La Cucina

by Lily Prior

  “It’s probably for the best, you know, Rosa. Luigi didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.”

  “It had nothing to do with Luigi, Mama. Absolutely nothing. I’m not a child anymore, and I’ll do as I like.” I started coughing in my anger. I coughed so much I couldn’t talk for a long while and had to drink several cups of water. The pain had returned to my lungs.

  “It’s all right, Rosa, don’t get yourself upset. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Yes, you are. You’ve gone purple. Even as a child you went purple when you were upset.”

  “Mama, please don’t be argumentative.”

  “All right, Rosa, calm yourself, do. Now tell me something else, how did the fire start in your apartment building? I’ve heard it was arson.”

  “No, it wasn’t arson. I was daydreaming…”

  “I might have known…” Mama interrupted, rolling her eyes upward.

  “I had left a fine sfincione in the oven and didn’t notice when it started to burn. I knew nothing about it until the firemen broke in and carried me outside, choking. I was taken by ambulance to the infirmary. I stayed a long time until Guerra and Pace came for me.”

  “I know, Rosa. Luigi sent us a wire from Chicago saying you had been involved in an accident. He told the twins to come and bring you home.”

  “How did Luigi know?” It was spooky the way he seemed to know everything about me.

  “He makes it his business to know everything. They say he has his spies everywhere. Nothing happens on the whole of the island but that he knows about it. It saves me the trouble of writing him, Rosa, for he knows all my business almost before I know it myself. I never did like writing letters.”

  “Well, I’m pleased he sent the twins, anyway. It was so good to see them at the hospital, walking into the ward in their smart suits, looking like a pair of businessmen. They seem to be doing very well for themselves.”

  “Hmmm,” Mama replied with a strong look of disapproval, coloring her face gray. “They look well enough, and they have lots of money, it’s true; but I worry about them, Rosa. They’re mixed up in all sorts of things, shady things, dark dealings. They’ll come to a bad end, Rosa; I can feel it in my blood. And they live with a whore, did they tell you that? The three of them sleeping together in a big bed they had imported especially. By the grace of the blessed Virgin. Three in a bed.”

  “Well, they could hardly sleep apart, Mother, could they now?”

  Mama’s face twisted in disdain.

  “I don’t like it, Rosa, it brings disgrace on the family, sons of the Fiores setting up home with a pockmarked whore. Biancamaria Ossobucco: there’s not a man in the region that hasn’t had it with that one. Her rates are lower than anyone else’s, bargain prices. She just wouldn’t get any custom otherwise. And there are my sons setting her up in their home just as if she was a fine lady. It’s a disgrace. An absolute disgrace. I won’t have her in the house. I’ve told them that. I won’t let her in. So they need not even try bringing her round here. I’ll not have her and that’s that.”

  “Now, Mother, I think you’re being unfair. If they’re happy with her then that should be good enough for us. The poor boys can’t pick and choose. Let us not forget that.”

  “That’s what Luigi says, but I can’t like it, Rosa, I just can’t.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The following week I was feeling so much stronger that I made a trip into town. As I set foot in the piazza, a throng of schoolchildren in pinafores started dancing around me.

  “Rosa Fiore is home. It’s Rosa Fiore. Rosa Fiore. Rosa Fiore,” they trilled in squeaky voices.

  I was surprised to find that a new generation of local children knew who I was, even though I had left town when their parents were kids themselves. But this was not in itself so amazing. My story had become folklore and was still told by grandmothers on a winter’s evening before a roaring fire. In some versions I had run away to join a traveling circus on the mainland; in another I had become a pirate like my forefather Pasquale Fiore and in yet another I had traveled as far as Paris to become a famous showgirl of somewhat shadowy repute. None of the stories told of how I took the autobus to Palermo and worked as a librarian. Nevertheless the children delighted to see the subject of a legend walking and living and breathing among them.

  As I crossed the piazza I saw Padre Francesco going into the chiesa. He was bent over now with age and his hair was white. I had never been to confession since that very day when the priest had masturbated over the account of my initiation into the mysterious rites of sex while my young lover was already lying dead with his throat cut by his father’s hand.

  I walked slowly up the hill to the cemetery; my lungs still hurt at the least exertion and I had to keep stopping and resting. I swung the gate open and had a sudden flash of memory. I saw myself lying on the ground outside this very gate all those years ago on the day of the funeral when they would not let me inside. My lungs were hurting then too: from the sobs that tore at them.

  I walked past the rows of white stones bearing their inscriptions and sepia photographs of the dead. They all looked back at me, fresh-faced and smiling. Did people have these studio portraits taken with this in mind?

  I walked straight to Bartolomeo’s grave. It was carefully tended: the stone was polished, there was no trace of dust. There were no weeds poking through the surrounding gravel, and while most of the other graves had artificial flowers of violent blues and reds, on his were fresh blooms, thoughtfully arranged and obviously laid out this morning. I wondered who took such care of it. I would have liked to say thank you.

  I knelt down before the grave where my Bartolomeo lay. I could scarcely believe so much time had passed since his death. Coming back here made it all feel recent again. I felt the incisions in the stone, recording his name and the dates of his birth and his death. The chiseled edges were not so sharp now, having been washed by the rain of twenty-five winters. Winters that I had lived through without him.

  I started telling Bartolomeo all the things that had happened since I went away. I started at the beginning and told him everything. I told him about my bus journey to Palermo. About my job in the library. My lodgings in the Via Vicolo Brugno. Nonna Frolla and her grocery store. The director, Crocifisso, Costanza, and Signor Rivoli.

  Then I told him about l’Inglese. I was sure he would not mind that I had managed to find love with another. It had nothing to do with the love that I still felt for him, and always would. I felt a little shy at first, admitting these things to him, but as I talked on my confidence grew and I told him all. I told him how l’Inglese had first come to the library, and how I was so attracted to him but tried to fight it. And then, when I stopped fighting it, how wonderful it was, and how I felt alive, and, for the first time, like a woman. I told him about our lovemaking, and our cooking. I told him how funny and wild and passionate l’Inglese was. How he made me do crazy things that I’d never done before. And how I loved him. And how now he too was gone. And I was alone again. And trying to hold myself together the best I could.

  And then I stopped talking and had a little cry. And then I thought I shouldn’t let Bartolomeo see me upset, because that would upset him, so I stopped crying and told him about the fire in my apartment, and my spell in the infirmary, and how the twins had come to bring me home. I told him how Mama had shot Antonino Calabrese, how the twins had found happiness with Biancamaria Ossobucco, and how Luigi had become a pizza millionaire in Chicago.

  It was late when I finally finished talking. I had been kneeling at the grave for hours and my legs and back had gone stiff. I kissed Bartolomeo’s youthful photograph and limped away.

  As I made my way back to the fattoria I felt glad I had confided in Bartolomeo. I was pleased at the symmetry: I had told l’Inglese about Bartolomeo, and now I had told Bartolomeo about l’Inglese. I felt it was right there should be a bridge between the two loves of my life.

  On
ce I arrived back at the farm, my legs walked me into la cucina, and instinctively I rolled up my sleeves and tied on my apron. It was time for me to make myself at home once more in the kitchen. The glossy eggplants nestling in a basket invited me to make a caponata, a sweet-and-sour vegetable stew.

  I sliced and salted the eggplants and left them to disgorge their bitter juices. While waiting, I chopped an onion and some tomatoes and celery on the old table. The blade of the knife became a blur in my fast-moving fingers. I chopped for Bartolomeo, a beautiful young life so needlessly cut down. I chopped for l’Inglese, who I knew in my heart was also dead: no one ever survived a disappearance. And I chopped for myself, for the happiness that was always snatched away from me. The vegetables soon became very small dice.

  When I had wiped the eggplants I fried them in some of Mama’s best olive oil, then set them to drain while I fried the onion, and added the tomatoes and a good pinch of salt. When the sauce had thickened I put in a handful of capers, the celery, and two handfuls of green olives, and left the dish to simmer for a while. This caused a delicious perfume to emerge from the open door of la cucina, and led old Rosario, loitering in the yard, to say, “Ahh, Rosa’s home.” Rosario had been loitering in the yard my whole life. When the time came we would have to bury him there.

  Then I added the fried eggplants, a little sugar, and a little wine vinegar, and cooked it just long enough for the vinegar to evaporate.

  I waited impatiently for the caponata to cool a little, and then ate it up with some chunks of fresh bread. It felt good to be home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The mild golden days of fall grew shorter and cooler. They became gray; the sun grew weaker, its rays no longer warmed the earth. I had by now grown used to being back at Castiglione; my years in the city seemed a long-closed chapter now. I did not hunger for city ways: my life was here again.

  I was growing stronger in the clean country air, on a diet of wholesome home produce. I had begun to regain the weight I had lost after the accident; color had returned to my cheeks; I looked somehow younger now; in fact one or two of the men in the village were said to be interested in courting me, but I dismissed such notions as ridiculous. I would never love again. What man could match l’Inglese? There was not another like him. And now that my eyes had been opened, how could I settle for a lesser man? I couldn’t.

  Still I dreamed of l’Inglese. I looked forward to the nights, when I could retreat from the bustle of the farming day into my old room, and embracing sleep I hoped for dreams. But even in my dreams l’Inglese was elusive. I would find him at last after wading through quicksand, crossing deserts, navigating rough seas, walking for miles in the heat of the sun, but whenever I arrived at my journey’s end, and with indescribable joy found him, and reached out for him, and saw his own two arms reaching out for me, I would always, at the very point of touching him, wake up. Afterward, crushed with disappointment, I would will myself to return to the dream, to recapture the happy ending I had been cheated of. How I longed to touch him, to feel him, to kiss him, to hold him, to feel the heart-bursting elation of our reunion, but when the spell of the dream was broken, my imagination was unable to rise to the challenge, and I was left feeling empty, cold, and alone.

  Such were my exhausting nights. My days were less arduous. There was no quicksand for me to traverse. No high seas. Just mountains of pasta and lakes of soup to be prepared for the hungry farmhands.

  Winter drew on, with its crisp cold mornings and evenings spent in la cucina in front of the burning fire, with all of us telling stories and gossiping. Invariably the ghost of Nonna Fiore would appear at these times and regale those gathered with her comic and often obscene tales of life at the fattoria in the last century. Sometimes we had to send her away, she was so disgraceful, especially if we had company.

  The days leading up to Christmas were filled with a flurry of activity in preparation for the feast days. For me, it was almost like the days of my youth, so taken up was I with the plucking of pheasants and the making of pies, marzipan, cakes, and all manner of Christmas fare.

  Mama had decided which of her pigs was due for slaughter, and felt it was only right that I should be given the honor of butchering it. I sharpened my knives on the steel, back and forth, back and forth a thousand times; there came the smooth sound of metal on metal, and the smell of warmed steel and the sweat from my exertions.

  I bound up my hair, to keep it free of the blood that would be carefully gathered and made into sausages, and rolled my sleeves above the elbows. Then, putting on a pair of rubber boots and a coarse apron, I took my knives, my saw, my sterilized basins, and my buckets of boiling water out into the yard to the pen where the poor porker had been segregated from its family and stood waiting for me.

  The pig looked up at me in sorrow; it saw its death in my eyes and grunted piteously. It had been over twenty-five years since I had slaughtered an animal, but I did not feel squeamish. I took its head in my arms and stuck it with my sharpest knife in the throat, just in front of the breastbone. Feeling the bone against the knife I let the knife slip forward to go under it, and then pushed it in a couple of inches more, slicing with the point of the knife toward the head. As I severed the artery the porker seemed to come to life again and thrashed around, kicking with its hooves. As the blood gushed forth from the gaping wound in the neck I was quick to position my buckets underneath to gather it up for my sausages, deftly replacing one with another once it became full.

  Then, hauling my pig onto its side, I began the scraping. To do this you need to pour hot water over a small area and then, once the bristles have become loosened, you scrape at them furiously with a special scraping knife. The secret is to keep working until the pig is absolutely clean.

  I submerged each of the trotters in a bucket of hot water, and soaked them slightly. I was then able to pull off the horny toes with a hook. Then I doused the pig with cold water to remove all the loose skin, bristles, and traces of blood.

  Next, I sawed through the breastbone and hung the pig up by the tendons in its hind legs. Cutting carefully between the hams, I hauled out the guts, which flopped down into a basin waiting below. Finally I threw several buckets of cold water inside and outside the carcass to clean it thoroughly, then, propping it open with some sticks, I left it to stiffen overnight. Throwing the lungs to the sheepdogs as a special treat, I gathered up the buckets of blood for the sausages, and the intestines and other entrails that needed to be washed.

  When all was done I came in from the yard, my face and forearms smeared with blood; straggly bits of hair had escaped from the bunch I had tied it in and got in my eyes. In la cacina I found Mama slumped in a heap over the table.

  “Mama!” I screamed, dropping the knife and the pail of blood I was carrying. It went all over the floor, soaking my feet and the hem of my dress and the flagstones.

  “Mama!”

  I rushed over and lifted Mama’s head up from the pillow of dough where it had come to rest. Mama let out a low-pitched groan that showed she was still just alive.

  “Mama, Mama, speak to me. Don’t die, please don’t die,” I cried, choking back tears.

  Mama groaned again and seemed to be trying to say something.

  “What is it, Mama?” I asked. “What is it you want to say? Shall I call the priest?”

  A flicker of Mama’s eyes showed this was not what she wanted.

  “Rosa,” she murmured finally in a rasping voice that showed the extent of her suffering.

  “My girl,” she said very slowly, gasping for breath, “there is something I have to tell you.” Here she lurched with a sudden spasm of pain.

  “You don’t have to say anything, Mama; don’t try and talk, just rest and I’ll run and fetch the doctor.”

  “No, Rosa, it’s too late for the doctor. Listen to me, there’s something I have to tell you before I die.”

  “Mama, you won’t die, please let me get help, allow me to call the doctor.”

  �
��No, Rosa. Listen to me. I haven’t much time left. I need to tell you something very important.” She swallowed hard.

  “Rosa, your father was not your father.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, the man you knew as your father, Filippo Fiore, was not really your father.”

  My mouth had fallen wide with shock.

  “No, my girl, anyone with half an eye could see you were not his child. Your true father was…” Here Mama’s breath grew thicker and more labored.

  “He was…”

  Her breath was now so heavy it seemed to be the only sound in the world. The death rattle was in her throat. Making one final stupendous effort, her tiny frame shaking, she said:

  “Rosa, your father was…”

  But she could not finish the sentence before her neck went limp and her head fell forward again into the dough ball that had risen to massive proportions on the ancient table.

  “Mama, Mama, Mama! No! Oh no! No!” I screamed, cradling Mama’s lifeless body in my arms and rocking her back and forth, willing her to wake up again.

  “No, no, no,” I sobbed, willing that it was not so. Willing that there had been some mistake; willing that her time had not yet come. I stayed like that, rocking my mother in my arms, for a long time. I could not let her go. And while I rocked I cried and cried the most bitter tears, which ran down my cheeks and plopped onto Mama’s.

  Mama had only just come back into my life, and I was only just reaching an understanding with her that we had never had when I was younger; and now here she was gone. Another death. Another loss. How much mourning should one woman have to do in a lifetime? I felt that I had already done too much.

  I may have imagined it, but I clearly remember the ghost of Nonna Calzino appearing to me then as I cradled Mama in the gathering darkness.

  “You have to let her go, Rosa,” she said simply. “It’s her time.”