by John Smolens
And here we were: I drove while Chiara navigated, the road map spread across her lap. We headed east toward Newberry, until we turned south and reached the shore of Lake Michigan, and heading east again we passed through small towns with names like Engadine and Brevort. We didn’t steal another car, as her mother had suggested, although we stopped when we saw several cars that had been left to rust out in a field. Some had license plates, and I removed a pair and put them on her mother’s Ford.
“I guess what surprises me most,” I said as we got back on the road, “is your mother.”
“No, not at all,” Chiara said. We’d hardly spoken for some time, but it was as though we were in the middle of a long conversation. “All my life my mother has talked about my father, hiding him during the last war, running away with him. Ordinarily a woman like my mother would protect me against someone like you, but she knows what is happening. She never regretted doing what she did with my father, except for one thing.”
“That she could never go home.”
“Yes. She often says she’d never go back to Italy, but she thinks about it all the time.”
Chiara looked down at the simple gold wedding ring on her left hand. We had been hastily pulling on coats when Mrs. Frangiapani left the kitchen. She seemed to be muttering to herself as she went into the room at the back of the first floor that she used as her bedroom. A few minutes later she came out with a silk purse and a tiny gray box. At the sink she soaped up her left hand and removed her wedding ring. After drying it off with a towel, she placed it and the box on the kitchen table.
“You’ll need those,” she said. “I always planned on giving them to you before your wedding, but you’ll need them now.”
Chiara picked up the ring and slipped it on her left hand. She wept then, and her mother pulled a tissue from the cuff of her black sweater and gave it to her daughter.
“This was my husband’s,” Mrs. Frangiapani said. She opened the gray box and removed a wedding ring. “He would want you to have it.”
I hesitated, but then I took the ring and put it on. “Of course it fits,” I said.
“I haven’t much.” Mrs. Frangiapani unsnapped the silk purse and removed a small wad of bills. “But this should get you to Detroit.” She counted out six twenties, a ten, and then she added three ones. “I would go to the bank but there isn’t time.” She handed the money to Chiara, and looked at me. “I always held the money—so will she.”
This made Chiara smile as she wiped the tears off her cheeks with the palm of her hand.
“She could never bear the thought of being considered a ‘dishonest woman,’” Chiara now said, looking up from the map. “She and my father wore these rings before they actually could get married. She said they were married the moment they put them on.”
“That’s true,” I said. “It was true then. It’s true now.”
11.
We drove for hours through the woods, from which it seemed we would never escape, until we finally came to the Mackinac Straits. We parked the Ford on a ferry loaded with other cars and trucks. The wind and the waves made for a very rough passage—which reminded me of the transport ship that had brought me from Africa to the United States—and we never got out of the car. This trip was only five miles, and soon we drove onto the pier in Mackinaw City.
“There were signs on the ferry,” I said. “How do you pronounce these? Mackinac, the straits. Mackinaw, the city.”
“The same, just spelled differently.”
I nodded. “We have this in Italy, too. The straits, are there more than one?”
She laughed. “No. It’s just the way it’s spelled.” But when I glanced at her she looked perturbed, which gave a depth to her stare. “Your accent,” she said. “We’re going to have to do something about that.”
I nodded.
“We’re on the Lower Peninsula. I’ve never been here and have always thought of it as another continent. We should reach Detroit tomorrow.” I knew what she was going to say. I was thinking it, too. “We’ll have to stop somewhere for the night.”
“I never believed I would get this far from Camp Au Train.” I wanted to say alive, but instead I said, “With you.”
She put her hand on my forearm as I held the steering wheel.
As we moved south, the snow turned to sleet and then to rain. Outside of a town called Gaylord, we stopped at a gas station and café, Henry’s Roadside Oasis. Along with the money, Chiara had gas-rationing coupons in her handbag. Before rolling down the window, she said, “Don’t say a word, and when we go into that diner use that limp.” When I looked at her, she said, “Didn’t you know you’ve been limping?”
“It must be from running through the woods from camp.”
We were startled when someone tapped on my door. I rolled down the window, and a man leaned down and peered inside. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and water poured off his wide-brimmed hat.
“Fill it up,” Chiara said. “And check the oil.”
The man looked at me and I nodded.
She pointed toward the café. “Can we get something to eat in there?”
“Sure,” he said. “The meatloaf’s on special.”
“I’ll go in and get a table,” Chiara said, opening her door. “My husband is a mute.”
After she got out, I turned back to the man, who stared at me a moment before going to the gas pump and lifting the nozzle. I sat in the car while he filled the tank and checked the oil. He looked like he’d been soaking wet for days. He came back to my door, and the way he held the dipstick against an oily rag, I felt like I was being shown a fine bottle of wine. “You’re down a quart,” he said.
I nodded.
He went to the rack of quarts of oil, placed a can on the ground, and jammed a metal spout into the lid with the solemnity of a priest sacrificing a lamb. “Me, I’d rather be deaf,” he said as he leaned over the front fender of the car. “Wouldn’t have to listen to the wife go on all the day long.” He looked back at me through the windshield; I thought he was making a joke and began to smile, but he was dead serious.
When he was finished servicing the car, he came back to my window. “You pull over there, go on inside, and rescue your pretty little wife. I’ll be right in. You can pay the whole thing together in the café.”
I did as he said, and when I entered the café I favored my left leg. Chiara was sitting in a booth, and from her look of surprise I must have been convincing. A heavy woman in a powder blue uniform was taking her order. The name tag pinned to the lapel read Phyllis, and she wore so much makeup I could smell it. We were the only customers in the place.
“Honey. What. Would. You. Like?” she shouted.
“Frank’s not deaf,” Chiara said. “Just can’t speak.”
Frank.
“Oh, I thought they went hand in hand,” Phyllis said. “You always hear people say ‘deaf-mute.’ Unless of course you are deaf.” She laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry—I guess I shouldn’t have said that!”
“No, it’s fine,” Chiara said. As I settled in the booth across from her, I nodded and smiled stupidly. “He hears just fine.”
“That leg,” Phyllis said. “The war?”
I nodded again, but no smile.
“He was repairing a Jeep,” Chiara said, “when it came down on his leg.”
“Oh, honey,” Phyllis said. “I am so sorry.”
I shrugged.
“Something to eat?” She said this as though it would cure everything. “Meatloaf?”
I hadn’t eaten hot food since leaving the camp and I nodded vigorously.
Phyllis’s husband came in out of the rain and sat on the stool next to the cash register. “Henry,” she said to him. “Get these folks some coffee while I serve up their dinners.” She went around the counter and into the kitchen.
Henry came over with a pot of coffee and filled our mugs. Then he went back to his stool and stared at us as he unbuttoned his slicker. I kept waiting for him to say, You ain’
t deaf, that leg, it ain’t so bad, and you don’t look like no Frank to me. But he just kept staring at us.
Phyllis brought out two plates: huge slabs of meatloaf and gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. In camp I swore I’d never eat potatoes again, particularly mashed, but I was so hungry I went through them without stopping.
Phyllis sat on the nearest counter stool. “He’s got some appetite, don’t he?”
“Yes, he does.” Chiara watched me with genuine wonder in her eyes.
I kept eating. Down at the end of the counter, Henry hadn’t taken his eyes off of us.
“Where y’all headed?” Phyllis asked.
“Detroit,” Chiara said.
“Oh, you’ll never make it by nightfall, not in this weather,” Phyllis said. “We got some cabins out back. We’ll let you have one for three dollars.”
Out the rain-streaked window, I watched a police cruiser pull into the station. Chiara and I glanced at each other. “Let us think about it,” she said, and then she picked up her fork.
The policeman got out of the cruiser and started toward the café, but he stopped behind our car. He leaned over a moment to look at something—the license perhaps. It was hard to see what he was doing back there, but then he straightened up and came inside. He sat on the stool next to Henry, and Phyllis went around the counter and poured him a mug of coffee. “Any word when it’s going to clear, Pete?”
The policeman gazed at us a moment while sipping his coffee. Turning away from us, he said something to Henry and Phyllis.
I cleaned my plate. Chiara picked up her plate and placed it on top of mine. “Go ahead. I’ll never get through it all.”
I started in on the meatloaf. I ate without stopping, wanting to get as much in me as I could before Pete the policeman came over and arrested us. I was convinced he saw right through the license on our car. Though there had been no houses in sight of that field, I suspected someone might have seen me remove the plate from that old car and they called the police. Chiara stared out the window and I could tell she was thinking the same thing.
Pete and Henry kept talking quietly, and I continued to eat. When the policeman got up off his stool and came toward us, I ate faster. Everything about him was slow and deliberate, and I cleaned the plate just as he reached our booth.
“That your car out there?” he asked Chiara. His hat was encased in a clear plastic rain cap beaded with water, and I thought his eyes were deceptively simple.
“It is, Officer,” she said.
“Mind if I ask your names?”
“Of course not.” Chiara touched her cheek with her left hand, to make sure he saw her wedding ring. “Frank and Claire Green.”
I stared at her, and then up at the policeman, who was nodding.
“You won’t make Detroit tonight, Mr. and Mrs. Green.”
“Why’s that, Officer?” she said.
“You can’t drive that vehicle.” He looked out the window toward the car. “You have a busted taillight. Gotta get that fixed before you get back on the road.”
I leaned back in the booth.
The policeman bent over and put both hands on the table. “Now, Henry tells me that he can call the parts store in Grayling, but a new taillight won’t get here till sometime tomorrow.” He suddenly took his hands off the table and straightened up, looking regretful. “You drive out on that road, I’m going to have to write you up a ticket.”
“I understand, Officer,” she said. “And I appreciate your telling us about it.”
When I had changed the license plate, I hadn’t noticed any broken taillight.
I looked over at Henry, who wasn’t staring at me now.
Our first night together was spent in a musty cabin behind Henry’s Roadside Oasis. I was able to take a long, hot bath. Then I drained the tub, and as I was refilling it for Chiara, she came in and we took a bath together. Immediately, there was no shyness between us. The bed nearly filled the room, and its mattress was soft and uneven, the box spring noisy. It didn’t matter; it didn’t matter at all. Rain pounded the roof on and off throughout the night. It was first light by the time we’d had enough of each other, and then we slept soundly until late morning.
It was a sunny day, with enormous ice-glazed puddles everywhere. When we left the cabin, I carried our one small suitcase, which contained Chiara’s clothing and a few things of her father’s she thought might fit me. We went into the café, where the small lunch crowd seemed to be mostly truck drivers. The special was cube steak. I didn’t know what that was, and there was no way to ask Chiara, so when Phyllis came to our booth I pointed to the breakfast menu.
“Ordinarily we don’t serve breakfast after eleven, honey, but for Mr. and Mrs. Green we have the Love Bird’s Special: three eggs, bacon, toast, coffee.”
I nodded and made a flipping gesture with my hand.
“Over easy? Sure. How you like your bacon, limp?” She laughed; she wore so much red lipstick that it had smeared on her teeth. “Claire, how ’bout you, dear?”
“Just coffee, black, please.” She looked away, embarrassed.
“You got it, Mr. and Mrs. Green.”
After Phyllis went back to the kitchen, Chiara looked at me, and I shook my head.
“She’s not talking about your leg, or your bacon, Frank.”
During the night we had said a lot of things to each other. One of them was that from now on our names were Frank and Claire Green, and even when we were alone we were to use them. Francesco Giuseppe Verdi, who was named after the genius of the opera, and Chiara Maria Frangiapani, who was named after Santa Chiara, who was married in spirit but not the flesh to Saint Francis of Assisi, no longer existed. It was Frank and Claire Green. There was no grace, no music to these blunt names, just short bursts of sound, like so many American names. If we knew anything that morning, it was that we had to make ourselves into the people who could possess such names.
“Before we leave here,” Claire said, “I want to call Momma.” She got out of the booth, walked down past the cash register, and entered the phone booth by the front door. Several of the truck drivers along the counter turned on their stools and took notice. Americans seemed so strange to me then. But this—these men watching a young woman walk to a phone booth—was entirely familiar.
Phyllis returned from the kitchen with our order. “She divorce you already?”
I pointed toward the phone booth, then I picked up my fork, but Phyllis was still standing over me.
“You two far from home?” she asked.
I smiled at her and shrugged. Then I broke open one of the egg yolks on my plate. But the woman stayed put, her hands on her broad hips.
“You can never get far enough away, you know.”
I didn’t understand what she meant, so I continued to eat and nodded. If we had to do this again, I decided that the next time I would be a deaf-mute.
“’Course once they find you, the deed is done. And there ain’t nothing they can do about it. There’s no going back now, honey.”
I stopped eating and looked up at her.
Phyllis leaned down closer and whispered, “I spotted you the moment you walked in here yesterday. Yes, I did. I have this sense about people. You’re hiding something. And honey, it’s written all over the two of you.”
I didn’t know what to do, so I picked up the salt and shook some over my eggs.
She came even closer, practically whispering in my ear. “I can see the future, too, and I don’t need no cards, tea leaves, or crystal ball. It just comes to me. And I’ll tell you right this minute, there will be times when you come to regret having done it, but you’ll get through that. You may think you didn’t have a proper beginning, but people don’t elope unless they can’t help themselves. Better to throw yourselves away on each other like this, even if it eventually comes to heartbreak and ruin. At least you had passion, true passion. That’s a rare thing, and you seldom see it in some church ceremony where everybody’s gussied up and nobody’s s
ure they’re doing the right thing.”
I didn’t understand what she was talking about, so I nodded and continued to shake salt on my breakfast.
“She ain’t already knocked up, is she?”
I wanted to speak. I wanted to speak and shock her, but I shook the salt shaker vehemently as I shook my head.
Claire came out of the phone booth and walked back to us, again causing the men seated along the counter to take notice.
As she sat down, Phyllis said, “You want to get him to go easy on the salt, honey. He’ll get hardening of the arteries by the time he’s forty.” She slapped me on the shoulder and then went back into the kitchen.
I put the salt shaker down on the table and looked out the window. A truck pulled out of the gas station and I could see Henry, kneeling at the back of our car, screwing the new taillight in place. He got to his feet and came into the café. After sitting in his usual place by the cash register, he began to scribble in a notepad, and after a moment Phyllis joined him.
“Momma’s fine,” Claire said. “She says she’s going to move back to Sault Ste. Marie. She hasn’t been happy in Munising anyway. She has more friends in the Soo. I asked about the Imlachs and she said she wasn’t sure, but she thought that fire inspector realized she and George have him over a barrel.”
I shrugged.
“Over a barrel? It means he seemed to understand that they both really meant it about his job. You’d be surprised what people will do when their job’s at stake. It sounds like something’s going to get worked out with the insurance company so the Imlachs can rebuild.”
I nodded, and then continued to eat my breakfast. Claire drank her coffee. We were silent, and it was like we were married. We didn’t need to talk. It was enough knowing the other was there. I might never have been as content, truly content, as that moment in Henry’s Roadside Oasis.
When I finished my breakfast, Phyllis came over from the cash register and placed a slip of paper in front of me. “I see where she carries the purse, but I always hand the bill to the gentleman. Out of respect, you understand.” Phyllis laughed as she turned and walked away.