The Infinite Now

by Mindy Tarquini

  The guaritrice stepped between us. She wisped a hand by my hair, at the chignon helping my hat to sit at a jaunty angle. “And look at you, little one, all grown up, and so fast, doing a woman’s work before you’ve even had time to be a girl.”

  She wrinkled her nose and slid her mask back into place. She eyed my coat, still slung over Carlo’s arm, eyed the snot on its collar, then side-eyed Carlo. “But friends should protect each other, don’t you agree?” She put an arm around my shoulder, turned me so she and I faced Carlo, where a moment before, Carlo and I were facing her. “Perhaps I can help.”

  Carlo reached across the chasm. “Thank you signora, but we only need to see the druggist and we will be on our way.”

  “I insist. Look at that line. Where men founder, women can often move events forward. Tizi, why don’t you get Fiora’s . . . friend some tea.” The guaritrice stepped away, drawing me with her, like I was pulled with a thread, sucking me into a sphere which did not include Carlo.

  “You don’t have to go with her.” Carlo’s fingers grazed the back of my blouse. “You can think for yourself.”

  Of course I could think for myself. I looked over my shoulder. “You don’t need to stay.”

  The guaritrice snapped her fingers and a wall of people filled the space behind us. I lost sight of Carlo. “Don’t worry about him, little one. Tizi will get him settled. Men. They think they know what’s best. Too often, they don’t know anything. Tell me, why are you here? Nobody braves the streets these days without a mission.”

  I explained about the Lattanzis. About Benedetta. She took my arm and led me toward her little alcove. The wall of people followed, like iron shavings chasing a magnet.

  “Please, signora, I’ve been waiting hours.” A man, frantic and familiar, broke from the pack, beady eyes flitting back and forth above a bulbous nose.

  The landlord.

  The guaritrice went to stand behind the counter. “We expected you yesterday, signore. Tizi was up before the sun preparing your order, but you went to the druggist first.”

  The landlord took on the air of a hunting dog. Eyes forward, ear cocked. “How could you have expected me? They got sick only yesterday morning.”

  “Word travels, signore. How sad you did not come right away. I’m told your children are much worse, especially your oldest.”

  “So many of my tenants are sick. Collecting rents is difficult. I thought possibly the druggist might have something . . . less expensive.”

  “Ah, yes. We all have to make hard decisions. Each mixture is unique, compounded for the individual. Yours is spoiled. Tizi can make you another batch, at least enough for your oldest, but we will have to charge you extra to cover our costs.”

  The landlord clutched at his cap. “I hoped—”

  “We would be able to provide enough for your whole family.” The guaritrice finished for him, her voice smooth as polished metal. “We should be able to get you the rest tomorrow, maybe the day after.” She glanced pointedly at me. The landlord followed her gaze. “It is proper to do right by our neighbors.”

  The landlord seemed petty and small, nothing like the imposing figure who’d put me out in the rain. My heart soared to see his heart brought low. My spirit lightened to see his spirit in the dirt. I bet his house was filled with snot. I bet there was coughing and hacking and nights without sleep. I bet he scrubbed and mopped and washed blood from the sheets without end. I stared at him the way I’d stared at him the day the old man brought me to get my things. Open and angry and full in the eyes.

  He looked away.

  And I bet he was sorry he’d tried to keep my mother’s curtain.

  The guaritrice put a hand on the strongbox. “We will take your payment now. Come back in two hours. Do not be late. Or we will need to do this negotiation again.”

  The landlord lowered his head. He dug into his pocket, and counted out the cost. He laid it on the counter. “Thank you, signora. Two hours.”

  The guaritrice turned and marked another red X on the map tacked to the wall behind her. The pattern had changed from the bloom rising along Broad Street on Parade Day. Now the Xs made a spiral four blocks to the east, a spiral circling the market. The landlord’s X was on an outer ring, right at the spot where Mamma and Poppa and my brothers and I had lived. The crowd pushed forward, swarming to fill the landlord’s place. The guaritrice sniffed at the air. “Tizi. We have customers.”

  Tizi popped out from behind the curtain, two steaming cups of tea in hand. She placed one before her mother and slid the other before me, then took her mother’s place by the strongbox, handing out bags that looked much like the one the guaritrice had handed me on the day we met. She named prices, collected the money, and marked the map. One signora’s face squinched. “But that is twice as much as yesterday.”

  Tizi looked to her mother.

  “Because demand is so high.” The guaritrice pointed to the map, to the multiplying red Xs. “We would never think to put a price on your family’s survival, but our suppliers’ prices are rising by the hour, so we must pass the cost on to you.”

  The signora did not appear to believe her. Nobody in the crowd did. Still, they continued buying, their pleas growing more desperate as the minutes passed. I drank my tea and watched, letting the lavender remind me of all I had lost, how very fortunate these people were to even have the guaritrice’s tea. She came and settled beside me.

  I wasn’t feeling very friendly. “How come you did not make a mix for my parents?”

  Her face went sad. So very, very sad. Like the responsibility of every bad thing in the world suddenly took up residence in her forehead. “Your mother did not come to me soon enough. When tragedy strikes, we must not be overly cautious in our decisions. We must move quickly, do what is recommended, or miss our opportunity.” She put her hand over mine and gave it a squeeze. It felt squishy and cold. I pulled away, lay my palms in my lap.

  The guaritrice’s face went hard. “Ah, I see you don’t agree. But, look at you, little one. So busy. So very, very busy. But have you money to show for all that busyness? Has it brought you one step closer to your ambitions? No. It’s produced tomatoes that won’t ripen, babies that won’t be born, and sick people who refuse to get well. I told you there is a price to pay when we do not use things properly.”

  Her recitation washed over me like acid. “How did you know?”

  “How could I not? People may not have a name for their prison, but all feel the effects.”

  “I call it a bubble. And I don’t know how to make it burst.”

  “Burst?” Her eyes went wide and alarmed. “Oh no. You cannot allow that to happen.” She cupped her hands before her face to demonstrate a bubble, then splayed her fingers, and threw her arms wide. She waved them, moving them chaotically in all directions. “You cannot control the result.”

  Fine. I guess there wasn’t any reason for me to be there. I stood and straightened my hat. The guaritrice reached a finger and lifted my chin, as the old man had when the tailor’s wife first brought me to him. “You are a smart girl. A wise girl. You went down a road you did not intend. And now you return to the place where you might find counsel. Yet you arrive empty-handed, looking for remedies, not for a cure. I owe your mother a debt. A great debt. But without the proper tools, I am helpless.”

  I thought of the verbena, my attempts to bring the curtain to her before. “It would be better if you came to my house.”

  “Don Sebastiano would not like that.”

  Her words were pointy little pinpricks of annoyance. “I don’t have to listen to Don Sebastiano.”

  “But Don Sebastiano thinks you do. Men. So helpless on their own. So certain they know what is best for us.” The guaritrice handed me two bags, bags very like the ones Tizi dispensed. “The large for the Lattanzis. A little before every meal and all will be well. The second for you, my own blend. Take them and take yourself. Return with your mother’s curtain. Don Sebastiano is a good man, a wise man, but men do
not always know the best way to proceed and not all are wise enough to let a greater wisdom prevail.”

  She put a hand to her nose, and I again became aware of the fish-monger’s stink, the stain on my collar, the embarrassment, the fear of being left on my own.

  “It is late little one. Don Sebastiano will wonder where you’ve gotten to.” She looked to the front of the pharmacy. “And your young man will be waiting.”

  I followed her gaze. Thought of Carlo waiting, when I’d told him to leave. How he’d followed when I didn’t wait. The pinpricks became spikes, driving a wedge of resentment between who I was, and who everybody wanted me to be. “I told you. He’s not my young man.”

  She dug into her bodice and pulled out a key. She went to the door behind the counter and drew back the hanging strings of beads. “Ah, then I will let you out a side exit.”

  “But, but . . .” I picked up the bags. These weren’t enough, only a fraction of the help I needed. How could I bring a curtain that refused to be brought? How could I control a bubble that was bound to burst? And there was Benedetta. “Her time is now past. Is there nothing you can do for her?”

  All the guaritrice’s edges went soft. She pulled me close, her scent mixing with that of the tea’s lavender, again the comforting presence I craved. “It has been many years, and now there are so many modern methods.”

  She was talking about the knife, about cutting out the baby. My stomach cramped with the thought. “You know about these things.”

  “I used to attend many births.” Her voice grew vague. “It is easier if the help is sought willingly. You will know what to do when the time is right. If it seems necessary, bring the girl to me. Such a privilege to help Rosina Vicente’s daughter. Such a privilege to help her friend. But don’t tell Don Sebastiano. He’s such an old-fashioned man. Set in his ways.”

  “How could Don Sebastiano not know? Carlo came in with me. He will tell the don I was here.”

  The guaritrice led me down a dark passage, more crooked and looped than would seem possible, one we navigated mostly by touch. She turned the key in the lock and twisted the handle. “Do not worry about Young Carlo. He won’t be telling Don Sebastiano anything. He has been drinking my tea.”

  Twelve

  Outside, in the alley behind the pharmacy, my pricklies sputtered in the humid and far-too-warm-for-October afternoon. I looked to the sky, squinting to see past the dullness. I wanted to rejoin the world of light and time, feel my heart beat to a pulse growing faint. Yet my every effort fell short of my expectation. My every idea withered without exception. My every hope doused in an ever-expanding deluge of responsibility. I had to find a way to resurrect my dreams, or they would bury me in disappointment.

  A newspaper page flapped against the pharmacy’s back stoop, dog-eared and damp. Beneath a listing of dead heroes was a boxed admonishment:

  DON’T BE LATE.

  THE HUN WON’T WAIT.

  KEEP YOUR FOURTH LIBERTY BOND SUBSCRIPTION UP TO DATE.

  News of the influenza again occupied a sidebar, advising the populace its spread had been “considerably checked.” In war news, American and British troops were smashing through German lines, and Italians in the Isonzo were preparing for a final push.

  The Isonzo.

  I knew nothing about war. My brothers’ letters always spoke of life in tents, sometimes bad weather, complaints the food was not as good as Mamma’s. I imagined them standing in files like little lead soldiers, their rifles shouldered. Somebody would give the order to charge. They would. The pieces would scatter, then everybody would pick themselves up, scrape off the mud, and head back to camp for dinner.

  The paper’s dead heroes were young, often smiling, proud in their uniforms, a reason to pause for pity, to say a prayer, to bring pasta and pastry to their grieving relatives. They were dead in theory, not for real, not like my parents, cold and irrefutable and hardening under their bedcovers. And until somebody showed me otherwise, none of those dead heroes would ever belong to me.

  I kicked the paper to the side and adjusted my scarf to cover my mouth and nose. Carlo still had my coat, but the stench of the fish-monger’s wash water remained, rising from my shoes, soaked into my stockings. I picked my way south through the trash heaped along the alleyway and onto a street quieter than a Sunday morning in a January snowstorm.

  A confectioner across the street was closed, a notice tacked to the doorway: OPENING TOMORROW. FUNERAL. A milliner’s, a stationer’s, a tinker’s stand, all silent.

  The trolley rumbled to a stop.

  I shook my head, fuzzier than the air, to let the white-masked conductor know I wasn’t riding. The trolley rumbled on, the people aboard packed close as matches in a two-penny box.

  Catacorner from where I stood, a bakery was closing up shop. I plodded across the cobbles, and bought two rolls.

  The baker bagged them. “I’ll give you a good price on the rest.”

  I thought of Etti and Fipo, and plunked down another coin. I slipped one roll into my pocket, twisted the bag containing the others into my scarf.

  Down the street, the girls still jumped rope, their pace sedate, their rhythm sapped of rhyme. A few doors down, a group of boys crouched, playing marbles, coats unbuttoned and shirttails dragging on the sidewalk. Farther on, a little girl sat on a stoop and cuddled a doll.

  I knew her. Grazia. The little girl who darted past me on Parade Day. I looked at her tangled hair, remembered the neat braids. Her mother must be ill. A little boy, looking enough like her I guessed he was Grazia’s brother, sat on the stoop beside her, face dirty, head resting on her shoulder. I moved toward them. I’m not sure why. Maybe I thought I would give them a roll. The little girl saw me coming. She took her brother’s hand, and disappeared inside the house.

  Grazia’s mother had been so angry, though I’d saved her daughter. She likely told the girl to beware, likely told her I’d brought her a curse. The pricklies returned, poking from under my collar. I continued down the street.

  A half a block on, a dog barked, then growled. Children’s voices, which I at first assumed were rising in play, turned frightened. I gathered my skirt and ran.

  “Hold him. Hold.”

  “Watch your hands.”

  “Get it. Quick.”

  Then a scream.

  I rounded the corner into an alley and onto a group of boys, piled into a trash heap. A dog bounded away, something tight in its jaws. The boys picked themselves up. I grabbed the biggest by his collar. “What happened? Who screamed? Are you hurt?”

  “It was in the trash.”

  “What was in the trash?”

  “Cappacoli. C’mon signorina, the dog had it, we tried to get it. We didn’t do anything wrong.” He thrashed under my grasp, grabbed my scarf.

  I held tight to the guaritrice’s teas. The rolls went tumbling. The children fell on them. And scattered.

  The boy stopped struggling. He looked after his departing friends and let out a wail, then raised a dirt-streaked face to mine. “Do you have more?”

  The boys had been rummaging in the trash for food. They were hungry. Their parents were sick, and there was nobody to care for them. I imagined their apartments, piled in dishes and dirty clothes, overflowing basins and snot-filled hankies. Imagined the children pawing through empty iceboxes, empty canisters.

  It’d been more than a week, days and days. Pay packets would be spent, rent due. Appeals to relatives would go unanswered because they would also be sick. Within my bubble nobody died, yet children cowered in corners while their parents vomited all they tried to eat, coughed to exhaustion, and burned under the fever.

  My feet got numb, like they weren’t connected to my body. My head grew heavy. I twined my fingers in the boy’s collar, needing something steady and sure, something familiar with which to connect. “Take me to your house.”

  Worse than the worst the Lattanzis’ had ever been. Every dish crusted, every cloth soiled. The boy’s parents coughed in their room
, his brother curled into a corner, thumb in mouth. Like Etti.

  I picked up a bowl, and put it into the sink. Picked up another and did the same. I ran the water. Cold. I thought of the Lattanzis’ furnace, wondered who was responsible for making sure the one in this house stayed lit. Did they even have coal?

  Outside the bubble, time had become precious, each second lasting no longer than it should, the moments which happened between them impossible to retrieve. Inside, the suffering never ended. I was one girl. One confused, dejected, and exhausted girl.

  Stinking of fish.

  I reached into my pocket for a handkerchief. The last of the baker’s rolls tumbled out and fell to the floor. The boy turned around when it hit. His brother pulled his thumb from his mouth. They fell on the roll.

  Like dogs.

  I walked out of the kitchen, out of the house. I closed the door behind me.

  A long, long quarter hour later, I turned the corner onto Ninth Street. “Fiora.”

  The doctor. White-masked. Wan. Heading my way. He had the old man on his elbow.

  My pace picked up, along with my heartbeat. “What happened? Is he all right?”

  The old man didn’t look happy to see me. “Where have you been? Where’s Carlo?”

  All the umbrage of the past few hours flew forward and knocked my conscience into the gutter. I lied. “He had work to do. I went looking for Signora Lattanzi’s sister.”

  The doctor shook his head. “I saw the signora’s sister this morning. She will not survive the day.” He nudged the old man. “Get him upstairs. Find his pills. His heart can’t take this.”

  The old man shrugged him off. “I have my pills. They’re on the shelf.”

  “They should be in your pocket.” The doctor handed me a booklet. “For you. For the pregnant girl. In case her time comes and you can’t find me. I have to go. And for God’s sake, that scarf won’t work. Get a mask.”

  He was off.

  The old man held on to my shoulder and let me walk him a painful step, then another. People gathered, sideways glances cast my way.