The Florios of Sicily

by Stefania Auci

  Besides—he thinks but not without embarrassment—Giulia is much more than a wife. She is a companion and a support. She’s the only one who’s had the strength to bear the dark side he carries in him. Giulia will always come after Casa Florio; she knows that and loves him in spite of it. She has accepted ambition, anger, and social contempt.

  She has given him everything.

  Except . . .

  He doesn’t dare continue.

  A beam of light illuminates Ignazio’s ring. Vincenzo’s fingers linger on the fold in his tie. On his way to the office, he goes to Sant’Agostino, to the Madonna of Parturition. For the first time in ages, he utters a silent prayer.

  He prays for a miracle.

  He goes to the aromateria, leaves a note for Lorenzo Lugaro, the accountant, then joins Francesco Di Giorgio at the warehouse in Piano San Giacomo in order to discuss a contract for a shipment of sumac.

  Finally, he meets the owner of some vineyards between Trapani and Paceco who is willing to sell him the futures of his ansonica, catarratto, and damaschino. In large quantities and good for wine-making, at least judging by what Raffaele, who still manages the cellar, has heard.

  “They told us you were a gentleman and now we have confirmation. Your cousin is a good sort but you have definite ideas. You know exactly what you want, and that’s why I wanted to speak to you, the owner.”

  The man, tall, with a beard, has callused hands but expensive clothes, the sign of recently acquired wealth. Vincenzo thanks him, escorts him to the office door, and, meanwhile, mulls over his words.

  Because—and this is something that’s been needling him for a while—the marsala wine cellar worries him. Things are not going as they should with Raffaele. He lacks initiative and courage. He’ll have to tackle this as soon as possible and have a word with him.

  It’s noon by the time he can finally go to Via della Zecca Regia. Even now, Lugaro follows him to tell him about the rumors circulating between the Chamber of Commerce and La Cala. “The French and the British have a monopoly on the transportation of many goods and will never give it up to the Naples steamship company. Nobody wants to go against them.”

  “This remains to be seen.”

  He cannot think of ships now. Behind his stone-carved face, he spent all morning picturing Giulia screaming in pain, her face moist with sweat and her body torn.

  He has been hoping that a miracle, that miracle—the only one that led him to church to ask for grace—could occur.

  Vincenzo goes in through the front door. Lugaro follows him uneasily.

  There’s a bustle on the stairs. He arrives to find Giovanni and Tommaso on the doorstep with a few acquaintances.

  Their voices get stuck in their throats. Everybody looks at him as though their eyes are weighed down, as though they could strike him and hurt him.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks. “Is Giulia all right?”

  Nobody answers.

  Panic.

  Vincenzo throws open the door, walks through the rooms, and bursts into Giulia’s bedroom. She is pale, half lying on the bed, and the little girls are prattling next to her.

  Her mother and the midwife collect the laundry and buckets of red-stained water.

  He grabs the footboard. “Are you all right?”

  “What are you doing here?” Antonia says, chiding him. “Go down with the other men. Giulia’s not ready yet.”

  Instead, Giulia sits up. “I’m all right, Mamma. Can you step out, please? I need to speak with Vincenzo.”

  The mother and the midwife exchange a puzzled look. It’s still too soon and a woman must rest after giving birth. The midwife shrugs as if to say: As long as she’s happy . . . She collects her things and leaves. Antonia hesitates, then grabs an armful of stained towels and pushes Angela and Giuseppina out the door. “Come with Grandma, come on, let’s put these things in the wash.”

  Lugaro shuts the door behind them.

  Now they are alone.

  Vincenzo’s tongue won’t ask. It just cannot. In this room his power, money, spices, ships, wine, sulfur, and tonnaras are worthless. His voice is like a thin thread. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  They speak at the same time, and stop.

  Suddenly, there’s a wail.

  Giulia indicates the reed cradle. “Look.”

  Vincenzo approaches the basket and sees a wrinkled face and mouth making strange grimaces. He bends over the swaddled little body and studies it with a curiosity made of trepidation.

  Giulia says nothing, and just savors the moment so she can store it clearly in her memory.

  He lightly strokes the shape under the blanket, fascinated. “Is it a boy?”

  At last, Giulia nods.

  Vincenzo covers his mouth and stifles a sob. “Thank you, God,” he says. He says it again, so softly that no one can hear him. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  His business, his whole life, now has a purpose, the way it was for his uncle Ignazio and even his father, who is now a faint memory. The future is no longer a fog bank off the coast. It has arms, legs, and a head.

  He wants to hug his son but is afraid. He never held the girls in his arms just after they were born. Then, on an impulse, he picks him up, one hand under the baby’s head, the other holding the body. “My blood,” he says to him. “My darling. My heart. Light of my life.”

  The baby is so light and his skin looks transparent in the December light. He has a ferrous, sweet smell of milk, starch, and lavender.

  Giulia tries to ignore the tenderness she feels at seeing father and son together, even though her heart is in her throat and she wants to hug them both. She must force herself to speak now, to ask now. To claim. She knows it’s now or never. “I’ve given you a son. Now I want my honor back. You must acknowledge not just him but also the girls. You owe it to me.”

  Vincenzo looks at the newborn’s face: he has defined features, a high forehead, a powerful jaw.

  He’s a Florio.

  But he has Giulia’s elongated eyes.

  He sits on the edge of the bed, the little one in his arms. He takes her hand. “They will bear my name. You will bear my name. I swear it before God.”

  Giulia’s sigh carries in it relief and exhaustion. She falls back on the pillows and keeps looking at father and son united in this embrace that looks like a miracle.

  She feels tears of liberation running down her cheeks. Because of Vincenzo’s words, her life will no longer be concealed, marked by shame.

  It has taken four years to have this promise. Years of loneliness, of contempt, of reproach from her family, who—even so—have stood by her although she chose to not really know why.

  She remembers arguments, separation, and making peace again with her man, Giuseppina’s insults, Antonia’s nasty silences. All this to reach this moment.

  Giulia continues to hold his hand tight. “Will you call him Paolo, like your father?”

  My father? he thinks. The man who conceived me or the one who raised me? The one who actually allowed me to become what I am today?

  Vincenzo lets go of Giulia’s fingers. “No.” He strokes his son’s face. There’s sadness in his eyes. “No. His name will be Ignazio.”

  She nods. “Ignazio,” she repeats.

  They will carry forever the memory of what they say to each other without speaking. Until the day when it is Giulia who holds Vincenzo’s hand and he has the courage to tell her how much he loved her even without telling her.

  * * *

  The light is streaming in through the windows, flooding the stairs, reaching the ceilings, and dropping down on the sumptuously laid table. It sets the Murano glass ablaze and lingers on the Capodimonte china. The house looks like an explosion of light.

  Wearing an evening dress, Giulia is waiting for the guests to arrive. She checks that nothing is missing, that the servants look tidy, and that there’s abundant champagne. She makes sure the table linen is immaculate, the silver gleaming, and that
the food in the serving trays is kept warm. There are cigars and liqueurs waiting on a shelf.

  It’s an important occasion, the first time Giulia is hosting a dinner party: they’re celebrating the birth of the company that Vincenzo, “her husband”—it sounds so odd—has been promoting.

  It’s a dinner for business associates, true, a moment of entirely male conviviality. But the guests are among the most important businessmen in Palermo, and not only that: there are also aristocrats, people with titles as long as your arm. She can’t afford to make a mistake.

  It’s her share of the responsibility: she’s a Florio now.

  She can’t quite get used to it. For her, “home” will always be the mezzanine in Via della Zecca Regia. This is Vincenzo and his mother’s apartment, which she came to as a wife only in January 1840, more than a year after Ignazio’s birth.

  First, Vincenzo acknowledged Ignazio, Angelina, and Giuseppina as his own children. Then, a few weeks later, on January 15, he married Giulia before a public official in a civil ceremony. They went to church on the same day, late in the evening, the way you did for shotgun weddings.

  Outside family and the witnesses—Casa Florio employees—nobody attended the ceremony officiated by the priest of Santa Maria della Pietà in Kalsa, the same one who had baptized their children.

  The man, now old and full of aches and pains, let out a sigh of relief when Vincenzo signed the marriage certificate. He even muttered a “See, that’s all it takes,” charged with meaning.

  At this thought, Giulia smiles. It took a baby boy for her to become Donna Giulia Florio.

  She toys with her diamond-and-pearl bracelet, struggling to control her nervousness.

  Afterward, she goes to the children’s room and peeks inside. Ignazio’s asleep, as is Giuseppina. Angelina, however, is sitting next to the French governess, Mademoiselle Brigitte, who’s reading her a story. She greets Angelina with a kiss and shuts the door without making a sound. This another change in her life. It is no longer she who puts her children to bed.

  The housekeeper creeps up on her and makes her jump. “I beg your pardon,” she says. “I didn’t want to frighten you.”

  “It’s all right. What is it?”

  The housekeeper’s name is Luisa and she’s a middle-aged woman who used to serve a noble Neapolitan family. “Signora, your mother-in-law,” she says, hesitating, “keeps asking questions, says she’s unwell, and won’t come down to welcome the guests. Also, she can’t digest the dinner you ordered.”

  Giulia massages her forehead. “I’ll go speak to her.”

  Obviously, Donna Giuseppina can’t even leave her alone this evening.

  Giulia goes to the internal staircase that separates Giuseppina’s living quarters from the rest of the family. Shortly before the wedding, in an attempt to make it easier for his mother and wife to live under the same roof, Vincenzo divided the apartment so the two women wouldn’t clash over supremacy in running the household.

  It didn’t help much.

  Giulia finds her mother-in-law sitting at her writing desk. She’s dressed for home: with a lace cap and a threadbare, gray cotton dress.

  “Donna Giuseppina . . .” she says with a bow. Let it never be said she’s not respectful toward her. “Signora Luisa says you’re not feeling well.”

  “That’s right. I’m a bit breathless and don’t feel like going downstairs. Besides, you’re there, aren’t you?” She studies Giulia’s dress with a fierce precision. She pauses on the neckline. “All that lace . . . it must have cost an arm and a leg. And it’s very low cut. Too elegant. It looks like a dress for going to the theater.”

  “My husband suggested I wear it.”

  Giuseppina makes an annoyed gesture. “He thinks like a man. He likes certain things.” And you’ve always let him have them, her expression seems to say. “Anyway . . .”

  Giulia clears her throat. She tries to forget the offense. As far as her mother-in-law is concerned, she is the intruder and she must put up with it. Heavens above, how she hates this woman. “Don’t you want to come downstairs? Even just to welcome the guests then retire? There’s Prince Trigona and Prince Lanza di Trabia, and Baron Chiaramonte Bordonaro. Also Ingham and Signor Giachery. If you don’t come at all, your son will be upset.” She approaches and takes on a meek expression, although she feels her stomach contract with humiliation. “You know how hard Vincenzo’s worked to bring about this contract, how long it took him to persuade his associates to purchase a steamship. Come now, make this sacrifice for his sake.” She indicates the closet. “If I help you, you could change in no time—”

  “Stop insisting. I don’t feel up to it. Bring me a cup of chicken broth instead.” Her calmness sounds like a saucepan cracking. “You, rather, are you ready or do you still have to do your hair? Have you done everything correctly? It’s not easy to organize a dinner party like this when you have no experience.”

  Giulia instinctively touches her bun and glares at Giuseppina with rancor. “I didn’t think you had organized many parties or dinners for your son.”

  “Yes, a few, certainly more than you. It’s not easy being a Florio, I should know.” She looks at her fingers, marked by time. “They’re demanding people. They don’t have any regard for anybody; when they want something they go after it and get it. They don’t admit failure.”

  Giulia bows her head, unable to give an appropriate response. She hates herself when she cannot come up with a reply. I won’t fail, she tells herself. I won’t shame my husband but make him proud of me. But it’s a faint thought, a wisp of smoke in her consciousness.

  “Have you made the meat roll?” Giuseppina’s tone is harsh. “I hope you’re using the silver, the set Vincenzo brought from England—”

  “Yes. I’ve also done the preserves and cold sauces for the roast. And ghiotta trapanese tuna.”

  Giuseppina turns on her chair and takes off her cap.

  “What about the French wine? I’ve never understood this obsession of yours with things foreign. I guess you northerners have your ways. Nothing to do with me and I don’t want anything to do with it.” Thick gray locks fall on her shoulders. “Go check if everything’s in order: servants do it all their own way when there’s no one to command them. And tell them to bring me the broth; then send up the maid. She has to help me get ready for the night.”

  Giulia returns to the main apartment, her cheeks flushed, her hands shaking.

  She stops a maid and tells her to take the broth upstairs. Let that woman fend for herself, she thinks, shuddering with humiliation. Giuseppina has decided not to come, and the reason is crystal clear: she doesn’t want to be blamed in case of failure.

  Giulia opens a window and seeks comfort in fresh air. The tightness in her stomach relaxes. She looks at herself in the mirror: silk navy-blue dress, string of pearls. A shawl over the neckline: French lace Vincenzo bought in Marseille, where he went with Augusto Merle, a while ago. A gift worthy of a princess.

  And yet it’s not enough. After three pregnancies, she no longer has the waistline she used to have. But she carries herself well and has a graceful manner. But what if I’m not good enough for Vincenzo? she wonders. What if Donna Giuseppina is right and I embarrass him?

  Because it’s true: it’s not easy being Vincenzo’s wife. All of a sudden, she’s living with a man with an intense public life, who’s on first-name terms with the most important men in the realm. And she, who has always been in the shadows, is afraid of making a mistake.

  She hears the sound of carriage wheels on the cobblestones in the street, of doors opening, of male voices. There’s no more time to be anxious.

  * * *

  Ben Ingham climbs the stairs with Vincenzo. They’re both flushed from the heat but their faces show that they are pleased. “This is a historic day, my dear friend. Progress has finally reached Sicily! It’s taken a few years but still . . .”

  Giulia is on the doorstep. “Welcome. I hope you had a fruitful meeting.”r />
  Ingham is not surprised by her directness, unusual for a woman. “All signed and sealed. The shares have been paid. The Sicilian Steamship Company is a reality.” He’s enthusiastic and greets her by kissing her hand. “My dear, you look splendid.” Behind him enters a statuesque woman with long black hair streaked with gray, and a diamond necklace: Alessandra Spadafora, Duchess of Santa Rosalia, the woman Giulia saw at Teatro Carolino many years ago now. Ingham’s wife since 1837: by marrying her he has become a fully accredited aristocrat.

  The duchess greets them with an unaffected smile. She’s polite to Vincenzo and warm toward Giulia. Both women share the status of having been mistresses, and this forms a kind of vague bond between them. They have nothing else in common, however: Giulia is still a merchant’s daughter, while the duchess was born an aristocrat. Her first husband, with whom she had two children before he died and left her in financial difficulty, belonged to the island’s rural nobility.

  She thanks them. Vincenzo comes up to her. “Where’s my mother?” he murmurs. “She should be here.”

  “She’s barricaded herself in her bedroom. She says she doesn’t feel like coming down; she just asked for a cup of broth.” They both keep on smiling and welcoming their guests, who arrive straight from the office of Caldara, the notary, where they’ve signed the document creating the new company.

  “Did you try to persuade her?”

  Giulia responds by raising her eyebrows.

  More footsteps and loud voices.

  “This is a truly beautiful house, Florio. I should have come here much sooner.” Gabriele Chiaramonte Bordonaro comes in and his attention is immediately drawn to a cabinet made of carved ebony. “Superb! Chinese, right? Is it an antique?”

  “It’s from Ceylon. Baron, may I introduce my wife?”

  Chiaramonte Bordonaro turns. He hadn’t noticed Giulia. “Oh, good evening, Donna Florio.” Then he heads to the drawing room.

  Giulia and Vincenzo remain by the door, awaiting latecomers. “Is that really a baron?”

  “He bought the land and the title at the same time. Before that he was the steward of that very land and made a fortune lending money.” Vincenzo coughs into his hand. “If people call me a mangy dog, you can imagine what they say about him. But now he has a coat of arms on his front door, so . . .”