The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna

by Juliet Grames

  The good news about that heavy chocolate cake was that it settled so poorly in Stella’s stomach that when she and Carmelo got back to the hotel room she was able to make herself vomit. On this occasion she left the bathroom door open, so Carmelo might see the veracity of her indisposition. It was a shame flushing away that duck and those beautiful potatoes. But she’d saved her virginity for one more night. She slept in her blue suit again, not even taking off her stockings or jacket.

  MONTREAL WAS LOVELY the first week of October, the leaves at the peak of their autumnal change. Chilly breezes cut through the stone façades so that Stella never felt overwarm in her thick new coat. As the hours ticked by, Stella’s anxiety accumulated, gradually but inexorably, like sand in the bottom of an hourglass. Eventually she would run out of time.

  They went to mass at the Basilique Notre-Dame—a cathedral, the meaning of which word Stella finally understood. The building was bigger than the emigrant ship Countess of Savoy, its distant ceiling supported by muscular piles of swooping stone. Stella would have happily sat through a second mass so she could continue staring at the sparkling stained glass.

  After the mass, as they ate lunch on the Rue Notre-Dame, Carmelo told Stella about the great cathedrals of Italy, the inspiration of all church architecture. “This cathedral is beautiful,” he told her. “But Stella, ours are ten times more beautiful.”

  She could not imagine even the Vatican more opulent. “You’ve seen them?”

  “Only the cathedral in Genoa. When I was fourteen, the afternoon before I got on the ship to come here.” He was squinting in the sun. “It is very old, Stella, eight hundred years old. Like nothing they have in the Americas.” He paused. “I hope it is still there. After the bombs.”

  A sentimental man. Stella looked down at the crumbs of her sandwich.

  “But Rome,” he said after a moment, his voice clear again. “The Vatican, St. Peter’s—they are the most magnificent in the world, certo. We’ll go there someday. We’ll walk through St. Peter’s together.”

  Carmelo was wrong. They never would.

  THAT SECOND EVENING OF THEIR HONEYMOON, Stella and Carmelo went to see a movie with Carmela and Paolo at a cinema that looked like a palace. There was only one movie in English, a love story about two pianists. Stella didn’t understand the fast-talking actors, but the movie was full of wonderful music.

  On the walk back to their hotel, Carmelo took Stella’s hand in his, and the anxiety she had set aside for the entire beautiful day came rushing back to her. She had let her guard down, she had been kind to him—how would she say no to him now? She was almost hyperventilating as Carmelo fumbled with the hotel key.

  Still wearing her winter coat, she rushed to the drawer into which she had unpacked her clothing, scooped it all up and locked herself in the bathroom, as was her custom. Sucking calming breaths through her mouth, she assembled a night outfit for herself: her long-sleeved honeymoon nightgown over a pair of long underwear bottoms. She had the latter because Za Filomena had given her a married lady tip a few weeks before the wedding: when Filomena wanted to signal to Zu Aldo that it wasn’t a good day for her, she wore long underwear to bed to indicate there would be no access down there for him. “It’s not a problem anymore, now that we’re old and I went through my change,” Za Filomena had confided, “but when I was younger I sometimes put them on even when I wasn’t bleeding, if I just didn’t want to be bothered that day.” Stella had made sure to include three pairs of long underwear with her final trousseau.

  There wasn’t much else with which she could armor herself, although Stella had the notion to pull a girdle over the long underwear, which made her pelvis feel protected. It would be quite a lot of work for anyone to get through—impossible without her cooperation, she thought. All right. That was the best she could do.

  “I am very, very tired,” Stella announced as she stepped out of the bathroom. She was alarmed to see Carmelo wore only his trousers and a sleeveless white undershirt. The contours of his torso, revealed for her now, reminded her of her father’s; he had large, smoothly muscled arms, the arms of a strong man who would become stocky, not stringy, with age.

  Stella’s mouth was dry and her girdle throbbing. “I—I am very tired,” she said again. Her voice sounded weak. She hated herself. “I am going to sleep.”

  “Stella—” Carmelo began.

  “Good night,” she said, and turned off the light.

  Fearfully, Stella peeled the covers back in the darkness and tucked herself in. For good measure, she took the pillow out from under her head and put it between them in the middle of the bed.

  No sound came from where Carmelo stood, and at first Stella was afraid she had failed to track him in the dark over the pounding of her heartbeat, which splashed over her eardrums like unrelenting waves against the hull of a boat. But after a long time he gave a noisy sigh, and she heard him undo his belt buckle and step out of his pants. She was paralyzed by panic, waiting to see if he was going to respect her or if he would try to touch her anyway, for the terrifying period until finally, finally she heard him snore.

  She lay in the dark, her head flat on the mattress and her ankles throbbing from walking the cobblestone streets in her heeled shoes, and felt her heart race. It was an immeasurable amount of time, hours, before she fell asleep.

  ON TUESDAY, SHE NEEDED TO ESCALATE HER EFFORTS. She had come too close yesterday. Today she would have to be mean, to pick fights, to go out of her way to repel him.

  She’d been so nervous even when she was asleep that she had woken with the first light of dawn and dressed defensively. In that meditative silence of morning, she’d hit on the idea that if the honeymoon went poorly enough, Carmelo might return her to her family when they got back to Hartford. If the marriage wasn’t consummated, it could be annulled. There was a shred of hope—she just had to make him hate her.

  For this third day of their honeymoon, Carmelo had arranged a surprise for Stella: he had hired a horse-drawn carriage to take them around the city. As they rode in silence, staring out opposite sides at the quaint streets and parks, Stella imagined Carmelo’s internal monologue of disappointment, having wasted a week’s salary on this silly experience his new wife refused to enjoy. She savored her own bad mood, nurturing her grievances and resentments, hoping that Carmelo would catch her malignance like a poisoned wind.

  The day dragged, and even Carmelo was deflated in the face of Stella’s sullenness. But the worst, for everyone, was yet to come, at dinner with the Martinos. Carmela’s warm, solicitous chattering made Stella’s head spin. She needed to clip any budding blossom of friendship Carmela perceived between them.

  Stella refused to speak throughout the meal, ignoring questions and avoiding eye contact. Her most hostile behaviors were thwarted, though, by Carmelo, who shamelessly covered up for her, laughing and telling weak jokes, apologizing profusely to Carmela and Paolo for subjecting poor Stella to such a tiring day. Not enough damage was being done; Stella had to foment her aggression.

  The opportunity came just after the arrival of the main course. Carmela was saying to her brother, “It is hard for us to get time off, but we will come and visit you in Hartford when you have a baby. I hope it’s soon.”

  This was Stella’s moment. Here she had the tools to be nasty. “I don’t really see why,” she said, surprising everyone with the bell-clear sound of her voice, “you’re so interested in our future children when you haven’t done the work of having your own.”

  The moment of silence stretched so long even Stella, the author of it, felt disoriented. Paolo looked down at his plate.

  “We’ve been trying since we got married,” Carmela said. The habitual warmth was gone from her voice. “I . . . I have had bad luck so far. But God knows what’s best.”

  “Bad luck?” Stella put down her fork. Mean, she was going to be mean. Her stomach clenched in anticipation, in warning. She opened her mouth and willed the words out. “It’s true God knows what’s bes
t. Maybe God doesn’t think you deserve to be a mother.”

  “Stella,” Carmelo said. He was shocked, his eyes wide. “How can you say that?” She knew that he was thinking of Tina, whose face Stella banished from her mind.

  “I just think it’s rude,” Stella said, loudly enough that the tables around them hushed. She fixed Carmela with a stare, narrowing her eyes so that she would not accidentally blink or look away. “Attacking us with questions about our children. Some people need to learn to mind their own cazzi.” Stella was glad for the low lighting, because she couldn’t make herself use that vulgar expression without feeling her face heat up—she’d never said it out loud before, only heard her father and Joey use it. But it had the desired effect.

  Carmela had turned to Paolo, her face haggard as an old woman’s. “Is it all right if we leave?” She didn’t wait for an answer, dropping her cloth napkin over her plate as she rose from her chair. Paolo was standing, too, pulling out his wallet as Carmela headed toward the coat check.

  Carmelo stood in protest. “Paolo, please don’t, we’ll be fine.”

  “No, no,” Paolo said, his voice as soft and unprepossessing as ever. “Please, allow me. Carmela only means well.”

  Carmelo tried to fend off Paolo’s generosity, but Paolo dropped bills on the table and followed his wife out the door. Carmelo stood as if dazed. Stella’s heart was pounding, her ears throbbing. They would have been hot to the touch, she knew. Some of the other diners were openly staring. Stella consoled herself that most of those French-speaking people probably had no idea how awful she’d been. She ate a small piece of her pork, trying to appreciate the flavor.

  When Carmelo took his seat again, he was silent for several minutes. Stella persevered with her pork, but she had to cut tiny bites and chew them many times. Her stomach was tender, almost sore, because of what she’d done.

  “Let’s go, Stella,” Carmelo said finally.

  “No,” she said, making her voice brash and disrespectful. She couldn’t look at him. “Why should we waste all this expensive food? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  They sat in silence as Stella steadily ate her way through her dinner, taking little sips of wine in hopes that it would unsour her stomach. The waiter came over to see if there was something wrong, and Carmelo bumbled through a short conversation, pantomiming paying the check. At that ugly picture, Carmelo’s over-the-top miming in the moment of his own unhappiness, Stella felt a flare of disgust.

  When the waiter left the final change, Carmelo drank down his full glass of wine, then reached for Paolo’s glass. As Stella was finishing the last of her pork roast, he said suddenly, “She only meant well, I know because she is my sister, but maybe she overstepped asking about children. But you know that’s something people do, even though they shouldn’t,” he was saying, talking quickly—to himself, Stella thought, not her. “She just meant to show she cared about her family. That’s all. You should try to put the whole thing out of your mind.” Now he was talking to her; he was touching her elbow again.

  She looked up and saw his soft smile and sad eyes in the candlelight. “I hope you don’t worry about this, Stella,” Carmelo said. “I know she will be so sorry she upset you. She just wants to be your friend and she made a mistake.”

  Stella felt sick. How could he take her side? Why wasn’t he leaping to his sister’s defense, shouting invectives at his malicious, vulgar wife? In this moment Stella was sure she had just made the world a worse place and gained no strength from it herself.

  “I’m ready to go now,” she said. Her voice sounded like a child’s.

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK to their hotel room, Stella was vibrating with remorse and fear. It was a terrible thing she’d done, terrible. Now she needed to be strong and make it stick. She rallied herself, cleared her throat, and told Carmelo she was too upset by what had happened, that she couldn’t bear to look at him tonight, he looked too much like that woman. She stared at the floor. “You had better leave me alone now.”

  He didn’t say anything, and finally she looked up to check his expression, which seemed to be one of disbelief, or suppressed anger. But he pulled his coat back on and said, “I guess I’ll go have a drink.” And he left.

  Stella didn’t see him again that night. She had trouble falling asleep, her conscience swirling with remorse and justifications. When she woke up in the morning the linens on the other side of the bed were still pulled to in a perfect nurse’s corner.

  UNSURE OF WHAT TO DO WITH HERSELF, Stella dressed in her fourth honeymoon dress, which was a muted green that reminded her of the gray-green of olive leaves back home in Ievoli. She went downstairs to the parlor area where the hotel staff served breakfast. She sat at a table and drank a cup of coffee the breakfast maid prepared for her. She ate a pastry. Her chest, the area around her heart, was sore with her guilt. Some other breakfasters came and went, and Stella had another cup of coffee. She couldn’t get back into her room; Carmelo had the key, and she didn’t know where he was. But this was what she’d wanted, to be left alone.

  She looked down at her green dress, whose color soothed her. She thought of the maiden-green skirt of her pacchiana, which she hadn’t worn in a decade. She would be wearing red, now, married lady that she was. But here she was in this virginal green. She carefully folded back the cuffs so that her scars were exposed. How far away was that dangerous, beautiful world where she had almost died so many times. It had been seven years since her last almost-death, when she had tried to kill herself to escape a nightmare that had seized her mind—a nightmare that was simply a part of her everyday life now. How fast those last seven years had gone by, like they hadn’t mattered, a cycle of ironing and praying and hair-curling and doily-crocheting that both maintained and undid itself. There were some blemishes and some highlights, but even those ran together, as if her memories had stopped being important.

  Stella was spared any difficult conversations because Carmelo came into the parlor when the grandfather clock by the fireplace read nine fifteen. He was dressed in a fresh yellow button-down shirt and his jacket was pressed; he must have pressed it himself just now up in their room.

  “Good morning, Stella,” he said, taking the seat across from her. His hair was washed and oiled into a smooth, shiny black sweep over his forehead.

  “Good morning,” she replied. She wondered where Carmelo had been all night. Had he gone to his sister? Another hotel? A whorehouse?

  They didn’t say anything else to each other through breakfast. Stella drank a third cup of coffee as Carmelo ate two pieces of toast with jam.

  Two more days, she had to get through, and two more nights.

  ON WEDNESDAY STELLA SUFFERED the products of her malfeasance, her entire body tightened around the coil of her guilty gut. Carmelo took them to the pier, where they boarded a tourist ferryboat that chugged them down and then back up the river. There was a bar on the boat, and Carmelo bought himself a bottle of beer. Stella felt too queasy to want even water.

  They did not meet Carmela and Paolo for dinner. Carmelo took them to a restaurant near their hotel, where the waiter was unkind and made a show of not understanding the French words Carmelo tried to read off the menu. They ate in silence. Stella’s groin was aching, a lancing pain like she sometimes got during her period, but she knew, unfortunately, that today’s pain was the result of the guilt. What was Carmelo thinking? Was he giving up on her yet? Toward the end of the meal, Carmelo left the table to use the toilet, and Stella took the opportunity to drop her steak knife into her handbag. It felt melodramatic, but maybe she’d need to be melodramatic later.

  The walk back to the hotel was too short. As Carmelo closed the door to their room, Stella said, “You better not think you are going to lay a hand on me now.”

  He turned to face her, removing his hat. His cheeks were pink and his eyes were angry. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?” She didn’t say anything. “We’re married,” he told
her. “It is my right.”

  “If you try anything, you’ll see what’s coming to you,” Stella said. She hated him in that moment and she was certain he hated her. “Even if I have to sleep with a knife under my pillow.”

  There was a strange pause as they each tried to think of what to say next. After waiting several beats too long, Stella opened the clasp of her purse, fumbling through her gloves, and produced the steak knife.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said again. “What do you think is going to happen? You think we’re going to live out the rest of our lives and never sleep together?”

  “Not if I can help it,” she blurted.

  Well, there it was.

  “Just take off your clothes and get it over with.” Carmelo was shouting. “You’ll see it’s not such a big deal.”

  Stella’s stomach contracted, the coil tightening. “No. It’s never going to happen.”

  Carmelo threw up his hands. The hotel room key went flying into the wall and bounced onto the carpet. “Remember what you said to my sister yesterday, about God punishing her? What’s your plan there, huh? When people ask you why you don’t have a baby?”

  “It’s none of their business,” Stella said, her conviction collapsing into guilt about how she had treated Carmela.

  “Right. Because people mind their own business. Because that’s how the world works.”

  “It’s easy.” Stella cleared her throat to steady her voice before adding, “I’ll just tell them your pistola doesn’t work.”

  The last vestiges of kindness in Carmelo’s face had fallen away. “All right, Stella. Why don’t you think this through a little? Do you realize where this all leaves me?”