Love You Two

by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

  Early the next morning, as we head away from Bordertown, I think of my mother heading away that day she made her decision to return to Adelaide, yet stay on the borders. I wonder if their friends are still here, still married, still not speaking about what wedged between them.

  I head away from Bordertown and realise I’ll always carry it with me for I have become – no, I have always been – a border-dweller too.

  I’ve also got Zi Don’s Narnia book with me. No, I’m not stealing books again. As I was standing in my room the previous morning, reluctantly looking around for one of the final times, I was thinking of taking it with me. I thought we might need it to help us get through Christmas at Nonna’s.

  Zi Don had walked past my room, popped his head in, smiled, and said, ‘Pinuccia, take it with you. We may need its fortification on this trip back through the wardrobe.’

  21

  Christmas at Nonna’s

  WE APPROACH THE HOUSE NERVOUSLY, wearily, not because of the journey done, but wary of the journey about to begin. We’re back in Little Italy in Adelaide, the corner deli selling Italian smallgoods and newspapers, the neat brick houses, concreted driveways and verandahs, neat vegetable gardens in backyards and fruit trees in the front yards. Tidy and familiar, but also strange to me now as it’s only a surface.

  My fingers are clammy as I pick up the book. I wave it at Zi Don and Wei Lee. ‘Into the White Witch’s home we go?’ Wei Lee and Zi Don turn to me in shock, then laugh out loud with relief.

  Zi Rocco’s car and my dad’s car are in the driveway. Familiar. Strange. I imagine Zia Elena, Mum and Stella in the kitchen trying to keep up with Nonna’s agitated rantings about the over-runniness of the cheese and under-crustiness of the top layer of the lasagna Mum’s cooked; the lettuce looking unwashed so Mum has to wash it again and again; the tablecloth needing another ironing; the glasses needing another wiping; the strategic seating of the guests later in the day, guests who are unwanted but invited nevertheless.

  This has always been so ritual and routine. I never questioned it. I thought everyone had Christmases like this and families like this. I never thought there could be more going on underneath this day of swiftly stuffing your face with carefully prepared food – as if the more time and effort it took to cook, the quicker you had to gulp it down. Eating is accompanied with lots of complaining over petty details and commands of ‘Mangia! Mangia! Eat! Eat!’ by an old woman stressed to the max at the thought that if you don’t eat until you’re sick you might not be enjoying her food.

  We make our way towards the front door in the dry Adelaide heat, Zi Don first, then Wei Lee, then me. There’s Nonno’s red roses, drooping slightly, and behind them are onion plants: love and layers. We can just hear squawks from the chooks in Nonno’s backyard. I wonder if he’s out there as usual; alone, silently remembering something or somewhere else.

  Zi Don’s about to knock when the front door opens and out waft stifling smells of parmesan cheese, roast turkey, roast pork, fried calamari, crumbed prawns, lemon oysters, peperonata, lasagna, liqueur-soaked panettone and thick, agitating espresso coffee, all framed by a few familiar Nonna shrieks coming from inside. Why does she always yell? I’ve never heard Nonna speak in anything less than a near-hysterical shriek or frenzied announcement. Does she think she won’t be heard? No fear of that. Her voice freezes you in your steps wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. I can see Zi Don cringing now at that sound, immediately too familiar. I can see Wei Lee’s shoulders hunch a little, her eyes widening.

  Dad’s at the door grinning at us in his boyish way. I feel that familiar love for him. It’s also a kind of grown-up, wised-up love now. He looks at the three of us, beaming, and doesn’t know who to hug first. I see him enfold Zi Don and then Wei Lee, as if he’s known her all his life.

  Then he’s holding out his arms to me, cautiously, as if I’m the new person he’s being introduced to. I yearn to run into his arms, slam into his comfortably cushiony tummy like I used to as a child, but instead I walk slowly into them, ready to back away if I need to. His arms come around me: warm, strong, the kind of arms I’ve always felt secure in. After all that’s happened, they feel the same but now I know they’re even stronger, warmer, more all-encompassing than I knew the last time he hugged me.

  He’s my dad. I love him.

  ‘Glad you’re back, gorgeous girl,’ he says into my hair, as any thought of grudging, resentful distance on my behalf evaporates.

  I smile wryly. I’m not really back, I want to say. I got thrown forward.

  ‘How’s it all going in there?’ Zi Don asks warily as we follow Dad into the house and down the dark corridor with the crucifix on the far wall. Buffet cabinets of bomboniere and portraits of the Madonna and baby surround us.

  ‘What do you think?’ Dad says with a grimace. ‘Your mum’s cooking up a cardiac arrest for herself in order to make us eat our way to one as well.’

  Zi Elena, Zi Rocco and Stella are now coming towards us, sanity and simplicity in those loving smiles and greetings.

  Zi Elena’s hug lingers as she says close to my ear, ‘Your mum’s in the kitchen.’ Her fingers on my back gently urge me forward. I look into her face for a moment, as if preparing to see that face again, but in my mother.

  Then we’re in the kitchen, steamy from the humid heat of the stove in the dry heat of the day. Nonna’s a shrunken hysterical figure with mussed grey hair. She wrings her hands on a smeared apron, mutters something about the turkey and eggplant parmigiana, and darts out the kitchen door to the ‘other’ kitchen behind the garage where all the heavy duty cooking is done. She hasn’t even noticed us.

  At the sink is my mum.

  The same slim body in a familiar short frock.

  Mum turns to me slowly, her curls falling in front of her liquid eyes.

  My heart wrenches.

  But Nonna’s back, suddenly looming in front of me, standing on her tiptoes, I’m sure, so she can pierce my eyes with her own red-rimmed brown ones. She’s red-faced, frantic and frowning, her finger jabbing into my rib. ‘So you jus’ go, did you? Like a good-for-nothing puttana. Giuseppina, if your mother had done that –’

  ‘Ma, stop.’ My mother’s gently pushing her away, stepping in front of me, drinking me in with her watery eyes. She looks like my mum, but around the edges, in the shadows on her face and the lips that quiver slightly, I can see her, the woman I’ve come to know in her writing book.

  Slowly, her arms reach out to me.

  Slowly, my arms reach out to her to see if I can hold that woman like I used to hold my mum, like I want to hold my mum. To see if I can hold them together, love them together. To see if I can feel her real flesh and fractures underneath that bella faccia and bella figura.

  We hug silently but her fingers in my hair hold me so tenderly, so urgently, desperately close. I feel the softness and strength, and a slight shuddering in her body, underneath the mask she wears for Christmas at Nonna’s. But we don’t get a chance even to attempt to speak.

  Nonna’s screeching voice tries to rend a tear between us. ‘Yes, that’s right. Welcome her like that, instead of with what she deserves. Che figura. Che schivo! How disgusting! I’d be throwing you out if you were –’

  My mother doesn’t let go of me but she raises her head from me and says sharply to the ceiling, ‘Ma, your son’s arrived. Maybe you could make him welcome while I welcome my daughter.’

  At that point Zi Don comes forward. ‘Yeah, I’m here Ma, with Wei Lee, like you wanted.’

  Nonna turns to him, with that last look at me over my mother’s shoulder that says she isn’t finished with me yet. She hugs him and then scolds him. She touches his face and then slaps it. ‘Since Easter before you present yourself! But I’ve been telling everyone you getting married, that you organised your life. Time you come home now to live!’

  ‘I thought you wanted me far away, Ma,’ Zi Don says with a dry smile.

  ‘Eh, you can come back now and take up yo
ur duty as my only son.’ She looks at me again. ‘And you could’ve sent this stupidona back straight away. She on a bus in the middle of the night. Anything could’ve happened. Anything. What do you think people saying about you, Giuseppina?’ She shakes her head at me but then turns back to my uncle. ‘Grazie Dio, you came back today when everyone’s coming over. I ask you, no stupidity today. I haven’t finished with you, Giuseppina, but for today, facciamo una bella figura. You are back with your family now.’

  Mum, Zi Don, Dad and I all respond at once.

  ‘Yeah Ma, family, and this is Wei Lee, my family too, who I’d like to introduce if you’d let me. And who said I’m coming back to stay?’

  ‘Ma, leave her alone. I’m her mother. Let me work it out with her. She had her reasons.’

  ‘Ma, can we have a peaceful Christmas day? Gianna and I will chat with Pina later.’

  ‘Here we go again, figura crap. Jesus, Nonna, I want out of here already!’

  ‘Enough everyone, please!’ Zi Elena’s looking upset at all of us. We stop to breathe. Zi Rocco nods in agreement with his wife, his arm around a troubled Stella. Her red velvet Christmas elf’s cap, with its white trimming and pompom, are trying hard to exude Christmas cheer.

  Nonna’s about to launch into some major counter-attack, firing missiles in all directions at once, when she notices Wei Lee’s been standing there listening quietly. For a fleeting second, before she gets her act together, Nonna looks awkward, embarrassed. Then suddenly she seems to brush off the fluster and compose her face into a dignified countenance. Her smile is polite and pleasant. It makes me sick. I know that public politeness. She has an investment in looking good for Wei Lee, the redeemer of my uncle’s reputation.

  As I watch the transformation, I’m struck again by Nonna’s mask-wearing skills. It’s a mask of niceness and mothering, fussing and martyrdom, with which she sucks you in and renders you weaponless. And then she judges and scrutinises, evaluates and slices you, so she can remould you to her specifications. I’ve seen her do this so often before but it really gets to me now. Yet for some reason I can’t explain, I really feel sorry for her too.

  Wei Lee’s as short as her. Nonna formally plants cold sweaty kisses on both of her cheeks. ‘Hello, We– Waya– eh, how do you say this strange name? It’s not Italian.’

  ‘No, it’s Vietnamese, Ma.’ Zi Don looks like he has a headache setting in. I don’t like the way his face is already losing the sheer joy and light it has in his own home. I can see the palm of his hand squarely, tenderly, in the small of Wei Lee’s back.

  ‘Hello, it’s so nice to meet you finally.’ Wei Lee takes over calmly, confidently, gently. ‘My name’s not Italian but I’m looking forward to an Italian Christmas banquet.’

  ‘Too much food they tell me,’ Nonna rants. ‘They do not appreciate here, my family. I spend a week preparing this, worrying. For them.’ She jerks her head towards us without giving us the satisfaction of looking at us. ‘Shopping to buy the best. Always the best for my family. Always. And you know what they say? You know? All they say is “too much food”. But you, you are so skinny. I need to make sure you put on some forza, some strength.’ She suddenly stops, cocks her head on one side, one hand on a hip, querying, ‘But you no believe in Christmas, in Gesù Cristo? Your family go to church? Are you Catholic?’

  ‘No, I’m not specifically religious, but I admire Jesus Christ the historical figure, you know, the political figure, for what he tried to do for the poor, the outcasts and to rid the world of religious corruption.’

  Nonna stares at Wei Lee, alarmed, bewildered. I imagine the rerun of those words in her head as she’s trying to figure out if her questions were actually answered, and how all those big words came from such a tiny, harmless looking woman.

  ‘Oh,’ she nods, troubled. But in the next instant, she shakes herself, ‘O Dio, the turkey!’ and she rushes off, out to the verandah and over to the garage kitchen.

  We stand there for a second, looking at each other, what we all want to say best left unsaid. Then there’s a shuffling at the doorway and Leo’s helping Nonno through. Or is Nonno helping Leo, who still sports a bruise on his eye?

  Nonno looks older, wearier, even more aloof and silently bitter. He hugs me distantly, distastefully. ‘I no ask, I no want to know,’ he says to me, holding one unsteady hand up against me. Dismissing me like that, he turns to Wei Lee and his son, hugging them flatly, exchanging a few words. Then Nonna’s heard slamming the garage door, yelling ahead to us to open the kitchen door as she’s carrying the turkey. Nonno excuses himself, mumbling something about needing to stay out of her way, and shuffles out to the lounge room to sit in his favourite old chair.

  Leo steps over to me. ‘Hey.’

  I check out the eye. The purplish bruise only makes his dark eyes more striking. ‘Hi. You okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Something’s different here. Then it hits me, a bit like a punch that could leave that purplish bruise. He’s not looking down, anxiously muttering something to me while looking at the floor or in the distance. He’s looking straight at me. How else could I see the beauty and openness, the concern and desire to connect that’s in those eyes? I know he knows about our parents. Maybe me being away has given him and our parents time to talk. Maybe knowing that we’re both going to have to share the complicated reality of our parents’ lives has him insisting I connect with him.

  I open my mouth to begin talking with him, but Nonna tornadoes between us, balancing a huge tray of turkey and roast potatoes, shrieking to her daughters, ‘Gianna, Elena, why the salad not on the table, huh? Do I have to do everything myself? O Dio, why, why can’t anyone in this family do anything without me having to tell them what to do? Che croce! What a cross to bear!’

  Leo, Stella and I exchange a ‘Nonna’s carrying her cross again’ grimace. It’s always been so hard to talk in this house, I realise. It’s like Nonna’s outlawed communication. There’s either a deafening silence that edits and deletes thoughts automatically, or there’s so much frantic activity: fidgeting, arguing, cleaning, serving, fretting. So much bogging down in structures and formalities, the laying on of plate after plate, eating fork-full after fork-full, one course served as soon as another has been swallowed to leave no room, no gap, for any conversation deeper than commentaries about the food and the weather. So much preoccupation with petty detail so that murky depths can be avoided.

  I see this now because I’ve seen that Christmas and family can be different, because I know what else sits with each of us at that heavy ornate wooden dining-room table. It’s like I see the words from my mother’s book hovering around us like auras, hedging around the table, like a hunger that requires a more substantial kind of sustenance.

  We sit down. The table’s been set so that Wei Lee and Zi Don are next to each other. Nonno is at his usual place at the head of the table, but he still looks like a store dummy that’s been stapled into place. His son, now back home as a decent, respectable and rich soon-to-be-married lawyer, has been given his right-hand side. My father’s been demoted to the left, with Leo next to him, the male grandchild.

  Nonna’s at the other head of the table, easily convenient to the kitchen to fetch and carry, to make strategic getaways and interruptions. Mum and Zi Elena are on either side of her to be commanded or quietly whispered to, and Stella and I are next to our Mums while Zi Rocco is squeezed between Wei Lee and Stella.

  We plunge into the feast, reminded by Nonna to keep going if we dare to come up for air or conversation. The rest of us bravely attempt to speak in fragmented phrases; disconnected, abrupt, incomplete. In those rare breaks when even Nonna needs to swallow a mouthful or breathe, I notice how Zi Elena deftly steers the conversation into safe and comfortable topics, or patiently responds to something Nonna’s said. I notice how Zi Rocco tells his feeble jokes to lighten the air.

  But the cracks are there.

  22

  The family plays ‘twenty questions’
>
  SOON WE SIT BACK ON OUR CHAIRS, the food still making its way down. We’ve raced through the meal like it’s a grand prix of banqueting. We’ve obeyed Nonna’s admonishments and coercions to eat some more. We’ve finished in plenty of time for the after-pranzo arrivals of rellies for round after round of anxiety-inducing coffee and liqueur-soaked cake.

  So even Nonna actually leans back into her chair briefly and takes a moment to say something that’s not demanding or cajoling. She uses that moment to survey us all. ‘Well, finally, we are all together.’

  We look at her, not daring to breathe too loudly, or look too dazed, not letting on that there’s a trace of a smile on Nonna’s face that isn’t fake, or performed, or manipulative. She is genuinely indulging in a moment of contentedness. So we hold ourselves in and silently vow to each other we’ll try not to break this moment. ‘My family is all here. My son and daughters, my sons-in-law, who are perfect, like pieces of bread – pezzi di pane! – my grandchildren, and I thank the Virgin Mary for answering my prayers about Giuseppina’s safe return. And Waya Lee, my son’s fidanzata. Yes, all here.’

  Are we really all here Nonna? All of who we are? Who’s not here?

  She turns to Wei Lee. ‘Tell me, Waya Lee, how you meet my son?’

  The twenty questions begin. Nonna obviously needs some facts to spin-doctor when the rellies arrive, take out their mental notebooks, and act out their press-room journalism. Indeed, Nonna often refers to the ‘giornale’ or newspaper her rellies are always writing and reading via the gossip grapevine, and which of course she has to be part of or else risk her family being the front page item forever.

  Wei Lee’s media savvy, answering each question with a fond smile, a hand over Zi Don’s hand which Nonna scrutinises with a mixture of relief and discomfort. ‘We met at work.’ ‘No, I think Don wants to stay in Melbourne. I’d like to stay in Melbourne.’ ‘Yes, we’ve talked about getting married but we’re happy living together for now.’ ‘Yes, we’d like a child soon.’ ‘Yes, just one child.’ ‘No, I intend to keep building up my partnership at the architecture business.’ ‘We’d raise the child on basic social justice values without the oppressive rules of any particular religious institution.’