“They spied on one another constantly. Whenever the herdsmen came to our house, Italo’s grandfather appeared at his window, pretending to check on the weather. Whenever the Giuliano family ate lunch, my grandfather watched carefully, making sure that his partner hadn’t taken the crown roast for himself.
“But by the time Italo and I were born, our grandfathers were dead. And our fathers, members of a more enlightened generation, no longer kept up the constant surveillance.
“I was the only one with the spy’s blood still running in my veins. And so, all through the rainy days of my childhood, I stood at my window and watched Italo Giuliano.
“It must have been the pure thrill of spying that attracted me, because it wasn’t a very interesting sight. All Italo ever did was read. Day after day, I watched him mumbling to himself and turning the pages with a faraway look in his eye. He was oblivious to everything else. He never even flinched when his brothers teased him, pelting him with chunks of raw mutton, or gory sheep’s hearts that splashed his books with blood.
“Our village was very isolated, high up in the mountains, fifty kilometers from the nearest school. So Italo had been obliged to teach himself. He began with the words on flour sacks and tobacco packages. He read the family Bible seven times. He borrowed the priest’s missal and pored over the senseless Latin. He even took to standing at the crossroads, flagging down passing trucks and badgering the drivers for newspapers from distant cities.
“Whenever Mrs. Giuliano heard about that, there was something to see from my window. ‘This reading is turning you into a bandit!’ she’d scream at her son.
“Right from the start, Italo was a sensitive boy. After each of his mother’s harangues, he’d run away from home, and crawl through the narrow alley between our houses.
“‘Angela,’ he’d whisper up at me. ‘I’m on the run. Take me in.’
“I’d let him stay in my mother’s kitchen until the good smells made him so hungry that he forgot his quarrel. But one day, even I lost patience. What good is spying, I thought to myself, if you’re always spying on the same old thing?
“‘Italo,’ I said, ‘maybe your mother’s right. Why do you waste your time reading? Do you like it when your brothers tease you? Do you want everyone to call you a bookworm?’
“‘Yes,’ replied Italo Giuliano, ‘I do.’
“I was just a little girl then, with a little girl’s mind. But suddenly, as I looked at my friend, I understood as well as any woman: Italo wanted to be teased about his reading. That way, no one would tease him about his looks.
“For Italo Giuliano was the homeliest boy in Sicily. Even as a child, his skin was covered with purple cysts the size of grapes. His nose looked as if God had stuck a lump of dough in the middle of his face. His eyebrows grew together over his nose in one long eyebrow which reminded me of a frowning, hairy mouth.
“When he was small, the village children teased him mercilessly, saying that he resembled the putrefying sheep’s heads behind his father’s shop. Yet by the time he started to read, they no longer called him ‘the Sheep.’ Italo thought that he owed his reprieve to his new knowledge, but he was wrong. The children’s sudden kindness had nothing to do with his reading. Rather, it was this: everyone in the village had begun to recognize the sweet nature beneath that sour face.
“He was the most generous and patient boy who ever lived,” says my grandmother, hugging herself so hard that the flesh trembles on her arms. “He was my best friend, he would have done anything for me. Whenever my father hit me, I ran to Italo. Whenever I was sick, he sat on my bed and read aloud to me. And whenever I woke up screaming from a bad dream, I’d call across the alley, and make Italo walk with me until I was calm.”
“Didn’t your parents worry?” asks Mrs. Russo. “A little girl like that, staying out all night with her boyfriend?”
“They wished they had reason to worry,” says my grandmother. “They would have liked me to marry Italo someday, for business reasons. And they knew how I admired his sweetness. But they also knew that the combination of his good nature and his homely face meant that I would never love him as a man.
“It was that way with all the girls. We loved Italo so much that we let him stay near us even after we’d started chasing the other boys away with stones. ‘Look, Italo,’ we’d say. ‘Look how much we love you.’
“But it wasn’t really love. Love was what we felt for those other boys, who teased us so meanly that we had to chase them away. And Italo was the one we punished for their sins.
“We took terrible advantage of him. We asked him for favors, sent him on errands, and never did anything in return. Sometimes, when our mothers gave us custard, Italo would ask us to save him the last bite. ‘Of course,’ we’d say. But we always forgot.”
“Then why did he put up with it?” interrupts Mrs. Russo. “Were you girls his only friends?”
“He was too good-natured to resist,” replies my grandmother. “Besides, he had another friend, a boy.”
“And who was that?”
Of course, Mrs. Russo knows the answer. She’s heard this story a thousand times. But this last question is her favorite; she’s been leading up to it all along. And now, she settles back on the bench, waiting with delight. “What was his name?” she asks.
“His name,” says my grandmother, “was Italo Giuliano.”
“They were distant cousins,” she continues, “related by some long-ago marriage that no one could remember. Yet after my neighbor was christened Italo, the other Mrs. Giuliano, the cafe owner’s wife, stormed through the village, cursing their kinship to high heaven.
“‘All my life,’ she said, ‘I’ve wanted a son named Italo. And now that old witch has beaten me to it. But I’ll have my way yet. I’ll name my next son Italo, even if it means that there will be two boys in this town with the same name.’
“‘Don’t do it,’ the women advised her. ‘You’ll doom them to confusion. They’ll be hobbled for life.’
“‘Then I’ll call him Italo Salvatore,’ said the cafe owner’s wife. ‘But that’s the farthest I’ll go.’
“Yet the villagers need never have worried about confusing the two Italos, for no two boys could have been more different. Italo Salvatore grew tall and handsome. His eyes had a dreamy look, like those of the saints on the chapel wall. Unlike my neighbor, he was illiterate, and very charming—with a flashing wink, a quick smile, and a terrible mean streak.
“At first, the two Italos ignored each other. But before they entered their teens, they suddenly decided to become friends. After that, they acted as if their common name was some hilarious private joke. Whenever the handsome boy was called, my neighbor would answer; when a traveling dentist pulled my neighbor’s tooth, the other Italo faked a howl of pain. For a while, they even dressed alike and claimed to be twins.
“And so the view from my window began to change. Late at night, Italo still sat alone, reading. But in the evenings, he and his friend played together, pretending to be pirates, soldiers, bandit kings.
“Italo Salvatore was always the leader in those games. It seemed wrong. Not only was my neighbor older, but, even then, he had the courage and ingenuity that were to make him the most beloved bandit chief in all Sicily. But the other’s mean streak gave him an advantage. Like the girls, he mistreated his good-natured friend. He bossed him around like an unpaid servant. He even teased him about his looks, saying that no sensible girl would ever love a boy whose eyebrows grew together over his nose.
“Italo Salvatore had no such problems, and that, too, was a source of power. For all the village girls adored him, adored that dreamy expression. Naturally they threw stones at him. But after they’d chased him away, they surrounded my neighbor and pumped him for information about his handsome friend.
“‘Listen,’ they’d say, ‘what does that stupid Italo Salvatore say about us, behind our backs?’
“‘He never mentions you,’ beamed Italo, proud to be the chosen confida
nt of so many beautiful girls.
“And so the two boys complemented each other. Their friendship seemed to increase the homely one’s familiarity, and the handsome one’s mystery.”
“Eventually Italo Salvatore also became my friend. At first he didn’t like me, and my neighbor kept us apart, as if he were unwilling to share us. But gradually, Italo Salvatore learned that I was clever, that he could treat me like another boy; and my neighbor came around. So the three of us began to play together.
“Every Saturday morning, we went for long walks through the fields. My neighbor and I always lagged slightly behind, while Italo Salvatore ran ahead, searching for buried treasure. Sometimes he’d find an old spoon, a rusty coin, a used-up cartridge. Once he unearthed a small tortoiseshell comb and gave it to me, saying that girls’ things made him sick.
“At home, I washed the comb, and wrapped it in a cloth, as if it really was a treasure. For in giving me that present, Italo Salvatore had won my heart. Not that I adored him, like those giggling girls. But I didn’t want him to treat me like another boy.
“And so, on those Saturday morning walks, all my clever remarks were aimed at Italo Salvatore. I wanted to impress him, to intrigue him, to make him laugh. I even bought a miniature of St. Michael, because the saint’s dreamy expression reminded me of Italo Salvatore.
“Sometimes I wondered if my neighbor was hurt by my crush on his handsome friend. But Italo never seemed to mind; he never seemed to notice. His sweet good nature never changed.
“Of course he doesn’t care, I thought, he doesn’t think of me that way.
“In fact, he didn’t seem to think of anyone that way. For, in those troublesome times, Italo alone seemed unaffected by those strange things that were happening to the rest of us, those changes, those daily surprises. He grew taller; his voice deepened; his complexion got worse. Yet he never seemed confused, unhappy, full of new secrets.
“Lucky Italo, I thought. It’s easy for him.
“But late one night, as I stood at my window, I saw something that made me realize I’d been wrong.
“It was a hot evening in July. Italo’s family had gone out to escape the heat, leaving him alone. Spying from my darkened room, I saw him take the pincers which his mother used on stubborn pinfeathers. I saw him stare into the mirror, tense with concentration.
“And then I saw Italo Giuliano tweeze the hairs from that place where his eyebrows grew together, above his nose.”
“So perhaps Italo’s change was just slow in coming. For by the next summer, when Italo Salvatore returned from that fateful trip to Palermo, my neighbor was clearly ready to change something deeper than his overgrown eyebrows.
“The boys were fifteen. Early in June, Italo Salvatore had gone with his father to see an uncle in the city. And he came back a different man. The city had turned him into a gangster. He’d bought a sheepskin jacket, which he wore with the collar turned up. He chain-smoked cigarettes. He mumbled out of the corner of his mouth. And he narrowed his eyes into such thin slits that I could no longer see their dreamy expression.
“Immediately my neighbor began to copy him. From my window, I saw him stretching the collar of his sweater until it hung in rolls around his neck. And as he narrowed his eyes and twisted his mouth, he looked so exceptionally homely that I almost cried.
“Within a week, the two Italos became the village bullies. They shook down children for pennies. They insulted the girls with dirty names. ‘Stay away from those two,’ our mothers warned us. ‘They’re nothing but trouble.’
“If that had been true, we would never have listened to our mothers; we would have worshipped those boys like Jesus. But we knew they were only imitation gangsters, pretending to be tough; and we despised them for it. Italo Salvatore lost all his fascination for me. And my neighbor turned so nasty that I couldn’t stand to see him. We stopped speaking, and I mourned the loss of Italo’s good nature as if it were a dead man.
“All the village girls felt as I did—all, that is, but one. For it was rumored that little Maria Gozzi had become Italo Salvatore’s mistress, and was meeting him at night, behind the church.
“My neighbor, on the other hand, had given up his love. He would have died before he read another book. Mrs. Giuliano had gotten her wish, but it brought no peace to the family. As I spied on them from my window, I saw her raging harder than ever, cursing Italo’s rotten gangster ways.
“One night, after one of those battles, a strange thing happened. Italo stormed out of his house, and squeezed through the narrow alley, just as he’d done as a boy.
“‘Angela,’ he whispered, ‘I’m on the run. Take me in.’
“‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ve gotten too nasty. Be a gangster if you want, but not in my house.’
“But a moment later, I changed my mind. For the sake of our old friendship, I let him in; for the sake of those nights he’d comforted me, I let him sit on my bed. But that evening, he couldn’t sit still. Suddenly, he sprang toward me, pinning me against the pillows.
“‘Angela!’ he cried. ‘All week Italo Salvatore’s been telling me what it’s like to kiss Maria Gozzi, and I want to try it myself. Please, let me do it with you, as an experiment, just to see what it’s like!’
“‘You’re crazy!’ I screamed. ‘That’s no way to ask a girl. And even if it was, I wouldn’t do it with you.’
“‘That’s just what Italo Salvatore told me,’ said my neighbor. ‘All the girls protest like that.’ So he refused to believe me, and kept on pressing his homely face against mine until he saw I was serious. Then, without a word, he got up and left the house.
“The next morning, as I looked across the alley, I noticed that Italo’s bed was empty. And it stayed empty, for two years.”
My grandmother sighs and reaches down to brush some imaginary dust off her thick black stockings. “A lot happens in two years,” she says. “Maria Gozzi got pregnant. Italo Salvatore got married. He settled down, took over the management of his father’s cafe, and soon developed such a paunch that I wondered what I ever saw in him.
“I, too, settled down. That fell, my parents began mentioning Anthony Bruno, ten times a day. ‘He’s a good boy,’ said my mother. He’ll inherit his father’s bakery. He’ll take good care of you.’
“I took the hint; it was time for me to marry, anyway. So Anthony and I moved into my father’s house. He worked in the bakery all day; at night he sat in the café playing cards with his friends. It was comfortable, married life. It was the way everyone lived.
“I was five months pregnant with my first child when Italo Giuliano came home.
“By then, I’d stopped spying on the Giuliano family. So it was only an accident that I first saw Italo from the window. I stood very quietly, and stared. I saw that he’d kept his gangster ways. He’d bought a real sheepskin jacket, heavy boots, and a funny cap, like a shepherd’s. I noticed that he’d grown a little less homely. And later that evening, when he came to visit, I looked closer, and saw something else: I saw that he’d brought his old good nature home with him.
“At first, I was a little nervous when he kissed me hello, for I remembered that night when he’d pressed his face against mine. I pushed my belly forward, wishing that I showed more than I did. But, as I watched him greeting my family in his calm, friendly way, I knew I had nothing to fear. Indeed, he was so much the trusted old friend that my husband Anthony didn’t hesitate to go play cards, leaving us alone.
“After Anthony left, we couldn’t talk. There was a distance between us, even wider than that angry space which had come between us at the start of Italo’s gangster days. Once again, at least, we were pleasant to each other. But we were no longer friends.
“‘Where have you been?’ I asked him.
“‘In Palermo,’ he said.
“‘What’s it like?’ I said.
“He began to tell me about Palermo. But it sounded wrong, like a description he’d read in a book, or had heard from Italo Salvatore. He wasn�
��t describing any place he’d ever been.
“‘All right,’ I interrupted. ‘All right. What do you do there?’
“‘I do what I want,’ he said. ‘And no one takes advantage of me.’ Then he kissed me good-bye and went home.
“That night, as I lay beside my husband Anthony and stared into the darkened windows of the Giuliano house, I tried to be happy. ‘It’s good,’ I told myself. ‘Italo’s come back.’ But suddenly, I recalled that distance between us and felt the loss of my childhood, felt it like an empty space, like a missing tooth.
“As it happened, the other villagers were even more upset by Italo’s return. They began to whisper about him, spreading rumors so ugly that mothers sent their children out to play before they would even discuss it. It was disgusting, they said. Italo Giuliano had seduced a fourteen-year-old girl, Italo Salvatore’s little sister. He had bewitched her, filled her head with funny ideas. He’d taken her home with him, and was living shamelessly, in sin, beneath his poor mother’s own roof.
“By the time I heard the rumors, I knew they were true. For I had seen it from my window. Night after night, I watched them making love, their bodies glistening in the moonlight. I watched Italo whispering in her ear, telling her stories of city life, of Palermo, of God knows what.
“It was just the kind of thing I’d hoped to see when, as a girl, I’d spied on Italo. But it didn’t make me happy; I wanted it to end.
“Of course, it couldn’t last. The whispers were growing louder. The scandal could no longer be contained. Three times a day, Mrs. Giuliano went to mass, begging the Virgin to end her shame.
“Then one night, as if in answer to her prayers, a band of men converged on the Giuliano house. Led by Italo Salvatore, they seized the sleeping couple and dragged them out of bed. Beating and kicking them, they took them to the edge of town, and threatened to kill them if they ever returned.
Women and Children First Page 16