“And I’m the Circe who ensnared you. Have you ever told her what really happened? How you pursued me until I gave in?”
“You accepted.”
She clenches a hand over her mouth to restrain herself. “Of course, now it’s my fault.” She speaks with rancor, as though uttering a curse. “I couldn’t help it, damn my heart.”
Vincenzo becomes restless, stands up, then sits down again. “It’s not that simple.”
“Not for me either.” She takes the baby from her breast and puts her over her shoulder. “I could accept the gossip and even bear the contempt for the sake of your love. But we have two daughters now, Vincenzo. Two creatures who need a father. Your mother should accept it, as should you, and stop all these dreams of glory.”
“This can all be arranged. Where there’s an advantage, people are happy to overlook anything.” He puffs. He hates it that Giulia is able to put him on the spot like this. “In any case, my mother will never permit the marriage, and without her consent I cannot marry: it’s the law.”
“The law requires that you give her your notice of intent since you’re over thirty.” Giulia feels tears prickling her eyelids. She does not want to cry, she will not cry.
She places Giuseppina in her basket and the baby responds with a gurgle that heralds sleep. “If you don’t want to marry me, at least acknowledge the girls. Give them the possibility of having a legitimate father.”
Vincenzo bites his lip, and she realizes he will not grant her this either.
“You’re a coward.” Giulia stands up and indicates the door. “I don’t want to see you again.”
He stays sitting and grabs her by the wrist. “Don’t ask me to choose between you and my mother.”
The words flash in her mind like a violent, bitter realization. She doesn’t hold back. “It’s because they’re girls! That’s why you won’t acknowledge them, admit it! Because they can’t be your heirs.” She clasps her forehead. “I’ve been so blind. That’s why your mother is against it and you don’t stand up to her, it’s nothing to do with gratitude!” She picks up his cloak and hurls it at him. “Get out!”
Vincenzo grabs the cloak, his expression dark. “You’ve become nagging since you discovered you were pregnant with this one. I thought I was perfectly clear two years ago.”
He had hoped to find Giulia in a more conciliatory mood but . . .
“This one is your daughter and she has a name: Giuseppina.” Giulia flings open the apartment door. “Since you prefer your mother, get out and never come back.” She says it with her throat ablaze and her fists clenched.
Vincenzo looks at her and his desire flares up. It’s true, Giulia is looking tired after the birth and her belly is still swollen, but there’s something in her that goes beyond the flesh, he realizes now, which makes it impossible for him to leave her. He wants to stay, to sink into her, but he can’t because too little time has passed since the birth and you don’t touch a woman who’s just given birth.
He clenches his fist and punches the door. The wood cracks and his knuckles get soiled with blood.
Giulia jumps and takes a step back. Vincenzo has a quick temper but has never been violent with her. She is afraid.
“It’s not over.” Vincenzo’s voice is hoarse, tight from anger. “You’re mine,” he says.
Then he rushes out.
Giulia is left alone. She collapses against the closed door and takes her head in her hands. She weeps. Her physical frailty adds to the loneliness and exhaustion of raising two daughters without a father or the protection of a name. However much money Vincenzo may leave in the dresser drawer in the bedroom, it cannot replace the support a man should give his family.
When she chose—or rather when she decided to follow him—she couldn’t imagine what would have happened. She hadn’t considered children. There was nothing except Vincenzo.
But now there are her two girls.
What will he do now? she wonders. Will he find himself another woman? One who will keep him warm at night, accept him and not demand the respect she, Giulia, wants? Or will his mother find him a girl to marry?
Suddenly, the fear of losing him is a wave that floods over her.
* * *
Days go by, then weeks. Giulia struggles to recover after the birth, so Angelina spends a lot of time with her grandmother Antonia. Giovanni, however, spends his evenings with his sister and, to entertain her, tells her about the goings-on in the city. One evening, however, he stops in the doorway, embarrassed. He looks at her then hands her a bag. “He sends you this. I told him your family were taking care of you but he gave me one of his looks . . . You know what he’s like.”
Giulia sighs. The bag has the only way Vincenzo knows of showing her how he feels. She takes the coins. “Tell him to come see the girls, at least,” she mutters before closing the door.
The following evening, when the girls are in bed and she’s about to retire, there’s a knock. A tap so light she wonders if she has imagined it.
She pulls the robe over herself and goes to open the door.
Vincenzo is standing on the threshold.
“You could have used your keys,” she says, opening the door.
“You threw me out.”
She puffs and opens the door wide. “It’s your home. You pay the bills.”
He ignores her provocation. He heads to the bedroom, where he knows he’ll find the wooden cradle with Giuseppina. He parts the voile and looks at her. “Are you still feeding her?”
“Yes.” Giulia stands, arms crossed, looking at him. “Angelina is asleep with Lucia in the next room. You can’t see her.”
He moves away from the baby. “Are they well?”
A nod.
Vincenzo approaches and brushes a lock of hair from her forehead. He hesitates before saying, “You’re as white as a sheet, though. Does she let you sleep? Are you eating enough meat?”
Giulia pushes his hand away and goes into the parlor. “You know, it’s not a matter of food,” she says, clenching her fists. “There are other things that keep me awake at night. There’s only one thing that would make me feel better, and it’s knowing that you will provide for me and the girls. Instead . . .”
“I sent you some money with that big baby brother of yours.” The first signs of anger are already starting to color his voice.
“Because for you everything begins and ends with money, doesn’t it? You have a family now.”
“I have a mistress who’s given me two bastards. It’s not the same thing.”
Giulia does not react to these words. She is frozen. Her breath catches in her breastbone.
So that’s what she is. That’s how he sees her.
“You could change everything, if you wanted to.” Her whisper sounds like a lament.
He stands with his arms crossed. “This is all I can give you.”
“You can’t give me anything else because you’re a coward.” She covers her face with her fists. “You don’t want to because you have these damned notions in your head and because you’d be going against your mother, who treats you like a fifteen-year-old. But sooner or later you’ll have to make a choice.”
He comes closer and grabs her by the throat with one hand, not squeezing but firm enough to take her breath away. “There’s no choice to be made.”
It’s just a moment, but it’s enough.
His hand slides from her throat to the back of her neck, and the grip turns into a caress. They kiss, they want each other. It’s been too long since they were together. They can’t stay apart for long.
As she clings to him, Giulia hates herself. Because she always forgives him, because she loves him and takes him back after every quarrel, because she feels broken without Vincenzo. Ever since she’s known him, she’s no longer sufficient for herself.
Vincenzo keeps his eyes closed. Because this is his home. The rest of the world might well be treacherous land, but Giulia is his sea.
* * *
Vin
cenzo slips away when, tired, she falls asleep. He leaves without a word because he does not know what to say to her.
Maybe she’s right to call him a coward.
However, Giulia is awake. The last thing she hears is the door clicking shut.
She spends the night with Giuseppina next to her. After the lovemaking, the bed feels huge and cold, more so than the other nights when she was alone. Her tears of anger are more powerful than those of longing, her rage stronger than her regret.
Tomorrow is Sunday.
She dresses very carefully in one of her best outfits; it’s still a little tight, but never mind.
She dresses Giuseppina, asks her mother to look after Angelina, and tells her she’ll be back soon.
Morning Mass at San Giacomo is attended mainly by working-class men and women who don’t have time to go to the afternoon service. Among them, more out of habit than necessity, is Giuseppina Saffiotti Florio.
Giulia sees her come in. Her face is stern, her gray hair gathered in a bonnet. After Mass, Giulia follows her. She waits until Giuseppina is practically at her front door in Via dei Materassai.
“Donna Florio!” she calls. “Donna Florio!”
Giuseppina instinctively turns. She squints and doesn’t immediately recognize her. She flares up as soon as she sees the child, turns her back to Giulia, and determinedly heads home. “Shameless woman . . .”
Giulia rushes after her. “Stop!”
Some people look out their windows. A carter watches them; a few women just out of church slow down.
Giulia overtakes her and stands rooted in front of her.
Giuseppina has no choice but to halt.
The young woman’s voice is loud, to make sure everybody hears and knows. “Donna Florio, don’t you want to see your granddaughter?”
People stare and listen.
The response is like a rasp against wood. “I have no grandchildren.”
“Are you sure? This child has your name.”
“So what? There are many Giuseppinas.”
“Except that this one has your son’s eyes.”
Despite herself, Giuseppina glances at her. The little girl looks too much like Vincenzo: she has his nose, the eyebrows high on her forehead. She suddenly steps back.
This is not acceptable, not right.
“A bitch can never tell whose puppies she gives birth to. She’s mated with too many dogs to know herself.”
Giulia holds the baby tight to her chest, as though to protect her. “That’s true about bitches without a master. It’s a shame mine keeps me on a short leash. I wasn’t the one to go after him: he was the one to take me away from my home.”
“Some leashes can strangle.” Giuseppina’s tone is full of hatred. “If you thought you’d settle in nicely, then you miscalculated. There’s no room for you here.”
Giulia does not manage a reply.
Giuseppina walks past her. I put her back in her place, she thinks, satisfied. What did she think she would achieve, coming here like this, acting like a scullery maid? She only showed herself for what she truly is.
Giulia’s reply reaches her as she is on the threshold of her house. “I didn’t choose this leash for the sake of money. But you’ve never loved anyone, so how could you possibly know?”
* * *
From the dining room window, in his robe, barefoot, Vincenzo has seen everything. He follows Giulia with his eyes until she disappears behind the curve in the street.
He hears Giuseppina’s angry approaching footsteps. “You saw, didn’t you? What kind of woman is she? Real trash. But I put her back in her place. What is she trying to do? Bring scandal to this house? She should keep away!”
He does not turn around.
For a long time, he’s been wondering why, after he had indulged a whim, he continued to be drawn to Giulia. Why he had kept going back to her, even after every quarrel.
Now he finally understands.
His mother asks why he doesn’t reply. She watches him go to the bedroom and get dressed in a rush. “What’s the matter? Now what are you doing?”
“Mamà, facitivi a quasetta.”
That is what he tells her, to go knit, as if she were a crazy old woman who should keep to herself. Her face falls, turning into a heap of wounded pride and indignation. “Are you going to her? She’s black poison. She’s a devil incarnate that stinks of sulfur. What about me? You’re leaving me alone?”
She shouts out the window as Vincenzo walks away down Via dei Materassai before the eyes of women watching this little drama.
Vincenzo practically runs down the alleys, past closed stores.
He sees Giulia at the Cassaro. She walks slowly among people in their Sunday clothes, her head bent over the baby. He knows her well enough to see that she’s doing her best not to burst into tears. It must have cost her a lot to humiliate herself like this.
Vincenzo catches up with her and takes her by the arm in front of everybody. Giulia is startled. “But—”
“Let’s go home. To our home.”
Part Five
Lace
July 1837 to May 1849
Unn’ è u’ piso và a balanza.
The scales go where the load is.
—SICILIAN PROVERB
In June 1837, the cholera epidemic that is sweeping across Europe reaches Sicily. The appalling hygiene conditions in which the majority of people live encourage the spread of the disease, which is eradicated only by early October. Contemporary testimonies mention 23,000 dead in Palermo alone.
The years between 1838 and 1847 are relatively quiet, and yet, from as early as 1847, various protests take place in Sicily, fomented by poverty, the constant surge for independence, and social conflicts. The repressive attitude of Ferdinand II stokes emotions and, on January 12, 1848, in Palermo, Giuseppe La Masa and Rosolino Pilo lead an insurrection against the Bourbons: Palermo is the first large city in Italy to declare its independence from the central power. The head of the revolutionary government is Admiral Ruggero Settimo, who, with the aid of aristocrats and the bourgeoisie, tries to involve the people in the decision-making process. Ferdinand grants the constitution, and almost all the other Italian states follow suit: on March 4, Carlo Alberto concedes the Albertine Statute; on March 17 it is the turn of Venice to rebel, and the following day, of Milan. Soon, this revolutionary momentum crosses the whole of Europe, including the Papal State: on November 24, Pope Pius IX is forced to flee to Gaeta. On February 9, 1849, the Roman Republic is born, ruled by a triumvirate (Carlo Armellini, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Aurelio Saffi).
Once again, however, all revolutionary movements are repressed. The fragmented nature of Sicilian politics soon becomes evident (Messina and Palermo are bitter enemies, for instance), as is the incompatibility of the sides at the root of the rebellion: while the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie wish to become wealthy (by taking over the property of the Church), the people hope for a redistribution of the land. In May 1849, weakened and pursued by Bourbon troops, the revolutionary administration decides to surrender. Ferdinand II shows mercy: he does not sentence the leaders of the revolt to death but, instead, sends them into exile. Moreover, he grants a royal pardon to supporters of the rebellion.
COTTON THREAD, needles, bobbins, pillows.
Lace is an art form.
You need steady hands, patience, and sharp eyesight to obtain even just a few centimeters of fabric, intertwining thread after thread, following a subtle pattern.
The Burano lacemakers, who have supported their small island for centuries with their work, know this. They have exported their skill thanks to Catherine de’ Medici, who persuaded a few women to move to France and teach their secret art in convents. In the heart of Europe, lace becomes dentelle, and adorns the garments of the kingdom’s wealthiest men and women. The most famous lace schools move from Italy to the north: to Valenciennes, to Calais, then to Brussels and Bruges.
Napoleon likes lace and makes it compulsory in court dress.
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From the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, lace is machine-made in England, using soft fabrics. Even Queen Victoria gets married in a machine-manufactured tulle veil, and this delicate art seems no longer to have a future.
However, hand-made lace lives on. Bobbins are used that allow the workers to interweave threads more quickly. They try using colored silk. Poor girls are encouraged to learn the trade. But it takes years for this ancient art to reach its peak again in Venice and from there to spread once again throughout Italy.
Handmade lace becomes the prerogative of very few, extremely wealthy families. It is a rare possession, as precious as a jewel.
A treasure.
* * *
The heat is unbearable, the sun ruthless.
Palermo is dying. Along Cassaro, carts are drawn by emaciated horses. They carry corpses. The carters shout out, “Any dead?” “Anyone got dead to bury?” Some people wave at them and, shortly afterward, a body is thrown down from a window.
The city pays its daily tribute in victims of cholera, an epidemic that came to the island from the mainland in June 1837. Men have made up for what the disease failed to do. After the spread of the epidemic came the people’s rebellion, incited by those who accuse the king of having encouraged the contagion: food and water—so people shout accusingly—were contaminated on purpose to decimate the population.
The tuff façades of Baroque buildings, closed and bolted, look like skulls left to bake in the sun. Abandoned by the aristocracy, houses are looted for food and money. Businesses and stores are set on fire. People die in the streets, begging for a crust of bread; there is no more grain coming from the countryside. Fumigation with chlorine does not halt the contagion but fills the alleys with a pungent smoke that blends with the stench of the bonfires in the squares, burning bedding and furniture. Only a few physicians have stayed in the city, alongside a few monks who go from house to house to administer the last rites. Or to bless the dead.
Even the sea, visible behind Porta Felice, looks unreal, almost unreachable. Only a few ships at La Cala, many bearing quarantine signs.
The Florios of Sicily Page 26