The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  Filomena unexpectedly felt a profound sense of peace descend on her. It had to do with his voice. It was so utterly melodic, even more beautiful than his looks, with such a warm musical quality that she was mesmerized, like sitting before a fireplace and falling into a trance while gazing into the flickering flames.

  “Yes, I’d love to see it,” she said softly. The pleasure that his work gave him was so plain on his face that she found it touching.

  “So that is who I am,” Mario said simply. “What do you think? Would you like to be a part of this family?”

  She nodded shyly. Her thoughts were so intense that she feared they might show on her face. Yes, you are beautiful, and with you, I can make it to the other side of life, where the happy people are. So I will do whatever it takes—marry, make babies, steal, or kill—as long as I can sleep in a good bed, live in a warm house, eat decent food, keep my children safe from the harm of this brutal world.

  He continued in that calm, musical voice, but now there was an added depth to his tone. “Then, if you think you might like to marry me, there is one thing I would like to know before I propose. All I ask is an honest answer. Who are you, really?”

  Filomena suppressed a gasp. Her heart began to beat rapidly in anticipation of fight or flight. She was in trouble, and she knew it. Trouble was the one thing that her past experiences had taught her to instantly know the scent of.

  “You see,” Mario said thoughtfully, “Mama didn’t care what you looked like, but I did. Not that I had to have a beauty; I just needed to see your face, to see your soul. I didn’t tell my mother that I found the matchmaker’s address on her letters, so I wrote and asked for a picture of Rosamaria. I’ve told no one about this. Just you.”

  Calmly he reached into his wallet and pulled out a photo. Filomena saw Rosamaria’s face staring back at her. She was wearing a dress that she’d purchased for the trip, so the matchmaker must have asked for a picture around that same time. In all the excitement, Rosa had failed to tell Filomena that her prospective bridegroom had finally wanted a glimpse of her, after all. Perhaps this was what Rosamaria had meant on that last day when she’d whispered, I have so much to tell you, and they’d gone to Naples and shared a gelato, sitting there on the stone steps of the church.

  For a moment, the pain of remembering the joyful Rosamaria was almost too much to bear. Filomena gulped and sat absolutely still.

  “Are you all right?” Mario asked, looking concerned.

  Filomena’s eyes were bright with tears. “That is my cousin Rosamaria,” she said. “She died before she could come to meet you. I didn’t mean to take her place, but it seemed as if fate insisted upon it.” Taking a deep breath, she told him all about that day near the church, when the bombing of Naples changed everything, and the fateful mix-up of the names—one on a grave, the other on a ticket to America.

  Mario listened closely, in that attentive but unrevealing way of his. Filomena said finally, “Now you know the truth. What will you do with it? Will you expose me to your family? If you want me to go, I’ll go, but please give me time to run away.”

  She had only the barest of contingency plans, because, after the bombing of Naples, when she’d sheltered briefly at the convent as the priest had suggested, she’d assured them that she would be leaving soon for America; and an older nun had given her the name of an employment agency in New York that Filomena might contact if she needed help. If she couldn’t find it, she simply planned to walk uptown and knock on the doors of great houses to offer herself as a servant to anyone who’d take her.

  “I won’t tell anyone about this,” Mario answered. “But I have another question.”

  Filomena waited, still filled with dread.

  “What is your real name?” Mario asked. “I won’t say it to anyone else. It is just something I myself want to know.”

  When she told him, he repeated it with a smile. “Filomena. Yes, that suits you better. But in my family, I will still call you our Rosa. All right?”

  She wasn’t prepared for the way she felt when he said Filomena. He seemed to caress it, with genuine warmth. What a relief, to hear her own name spoken again, even if only this once. She surely should leave well enough alone, but there was something else she had to know.

  “It doesn’t matter to you, whether you marry me or my cousin?” she asked warily. “Why don’t you care about which girl you marry?”

  “I do care,” he said, looking amused. “But when it comes to my mother, it’s best not to fight her, just let her idea run its course. Then, I can make my choice. I suppose I was curious, too, to see a girl who would come across an ocean to meet me. Why would she do such a thing? It sounded like a fairy tale. I thought I must at least meet you. If we didn’t hit it off, well, I could always allow you to be the one to call it off.”

  Filomena comprehended that if she had not appealed to Mario, possibly he would have threatened to reveal the truth about her, unless she agreed to go away.

  “Why does your mother want you to marry so quickly?” she asked.

  Mario sighed deeply. “You and I are so young, but the world is so old. Now the world is having yet another big war. But maybe you and I can gain by this insanity. If it weren’t for the war, my mother might not be in such a hurry to marry me off and let me run my own business. But in wartime, she is superstitious. She thinks the Angel of Death passed her first two sons in this war, so it will surely come for me if I’m not protected. She knows the law better than a lawyer, and she says a man must have a wife dependent on him, and children as soon as possible, to claim an exemption. Well, that’s fine with me. I don’t want to go off and kill people in the country that my ancestors came from. I don’t want to kill anyone. Well, I’d kill Hitler.”

  He added ruefully, “Maybe I’m just a peasant after all. Because I only want to be left alone to do my own work and live my own life. It’s been impossible, being the youngest; everyone wants to tell you how to live. My mother is possessive with us all—you’ve seen that—yet, she thinks I’m different than my brothers, so she watches over me more closely.”

  “Your sister, too, watches over you,” Filomena murmured.

  Mario seemed glad that someone else understood this. “Yes! It’s a good thing that I have only one sister, because Petrina treats me like a pet dog! As for my brothers, they like to boss me around. My father just expects his sons to toe the line. They all have opinions about me, and all of them believe that a son remains a boy, and belongs to his family, and doesn’t become a man—until he takes a wife. So, the sooner the better.” Clearly he was warning her about the possessive family she’d be dealing with; they might be even more difficult than they appeared.

  Perhaps this had discouraged other women. “Have you loved anyone else?” she asked tentatively. She didn’t want to find out later that he was longing for some girl he’d lost.

  “Oh, there were girls I liked in school, but they all seemed to have nothing in their heads except shopping and gossip. My mother would make toast out of all of them,” he said frankly. Then he smiled slyly. “She thinks if she brings over a girl from the old country, this bride will be grateful and intimidated and become her handmaiden. But as soon as I looked at the face of your cousin in the picture she sent me, I saw a woman who could say no to my mother, when necessary. I see it in your face, too. Also, you are not easily fooled.”

  Filomena grasped that he was hoping she’d be an ally, his ticket out as much as she had such hopes for him. Mario said, “The day you arrived, at dinner, I could tell that you see everything. I think perhaps you see it correctly, yet you are kind to everyone. And, I think you have the passion for living. It’s what I want—to be really alive, not just doing what everybody else does. No matter how bad a day is, to wake up the next day still glad to be alive.”

  Filomena gulped. No one had ever credited her with much before. Mario’s tone was seductive now, undeniably hinting at a physical chemistry that was possible between them. She felt a strong pu
ll toward him and hoped that she was not somehow being tricked or deceived.

  “So,” he said, watching the candle on the table flickering, “what is it that you want most of all from marriage?”

  “I want to be safe from harm,” she whispered. “And to never, ever be indebted to someone who could take my children away from me or hurt the ones I love.”

  “Certo! Then, do you think you could be happy if we tried to have a real marriage—not just one of convenience? I think that would be so much better, don’t you? But, is it even possible for you and I, do you think, Filomena?” Mario asked earnestly.

  She was surprised to hear herself say, “Yes, I think that is possible.”

  Mario smiled. “Then, let’s be good to each other, all right? Because with or without the war, life is too short to be miserable. I want to be happy. Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling the first strong, bold surge of hope she’d ever really had.

  Mario signaled the waiter to bring them a small bottle of an anise liqueur called sambuca. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewel box.

  “I worked on this myself,” he said. “For my imaginary girlfriend. Even before my mother started talking about marriage, I thought, There must be someone out there who is looking for me, as I am looking for her. One day I will want to give her this.”

  Filomena’s hands trembled slightly as she opened the box. The ring inside had an antique gold setting, in which nestled three small but beautiful stones, and he told her their names: a blue sapphire, a red ruby, and a yellow diamond.

  “These are the only colors a painter needs,” Mario said. “Let’s paint a life. Will you marry me, Filomena?”

  His hand lay outstretched on the table, and although he was not expecting her to take it, she put her hand in his. “Yes, Mario,” she said. “I will be happy to marry you.”

  * * *

  As soon as the family heard that Mario and his girl had agreed to marry, the household sprang into action, to do in a matter of weeks what normally would have taken months: plan a wedding. Tessa of course took charge, delegating roles to each family member. It was clear that Filomena was expected to simply stay out of the way, still like a servant.

  She didn’t care. It made her nervous to be involved; when they visited a dressmaker to do a fitting for a white dress, Filomena found that being with Tessa, Lucy, and Amie was completely terrifying. New Yorkers seemed to talk so much faster than people did back home, even in Naples. These American women were much more forthright, too; they said whatever they thought, without fear of causing offense. It ought to have been liberating, but Filomena found it overwhelming. Even when the women commented on Filomena’s lovely height and curves, she felt apprehensive, as if under their admiration the “evil eye” of envy might be at work.

  Then, just when Filomena breathed a sigh of relief that things were under control and her role was done, Mario’s big sister stepped in.

  “For God’s sake,” Petrina said to Tessa, “this girl still looks like she just came off the boat. Give me a day with her to make her look like a normal person, all right?”

  Tessa waved a hand in the air, too busy to fully listen. “Do what you want,” she said distractedly.

  “Fine,” Petrina said triumphantly, turning to Filomena. “You, come with me.”

  Petrina had sized up Mario’s girl as one of those compliant creatures that parents and men approved of, and which she, Petrina, would never be. She felt jealous, too, whenever her mother and Filomena commiserated in a version of Italian that was different from the fancy Italian that Petrina had learned in school. Listening closely, Petrina could grasp most of what they were saying, but she noted wistfully that Tessa seemed soothed by her exchanges with Filomena, revealing an almost girlish side that Petrina had never seen in her mother before.

  Filomena was polite and respectful to Petrina; apparently the girl had no idea of the battle that Petrina had waged to change Mario’s mind about this ridiculous wedding. In fact, Petrina had called a conference with Johnny and Frankie about it but got nowhere.

  “Mario’s in love, can’t you tell?” Frankie had said. “Good for him.”

  “Love? We are all too young when we fall in love,” Petrina responded bitterly.

  “It’s not just love. Mario wants to be left alone. But he’s a sly fox,” Johnny explained with a sage nod. “He saw that open rebellion didn’t work for you, Petrina; Pop just sent you away to a tough school. Mario has figured out that the best way to be left alone is to marry this girl that Ma found for him, because Rosa is so grateful that she won’t give him any grief.”

  Petrina had left that meeting in disgust, but she’d fared no better when she confronted Mario directly and he turned unexpectedly vehement.

  “Basta!” he’d exclaimed, his eyes blazing with passion. “I tell you, this is the only girl my age I’ve met who is capable of thinking her own thoughts. Not her mama’s thoughts, not her girlfriend’s thoughts, not some magazine’s ideas. So back off, Petrina, and you’d better be nice to her.” He absolutely meant it, she could tell.

  Petrina could not help being impressed, and wished that her own husband had said exactly that to his family. So she decided that if she couldn’t put a stop to it, she could at least mold this girl into a proper wife for Mario.

  Now, having obtained permission from Tessa to do so, Petrina marched Filomena off into her own automobile, driven by her own chauffeur. “Where are we going?” Filomena asked apprehensively, feeling trapped, as Petrina’s driver steered the car away.

  “Uptown, of course!” Petrina said. “First stop, Bergdorf Goodman’s.”

  Hours later, when they emerged from the department store onto Fifth Avenue in the late afternoon sunlight, Filomena felt as if she’d been kidnapped and sold into some kind of white slavery. Her fingernails and toenails were painted a blood-red. Her face had been scrubbed, polished, and painted, and her lips were the same blood-red. The spa woman had even shaved off the hair on Filomena’s legs, to her acute embarrassment. Apparently American men preferred their women to look like skinned rabbits. Back home, only prostitutes did such a strange thing.

  Meanwhile, the hair on her head had been cut shorter—not as short as Petrina wanted, because Filomena had put her foot down here; so her hair still hung below her shoulders, but now it was shaped so that it swung like a bell, with a deep side part, making a long curtain of hair that fell over one eye.

  “Not bad, she looks like a brunette Veronica Lake,” the hairdresser had told Petrina. At first Filomena thought they were saying that she looked like she’d drowned in a lake, until it was explained to her that they were talking about a movie actress.

  Lightheaded from all the perfumes and spritzes and sprays, Filomena had trailed after Petrina to more dizzying experiences—like boarding a terrifying cage with noisy doors called an “elevator,” piloted by a uniformed person who briskly yanked levers and pressed buttons, to send his passengers rattling up and down a shaft. When the elevators got too crowded, Petrina dragged Filomena over to a moving staircase called an “escalator.” At first, she balked like a mule, refusing to go forward, to the exasperation of everyone behind her. Sternly, Petrina counted aloud, “One, two, three, step!” And Filomena leapt as if her life depended on it.

  From store to store, Petrina supervised the purchase of an extensive wardrobe, right down to the stockings, nightgowns, and silk underwear. She was dressing Filomena the way a little girl dresses a doll, allowing salesladies with their sharply manicured talons to button and unbutton Filomena into and out of various outfits, while Petrina stood back and assessed the effect, accepting or rejecting their offerings with a firm, curt yes or no.

  With each purchase Filomena wondered how they could possibly fit another shopping box into the car. But Petrina’s driver expertly packed the trunk and piloted them through fearsome traffic, then sat behind the wheel impassively waiting throughout each escapade, until Petrina finally declared, �
�One last stop. We’re going for drinks at the Copa.”

  The Copacabana turned out to be a nightclub, outfitted, as Petrina told her, in Brazilian decor, yet inexplicably serving Chinese food. The cocktail crowd was very glamorous: women in furs and men in silk suits, all being very clever and making one another laugh. Petrina waved to various people at bar stools and tables as a waiter led her to a prized booth. She slid into a curved leather seat, pulled Filomena in with her, and tossed their coats on the other side.

  “Two champagne cocktails,” Petrina ordered the waiter.

  Filomena had taken only two cautious sips when a nattily dressed man in a three-piece suit, every hair in place, and with the face of a Roman emperor, entered the room and began an impressive round of hand-shaking, back-patting, and chatting until he reached Petrina’s table.

  “Hello, College Girl! How’s your father?” he asked. He looked to be in his early fifties.

  Petrina smiled enigmatically. “Fine, thank you. This is the girl who’s going to marry my baby brother Mario. Rosamaria, say hello to Mr. Frank Costello.”

  For once, Filomena was glad she’d endured all the beautifying today, because the man gave her a sharp once-over and then said approvingly, “Is that so?”

  “She just came here from Italy,” Petrina added significantly.

  The man’s expression instantly softened, and he addressed himself to Filomena for the first and only time, speaking in Italian. “Ah! I was only a little kid when I came over. There wasn’t much room in steerage, so you know where I slept? In a cooking pot! How ’bout that? Well, congratulations! My regards to Mario.” He turned to Petrina with a nod and said, “Your money is no good here tonight.” He kissed her hand in a debonair way and moved on.

  “Did he say your money was bad?” Filomena asked worryingly.

  Petrina laughed. “It means we drink for free tonight!” Then she whispered, “They say he’s the ‘silent partner’ of the Copacabana! It means he’s a part-owner,” she explained impatiently at Filomena’s baffled attempt to keep up. Really, this girl was like a lost lamb. It brought out Petrina’s protective urge, akin to the way she felt about Mario—that if she didn’t explain the world to these innocent souls, they’d get eaten alive.