The Infinite Now

by Mindy Tarquini

  I gathered the pieces, the scraps and the bits and the long velvet strips. I needed something metal in which to hold them, a match with which to ignite them. I needed kerosene to make it burn hotter and I needed . . . I needed . . .

  An open space to do all that.

  Maybe the old man’s rooftop garden, but I’d need to wait until he left, and I’d need to make sure the boys weren’t around so they wouldn’t get any ideas.

  Fine. Maybe I’d burn it all the next day.

  I fell onto the bed and threw my arm over my forehead, exhausted. Like I’d scrubbed ten houses without a break and had to push the mops all uphill. Gray bubble sunlight streamed through the attic window unencumbered, illuminating the veins on the inside of my lids, creating a world where red trees branched against a yellow sky.

  I added a city, emerald green like in Fipo’s book, rising in the background, and filled the fields surrounding the city with scarlet poppies. Mamma and Poppa were alive in that world, my brothers still with them. Every dream I ever had lived there, every want and wish. Men did not run things, Benedetta was again my friend, and Nicco didn’t bother us too much.

  Because I didn’t put Nicco there. I put him somewhere here. Working maybe, or still in Italy trying to convince Benedetta’s parents to emigrate. It didn’t matter. Benedetta and I were again together, our baby between us, and free to go to Atlantic City whenever we wanted.

  Something shifted beside me, furtive and fluttery. “Go away, Fipo. I’ll make hotcakes later. Go find the don. Go for a walk. Go keep Etti occupied.”

  Fipo didn’t answer. I opened one eye, then the other. Looked to the door, to the window, to the corners. And to the floor. To the pile of scraps, gathering and realigning, melding along the rips, the grommets inserting where they belonged. The flaps found their places; the strip of leather I’d sewed to the top reattached.

  The curtain leaped to the window, whole as the day I collected it from the landlord, the top wound over the iron rod. The fairy lights reappeared, dancing along the opposite wall. And nothing was left where I’d gathered the pieces except a few stray threads and the old lady’s shears.

  To this day, I do not know why I stayed, do not know why I didn’t grab my few possessions and charge down those stairs, set myself up on the old man’s landing. But remember what my mamma said about my curiosity.

  The fairy lights disappeared, one by one. As they had the first time I hung the curtain. As they had the day the curtain revealed itself to Benedetta. As happened every time I tried to make the curtain act like what it looked like, a beautiful work of embroidery meant to shelter me from the world beyond my window.

  I waited, expecting the five-minute-forward market to blossom in the final aperture. But the curtain projected a different image on the opposite wall. An upside-down skyline in shades of yellow with red-branched trees growing in a poppy-filled field. In the distance rose a city. Emerald. Just like in Fipo’s book.

  An imagined world. Like the guaritrice said. Where my parents were alive, my brothers, too, where Benedetta waited with her baby, and my every want and wish had a home.

  Somebody laughed, shrill and triumphant. And at my elbow.

  The world disappeared and the attic plunged into darkness. I groped for the grommet, hope finally my friend, and unbuttoned the centermost flap. Whatever game the guaritrice was playing, I wouldn’t be her partner. My world had expanded, and for the first time in a very long time, my world was awash in possibilities.

  The market emerged on the opposite wall, not my red-treed, emerald-citied world. But I’d made it. I’d seen it. The colorful aspects of that world were gone, the impossible aspects, but other bits might remain, if I did now what I needed to make them true.

  And what I needed was my friend. I needed Benedetta. My brothers were dead and I needed to talk to her about them, tell her how they were and what they did, and what I liked about them most.

  I needed Benedetta, needed to apologize, to tell her whatever I’d done, I’d never do it again, that all that mattered was her and her baby, their health and their happiness. That I’d be there for her however she wanted and if she didn’t want me to be there always, that was fine, so long as I could be there sometimes. That I understood about the bubble, that it couldn’t last much longer. I’d find some way to deflate it, some way to defuse it, some way to salvage what remained, and resolve what was lost.

  Somebody rang the old man’s bell, tinny and high-pitched. The top bell for the top apartment.

  I presumed Carlo. To pick something up, leave something off, maybe ask polite permission to get me into the open air. Ringing before he let himself in because he wanted to give a warning, a little notice, not startle me in my time of grief. Or maybe he’d just forgotten his key. I didn’t care, didn’t want to see him. Not today, not for a while, because despite his concern, Carlo was a reminder of how badly I’d behaved, and my cup of guilt was already overflowing.

  I brushed my hair, then braided it, then coiled it at the back of my neck. I wanted to add a pretty collar, but that wouldn’t be right for mourning. I wanted to tie a ribbon in the chignon, but that wouldn’t have been proper either. I gave Carlo enough time to do whatever he’d come to do and leave, then headed downstairs, washed my face in the sink, gathered the market basket, and put the strawberry preserves inside. I added a loaf of my bread and a knife to slice it, and wondered if I should look for a loaf at the baker’s. Something more palatable with a crust that wouldn’t crack Benedetta’s teeth.

  The thought was what mattered, Mamma always said. I covered it all with a tea towel and added one last item. Because I didn’t have the heart to tell Benedetta about my brothers out loud. The telegram.

  I headed down the stairs, past the Lattanzis’, opened the door to the street, and stepped out. The market looked pretty much like the projection again flickering on the wall of my attic. Except receding up the sidewalk was a messenger. A messenger like the one who’d come to tell me about my brothers. The fishmonger’s wife caught my eye. She made the sign of the cross, and I knew the messenger had been the one to ring the old man’s bell.

  Mamma always said deaths come in threes.

  She and poppa made two.

  Add the DiGirolamos and their brood made nine.

  The cycle started again with the Lattanzis, and ended with poor little Grazia.

  And now my brothers started it again. Leaving one to make three.

  One messenger to deliver the notice. To tell us of the only other possibility.

  Nicco.

  The bubble drank in my realization, a great, slurping pull that shrank me back through the doorway, sucked me up the stairs and into the old man’s apartment. It kept me there and forced me to see what I’d missed on my way out, so concerned as I was with Benedetta and my brothers. And preserves. And my own problems.

  The door to the old man’s roof garden. Open. As it had been on the bubble’s first morning.

  And a wail, a cry, frightening from a man.

  The old man was sick; he needed his pills. Nicco was somebody he cared about, a boy from his village. I dashed through the door, and there was the old man, tearing at his garden. The windowpanes were askew, soil scattered everywhere. Basil and oregano, unripe tomatoes and hard, shrunken zucchinis. The old man keened over a container, strawberry plants dripping through his fingers. “What’s the use? What’s the use? She’s too strong. The innocent always pass on.” He moaned and he wept and he held the unripe berries to his chest.

  And I knew without knowing in that weird way I sometimes did. That childbirth was dangerous. That the influenza was hardest on pregnant women. That the messenger hadn’t come to inform about Nicco.

  He’d come with notice of Benedetta.

  The Infinite Now

  Twenty-Five

  Everything collapses. Buildings, trees, mountains. Everything wears away. Everything serves its purpose. Except . . .

  Me. In Benedetta’s apartment. Crying worse than I ever did ove
r Mamma and Poppa. Worse than I cried for my brothers. Worse than I’d ever cried before. Worse than I’d ever cry again.

  While I cried, I scrubbed. Every pot. Every plate. I swept every corner. Fluffed every pillow. Folded every tiny shirt, every lace-trimmed bonnet, every crocheted bootie. The activity filled the spaces emptied by Benedetta’s absence, soothed emotions scraped raw by regret. I did things properly, the way Signora Lattanzi had taught me, the way Benedetta would have liked, and harbored some notion my work would make things easier for Nicco when the war finally released him. Like Benedetta were still there, maybe in the bathroom, possibly stepped into the market. Gone just for a little and in a little while, would return.

  The boys rolled pasta with me. The old man worked at his table. We left all the interior doors open, pretended our apartments were part of one big house instead of separate living arrangements. We called back and forth like family, the aroma of the old man’s pipe wafting down the stair, the tap-tap of his hammer, homey.

  The boys ate enough for six, then Etti handed me Signora Bruni’s book, the one with the city of emeralds, and asked me to read.

  I opened to where he said. “‘We dare not harm this little girl, for she is protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of Evil.’”

  Etti put a hand over the page. “Does it mean Signora Bruni’s baby?”

  “It means any child.”

  “Not Grazia.”

  I closed the book. “Sometimes it is hard to understand why things happen.”

  The boys headed to their part of the house to get ready for bed. I stood in Benedetta’s orderly kitchen, head tilted, every nerve poised for her presence.

  All that returned was the bubble’s constant, unrelenting pressure. And the knowledge I’d been avoiding since Benedetta and I made our escape from the guaritrice.

  The monsters were loosed. Hope had fled.

  I needed to stop crying. I needed to make plans. I needed to find that illustration Benedetta drew for the Children’s Bureau ladies. The one written in Italian, with the arrows and boxes she used to convince the women how we were related. I needed to take that illustration to the infirmary, to the Holy Sisters.

  But first I needed Carlo.

  Because I needed a husband.

  Because I needed to get Benedetta’s baby.

  The sister didn’t seem to understand why Carlo and I were there. She checked Benedetta’s file, then looked past us, to the people milling about the hallways. The injured, the sick, the careworn. She had people to see. Live people. People she could still help. “You couldn’t have known what would happen. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  Except as the doctor asked. Read the booklet. Prepared. Helped Benedetta deliver at home. Away from germs, away from the sickness, away from the outside world. She wouldn’t have needed to go on the trolley. Wouldn’t have gotten off by the guaritrice. I thought of the tea, red-tinged and suspect, of how it arced through the air.

  I wanted to take Benedetta’s file. Wanted to rattle it under the sister’s nose. Wanted to climb on her little table, kick the notice proclaiming SIGN IN HERE to the side, and confess. Loudly. “You don’t understand. I killed Benedetta. I have a magical curtain and used it to imagine a world. A world peaceful and hopeful that turned on my wishes without my having to put in any work. I placed my friend there. I placed her baby there, also. I imprisoned them both, along with my dreams. Because I didn’t like the world I lived in, because I couldn’t face the future, because I resented my circumstances, begrudged my gifts, and disrespected my benefactors. I used the curtain improperly, and Benedetta paid the price. And if I don’t get Benedetta’s baby, then the last of Benedetta I might salvage will also be lost.”

  I didn’t do or say any of that. I unfolded Benedetta’s illustration and started explaining to the sister, pointing from one box to the other, tracing along one arrow, then the next and hoping the sister didn’t speak Italian. “Signora Bruni’s husband will be home from the war soon. And we want his daughter to be there when he returns.”

  The nurse looked at Carlo and my ringless fingers. “Are you married?”

  Carlo took my hand. He met the sister’s gaze, his open and honest. “Yes, we are.”

  I waited, but lightning didn’t strike either of us dead. “The baby should be with family.”

  Relief smoothed the furrows gathering across the sister’s forehead. She again checked Benedetta’s file. “We were under the impression Signora Bruni’s only other relative was her husband.”

  My mouth went dry. “Other relative?”

  “An aunt. Signora Bruni’s listed next of kin. She came this morning and took the baby with her. I imagine by now, they’re already settled in Coatesville.”

  Carlo and I left the hospital empty-hearted and empty-handed. Carlo hunched into his coat. “Benedetta’s aunt will take good care of her baby.”

  I turned up my collar, tunneled my hands into my opposite sleeves. I’d forgotten my mittens, left my scarf on its hook by the old man’s door. I’d grown unaccustomed to their use, uncomfortable with their bulk, uncertain of myself in a normal world where October was chill, and bracing, and smelled of winter. “What do we do?”

  “We go home.”

  We did. Fipo corralled us. “The don is sick. He’s in Mamma and Poppa’s bed.”

  I hiked up my skirt and ran into the room, my fear outrunning me.

  The old man waved me away. “I’m fine. I was tired.”

  “He took a pill.” Fipo held up the package. “If he’s fine, why did he take a pill?”

  The old man took the envelope from Fipo. “I took the pill because my heart is sad.”

  “For Signora Bruni.” Etti stood in the doorway, flicking his suspenders, his expression curious. He went to the old man and rubbed his cheek. “Because she’s with Mamma and Poppa. Are you going there, too?”

  “Not today.” The old man put his hand over Etti’s. “I need a nap. Let’s talk later.”

  Carlo and I shuttled the children out. I sent them to play in Benedetta’s kitchen, then pondered changes to our living situation. “The first floor is safer for the don. Two flights is a long way. I could set up a place for his work in the kitchen. The boys like being near him.”

  Carlo didn’t look convinced. “Better ask the don about that first. He has his own ideas about things.”

  I picked through the keys on the signora’s ring and let us into the Lattanzis’ shop. We inspected the bolts of cloth, the cutting table, the various bins and boxes. Carlo examined the sewing machine. “We may be able to find a tailor willing to offer a fair price. Fipo has no interest in following his father’s trade. All he talks about is airplanes. He wants to learn to fly. To be an ace. Like in the war. Airplanes are the future. Fipo has ambition.”

  Fipo never talked to me, except to tell me how badly I did things. As his mother had. “What about Etti?”

  Carlo cast his gaze to the heavens. “He loved Benedetta’s stories. He wants to visit imagined worlds. I think he’ll be an explorer.”

  I ran a finger over the clothes press the old man told me about when I first arrived. The shop was neat, well-ordered, set up with pride. Mamma and Poppa would have loved for an arrangement such as this. It seemed a shame the Lattanzis’ hard work should go out the door, piecemeal. “The shop should be rented, perhaps to a tailor. We could include the equipment in the lease. The money would be enough to cover utilities, enough for groceries, whatever is necessary. Soon as the influenza passes, schools will reopen. Fipo will need pencils and paper.”

  I thought of him, his well-tailored knickerbockers which were already getting a little short, even in the bubble’s stunted growth. Once the bubble exploded, or faded, or stopped expanding and shrank to nothingness, Fipo and his brother would shoot up so tall their heads would touch the ceiling. “How odd it will seem to Fipo for another tailor to fit his clothes.”

  “You’re worrying about things that haven’t yet happened.
” Carlo removed his coat. He slung it over his shoulder. “I do not understand how the weather can change so quickly. Do you feel it? Like rocks, here.” He put a hand to his chest.

  I didn’t want to explain. The revelation had only hurt Benedetta. “Your heart is sad. Like Don Sebastiano’s.”

  Carlo grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me to face him. “Then we must do something about that sadness. We must carry on, as if she were here. Do what we were doing. What Benedetta was doing. Nurse our neighbors, tend to their children, figure out the rest as we go along.”

  I didn’t want to carry on. I was a refugee in a perilous and precarious world, locking and relocking the doors against an enemy more toxic than any germ, more pervasive than any gossip. An enemy both invisible and ever present and able to be carried on a thought.

  Despair.

  I shook myself. “I’m taking the boys for a walk.”

  “We’ll both take them.”

  “I’ll take them alone.”

  Carlo came anyway.

  Etti didn’t want to walk far. He lingered by a rack of newspapers and gazed at the daily posting of dead heroes. “How can they be here and not alive?”

  Fipo traced an edge along one of the photographs. “They are a bit of light somebody captured on a film.”

  Carlo ruffled Fipo’s hair. “How did you know that?”

  “Signora Bruni told me.” Fipo made motions like he was holding the Brownie camera. “She took pictures of us, too.”

  “Then I’m also a bit of light.” Etti looked pleased, his smile spreading dimple to dimple. He sank, right at our feet, spreading across the sidewalk like water.

  At first I thought he was playing. But Carlo bent, then knelt, then lifted him off the cobbles, alarm taking over his good humor. He shook him. “Etti. Etti.”

  I felt Etti’s forehead, his cheeks. “His skin is cold.” Mine went cold also. The doctor. We needed the doctor.

  A crowd gathered.

  I looked from one to the next, the street dissolving under my feet, like I were falling into a great hole. “Has anybody seen the doctor?”