“We must save your aunt,” Gregorio said, nodding his head in the direction of the spot where Iris had left her, from which she had vanished. A familiar laugh rose over the sounds of the crowd, and Iris followed it with her eyes to the source: Auntie Rosa standing by the opposite track, helping an elderly gentleman with a cane as he boarded his train.
“And save our suitcases, too,” she said. From where she stood, the hunched little man on her aunt’s arm looked enough like Grandpa Capotosti to have inspired Auntie Rosa’s abandonment of the baggage she was supposed to be guarding.
Auntie Rosa waved to the smiling old man, then caught sight of Iris and Gregorio. “Andiamo, ragazzi!” she called, with another burst of merry laughter as she wobbled toward them. “Let’s go! I’m starving!”
The condominium Gregorio shared with his mother was reached by a maze of winding roads which took them high above the city, and made Iris want to vomit. The traffic was heavy, but the drivers seemed to accept it as something they must deal with on a daily basis, unlike the Romans, who aggravated themselves and everyone around them by honking, cussing and screaming at every blocked intersection and illegally parked vehicle, as if they were all victims of an unsolvable problem, rather than part of its cause.
Iris’s stomach had settled by dinner, and she enjoyed trying risotto agli asparagi, a rice dish made with asparagus grown in the area of Albenga, a town west of Genoa, followed by a second course of cima, a local specialty which was the Genoese interpretation of how to make a little bit of meat go a long way, by stuffing a pocket of veal with eggs and cheese and vegetables, sewing it up and boiling it. Isabella explained that the process was time-consuming and annoying, and confessed to buying her cima from her trusted rosticceria, which Iris had learned in Rome was similar to a delicatessen, only better, because it was filled with Italian food.
During dinner, Auntie Rosa and Isabella made perfunctory and largely futile attempts at catching up on news regarding distant relatives and ancient acquaintances whom each assumed the other knew, but in most cases didn’t. Iris couldn’t scrape up enough interest in the conversation to try and follow it, but Isabella kept scanning the table with quick eyes, as if she were a schoolteacher purposely trying to bore her students so she could catch them daydreaming. Iris had a hard time trying to appear alert, when her eyes were constantly drawn through the French doors of the dining room to the spacious balcony. She wished they could have eaten out there, where she would have been able to observe more closely the passenger ferries and cargo ships come and go, and admire the lights of the coast flicker to life. Each time she began wondering to which faraway destination one ship or another was sailing, her attention was called back to the dining room by Auntie Rosa’s voice asking whether she understood the question Isabella had asked her, which of course, she hadn’t even heard.
After a few such incidences, Gregorio came to her rescue. “I see your eyes are somewhere else,” he said to her, as the older women turned back to their conversation.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just all so new, so beautiful.”
“And so are your faraway eyes, if you don’t mind my saying so,” he said.
Blushing, Iris lowered her eyes, smiled. “When I was a little girl, my teachers always scolded me for looking absent, even when I was paying attention. As it turned out, I was just myopic.”
Gregorio chuckled, then went on to ask her questions about her life in America, what she was studying, what plans she had.
“Physical therapy?” Isabella interjected, pricking her ears at one of Iris’s responses. Though the woman had immediately demonstrated an excellent command of English grammar, she pronounced the word “terapy.”
Iris looked at Isabella, trying not to stare at her eyebrows. They were the first thing she had noticed about the compact woman who had presented herself at the door so coiled with tension, Iris thought she might have sprung to the ceiling, had it not been for Auntie Rosa’s energetic hug anchoring her to the ground. The brows had been plucked and penciled, until they were perfectly arched, like two little frowns indicating their tacit disapproval of whatever passed under the gaze of the stainless steel eyes below. A mound of carefully coiffed and lacquered waves added a few inches to her birdlike stature, making her about the same height as Auntie Rosa, but the similarities stopped there.
“Yes. I think so, anyway,” Iris said, flustered by the woman’s unwavering stare, embarrassed about not yet knowing the details of her future. Iris had an inkling that Isabella did not live by her mother’s “cross that bridge when you come to it” philosophy. “I want to do something useful, help other people,” she added, instantly regretting the beauty queen contestant response.
“Gregorio is a doctor, you know?” Isabella said, pronouncing it k-now, with a total lack of respect for the silent k.
“A doctor? Isn’t that wonderful!” Auntie Rosa said, looking at Gregorio’s hands. “I’ll bet you are a surgeon, I can tell by the way you hold your knife.”
“Not quite. I work in the operating room, but I put patients to sleep,” Gregorio said. “Anestesista. It is difficult to pronounce in the English language.”
“Oh! An anesthesiologist! Now that’s exciting, isn’t it Iris?” Auntie Rosa said, beaming at her.
“Of course,” Iris said, smiling and nodding her head politely.
“He works at the Policlinico, the biggest hospital in Genoa,” Isabella said, dropping the h of hospital. She held her fork, tines facing downward, in her left hand, and her knife in her right, and cut a piece of cima; using her knife, she assisted the morsel onto the fork, and placed it in her mouth, without switching the cutlery from one hand to the other like they did back home. She chewed slowly, swallowed, took a sip of water, dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her linen napkin before continuing. “After he received his degree, he worked in Germany, but when my husband died, he returned to stay with me. He is a good son. His sister Cinzia is married, so the house was empty. No husband. No children.”
Isabella was probably not yet sixty, and it sounded like her husband had been dead for a while now; Iris wondered whether she ever dated, but something in her proud, sad demeanor, and her elegant way of combining tones of grey with black suggested she was content with the respectable state of widowhood. Turning to Gregorio, Iris asked, “How was it in Germany?”
“A very good place to work. I like the German respect for order, and for the rules. But family is family, and you only have one Mamma.”
“Your Mamma is lucky, Iris. She has so many children to keep her company,” Isabella said.
“Well, we don’t all live together,” Iris said, looking down at her plate, upon which she struggled to make her knife and fork imitate Isabella’s movements. “The older ones have moved out. And my mother lives by herself. With my sister Lily.”
“So your father is dead, too?” Isabella asked, resting her knife and fork against the edge of her plate without creating so much as a clink!; she bowed her head, and crossed herself. “Poverino, I did not know.” She picked up her cutlery and resumed eating.
“No, he’s not dead,” Iris said. “My parents are getting a divorce.”
“Divorce?” Isabella repeated. “I genitori sono divorziati?” She looked to Gregorio and Auntie Rosa for further confirmation.
“Sì, Mamma.” Gregorio said to his mother, then glanced at Iris.
“Well, actually, they’re still just separated,” Iris said.
“The fact of the matter is, she abandoned us,” Auntie Rosa said, shaking her head. “My poor baby brother.”
“Mamma did not accept the idea of divorce when it was made legal,” Gregorio said to Iris. “She was working in the tribunale every day then, she is a giudice. How you say that in English?”
“A judge!” Auntie Rosa said. “My, oh my! A judge. Can you imagine that, Iris?”
“A judge,” Iris repeated, nodding her head.
“Divorziati!” Isabella said, shaking hers.
&n
bsp; Thanks to Gregorio, who led the conversation to the more amicable territory of sightseeing, Iris was spared further questions about her family, which may have forced her to either lie or reveal that her oldest sister was already divorced, too. By the end of dinner, Gregorio had determined he would use a few of his accumulated vacation days to accompany Iris and Auntie Rosa to the lakes. In fact, he would go the very next morning to his travel agency to plan an itinerary and book rooms for them. It was better to plan ahead, he said, to avoid unpleasant surprises. Iris might like to come along, and then he could show her around a bit, while the ladies enjoyed a relaxing visit at home.
After admiring Piazza De Ferrari, which boasted a beautiful fountain, but nothing like the ones she had seen in Rome, Iris was impressed by the cathedral of San Lorenzo, where Gregorio took a snapshot of Iris next to one the marble lions that guarded its entrance, and showed her the shell of an unexploded bomb from WWII on display inside, a testimony to the church’s miraculous survival. It was odd to think that Italy and her country had been on opposite sides of the war, and she wondered what effect it must have had upon her immigrated grandparents.
As Gregorio guided Iris through the maze of narrow alleys flanked by ancient buildings several stories tall that huddled around the historic center of Genoa, he took her elbow now and then to escort her up or down stone stairs worn by the passage of centuries’ worth of feet, or across a patch of pavement in disrepair. When they approached Via Prè, he showed her the safest way to hold her purse to avoid snatching, and even led her away by the hand when a man tried to sell her a contraband carton of Marlboros. She was thrilled by the undercurrent of possible dangers and petty crimes, and reassured by Gregorio’s protective presence. The street was in the heart of the bustling area right across from the port, and lively with the sounds and sights and scents of people and products from all over the world. The burlap sacks of dried beans and rice and grains, the bags and jars of exotic spices, catapulted Iris’s imagination back to the time, centuries earlier, when vessels sailed from this very port in search of new worlds. She smiled to herself, knowing that from now on, she would recall these scents whenever she browsed the meager spice section of Star Market. One of the things that most amazed Iris, was the fact that unlike Rome, where most of the ancient buildings she had seen were impressive monuments to a glorious but remote past, Genoa seemed to be a one huge monument in which people lived, worked, ate and prayed.
After trying some slices of farinata, straight from the wood oven, where the chick pea flour and water batter was cooked in the biggest copper pizza pan Iris had ever seen, Gregorio suggested a drive down the coast to Portofino. Iris was delighted by the picture-perfect colorful buildings that framed the half-moon harbor, and flabbergasted by the amount of painstaking work required by their finely detailed trompe l’oeil decorations. They sat at a café in the piazzetta for a while, watching tourists amble back and forth, while Iris was served a frothy cappuccino, eliciting an amused smile from Gregorio, who informed her that only foreigners would drink a cappuccino in the afternoon. He just ordered a glass of water, but Iris didn’t feel too guilty about enjoying the beverage leisurely, especially after noticing it cost him several thousand liras; she made sure Gregorio got his money’s worth, sipping slowly while taking in the view of the enchanting harbor, and the parade of passersby. Gregorio used the time to fill a pipe (he said it was a Savinelli, and showed her how to recognize the quality of the briar) with tobacco he picked in little pinches from a leather pouch, and laughed when Iris asked if she could sniff it. Iris could not help but note how sophisticated he looked in his blazer, puffing on his pipe in Portofino; how the sound of his laugh rang warm with indulgence for her curiosity.
They strolled along the wharf to admire the luxury yachts and Gregorio asked her to pick out which one she would choose, if she were to set off on a honeymoon cruise right then and there, which made her blush, as she pointed out the sailing yacht which struck her fancy right away, and which Gregorio informed her was called a schooner. As they climbed the steps to the church of San Giorgio, the scent in the air made Iris swoon with pleasure; she wondered whether the shrubs with the tiny white flowers responsible for the inebriating perfume (Gregorio said the plant was called pitosforo in Italian) would grow in Rochester, but she doubted they would survive the harsh winters. Iris lit a candle in the little church, which though charming, she didn’t think nearly as beautiful as the striped marble-and-slate church of San Matteo in Genoa, which dated back to the twelfth century; Gregorio agreed, and informed her that was because Portofino’s original church had been destroyed by a bomber during the war. As they sat on the stone ledge overlooking the sea, watching the gulls soaring and circling and diving, Iris could not imagine such horribly devastating acts taking place in such an idyllic corner of the world.
On the way back to Genoa, they stopped at the emerald cove of Paraggi, where Iris took off her shoes and squealed with joy as she waded up to her knees in the fizzing sea foam. She was glad they had not brought bathing suits, as she would have been too intimidated by the waves for her first swim in the sea, and too embarrassed to show herself to Gregorio. She blushed when he told her he was happy she couldn’t swim, so she would be forced to come back another time. As if flying over to Italy were something she did on a regular basis.
They stopped for an ice cream in Camogli, which reminded Iris of the little seaside hamlets she had seen flashing by from the train, and walked along the breakwater, where she could feel the sea spray on her face, and taste its salt on her vanilla ice cream, and wondered how each ice cream cone in the country could taste like the best she had ever eaten. Before heading back to Genoa, they stopped in Recco at a special little shop Gregorio knew his mother liked, where he bought handmade trofie and pesto to have for dinner, which would save Isabella the fuss of cooking. Gregorio said Iris could not come to Recco without trying the focaccia, so he bought a whole tray of different varieties, some plain, some made with sage or rosemary or onions or olives, to have with dinner, and insisted she immediately taste the focaccia al formaggio, just out of the oven, which she decided on the spot was absolutely the most delicious thing that had ever touched her lips, or dripped down her chin. Gregorio chuckled, as she reached for a paper napkin, but he was quicker; he carefully dabbed the stracchino from her chin, wiped the crumbs from the corners of her lips, and smiled. The tenderness in his movements, the sparkle in his eyes as they searched hers for a reaction, made her insides as runny as the melted cheese.
Isabella disliked sleeping in strange beds, so she remained behind when the trio set off to explore the lakes north of Milan. They visited Como and Bellagio, and even crossed the border to Lugano, in Switzerland, before swinging back down to Stresa, on Lago Maggiore. Iris continued to buy postcards every place they stopped so she could share her experiences with Peter, who ironically seemed even farther away than ever, though he was just a hop across the English Channel. She never seemed to find the words or time to write them, and wondered vaguely where she would buy postage stamps and mail them if she did. She had even picked out a card for Lily, one with a beautiful view of the Borromean islands, and the peaks of the Alps in the background, but couldn’t remember the address of the house where she and her mother lived.
On the last day of their excursion, after a lunch of pizza and paciugo, Auntie Rosa opted to rest at their hotel while Gregorio and Iris took a boat tour. “Isola Bella,” Gregorio said, pointing to the island with terraced gardens leading up to an immense villa. “Named after Countess Isabella.”
“Like your mother,” Iris said.
“That’s right. Or just Bella. Like you,” he said, removing his aviator sunglasses. His clear eyes deepened to a darker shade of blue, the exact color of the glacial lake on which they floated. He pushed her Foster Grants to the top of her head and peered into her eyes. Iris tried to hold his gaze, but ever since she had started wearing contact lenses, she had become hypersensitive to the sunlight; she kept blinking,
and turning her head away. He caressed her cheek lightly with the back of his hand, then took her chin between his thumb and forefinger to hold it still. His lips were so close to hers that the roof of her mouth tingled, the same way it used to do when she rubbed heads with the cat. Her eyes began tearing profusely and she worried that her lenses might pop out of her eyes and drift away on Lago Maggiore, but the look on Gregorio’s face suggested it would spoil the moment if she were to explain; better to let him believe her tears were a sign of uncontainable emotion.
“Posso?” Gregorio said. She did not know what the word meant, or what exactly he wanted to do, but she had an inkling it would be something romantic, like everything else they had done together. She looked up at him, and nodded her consent, whatever the question. His lips touched hers, softly, gently. She had never experienced such warmth in the form a kiss.
The boat shook as it maneuvered into its slip, sending vibrations from the soles of her feet up her legs. When they came to a standstill, she held up her Kodak Pocket Instamatic camera and said, “Posso?” The voice was hers, but it sounded just as foreign as the word it mimicked. Though he had been reluctant to have his picture taken earlier, he now smiled and leaned back on the railing as she snapped a shot. She had already gone through two rolls of the film she had brought with her, and couldn’t wait to show everyone the pictures when she got home. She would get the film developed as soon as she started her job, and could take advantage of her employee discount.
Gregorio had a boyish grin on his face when he joined Auntie Rosa and Iris for breakfast the next morning. He announced he had decided to take two more days off in order to accompany Iris and Auntie Rosa back to Rome to catch their return flight. He said he had never taken days off like this, on the spur of the moment, but he had called in favors from his colleagues who owed him for the numerous Sundays and holidays and summer vacations he offered to work so they could be with their families or girlfriends.
[Iris and Lily 01.0 - 03.0] The Complete Series Page 53