La Cucina

by Lily Prior

  I entered to find Padre Francesco tending the altar, much as I had done that day twenty-six years ago after my night of love with Bartolomeo. The perfume of incense, the flickering candles, and the weeping statue of Our Lady brought that day back to me with a horrible clarity.

  Now the padre was bent over with age and his hair, once black as peat, was white and sparse. His face was lined with furrows and his eyesight had dimmed.

  “Hello, Father,” I called out with unconscious irony.

  “Who’s there?” he jumped, hearing a strange voice behind him.

  “It is Rosa.”

  “Rosa?” he said, his voice forming a question mark.

  “Rosa…,” musing to himself.

  He shuffled closer and fixed me with eyes glazed with cataracts. Recognition dawned slowly.

  “Ah, my child. I know you. I know your face, although I cannot remember your name…”

  “My name is Rosa Fiore,” I said quietly.

  Was I imagining it, or did his composure falter for a second?

  “Ah yes, Rosa. Rosa Fiore.” He repeated the sounds softly to himself as if to aid his memory. “I knew your parents.”

  “You knew my mother quite well, didn’t you, Padre?”

  “Yes, I did. Why do you ask?”

  “Because there are some things I need to know. Some things I want to ask you.”

  “I see. Well then, come into the vestry, my child. We can talk there.”

  I had doubts about following him. I was scared to be alone with him, strange as it may seem. Something about him made me fearful. Nevertheless I followed him out of the nave and into the vestry. He motioned toward a bench where we both sat down.

  “So what can I do for you, my child?” he asked with a sly look. “Have you come for confession?”

  “No, I’ve not come for confession,” I replied, disconcerted by his complete lack of shame at the recollection. I felt annoyed with myself afterward for not challenging him about his actions back then, but I had to get to the point of my present visit, and I was struggling already to retain my composure.

  “Before my mother died,” I continued, “she tried to say something to me about my father. She said that Filippo Fiore was not my real father. But she died before she could say who my true father was.”

  “I see.”

  “Afterward, I spoke to my brother Luigi.”

  “Yes?”

  “And he said…”

  “Yes?”

  I swallowed hard.

  “He said that you were my father.”

  I fixed him with a steady gaze, waiting for his response. I was surprised when he began, slowly and raspingly, to laugh.

  “Me, your father? Ha ha ha, that’s funny. That’s very funny.” He continued to laugh like a drain swallowing water.

  “What’s funny about it?”

  “What’s funny is the idea that I could have fathered a child at all. Ha, ha, ha. You see my dear, in all my long life I have never had sex with a woman. Women never interested me, if you know what I mean.”

  “So you’re not my father. You’re definitely not my father?”

  “No, Rosa, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am not.”

  “Oh, I’m not disappointed, Padre,” I said. “You disgust me.” And with that I walked away.

  He was still chuckling to himself as I left the chieda with my heart full of joy on knowing this pervert was not my father. So Luigi had been wrong. He did not know everything. But if neither Filippo Fiore or Padre Francesco were my father, then who in heaven’s name was? And if Luigi had been wrong about Mama’s infidelity, could he be wrong about l’Inglese? Could he have lied about everything?

  As I reached the fattoria, Rosario was idling in the yard, kicking up the dirt with the toes of his boots and smoking a pipe, causing clouds of blue smoke to hover above his head.

  He limped over at my approach: he had evidently been waiting for me.

  “What is it, Rosario? I am very busy and very tired.”

  “Rosario talk to Rosa,” he said.

  “All right, what is it?”

  “Rosario tell Rosa something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Rosario Rosa’s Papa.”

  Holy Mother of God.

  “What do you mean, Rosario? What are you talking about?”

  He became flustered and began mumbling incomprehensibly to himself.

  “Rosario, come into la cucina. Come on. Come and talk to Rosa.”

  I took him inside and sat him down at the table with a jug of ale to loosen his brain.

  “You said ‘Rosario Rosa’s Papa.’ Now come on, explain it to me. Take your time. Don’t be frightened. Just tell me what you mean.”

  Rosario rubbed his face with his fingers, which he always did when he felt nervous and was trying to think.

  “Come on now,” I said slowly and encouragingly.

  “There’s no one here to hear us. Just Rosario and Rosa. Rosario tell Rosa what he knows.”

  “Dark night. Cold. Rosario in cowshed. Warm in there, see?”

  “Yes…”

  “Rosario not allowed in cowshed. She said so. But he didn’t mean no harm. Warming himself, see?”

  “Yes, go on, Rosario, no one’s going to be cross with you.”

  “She came in, but I didn’t know it was her. It was dark, you see.”

  “Yes, it was dark. Go on.”

  “She does things to Rosario. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know it was her. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t mean no wrong.”

  “No, he didn’t. Go on.”

  “Afterward she lights the lantern. She very angry. She beat Rosario. She whip him. A case of mistaken identity, she say. She tell Rosario if he tell, she lock him away, see? I don’t want to be locked away. You won’t lock me away, will you?”

  “No, Rosario, it’s all right. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Then bambina come. Rosario’s bambina. She say he mustn’t know bambina. Or love it. He not allowed. He not to touch it or love it or talk to it or Rosario be locked away in a dungeon. But Rosario love Rosa. Always he love Rosa. She gone now. She dead. She can’t lock Rosario up now. Rosario Rosa’s Papa. Rosa Rosario’s bambina.”

  Good God, so this imbecile was my father.

  “It’s all right, Rosario. No one is going to hurt you or lock you up or anything like that. I won’t let them. Now I need to think carefully about everything, so Rosario, go now and let Rosa think. Everything is going to be all right. I promise you. No harm will come to you. You go and get on with your work. They’ll be needing you in the fields.”

  He drained his jug of ale and left la cucina. When he was gone I banged my head against the table several times, hoping the physical pain would take away the emotional anguish.

  I was the daughter of a half-wit. How could my mother have done this to me? I was in no doubt about the truth of his story. As he was talking to me, I was struck by my physical likeness to him; his nose was the same as mine, his eyes the same color green, his arched eyebrows, his build, his teeth: these things had never struck me before. To tell the truth, I had never really looked at him closely. Also the expressions of his face, his mannerisms, the movements of his hands when talking: it was like looking in a mirror. I had a half-wit for a father. How could things get any worse than this?

  I ran to the stove and fried some slabs of panelle that I had already prepared for lunch. I crammed the oozing golden fritters into my mouth and kept eating until my rage subsided. I had to remain calm. I had lived through worse tragedies than this one.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Before I knew it, a year had passed since my return to Castiglione. Now I ran the farm in place of Mama. I had made some changes of which I have to admit I was rather proud. I had introduced a proper bookkeeping system, and recorded my accounts in a series of neatly written ledgers, just like those at the library. I had organized a little office for myself and equipped it with an impressive array of stationery ite
ms that I had acquired from the shops at Randazzo. There were sharpened pencils, an assortment of pens, paper, and envelopes in various sizes, labeled files, and rubber stamps. It was all very pleasing.

  Yet the changes I made were not purely administrative. I made lots of practical improvements as well. I had the pipes dug to connect the farm to the main water and sewerage systems. I had renovated some cottages on the far side of the estate and had installed Rosario and some of the other farmhands and their families in them. After all, I could not allow my father to live in a hovel.

  I had gotten over my initial depression at discovering my real father’s identity. Rosario was slow, but he was a kind and honest man, and I was touched by his devotion to me. The love for me that he was forced to hide while Mama was alive, he now showed in a thousand little ways. He would bring me flowers he had gathered from the hedgerows or a fresh warm egg from his chickens. And he would wash the dishes after mealtimes, gravely ignoring the hilarity of my brothers and the other farmhands that this caused. Over time he won me over and I grew very fond of him in spite of myself.

  I soon bought a tractor, the first one in the region, and a truck to take produce to market. The neighbors said that Mama would be turning in her grave at the expenditure, but they were just jealous. I was convinced that we had to move into the future rather than continue to do things the old-fashioned way.

  It was not my intention to take over, but none of my brothers had any idea how to run a business. Every minute one of them would run into la cucina asking me what Mama would have done in a given situation, so it came about naturally that I took over all responsibility. I decided which pastures should be used for which of the crops. I determined which of the livestock should be bred and which slaughtered. I settled on what produce should be stored and what sent to market, and so on. There was a long line of strong women in my family and I guess the men had just never taken the trouble to think for themselves. Oh, for l’Inglese. He was a man in the truest sense of the word.

  And yet, for all my added responsibilities, I did not neglect my duties in the kitchen; I like to think that none of my brothers or the farmhands, of which there were an increasing number, had eaten better in their lives. I prepared them breakfast, lunch, and supper. I would produce a huge pot roast or serve a young suckling pig fresh from the sty. I still made all my own bread, and there would often be a handsome dessert or a new cheese and apples.

  I was happy, in a way. I didn’t have a lover, so I couldn’t experience the highs and lows of love. I could only reminisce about the feel of a man inside me; remember my sighs as his stiffened member would gently draw back the layers of my lower lips, and then, having admitted him, would close back around him like the petals of a rose.

  L’Inglese was all too often on my mind, particularly when I was in la cucina, preparing one of the dishes we had made together. I never could eat spaghetti without smiling at the recollection of that night. I never stopped missing him. Sometimes I fantasized about what would have happened if he hadn’t disappeared. Could our love have lasted beyond that glorious summer? I asked myself. Good sense told me he would eventually have gone away, back to his real life in Oxford or London, or one of those other places in England I had read about in a book in the library.

  And yet, if he had not gone away, what then? At such times my hands would come to rest in a bowl of steaming dough, my eyes would glaze over, and my imagination would take flight.

  Once I saw us on the steps of the duomo, back in Palermo. It was a day in early summer: May, I think, when the light is silver and the breeze still cools. I was wearing the pink two-piece suit I was once so proud of, and a little pillbox hat with a veil. Brightly colored petals of confetti fluttered in my face, making me laugh. L’Inglese, standing at my side in a smart suit, was smiling his mischievous smile.

  We climbed into a waiting chaise and I tossed my bouquet of orange blossoms into the air. All the squealing girls leapt up with their arms outstretched but it was Costanza, the hussy, who caught it.

  The library staff, the regular readers, the poor students, they were all there, even the director and the signora in an expensive costume. Everyone, except the signora, who was too well bred, was laughing and crying and clapping and cheering as we drove away.

  I distinctly heard the pony’s hooves crunching on the gravel as l’Inglese leaned over and kissed me, his little mustache tickling my lips.

  “What’s for lunch, Rosa?” he asked.

  Only it wasn’t l’Inglese. It was Giuliano passing through the kitchen.

  I rebuked myself for wasting time daydreaming when I saw that the morning had somehow disappeared. In dismay I realized that the farmhands would soon be coming in for their lunch and the sardines I needed for my pasta con sarde wouldn’t bone themselves.

  Quickly I removed the bones from the mountain of sad-looking sardines lying in front of me on the table. In fact, I like to think I broke all records for boning on this occasion. I removed the heads too, and coated the bodies in a seasoned flour mixture of my own special recipe.

  I fried onions in olive oil, added some handfuls of just-picked fennel leaves and some raisins and pine nuts, and cooked the mixture over a low heat for a few minutes. In a separate pan I fried my now flaccid sardines, while boiling penne in plenty of boiling salted water.

  As the farmhands were trooping through the door, stretching out their aching backs and wiping their sweaty brows, I drained the penne, stirred in the fennel mixture, arranged the sardines on the top, and sprinkled the whole with toasted bread crumbs.

  Although the lunch wasn’t late, this incident taught me a lesson, and I resolved to confine my daydreaming to the times when I was off duty.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As the months passed in the steady round of managing the farm, the date of Biancamaria Ossobucco’s confinement approached, and Guerra and Pace decided they wanted to marry her before their child was born.

  They approached Padre Francesco, and he made no objection to marrying the three of them in his church. The date was set for the following week, and a huge flurry of preparations began.

  Yards of white silk were hurriedly brought in from the mainland, and the tailor, Banquo Cuniberto, set to work fashioning a silken tent to cover the enormous form of Biancamaria Ossobucco. The twins too were to be arrayed in morning dress in the European style, and Banquo Cuniberto and his assistants worked in relays round the clock to perfect the tailoring of the tailcoat and the three-legged pants.

  I too wanted to have a new costume, and chose a pink two-piece suit, just like the one I had made in Palermo and worn the day when l’Inglese came to the library.

  I prepared everything for the wedding breakfast personally. I single-handedly slaughtered a cow so there could be a whole side of beef set out on the table in la cucina. In addition, I prepared four different pasta dishes, a decorated swordfish, and a tin bath full of pollo all Messinese, a dish traditionally served at weddings.

  I also decorated a cake and molded out of marzipan little colored figures of Guerra and Pace and Biancamaria Ossobucco in their wedding finery to adorn the top. There were barrels of my home-brewed ale and grappa, and other good things too.

  I had given the farmhands the day off to celebrate the wedding. As we processed toward the chiesa from the fattoria, all dressed in our finest, I felt an enormous sense of pride at how I had managed things at the farm.

  Then, when the excitement of the wedding was over, we all waited for the birth of the child. Usually, after I had presided over supper at the fattoria, I would ride the mule into town with a basket of food for Biancamaria and the twins.

  One evening I had just unpacked a jar of soup, some freshly made macaroni with a lamb ragout, a cured ham with lime pickles, and a dish of tiny new potatoes, when Biancamaria began to clutch her grossly distended stomach in pain and stumbled backward against the kitchen counter. She stepped on her house dog, which emitted a howl of agony.

  “Is it time, Biancamaria Ossob
ucco?” (I could never manage to call her Biancamaria Fiore, I don’t know why.) I asked fearfully, without really wanting to hear the answer.

  She nodded feebly. I could tell she was terrified. She had swelled so large it was sure to be a multiple birth, and I knew her fear that her child might be cursed in the same way as its fathers.

  Her waters had broken and were pouring down her legs onto the floor.

  “There now,” I said, leading her slowly and carefully up the stairs to the main bedroom.

  “You lie down here while I go and fetch the doctor. Nothing is going to happen before I get back.”

  I hurried down the stairs and out into the street, wishing that the twins had not chosen this particular evening to stay away on business in Catania.

  I rushed to Dr. Leobino’s house, which was some way off in the Via Piave. When the maidservant finally came to the door, she told me that the doctor had taken off to an urgent call in Montalbano and was not likely to return until the early hours of the next morning. How I cursed my own fortune and that of Biancamaria Ossobucco as I hurried back to the house. I knew it would be pointless to ask anyone else for help. Biancamaria Ossobucco was shunned by the rest of the town and no woman would risk rousing her man’s anger by coming to our aid. Too bad the toothless midwife Margarita Gengiva had perished in a landslide some eighteen years ago.

  As I neared the house I could hear Biancamaria Ossobucco’s pitiful cries issuing from the open upstairs window.

  “Pace, Guerra. Aiuto! Morio!”

  “It’s all right, my dear,” I called, racing up the stairs two at a time. “No need to panic. I’m here.”

  “Where is the doctor?”

  “He’s coming. He’s on his way. He’ll just be a little while. And while he’s coming we’ll just get everything ready.”

  I was trying to think what needed to be done, but my mind was like a lump of dough. I had never been at a birth before. Although I could remember the night of the twins’ birth, I was kept well away from the birth chamber, and had no idea what had gone on inside. I knew that clean towels and basins of hot water were customary on such occasions, so I busied myself arranging these, and then sat down by Biancamaria Ossobucco, trying to buoy her up with words of encouragement and mopping her sweating brow with a cloth.