The Gulf Between

by Maxine Alterio

  ‘Sometimes honesty comes at too high a cost.’

  ‘What about the person keeping the secret?’

  She put her cup down on the table and rubbed the mole above her upper lip. ‘There are good reasons to keep quiet in this city.’

  ‘I feel responsible for the mess my family’s in. Ben didn’t want to come. I should have listened to him.’

  ‘We have a saying,’ Ilaria said. ‘Nu sputà ‘ncielo ca ‘nfaccia te torna. In English, “Don’t spit in the sky, it will fall on your face.”’

  40

  While emptying biscuit crumbs from Matteo’s satchel, which he’d looped over the knob of a kitchen chair, I found a note stuffed into a side pocket. A grownup is taking photographs of a child. What on earth did he mean? Was he referring to Ernesto’s photography? Or had the schoolmaster instructed him and his classmates to write a composition that included ‘grownup’, ‘photograph’ and ‘child’? Was it a coincidence that the master had chosen these particular words, or had he deliberately drawn the boys’ attention to the liberties unscrupulous males might take with their sisters?

  I ran upstairs and bowled into Matteo’s room. He rolled off his bed. ‘I have homework to do.’

  ‘What’s going on, Mattie? Tell me. Please.’

  ‘Ask him.’

  ‘Who? Matteo, who?’

  He picked up a model plane from his desk and hurled it out an open window. Why destroy what had taken him and Roberto hours of painstaking work to complete? Then I thought of Ben and me wrecking a marriage we once considered precious. ‘Mattie, talk to me.’

  ‘Get out of my room!’ he yelled.

  ‘This insolence has to cease,’ I said. ‘Apologise. Right now!’

  He reached for his model with the shark’s mouth and teeth on the cone. Not wanting it to go the same way as the previous one, I said, ‘Consider what I’ve said, Matteo. Papa won’t be impressed.’

  My next stop, the sickroom. No longer able to move from bed to commode, Alessia lay supine as Rosa slid a pan under her buttocks, approaching the duty as if she were attending to kitchen rubbish. Contain and dispose.

  ‘I’ll come back shortly,’ I said, leaving Rosa to finish the task and air the room.

  After checking on Francesca, who was feeding her lizards, I returned to Alessia with a jar of ointment. ‘Time for a rub.’ I freed the sheet and lifted her feet onto a towel.

  ‘Matteo was shouting before,’ she said. ‘Were you upsetting him?’

  ‘We’re both tired.’

  ‘You English lack grit.’

  I ignored her remark and massaged blobs of ointment into the cracked skin on her right heel while she strummed her fingers on the leather cover of her Bible. The priest was due the next day to hear her confession. I had almost finished when she turned her head towards the window and, seeing the reddening sky, uttered a plaintive moan.

  ‘Are you in pain, Alessia?’

  ‘When the sun turns fiery, trouble isn’t far behind. I’ll be gone soon.’

  A band of apprehension tightened across my forehead. ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘It’s harder to breathe and I have a stabbing pain in my chest.’

  With Ernesto away, I had to take charge. ‘I’ll phone the doctor first thing. He’ll see to you.’ I gave her the night-time medication, including a pill for pain, checked that the bell and basin were within reach and bade her goodnight.

  ‘All you can do is keep her comfortable,’ the doctor said as he opened the passenger door of his car and put his bag on the seat. ‘The airways feeding her air sacs have virtually collapsed.’

  Twelve hours on, Alessia shivered from the chills and her skin felt clammy to touch. Our eyes met as I tucked the bedcover around her shoulders: hers crater-like, mine registering concern. I rang the doctor again. That afternoon he and Alessia agreed to let nature take its course. ‘Pneumonia is the old person’s friend,’ she told me, sounding grateful that her ordeal was almost over. ‘It’s not the worst way to go.’

  As the hours ticked on, she looked less human, more otherworldly. I hoped she would relent and speak to Ben, explain why she had failed to bond with him, but she remained close-lipped.

  At daybreak, Ernesto reappeared, his face crumpling as he absorbed his mother’s pitiful state. ‘She wasn’t this bad when I left,’ he said to me. ‘What in God’s name have you done? She can’t die.’

  Alessia’s imminent fate descended on us like a thick mist as we went about our chores. Carlo drove Rosa to the market, while Ernesto sent Ben to attend to a matter in Salerno. As Ernesto prayed in the drawing room, I pulled aside Alessia’s lace curtains so she could gaze at the church steeples, tiled roofs, brass domes.

  ‘I can hear the waves breaking on Roman walls,’ she said.

  This was impossible. ‘You’re a little muddled, Alessia, not yourself.’

  She bit down on her bottom lip, drew blood. ‘The sea is roaring through me.’ Her head slumped to one side. ‘I can’t see the shore.’

  I touched her lightly on the arm. ‘It’s close.’

  ‘Keep him away.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He wants what he ought not have.’

  ‘Who? What?’

  ‘Run to higher ground!’

  She plucked at the lace on her nightgown. I nestled her head into the crook of my arm and washed her face. As I supported her emaciated body she rambled on about waves higher than the Apennine Mountains, complained of salt burning her skin. Her breath smelt of rotting compost. ‘Alessia, please make things right between you and Ben before it’s too late.’

  A single tear trickled down the side of her face.

  41

  Alessia drew on her diminishing reserves to prepare Ernesto for her death, telling him to watch for jackals during the mourning period, to keep his wits about him, to stay strong. And in my presence she said to him, ‘Quit hassling Benito. He’s not as robust as us.’

  ‘I have his measure.’

  ‘Never forget he’s a Moretti. Sergio’s blood runs through him.’

  A vein in Ernesto’s neck pulsed wildly. Unless she was dousing him with praise, he couldn’t settle. If she drifted off mid-sentence, he showered her with endearments until she rallied and concentrated on him. Whenever she mentioned Ben, jealousy devoured Ernesto as relentlessly as the pneumonia consumed Alessia. I believed he wanted her to die with his name on her lips, for he rarely left her side, unlike Ben, who grabbed his bathers and escaped several hours a day to swim in the sea.

  That’s where he was when Alphonse dropped off a crate of fresh fish. He and I chatted in the kitchen as we prepared the bounty for Rosa, who was with Alessia. ‘Have you seen my husband in the bay?’ I asked.

  Alphonse said, ‘He swims like a machine.’

  ‘I worry he’ll get cramps. He’s stays in the water far too long.’

  Alphonse adjusted the work-belt around his large stomach. ‘We fishermen watch out for him. He earned our respect when he risked his life on our behalf.’

  Ben hadn’t mentioned anything of this to me. ‘What did he do?’

  Alphonse took a knife from his belt and started filleting the pezzogna. ‘After the Germans destroyed my boat,’ he said with a slur of resentment, ‘Benito scoured miles of rugged coastline for a replacement. He found a dilapidated dinghy in a cove. Under the cover of darkness and avoiding patrol boats, he rowed her to me with a single battered oar and a length of driftwood, stuffing his shirt and shorts into holes and bailing out water with his shoes. I had one of my chaps hide Benito’s gift under tarpaulins in a disused garage.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Those of us past conscription age fixed her up, and a cousin and I took her out weekly at the witching hour with no lights. Due to Benito’s bravery our families sometimes had fish in their bellies.’ Alphonse ran his knife down the spine of a bass, exposing a rack of spiky bones. ‘I never forget a debt or a favour. Your husband is in credit.’

  ‘Ben’s reluctant to speak of those years.’

 
‘They’re best forgotten,’ the fisherman said, wiping a thread of innards along the blade and flicking the gunk into the sink. ‘This generation has it easy. Not that they appreciate it. I have a grandson who carries a comb in his shirt pocket.’

  The fish stacked in the icebox, I scrubbed the crate and filled it with cans of Moretti olive oil as per Rosa’s instructions. From the front steps I watched Alphonse heave the load into the tray of his pickup. I waved goodbye, hoping he and his men would go to Ben’s aid if foolish thoughts lured him beyond the breakers, beyond what he was capable of surviving.

  An hour and a half passed before his car pulled up. I left Francesca and Matteo with Rosa in the kitchen finishing their homework — Ernesto was tending to Alessia — and followed him upstairs on the pretext of collecting a clean apron. He showed no signs of prickliness as he changed his clothes, so I said, ‘Come for a short walk with me, Ben.’

  ‘If you promise not to nag.’

  In the lower garden, we talked about the middle- and upper-class Cuban refugees who were fleeing the revolution to Florida. Their plight was on the radio and dominated the newspapers. Ben’s hair smelled of the sea. I was about to ask if he wanted to use my scented shampoo when he said, ‘Most people have a single chance to escape. I doubt I can pull it off again, Julia. Everything’s caving in.’

  ‘Your mother is in her last days. We can be gone in a week.’

  He ran a finger down my bare arm. ‘I don’t think I can leave.’

  ‘You’ve given Alessia more than she deserved.’

  ‘What has she given me?’ he said flatly.

  ‘Life,’ I said.

  That evening I sat with Alessia as she flexed her legs under the bedcover and clawed the air with pincer-like fingers. Her eyelids quivered as she scanned the candlelit room. Her mouth fell open, revealing white patches of a cottage-cheese consistency on her tongue. A bay tree brushing against the railings of the terrace added to the garden scents wafting through the open window. In the distance, a locomotive rumbled along iron tracks. ‘What can I get you?’ I said, thinking of her rosary beads.

  She gripped my hand. ‘Benito.’ Her voice bubbled with feeling.

  I rose from my chair to fetch him. ‘Honesty is best.’

  ‘No,’ she said, rubbing her head back and forth on the pillow. Wisps of hair stuck out as if electrified. ‘Thank him for coming.’

  ‘Is that all you want to say?’

  Her eyelids rolled down like blinds. I wiped the perspiration from her brow. Her eyes slid open again. I was still on my feet beside her. ‘Bury me with him,’ she whispered.

  ‘Who? Ben?’

  ‘No. Sergio.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I loved him.’

  I couldn’t reconcile her wishing to lie forever with the man who had abused her yet not making peace with their youngest son. ‘I don’t understand. Sergio mistreated you.’

  She fingered her wedding band and coasted into a deep sleep.

  I was puzzling over her request when Rosa brought me a coffee. She sank into a nearby chair. I repeated Alessia’s burial wishes. Rosa flipped her apron up and down, a mannerism she displayed when uncomfortable. I said, ‘She loved her husband more than she hated him. Why?’

  Rosa leaned over to check her employer was fully asleep. ‘Sergio,’ she said, ‘he had the morals of a sewer rat and the charm of a snake-handler.’

  ‘You know he forced her.’ I shuddered. ‘Were many women raped during the war?’

  Eyes fixed on her shoes, Rosa said, ‘The Germans, they conscripted our able-bodied men and shipped them off to fight in Russia. Most of our older chaps they sent to the labour camps. There was hardly anyone left to protect us. Terror everywhere. The soldiers, they didn’t stop at girls and young women.’

  ‘They didn’t touch her, though.’

  There was more agitation with the apron and hand-rolling. ‘Signora Moretti, she belonged to Sergio.’

  Even if Alessia had wanted to flee, she had no safe place to go. Circumstance, as much as choice, kept her with him. A drunken power-fuelled act had ruined what might have been for her a half-decent marriage.

  Rosa lowered her cup into its saucer. ‘The soldiers, they curdled the breast milk of mothers and ruined the lives of many, young and old.’

  I recalled Ilaria telling me that before the local men came home, hordes of charlatans fleeced desperate females of money they could ill afford to lose. ‘Rosa, I heard of a doctor who claimed that for a hundred thousand lire he could turn those who had been violated back into virgins with a simple surgical procedure.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, screwing up her nose. ‘He had rooms on the waterfront. The swine, he promised brides-to-be that their vigorous new husbands would take three days to batter through their restored hymens.’ She sniffed in disgust. ‘After this work dried up he moved to Milano.’ She spread her arms to indicate the distance.

  ‘Sergio died brutally. Do you know who was responsible?’

  She zipped a finger across her mouth.

  I said, ‘Refusing to love Ben was a step too far.’

  Rosa didn’t disagree.

  ‘The lawyer who came to see Alessia a fortnight ago,’ I said, ‘while Ernesto, Ben and Carlo were in Foggia. Do you know why he was here?’ Alessia had asked Rosa to phone him, which meant she didn’t trust me to the same degree. She also insisted on seeing him alone.

  Rosa smiled broadly, as if she knew the ins-and-outs of my thoughts. ‘Signora Moretti, she fixes her place in heaven.’

  Wiggin used to say that overly agreeable people had the most to hide. Was this the case with Rosa?

  ‘Will anyone come to the funeral?’ I asked.

  ‘Hundreds,’ Rosa said. ‘Ernesto, he will see to it.’

  Of course, he would hire the ‘Rome uncles’ Alphonse’s family had mentioned. ‘You could be right.’

  As we drank the last of our coffee, Ernesto came in and said, ‘I’ve phoned the priest. He’s coming to administer the Last Rites.’

  Alessia opened her eyes after he left the room and beckoned me forward. ‘Forgive him, Julia. Behind all the bluster he’s a terrified child.’

  To prepare her soul for death the priest absolved her sins by penance then recited the sacramental grace and prayers to relieve her suffering as he anointed her. Lastly he administered the Viaticum.

  Alessia slipped in and out of consciousness. Rosa and I barely slept. If we weren’t with her, we were keeping Francesca occupied. Ernesto and Ben fell to pieces in different ways: Ernesto raged, Ben went silent. Throughout our vigil, Matteo trained for a city football match. Carlo drove him to practices. ‘Matteo can outrun the sirocco,’ he said after watching him perform. ‘He is the God of Wings.’

  42

  Alessia’s eye sockets sank further into her skull, accentuating a solid slab of brow. Ernesto, Rosa and I took turns at the bedside. The priest became a permanent fixture. I couldn’t contact Ilaria. If I had been free to talk to her, she might have persuaded me to handle matters differently.

  Left to my own devices I decided that Ben had the right to know the circumstances of his conception, and if his mother wouldn’t tell him then I would. So late Saturday afternoon I persuaded him to come for a walk and asked Rosa to let Francesca stuff eggplants with her in the kitchen. Matteo was at football practice. Ernesto had said he’d collect him on the way home from a meeting.

  My timing wasn’t ideal. At daybreak, Ernesto had sent Ben to Sorrento to smooth out a misunderstanding over a deal that had gone sour. We argued on his return about Francesca enticing a stray dog onto the property with the mincemeat Rosa had set aside to make rissoles. He said she was wasteful. I said she was humane. Neither of us gave an inch.

  He was waiting for me on the front steps, smoking. We gave each other a curt nod and set off. ‘What happened in Sorrento?’ I said, making conversation.

  He strode down the drive, creating a gravel storm in his wake. ‘None of your business, Julia.’

 
‘Don’t speak to me like that.’

  ‘I don’t want to row.’ He pressed a hand to his forehead. ‘Let it go.’

  But I couldn’t drop it. I ducked in front of him. In my haste, I stumbled and grabbed his arm to regain my balance. He gave me a cold, hard stare.

  ‘Don’t ignore me,’ I said. ‘I want answers.’

  He said, ‘I can’t take much more.’

  In this argumentative state, we entered the shady grounds of the Villa Floridiana, a museum for ceramics. We’d brought the children here several times. On our first excursion, Francesca and Matteo had played hide-and-seek beneath the towering oaks and pines, and spied on adolescent girls mooching about and daring lads sneaking a kiss. But this was not one of those happy occasions.

  ‘It’s a shame we didn’t landscape our marriage as well as the designer who set out this park,’ I said, slipping unintentionally into past tense. ‘I tried to fit in, Ben, do my best for everyone.’

  He shoved both hands in his trouser pockets. ‘We can’t leave after she dies and the funeral’s over. I’m up to my neck in a matter that’s bound to drag on.’

  More excuses. ‘I’m not staying a minute longer than necessary.’ If I loathed London without Muz and Wiggin, I’d just have to put up with it.

  ‘Ernesto set up a situation involving influential families.’

  ‘Ben, I have something important to tell you.’

  ‘Have you not heard a word of what I’ve been saying?’

  I stuck two fingers in my mouth.

  He grabbed my wrist, almost yanking it out of its socket. ‘Don’t push me into something I’ll regret, Julia!’ His eyes resembled those of a spooked horse.

  Concerned for my safety, I twisted free and ducked behind a bench. He cleared it in a single leap, landing squarely in front of me, pressed his forearm against my windpipe. I edged backwards, elbows bent, hands clenched, screaming, verging on hysterical. ‘Stop it,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘or we’re done.’ Unsure what he meant and wanting to hurt him, I unleashed Alessia’s secret as an accusation.

  ‘She was raped?’ he said, shaking me as if I were the rapist. ‘I’m a bastard?’