You Were There Before My Eyes

by Maria Riva

  Having asked for Camilla’s hand in marriage and been accepted by a grateful father, Giovanni left for Turin to make the necessary travel arrangements for himself and his bride. Now that everything was finally settled, all hesitation behind him, he could concentrate on getting back to work as quickly as possible. All accomplished, he returned, took a thorough bath in his mother’s kitchen, slicked his hair, brushed his derby, shined his boots, and, clutching a bunch of daisies, pulled the plaited cord that rang the brass bell of the mayor’s house. Camilla’s mamma, in churchgoing finery, flung open the door and embraced her future son-in-law with unbridled delight.

  “Welcome! Welcome, my dear Giovanni. Camilla awaits. Ready in the parlor.” An anxious mother’s slight exaggeration, for Camilla, propped amongst tasseled pillows on a very uncomfortable love seat, in a dress of palest yellow, her panic pallor having taken on a hue of curdled cream, was far from ready for anything. Camilla’s mamma bustled about the room, indicating a broad footstool positioned at her daughter’s feet. As with all of her daughters, Mamma believed in orchestrating proposals for their most romantic effectiveness. Giovanni lowered himself into the position of ardent suitor. Although her girlish bosom fluttered, no words of welcome left Camilla’s pale lips. Mamma, in a bit of a quandary whether she needed to remain as chaperone, hesitated, then decided as they were already betrothed, she could leave them together long enough to tend to her soup for the evening meal. At the door, she turned, gave Giovanni a meaningful look, and left the two lovebirds to get on with it.

  Gazing up at his bride-to-be, Giovanni began laying his plans for their future before her. Just as his profession demanded utmost attention to detail, precision in its execution, he approached life with the same attitude. Knowing all would be new to her, he proceeded to give her an explicit account of the arduous journey that lay before them, the endless days and nights in third-class carriages on trains, assuring her that sleeping sitting up was not as uncomfortable as she might think, it was simply a matter of getting used to. Once, having arrived in the port of the city of Le Havre, she would have to be extremely careful not to draw attention to herself or him, for, once spotted as possible immigrants, things could be dangerous. Thieves and, worse, ruthless swindlers took one’s money, promised lodgings that then did not exist or were unfit for humans. But he would protect her, knew of a tavern where an affordable room could be found, where she might even be able to indulge in a bath in its kitchen, as such luxury would not be possible again for many weeks until after they had reached America. He wanted her to know that having survived the cattle conditions of steerage on his first crossing, he had sworn then that never would he be a part of such misery again, nor would anyone in his care need to endure it. He was proud that now he was in a position to keep that promise, he had been able to afford second-class accommodations for both of them. Although extremely small, the ship’s cabins were not only safe but afforded precious privacy. He would share his with three other men, she with three other ladies. He hastened to add that communal facilities for private acts would only be a short distance in another part of the ship and certainly better than the open pails used by those in steerage. And when they encountered the usual heavy seas, being seasick with three ladies for company would be a comfort to her. Once safely arrived, the next journey by various trains would probably seem endless, for America was large, its distances farther than anyone from across the sea could ever imagine but she had his solemn promise that they would get to their final destination, eventually.

  “We will make our first home in the room I rent. It is not big but sufficient. I work a nine-hour day, so you will have plenty of time to do your housework and learn to speak American. Frau Geiger, my landlady, is a kind woman—she will help you. I bet in no time you two will be boiling your wash together and making your soap in the huge kettle she keeps on the back porch of the house.”

  Throughout this travelogue of delights, Camilla’s already enormous eyes had widened even further. Now, with the softest meow, she fainted dead away.

  “Signora! Signora!” Giovanni dashed into the pungent kitchen. “Your daughter …”

  “Santa Maria! What have you done to my child?” Mamma threw her spoon into the bubbling minestrone, hurried to her daughter spread-eagled on the horsehair love seat.

  “Signora—believe me! All I said was we were going to America—I swear!”

  “Did you remember to tell her first she would be going as your lawfully wedded wife?” Mamma asked, chafing her daughter’s limp wrist.

  “Of course she knew that, Signora!” Giovanni retorted, very put out at even the slightest hint of impropriety on his part.

  “Then why should she faint?” pressured Mamma. Receiving only a dumbfounded look as answer, she hastened to reassure him. “Of course Camilla can be at times a little overdramatic. Nothing serious of course. Nothing for you, dear Giovanni, to have to be concerned about. You will see, once she has gotten used to the idea she will be as pleased as we all are with your offer.”

  This sensible speech somewhat placated Camilla’s future husband as it was intended to. With a sharp pat on her newly resurrected daughter’s cheek plus a warning look that spoke volumes, Mamma returned to her kitchen, leaving the young lovers to continue their courtship where they had left off.

  “Camilla, are you alright?” Giovanni sat next to the trembling girl, anxious to repair whatever damage he might have done. He had no clue as to what it could have been that had put her into such a tizzy, still was more than willing to take the blame if it made her feel any better. To give her time to collect herself, he stroked her little white hand. Admiring its soft delicacy, he spoke again of their future.

  “STOP! OH, PLEASE, please stop!” wailed Camilla, tears splashing down her cheeks, little hiccups getting in the way of words that tumbled out of her pretty mouth like cherry pits. “I CAN’T! I just can’t! I don’t want to die in the sea! I don’t want to be seasick! I don’t want to go to a big strange place full of savages I can’t talk to! I don’t want to be married to you! I don’t want to leave my mamma! I don’t want to make SOAP! GO AWAY!”

  Giovanni fled.

  2

  “Did you hear? She turned him down!” At the village fountain the shocking news of Camilla’s refusal flowed like the water. Some shook their heads in disbelief; others nodded their approval of a true virgin’s fears. In the chapel, Teresa, her longed-for wedding feast fading, knelt in ardent prayer, asking guidance for her friend’s obvious confusion. A gleam in her eye, Antonia chuckled, washed her luscious mane, began preparing her father for the inevitable visit she was convinced Giovanni would now be making to her door, while Giovanna, with no hope whatsoever, went about her daily chores, pretending the excitement over this village romance had no effect on her.

  Giovanni was furious. He had come home to get himself a woman to look after him, and by God he’d find one before the boat sailed! It no longer mattered who she was, as long as she was suitable. Precious hard-earned money had been laid out for a wife’s passage, and by all the saints in Heaven, he was going to have one by sailing time!

  Camilla no longer came to the piazza to seek the shade; neither did Antonia. One was in disgrace, locked in her room for shaming her father’s given word, the other primped and paced, waiting for that expected suitor. Of course, Giovanni’s sisters were far too upset over their brother’s big trouble to even think of lace.

  Alone, Teresa and Giovanna worked in silence. Their bobbins bounced but missed their usual friendly accompaniment. Anchoring pins to form the sunburst points of her collar, Teresa broke into their concentration, “Giovanna, isn’t there something we can do to help poor Camilla? I mean besides praying—which you don’t ever do anyway. I feel so sorry for her. Why wouldn’t she be frightened—and I don’t even mean having to marry, be WITH a man as a wife, that’s scary enough but to have to leave all you have ever known—brave storms and unknown hardships and THE
N, even if you manage to get there alive, savages scalp you?”

  “You are as bad as Camilla. Shipwrecks and savages. Really! I don’t know where everyone gets these silly ideas. First, how can he work in a big factory that makes wonderful motorcars that hundreds of people are able to buy if there are savages running around scalping everybody?” Fascinated,Teresa looked at her friend in amazement. “Yes, it’s true. He told me about it. Oh, Teresa, I would go! I don’t believe what people say, not even that all the streets are paved with gold, but I know why it is called the Land of Opportunity. Because everything is possible there, for everyone, no matter where you come from. I wouldn’t care if I had to cross the most dangerous oceans in the world just to be a part of it! That’s what I wan … wanted to tell him …” Giovanna stopped; she had almost blurted out what she was still too ashamed to admit—even to herself.

  “Giovanna, do you hate it here?”

  “Hate? Oh no, not really. Anyway, you always say that hate erodes the soul, so I wouldn’t dare.” Teresa smiled, knowing her friend was stalling, trying to find an answer to a question never asked her before. “Maybe I’m just different.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a longing—a feeling of wanting more, something more than this—” Giovanna’s arm swept the air as though encompassing her small world. “Well, haven’t you ever longed to get away … see new worlds … learn … become somebody … ?”

  Teresa looked up from her pillow. “To serve God is the greatest adventure of all.”

  “Oh, Teresa! Will you really? Are you sure? To spend your whole life on your knees in meaningless prayer, how …”

  “Giovanna, don’t blaspheme!! For the sake of your soul—not mine—you mustn’t!”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s nonsense, all of it—just a lot of nonsense.” Giovanna’s tone held a finality. Teresa, eyes lowered to her pillow, murmured, “I shall pray for you.”

  A tense interval of conscientious work, then, in a voice that still held a hint of her irritation with Divinity, Giovanna asked, “Teresa—tell me—haven’t you ever felt lost?”

  “No. Never!”

  “I do all the time. It’s like I don’t really belong … anywhere. Sometimes when the feeling gets really bad, I think, What if there really isn’t anywhere for me? And then I wonder what will become of me if that is so. But I must try—I have to—AND I’m not like my mother, truly I’m not!” Giovanna swallowed a threatening sob. Teresa reached out, covered her friend’s hands clenched in her lap, stilling their agitation with her touch. Lace forgotten, they sat, watching the perimeter of their shade. One lost, seeking peace at any price; the other content having found, without search, all that was necessary. In the cool of early evening, they walked home together. As they parted, Giovanna, in a rush of courage, confessed, “Teresa, I asked Giovanni to take me. Oh, I know it was a shocking thing to do and, of course, he was furious. But I had to … I just had to try. And now, what do you think? Can I ask him again?”

  “Oh, dear!” fluttered an uncertain Teresa. Cast down to bare human need, completely out of her element, she said the first thing that presented itself. “Well, if you have already done it once, why not again? Who knows? Mamma always says, ‘Men are very peculiar.’”

  Giovanna kissed her cheek and ran.

  The sisters, putting their heads together and agreeing on all important points, went in search of their brother. They found Giovanni in the blackest of moods, sharpening an axe in their father’s toolshed. Courageous Celestina was the first to speak. “Giovanni, we, your sisters, have come to speak with you on a most delicate matter which we consider of utmost importance.”

  “So please don’t get angry at us.” Confrontation made Gina nervous. Being politely beautiful she considered much more advantageous.

  “And please, stop this noise and”—Celestina held up a hand—“don’t speak, because if I am stopped now, I’ll forget what we thought through and agreed to say!”

  Giovanni glowered at the two girls … If they said one thing in defense of that stupid Camilla, he’d murder them.

  “Well? What’s so important?”

  Looking at her sister, making sure one last time that what had been decided between them still stood, Celestina took a deep breath and plunged, “Gina and I think you should consider Giovanna Zanchetta!”

  “You’re both as crazy as she is!”

  “No, no. She isn’t crazy! All our lives we have been friends. Her mother was crazy, everyone knows that, but that doesn’t mean Giovanna is.” Celestina, warmed to her task, rushed on to present their conclusions. “Now listen, please! You came all the way back home to get yourself a sensible wife … and what do you do … you go and ask that Camilla. She’s pretty and all that silly stuff that you men seem to like so much … but really, Giovanni, she hasn’t a sensible bone in her whole spine and she has not too much up in her head either! Instead of having someone who could take proper care of you, you would have to spend all your time and money taking care of her. We, your loving sisters, think it was your very good fortune that Camilla turned you down!”

  “And you better be careful that ambitious mamma of hers doesn’t force Camilla to change her mind and THEN you will really be in the soup!” Gina chimed in as Celestina was catching her breath, gearing up for the next assault.

  “Gina’s right about the mamma. Now—we certainly don’t want you to find some Detroit lady to marry. Papa and Mamma would die. Their grandsons not Italian? What a thought! Now, as the good nuns love to say, ‘Let us look at the whole picture!’ You need a wife. Everybody agrees about that—healthy, strong, frugal … someone you can depend on. You said yourself how very, very hard the journey is to reach l’America … so what you need is a wife who can take the hardships you have told us about, who won’t have the vapors every two minutes, who can bear you healthy sons, save you money, and, also, has brains to learn to speak American so you won’t have to be ashamed of a wife as though you married an ignorant peasant from the South! Giovanna Zanchetta is not pretty, but she is dependable and all those other things I just said—and, as Teresa’s mamma always says, ‘Better an ass that carries than a horse that throws!’ And you know what is the best of all? Giovanna will never be able to run home to her mamma … because SHE HASN’T GOT ONE!”

  Giovanni threw back his head and roared with laughter. Encouraged by his reaction, the sisters hugged each other, delighted.

  “Come here, you two scamps!” and each received a brother’s kiss on their flushed cheeks.

  Too much time was passing. Soon the ship would sail and with it an angry, disappointed bachelor. Giovanni, pressured by an imminent departure, made his decision, resigned himself to second best—more likely fourth or even fifth best, had anyone dared to question him—and so one evening presented himself at the Zanchettas’ front door.

  Taken aback, Giovanna admitted him, presented him to her glowering father, and faded into the shadows, heart pounding. Giovanni wasted no time.

  “Sir, I know the hour is late, but I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage. Please, before you answer, I wish you to know that I do not expect, nor do I have the need to accept, the required dowry. Should you give your consent I must warn you that any wife of mine will have to be ready to leave with me for America within the next two weeks.”

  Giovanna’s father did not stir. His hawklike eyes focused on the young man before him, as though he were discovered prey.

  “Couldn’t get the one you really wanted, so you’re desperate … boy?”

  “No … sir.” Giovanni’s dislike of this man was hard to hide.

  “Well, you can’t have this one! This one’s mine! She stays here where she belongs, to look after me.”

  “And what about Giovanna? She is to have nothing to say … ?”

  “Don’t you bring your evil foreign ways into my house! My d
aughter belongs to me! She will do what I say! GET OUT!”

  Giovanni was more than ready. This bastard for a father-in-law? Nothing was worth that.

  The soft “no” stopped his retreat. Despite his need to escape, Giovanni paused, intrigued. Stepping from the shadows into the circle of light, Giovanna faced her father’s chair.

  “No, Papa! I am leaving. I shall go with Giovanni as his wife or not. I have no false pride in such things. If he will take me to America, I will go with thankfulness.”

  Her voice calm, her manner assured, she turned, lifted her woolen shawl from its nail by the door, motioned the stunned young man to follow her, and stepped outside. The night was cold, darkened by a moonless sky. Arms folded, she stood looking up. He watched her, a little afraid of this young girl with the passionate convictions of a woman twice her age. Apprehensive silence lay between them.

  I wish he’d say something! Anything! Get it over with. He won’t want to take me now after all this—so let him say it and get it over with. I’m tired of wanting too much! She tensed for his words, certain they would hurt.

  Convinced he was making a catastrophic mistake, he turned her towards him. “Well, Giovanna Zanchetta, are you coming with me to America?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, afraid to believe him.

  “Thank God that’s settled! First we get your papers, then we marry …”

  “You don’t have to, I meant what—”

  “I know exactly what you meant in there. Where you get such craz—” Just in time, he caught himself. “STRANGE ideas is beyond me. Of course we have to be married. Mr. Henry Ford expects his workers to be respectable!”

  She wore her mother’s summer hat, a bunch of wild irises her only finery. Her suitcase of straw, secured by its leather strap, contained the few mementos of a life already relegated to the past.