Beautiful Secret

by Dana Faletti

  I gathered that Concetta had yet to win her over.

  Giuseppe arrived late to the festa, his fedora in his hands. With naked eyes that were the same shade of unreadable black as his mother’s, he peered straight into me, and I thought I’d lose what little antipasto I’d managed to swallow.

  When he leaned to greet me with what appeared to be a polite kiss, the musky scent of him curled around me, choking me with a wanting I didn’t understand.

  For the rest of the dinner, I hardly spoke but bore my secret desire with a fake smile plastered across cheeks that should have been blistered with shame.

  The only one quieter than me was Giuseppe’s seemingly intangible mother, Nicolina Domani. She hardly said one word to anyone until just before she left with her family around midnight. In a gesture of mystery that suited her as well as the black lace widow’s headpiece she wore over her face, she turned to me and bid me a quiet good night.

  I was too taken aback to speak, so my mother took over, graciously thanking Signora Domani and escorting her and her family out.

  A few weeks later, I ran into her again. My mother had sent me down the mountain to deliver jars of giardiniera to Zia Felicia.

  “Take a change of clothes with you, Maria,” she’d said. “Perhaps you and Concetta can take a trip to the sea this afternoon. It would be a nice little break for the two of you.”

  I’d wasted no time tossing my other pair of underwear and one of Gio’s shirts into a bag with the jars of pickled vegetables.

  On my trek into Valanidi, I found myself wandering past the Domani house, thinking of the way Giuseppe’s eyes had invaded me the night of the engagement festa, how my body temperature had shot through the roof at the feel of his lips on my face.

  “Ciao, Maria,” Giuseppe’s brother Nino called to me, catching me red-handed, my daydreams clutched within my fingers. “How are you, bella?” he asked, kissing each of my cheeks.

  “I’m fine, Nino, and you? How is it at school?”

  “Ah, last year was the end of school for me.” He glanced at his mother through the open door of their groceria. She seemed busy, stacking loaves of bread on wire racks. “Soon, I’ll go to military duty.”

  It was both the responsibility and privilege of every male to serve ten months in the Italian army, and, at the time, this duty could be a death sentence. The second Great War had just ended. Young men everywhere were serving the great state of Italy by clearing countrysides of buried land mines.

  “Nino, get the rest of the cheese. Subito.” Nicolina never glanced up from her stacks of bread but spoke with enough force to send her son running.

  “What are you doing walking alone in the streets, girl?” she asked me. “Come over here.”

  Warily, I did as I was told and stepped into the dim shop, surprised to find myself inside a conversation with Giuseppe’s mother. “I’m delivering some canning to my cousin’s house, signora. Then, we are going to the sea for the day.”

  Nicolina raised her left eyebrow, the corners of her mouth tilting upward as she leaned into the counter. “Your cousin. The fiancée of my Giuseppe?” she asked. Her molten eyes fixed on me, silently demanding an answer.

  “Yes,” I sputtered. “My cousin, Concetta.”

  “And what do you think about my Giuseppe marrying this cousin of yours? Is she not a bit young?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Concetta was two years younger than myself, but it was not uncommon for girls her age to be married.

  “Maybe young is not the word, heh? Maybe childish is a better description, Maria.” She sipped at an espresso I’d only just noticed on the counter. “This Concetta who is always overflowing with giggles and smiles.” My cousin’s name sounded like a sin coming from the old woman’s lips. “Not so much to laugh about lately, Maria. So much war, death, destruction.”

  I tried to focus on the clink of her demitasse as she set it down to keep from lashing out at this miserable woman and the way she spoke of my cousin. Torn between defending Concetta and respecting an elder, I remained silent, digesting the truth of the matter. Concetta was childlike, unconcerned over serious matters such as politics and war, but if her only flaw was a naïveté that made her less cynical than most, then we were blessed with her innocence.

  Without lowering my eyes, the words rolled right off of my tongue.

  “War is not a time for laughter, signora. You are so right. It is a time when we remember what is really important. A time to cherish our families and pray for generations to come. My cousin Concetta is so lucky to be able to find happiness in small things. I, myself, am grateful that she and Giuseppe are giving us reason to smile when so many others are shedding tears for bigger reasons.”

  Nicolina’s lips twisted into a crooked grin, and she saluted me with her espresso before finishing it off. She sighed, bent forward, and took my chin into her dry and wrinkled hand that smelled of coffee and tomato plants. “You’ve never gone to school, Maria?”

  “No, signora. I work on my late father’s farm with my mother and brother.”

  Turning, the old woman placed her demitasse and saucer into a white bin filled with dishes. “Well, you’re a smart girl,” she said.

  She spun to face me again, smiling with yellowed teeth and cheeks that were as wrinkled as a dried fig. “Go enjoy your sea.”

  Later that afternoon, after catching a ride with a family friend we met at the crossroads of Rosala and Valanidi, Concetta and I were finally parked on the beach near Via Marina. As the sun moved across the sky, we enjoyed each other’s company as always. For a little while, I forgot Giuseppe Domani and his strange mother. Concetta caught up on her beauty sleep while I stared in wonder across the flat blue sea and the mountains beyond my reach.

  Freedom tricked me that day. It fell over my shoulders in the soft sea breeze, easing away the angst I’d been living under for some time and gifting me with a false sense of calm.

  If only I’d foreseen the fate that was about to descend upon my days, maybe I’d have been able to escape the man who shackled my future to his.

  But I didn’t see it coming. My innocence cursed me in that I knew nothing of men and their ways. Giuseppe Domani was a man not unlike so many others of his day. He took what he wanted, and although I didn’t know it at the time, what he wanted was me.

  Chapter 4

  Maria

  “Maria.” My mother smiled and took my hands, her black hair pulled tightly into a bun on top of her head. “You look so pretty in that color green. I knew it was perfect for you when I found that fabric at Spinello’s in town. There’s a matching ribbon on the dresser.”

  I went to get the ribbon, feeling as lovely as my mother said I was. It wasn’t often that I got new clothing, let alone an accessory to match.

  The crespelle were fried and sugared. Anise cookies and dried figs were arranged festively on a decorative tray. Our home smelled of grease and sugar—holiday smells. Spirits were high with the excitement of the upcoming family gatherings as we prepared for a visit to Valanidi.

  It was December 5, the feast of the Eve of San Nicola.

  As on all holy days, our celebrations hinged on three aspects of our culture: church, food, and family. Although there was a small Catholic church in Trunca, we always opted to walk into Valanidi for mass. At the top of one winding hill stood the Church of San Nicola, its cracked terra-cotta presence dating back to the eighteenth century, when monks had paced its stone corridors in the silence to which they’d bound their identities. The aura of quiet still existed at San Nicola in the late 1940s, when I was a teenage girl in dire need of tranquil refuge.

  While the world at large cleaned up after a war I didn’t understand, the battle of my emotions continued to rage inside me, and as I climbed the broken stone steps to the church, I couldn’t help but think that another visit to Concetta’s meant another encounter with Giuseppe Domani. Noting each station of the cross that was depicted in apricot-colored rock as I passed it, I clung to my prayers,
asking San Nicola to allay my worries, to be a salve to the poisonous covetousness in my heart. When I reached the courtyard at the top, I paused at the statue of Jesus nailed to a cross. Standing at the feet of my God’s son, I turned to gaze down the mountain where Sicily floated in the distance.

  “Maria,” my mother whispered. “Come.”

  Following Giovanni and my mother into the dim vestibule, I was surrounded by the aromas of fresh flowers and incense. Candles twinkled like stars over the empty crèche of the baby Jesus. It seemed the entire town had come to take in the beauty of this last feast before the Savior’s birth.

  As was the tradition on all saints’ days, villagers slipped into their best shoes and filed into line, waiting to light candles and pray to whichever saint was being honored on that day. A throng of black dresses wove through the crowd—widows who’d lost husbands in the war.

  I noticed Signora Molinaro and her daughter Ilaria lighting two candles and blessing themselves with holy water, probably praying for a husband for Ilaria. And behind them was Signore Costanzo, a man in his thirties whose wife had died of pneumonia a month before, leaving him with four young children to raise. Perhaps he was praying for patience.

  When Nicolina Domani arose from her kneeling position in front of the bay of candles and turned to face the crowd, her little black eyes found me and smiled. She seemed to have known just where I was standing.

  How strange.

  Before I could think to smile back, she crossed herself and looked away.

  As the priest said mass in Latin, I thought about the upcoming season. The feast of San Nicola marked the beginning of the festivities of Natale, Christmas. Near-gluttonous eating and celebrating with family would begin this afternoon and continue through the feast of the Epiphany on January 6. Soon, our family would gather here in this same church at midnight mass on Christmas Eve, after having shared la vigilia di Natale, the amazing seafood feast we had every year on that special night.

  My mouth watered. I could practically taste the braised eel with onions and potatoes that my mother made, my favorite dish.

  Food and family. The other two aspects without which no holiday would be complete. Zia Felicia and Zio Cristo opened their home to us as well as to Zia’s own sisters from Sicily for all holidays. Each year, around their table, we would reminisce. Stories of the past, of those who had gone before us, would be repeated over and over again. These tales were as much a staple of the Christmas meal as was the baccalà, a salted cod stew that steamed with bits of celery and tomato.

  Conversations were comfortably predictable. Food was endless.

  Nothing was ever served in haste or without long hesitation over which spices and herbs would perfectly bring out the flavors of each dish. Fruits were selected by season: peaches and melons whose juices ran down your cheeks for summer, and dried figs and prickly pears that were still sweet during the rainy winter months.

  And the desserts. The struffoli alone were enough for me. Fried dough drizzled with amber honey, superbly paired with a rich coffee, was always the right ending to a heavenly meal.

  The loud growling of my belly made me twitch in the cold pew. I looked around to see that no one else suspected my mind’s ramblings to be on the traditional San Nicola meal rather than the mass. I tried then to listen closely to the priest’s monotone chanting. Even as he uttered the foreign words, I knew I didn’t need to understand Latin in order to feel the power of my religion and its rituals.

  Sit. Stand. Kneel.

  Confess. Atone. Pray.

  The sameness of mass humbled us, forced us to look for God in everything, to need His hand to guide us, even in the smallness of our lives.

  After the service, Father Aldo stood at the door, greeting parishioners on their way out, blessing the children and laying hands on the widows’ shawled shoulders. He knew everyone by name.

  “Ciao, Signora Saccone,” he said loudly.

  “Grazie,” my mother said, taking his hand with both of hers and kissing it respectfully, traditionally.

  This was the way of my people.

  * * *

  “Come, Theresa,” Zia Felicia said to my mother as she took our coats and welcomed us inside her home. “Sorry to have rushed out of church without a greeting, but I wanted to get home to get the meal going. Did I miss anything?”

  “Only Signora Molinaro forcing her Ilaria on all of the mothers with single sons and Signora Fattimo nosing into everyone’s business. Sempre lo stesso.” Same as always.

  We followed Zia into the kitchen, but I didn’t see Concetta anywhere.

  “I’ll bet Signora Fattimo hounded you about finding a husband, Maria.” Zia’s eyes teased me.

  “Of course she did,” my mother commented as she peeked inside the oven at the fresh side of goat, roasting in its juices. “Mmm. Smells delicious, Felicia.”

  “Thanks.” Zia turned to look at me from where she stood at the sink, rinsing vegetables for a salad. “Don’t pay a lick of attention to her, bella. She should mind her business.” Zia laid the lettuce on a towel to dry. “We should start looking for a husband for her. Maybe a man would keep the old bat busy.”

  My mother chimed in. “Better look for a deaf man. No one could stand listening to that woman squawk all day.”

  I laughed with my mother and her sister-in law, but inside I nursed a worry that perhaps I would never marry. What if I became a spinster like my mother’s old aunts, or worse, Signora Fattimo?

  “Zia?” I asked. “What can I do to help?”

  “Well, bella, you could go fill the bottles with wine and water for the table.” She handed me a few empty glass soda bottles. “Concetta went down to Ligura’s for the vodka. I hope they have the peach and melon.”

  As I left the kitchen, I heard my mother ask a question that set flames to my cheeks.

  “Will Concetta’s Giuseppe be joining us?”

  “Oh, he’ll be here, if that old witch of a mother lets him out of her sight.”

  I walked away slowly so as to eavesdrop on as much of their conversation as I could. Once outside, I stood at the back of the house, listening where I wouldn’t be seen.

  “She still will not give her blessing for the marriage, Theresa,” my aunt said. “The wedding is in three months, and I want it to be a joyous occasion for Concetta. I hate that she has to worry about pleasing that miserable shrew.”

  “She’ll come around, I’m sure,” my mother said. “She’s had a rough life.”

  “She’s had quite the break in recent times. Remember how poor they were before they had the groceria?”

  My mother didn’t say anything for a pause, then clucked with what I assumed was recognition.

  “Yes, Felicia. They lived in that little hut—the mother and all of those children.”

  “Do you know the story of how she got the money to fund the store?”

  “No,” my mother said. I could tell that she was uncomfortable with the conversation. She was not a woman known to gossip.

  “Before her husband was killed in North Africa, he supposedly saved the life of one of his fellow soldiers. The soldier’s mother sent Nicolina a sizable amount of money. She used it to build the groceria and extend their house.”

  “How wise of her.”

  My aunt snorted, a bitterness coloring her next words. “How lucky for her, no?”

  “Felicia, remember your blessings,” my mother said simply.

  Hugging the one-liter bottles in my arms, I moved away from the back door. This new layer of Nicolina Domani surprised me, and I found myself championing the woman in my thoughts. Instead of crumbling at the deathbed of her husband, she’d pushed ahead and done what she’d had to for her family.

  Plowing through a tangle of crabgrass and vines, I headed toward the ramshackle wine cellar where Zio kept his homemade brew, a tart crimson wine that bit back with each sip. Rushing back, I placed the bottles on the dining room table, then grabbed four more to fill with water from the fountain that flo
wed freely in the square.

  As the bottles filled beneath my wet fingers and water splashed over my toes, I thought of Concetta, sorry for her to have to marry into a troubled family. I thought of Nicolina Domani and found myself feeling a newfound sympathy toward her as well.

  Although she seemed like a bitter matriarch, she certainly had her reasons. Having lost her husband in battle, she now had to watch her son go off to military duty. Nino would have to search for hidden land mines that were buried in places that seemed worlds away from the village of Valanidi. It was no wonder she often wore such a sour look.

  Nicolina was one of many by-products of a war whose purpose was unfathomable in our part of the world. We were a people who felt content with our land, our farms, our gardens. We had no need for politics or foreign affairs, and most in our parts had not supported Mussolini’s narcissism. Signora Domani most likely felt that her life had been stunted by a war that was over her head and far from her reality.

  “Good evening, bella ragazza.”

  At the sound of his voice, I nearly dropped the slick, wet bottle to the ground. When I turned to face him, he was grinning smugly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He took the bottle from my fumbling and sweaty fingers and kissed my cheeks in greeting.

  “Buona sera, Giuseppe.” I managed to get the words out, my eyes fixed on the cracked pavement below. “I was just heading back to the house.”

  “Ah, me too, Maria, but the air is so nice out here. Don’t you think?”

  I watched as his black eyes danced over every inch of my body. I should have voiced my offense at the lewdness in his stare, but I didn’t. I was too caught up in the picture of him in a crisp white button-down shirt that was open at the top, revealing the shiny olive skin of his sweat-shimmered neck and chest. Also, I have to admit, a part of me liked the feel of his eyes all over me.