by Linda Ferri
When we were all sitting around in wicker armchairs in front of the house, Grazia seemed quiet and wan, as if the imposing shadow of her mother darkened any gleam of adolescence in her.
But when the three of us, having left the grown-ups to their conversation, went for a walk in the park and Clara and I asked Grazia to tell us a story, she became a different person—she rattled on happily, and her whole face lit up.
Today she’s telling us the story of Wuthering Heights and we’re getting to the part where Heathcliff forces Cathy to marry his repulsive son, when Grazia stops and says, “If I show you something, do you swear you won’t tell a soul?”
“What is it?” Clara says.
“First swear. Go on, make a cross with your fingers and kiss the cross.”
My sister and I perform this ritual. Then, from the pocket of her flowered dress, Grazia takes out a photo.
“Look,” she says with a little flutter of emotion, “this is the man I’m going to marry, my fiancé. Look how handsome he is, not a bit like Heathcliff’s son. Look.”
We look. A black-and-white photo. In the foreground there’s a boy in a soldier’s uniform. It looks like one of those photos of a dead person in a cemetery, with the background fading into white. We’re at a loss for a moment. At last I manage to say in a thin voice, “He’s cute.” She doesn’t notice and goes on with her story. “I kept seeing him in front of the repair shop where he works and he smiled at me, but I always looked away. But then one day I see him at the end of the street and when I go by he says, ‘Hello, beautiful signorina,’ and holds out a wonderful red rose. I look around to see if anyone’s watching, then I take the rose and hide it under my coat and run away. Then I see him again at the same place, and this time we tell each other our names. And each time we meet we talk a little more, but if my mother’s with me, we pretend not to know each other. I’ve gone with him in his car, up into the hills, and we kissed. Oh, I love him, I love him, I love him—but if my mother finds out she’ll kill me, I have to think up excuses to go out, and I can’t think of any more!”
I find this story more exciting than Wuthering Heights. That night Clara and I discuss it.
“Here’s what I think. I think he should kidnap her. They could find a priest to marry them in secret, and the two of us could be witnesses.”
Clara says, “I don’t think they’ll get married.”
“And why is that, excuse me very much.”
“Because Mariapia doesn’t want it.”
“But you’re not listening–I told you he’ll kidnap her and they’ll get married in secret.”
“Yes, fine. But you’ll see–when he comes to her house to kidnap her, Grazia will say no, that she doesn’t have the courage to do it.” Then, after a moment of silence, Clara adds, “Do you think Papa will be as terrible with us, the way Mariapia is with Grazia?”
“But what are you saying!” I blurt back. “Just because they’re cousins doesn’t mean they have to be alike.”
But at the same time I have a sudden doubt because I remember the way Papa says that if any suitors show up for us he’ll kick their backsides.
Not long after that, Mariapia, Elisabetta, and Grazia came to visit. Grazia had swollen eyes. I couldn’t wait for the grown-ups to settle into their chairs in front of the house so we could go to the park. Once she was alone with us, Grazia said that it was all over, that her mother had begun to suspect and one day she’d followed her to the gas station where they’d agreed to meet to go up into the hills, that her mother had dragged her home, hitting her the whole way, and that Aunt Elisabetta had had the husband of a friend of hers telephone the owner of the shop so that the boy was fired. Now she could only leave the house if she went with her mother, and next year her mother was sending her away to boarding school. She burst into tears, and Clara and I each held one of her hands. Then, still sobbing, she said, “My mother says he’s lower class and for me to get it into my head that I’ll marry at least a notary.” She burst into tears again, and I tried to find something comforting to say, and I racked my brains for some ray of hope or some dramatic turn, but nothing came to mind so I began to cry too, praying with all my might that Papa wouldn’t take after his cousin Mariapia.
This ship is a city without danger where Clara and I can live on our own. Of course our parents are there, but we don’t have to ask their permission and there’s so much space we don’t have territorial disputes with our brothers. We have a cabin all to ourselves—the key is by turns a hard little bulge in my pocket or my sister’s.
We can do whatever we want whenever we please—either play “sky” on the promenade deck or go to the movies—in the morning, for free. When we come out we’re blinded by the unbroken light of the sky and the sea. Some nights, with blankets pulled up to our noses, we lie on deck and count the stars, starting all over again when we lose count until we begin to see red and green planets and it’s time to go to bed. For the first time in our lives we stay up till dawn, but it turns out to be a disappointing paleness.
One morning we see a whale’s spout draw a mustache on the horizon, but no one believes us, neither our parents nor our brothers, four sniggering faces at the dinner table. We ignore them—we’re strong after all these days that are ours alone.
The crossing to America lasted ten days, and then my mother pointed to the Statue of Liberty and the ship came into port, entering her slip to a volley of skyrockets. In the crowd on the pier there are Mama’s cousins, their eyes glistening and laughing, their mouths forming words that are lost in the general cheering and fanfare.
In New York, Mama spends all her time talking with her cousins, so Clara and I always go out with Papa, walking for hours along avenues that are like immense diving boards stretching out into space. For some reason I kept expecting to see Cary Grant coming out of a revolving door from one of the buildings in Midtown, his necktie blowing in the wind—all of it in black and white.
Papa took Clara and me to a huge store with three floors where there was nothing but toys.
At the entrance he turned us loose, saying, “You can pick three toys each.” He turned to me and said, “You keep an eye on the clock. When the hands reach here and here it will be half past ten, and we’ll meet at the cash register. All right?” Yes, that’s fine, but I’m already losing my head and I say to Clara that we’ll never manage to choose, all those possibilities are making my head spin. And of course I go wrong. In the coloring section alone there are two dozen shelves. I finally pick a box of crayons, which I don’t usually like to use, but on the box there’s a tiger with three tiger cubs, my favorite animal of the moment. Then I grab a teddy bear dressed like a forest ranger, not much of anything but certainly better than my next choice, completely absurd— a baseball mitt, for a sport that it has never entered my head to play but whose red stitching and beautiful leathery toughness somehow hypnotize me.
When I meet my father at the cashier’s counter I’m discontented and upset, as if I’ve been defeated in a way I can’t bear to admit, and I start complaining about how cold I am because of the air-conditioning. So it all ends badly with me getting a scolding: “Stop that sniveling. What a whiner you are! And you’re spoiled.”
We take a trip to the north in a rented station wagon that for days and days I saw as completely immense until my eyes got used to that big country, filled with highways that had no curves. We reached Cape Cod on a gray afternoon, with the sea, the sky, and the dunes all the same color. My brothers and I suddenly got a desperate urge to run on the beach, so we began chanting our “chorus of persuasion” that consisted of each of us, one after the other, saying “Come on, Papa!” faster and faster. It worked. We spilled out of the car and ran headlong toward the dunes. They were so high that as I watched my brothers scramble farther and farther up they became smaller and smaller, and when they reached the crest they were as small as shriveled trees on a gigantic mountain and I was afraid that a gust of wind would blow them away. I yelled with relie
f when I saw them come tumbling down to me in billows of sand.
We rented a bungalow by the sea, and for the first time Clara and I were separated, each of us sharing a bedroom with a brother, she with Carlo and I with Pietro. That evening, as we lay in our beds, Pietro taught me the game of composing the ideal menu. I always put in lobster, which I’d discovered on Cape Cod. We ate them at rough wooden tables with long plastic bibs tied around our necks. I would say, “I want another,” and Mama would say no and Papa would say yes. She thought it would make me sick, but Papa was happy that I liked something that much.
The people we met were certainly nicer than in France, where, whatever you asked them, they answered with an irritated shrug or a puff of disdain. But in contrast to Italians, each nice in his own way, the Americans had a ready-made niceness—set formulas that were always telling you to do something. The gas station attendant said, “Have a nice day.” The waiter said, “Enjoy your meal.” The bellboy said, “Watch your step” as he showed us into our hotel room.
One time when Papa was in a terrible mood because we had a flat tire and it was getting dark, Mama laughed and said, “Don’t worry! Be happy!” and he started laughing too.
After Cape Cod we went to see Niagara Falls, but I found it depressing. The incessant roaring in the middle of all that mist upset me, and at the museum they showed us a barrel in which an old woman had thrown herself over the falls and died. That evening, however, we slept in a motel, all of us in the same room, and we took turns telling jokes in the dark, and when I closed my eyes I hoped it was forever, now that I was there, once more happy and safe.
For a long time, every afternoon around three, there was a quarter of an hour of traffic in our building between the first floor and the fifth. Clara and I, along with Anna and Gabriella, loaded the elevator with dresses, purses, scarves, hats, umbrellas, a rocking chair, a trunk—and then a teapot, teacups, and books—and we kept it going up and down, up and down, while the residents of the other floors looked at us sternly. It would have been useless to explain what on earth we were up to or how important it was, because they wouldn’t have understood in the least. At that very moment they were no longer Monsieur Gramont or Madame Desmoulins with children and grandchildren of their own, but citizens of the building—co-owners whose right to the undisturbed and prompt use of the elevator (clearly posted in the regulations) was being intolerably violated. So, pretending not to hear the pounding on the elevator doors and avoiding the icy looks of those who’d given up and were using the stairs, we lowered our heads and carried on with our work.
Depending on whether it was a Monday or one of the other weekdays, we were moving the stage setting of our favorite game, Little Women, either from our friends’ apartment to ours or from ours to theirs. Since certain indispensable elements belonged either to them or to us—too bad for the neighbors. It was a case of absolute necessity.
The first time we played Little Women we had to assign the parts, and I was in a panic because I knew exactly which part I wanted but was not at all sure of getting.
Anna, the eldest, will be Margaret, called Meg, the oldest March sister. Sensible and poised, she’ll wear the long, blue, somewhat severe dress that belonged to Anna’s grandmother, and she’ll wear her hair in a long braid. So far, so good, we all agree. But now my anxiety has increased because if we keep on assigning the parts by age, it’s all over for me. And in fact I hear Anna saying to me, “You’re a year younger than me, so you’ll be Jo, the second—”
“No, that’s impossible, that’s out!” I suddenly explode, stamping my feet because I want, I want no matter what, the part of sweet, tender, beloved Beth, who plays the piano and then comes down with scarlet fever and dies, breaking everybody’s heart.
“Well, who do you want to be then if you won’t be Jo?” Anna asks.
“Beth” comes out in a hoarse whisper, but when they all ask why, I can’t say—I’m in the grip of a shameful dark wish, and the more ashamed I am, the more I insist. “I want to be Beth.” I’m so unreasonable and obstinate, even threatening to go home, that Anna is forced to give in. “All right,” she says, “but that means that Gabriella will have to be Jo.”
It’s only now, now that I’m worn out and guilty, that I can think of plausible arguments. “Yes—Gabriella is perfect for the part. She’s independent and lively, just like Jo. And she likes books, just like Jo. Isn’t that right, Gabriella? Whereas I prefer music … “
So Clara will be Amy. They’re both the youngest, and they both have turned-up noses.
My sister protests, “But I’m not vain like Amy.” She says this in a whiny voice, on the brink of a tantrum, and I’m so afraid that something will happen to unsettle the casting that I sweetly reassure her, “Of course you’re not. When you act you have to pretend to be a certain way, and you’re not vain at all, so if you can make us all believe you are, you’ll be a really good actress. See?”
Yes, she seems to have gotten the idea, because she’s rummaging through the basket of barrettes, ribbons, and brooches, reconciled to adorning her hair as elaborately as the script calls for. “And don’t forget this,” I say, handing her a clothespin. “You have to put it on your nose the way Amy does to keep it from growing too wide.”
“But it’ll hurt.”
“If you want to be a good actress, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices,” I say sharply, I the good Beth. Anna comes to the rescue. “You don’t have to wear it the whole time. I’ll give you a signal during the scene when it’s time to put it on.” And each of us finishes gathering up the bits and pieces of her costume in silence.
I consider my booty on a corner of the bed: a long satin dress with a purple skirt and a lilac top, a snood, a bowl of flour, and gray eye shadow.
I get dressed in front of the mirror and gather my hair up in the snood. With a cotton ball I cover my face with flour, a nice thick layer. With the eye shadow I turn my eyes into two ghostly sockets. I’m very happy with the effect, and I ignore Clara when she says that I look as if I’m already dead. Anna and Gabriella don’t seem particularly keen either, but because of my earlier outburst they avoid saying anything. At last we’re ready, and Anna says, “I’ll begin with the scene where the sisters get the letter from their father after he’s gone to war.”
I object, “But that’s practically at the beginning. If we do all the chapters we’ll never get to the end.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but what’s the big hurry?” Anna asks, beginning to lose patience.
“It’s not that we have to hurry,” I try to explain. “It’s just that the story gets more beautiful toward the middle.” But this time she has no intention of giving up. The play will go on according to the novel. So we do the scene with the letter, the scene where they meet the kind Laurie (played by an eight-inch wooden Pinoc-chio), who’s the nephew of the grumpy and very rich Mister Lawrence, who gives a piano to Beth (we also play that scene), et cetera et cetera. Then—finally—we get to my big moment.
So far I’ve played my part wearing a mask of flour; now I dump the whole bowl onto my face. With the eye shadow I transform my eyes into even more livid slits, and as a final touch I put some gray eye shadow on my lips. And I’m ready to die, body and soul. When I lie down on the bed, I actually feel ill. A moment later, surrounded by the loving care of my sisters, I’m about to faint, and when I pronounce my last words of comfort to each of them, tears well up in my half-closed eyes. When I hear them whispering their lament for the angel of goodness, loyalty, and generosity that I have always been, I see my wingéd soul fly up to Paradise in a triumph of silver clouds. At the very end, when Meg shuts my eyes, tears of joy flood my face. I lie there sweetly drowning as wet lumps of flour cascade onto the pillow.
We’re in the car—Mama and Clara in front, I in the back. It’s three in the afternoon, a cold rain. The smell of the plastic on the seats is making me a little sick. We’re going to Madame Petruchskaya’s dance class in the Rue du Bac, and my hands, whi
ch are resting on the seat, are trembling.
Today is not a class like the others.
Today Madame Petruchskaya will pick the most gifted girls and nominate them for the ballet school of the Opera.
Clara is looking out the window and is telling the story, to no one in particular, of the lady who came to her classroom that morning, and her eyes were painted all around with blue and when the principal said, “Children, this is your substitute teacher, Miss Azzurra,” Clara burst out laughing and her friend Benedetta too, but luckily the substitute teacher didn’t notice and neither did the principal.
And now Clara laughs all over again, merrily.
“Lucky her,” I think.
I also think that if Mama runs into the car in front of us, maybe we’ll be late.
And then I think that I’ll say I’m feeling sick. But I don’t say anything and stay quiet the whole car ride.
There’s not much traffic, and all too soon Mama lets us off in front of the building (parents aren’t admitted during the audition). She calls out, “Good luck, children!” Clara looks at me, happy to have a chance to say, “Merde.” A minute later we’re in the front hall in front of the beautiful staircase that leads up to the salle de danse. I go up behind my sister, taking slow steps, staring at the raindrops that are running off my raincoat and falling on the red carpet, making a petits-pois design.
In the changing room there’s the usual stink of sweat. I take off my dress, and I’m cold. Even my black tights are cold. I put on my black leotard and pink ballet slippers. I’m the last one.