The Incident at Montebello (14 page)

“Don't forget. You're my eyes and ears.”

As Charlie dashed towards the street, he called back over his shoulder, “I'll tell you everything,
signore
. Tomorrow.”

Sardolini was putting away tools in the barn when a woman called to him. He peered out the door into the plum-colored dusk as Lucia strode towards him, her dark clothes mingling with the shadows. He should send her away just as he had Isolina, but he hesitated and told her, “I thought I'd be the only one staying home tonight.”

A smile flickered across her face, but as she drew closer, he saw worry too, tugging on her lips. She spoke with great urgency. “I need to talk to you,
signore
. It's a matter of great importance.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she crossed the threshold, bringing with her a plume of perfume.

As he lit the lamp, he cast curious glances at her, an egg basket clutched to her chest. Under her coat, he glimpsed a scarf patterned with roses. As she paced across the barn floor, the cow studied her and flicked its tail. Finally, she spoke. “I must ask you to stop talking to my son.”

He stared at her in surprise. “Why?”

“He tells me what you say to him. You're teaching him a thing or two about life and, for that, I'm grateful. Otherwise, he'd only hear about the glory of warfare.”

“So what's the problem then?”

She leaned towards him and whispered, “I've had a warning from the teacher. Charlie wrote an essay at school that hinted at a change in attitude towards the
fascisti
. His teacher has threatened to report him to the police. Apparently, you've had some influence in altering his ideas.”

“We don't only talk about politics,” he said in his own defense.

Lucia nodded. “Don't get me wrong,
signore.
I agree with what he wrote. After school, Professor Zuffi teaches them to march and shoot rifles. He tells them it's a man's job to kill and go to war. For years, I've worried what kind of man my son will grow up to be.”

“You're right to be worried,” he said. “Our leader glorifies war and bloodshed and uses youth groups to train boys to fight. War is inevitable.”

“I know it too,” she said with a sigh. “But what can I do to stop it? I'm a mother first. My children need me. I fight the
fascisti
my own way.”

“How's that?”

“In my heart.”

He shook his head. He had heard it before. “You're deceiving yourself,
signora
. Your silence keeps Il Duce in office.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her face suffused with color. “You're oversimplifying it. I have my children to think of. When the police carried Sofia back to the house, she was already dying. Both her legs were broken, and her back too. Can you imagine what it feels like to see your child die?”

The sorrow in her eyes made him shiver, but he pressed home his point. “No, I can't. But I am thinking of your children. If Il Duce is still in office in a few years, your boy, your Charlie will be in the army fighting for him.”

“I know that,
signore
. But not everyone can risk everything like you.”

“I did what I had to.”

“I admire that,
signore
, but I can't be an idealist like you.”

This woman acted as if she could see right through him, down to his socks, but he wasn't transparent. “I suppose you can call me that, but I'm a realist too.”

“And where has it gotten you?”

For a moment, he stared at her, the wind knocked out of him as if he was punched. And yet, he had to admit she had a perfectly valid point. He had written articles exposing Mussolini's injustice, fought for his removal from office, and risked his life smuggling pamphlets into the country, but ten years later, Mussolini was still in power and Lià was dead. What comfort were his ideas and theories now? Even his dearest friends were jailed, exiled or dead. He had no one, nothing. He lowered his chin.

Lucia seized his sleeve. “I'm sorry,
signore
. I shouldn't have said that.”

He shrugged. He couldn't speak.

She reached into her basket. “Before you think I'm heartless, I have something for you. The hens were generous today. Here, hold out your hands. I have more than enough.”

“Your children need them more than I do,” he insisted, but despite his protests, she pressed the warm eggs into his hands, her fingers brushing his. Puzzled, he accepted her present. A moment later, she was gone, leaving behind a trace of perfume.

Reining in his horse by the bridge in Montebello, a farmer turned to Donato Buonomano and asked, “What brings you back? A woman?”

“Several of them,” Donato said, lifting his suitcases out of the cart. The farmer laughed and flicked the reins.

After brushing off his suit, Donato checked the pockets, more out of habit now. Satisfied, he smoothed his hair with his palms and trudged up the cobblestone streets with his luggage. Taking deep breaths of the night air, which smelled of garlic and dust, he wanted to kneel down and whisper a prayer of thanks, even though he wasn't a religious man. Home. It had never been so sweet.

By the light of the moon, he peered down the alleys, searching for someone he knew, but the streets were hushed. At the end of the Via Franca, he noticed a lantern bobbing in the distance and called out, “Where the hell is everyone?”

“At the movies,” a man answered. “Who the hell wants to know?”

As the footsteps neared, Donato recognized Cipriano, the town beggar. “Why aren't you watching with everyone else?”

“Don Cosimo, that cheap bastard, wouldn't let me in.”

“What did you expect? He doesn't give anything away for free.”

Cipriano eyed the luggage in his hands. “Say. If I carry your bags, what will you give me?”

“A kick in the pants. Get lost.”

“You're as cheap as the
don
,” Cipriano cried, taking off in the opposite direction.

As he trudged down the Via Condotti with his luggage, he imagined the look of shocked pleasure on Lucia's face when he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. And his mother would cry tears of joy that she had lived long enough to see him safely back in Italy. Years before, Nonna Angelina had pleaded, “Don't stay away too long. If you come back and I'm dead, I'll never forgive you.” Every day they were apart, he had written her pages about his life in Boston, which hadn't turned out as he had planned.

He passed Amelia and Lelo's house, shuttered and dark. And to think, Rodi Butasi would soon be related by marriage. Nonna Angelina had written to him about it. If Isolina were his daughter, he would have never agreed to that match. Well, it only proved that Lelo and Amelia had no common sense.

A light burned in Nonna Angelina's window. He banged on her door, and when it finally creaked open, she squinted at him.

“Don't you recognize your own son, mamma?” He grinned, tilted his hat dramatically over one ear, and bowed.

“So, you finally showed up,” Nonna Angelina said.

“As if I could get here in a drop of a hat.”

“Two months late for your daughter's funeral.”

“Don't be angry with me, mamma. I had business to settle first. It was hell getting back, but I got here, mamma, and I'm here to stay.”

When she finally believed him, she fell upon him with a cry, alternately kissing and scolding him. When the storm of her affection had abated, Nonna Angelina said, “I knew you'd come back. I had faith and my prayers were answered. And not a minute too soon.”

“How's that?”

Nonna Angelina leaned towards him and whispered, “You'll straighten things out in that house. Wait until you see Lucia. She's aged ten years. The way she carries on you'd think she was a widow. Even Isolina's wedding can't excite her. My gown is still hanging in the shop waiting for her to alter it.”

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. “Come with me, mamma. We'll surprise her. They should be home from the movies by now.”

“Lucia told me she wasn't going,” Nonna Angelina said, reaching for her coat.

As they neared his house, he dropped his suitcases outside the door, smoothed his hair anchored in place with Vitalis, and ran his thumbs down his mustache—as thick as Stalin's. Running up the steps, he burst into the kitchen, his mother right behind him. The children, who were playing cards at the table, stared at him in surprise.

“Papà?” Nietta said with a quaver in her voice.

“Who else?”

Dropping her cards, Nietta ran into his arms and buried her face in his coat. She smelled like cinnamon, tangy and sweet. “That's my girl,” Donato said gruffly as he patted her cheek. She flushed with pleasure. More than ever, she resembled Lucia, especially around the mouth and eyes. Her auburn hair, divided into two braids, was tied together with red ribbon.

With a salute and a grin, Charlie stepped forward and extended his hand. “Papà,” he said, standing tall like a soldier.

“A firm grip is the mark of an honest man. Didn't they teach you that in school?” Donato said, releasing Charlie's hand.

“Yes, papà,” Charlie murmured, his smile fading.

Nonna Angelina frowned at the children. “Where are your manners? Charlie, bring your father's suitcases upstairs. Nietta, bring him his slippers. Where's your mother?”

Nietta and Charlie shrugged.

As the children tramped upstairs, Nonna Angelina muttered, “I shouldn't be surprised at anything she does.”

“Why? What do you mean?” he said, but she didn't answer. Instead, she filled a pot with water.

“It's not my kitchen,” she said. “But you must be hungry.”

While he ate his rigatoni tossed with peas and pancetta, Nonna Angelina sent the children to bed. When at last the door creaked open and Lucia stood in the threshold clutching a basket to her chest, he dropped his fork. In a dozen steps, he was standing in front of her. Gripping her shoulders, he leaned towards her, his lips bearing down on hers. “
Cara mia,
” he murmured. Dropping the basket, Lucia looped her arms around his waist and clung to him, her face wet with tears.

“I can't believe you're here after all these years,” she said.

“I sent you a telegram to say I was coming.”

“You always make promises.”

“But I'm here now, aren't I?”

“Where were you?” Nonna Angelina said to Lucia. “We've been waiting here for almost an hour.”

After a pause, Lucia said, “I went for a walk.”

“Alone?” Nonna Angelina said, frowning.

“Of course,” Lucia replied, spots of color blooming on either cheek.

Donato's eyes swerved from Lucia to his mother.

“It's late,” Nonna Angelina said. “I'm going home to bed. Come and see me as soon as you can, Donato.”

“Of course, mamma.”

When they were alone, he stood toe to toe with Lucia, his eyes flickering across her face. She fingered his lapels. “For four years, I hardly heard from you and now you're here.”

“I wrote,” he said.

“Not often enough.”

How could he explain? Every word he put on paper was a struggle, a dagger in his heart. How could he express his shock and anger at the injustice of his daughter's death? “
Our precious daughter was torn from our arms,”
he had written. And, “
I am with you in spirit. How I wish I could comfort you and dry your tears.
” Nearly seven thousand kilometers away, what could he do? He was caught in a bind. He told her, “I came home as soon as I could. You must believe me.” She turned away, but he leaned close. “Believe me,” he insisted, his cheek brushing hers, hoping the intensity of his words and the heat from his body would convince her.

She bowed her head. “All this time I've just wanted you to come home so we could be a family again.” She broke off, biting her lip.

“I want the same thing. Can you imagine how it was for me? All the way in America, while my daughter, my flesh and blood, gets killed and I can do nothing about it?”

“I didn't know how you felt until now.”

He shook his head, swearing. “
Merda
. I'm her father. She was my daughter. How do you think I feel?” He had expected her to share his sorrow. He had expected her to hold him in her arms. He had expected her to acknowledge his hardship—grieving far away in a strange country with no one to comfort him. Instead, Lucia simply nodded and said, “It's been difficult for both of us.”

“Is that it? Is that the best you can do?”

“I'm sorry, Donato. But I feel like dust inside.”

“And I don't? After all the trouble I went through to get here, after all the heartache I've been through,” he grumbled, “I don't have to stand for this.”

Tears in her eyes, she shook her head. “Please, Donato. Haven't I cried enough?”

Speechless, he stared at her. Leave it to her to make him feel worse than he already did.