The Scent Of Rosa's Oil (23 page)

Giacomo nodded. “I’m all she has. And I guess we love each other in our own ways.”

The air had cooled slightly when they returned to the farmhouse. The Valles, Madam C, and Maddalena were in the living room, seated around a coffee table.

“How’s Renato?” Madam C asked, when Rosa and Giacomo came in.

“Shaken. Tired,” Rosa replied, fiddling with the wildflower. “But he managed to fall asleep in my room.”

“We’d better go to sleep, too,” Madam C said, standing up. “We have a train to catch early in the morning.” She began walking toward the stairs, followed by everyone else in the room.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” Rosa asked.

Madam C stopped and waited till the two of them were alone. “Yes?”

Rosa cleared her throat. “I wanted to say thank you for all you did,” she said in a soft voice.

“I’m so happy we found him. He seems like a wonderful man.”

“He is,” Rosa said. “I hope you’ll get to know him.”

Madam C smiled. “I’d love to. And I’d love to get to know you as well. You’ve changed.”

Rosa swallowed twice. “I’m sorry I slept with the mayor. And I’m sorry for the things I yelled at you. I guess I couldn’t help it, either.”

“I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. I shouldn’t have.” There was a long silence, then Madam C spoke in a gentle voice, “Maybe when we get back to Genoa you could spend time at the Luna, like in the old days. It’d be nice to have you back.”

Rosa nodded, then handed Madam C the wildflower. “I picked it tonight,” she said. “Reminds me of our trip to the hills.”

Madam C swallowed visibly as she took the flower. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. She brought it to her face. “Its petals still smell of the meadows. That was a great trip we had.” She was still a moment. “Well,” she continued, regaining her confident tone of voice, “time for bed. See you at breakfast, dear. Be on time.”

In the morning, at the train station, the good-byes took a long time. “Are you sure you want to go back to Genoa? You’ll be in danger,” Anna Valle said, hugging Giacomo for the third time.

He nodded. “Don’t worry. I know that what I’m doing is right.”

“Take good care of him,” Anna said, smiling, to Rosa. “And I guess I don’t need to tell you to take care of Renato.”

“I’ll do all I can,” Rosa said, “you can be sure. Thank you for all you’ve done,” she pointed at Maddalena and Madam C, “for all of us. And for Renato.”

“Your train leaves in ten minutes,” Berto said. “I hate to see you go, but you should rush to your platform before it’s too late.”

“Good-bye!” Madam C shouted, heading down the under-pass stairs.

Maddalena and Giacomo rushed along, followed by Rosa and Renato. Near the ticket counter, hand in hand, Anna and Berto kept waving good-bye. “Come back to see us!” Anna shouted.

“They can’t hear you,” her husband whispered in her ear. “They’re too far.”

As the couple headed for the exit door, Anna said, “Giacomo looks so much like our Gabriele. Don’t you think?”

Berto smiled at her. “If you say so, dear.”

On the train, in the compartment, Renato sat quietly between Giacomo and Rosa. “I don’t know what was wrong with me,” he said as the train slowed down near a station, “holding a woman’s perfume bottle like it was gold.”

“There’s nothing wrong with holding perfume bottles,” Rosa said. “And for your information, you are the only person on earth I would allow to hold my perfect oil.”

“Am I that special?” Renato asked, surprised.

“You have no idea,” Rosa replied.

Later, as the train made its way toward the Turin station, Giacomo opened his suitcase. “I believe this is yours,” he told Maddalena, pulling the black wig out from under his clothes. “You can have it. I don’t think I’ll be needing it again any time soon.”

“Let me see how it fits you,” Maddalena said, placing the wig on Giacomo’s head. “Hmm, you
are
cute.”

Seeing Giacomo in the black wig, Renato laughed for the first time. “You’re too funny,” he said.

Giacomo took off the wig. “Let me remind you,” he told Renato, “that you traveled a whole day with me dressed like a woman and pretending to be your wife.”

Renato said humorously, “That is something I’m glad I don’t remember.”

“There’s something else you should know about this wig,” Giacomo went on. There was an ill-concealed irony in his voice. “Rosa will tell you all about it.”

Unseen by Renato, Rosa shook her head and gave Giacomo a mean stare.

Renato turned around. “What about it, Rosa?” he asked.

“It’s nothing,” Rosa said. “Giacomo has a strange sense of humor.”

They switched trains in Turin and soon were headed south, crossing at moderate speed the lower Piedmont countryside. Quietly, Renato kept looking at the people around him and out the window at the passing fields. At a certain point, he noticed a mirror hanging above Madam C’s head, across from him. He looked at it for a while, then stood up during a long stop at a station and stared at the image in the mirror for a long time.

“Do you remember your face?” Rosa asked.

“No.” he said. “I don’t mind it, I must say.” He turned his head right and left to examine his profile. “Although for some reason, I thought I’d be younger. How old am I?”

“Twenty-seven,” Giacomo said. He whispered, “You look older right now than you normally do.”

“It’s the emptiness I feel inside,” Renato said sadly, sitting down.

“We’ll help you learn everything about your past,” Rosa said. “Then the emptiness will leave you.”

They arrived in Genoa at six in the afternoon—right on time. Immediately, Giacomo turned himself in at the police station. He was arrested, waiting to be arraigned, and within a day the labor union had hired for him the best criminal lawyer they could find. The circus had left town, and public opinion was no longer inflamed. No one was thinking about the reward anymore. Rosa told Giacomo’s lawyer about her encounter with Camila and the girl’s cold words, and a number of longshoremen lined up to attest to Giacomo’s integrity as a worker and as one of their political leaders. In tears, Giacomo’s mother begged the lawyer over and over to do all he could to save the only love of her life. “My life would end,” she sobbed at the visibly annoyed lawyer, “should my Giacomo end up in jail.”

One week later, at the arraignment, the judge asked Giacomo, “What do you have to say?”

“I was defending myself from Manari’s attack,” Giacomo explained. “He was trying to stab me. He fell on the blade when I hit him on the head with the stone.”

“The fact remains,” the judge said, “that you fled like a guilty man would.”

“I didn’t flee because I was afraid of justice,” Giacomo explained. “I fled because I was afraid of the circus people and of the reward they had placed on my head.”

Then Giacomo’s lawyer spoke to the judge. “My client turned himself in and is clearly a good person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the girl, if you’ll allow me, is obviously a slut without a conscience. But, most important, the circus people are no longer here to press charges. They even took Manari’s body along when they left town. In view of all this, I ask that you dismiss the case.”

After pondering for a moment, the judge said, “Everyone knows that the circus people are a bad sort. Case dismissed. But”—he looked Giacomo in the eyes—“don’t get yourself in any other trouble, young man, or I’ll come after you with the wrath of a sea storm.”

Meanwhile, as soon as they had gotten off the train, Rosa had taken Renato straight to Vico Usodimare. They arrived as Isabel was placing bags filled with distillation discards outside. “Good God!” she screamed when she saw them down the street. She walked up to them and hugged Rosa tight. “I prayed so hard for you,” she said, “you have no idea.” Then she turned to Renato. “I feel like I want to hug you, too,” she said, placing a hand on Renato’s cheek.

Renato took a step back.

“Don’t be afraid,” Rosa reassured him. “This is Isabel. I told you all about her, remember?”

Dumbfounded, Isabel looked at Rosa.

“He doesn’t remember you,” Rosa explained disheartenedly, “or anyone else.” She gazed at Renato. “Not even me,” she added in a sad voice.

It took Isabel a moment to say, “Come inside.”

In the distillery room, she pointed at the rocking chair, “Here,” she told Renato. “Have a seat.”

Without arguing, Renato obeyed. Isabel turned to Rosa. “You mean to tell me that he doesn’t remember having been here before?”

Rosa shook her head.

“Start from the beginning,” Isabel said. “From your train ride.”

Over the next ten minutes, Rosa described to Isabel the main events in her trip, as Renato stared around at the stove, the equipment, and Isabel’s face.

“Let me tell you something, young man,” Isabel said, interrupting Rosa. “I’m getting tired of people looking at me and being afraid. I’m not going to bite you. Would you please stop staring at me that way?” She smiled. “You used to like me, if you can believe it. Sorry, Rosa. Go ahead with your story. I’m all ears.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Renato hummed so softly no one could hear him. “I’m scared of myself and of everything I can’t explain.”

“I knew it!” Isabel said at the end of Rosa’s story. “I knew that something bad had happened to Renato.” She turned to him. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “I have what you need.” She disappeared into the flower room for several minutes. When she returned, she was carrying a bottle, which she handed promptly to Renato. “Rub this on your temples three times a day. Azul used to say that this oil brings back the good memories and kills the bad ones. I hope it will bring back your love for Rosa.”

Renato sniffed the bottle. “I’ll have to start using it right away,” he said. “I can’t stand not remembering being in love.”

Rosa and Renato made many more stops that day. After leaving Isabel’s booth, they headed for the port and the warehouses. It was the end of the evening shift, and the longshoremen who were leaving work spotted Renato immediately as he arrived. “Where have you been?” one asked.

“We thought something happened to you,” another said.

“Something did happen to Renato,” Rosa explained, “and he has no memory of the past.”

“No memory at all?”

“None,” Renato confirmed in a bit of dismay. “I don’t remember any of you.”

The men looked at each other in disbelief. Patiently, Rosa gave a brief account of the incident and the miraculous way in which she and her friends had been able to find Renato.

“You’re safe,” a longshoreman said, patting Renato’s shoulder, “and that’s all that matters.”

“Yes,” someone agreed, then suggested, “Let’s celebrate Renato’s return tonight at the Grifone.” To Renato, he said, “A bottle of wine will help you remember, you’ll see.”

The Grifone was packed that night. In the middle of the bar, seated on a high stool, Renato tried his best to come to terms with the crowd. His closest friends stood by him the whole time, recounting his speeches from the podium and explaining to him the current political situation. “We need you and Giacomo back,” one of them said. “Since you two left, the shipowners refuse to listen to our complaints.”

“They know you’re not around,” another man added, “and they feel safe.”

Renato shook his head. “I don’t remember anything,” he said, “so I can’t help you. But Giacomo will be back soon.”

“If his mother will ever let him out of her sight,” someone said. The whole group laughed.

As for Rosa, she sat on a stool by the bar counter the whole time, keeping a vigilant eye on Renato. “I’m sorry I scoffed at you,” Paolo Disarto told her as the party was winding down. He shook her hand. “I had no idea you were Renato’s girlfriend. You can pour this on my head,” he added, lifting a pitcher full of white wine. “That will teach me not to be an ass to pretty girls.”

It was late when the party broke up. “You must be exhausted,” Rosa told the confused Renato.

He nodded.

She said, “Let me take you to your home.”

At the apartment on Vico Cinque Lampadi, Marco, who had heard the news about Renato’s return and his loss of memory no one could explain, was excited to greet him and show him the place. Renato, of course, didn’t recognize him. “You and I have lived together in these rooms for the past three years,” Marco said. “All this time you complained about the stench of my clothes and whined that I should wash them twice as often. Does that sound familiar?”

Renato looked at him with lost eyes. “No.” He was silent a moment, then said, “But I can tell you smell bad now.”

In his room, Renato walked up to his bookshelf and looked at every volume on it for a long time. There were books of philosophy, politics, history, and current affairs. Among the authors were the French utopists Saint-Simon and Proudhon, as well as Diderot, Leibniz, Hegel, Engels, and Karl Marx. “Are these mine?” he asked.

“Yes,” Marco said.

“Have I read them?”

Marco nodded. “Several times.”

In silence, Renato began turning the books’ pages. “I don’t remember any of these books,” he said, “but I have an urgency I can’t explain to read them all.” He paused. “I know I will.”

“I’ll leave you now,” Rosa said softly. “I can tell you’re about to fall asleep.”

The following day, under the warm sun of the early afternoon, Rosa and Renato went to the belvedere. “It’s strange,” he told Rosa as they stood near the edge, looking at the city and the water. “I don’t remember anything, and yet everything I’m learning about my life, I like. My job, the longshoremen, Isabel, Giacomo, Madam C, Maddalena, and all the people I met in the past days. And I’m moonstruck by this town, its smells, its streets, the water, the hills. I feel as if I had been here all my life.”

“You have,” Rosa said.

“I got lost this morning,” Renato confessed, “in the maze of downtown.”

Rosa looked at him with alarm. “What were you doing walking around by yourself? Marco was supposed to be with you.”

“I needed to be by myself to see this city through my own eyes. I must have walked in circles for close to an hour. Do you know how I found my bearings?”

“How?”

“I closed my eyes at a certain point, and for some reason, with my eyes closed, I could tell in which direction the sea was. So I walked in that direction and saw the port, and from there I was able to return home. I can’t explain it.”