Language Arts

by Stephanie Kallos

  When Charles closed up shop at four o’clock—leaving everything out in the yard (there was no rain in the forecast, and he certainly wasn’t worried about thieves)—the two of them were still out there, working away.

  •♦•

  The next morning, another Pinehurst Palace caregiver delivered Cody at nine thirty. After reviewing the list of what medications Cody took and when, Charles thanked him and then turned his attention to Cody; he seemed less than thrilled about being there.

  Charles had rented two long, sturdy tables for the sale, but one of them had emptied yesterday, so he was able to provide Cody with an extra-large work surface. He wanted to get him set up and occupied before customers started arriving.

  “Okay, buddy,” Charles said, bringing out his porcelain mortar and pestle—one wedding gift that wouldn’t be part of the yard giveaway. “I’m setting the timer now; when it goes off, you have to stop and have a snack. Deal?”

  Charles produced the block of noodles he’d stashed under the table, and Cody set to work.

  It was another beautiful day. There was, as Charles had expected, a slightly smaller turnout, but his rock-bottom pricing strategy continued to move merchandise at a successful and steady clip.

  A few folks from Cloud City came over. Jamie, the waitress, was thrilled to acquire the baby things: crib, Beatrix Potter bedding, and changing table; Charles hadn’t known she was expecting. (Five dollars? Mr. Marlow, are you sure?) Sonny gratefully took the salad spinner, industrial-strength juicer, and one of the three deluxe Cuisinarts Charles and Alison had received as wedding presents, and two women Charles recognized as early-morning café regulars picked up the bulk of the camping equipment.

  Gil and Erik weren’t in the driveway when the sale began, but they pulled up in Erik’s four-by-four around noon. Erik got out and immediately walked over, extending his hand.

  “Hi, Mr. Marlow. Mind if I say hello to Cody?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Erik ambled through the half dozen customers to Cody’s table. He stood there for a few moments before speaking.

  “Hey there, Cody. Remember me? I’m Erik, from next door, your old babysitter. You’re such a big guy now, I barely recognized you.”

  Cody didn’t look up.

  “Sorry,” Charles said.

  “No worries,” Erik replied.

  Several customers later, Cody sat up straight, looked across the yard toward the Bjornsons’, raised his arm in a salute, and yelled, “Gaaah!”

  •♦•

  When the timer went off, Cody, thankfully, was compliant as Charles removed the mortar, pestle, and noodles and set down a stainless-steel bento box filled with Cody’s lunchtime favorites. Charles affixed a sticker to the sheet of posterboard that served as Cody’s portable reward record when he was out and about.

  “Good job, buddy. Well done.”

  Business picked up. Cody dove into his lunch. Charles mingled.

  At one point, while Charles was conversing with a woman who was interested in the Hardy Boys collection, he noticed that Cody had left his sequestered spot and was wandering through the yard, looking like any other customer. “You should know,” Charles said, keeping an eye on him as he spoke, “several of these books are slightly damaged …”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” the woman answered. “They’d be going to a shelter for kids awaiting foster care. We’ve got some voracious readers. How much?”

  When Cody came upon Charles’s Life magazine collection, he immediately took hold of the box flaps and dragged it back to his table. Then, surprisingly (Charles would have been sure that the smell alone would have put Cody off, never mind the flimsy paper quality), Cody began reducing Janet Leigh and the thalidomide babies to a pile of ragged-edged strips.

  •♦•

  “You look surprised,” Pam said when she arrived around one o’clock, bearing two bags from Chipotle. “I thought I told you I was coming by after church and bringing lunch … Here you go. I hope you like carnitas. And there’s Cody again! Hi, buddy!”

  Cody greeted her but less enthusiastically than he had yesterday, involved as he was in his new Life magazine–tearing project. Pam sat down next to him and started eating her lunch.

  Charles continued to stroll through the yard, chatting with customers and quoting absurdly low prices to interested parties while stealing glances at Cody and Pam. She occasionally offered him bits of her lunch—a chip dipped in guacamole, a forkful of salad, a spoonful of beans and rice—and he (incredibly) occasionally accepted.

  After about half an hour, Pam announced that she was leaving again, not wanting to miss her daughter’s regular Sunday-afternoon telephone call.

  “Listen, Charles,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask: Would you be interested in coming to a meditation class sometime?”

  “Meditation. That’s when you sit for hours and try to think about nothing?”

  She laughed. “Basically, yes, that’s the idea.”

  “Sounds impossible.”

  “Oh, it is, completely. And as it happens, there are lots of varieties of impossible: Zen, mindfulness, zazen, koan …”

  “When and where?”

  “Wednesday night, six to seven, University Unitarian Church. I can pick you up if you like.”

  “No,” Charles said, surprising himself as much as anyone when he reached out and took her hand. “I’ll come to you.”

  •♦•

  By two thirty, the yard was empty of customers. Charles was a bit disappointed at how much was left, but still, as yard giveaways go, this one had gone all right.

  In addition to clearing out much of the crawlspace and streamlining the house’s contents, he’d netted sixty-three dollars and fifty-five cents, enough money to keep Cody in double-dip waffle cones for weeks. (They’d recently started having father-son dates at the Baskin-Robbins, which was within walking distance of Pinehurst Palace. Cody eating ice cream was an intensely messy affair, but the employees earned Charles’s loyalty when they came up with the idea of wedging a marshmallow into the bottom tip of the cone to minimize leakage.)

  Just as Charles started to think that it might be time to bring things to a close, a van pulled up at the curb: unmarked, dark blue, liberally dented, with an engine that had a twitchy, labored sound. It coughed asthmatically for a few seconds after being turned off.

  A pair of nuns stepped out. The sight was so surreal that Charles wondered for a moment if he was hallucinating, but then he recognized them: Sister Martha and Sister Frances, the two women he’d met at the art exhibit.

  “Hello,” Charles said.

  “Hello,” the sisters answered.

  “I hope you don’t mind us stopping by,” Sister Frances said, extending her hand. She was the tall, stoic, strapping one, and on this occasion Charles noticed her slight resemblance to Principal Vanderkolk.

  “Not at all,” he said. He couldn’t help himself; he quickly glanced down and was relieved to see that Sister Frances was in possession of all of her fingers.

  Sister Martha—dewy-complexioned and cupcake-round—added, “We came to the mainland to take Sister Giorgia to Mass. We thought we’d take a chance that you were home. We did so want to see you again, and to meet your son, Cody.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  Sister Frances slid open the rear door of the van and assisted a third woman down onto the sidewalk. Charles immediately recognized her from Romy’s photos: this was Cody’s artistic collaborator, the notoriously spirited Mrs. D’Amati.

  “Giorgia,” Sister Martha began, “this is—”

  But as soon as Giorgia alighted on the sidewalk and looked at the house, she gave a gasp of surprise and delight and then—sprite-like, with a nimble speed that left Charles and the sisters slack-jawed—scampered across the yard, past Cody, up the porch steps, and through the unlocked front door.

  The Dream-Ladder Kitchen

  There can be a kind of tipping point when it comes to the souls’ yearni
ngs, a moment when it is no longer possible to keep waiting for fate or coincidence or design or It/Him/Whatever to reward our patience. To go on becomes untenable, unbearable. We must seize by an act of will the experience that has been so long denied, so wished for, whatever it is.

  It might be reunion, with others, with self.

  It might be some small cherished ritual, forgotten, denied.

  At such times, when the soul wearies of waiting, she throws an image of that longed-for experience out ahead of her: an avatar, a hologram, a dream. She engineers, if you will, an answer to her prayer. She projects her yearning onto a stage and then—with a heart full of faith, expectation, and courage—rushes into it.

  •♦•

  This house! Sister Giorgia Maria Fiducia D’Amati rejoices the moment she sees Charles’s storybook cottage. It is like something from a fairy tale!

  But no fairy tale she has ever heard before or found herself within; this is something else, something new (or something old), and as she runs, she prays: Dear Father in heaven, thank You for that which I am about to receive, I know it is Your goodness that has brought me to this place and that whatever I find inside will be Your doing, Your gift, Your blessing, and for this, dear God, I am truly thankful, amen!

  Charles gives chase. The sisters hike up their black serge tunics and follow.

  “I am so sorry!” Sister Martha says breathlessly.

  “Giorgia!” Sister Frances calls. “Come back here!”

  Cody has remained occupied with reconfiguring Charles’s Life collection, but even he glances up when he hears the hullabaloo of panicked voices, and is confronted with the unprecedented sight of four adults (led by the tiny woman who sits with him at art class) running pell-mell into the house. He gets up and joins the procession.

  Charles arrives inside first and immediately hears Mrs. D’Amati in the kitchen; she is opening and closing cupboards and drawers with terrific energy and purpose.

  (At last! No locks!)

  “I cannot apologize enough,” Sister Frances says. “She’s never done anything like this before.”

  “Oh dear,” Sister Martha says, breathless, despairing, beginning to sob.

  (Finally, she can get to the tools she needs!)

  “No harm done,” Charles says. Nevertheless, given what little he knows of Mrs. D’Amati’s history, he considers it prudent to ease his way into the kitchen and take up a position blocking the knife drawer.

  Giorgia is muttering as she continues to open and close the cupboards: “Farina, sale, uova, lardo—o olio d’oliva—latte, lievito in polvere …”

  “Giorgia!” Sister Frances admonishes. “Come along now. This is no way to act.”

  “It’s all right, really,” Charles says.

  “What should we do?” Sister Martha asks, looking anxiously from person to person. “I’ve never seen her this way.”

  “She seems happy enough,” Charles observes.

  “True,” says Sister Frances.

  “Mrs. D’Amati? Mrs. D’Amati, can I help you with something?” Charles asks.

  Giorgia comes to a dead stop, turns, and begins to peruse his face.

  Her eyes are the first indication of her infirmity, or rather that she resides in more than one world; they seem to be directed inward as much as outward, as if they are sightless decoys and she is actually watching an old print of a favorite movie playing inside her own head. Who knows what she sees in there? Memories? Fantasies? Personal history, revised? The truth, redacted? Whatever it is, Charles understands that she has chosen to cast him in the film. And this close to her, he is certain she poses no danger, no threat; there is nothing to worry about.

  “Avete del lievito?” she asks. “E del lardo?”

  When Charles doesn’t immediately answer, she gestures in a dismissive way, pats him on the shoulder, and says, “Va bene. Posso fare un altro tipo di pane …”

  “Bread,” Sister Frances says. “I think she wants to make bread.”

  “Pane, si!” Giorgia extends her arms and smiles broadly. “Benvenuti alla Panetteria D’Amati!” She then resumes her search of the cupboards.

  (Flour … Here it is! … Baking soda, salt …)

  “Conosci la storia di ‘Un Amore Come il Sale’?” Giorgia asks no one in particular. “Racconta di un papà che bandisce la sua fig-­ lia più giovane …” She prattles on quietly as she locates the things she needs and starts placing them on the kitchen table.

  “What can you tell me about her?” Charles asks.

  “It’s a sad story,” Sister Martha says, her eyes glistening.

  “Indeed,” Sister Frances adds. “But not unusual …”

  (From the refrigerator: milk and eggs. Such a well-stocked kitchen. Simple and plain too, like Papa’s …)

  They go on to tell what little they know: Giorgia’s rape by soldiers, her pregnancy, a baby boy given up for adoption …

  (No need for cups or measuring spoons, only her hands and their old wisdom—so long neglected.)

  … being forced to enter the convent and banished to America—a banishment that ironically saved her life, for within a short time, her family, her family’s panificio, the small village in Tuscany where she grew up, the surrounding countryside … all were bombed, all became casualties of World War II, documented in magazine photos and clippings they found among her personal possessions, after her disease required them to move her out of the convent and into the city …

  (But now the war is over! The bakery is open! Business is good!)

  So sad, so very sad.

  “Niente strutto, niente lardo ma … ,” Giorgia murmurs. But then: “Ah! Con l’olio d’oliva sarà altrettanto buono!” She pulls out a bottle of olive oil, adds it to the other items on the table, plants herself in a strong, authoritative stance, and then claps her hands for attention. “Guardate da vicino e imparate!”

  With a theatrical flourish, she grabs a handful of flour from the canister and scatters it across the table.

  And so she begins. For the next few minutes, Sister Martha, Sister Frances, Charles, and Cody receive expert, perfectly clear instructions (in a language none of them understand) on assembling the unleavened bread known as piadina Romagnola.

  Once Giorgia has fashioned the dough into several uniformly sized and shaped balls, she says, “Ora, il pane si lascia a riposare e noi andiamo a lavorare!”

  Clapping her hands again brusquely, she begins ordering them around: gesticulating, nudging, shoving, miming directives with the clarity of a commanding officer, leaving no doubt as to what is expected.

  Charles is to light and preheat the oven and find other things to go with the bread: “Formaggio, erbe, basilico, del buon parmigiano, e rucola andrebbero bene, e del prosciutto, se lo avete.”

  Her sisters are to set the table.

  And to Cody, who has been lingering just outside the kitchen door, she says playfully, “Anche tu, figlio! Vai a lavorare, pigrone!” Charles doesn’t notice when she grasps Cody’s sleeve and draws him to the table. And by the time Charles turns around, he is too far away to stop her when she pushes Cody down by his shoulders into a chair and leans down to nuzzle his cheek and hug him round the neck.

  Cody does not scream. He does not flinch.

  He ducks his head and smiles.

  Then Giorgia brings over Cody’s granite mortar and pestle and places it in front of him. “Fai del pesto da servire con il pane. Mettiti a lavoro, Cody. Tempo da sprecare …”

  After thirty minutes, Giorgia moves on to the next part of the lesson. She is rolling out flat, uniform disks of dough when the doorbell rings.

  Charles opens the door to a worried-looking Gil and Erik.

  “Hey, Charlie,” Gil says. “We noticed that nobody’s been outside minding the store for a while. Just wanted to make sure everything’s okay …”

  “Ci sono altri ospiti?” Giorgia calls from the kitchen. “Li invito a entrare! C’è n’è per tutti!”

  •♦•

  The k
itchen is warm, filled with what Giorgia’s sister Felice called l’odore che è il cielo sulla terra, “the smell that is heaven on earth.” Charles opens the windows, bringing in the sound of Nat King Cole singing “That Sunday, That Summer.”

  Giorgia gestures for everyone to sit. She stands at the head of the table, bows her head, and then begins. “Benedici, o Signore, noi e questi doni che la tua bontà ci elargisce—”

  Suddenly she stops, surveys the table, and scowls.

  “No, no, no, no, no! Ci stiamo perdendo la cosa più importante!” She points at Charles and then gestures toward the wine rack. “Signore, per favore potrebbe portare due bottiglie.”

  It is only after Charles has selected two bottles and presented them for Giorgia’s approval—

  “Sangiovese? Bene, bene! Bisogna esser un paesano in fondo al cuore.”

  —that they are finally able to begin, and Charles’s decades-long moratorium on hosting dinner parties finally comes to an end.

  “Evviva!” Giorgia says, raising her glass.

  “Evviva!” the others echo.

  The unseen photographer snaps the picture, and the feast begins.

  Giorgia has lost so much: her baby son, her father, her uncles, her sisters; the panificio, the sunflower fields, the village, the island schoolhouse; she has lost the company of schoolchildren, the community of her sisters in Christ. She has lost mobility, autonomy, independence; access to the kitchen, permission to use the bread knife, to go to the bathroom without assistance; she has lost solitude, common sense, the right to push a grocery cart, to check things off her list, to acquire the ingredients.

  So she focuses on what she has, right here, in this moment: the unexpected blessing of sitting at a big, sturdy, plain wood table eating good bread, drinking good wine, in the company of friends and family, in this kitchen, in this storybook cottage where, for all this time—who would have believed it?—everything, everything has been waiting for her.

  •♦•

  “It’s almost time to say goodbye, Sister Giorgia,” Sister Martha says.

  “Okay,” Giorgia replies.

  After finishing dinner, Charles, Cody, Sister Martha, and Giorgia cleaned the kitchen; Gil, Erik, and Sister Frances went outside, gave the van’s engine a quick tune-up, and loaded up the remaining yard-giveaway items. The sisters were delighted to accept Charles’s donation to the island convent’s thrift store.