Power to Burn

by Fienberg, Anna

  Nonno and Nonna exchanged a glance. ‘When you were three, Roberto,’ Nonno went on, ‘Angelica did something that showed us she was different. She was contaminated.’

  ‘Oh, Natino, do you have to tell it like that?’ Nonna cried.

  Nonno ignored her. ‘Contaminated,’ he repeated. ‘Angelica was born with the power, as her aunt and her grandmother were before her.’

  ‘You too!’ I burst out. I stared at Angelica, and then at Nonna. They both lowered their eyes, as if something shameful had been said.

  ‘You, Roberto, had shown no signs of being in any way unusual, and the power is uncommon in male children. So it was decided that the two of you must be separated. Before the power could infect you, too.’

  ‘It was decided,’ I said slowly. ‘Who decided? You, I suppose. And did Mum and Dad just follow meekly, give up their only daughter just because you decided?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that, Roberto,’ Nonna cut in softly.

  ‘Don’t, cara, I’m telling the story,’ Nonno was sharp.

  ‘But you’re telling it wrongly.’ Nonna’s face was twisted with anger, but somehow she looked more like herself now, the way I’d known her before we came here, before I met Nonno.

  I wonder now how she would have told the story, and I think how strange it is that history, just because it’s written down in textbooks, is believed to be fact. Maybe it just depends who’s telling the story, what flavour it turns out to be.

  Nonna gripped Nonno’s hand, ‘You must tell it the way it was. Tell Roberto about the pain and the grief, how his mother fought you and cried every day for a year. How Cornelia and Giorgio stopped speaking, how the light went out of their eyes.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Nonno cleared his throat, and disentangled his hand, ‘your parents were very upset. They loved each of you equally, and intensely, and it was an extremely hard decision. But we had to avoid another tragedy. The evil can spread, Roberto, like ripples in a lake, until each person in the family is touched, and changed. The power had to be contained, and we had to protect you.’

  ‘Why did you say another tragedy? What tragedy? Why do you all think the power is so terrible?’ Questions were bursting to the surface inside me, fighting for air, and I couldn’t sort out which to ask first.

  There was silence for a moment and again my grandparents exchanged a glance.

  ‘Your mother’s sister, Lucrezia, suffered from the power. She ruined her life, and very nearly destroyed ours.’

  ‘How? Where is she now?’

  Nonno poured another glass of wine and he stared into it for a minute as if it were a crystal ball, and floating within it was the future, and the past.

  ‘You don’t need to know that now, Roberto. Just trust me. You’ve reached a stage where you need to be guided, by someone older, and wiser.’

  Holy Moly, did he get these cliches out of a book? He was like my father, talking, talking, but not wanting to listen.

  ‘Well, excuse me for breathing, Nonno,’ I said loudly, ‘but it seems to me you’ve done a good job of splitting up the family and spoiling everyone’s lives! It’s a bit hard to sit blind and trust you when I can only see bloody misery! How does Angelica feel about it, being torn away from her own mother? She hasn’t said a word yet. Did you take the power of speech away from her as well?’

  I looked at Angelica, but she held her napkin pressed to her lips as if she were pushing the words back into her mouth.

  ‘Angelica’s been very happy, Roberto, and you will not speak to me like that. Angelica understands why the decision was made. Her Nonna was born with the power and learned to control it, she was the only one who could teach your sister to do the same. And now, as you see, Angelica is a thoughtful, well-mannered young girl, who reflects before she speaks.’

  ‘And I’m the loudmouth of the family,’ I burst out, ‘is that what you’re saying?’

  Nonno smiled. It was a disarmingly kind smile, paternal, and it filled me with rage. ‘Let’s just say that it is time that someone took you in hand. Your mother thought so, and she knew that I am the one to do it. Cornelia tells me that you have experienced the power. That makes me very sad.’

  ‘Why?’ I cut in. ‘I’m not sad. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me!’

  ‘That’s what you think now, my boy,’ Nonno said heavily. ‘But you don’t know what it can do. Let our experience teach you. There’s no need for you to make your own mistakes. It’s too dangerous. You can’t afford to make mistakes with the power, because they can’t be undone. You’ll have to live with them for the rest of your life.’

  A burning anger seared my throat till it stung. I couldn’t speak. That wonderful day when I’d first felt the power rise up inside me was suddenly smeared, contaminated, by his words. He was the one who contaminated people, made them see themselves as small and hateful, weak and evil. But the power was a generous thing, as big as the universe, and I was going to show him. He’d just better look out.

  Nonna saw the look I gave him and silently shook her head at me. She began to clear away the dishes and Angelica quickly hopped up to help her.

  ‘Now, Roberto,’ Nonno’s tone was brisk and hearty again, as if we’d just been talking about the price of fish, ‘we’ll let the women do their work and we’ll go and sit by the fire, eh? I want you to tell me all about yourself!’

  This Nonno was like a hoary old dinosaur lumbering out of the dark ages. If he’d made a remark like that in our home, I reckon my mother would have clobbered him. But then what did I know about my mother? Really know about her? I felt sick suddenly, as if I’d eaten too much and it was all sitting there in my throat like a cow’s cud. Chewing the cud. There was too much to chew over, and everything that had seemed stable and boring was suddenly moving, like dull old ornaments on a shelf coming to life. I couldn’t count on anything staying still anymore and I felt a wave of homesickness. Why I didn’t know, because everyone in my family was becoming a stranger.

  Nonno drew a comfortable old armchair over to the fire and patted the seat, inviting me to sit down. ‘Now, tell me about yourself,’ he said again, smiling.

  I was going to ask him which part should I tell him about, the part he doesn’t like or the part he doesn’t like? But then I looked at his face, really looked, and the smoothness I had seen before was really a hatch of fine lines like linen before it is ironed, and he looked suddenly vulnerable sitting there, tapping his index finger on the arm of his chair, waiting so expectantly for me to entertain him.

  So I told him about school and what I read and the fishing trips I’d been on, carefully editing out anything really personal or ‘unusual’. And he lapped it up, nodding away and ho! ho!ing when I made a slight joke and slapping his knee. It all seemed suddenly pathetic, and I thought that I was becoming like everyone else in this family – secretive and sly, and good at it.

  When he got up to go to bed I sat on, staring at the fire. Nonna had gone to bed, but Angelica was still opening and closing cupboard doors and running water in the sink. When she finally finished and headed toward the door I called out to her.

  ‘Angelica? What do you make of all this? You’d heard Nonno’s little story before?’

  She nodded, and smiled. It was a broader smile this time, and benign, as if she tolerated all us lesser beings, and we even kept her amused.

  ‘This is like one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure Books”,’ I said, more to myself than to her, ‘except you and I never even got to choose. I keep wondering what life would have been like if I’d turned to page five instead of six, and grown up with my twin sister in Italy instead of alone with a couple of guilty parents in exile.’

  Angelica came over and sat beside me. We looked into each other’s eyes. I thought, we’ve done this hundreds of times before, she was once like another part of me. How could I not remember? Her expression wasn’t blank now. In fact she looked quite determined and she gave me the feeling she wanted, or expected something from
me. She stood up.

  ‘Well, now you will have the chance to choose, Roberto. As Nonno said, your time has come.’

  And she walked out of the room, leaving the house silent, the fire whispering.

  chapter 6

  LUCREZIA 1966, Winter in Limone

  I watched the young man pull off his mittens and inch closer to the girl sitting next to him.

  ‘Hey, signorina,’ he called over to me now, ‘we’ll have two hot chocolates and a piece of that tiramisù for the lady, please!’

  I nodded and saw the smile the girl gave him. Dio, I thought, look at the pair of them, staring at each other as if there were no one else in the cafe. She’s as fat as an egg, and she cackles like a clucky hen, too.

  ‘Lucrezia, have you got lead in your boots? Move, presto!’

  The boss glared at me from behind the counter. I glared back at him. I’ll fix you too one day, I said under my breath, you hairy old goat.

  I took the tiramisù out of its glass container and cut a mingy slice off the end. When the hot chocolates were ready I set them down on the tray next to the cake.

  Porca miseria! How many hot chocolates have I poured in the last two years? I put this silly uniform on every morning, cut the cake, rinse the plates, watch giggling boys and girls stuffing their mouths and mooning at each other. I don’t smile at the customers anymore. What’s the use, no one notices me anyway.

  I looked at the steaming chocolate on the tray, thick and creamy as soup. Those two over there have probably been skiing all day, flying down the mountains of Limone like twin birds in some picture postcard. And now the hot chocolate will settle warm and comforting in their stomachs. They’ll smack their lips and their cheeks will grow rosy and he’ll help her off with her coat. His hand will brush against her skin for a moment and she’ll smile. Then later they’ll go home where there’ll be a fire crackling, and maybe they’ll roast chestnuts. And while they’re eating and stretching their hands toward the fire she’ll talk to him softly. She’ll flick back her hair, knowing how it shines red and gold in the firelight. He’ll reach out to touch it, pulling her close to him, and she’ll snuggle in and hope that he can smell the perfume she’d dabbed right there, there where he’s kissing her now, under her ear. . .

  ‘Lucrezia, are you going to wait till the drinks are iced over before you take them?’

  The boss yelled so loudly that everyone in the cafe heard. Dio mio, I wish the earth would open up and swallow him.

  I picked up the tray and trudged across the room. As I set the cups down the chocolate slopped over the lip of one of the cups. A small dark puddle edged out over the saucer.

  ‘Careful!’ the young man sniped. ‘Look at that, che imbranata, take it back and get another saucer please!’

  I looked at the man. Arrogant eyes, cruel thin mouth. I suppose he gets everything just the way he likes it. Well, he’s going to get more than he bargained for, this time.

  I took the offending cup and saucer away and topped it up with chocolate. I wiped the saucer clean until it sparkled. Then I took it back and placed it carefully under the young man’s nose.

  ‘Grazie,’ he said. He didn’t even bother to look at me.

  I went back to the counter. I fixed my eyes on the cup. I stared so hard that now I could see inside the cup, down into the thick dark liquid. At the bottom were the grains of chocolate and I saw them joining together, growing solid into a brittle lump. I added a small head and legs as fine as the hairs that grew out of my boss’s nose. Then I shaped a bubble of air under its body and made it float to the surface. Now all I had to do was wait.

  ‘Ugh, che schifo!’ the young man screamed suddenly. ‘There’s a cockroach in my cup!’

  The girl started screaming too and people at the other tables turned round and craned their heads. They looked at the couple and back at their own plates and a growing muttering and burbling filled the room.

  I wandered over to the young man’s table where the boss was trying to soothe him, his face shiny and red with effort.

  ‘See?’ the young man looked at me now, he certainly did! ‘See,’ he said, ‘there’s the filthy cockroach!’

  ‘Ssh!’ I hissed at him. ‘Don’t yell so loud or everyone will want one! Still, I suppose there are plenty more in the kitchen!’

  I slapped my hand on the table and burst out laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed as the boss shouted and the young man threw the cup against the wall and people hurtled out of the cafe as if a plague of man-eating beetles were after them. I laughed as the boss sacked me and the cook tried to slip me an apple strudel, and I laughed at their shocked silly faces as I tore off my uniform and stood there right in front of them in my camisole and stockings.

  I laughed as they slammed the door of that maledetto cafe behind me, but then the rushing wind in my head stopped stone dead and everything was silent inside and outside and the cold white snow looked back at me like a dead blank face.

  I waited for the bus and the cold bit into me, carving a red triangle out of my nose and mouth. By the time I had trudged up from the bus stop and put the key into my door, I could hardly move my lips for the cold.

  The stove in the kitchen was still glowing, and I shoved some more wood in there and drew a chair up to huddle beside it. The old lady I rented the room from wasn’t home, grazie a Dio, I couldn’t have stood her questions right now. Not that she cared particularly what happened to me. She only noticed I was alive if I dropped a saucepan on the tiled floor, or my rent was overdue.

  I should make up a fire in the living room too, I thought, but I couldn’t seem to move. Minna, the old lady’s ancient cat, twined around my legs, looking for milk. But I only wanted to sit there in the kitchen in my coat, with my eyes fixed on nothing like two switches left on in a vacant room.

  Pictures came and went and then I started thinking about the dead cat that Cornelia and I had seen one day when we were little. It was lying there in the gutter like a bit of old rubbish. Its front and back legs were stretched out as stiff as planks. I remembered that when we went close we saw that its lip was lifted and there were ants in the gums.

  We’d run all the way home and the next day it had gone. Now I know that the street sweeper would have come and put on his gloves and shoved it into his bag, along with the cigarette butts and the newspapers.

  My eyes prickled and I felt a wave of pity for the cat and myself, left lying alone in the gutter. Mamma often used to say, ‘Oh you’re just feeling sorry for yourself,’ in a disgusted tone, as if it’s some kind of sin. But I do feel sorry for myself now, every single day, and I’ve a right to. No one else will.

  That boss of mine, he won’t give me another thought. Those girls and boys giggling in the cafe, who do they care about but themselves? If anyone did care, why are there thousands of people lying in gutters or starving to death or killing each other? Nothing makes any sense.

  I often watch the tramps wandering about the town. When they go past you get a whiff of stale urine and caked dirt. They mumble to themselves and gesture, and people think they’re mad. It’s strange how it’s considered normal to mumble to yourself in church, and yet not in the street. You can sing at the top of your lungs in the shower, but not outside in the town. I don’t know, these kinds of distinctions seem to make less and less sense, and I see mad people gliding through them so easily, as if through air.

  Sometimes I think about the apartment I used to live in and the warm bed I slept in. It’s strange how I always believed I’d have a beautiful life, be famous perhaps, and loved by a man and a family. It seemed as natural as breathing.

  Fabio.

  His ashes are probably lying in some gutter, blowing particle by particle, across the world.

  I buried our ring near the chestnut tree outside this house. It’s a beautiful tree, bare as a skeleton in winter, but its branches reach out so far, bearing shiny brown fruit like a gift each year. I hope nothing ever happens to that tree. I think I’m going to have
to live here forever to look after it.

  Mamma’s favourite tree was always the cypress. She loved how it grew so straight and tall. She said it had dignity. But I never liked cypresses. They give out nothing, their branches folding in on themselves as if they’re hiding something. They’re unloving, cypresses.

  Sometimes I think about Cornelia. How she’s growing up, if she’s won the battle with Mamma to cut her hair, if she ever thinks about me. I never thought we’d grow up separately, we were always branches shooting from the same tree.

  I don’t think about Mamma or Papà. For me they’re dead. As dead as Fabio.

  But I dream about them. I dream a lot these days and my dreams seem like the only real thing that happens to me. In my dreams Papà is crying, saying he’s sorry and that I’m his little girl. But then his voice changes and his teeth grow and he’s laughing cruelly, and I have to run and run and run before he bites me.

  When I wake up there’s anger in my head like a roaring fire and my teeth are grinding. I tense all my muscles and my skin itches from the inside. I have to lie still while it cools and slowly it fades, settling into the cold hard lumps that make my legs heavy and my body numb.

  I never want to get out of bed. That’s when I think about dying. I wonder what it’s like and think that at least when you’re dead you’re not pretending anymore that you’re not really alone or that your family can go with you or that things will change.

  But underneath, where the dreams are, I’m too angry to die. I’m not going to let them all live happily ever after, drinking their hot chocolate in cafes, smashing their daughters’ lives. No, I’m going to use my power.