the baby to put down. I won’t keep you. Giulia is quite safe with us.”

  After Flora left, Zi’Yolanda stopped her fussing with the broom.

  “So, you wanna lie down, sweetheart? I’ll make up Pepe’s bed nice and clean for you. Or you wanna talk about it?”

  “I think I’ll lie down, Zi’Yolanda. There’s not much to say. Claudio came into the store. He got mad. He picked up an iron and threw it at me.”

  “He ever hit you before this?”

  “No, never.”

  “I don’t understand it. Well, when Uncle Tony gets home, you can bet he’ll have a word or two to say to your brother.”

  I shrugged. Claudio listened to nobody, not even Uncle Tony. Any words Uncle Tony might shout or scold would be ignored, just like Claudio used to ignore Papa.

  “Maybe I’ll have that glass of brandy before I lie down.”

  When I woke up it was dark. My head throbbed but the bandage wasn’t leaking. The bleeding had stopped. Peppino’s bed was in a corner of the dining room, and Zi’Yolanda was setting the table. I smelled soup.

  “You feeling a little better, angel? I made some ’scarole and meatballs. Uncle Tony’s washing up in the kitchen. You wanna sit up and eat something with us?”

  When Uncle Tony came to the table he took one look at my head and started to curse.

  “That son of a bitch. He should be my son. If he were, I’d teach him once and for all not to lay a hand on his own sister. God Almighty! That’s who he thinks he is. I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not letting you go back to his house. Not tonight, not any night.

  “He can bang on my door all night long. Wake up the whole damn neighborhood, for all I care. You hear that, Pepe?” He turned to my cousin.

  “You tell your boss this is where his sister is and this is where she’s going to stay.”

  After supper, Peppino went out. He had barely looked at me during the meal. I had never seen Uncle Tony so angry or so determined. Something had happened to our whole family that afternoon when Claudio had hit me and I had accepted refuge from Flora and Paolo. Something like this would not—could not—have happened in Venticano. So much damage in one afternoon…so little protection for me…so little solidarity in the family. I saw at supper that this was going to rend us apart. Already Tony and Peppino had chosen sides—one to stand by me, the other to follow Claudio.

  This frightened me more than the blow from Claudio. What would my sisters do, sheltered under Claudio’s roof? What would my parents say when they were informed? Why weren’t they here now, to protect me, to prevent the catastrophe I feared when Claudio came storming up the stairs to fetch me home?

  Or would he not come at all? Would he leave me here with Tony and Yolanda, cutting himself off?

  Another home for me. I was no longer welcome in the house of my brother, nor my grandmother, nor my mother and father.

  How I longed for a home that I could call mine.

  Chapter 19

  The First Letter

  I WAITED INTO THE night for Claudio to come raging into Yolanda and Tony’s the way he’d raged into the store that afternoon.

  Yolanda jumped at every slammed door, every footfall on the stairs, pricking herself with her darning needle more than once during the evening as she sat at the cleared dining table with a pile of Peppino’s and Tony’s shirts and socks.

  My head hurt too much to sit up with her after we ate. I didn’t even help her wash the dishes. She had shooed me back into the bed.

  “I’ll take care of this tonight, sweetheart. You go and lie down.”

  I turned my body to the wall, grateful not to have to listen to Yolanda’s worries, Yolanda’s gossip, Yolanda’s aches and pains. Even Yolanda’s criticism of the absent Peppino didn’t interest me. Peppino had been my least favorite cousin when we were children. He was a tease who’d once brought me a rose he’d doused with pepper. I had sneezed and coughed for almost an hour. But what had hurt the most was his ridicule. I had thought he liked me, was offering me a special gift with the rose. When I held it up to my nose to admire it and began to sneeze so hard that tears welled up in my eyes, he whooped and hooted with laughter, and his friends leaped out from their hiding places to laugh and taunt with him. I threw the rose down and stomped on it with my foot and kicked Peppino before I turned my back on him and walked home with as much dignity as I could.

  Now I was lying in his bed, huddled against the wall, waiting for my brother to show himself.

  But he never came. No pounding on the door, no shouted curses, no scenes between the blustering Claudio in charge of everything and the outraged Tony, protector of his niece.

  I began to drift off to sleep, floating in and out of dreams, when I heard a respectful knock at the door and then muffled voices. It was late, the room already dark, Yolanda and her darning basket gone.

  I heard Uncle Tony speaking quietly and without excitement to whoever had come to the door. It could not be Claudio. The voices were too reasonable. The way one talks to strangers, not to family.

  Zi’Yolanda’s voice pierced the calm. “Tony, Tony? Who’s there? What is it? What does he want?”

  “It’s all right, Yolly.
It’s Paolo Serafini. Go back to bed. Everything’s okay.”

  Peppino’s bed was positioned so that I couldn’t see through the archway between the dining room and the front room, where Uncle Tony stood talking to Paolo. Paolo, here. A few feet away across a darkened room. I sat up, straining to hear his voice, wishing I could go out to him but not trusting myself, afraid that I’d throw myself into his arms, sure that if I did so he’d return the embrace. And there would stand Uncle Tony, mouth agape, not believing his eyes for a few seconds, then jumping from the scene before him to my brother’s rage. Tony would explode, feeling betrayed. Yolanda would come running in her nightclothes and grasp whatever fragments she could to feed the clothesline crowd in the morning.

  No, I had to remain in bed, show indifference, feign sleep. Anything to prevent them from recognizing the wildness beating in my heart, the agitation I felt knowing he was just beyond reach.

  “Tony, I stopped by Claudio’s house early this evening to tell Angelina and the girls that Giulia is safe with you. Claudio I haven’t seen. He hasn’t shown up at the Palace yet. Angelina said he had a meeting in New York and she wasn’t expecting him home till late, so I don’t think you’ll see him here tonight. Unless he runs into somebody like Pepe, he’s not even going to know where Giulia is. So rest easy. Maybe by tomorrow he’ll have cooled off.” He paused. “How’s Giulia doing? The girls were upset, wanted her home with them, but I said leave her alone, let her rest out of Claudio’s way.”

  “Thanks, Paolo. That son-of-a-bitch nephew better not show his face around here for a few days. His father should only be here. He’d kill him for touching a hair on his sister’s head. I may do it for him.