The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna

by Juliet Grames

  You looked at me with such passionate eyes, the lyrics went, and I stole your beautiful handkerchief. My Calabrisella, let us make love. I am dying of desire.

  It couldn’t have been the first time she had heard the song—it was the quintessential Calabrese folk song, sung in love or in jest by every wooing Calabrese boy to his every blushing or irritated lady target. But for the rest of her life Stella would think of this night when she heard the song, whose chorus filled her ears for days.

  Tirulalleru lalleru lala! Sta Calabrisella muriri mi fa!

  TWO WEEKS AFTER THE FHESTA, Stefano from Sambiase came all the way to Ievoli on Saturday afternoon. He must have traveled through the heat of the day to arrive for dinner. He stayed with the Felices and on Sunday morning, after attending mass at Santa Maria Addolorata, he knocked on the door of Assunta’s house and asked if he could visit with them for the afternoon.

  “You came so far,” Assunta said.

  “But not too far.” He smiled at her. “Not too far to come again.”

  All the Ieovli women whispered about the handsome, well-off young scholar who came all the way from Sambiase because he had been bewitched by Stella’s beauty. She was the envy of the town, and Assunta often performed the Evil Eye hex to protect her from the other girls’ jealousy, but it was true Stefano must have been very smitten. He visited four more Sundays over the course of the winter, even in early January when a surprise storm hit. That day, there was an inch of snow lying over the flat surfaces, and it was still there when Stefano arrived, unexpected, as mass was letting out. He had brought the Fortunas a tiny jar of real coffee. They brewed it in a saucepan over the open fire, then let it cool on the snowy stones outside the front door. Stefano led the giggling Fortunas down the white-dampened street, tipping clean snow off tree branches into a bowl. They drizzled the collected snow with the almost-cool coffee and two teaspoons of precious honey, and ate this rare treat, scirubetta, passing around three shared spoons. Five-year-old Luigi, who had a sweet tooth, managed to get the lion’s share.

  Besides coffee, Stefano brought the Fortunas other gifts—a bottle of grape brandy, a carved serving spoon. Eventually, he brought a chain for Stella’s cornetto—a fine gold chain, with interlocking links the size of the head of a needle. Stella wondered if he’d overheard Assunta’s advice to her daughters all those months ago at the festival, or if he just had parents who’d taught him the same.

  That was the visit when he asked Assunta’s permission to be her daughter’s fidanzato.

  “Well, I’m not her father. So it’s hard to say.” Assunta didn’t feel secure in her own judgment on this matter, but it wasn’t her place to destroy an opportunity for her daughter, so she said, “But yes, you have my permission.”

  Another parent might have added “If she agrees,” but this did not occur to Assunta. Stella was grateful for her mother’s absentmindedness, because at least she’d never had to make any promises about her own cooperation. She was confused and uneasy about Stefano’s attention, and spent his visits torn between enjoyment of his wonderful company and fear that he wanted to make a wife out of her. Why did she fear being his wife? She couldn’t answer that question for herself, either, but the idea made her stomach twist. She liked him and thought he was handsome. But the closer she felt tugged to him by his charisma, the more acute her aversion. If she let him get too close, he might touch her; he might put his hands where her father had, bind her to him, fill her with his seed. Handsome as Stefano was, Stella couldn’t imagine she’d ever like a man enough to make entering into the servitude of marriage worthwhile.

  “I’m not going to be a contadino,” Stefano told her. He couldn’t have guessed that saying so only made Stella think of her father. “You wouldn’t be a farmer’s wife who is hauling firewood on her back and plowing fields like an ox.”

  “I’m happy to work,” Stella said. “I’m a good worker.” She didn’t want to give him false confidence. “Besides, what will you be if you’re not going to be a contadino?”

  “I’m going to own land,” he said. “Not farm someone else’s.”

  Stella turned this over. It sounded nice, but she thought a chicken might as well say I’m not going to lay eggs anymore. From now on I’m going to be a rooster. “How are you going to get land? You’d need so much money.”

  “Mussolini is making changes. He is going to take Italy away from the rich princes and give it back to the Italians.” He tossed his head; his dark curls had a great effect on the Fortuna women. “I might move to Catanzaro, or maybe even Rome. I am thinking that maybe I can get involved in politics.”

  Stella exchanged a glance with Cettina. The girls weren’t sure what “politics” entailed. “You want to be a mayor, something like that?”

  “I want to be part of the new world,” Stefano answered, his dark eyes narrow. “Maybe a government minister. But to get there I need to build up a reputation, respect. So first I am going to become a soldier.”

  “Ooo, a general, I could see him.” Assunta leaned over Stefano to present him with a bowl of doughnuts she had just fried. “He would be so handsome in a uniform.”

  Stella was quiet for the rest of his visit. Her mother was very sure of Stefano, and Stefano seemed very sure of Stella. Here was a clever, ambitious man who wanted to take care of her. He was certainly a prize—clean cut, well groomed, educated, willing to travel hours from another, richer village to visit her. Stella realized no one was waiting to hear what she had to say. It seemed that the world was accelerating around her while she slipped deeper into a pool of unease.

  She was never forced to assert her position because the letter came.

  * * *

  ANTONIO’S LETTER, which arrived in early April, was addressed to Cicciu Mascaro, Nicola’s older son, who as closest living male relative was to act as his Aunt Assunta’s chaperone and representative. The letter explained that Antonio had obtained a five-person passport for his family, despite his wife’s unhelpfulness. The passport was waiting for them in Napoli with a Signor Vittorio Martinelli, who also had prepaid tickets for their passage on a ship called the Monarch. They would be leaving in five weeks, on May 17. Cicciu would put the family’s affairs in order and sell the donkey, the goats, and the furniture. If they could not find someone to buy the house in that short window, Cicciu should look after it until a sale was arranged. Cicciu was to chaperone Assunta and the children as far as Napoli and help her meet up with Signor Martinelli—Assunta would pay for all related expenses.

  How did Antonio have the right to arrange such a thing? “It can’t be, Mamma,” Stella said. “He can’t sell your house. He can’t make us do any of this.”

  Assunta was speechless with grief, but Maria replied sadly, “He can. He is her husband.” Everything Assunta owned was in fact Antonio’s to dispose of as he would. A house that one woman, Ros, had given to another woman, Assunta, subsumed by the patriarchy, snap! Just like that.

  I PROBABLY DON’T NEED TO TELL YOU that Assunta was distraught. She incapacitated herself in a two-day breakdown during which she lay in bed and sobbed, a kitchen towel pulled over her eyes.

  What would happen to Nonna Maria? She was not included on the passport. Assunta was sure her mother would die, what with having no eyesight, no source of income, no one to bring her food or to help her wash her clothes. Well, there was Za Violetta, but that was hardly comforting.

  During this period, while Assunta was prostrate with ruinous emotion, Cettina cooked all the meals. She and Stella weeded the garden, although they reflected together that they wouldn’t be there to eat what they’d planted.

  Stella was numb with ambivalence; her heart was foggy, cold, locked. On the fringe of her emotional void—like Gypsies circling at the fhesta, waiting for their chance to approach—were splashes of regret, relief, heartache, hatred for her father, anger at her village for not being more prosperous, harder to leave behind. Together they didn’t make sense. Stella was a person who preferred black-and-wh
ite distinctions, so she shut them all out. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ievoli—her grandmother, her perch on the church chiazza where she liked to watch the sunset, the stray cats who stopped to visit with her in the sun-baked alleys. But budding, flowering inside her heartache was something else—ambition for another life. Despite the cold shock of it—of learning that with one snap of his faraway fingers her good-for-nothing father was upending their existence—Stella wondered if this was a gift from God. She would go to America, and she would not have to make a decision about marrying Stefano.

  Cettina, fourteen, vacillated between tearful and stoic; she always took her emotional cues from her mother and sister, so this was an especially confusing time for her. Stella knew Cettina would suffer more than she would, in the end, because Cettina wasn’t as tough. Stella wouldn’t make things worse for her mother and sister. Instead, she bottled up her grief, compressed her frustrations into compassion, brushed and braided their hair, rubbed their backs, turned over the logistics—the reality—in her head.

  Someone had to be in charge of tying up all the loose ends. As Assunta cried into her blind mother’s lap, Stella decided she herself was going to have to be that someone. There was no time to sell the house, so they didn’t try. Cicciu would send the money to Antonio whenever the sale was finally made. The Fortunas’ clothes all fit in one trunk, which Stella bought from Zu Salvatore’s store. She carried the trunk up the hill alone; it was unwieldy and heavy and halfway home Stella was in a sweaty rage at herself for not having accepted help. When she got it home Cettina lined the bottom with basil and mint, to keep away the insects and disease and bad luck, and together the sisters folded and packed.

  The pork cured in January would go to waste, so they ate as much as they could, suppressata sliced up with every dinner. The widow Nicoletta had heard the Fortunas were leaving and asked if she might have their chickens. She had no money to exchange, but it was one thing taken care of. They were good layers and Stella hoped Nicoletta wouldn’t kill them and feed them to her layabout son.

  The donkey, who was thirteen years old, Stella gave to Gae Felice. She didn’t want to sell the poor thing, not to someone who would try to put the wilted beast in front of a plow. But she thought of Gae as softhearted and believed he would care for the ciucciarijllu fondly. She had to arrange it behind Assunta’s back or there would have been a great show no one wanted.

  STEFANO CAME TO SAY GOOD-BYE on their second-to-last Sunday. He wasn’t ruffled by the departure; he, too, was leaving to join the army in the fall. “We will be together soon,” he told Stella, who was even more uncertain that was what she wanted than she’d been before. “The ocean is not so hard to cross. When I have enough money for a nice house, I’ll send for you. You won’t have to be gone long.”

  When Stella said good-bye to Stefano for the last time, she let him kiss her on the cheek. She wanted to do him that little favor in case she never saw him again.

  FIVE WEEKS—IT IS NO TIME AT ALL, especially when it is followed by “forever.”

  The entire family made a trip to Nicastro to have their passport photos taken. When Stella saw the developed picture of herself, she was surprised at what her own face looked like. It reminded her, dismayingly, of her father’s.

  Stella and Cettina washed and perfumed their hair with lemon for their last Ievoli mass, and they wore their fanciest dresses. Stella wanted the village to remember her at her best. The sun shone hard on the black wool and she sweated into the puffed sleeves as they knelt in the Fortunas’ family pew. She had tucked basil leaves into her armpits to disguise the body odor, but she would still have to wash the dress before packing it for the journey. She could hardly guess she would never wear it in America, that nothing American women wore looked anything like her best dress. She couldn’t keep her mind on Father Giacomo’s homily, and instead prayed to the statue of the dolorous Virgin that the boat they were about to get on wouldn’t sink in the middle of the ocean.

  That Monday, with little Luigi tagging behind, they took their last load of dirty clothes up the mountain to the laundry trough. As Stella scrubbed her clothes against the stones, she thought about Antonio’s world, where water came into houses all on its own, like having your own private fountain in your own kitchen—a world where you never carried a bucket down the mountain on your head, or scrubbed laundry against stones in a stream. She wouldn’t be unhappy if she never had to do laundry again, she decided. She had no way of knowing how badly she would yearn for the cold, clean taste of the Ievoli cistern’s mountain water, or that in the years to come, the rest of her adult life, there would be nothing she would do more than laundry.

  ON MAY 15, THE DAY BEFORE the journey to Napoli, Stella snuck out of the house—alone; she did not want Cettina coming with her, for once—and climbed the mountain toward Don Mancuso’s chestnut groves. The trees were full of rosy-silver catkins, and the flat, knife-shaped leaves buzzed with bees and fruit flies. There was no human but Stella for miles, no reason for any human to come here as the trees did their summer business. She found the tree where her first period had come—she was almost sure it was the right tree—touched its bark, which was striated like wool.

  She would never again split open her finger pads on a chestnut husk, or accidentally drive a spine into her nail bed. Her days of farm labor were over. She didn’t know where Americans got their chestnuts, but she knew that it wasn’t from Don Mancuso. She sat under the tree and closed her eyes, trying to absorb the hum of the grove and the scent of the warm summer wind.

  AT DUSK, AS SHE WAS coming back down the mountain, instead of going home Stella continued down via Fontana past their house, past the alleys of stone and stucco buildings. Without letting anyone catch her eye, she crossed the centro and took the dirt road down toward the cemetery.

  Stella hadn’t been inside in years. She remembered coming with her mother when she was a little girl to care for the lost Mariastella’s grave. Now Assunta prayed every day in front of the shrine she’d made at home, but Stella didn’t know if she visited the grave often at all anymore.

  The bougainvillea was in bloom, the magenta lanterns of the blossoms tapping against the cemetery’s wall in the breeze. Bunches of flowers balanced on the ledges beneath nameplates, making it easy to see who was missed most. Stella passed them all, turning down the last aisle, shadowy and chill. She started as a lizard scuttled off a late patch of sunlight. She tried to guess if she was alone.

  There it was, her name carved in the marble, the most expensive thing her young mother had ever purchased. There were no flower offerings. Did her lost sister feel neglected? The priest would say there was no one here to neglect, that the first Mariastella was with God in heaven. But if everyone believed the priest, why were there so many flowers on the other graves?

  “Mariastella,” she said out loud, her voice sounding dry and powerless. How strange it was to say your own name to someone else. She swallowed to wet her palate and tried again. “Mariastella.”

  Was she there?

  Goose bumps had risen on Stella’s bare, scarred forearms, but she’d made herself so nervous she didn’t think it was proof of anything.

  “I wanted to tell you—” But she didn’t, she didn’t want to tell her. “I thought you should know, we are leaving here.” The breeze seemed loud in her ears. Because she felt she was supposed to, Stella extended her hand, ran a finger along the wedge-shaped indents of the carved letters. “We have to leave you. I’m so sorry.”

  It was as she said it—I’m so sorry—that Stella felt the cluster of pressure in her sinuses, saw the wetness at the edges of her vision. She had not cried in many years, and of course she wouldn’t cry now.

  When she had come back in control of herself, she said, stiffly, “We will never forget about you, though. Please don’t be afraid of that.”

  Her voice echoed off the stone without any warmth. Feeling confused and not knowing why, Stella wrapped her arms around herself and left.
r />   * * *

  ASSUNTA HAD TO SAY GOOD-BYE to Maria the night before they left—it was too difficult for the blind woman to make the journey to the Feroleto train station. Stella had never seen her mother as silent as she was that morning. Assunta looked like an old woman herself, harrowed by her separation.

  None of the Fortunas had ridden a train before, nor had cousin Cicciu, who would accompany them to Napoli. They were all a little awed by the concept and keen to do it correctly. It was a hazy day for May, a weird dampness rising up out of the marina. They were too early, and milled in the Feroleto chiazza for two hours. When it was finally time to board, short, round Za Violetta pinched Stella’s cheek affectionately. “I’m going to miss you, Stella,” she said plainly. Looking into her aunt’s clear brown eyes, Stella believed she meant it.

  “God bless you, Zia,” Stella said, and she meant it, too.

  The train had come from Catanzaro, and there were already people on board. Nervously Stella waited, holding her silent mother’s elbow, as Cicciu tried to find them seats. “We must not take our eyes off our bags for even a moment,” he warned them. “There are thieves everywhere.”

  They would spend today on the train, which would arrive in Napoli late tonight. Tomorrow they would meet with Signor Martinelli and have their medical exams, and the day after that they would sail with the Monarch at first tide. Stella had portions of food allotted for each of the meals between now and their departure, and kept the coin purse with all the family’s lire. She’d waited for Cicciu, the chaperone, to ask her to hand over the family funds, but so far he had not. Stella thought Cicciu was just as nervous about this journey as any of the Fortunas.

  The train descended, somewhat jerkily, from the mountain villages, the roads and groves Stella knew so well, and into the less familiar yellow plains of lower Nicastro, where they stopped for half an hour to pick up more people. Some passengers took the opportunity to walk their goats up and down the train platform. After Nicastro, the scenery changed drastically. There, so close she felt she could touch it if she stuck her hand out the window, was the sea.