She told him, “What did you expect to find away from your house? Don’t you know that things always sound better than they really are?”
Alfonso knew that even after his sister received the visa papers from Rome, she and Totu were seeing each other again on the sly. He upped the ante and made another revelation that would hurt not only Totu, but his family’s reputation and Don Cesare’s interests as well.
Everyone in the village simply took it for granted that Aurora’s mother, Paola, slept with her employer, Don Cesare. And who could blame him? His wife, Donna Rachele, looked like a rolled ball of yarn, while Paola had the body of a statue. Her husband Micu drank himself into a stupor whenever he wasn’t working.
From the very beginning of his married life, Micu had been made to feel as if he had horns on his head – the cuckolding type of horns the villagers liked to make fun of, so long as no one in their families carried them. Paola may have been a peasant like himself, but she spoke and carried herself like a city woman compared to the costumed village housewives. Micu had responded to the gossip with a shrug. “I don’t believe any of it,” he told his friends at the bar. “I’m with Don Cesare all the time. All he cares about is his land and olives.”
But Micu was blinded by rage when rumours spread that his daughter Aurora had tried to kill herself because Don Cesare’s nephew, Totu, had seduced her. He had raised his daughter like a lady, never expecting her to work on the farm, but she still ended up like spoiled goods, taken advantage of by his boss’s nephew. And when Totu fled to Rome, Micu would have shot the pampered little “lord” on the spot – had he found him.
Micu’s anger, however, had been appeased by his wife and daughter, who had pleaded with him for days not to do anything crazy. After the family’s honour was salvaged by Aurora’s marriage, Micu returned to spending long nights at the cantina. Paola had expelled him from her bed years before.
Alfonso was his frequent companion there, especially after he negotiated his sister’s marriage to Pasquale. Micu and the other men followed the goings-on between Lucia and Totu like a soap opera.
After his sister’s engagement, Alfonso’s head was full of ideas about his future business dealings in America, where there was real wealth to be made. Alfonso had the land, the olives, and the olive press, but no one to make it all work for him, so he spent hours pumping Micu’s head too. He needed his arms and experience in oil-making. Why should Micu keep on caring about Don Cesare’s arid orchards when he was treated like a gopher for Don Cesare’s right-hand man, the l’Amatise?
Alfonso rode his Vespa around the province like a madman, looking for deals for home-made salami and goat cheese, and had Don Cesare laughing when he started working on getting an olive press to compete with him. Alfonso was wasting his money, Don Cesare told everyone. The young man simply didn’t have the experience, and most importantly he lacked the contacts needed for selling the oil.
One night at the cantina with Micu, Alfonso came up with a different twist to the stories that had circulated in the village about Paola and Don Cesare. While working in the farmhouse, he had observed the goings-on at Don Cesare’s casale not far from there, and he agreed with Micu that all the gossip about Don Cesare and his wife was false. It wasn’t Don Cesare at all who met his wife there. Alfonso had watched for months on the days when Micu was sent left and right to pick up materials and deliver oil or wheels of crushed olives. On a day when Micu was dispatched to deliver an order in Catanzaro, Alfonso convinced him to follow him to the farm instead.
They hid behind a tree and watched as Gennaro, the l’Amatise – Don Cesare’s devoted brother-in-law, Totu’s father, the serious quiet widower who was too busy to get re-married – paid Paola a visit. The two men waited patiently all afternoon and even saw Gennaro sit on the porch, shirtless, sipping an espresso, and then patted Paola on the behind as she came out to shake a tablecloth. Micu couldn’t contain his anger at that sight, but Alfonso forced him to stay quiet. With Micu fuming, they sat behind that tree till late in the afternoon when Gennaro, his shirt back on, left the farmhouse. No wonder Gennaro had interceded for Paola and her children with Don Cesare. Whose children were they?
Micu was ready to get his hunting rifle again, but Alfonso talked sense into him.
The best way to get even with Gennaro and Don Cesare, Alfonso convinced Micu, was to leave them eating dust, leave them to do their own dirty work. Let Gennaro look for another lackey and someone else’s wife. Alfonso promised Micu a share of the profits in the new company if he left Don Cesare’s employment and went to live in the farmhouse by the river. There, he would have the power to cut Don Cesare off from the flow of water – and Gennaro from his wife’s favours.
Alfonso made sure that the trysts between Paola and Gennaro were made public. The implications went beyond Paola and Gennaro. Totu’s past shady encounters with Aurora, which Alfonso swore were real, smelled of incest, as she was probably his half-sister.
After this last revelation, Totu didn’t fight back. He became despondent. He cursed his uncle and father and the village and vowed to get out of Mulirena and never set foot there again. To spite Alfonso even more, his friends convinced him that there was still one last card left for him to play. Together they concocted a foolproof, old-fashioned course of action that would keep the couple together and derail Alfonso’s plans to become an American millionaire.
Things were moving fast by the end of that summer. Totu walked straight past Piazza Don Carlo on his way to the bar, but he still slipped candies into my hands in exchange for delivering letters to her. Then he sped up and down Via Roma on his Topolino like a crazed mouse. Alfonso’s Vespa scooter provided the only motorized competition to the Fiat, but the scooter had an advantage over the car – its ability to race through the narrow alleys and uphill cobblestone streets that led to Piazza Don Carlo and to Lucia’s window, now out of bounds to the revved-up Fiat and to Totu.
Peppino’s bar had also brought in the first ice-cream maker. Until then, for a summer treat, we kids had had to settle for sucking on an ice cube, unless we walked to Amato for a gelato. In the evenings, instead of going to the Funtanella for water, the young people had taken to going for a passeggiata and a gelato in the piazza. We girls changed into our best clothes and walked up and down Via Roma arm-in-arm, acknowledging the other girls with a “Ciao,” but ignoring the boys.
Since Tina had left for Canada, Lucia had no one to go out with, so she expected me to accompany her on her evening walks. She held me by the hand as if she were taking me for a walk until my friends Rosetta and Bettina joined us. Then the four of us would buy our ice cream and accompany Lucia back to Piazza Don Carlo.
The women who sat on their doorsteps frowned at Lucia, an engaged woman now, for parading herself up and down like that, and criticized her family for permitting it. “If Lucia’s in-laws lived in the village,” they said, “Rosaria wouldn’t be so lax.” The woman was too easy-going and too busy caring for her sick husband to notice that Lucia was taking liberties. The only family member who still had control over Lucia’s movements was Alfonso, but, in the evenings, he was usually away in the nearby villages, riding his scooter.
Some of the older women even objected to unmarried girls parading up and down the piazza, but nonno Luigi, rather than disapproving of us, had actually entertained us one evening. He bought each of us lemon-flavoured granite and a glass of wine for himself and spoke of his own days in America.
“You’re lucky to be going to Montreal,” he repeated more than once. “New York is a hell of a place.”
My evening passeggiate with Lucia ended after the feast of Santo Francesco, which was celebrated in Amato in the middle of August. On the Sunday evening of the feast, our piazza was quiet, since most of the younger people had gone to the celebrations. Surprisingly, Lucia didn’t seem interested in going. After our usual ritual of walking to the piazza, Lucia decided to pick up our water
jugs and go to the Funtanella for water. We filled the ceramic water jugs and then, instead of walking back to the village, she insisted we walk toward the Timpa. There, we sat on a stone for a long time. It was as though she were waiting for someone. It irritated me that Lucia didn’t talk to me. Since her engagement, she had become closed in with her own thoughts, and acted as if I weren’t even there.
The sky turned to dusk, and the cypresses of the cemetery at Amato were discernible only as tall shadows against the twilight. I felt uneasy there. I was never comfortable walking by the Timpa, even in
daylight. The sheer size of the scooped-out mount, with its exposed rocks jutting out all around, made me feel small and helpless. I asked Lucia to take me back home before it got too dark, saying that Mother would be alarmed by our absence.
Before she responded, we heard a car’s engine, and Lucia straightened up. The car sped past us, then doubled back and parked on the side of the road, the engine still running. Two of Totu’s friends stayed in the car, while Totu walked towards us and took Lucia by the arm. She turned to me and speaking quickly in a whisper, told me, “I have to go with Totu, so sit here and wait a while before making your way back home, then walk slowly and try not to go home before an hour. And if anyone asks about me say that we went for water together and then on our way back we met some people and we spoke for a while and then I decided to go with them to the feast, and if they ask you who these people are, tell them you don’t know them.” Lucia spoke so quickly, I hardly understood what she was telling me, except that I would have to walk home alone in the dark. All I could say was, “What about your jug? Won’t they think it’s stupid for you to be going to the feast with a jug of water?”
“Don’t worry about the jug. I’ll leave it here and get it back tomorrow morning.”
I called back, “Tomorrow? You’re only coming back tomorrow morning?”
Totu tried to reassure me. “We’re not sure when we’ll be back. Caterina, just go home and say that you left Lucia at the Funtanella talking with some people from Amato and you don’t know where she is.” He squeezed me on the shoulder, and then touched me gently on the cheek, affectionately, as if he understood my fears. “Maybe we’ll drive her home first.”
Lucia pleaded, “Alfonso can pop up any time. We need at least a couple of hours before they look for us. Caterina is not a baby. She knows her way home.
Totu and Lucia got in the car and drove away, but the car seemed to stop after only a couple of minutes, probably near the cemetery. Alone in the semi-darkness, I sat on a jutting rock and prayed that maybe they would change their minds and return. I waited as I had been instructed and listened for any movement, but all I heard was the sound of crickets coming from the ravine. After what seemed like an eternity, when they had not returned, I started walking slowly towards the village, going over in my head all that Lucia had told me. I was almost halfway to the piazza when I realized that I had also left my own water jug behind. I couldn’t go home without it and tell the story I was supposed to tell. Crying in frustration, I started running fast towards the Timpa. I could hear the first explosions of fireworks from Amato and I cried because there I was, all alone in the dark, far from my house, because of Lucia, while other people were having fun at the feast. Then the jerky vroom-vroom sound of a scooter coming from Amato drowned out all other noises, and, as it neared me, it filled the air with what seemed a crescendo of doom. I wanted to hide, but Alfonso rode by me almost instantly and then stopped. I was shaking with fear.
“Where are you going at this time, alone?” he asked.
I told him I had gone for water and forgotten my jug at the Timpa.
“Didn’t Lucia come with you? Where did she go?”
Before I had time to finish saying what Lucia had told me to say, Alfonso scooped me up, sat me behind the scooter and, in a flash, dropped me at the Timpa. He spotted Lucia’s jug next to mine and, cursing San Francesco and other saints, got back on the scooter, turned his head towards me and yelled, “Wait for me. I know where they’re hiding. I saw the jerk’s car parked on the road.”
I crunched against the side of the mount and, to ease my fright, I closed my eyes and wished I was dreaming. Within a few minutes the scooter again broke the silence. I opened my eyes as a crying Lucia fell on the ground in front of me.
“I’m not coming home,” Lucia screamed as she got up. “I’m running away from this stinking village.”
Alfonso jumped from the scooter, towards us, as if to strike Lucia. Instead, he took my water jug and hit it against a stone, smashing it to pieces. The cold spring water splashing on my legs made me jump.
“This is your last passeggiata to the Funtanella – you have to forget this place once and for all.” He grabbed Lucia by the arm and looked directly in her eyes as he spoke, “You’re going to America and you’re never going to drink this water again. Do you understand? You’re going to America, whether in one piece or not. You won’t say a word about this to anyone, or I’ll smash your head like this.” He released her, pitched the second water jug against the rocks, then took Lucia by the hair and hurled her back on the ground. As he jumped back onto his scooter, he kept on talking. “If the signurinu l’Amatise had any balls, he would have come out of his hiding place. He can’t be far away. I’m going to find him and smash his face to the ground where he belongs.” Then, before taking off, he leaned his face down toward me and said slowly and firmly, “Caterinè, don’t say a word to anyone about this. Make sure the puttana gets back home.”
I felt as shattered as my broken jug, which my grandfather had bought for me at the fair years before. I picked up a couple of shards, as if trying to put the jug back together again. Then I cried uncontrollably.
“I’ll get you a new one,” Lucia said, sobbing.
“Don’t you know we’re both leaving? What will we do with a jug in America?” I wailed.
Lucia kept on sobbing and made no move to walk back home.
“Aren’t we going home?” I pleaded.
“You go. I’ll wait a few more minutes. Maybe Totu will change his mind and come back for me.”
I was too scared to walk alone. “I’ll wait with you,” I said. I felt guilty, as if this were all my fault. Had I not forgotten my jug, I might have made it back to the village on time without being seen, and Lucia and Totu could have eloped.
“What happened to Totu?” I asked. “I don’t understand anything,” she said. “Everything happened so fast. He left.”
The last outbursts of fireworks at Amato filled the skies with a machine-gun succession of shots, and then complete stillness followed. It was only when the first chattering of people walking back home to Mulirena could be heard across the ravine that Lucia got up. “Let’s go before everyone sees us like this. He won’t be coming any more,” she mumbled, and we set off for home, both sobbing.
Half way home, Alfonso came back for us, motioned to his sister to get on the back seat of the scooter. She sat me on her lap. Before setting off, Alfonso yelled, “What a good-for-nothing coward! And you wanted to run away with him?”
When I arrived home without my jug, I had to tell my worried Mother what had happened. She was upset, but mostly at Lucia. “How can she be so fessa? Doesn’t she know by now that he’s been taking her for a ride? Totu will never marry her, or he’d have done something by now. I hope to God she changes her head in the next couple of months, or she’ll be left with nothing.”
The day after, Mother talked about Totu only with Giovanna, and in whispered tones, even though no one else was at the shop. The story Giovanna heard was that, while Mulirena was deserted because of the celebrations in Amato, Totu and Lucia were supposed to spend some time alone at the farm hut that belonged to Totu’s family, on the outskirts of Amato, next to the cemetery. His two friends were to keep Alfonso occupied and drunk at the osteria, so he wouldn’t realize his sister was not home till late into
the night. By that time, after all the revelers in Amato had also gone home, Totu was to drive Lucia to his friend’s home in Amato and spend the night. In the morning the couple and two witnesses would present themselves to the municipal office and ask to be married in a civil ceremony, after which neither side of the family could do anything to stop them from being together again. Even if the civil marriage did not go through, the two had spent the night together and were as good as married in everyone’s eyes. Alfonso would have to deal with Pasquale’s brothers, who would certainly reclaim the scooter and whatever money Pasquale had paid for. Lucia’s honour would be saved by marriage.
No one knew exactly how or why Totu disappeared in the night. Alfonso never said anything to anyone for fear that his sister’s future in-laws would hear about it. Lucia shut herself up in her house and didn’t talk to anyone. Totu didn’t give anyone an explanation either, as he took the first train to Rome without saying goodbye to any of his friends.
“I still don’t understand what kind of fish he is,” Mother said to Giovanna.
After that night, Lucia stopped coming out in the evening with me. She became more quiet and glum, even as she prepared a new wardrobe.
Part IV
The Girls of Piazza D'Amore Page 8