by Liska Jacobs
“Should we wait for him?” Paul asks. Sunscreen streaks his stubble.
“Papa, your face,” Hannah says, trying to wipe it.
Marie raises her hands. “He says not to.”
In the cave Paul and Tonio marvel at the decaying frescoes, telling anyone who will listen about Turk invasions and Saracen slaughters—eight hundred, nine hundred, one thousand years ago.
The cove on the other side is completely untouched. We have the white sands and turquoise water to ourselves. The bleached rocky cliffs on either side shield us from the wind.
“Cosi bella!” Marie exclaims, removing her caftan and digging her feet into the hot sand.
Hannah is trying to talk to Donato, who has finally caught up.
She purses her lips, saying loudly, “Did you know this is a local cliff-jumping spot?” She points to a rocky outcrop. “Matteo’s dad says he and his friends used to jump from there.”
“Mio dio, no,” Marie says. “That is ten, twelve meters!”
Matteo’s dad is playing in the sand with his son, and says something to Marie that makes her laugh and swat his arm. This, I think, upsets Donato more than anything. He stalks off, toward the caves.
My niece watches him until he’s disappeared. “I’m going swimming,” she says, stepping out of her shorts. She wants Matteo’s dad to show her where to walk in.
“I’ll come too,” Paul says, following them out. He is pale where his shirt covered him, and not as sure-footed as them.
Tonio heckles him from the shore.
“He would not do any better,” Marie says to me.
Tonio laughs. “I heard that.”
Paul is knocked under by a large wave, and when he surfaces, hair wet, he’s dog-paddling. “Victory!” he yells to us. Tonio whistles and claps. “Bravo! Ben fatto!”
When Matteo’s dad comes in from the water, he towels off next to me. I look to see if Donato is watching from the cave, but I don’t see him anywhere.
“Matteo is hungry,” Agostina announces.
“I will get lunch,” his dad says, pushing one of Matteo’s toy trucks across the sand.
“I’ll go with you,” I tell him. “You’ll need help with the cooler.”
I think maybe I’ll see Donato in the cave, brooding beneath the chipped image of Christ. But he isn’t there. I remember that first time with him, on the train speeding through the center of Italy. A different Cilla, a different Donato.
Scaling the rocks is harder than the descent.
“I’m out of shape,” I tell Matteo’s dad when we reach the top, but he doesn’t understand. The labored breathing, the sweating through my caftan—those things must translate, because he lifts the cooler out of the trunk and hands me a can of soda and a bag of chips.
“We rest,” he says, sitting on the trunk of the car. I hoist myself up beside him and offer the chips. He takes my soda instead, grinning. The wind has calmed; scrubby pine trees shade us from the sun. A wild, spicy scent emanates from him.
“Do you wear cologne?” I try, but he only keeps grinning. “You don’t understand, do you? That’s probably a good thing, I’m not making any sense.”
That gold tooth glinting. “I understand enough.”
And then, suddenly, there is Donato—exhausted child, the sunburn on his face peeling. He is shouting in Italian, finger in Matteo’s dad’s face. He turns to me.
“You fuck anyone, sì? Sì?”
“Shush.” I try to hush him. “Shhh.”
“Puttana,” he shouts.
Matteo’s dad is confused at first, but then his eyes get very large and he looks at me with such candor I have to look away.
I feel my face redden. Donato is furious. He pushes Matteo’s dad, making him stumble.
Then they’re squared up—bulky muscle to lean youth. From afar it must look like a father lecturing a son. Donato pushes him again, and Matteo’s dad has grabbed him by the shirt collar—and for a moment, I want to see it happen. His fist is pulled back and I want to see the bones in Donato’s beautiful face break.
But Matteo’s dad doesn’t hit him. His fist wavers, and instead he flings Donato aside. He points at me, spits something ugly. I know it’s ugly because I understand one of the words. Carampana. Hannah had used it at the beach club in Monopoli, about a group of women my age but with more makeup—inflated lips and breasts, and slinky, barely there bikinis. One of them smiled and called out to Donato when we walked by. Carampana, Hannah had sneered. An old woman who tries to be young and sexy.
I want to explain, but what can I say? Matteo’s dad already understands, it’s why he lifts the cooler and starts to hike away. It’s why he looks back at me with disgust.
“Why did you not come last night?” Donato is saying. His hands on my hips. The wind has returned full force, tugging at the cliff side.
“What have you done?” I point to where Matteo’s dad has disappeared. “He will tell Agostina, and she will tell your mother, and then—it’s all over.”
“What does it matter.” His hands are on my waist now. “Don’t you love me?”
He tries to kiss me, and I let him. For a moment I think if I let it happen, maybe he won’t tell anyone else. Maybe I can get out of this unscathed. But he tastes different, his hands are too soft and hot and desperate.
“Donato,” I start. He thinks this is a lover’s quarrel and we are going to make amends. His hands have slipped beneath my caftan, they are trying to find access.
“Donato, stop.”
“I come to California,” he says, muttering those same Italian phrases he said in restaurant bathrooms and olive groves, in the backseat of the car and on the train. “I will stay with you in your Malibu house.”
I can feel him, hard against my leg. “Donato, enough. Stop!”
He slaps me then. A quick, effective swipe.
The wind has returned, blowing receipts and napkins that have escaped from the car. It whistles in the pine branches above us. Donato reaches out, and when I move away he drops to his knees and starts to cry. “Mi dispiace,” he repeats over and over, holding on to me, his voice cracking. “Cilla, oh, Cilla, perdonami, perdonami.”
His sobbing is growing louder. Nothing I say will quiet him, and he’s speaking entirely in Italian. I can make out only a few words, woman, mamma, Hannah. I shout at him to let go. Anger surges, white hot. Suck it up, my mom had told me once, because I had been crying over a photo I stumbled on in a magazine at the nursing center: Guy with a pretty starlet. Your dad can’t see you like this. Or when Trudy, in that flimsy, revealing dress, was waiting for us at dinner—I stuffed it down because I had to. No temper tantrums allowed.
“Get up,” I tell Donato. “Get up!” But he isn’t listening.
I hit him. I hit him again and again—as if the first time hadn’t hurt my hand, as if it didn’t reverberate through my bones. “You are such a child!” I scream. He is huddled on the ground, trying to shield himself with his arms. My voice is jagged, I am seething. “Grow up,” I hiss.
“I will tell them.” There are tears on his cheeks, in his eyes. His lip trembles.
I’m astonished by how calm I am. “No, you won’t.”
He starts crying again, big grating sobs that rack his body. I leave him there, curled on the ground, calling after me, Mi dispiace, mi dispiace—I am sorry, I am sorry.
* * *
It takes a while to get down the cliff, alone and without help. In the cave Paul and Tonio are admiring the frescoes once more. They stop talking to point out some new detail they’ve discovered, Paul snapping a picture.
“This is my favorite period of Christianity,” Tonio is saying, and Paul nods. “When it was new and rebellious and full of hope.”
My cheek stings from where Donato struck me. I’m worried they might see the red spot. Think of an excuse, I tell myself. I fell—a stray branch caught me. I could pinch my other cheek and pretend to be flushed. Both of my hands are trembling from hitting him. Had I kicked him too? In
my memory I drew blood.
When I come out the other side the sun is blinding. But then, there, spread out on a blanket, are Agostina and Marie eating lunch with Matteo and his dad, who does not look up when I approach.
“Where’s Donato?” Marie asks. She’s stuffing a roll with soppressata and a hard white cheese. There are containers of taralli and green apple slices and a bottle of Verdicchio, which is sweating in the sun. “I thought he was with you.”
This is when Matteo’s dad looks at me.
“He’s gone on a walk,” I tell them.
Marie clicks her tongue, tickling Matteo. “Boys, no? They are so emotional.”
I survey the water for Hannah. When I spot her blond head, I wave and she holds up something for me to see. I shade my eyes, but I can’t make it out.
“It’s a scallop shell!” she cries. “They’re everywhere. Come and see!”
Agostina and Marie are talking in Italian. Nothing about their tone is alarming; it is relaxed, leisurely. But then Matteo’s dad glances at me again and the anxiety and fear are nearly suffocating. What will happen? Will Paul ask me to leave? Will Marie press charges—have I done something illegal? It certainly feels that way. I imagine cheap sensational headlines:
AUNT SEDUCES NIECE’S BOYFRIEND WOMAN, 43, MOLESTS STUDENT, 17
I lack the language to explain the situation. I want Matteo’s dad to know that this is not how it was—though that’s exactly how it was.
I lick my lips. “I think I’ll cool off.”
They go on chattering in Italian.
The water is cool and refreshing, and when I reach Hannah I swim past her. I swim and swim until Hannah is shouting after me.
“Aunt Cilla!” She sounds frightened and far away.
I’m tired. I can feel it in my limbs, dense in my chest. All that turquoise, stretching out against the horizon. I replay how Donato covered his head, how he fumbled backward to try to escape me. What must we have looked like on that cliff? An old woman disciplining her child? Two lovers in a heated quarrel? I don’t know which is less embarrassing.
I dive and try to reach the bottom. I picture him, not the pathetic Donato tugging at my legs or threatening me, but the Donato in Rome, head tilted coyly, looking at me beneath those curls, raising a cigarette to his lips. Or Guy, how he pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear before tucking that flower in my dress. But his voice interrupts, cuts right through the memory. Hush, hush, be quiet. No one can know. The good sister. Ac-ces-si-ble. It repeats like that. I swim and swim, but the water just returns me to the surface.
“Aunt Cilla,” Hannah cries. She looks terrified. Her eyes big and blue, that blond hair, slick and golden.
“I wanted to see how far I could swim.” I touch her cheek, which has freckled the way Emily’s would during those long summers. “Come on, I’ll race you. Last one back is a rotten egg.”
She smiles, same smile too. My heart is breaking. “Ready, set, go!”
Hannah tumbles onto the blanket where the others are eating. Paul and Tonio are with them now, laughing and pouring wine into each other’s glass. I look around but Donato has not returned to the beach.
I lie out on my towel, watching my niece.
“Papa, I’m fifteen,” she says, ringing out her hair. “I’ve had wine before.”
If I close my eyes, it’s the same impish laughter. I imagine she’s here beside me, lying in the sand. Maybe doing her nails or reading a magazine, humming to herself. I imagine it so well that I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until shouting wakes me up.
Hannah and Marie are pointing to the cliff, where Donato has climbed to the highest outcrop.
“What is he doing?”
“He wants to jump, the idiot,” Hannah says. “Don’t do it!”
“Listen to Hannah, cuore mio!” Marie cries. “You will give your poor mamma a heart attack.”
Donato must have swam while I slept; his trunks are wet, and his dark hair is tousled from the salt water and wind. I imagine there must be goose bumps on that olive skin. He inches to the edge, peering at the water below. A sudden gust throws him off balance and he reaches for the cliff behind him. Something in my abdomen tightens. This is not what I want. Get down from there, I want to yell, but Matteo’s dad is standing beside me and I’m worried that something in my voice will betray me.
Agostina is shouting in Italian, trying to persuade him. I can tell by her tone, it’s placating and firm—and it almost works, I see him look at where he must have climbed up. But then Matteo’s dad calls out to him.
“Count to three,” Donato yells, focusing on the water far below him.
Marie has her hands clasped. “My boy,” she says to me. There is fear, but also unmistakable pride.
“Uno,” Marie and Hannah shout together.
That tightness moves from my stomach to my chest.
“Due,” they yell.
I think maybe I might faint. Donato, Donato. My voice will not work. Donato, per favore.
“Tre!” they shriek.
He looks up—just a glimpse in my direction, just to see if Cilla is watching. Such a beautiful boyish face—and then he has slipped, his leg catching, sending him headfirst into the rocks below, disappearing into blue-green water.
MONTI, ROME, ITALY
Donato and I are having lunch in a seaside town—one of the whitewashed ones, perched high on a cliff. He is grinning, touching my leg under the table.
Behind him an old woman sits on a balcony. She has a face like a wrinkled pug, and painfully swollen legs, veins bulging green. When she looks at me, I swear it’s as if she looks right through me—
But this is wrong. That’s not how it was. There was no old woman on a balcony. And Hannah had been with us. The café was in a bustling piazza in Polignano a Mare, with umbrellas angled over our heads, the sun beating down on the slab stone streets and buildings. Everywhere were tourists. Hannah had ordered mussels and complained since eating them of a stomachache. Her forehead perspiring. Excuse me, she said, and went to find the bathroom.
There was sudden mayhem in the street. Mopeds and cars were trying to get out of the way of a lumbering hearse, which was driving slowly up the narrow road. It passed so close to us, I could have reached out and touched it.
Death is everywhere, I remember saying once the procession had moved on. And Donato, that smiling youth, was looking at the wine menu. Does white or red sound good to you?
Don’t you get tired of it? I pressed him. Living in a place like Rome—or here, which is gorgeous, with its beaches and caves and grottos, but everywhere are reminders.
He laughed that boyish guffaw. Los Angeles isn’t like that?
I shook my head, and he got very close—this was when I felt his hand under the table, and that heat in the center of me lapped my insides.
For Italians, he said with that ludicrous grin, there is only sex and death.
When I open my eyes, there is no Donato. There is no Puglia. Only the narrow bedroom in Paul and Hannah’s apartment in Rome. The writing desk against the wall, the same framed photo of the Ponte Sisto, the turquoise vase on the bedside table, now empty.
I wrap myself in the robe from the masseria, which Agostina insisted I keep. It’s early, the only light outside is a faint gray smudge on the horizon. When I switch off the A/C unit I can hear a police siren in the distance, trash trucks rumbling down the cobblestone streets. I slide a cigarette out of its packaging. Hannah mentioned where to buy Donato’s brand of luxury cigarettes, and I’ve bought two cases to bring home with me. I climb out the window, onto the slanted roof, and blow the smoke toward the faint moon. Across the way, Donato’s window is dark and quiet.
Do not think of Tonio and Matteo’s dad splashing out into the water, attempting to swim out to him—or Marie, standing waist-deep in the surf, screaming, Donatello! Donatello!
Or later, when I was sitting at the courtyard table with Paul, how I could not explain why I was smoking Donato’s cigarettes. T
hink instead of that lunch in Polignano a Mare.
Will you ask for a dessert menu? And Donato signaled the waiter over, speaking to him in Italian.
That is what I like about you, Cilla, he said, once the waiter left us.
What’s that?
He sat back in his chair, stretched his arms behind his head. You have not tried to learn the language. Hannah was eager to learn. She had to know what was being said. Not you, though. I have to come to you.
At the time, these moments seemed unimportant—they slipped by like every other second or minute in which seemingly nothing happened. Donato had moved his hand after the waiter returned with our drinks, and Hannah was only gone for ten or so minutes.
Other things I’d forgotten about death: how comforting tea can be when it’s overly sweetened with sugar and milk. How beguiling it is that the natural world marches on despite human sadness. The long Puglia afternoons remained the same. Butterflies and wasps flitted about the aloes and palms. Lizards were sunning themselves on the tufa rock. I remember smelling orange blossoms and the Adriatic until we boarded the train for Rome. I think I can still smell it.
There is music coming from Hannah’s bedroom. She has stayed up most nights with Marie, going through Donato’s things. You are a great help to her, Paul had said, kissing his daughter’s head. I’m proud of you.
My niece comes back with boxes of his stuff. This envelope of clippings from celebrity magazines; this fake gold Timex he bought from a street hustler when he was little. He saved his allowance and a week later it stopped working, she told me, laughing but with tears in her eyes. There are T-shirts and sweaters and books.