All This Talk of Love

by Christopher Castellani

  “What do you think, tesoro?” he asks again.

  It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and the village is quiet. Frankie and Kelly Anne stretch their legs in the sun. Prima rings the buzzer of the house above the store. Taped to the glass of the drogheria are posters for discounted meats, for bands appearing in the piazza later in June, and for parties at Pensione Granara and Pensione Lupo. Antonio reminds his wife that, back in their day, these hotels were his friends’ houses. Bands came through twice a year if they were lucky. The meat was always on sale, or you could barter or beg for it if you told a sad enough story. “You remember?” he asks again.

  Frankie opens the door on Maddalena’s side and helps her to her feet. A young tourist couple walks out of the store carrying flowers and a jug of wine and bread in a long paper bag. They stare at them, smile, and move on.

  From the house comes an old man with Maddalena’s same wrinkled face. He goes to her and pulls her close without a word.

  “You know him,” Antonio says. “This is your brother Claudio.”

  She doesn’t know him.

  Claudio wipes his eyes with a handkerchief he pulls from his shirtsleeve. He puts his arm around his sister’s waist and leads her into the store. The aisles stand where they’ve always stood. The barrels of nuts are the barrels from 1946. The radio is where it used to be, except it’s half the size and has flashing lights and stacks of tapes and CDs next to it. A teenage boy works the counter.

  “You want her to look around the store?” Claudio asks. “Or is she ready for upstairs?”

  “Are they there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go up, then.”

  They climb the back stairs to the rooms where Maddalena lived until she was nineteen.

  Everyone is watching her, looking for a spark, for anything, but her eyes stay blank. On the walls are framed color photos of nephews and nieces and cousins they’ve never met.

  In the hallway of the kitchen, Vito Leone waits for them. He’s skinny as ever, wearing a wrinkled off-white suit. His tie is crooked, his belt tied too tight. The strap of the belt hangs halfway down the front of his pants. Here is the great romantic, an old man now. He’s the mayor of the village and the three little towns around it, and has been, off and on, for two decades. He holds out his hand to Antonio, American-style, but Antonio kisses him on both cheeks. He is his brother-in-law, after all. Whatever war they fought over Maddalena fifty-seven years ago is long over. And if it’s Vito Leone, not Claudio or Carolina, not the sight of her old house or the church or the olive grove, that brings Maddalena back, just for one second, then Antonio will be grateful to the man for the rest of his life.

  But Maddalena Piccinelli Grasso looks at Vito Leone like she’d look at an empty wall. He takes her hands in his and says, “You look beautiful, signora. To see you is a miracle.”

  “Grazie,” she says.

  “He’s the one who made that bike you always told me about,” Frankie says. “With the big silver tires and the rock for a seat.”

  “It goes too fast,” she says.

  “No freni,” says Vito. “No brakes.” He learned a little English from his daughter, Donatella, he explains. He asks Antonio, in Italian, “They don’t speak the language?”

  “No,” says Antonio. “We didn’t teach any of our kids.”

  “Che peccato,” Vito says.

  “What’s going on?” Prima asks.

  “Fiorella makes such a fuss,” Maddalena says. “She wants a boyfriend too bad. Who’s going to put up with her?”

  “Fiorella was her friend,” says Claudio. “She died of cancer five years ago.”

  “Is there any happy news in this place?” Frankie asks after Antonio translates.

  “Not anymore,” says Vito. He puts his hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “You two to be married?” he asks.

  “Us?” Frankie says. He looks at Kelly Anne. She looks at him. “Too soon,” they both say at the same time. Vito laughs.

  “Don’t wait,” Vito says. “You have a coin in your hand, close your fist.”

  They’re crowded in the dark, narrow hallway that separates the kitchen from the rest of the house. Claudio shuffles his feet, checks his watch, asks if they’re hungry, if they want some wine. No, says Antonio, they’re not, and not yet. Then they have no more small talk to make.

  “Your wife,” Antonio says to Vito. “Where is she?”

  “In the living room,” Vito says, “watching TV. It keeps her calm.”

  They walk through the dining room, past the table and chairs where Antonio ate his first dinner with the Piccinelli family. The same wooden table, the same shiny chairs, arranged in front of the window under the silver crucifix. Antonio could have chosen any of Aristide and Chiara’s daughters. He was a rich American with paid passage to New York and a way with words and a trunk full of promises. But he chose Maddalena, even though she didn’t love him, even though she’d promised herself to the man now leading him down the hall.

  It was always Maddalena. The night after that first dinner, he invited himself back, and then again the night after that. For two weeks he tried to impress her. In the meantime, he and Aristide talked and made plans, and the night all the details were settled, the two men met on the terrace and drank a toast to Maddalena’s future as an American wife. That’s how Antonio remembers it, at least. He promised Aristide many things: to keep his daughter safe and never let her worry for money and give her whatever she asked for no matter how crazy it sounded. He’s kept every promise the best he could.

  The old woman who sits in the corner of the couch has a blanket over her knees. Her hands are crossed in her lap. Her hair’s long and gray with streaks of white; it flows over her shoulders down to her elbows. Her face resembles Maddalena’s—the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes and above her lip, the high forehead, the eyes blank as a field of snow. She’s watching a game show where girls onstage dance around in bikinis and throw pies at a fat middle-aged man. She looks up from this nonsense to see, after almost sixty years, her sister, her best friend, on the arm of the man who took her away. She squints, leans forward, and the tears come. She holds out both arms. She runs to her.

  Who is this old lady? Maddalena wonders. Why’s she so happy to see me? First there was the man in the white suit, now this strega-looking woman with dry skin and a chicken neck and veins all over her legs. The weather’s too nice to be cooped up in here. And it smells funny. Baby powder and bleach. The handsome young man and his girlfriend look so sad. The lady with the limp, too, in her sundress too small in the waist. They want to get out of here as bad as she does. If they can escape the old fogies, she’ll take them to the café. She can hear the music. “Turn the TV down, will you?” she says, angry, to the man who brought her, squeezing his arm. “You hear? Shh. They’re doing a waltz.”

  “Who?”

  “Across the street.”

  He’s not paying attention. He makes Maddalena sit down next to the old lady on the lumpy couch. They tell her she’s Carolina, but that’s a joke. Carolina’s in Rieti with Teresa and Celestina buying fabric. Maddalena wanted to go, but Papà made her stay and work in the store, and now all of a sudden there’s a new boy behind the counter and she’s in the room with these strange people. Somebody died, maybe, because the old lady is crying. “What’s the matter, signora?” Maddalena asks her.

  She lays both her hands on Maddalena’s face and looks deep into her eyes. “Sorella mia,” she says, over and over. “Sorella mia.” My sister, my sister.

  “Your sister died?” Maddalena guesses. It happens to old people. It’s what they do. “I’m so sorry. What was her name? I’m sure she was very nice.” She looks up, shrugs her shoulders. What else can she say to this woman she met two minutes ago? She decides on, “Can I get you a drink? Or do you want us to leave you alone so you can watch your TV show?”

  But instead of eating or drinking or walking to the café, they sit and watch the silly TV show. A half-naked putana
type is writing in lipstick on the head of a bald guy with a crazy mustache. The audience laughs and laughs. Maddalena can’t sit still. The handsome boy sits on the arm of the couch next to her. She rests her head on his shoulder. Francesco, his name is. She likes the name. She feels comfortable with Francesco. The girl he’s with has a friendly face; there’s something foreign about her, American or German. They sit around for such a long time, and Carolina keeps crying and hugging her and kissing her all over her face, talking about her sister, how much she misses her. It’s so depressing. Maddalena feels her own tears coming, even though she didn’t know the sister.

  “It’ll be all right,” Maddalena tells her. She dries her tears with her sleeve. “You’ll see your sister again in heaven, you know. Think of it that way. There’s no reason to be sad if you remember she’s up there waiting.”

  Good for you, Vito Leone, Antonio thinks bitterly. Your wife’s not so bad off as Claudio made it sound. He can’t stay in this room another second. He hands Maddalena his handkerchief and walks out to the terrace. Claudio follows. Big clay pots overflow with flowers. Claudio offers Antonio a cigarette. Antonio hasn’t smoked in years. The sun and the flowers are bright on their faces.

  “She’s like a stranger,” Antonio says.

  “So is Carolina, most of the time. What you saw back there, that’s a miracle.”

  Antonio wants to take each of the flowerpots, lift them over his head, and smash them onto the street. Shatter the windshields of the cars parked below. There shouldn’t be cars in Santa Cecilia, anyway. There should be carriages and donkeys and dirt.

  Claudio disappears, and now Prima comes out with Kelly Anne.

  “Anything?” Antonio asks.

  Prima shakes her head. “We knew not to get our hopes up, Dad. It was a long shot at best.”

  “If it doesn’t happen now,” Antonio says, “it’s never going to happen.”

  “You don’t know that, Mr. Grasso,” says Kelly Anne. “Not even the doctors said that, right?”

  “You should enjoy being back here, Dad,” says Prima. “You’ve been wanting this for a long time. You deserve it.”

  “I need to check on her,” he says. “The three of you, go walk around. Before it gets dark. It’s easy to get lost here.”

  “Seriously?” says Kelly Anne.

  “He’s joking,” says Prima.

  Antonio walks back into the room where his wife is sitting, whispers in her ear, takes her hand, and leads her away from Carolina, without a word to Vito or Claudio.

  “Thank you,” she says in the hallway. “What do we do now?”

  “I think it’s time for a nap,” Antonio says. “It’s been a long day.”

  “No!” she says. “I’m not even tired!” But by the time they reach the end of the hall, she’s yawning and shuffling her feet. “I could rest my eyes a little,” she says.

  Her old bedroom is now the guest room where they will be staying the next three nights. Antonio shuts the heavy wooden door, newly fitted with shiny brass hinges. In the window is an air conditioner on high. There’s a cordless telephone attached to a fax machine and, in the corner, another TV. Antonio eases Maddalena onto the bed and unstraps her sandals and rubs her feet to help with her circulation. Her toenails are pink, painted by Kelly Anne the day before they left.

  He helps her take off her dress and hangs it in the closet. She bats her eyes at him as he buttons the front of her nightgown, one of those flannel old-lady kinds with lace around the neck, nothing stylish. Her hair, which he paid the Michael Christopher Salon eighty-five dollars to make pretty earlier in the week, is going flat. He’ll ask Prima to fix it later before they see more people, the distant cousins in the village who will come calling before long. Maddalena would want to look her best—no witch hair falling all over the place, no bare legs, no ears without earrings or fingers without rings. For now, though, he wants only for her to be comfortable and rested, not to worry how she looks. He tucks her in. He closes the blinds and finds music on the clock radio to help her sleep. He’s about to say good night and step out of the room when he notices the way she’s looking at him.

  Something in her face is different than it was just minutes ago, in the room with Carolina, and in the hallway, and on the bed when he was removing her clothes.

  “You know me, don’t you?” Antonio says.

  “Of course I do,” she says. She smiles. “Antonio.”

  It’s the first time she’s said his name in months, since one night in the spring, when she woke up in the middle of the night calling to him. He sits beside her. His heart is racing. “How do you feel, tesoro? Do you understand where you are? Are you happy? Can I get you anything?”

  “Did you eat?” she asks.

  “We all ate,” he says. “You and Frankie and Prima and Claudio and Carolina. All together. And now you’re in your old bed. You know that? You used to sleep right here with your sisters. All four of you on this little mattress.” The words can’t come out fast enough. He wants to tell her everything.

  She closes her eyes. “You work too hard,” she says.

  “I’m not working tonight,” he tells her. “We’re going dancing at the Al Di Là.” And there it is, that smile in the corners of her mouth. He hasn’t seen it in so long.

  “My shoes,” she says, her eyes still closed. He wishes she’d open them. He wants to see them see clear. “The gold ones, the heels,” she goes on. “I can’t find them.”

  “I have them. Don’t worry.”

  “Tomorrow,” she says. “Tomorrow night we’ll go dancing. It’s late now. Isn’t it late?”

  “Yes,” he says. “It is pretty late.” So he takes off his clothes and, in his underwear and shirtsleeves, lies beside her under the covers. The sheets are cold. The room is dark. The air conditioner blows across their bodies. The drapes ripple like a child is playing a game behind them. Maddalena turns on her side, she lays her arm across his chest, her head on his shoulder, and her right leg alongside his left, and before long they’re both warm.

  They’ve come all this way, and he is the one she remembers. Not her sister. Not Vito. Not even her own children. That has to mean something. It has to mean—it’s possible, at the very least—that she loves him best, and has for some time. It could mean he wasn’t wrong to take her away from here after the war. It could mean their story was a romance after all.

  They can stay in this room, in this bed, for the next three days if she wants, pretending it’s always night, that they are always about to fall asleep together. Whatever brings her peace. So what if they’ve flown across the ocean? Let Frankie and Prima and Kelly Anne enjoy the scenery, soak up the air, make their own memories. Leave Antonio and Maddalena alone here in their bed for a while. At this moment, there’s nothing and no one else worth seeing.

  SANTA CECILIA REMINDS Frankie of a place you’d take your eighth-grade social studies class: Quebec City or Williamsburg, authentically ancient in pedigree but preserved in a flimsy, manufactured way. The church charges a fee. Alongside the Italian options, the Al Di Là Café menu lists a hot dog and fries. No old men sit in folding chairs in the piazza, and no old ladies hang laundry, as Frankie saw in the other villages he drove through to get here. Most people, even Vito Leone, speak some English. On the side of the bus that roars by, an ad for The Lord of the Rings. In the window of the Pensione Fiorentina, a poster of Michael Bolton.

  The sun is strong and close. Frankie takes off his long-sleeved shirt and wanders the streets and the crumbling cobblestone paths in shorts and his white T with Kelly Anne and Prima. Kelly Anne wants him to talk more, to say what he’s feeling, to “share,” but most of what he’s feeling is rage. If he could talk, what would he say? That he hates himself for getting his hopes up. That it’s just like him. That miracles are for people of faith. That nine times out of ten, what’s most likely to happen, happens. People get old and lose everything and die. They leave you bereft and clamoring. Villages and cities and entire countries relinquis
h what came before them, fall victim to progress and oppression, wipe themselves off maps.

  To walk down this road in his ancestral village is a luxury. To reach up and pull a grape from a vine that’s been growing for generations is an extravagance. None of it belongs to Francesco Grasso. He’s a descendant of Santa Cecilia, and of this convoluted country, but not a player, not an actor. He knows little of Italy’s history, of the history of his own family, beyond the romances his mother filled his head with, and his father’s fermented nostalgia. His gut tells him that they shouldn’t be here, he and his girlfriend and his sister, that they are mere tourists in the lives of others. They shouldn’t have brought their mother back and experimented on her like nineteenth-century quacks. They should have honored her wishes when she was present enough to express them.

  They walk up and down the road for what might be hours. They wait in a long line in the piazza to drink from the “authentic natural water” at the spring and drop a few coins in the donation box beside it and take pictures of two Canadian newlyweds on the steps of the church. With a crowd of couples, Germans and Belgians, they watch a young, muscular butcher carve up a pig through the large picture window of a macelleria, but even this seems for show. There’s too much flourish in his handling of the cleaver. A cigarette dangles Brandoishly from the corner of his mouth. When he’s done, the crowd applauds. Frankie shakes his head.

  Where is my village? his father must be asking. You can’t go home again, Frankie should have reminded him when he called from the travel agent’s, but how can you deny your father when he’s begging you, through tears, to bring peace to his wife, your mother, the woman you miss more than you can bear? Bring the Irish girl, he said to Frankie. Make it a vacation. You have the summer off, don’t you? You work too hard as it is—and don’t worry, I’ll pay for the tickets, the hotels, everything.