The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  “Mario wanted to be a priest!” Gemma burst out, unable any longer to bear the silent suspense in the hush that had fallen over the family.

  Mario murmured, “Ah, that was Mama’s idea, but it didn’t last long.”

  The others chuckled, released from the spell, and soon everyone resumed their relaxed chatter as the maid came in bearing a tray of antipasto, which was composed of olives and finely-roasted vegetables served in beautiful flowered bowls, and prosciutto wrapped around pieces of melon. There were murmurs that the war was affecting what food was available in the market this week, but Filomena was awed by the plentiful meal. Moreover, she could see that beneath this innocuous talk, the adults often glanced at Gianni and Tessa, as if already trying to gauge what the verdict would be, but the parents’ faces remained inscrutable.

  From the head of the table, Gianni said the prayer of grace over the meal. Then the family ate, passing bowls of food to one another with the ease of much practice. The adults had a refined, unhurried attitude at table, and the children were astonishingly obedient and quiet as they ate. The grown-ups spoke of the weather, the war, the neighbors.

  Mario said very little. Sometimes when Filomena looked up she caught him watching her, but he did not look away guiltily, he only nodded politely and smiled.

  They had finished the antipasto and were just beginning to eat the pasta course of ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and delicate herbs when the eldest child of Tessa and Gianni entered the house.

  “Ah,” said Gianni with a trace of annoyance, “the fourth Marie arrives at last. This is my eldest child, mia figlia Petrina Maria, and her daughter, Pippa.”

  Filomena instantly admired Petrina—a tall, slim, long-legged woman in her early thirties, wearing an expensive, fitted red dress and extraordinarily high-heeled shoes. Her hair, well styled, was especially beautiful, with many shades of brown that had hints of other hues—caramel, burgundy, plum—perfectly dazzling when she turned her head and caught the light. Her skin was a delicate pale pink. She had the effect of a stunningly attractive celebrity, like an actress. Lucy and Amie took in all of Petrina’s fashion choices like students memorizing a lesson, as Petrina proudly and a bit defiantly slid into one of the empty chairs.

  Her daughter, Pippa, took the chair next to Petrina with the same proud, regal expression. “Good evening, Grandmother and Grandfather,” Pippa said with impressive natural ease. She was a tall, slender girl of eleven, with similar features to her mother’s, and a long, dark ponytail. Pippa was too old to play with the other children but too young to chat with the adults. There was something touching, almost painful, in her reserve. Filomena instantly felt sympathy for her.

  “Is that a flower on your arm?” Gemma asked her cousin, awed.

  “It’s a wrist corsage with a real rose on it. See? Elastic. Here, you can have it,” Pippa answered generously, slipping it off and looping it onto her younger cousin.

  “Traffic was terrible after we left Westchester,” Petrina murmured as her one and only concession to being late. “Richard’s away for the whole weekend, in Boston, on business. Give me some wine, Mario,” she added with sudden and surprising authority.

  Mario rose easily, with an indulgent smile, carrying the carafe of red wine that had been placed on the table before him and his father. He poured Petrina a glass, then deposited the carafe on the table near her, returning to his seat without saying a word the entire time.

  Petrina seemed indifferent to her other brothers, but she gave Mario a smile of gratitude. Filomena was still admiring the movie-star quality that clung to this woman, but then Petrina looked directly at her with a fierce expression, as if she’d registered some grim thought that made her delicately beautiful face harden, revealing feelings even more antagonistic than Tessa’s.

  Uf! Filomena thought. This woman truly hates the very idea of me; this, she decided even before she laid eyes on me, even before my feet set foot upon this country’s earth. Filomena glanced away, and once again caught Mario’s eye.

  Ever so slightly, Mario gave the smallest of shrugs and shook his head, as if to say quite plainly about his sister’s attitude, This does not matter.

  The father, Gianni, spoke in a low murmur to the children as the main course was served—delicate veal cutlets with a finely-made mushroom sauce. Gianni had the attitude of a king who reigns over his subjects with a certain quality of emotional detachment.

  “Our guest, Rosa, comes to us from Italy, a great and beautiful old country,” Tessa interjected, as if instructing her grandchildren on a history lesson. They sat up straight and listened dutifully as she continued in Italian and English. “In Italy, all the sons and daughters understand that nothing matters more than loyalty to one’s family. Fedeltà alla famiglia.”

  From the reactions Filomena could see that this remark was meant to welcome her and yet, at the same time, to chide Petrina for arriving late, judging by Petrina’s sudden scowl.

  And then, one by one, each of Tessa’s family members seemed to know exactly when a particular comment of Tessa’s was meant for them. The men bowed their heads as if in church when she spoke to them; the women looked resigned. So when Tessa mentioned a neighbor who gossiped too much, Filomena noticed that Amie blushed; when Tessa said that only a wife who was a good cook could create a happy household, it was Lucy’s turn to look uncomfortable; when Tessa expounded on the need for discipline with children, the eldest son, Johnny, shushed his sons; and when Tessa said that the measure of a man was his ability to rule over his own temper, Frankie looked away impatiently.

  The only one whom Tessa did not chide was Mario. When he spoke, she listened closely, with narrowed eyes, but Mario said very little. He seemed to know how to achieve something unusual in large families—how to preserve his own privacy.

  Just as the meal was ending with bowls of fresh fruit and nuts, the telephone rang and the maid came and whispered in the father’s ear. A sudden irritated look passed over Gianni’s face as he excused himself. Tessa registered this with a brief, hardened expression. The others seemed unaffected, and Gianni returned with a smile and a nod.

  After the children had eaten sweet little pastries for dessert, Petrina said, “Well, Pippa and I have a long drive ahead. We must go now.”

  For a moment, as she rose to leave, she seemed to teeter perilously on those extravagant high heels, which gave Filomena an unexpected sense of pity for her, because it made Petrina seem vulnerable, despite her hauteur, like someone walking on a tightrope over a dangerous chasm.

  “Mario, walk me out,” Petrina said, and he obligingly followed her. Gianni rose, too, but went into the parlor, and this seemed a signal, for the others got up and stretched, and the children began to chatter again, as they all filed into the parlor. Under this chatter, as Petrina slipped into a sable coat, Filomena distinctly heard her hiss to Mario, “You can’t be serious! Why do you let Mama and her ideas go this far?”

  “Nothing has been decided,” Mario said quietly. They’d moved into the vestibule, so Filomena could no longer hear them. Petrina seized on this moment alone with Mario.

  “What’s this I hear about you going to gemology school?” Petrina demanded.

  “Yes, it’s done. I’ll have my certificate by next week. Pop wouldn’t pay to send me to college. He wanted me to study a trade instead. It’s good. I like working with gems. They’re beautiful,” Mario explained, looking genuinely happy.

  “But you should go to college, like Richard and I did!” Petrina exclaimed. “You could study to be someone important. A doctor or a lawyer or a financier.”

  “I don’t like any of those businesses,” Mario answered reasonably. “And I can’t see that college has made you or Richard any happier.”

  Petrina was momentarily taken aback, then said, “We’ll talk about this again.” Mario only kissed her cheek and opened the front door to let her and Pippa out.

  The others were already settled in the parlor, chattering wit
h contentment, looking up only when the front door closed behind Petrina. Amie turned to Lucy and said quietly, “Petrina drinks too much,” and Lucy answered rather tartly, “She’ll get home all right. Her chauffeur’s been sitting out there in the car the whole time, waiting for her.”

  Filomena stood there uncertainly. She only wanted to go back to her little room and sleep again. But rather unexpectedly, Tessa took her by the arm and steered her down a back hallway and outdoors into the small backyard, whose garden was rimmed by a stone wall. In the center was a patio, with the fountain that gurgled meditatively.

  Tessa did not waste time. “Why did your parents allow you to go away?” she asked, staring at Filomena intently, as if daring her to lie. Filomena had a bad moment of wondering if Rosamaria or the matchmaker had already provided Tessa with this information, and perhaps the lady was just testing her for her honesty. Tessa spoke in Italian exactly as Rosamaria did, which made sense, for they both came from the same town. Filomena had always been able to mimic Rosamaria’s inflections and speech, so she’d been doing just that today.

  She framed her answer carefully. “My parents let me come here because of the war. These days, Italy cannot offer me the better life that they hope I can find in America.”

  Tessa’s expression was inscrutable. “The good life does not come without a price. When times are bad, will you cry and want to run back home to your parents? You can’t. They all think the streets are paved in gold here, so they’ll only pick your pockets. I won’t allow that. If you want to marry my son, you must leave the old country behind, never look back.”

  Clearly Tessa was protecting her family’s wealth from being siphoned off by a daughter-in-law’s greedy relatives. Well, Filomena would show her just how unsentimental she could be. She couldn’t afford to let herself even think or feel any longing for her lost family; if she opened that door in her heart, she might never be able to close it again, and it could imperil her very survival. “I will never go back,” she said flatly. “I will never even look back.”

  “Yes. That is the fate of we women from Italy. What do you think of these American women?” Tessa inquired, clearly referring to her daughter and her daughters-in-law.

  This could be another trap. Filomena thought quickly. “All wives share the same destiny, no matter where they live.” She herself wasn’t even sure what she meant by this.

  But it brought a small smile to Tessa’s face. “American women are too independent,” Tessa declared. “My daughter, Petrina, wants to stay young and glamorous forever, because she believes this is the source of a woman’s power, but if you live only for a man’s admiration, you will forever be a slave. As for the girls who married my sons—that Lucy is too hardheaded; she refuses to give up her job at the hospital where she bosses her assistants around, so when she comes home she still thinks she ought to be in charge, and she argues with her husband. Whereas the other one, Amie, rules by weakness. Men always feel that they must defend her, but she doesn’t need their protection half so much as they imagine. Either way, my two sons work hard to make their wives happy. It should be the other way around. Capisci?”

  In a flash, Filomena understood what was underneath all this. Tessa’s sons were accustomed to obeying their formidable mother, so, ironically, they were susceptible to their wives in a way that Tessa found threatening to her own authority. That was no doubt why she’d sent for a nice, obedient girl from the old country. To ensure control over Mario.

  “Si, si,” Filomena murmured, lowering her lashes in a show of modesty and deference.

  Tessa observed this silently, then moved on.

  “And Mario?” she asked. “Does he please you?”

  Filomena could not suppress a genuine smile, allowing herself to reveal her own true feelings of admiration for what she had seen of Mario so far. “It would be an honor to be with him,” she said, careful not to use the word wife yet.

  “And babies?” Tessa prompted. “These days, with the war, we can take nothing for granted. There is no time to wait. If you want babies, you must have them right away. Do you?” she asked, peering sharply into Filomena’s face.

  “Yes,” Filomena said, slightly embarrassed. She could see that there would be no half measures with this destiny, once embraced.

  Tessa nodded in approval. She put a hand under a blood-red rose from a tall climbing shrub that was still blooming even as autumn approached.

  “Children are like flowers in a garden,” Tessa said in a surprisingly hard voice, considering what she was saying. “They need constant attention and care. As do husbands. I hope, Rosamaria, that you are capable of that.”

  Filomena said nothing. This petite lady’s grip on her arm was remarkably strong, and she wished that Tessa would let go of her now. But it was a signal that Tessa intended to keep her close. She wants to get the smell of me, Filomena thought. This is a woman who operates on her instincts, and she behaves as if they have never failed her.

  “You must go to bed now,” Tessa said abruptly. “Travel can weaken a woman, and a woman must stay strong.”

  Filomena, who felt like a horse that had just had its legs and teeth checked, was only too glad to finally go back up the staircase and into her room.

  But that night she lay awake for some time, unable to sleep. Perhaps it was the food; she was not accustomed to having that much to eat at one sitting. It wasn’t that this family over-indulged; they ate slowly, carefully, small portions of many things. But Filomena hadn’t realized, until now, that she had been underfed for years.

  She turned over in bed and sighed. A scary mother, gossipy wives, a bossy older sister. If I’m going to survive here, I’ve got to marry this boy as soon as possible, she thought.

  Rosamaria would have said the same thing.

  10

  New York City, Autumn 1943

  Not long after the conversation in the garden with Tessa, Filomena found herself being courted by Mario. It was the oddest thing Filomena could have imagined, because she was living under his parents’ roof, in the servants’ section, yet each time Mario took her out, he behaved as if he were picking her up at a king’s castle.

  At first, they only went for a decorous stroll in the park, then a cup of coffee at a local café, and then a movie. As innocent as these excursions were, Filomena found them profoundly shocking, because the young couple was permitted to be alone. In the villages of the old country, there would have been a flock of vigilant aunts accompanying them, and behind the aunts, the watchful uncles.

  But even more surprising was that, unlike most men, Mario asked her opinion on everything—from small things like what foods she liked and what movie she wanted to see, to larger issues, like the war. Moreover, he listened without interrupting. They spoke in a combination of Italian and English as he helped her learn the local language better.

  Mario’s courtship went on every night for two weeks, at the end of which, on a Saturday night, they had dinner in a very fine restaurant, at a candlelit corner table.

  “Buonasera, Mario!” the proprietor greeted them in person, immediately ushering them to a prime spot with the utmost privacy. The waiters were in strict but unobtrusive attendance.

  Filomena noticed this great show of respect, then caught Mario observing her.

  “My father is a part-owner of this place,” he said briefly.

  Alone in their private corner, he spoke to her in a low, pleasant voice. He acted like a man who was expected to explain his own reliable prospects to a princess. “My family has done well in this great country,” he said in a modest tone. “We have many businesses that will not only support all of us but our children, and our children’s children.”

  “Your father is a great—” She searched for the English word and said, “Boss, si?”

  But apparently this word meant something more to him, for Mario’s expression darkened. He said, “No, not a Boss. I can’t discuss everything my family does; it’s really their business, not mine. But I can tell y
ou what we don’t do: we don’t shake down the unions, or rig bids for building jobs, or ask for kickbacks from anybody; we don’t extort ‘protection’ or tribute from neighbors, partners, tenants, and shopkeepers; we don’t have anything to do with narcotics or prostitution; we don’t fix elections or ball games, or rob trucks or break heads or break legs. We do invest in bars, shops, and restaurants as silent partners; we loan money, take bets, own buildings, and collect rent.”

  He’d spoken in his usual mixture of English and Italian, and, although Filomena wasn’t sure of all the American expressions, she understood the tone and tenor. He seemed to be both defending his family and yet distancing himself from them at the same time, which left an obvious question.

  “But—what do you yourself do, exactly?” she asked tentatively.

  Mario glanced away and was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, “I worked for my father and brothers for a while. But then I told them I wanted to go out on my own, be independent. Papa is old-fashioned, but finally he made some suggestions for having my own business; I didn’t like any of them, except the jewelry trade.”

  Filomena said, “Ah! This work makes you happy, è vero?”

  He looked up appreciatively, as if no one had ever really asked him this. “Yes! I like working with stones.” He raised his hands in a carving motion, as if shaping something. “It’s like catching stars as they fall to earth. But one must truly have ‘the touch’ to discover where the firelight resides in a gem, like a beating heart, a dancing flame; you don’t want to cut the heart and fire out of it. This is something I can do well, where I won’t have to answer to Papa, Mama, or anyone else. I’m opening my own shop; it’s being fixed up already. Soon I’ll be able to show it to you, if you like.”