Lambrusco (12 page)

“How does it taste, the Lambrusco?” said Zoli.

“Doughy, but perfect,” I said.

The three of them. Beaming at me, proud of me. The Triumvirate. I couldn't see Ugo beyond them, but I knew he was there.

“My father was a fisherman,” Cesare said. “He used to tell me that a bottle of wine, preferably a good Lambrusco, is the best thing to have at sea, if your boat is about to start sinking. Drinking it will keep you safe in the water, better than any life jacket, while you're waiting to be rescued.”

“I believe it,” I said. I was now sitting fully upright on Ugo's car seat, with Annmarie's habit tucked around me like a lap rug.

“I wish Assunta would feed this stuff to the chickens,” said Cenzo. “It might make them get up and fly away, and I'd have some peace for a change, although I'd mind the loss of income from the egg sales.”

“Lambrusco is famous for its curative powers,” said Zoli.

I nodded in agreement. “I would like some more, please,” I said, “but this time without the bread.”

“Certainly! Supper's ready!” they cried. It seemed that their voices had combined into one, rising high, leaping up toward the tops of the cypresses, leaping over them. “Renzetti! Marcellina! Signorina Golfer! Come indoors! You kids, if you don't come at once, we'll take away your clubs! We'll break them, stick by stick! We'll complain to your parents, and they'll take our side against you! Come indoors! Come indoors!”

I
HAD NEVER SPENT
a night before without a roof over my head. Sleeping bodies were all around me. Someone was snoring, probably Cenzo. He often had sinus trouble, no doubt the result of an allergy to his wife's chickens.

Marcellina was flat on her back with Pattuelli children packed in closely; the youngest ones had their heads at her breasts, her hips. The older two were slightly off to the side, curled up against each other, back to back.

A throbbing pain came down in waves from my forehead to my neck, then stopped and started over again, over and over and over.

“One thing I know as a physician is, if you think of the worst pain you've experienced,” Ugo used to say, “and compare it to the pain you have now, the pain you have now will be lessened, as the body—and this is an axiom—has a memory of its own. This trick works every time, unless the pain of the moment is honestly greater than what was formerly worst, in which case, at least you know you've set a new standard.” Ugo had said this to Aldo at the time of each of the first three heart attacks.

“The worst pain I ever experienced,” Aldo would answer, “was the pain of my blood stopped cold in my veins when I asked Lucia to marry me and she told me to go to hell because I was too old for her. The second worst was one week later when I asked her to change her mind, and I expected she would say the same thing. The third, since things always come in threes, was when I told her I'd live with her in Sicily for the rest of my life, and I was afraid she'd take me up on it, even though she knew I'd only gone there in the first place to track down a supplier—not a Sicilian, by the way—who had cheated me, and whom I never found, and I was sure that my blood would never be pumped the right way, so far from Mengo and Romagna.”

The worst for me, before this, was giving birth. The labor had lasted two days. Beppi had been astonishingly big and heavy, and worse, he had wanted to stay where he was. He'd put up resistance with everything he had. Right from the start he'd been stubborn.

Nine pounds, three ounces. “Our iron-boned baby giant. His muscles are probably stronger than mine,” Aldo had said, in awe, the first time he saw him.

“Lucia,” a voice whispered. “I know you're awake. Give me your purse. I need the bullets.”

There'd been no luck finding Ugo's kit, but Etto had found my purse, on the not-ruined ticket counter of what used to be the train station, as if a hasty traveler had forgotten it. I'd fallen asleep with it in my arms, the way I used to bunch up Aldo's shirts and sweaters and take them to bed with me, which I'd only stopped doing when they stopped smelling like Aldo.

Annmarie. As commanding as ever. She was by my side.

“Is it true you went to the restaurant with Italian nuns and stole a map of the beach mines?”

“Never mind about that now.”

“You should have told me about it on the train, when I met you. I'm upset with you that you didn't. You didn't have to be so mysterious.”

“Tell me about your feelings later. I want you to know what's been happening since you fell asleep, and then I want to load these guns.”

“Did anyone find the Berettas that fell out of my pockets?”

“No. The Lugers are all we have.”

“I didn't fall asleep, by the way. I passed out. I remember it. I've been fully unconscious, not that I'm complaining.”

“You had a lot of wine.”

“Well, the alcohol content of Lambrusco isn't high.”

“It isn't low, either. I'm not arguing with you.”

“I'm not expecting you to. I'm only trying to delay you from telling me something I feel will be bad. I was getting myself ready.”

“Are you in much pain, Lucia?”

“Thank you for getting around to asking me. It's nothing I can't manage. Do I look injured?”

“It's too dark to tell. Are you ready now?”

“Yes. No. Go ahead, and then I've got to get up to relieve myself.”

I had never peed outdoors before, not even as a child. It seemed like something important to look forward to: a normal adventure of life, a little risky, a little complicated. Something to plan. I'd have to step carefully in the darkness, but surely, if snakes were out there, or scorpions or rats, they'd leave me alone, as they'd all be hiding, terrorized from the bombs, and too much in shock to come out and bother with me.

“Carmella and Mauro were here,” Annmarie whispered.

“Mauro went home to his wife?”

“No, they met just over there, in the field. They'd come separately, from opposite directions, at the same time. They only stayed a couple of minutes. They left with Doctor Fantini on the bicycles, and the waiters went on foot to help out. Their village was hit, I think badly. The church seems to have taken the worst of it, and it was filled with people when the bombs came. The children don't know about it yet, but when they wake up, we'll have to tell them. We'll have to keep an eye on them, especially the oldest two. They might try to run home to see how their friends are. There's been no word of Beppi, and nothing further from Nizarro on the radio, but Carmella's been away from it.”

So it wasn't Cenzo who was snoring. It was Etto, the only man left.

“Excuse me, we're not stupid. We know what happened,” said a child's shape on the ground. A boy. The voice was coming from the huddle of three of them at Marcellina's feet.

“Marco and I won't go home on our own, don't worry,” said the girl with her back to her brother. “If you knew us better, you'd know that we never split up.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Annmarie. “Are all of you awake?”

“Only five of us.” I recognized that one: Marco, the eldest. What was the girl's name? Francesca. I felt proud of myself for remembering this.

“I'm awake, too,” chirped one of the small ones, a head lifting from Marcellina's hip.

“Alda,
ciao.
That's six,” said Marco.

“Me too.”

“Lucianna,
ciao,
” said Marco. “Seven.”

Marcellina kept sleeping. I made out Etto by the open side of the grove, near the spot where Ugo had been. He was snoring away, lying on his side in his shirtsleeves. He'd slid under the edge of the picnic tablecloth, unlike Marcellina and the children, who were sprawled on top of it. The cloth covered him to the waist, in a normal way, like a bedsheet.

He'd found my purse! Etto Renzetti! The worst day of his life and he'd gone looking for it!

“You kids, you've got problems to deal with, very large ones, which we're not saying anything else about, at least not tonight. So be quiet and get some sleep,” said Annmarie. “No one's allowed to have nightmares. I'm forbidding all nightmares, as you have more than enough in real life. Those are
orders.
”

“I want Mama.”

“Beppina,
ciao.
Mama will be here in the morning. She wants you to be brave,” said Marco. “That's eight of us.”

“Americans can't give orders to Italians. We're co-equals.” That was Francesca again.

Annmarie sighed. “You're right. Americans can't order you around, but nuns can. I am still, officially, let me remind you, a nun. I'm also your golf teacher, so when it comes to obeying me, you haven't got a choice.”

“Can I ask you a question?” said another child in the huddle.

“Which one are you?”

“Sandro.”

“All right, but only one.”

“Do you want the bullets from Signora Fantini so you can shoot your own planes with the Lugers, if they come back?”

“She'd need a cannon,” said the boy beside him, who must have been Mario, his twin. Their voices were more or less identical.

“I want Mama, too.”

“Antonella,
ciao.
It's all right, she'll be coming. Nothing bad will happen to you, I promise,” said Marco. “That's all of us and, in my opinion, if the planes are low enough to drop bombs, the way to get them is with howitzers, not cannons. Cannonballs are too heavy to go that high.”

“Another plane would be best,” said the boy who'd spoken up first. He had obviously given the matter some thought. “Not a bomber, and not a reconnaissance plane. What she needs is a fighter, a fast one. As fast as a shark in the air, with machine guns.”

“I can't fly planes, and I'm not allowed to shoot them,” said Annmarie patiently. “If I did, I'd get court-martialed. I'd languish in a military jail, wearing shackles day and night. By the time they released me, if ever, I'd be too worn down to go out on a golf course. I would never play again, never mind win myself more trophies.”

“Doctor Fantini told us you already won everything there is. You've won more prizes than any other lady golfer in America,” said a boy twin.

“But not in the whole world, not yet,” said Annmarie. “To answer the question, I want the bullets because I'm on guard duty outdoors, and I have to be able to protect you. To tell you the truth, out in the dark by myself, I was a little afraid.”

It gave me satisfaction to know that Annmarie was willing to admit to fear. I felt I'd been right to have decided before that she'd make a good mother for my grandchildren. “She's good with children,” I said to myself.

“I'm never afraid,” said the boy called Rudino. “Does the army teach you to load a gun in the dark, even if you're a noncombatant?”

“Spying in wartime is a form of combat,” said Marco, the voice of authority.

“It is, and they do,” said Annmarie. “They teach you all sorts of things.”

“Did you ever kill anyone?” said Francesca.

“Go to
sleep.
”

It grew quiet within the grove. I gave Annmarie my purse and slowly, shakily, went about the business of trying to stand up. My wool coat was still on me, torn and gritty, but still in one piece. I was not wearing shoes.

“I want my shoes,” I said to Annmarie.

“I'm sorry. We never found them. I'd lend you mine but you'd trip on them. Your two feet would fit in one of them.”

“I'd give you mine, but the same thing would happen.”

The sound of Etto's voice was startling. I hadn't realized that the snoring had stopped. It was as if a bassoon had started playing, in the wake of flutes and panpipes and clarinets.

Etto was a bassoon. “I'll go out with you, Signora Fantini. There's glass everywhere, a million things to watch out for. My job here is to offer protection. Every inch of this village, not that there was a lot of it, I know with my eyes closed.”

“Etto, I'm going to the toilet.”

“I won't look. I'll keep my distance.”

“Stop calling me Signora. I have a first name like a normal person, and you should use it. Please keep your voice down. I don't want you waking Marcellina.”

“He already did,” said Marcellina gruffly. “Don't listen to him. Keep his distance, my foot! I'd go with you myself, but I feel like hell. I feel like I'm ninety, and I'm buried alive in Pattuellis.”

“She wasn't trying to insult you, Etto,” I said.

“Yes, I was, if that's what you call it when you're stating the obvious,” said Marcellina haughtily.

“I'm not insulted, Lucia. Thank you for worrying about it.”

“Thank you for finding my purse, Etto.”

“You're more than welcome. It brought me almost as much joy as knowing you weren't killed when you were buried.”

“Are you loading the guns now?”

“I just finished, Mario,” said Annmarie. “They're all set.”

“Can we touch them?”

“No, Sandro, you can't. If I catch any of you with a gun, by the way, I'll make sure you never pick one up again. Don't forget, I belong to the United States Army. You would not believe the things I learned to do to people who make trouble, and that includes children.”

“How many trophies do you have?”

“Are you Lucianna?” said Annmarie.

“No, Alda.”

“Forty-six,” said Annmarie.

“How many would it take to have the most in all the world?”

“Forty-seven, Lucianna.”

“Did you ever play golf against men?” said Francesca.

“Lots of times.”

“Did you beat them?”

“Sometimes.”

“How many times? More than half?”

“I didn't keep count.”

“I bet it was more like seventy percent,” said Rudino. “Probably thirty percent of American men are taller than she is.”

“In Italy it would be ten,” said a boy twin.

“It would be closer to three, actually,” said Rudino. “Or maybe even two.”

“Does it matter if you're tall in golf?”

“It's a factor, Marco,” said Annmarie.

“Are you giving us a lesson in the morning, before Mama comes?”

“Are you Alda?”

“Yes.”

“I'm planning to, but I'm finished talking. If there's one more sound out of any of you, I'll forget about it. That isn't an order. It's a vow. Since you're Catholic, like I am, I think you understand the difference.”