The Scent Of Rosa's Oil (21 page)

“Sure,” Berto said. “I’ll hitch the horse to the wagon. The neighbor in question is only a short ride from here.”

“Of course I dropped him at the station,” Geraldo Bassi said when they found him cutting hay in the field behind his house. “Then I went my way.”

“At least,” Madam C pointed out as they all headed back to the Valles’ farmhouse, “we know that whatever happened to Renato happened at the Vercelli station or on the train.”

“But they told you there were no train accidents this past week,” Rosa whined.

Giacomo said, “It’s very strange.”

“My brother works at the station,” Anna said. “I’ll ask him to talk to people there. Maybe someone will remember Renato.”

Her husband added, “And I’ll talk to the women who sell produce at the market. They know everything about everybody. If Renato didn’t leave Vercelli, they may know where he is. And we should also check the hospital and the jail.”

“You can all stay in our home as long as you want,” Anna told Madam C. “We have space. We’ll do anything we can to help you find Renato. He and this man”—she pointed at Giacomo—“saved our only son’s life.”

Thankful for the invitation, Madam C, Rosa, and Maddalena settled in two rooms on the top floor, a larger one Madam C and Maddalena shared, and a smaller one for Rosa. “Rosa needs privacy,” Maddalena had told Madam C earlier, when the two of them had discussed the logistic situation. “She’s very upset, and it’s hard to share space with others in that kind of state.” She paused. “Have you two talked yet?”

“No.”

“I can’t believe it!” Maddalena blurted out, throwing her hands up in the air. “What are you waiting for?”

Madam C said nothing as she opened her suitcase.

Later that afternoon, while Maddalena was helping Anna with dinner and Giacomo and Berto were at the market asking questions about Renato, Madam C knocked on Rosa’s door. There was no answer for a while, but the door finally opened as Madam C had begun to walk away. Barefooted, in a white vest that hardly covered her knees, Rosa stood in the doorway with dark, swollen eyes. “Did I wake you?” Madam C asked.

Rosa shook her head. She whispered, “I haven’t been able to sleep in quite a while.”

“Can I come in?”

Slowly, Rosa moved aside.

They stood in front of each other in the middle of the room. “How are you feeling?” Madam C asked.

Rosa shrugged.

“Look,” Madam C said. “We’ll be spending the next several days under the same roof, so I thought that perhaps we should stop beating around the bush.”

For the first time, Rosa looked Madam C straight in the eyes. “You hurt me.”

“And you hurt
me
.”

“How?” Rosa asked. “You’re the one who threw me out of my home.”

“Rosa, I’m trying.”

“What are you trying?”

“To help you. And to reach you.”

Rosa spoke with a thread of voice. “What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know,” Madam C replied. “Is there something you’d like to say?”

Rosa straightened her slumping shoulders and spoke with defiance. “As a matter-of-fact, yes. There
is
something I’d like to say. I don’t understand why you had to toss me and my things out the door. What got into you? I grew up thinking you loved me. Were you faking?”

Madam C took a step toward Rosa. “How dare you think that my love for you was fake,” she said, giving Rosa an icy cold glare.

Rosa raised her voice. “Then what did I do that night that was so bad!”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Madam C said, raising her voice as well. “You”—she pointed a finger at Rosa—“took from me the only man I ever cared for. Do you know what that means?” She shouted, “Do you?” She stared into Rosa’s eyes as her lips trembled. “I spent a lifetime giving my body to drunks, vagabonds, and rich men who not once looked past my buttocks and the size of my breasts. And then there was Cesare. He was different. And you took him!” She screamed, “You ruined everything!”

Rosa looked at Madam C in silence. She spoke after a long moment. “They say that mothers are supposed to love their children no matter what. It’s one thing to get angry; it’s another thing to throw your daughter in the street.”

Madam C took a deep breath. “I realize I hurt you,” she said in a calmer voice, “and it breaks my heart because, trust me, you are the last person on earth I would want to see in pain. But I couldn’t help it. If I could go back, I know I would do the same thing all over again.”

“Why?” Rosa asked.

Slowly, Madam C said, “You obviously care for Renato a lot. How would you feel if the person you love more than anything in the world took him from you?” Her voice broke down. “What would you do?”

Rosa’s eyes softened. “I had no idea you loved Cesare so much.”

“Now you know,” Madam C whispered as she turned around and headed for the bedroom door.

“Does he feel the same way?” Rosa asked in a soft whisper.

Madam C froze in her tracks. She stood still a long moment, then walked on, slamming the door behind her.

After dinner, Giacomo found Rosa on the back porch, staring at the fields. In the distance, invisible crickets sang their night melodies to the moon. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Rosa turned to him. “Why is everything so difficult?”

“I don’t know,” Giacomo replied. “But I believe there’s a reason things happen the way they do.”

“I can see no reason for how my life has turned out in the past months.”

“Years from now,” Giacomo said, “you’ll look back and understand what today seems absurd.”

They stood quietly next to each other as a light breeze brought aromas of fruit trees and hay to them. “Tell me,” Rosa said, breaking the silence, “how’s your wound?”

Giacomo opened his shirt. “It healed, but I have this ugly red swollen mark on my shoulder.”

“It’ll get better,” Rosa said. “Isabel said so.”

Giacomo smiled. “How is she?”

“Fine.”

“I miss her, you know. I find myself thinking of her for some reason.”

“She’s special,” Rosa said. “In more than one way.”

Giacomo nodded. “Anna and Berto have been wonderful to me,” he said, “but I can’t stay here much longer. I miss Genoa—the water, the longshoremen, my job at the warehouse. And I’m sick of fog and mosquitoes and steaming heat. I was thinking today that after we find Renato I want to go back to Genoa with you all.”

“They will arrest you!” said Rosa.

“It’s like I’m already in jail here. Now that some time has gone by, I can explain to the police what happened. I was defending myself from that crazy sword-swallower.”

“And I know for a fact that Camila is no innocent girl,” Rosa added.

“Is the circus still in Genoa?” Giacomo asked.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t been paying much attention to anything in the past days.”

“We’ll find Renato, I promise,” Giacomo said. “He can’t have vanished from the face of the earth.”

“Did he ever say anything to you about wanting to live in a different place?” Rosa asked.

“No.”

“He never mentioned wanting to be…away from the water?”

“Rosa? What in the world are you talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Rosa sobbed. “What if….”

“What?” Giacomo asked.

Rosa spoke in a whisper, “What if he’s dead?”

“Don’t even think about it. Renato is a tough guy. It’d take ten sword-swallowers to take him down.”

Rosa said, “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“Get some sleep,” Giacomo said. “Tomorrow is another day.”

“Angela,” Rosa prayed that night by her bed, head on the scented sheets, “if Renato is in heaven with you, please let me know. But it would be even better if you could send him back here, because he belongs in Genoa with me and Giacomo and the longshoremen and all the other port people.” She kept her hands crossed as she lay down and closed her eyes, falling inadvertently into a shallow sleep.

There hadn’t been ten sword-swallowers to take down Renato, only a couple of bandits along the road. He had boarded Geraldo Bassi’s wagon late that night, after parting from Giacomo and the Valles at the farmhouse. The wagon had gone swiftly down the dirt path, headed for the intersection with the main road that would take it eventually to town. The road and the fields were dark, the only light far above that of the moon and the stars. At a certain point, in that dimness, Renato thought he saw something ahead lying in the middle of the path. Geraldo Bassi stopped the horse, and Renato got out. “It’s a man,” he said, approaching the figure and bending down. “He seems unconscious.”

Geraldo Bassi joined him on the road. “We should call for help,” he said.

“Strange,” Renato murmured. “He has a sock on his face.”

At that very moment, a masked man came out of the bushes behind them and hit Renato on the head with a bat. At the same time, the man who was lying on the road stood up and punched Geraldo Bassi in the face. Renato dropped facedown on the dirt while Geraldo Bassi fell backward screaming. “Shut up,” one of the men said, “and give us your wallet!”

Hands shaking, Geraldo Bassi did as he was told. The man snatched the wallet from his hands while his accomplice searched Renato. When the accomplice found what he was looking for, he dragged Renato to the side of the road and kicked him into a ditch. “As for you,” the first bandit told Geraldo Bassi, “we won’t kill you tonight. But one word about what happened and we’ll come for you and your family. We know where you live, so don’t even think of betraying us. Get on your wagon, and don’t look back.”

Terrified, Geraldo Bassi obeyed. Once the wagon was no longer in sight, the bandits stepped into the ditch. One of them lifted Renato’s arm and let it go; the arm dropped in the mud with a squishing sound. Then he lifted Renato’s eyelid. “He’s dead,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Renato regained consciousness five hours later, in the dead of the night, smelling the wet earth at the bottom of the ditch and tasting the blood in his mouth. Ten minutes passed before his arms and legs could move. Slowly, he came to a seated position. At once, dizziness overcame him, and his head hurt so badly he thought it was split in two. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see were black stains. One bone at a time, he lay down at the bottom of the ditch again, where he fell instantly asleep.

He awoke again before day dawned, with the same splitting headache and an unbearable burning in his chest. With fatigue, he pushed himself to his knees and after taking several deep breaths, he stood up and walked unsteadily toward a tree. He leaned against it for a while, looking around. There was fog, and he had no idea where he was and why. In the dim light of dawn, he began to walk, stumbling and leaning occasionally against poles and trees. Feet in the water, he made a beeline across a rice field and kept walking straight in the same direction without a clue as to where he was going.

A group of
mondine
, women who worked in the rice fields, spotted him as he approached them slowly from the east. They were all wearing the customary wide-brimmed hats and light pants rolled up above their knees. The water was up to their calves, their backs were bent forward, and their hands worked swiftly underwater to collect the grains. One of them lifted her head at the sound of steps splashing in the field. She pointed in Renato’s direction, and all the
mondine
stood up and began to whisper to each other. As Renato moved closer, they retreated, frightened by his appearance: he had blood and dirt all over his head and face, and his clothes were filthy and wet, as if they hadn’t been changed in years. He passed the
mondine
and continued on, without even taking notice of their presence. Later, as he emerged from the wet field onto a road, two farmers approached him and asked him if he was sick. Renato nodded.

“Can we take you somewhere?” one farmer asked.

“Where do you live?” the other added.

Renato stared at them without talking.

“What’s your name?” the first farmer asked.

Again, Renato stood silent.

“If you ask me,” the second farmer said, “this fellow escaped from prison. Let’s call the police.”

“Don’t bother,” the first farmer said. “He’s probably just a bum who had a large dose of booze last night.”

With weary steps, Renato resumed his aimless walk along the road.

“Stick your head in the water, pal,” the second farmer yelled after him. “You’ll scare the shit out of everybody looking like that.”

That’s what Renato did as soon as he saw water. It was a small pond on the side of the road which its owners used to quench the thirst of the cows. The water stank of manure and was covered with mosquitoes and dragonflies. Nevertheless, Renato washed off his face and hands, then removed his shirt, rinsed the dirt off it, and set it on the grass to dry. The morning fog had lifted by that time. In a daze, Renato sat next to the shirt at the edge of the pond, face in the sun, breathing the warm air. That was when he realized that he hadn’t answered the two farmers’ questions because he didn’t know who he was. In his aching, muddy head there were only two things he was aware of: the scent of Rosa’s oil and the sound of the sea waves.

He stood up as soon as his shirt had dried. The sound of the waves rang in his ears and Rosa’s scent tingled in his nose. He had no clue what either one was. There was, however, one thing he remembered about the odor: he knew that he had smelled it the first time while a breeze was blowing into his face. So he walked against the breeze, looking for the source of the odor. He walked all day long, slowly but constantly, stopping only on two occasions to eat grapes from a vine and drink water from a fountain he encountered behind a farmhouse. When darkness arrived, he lay in a meadow looking at the sky. At dawn, he stood up. His headache had partially subsided. The breeze had changed direction, so he changed the direction of his walk. He zigzagged through the fields for days, stopping occasionally for water and fruit, always walking into the breeze. When there was no breeze, he imagined one. All along, he looked desperately for the source of that spicy-sweet odor.