Lambrusco (33 page)

It was fortunate that she didn't know about the spill on the floor. The waste would have upset her. I'd meant to clean it up. There hadn't been an opportunity. In came the woman soldier. There'd been just time to dart between her and the bed to pull the sheet up, with the arms on the outside.

The letters in the powder were like letters in beach sand. The woman soldier pointed to them, then to Annmarie.
“Molto importante persona,
vee-eye-pee. In America.
Golf-o.
”

“Golf,” I said. I didn't bother with trying to find a way to explain that
golfo
was a gulf.

Another pointing, this time to the skirt and blouse and vest and cardigan and two pairs of stockings I was wearing. Then pointing to the suitcase, then the rest of my new wardrobe, folded up on the one shelf.

“From Ireland,” said the woman soldier. “Irish.
Da
—oh, hell, what's the word for it?—
Irlandesi. Isole verde.
Leprechauns! See, Americans were in
Irlandesi.
They had orders to come here.
Vieni qui.
Airmen.
Pi-lot-o. Air-o-plane-o. Il gen-er-al-o
arranged these clothes for you. Special!
Da Irlandesi!
Her friend the general.
Il gen-er-al-o essere molto molto buono amico di golf-o. Capisce-me? Essere bizarr-o, molto strange-o, Irlandesi, capisce?
”

I nodded as energetically as I could. But I didn't care where the clothes had come from—Ireland, or the moon.

“Vee-eye-pee,” I said.

“Bambino!”
she said, pointing now to Annmarie. “Poor, poor lady. Now
bambino,
but soon,
non bambino.
Germans!
Crim-in-al-i!
Evil!” She covered her face with her hands, started sobbing, and rushed away, slipping on that powder and nearly falling.

When the new nurse returned, tight-lipped, with a broom, I explained with gestures that I'd made a decision. Just because I'd had no training didn't mean I couldn't do nursing. From now on I'd take care of the bathing and the dressings myself. Seeing as how I was here anyway.

Suddenly in the doorway one morning there appeared a stranger: an Italian-speaking American. A boy in a naval uniform, blue. A red badge was on his sleeve. He couldn't have been more than eighteen. Dark, long-nosed, big eyes like dark marbles, flecked with gold, like tiny bits of sunlight. His smooth young face was pink—ruddy from outside, from the cold.

Unfortunately he only had a minute. He had to rush back to his ship. “Are you Signora Fantini?”

“I am.”

“Merry Christmas, even though it was four days ago. And best wishes for the coming New Year, with the hope, in spite of the odds against it, the new will be better than this one.”

I hadn't known it was Christmas, or that the year was about to change. It didn't feel strange to be indifferent to those things.

What felt strange was that my eyes were looking at colors. Red, blue, pink, bits of sun. Colors!

“I have a message for you,” he said.

First a gift, pulled out from behind his back. He'd been standing there with his hands behind his back. In one hand, his cap, white. In the other, a bottle. It took me a moment to decide if I ought to accept it. Lambrusco.

“This is from whom?”

“He said to tell you, from Tullio. He said to tell you, your cousin the doctor is on his way. He said to tell you, your squad is doing fine. He said to tell you, he'll be arriving himself in about a week. He said to tell you, he doesn't think you should worry any longer about the problem of the infestation of your property.”

Before turning crisply to hurry away, he put on his cap and saluted me, sharply.

Try to feel normal.

Try to feel the way one should, upon receiving good news.

Try to believe that the coldness inside was only normal winter cold.

Try to believe that instead of sand in my throat, there was only a touch of frost, no different from the stuff that filigreed every window in Italy, including the one in this room, with lacy, pretty white swirls. I didn't have to raise the curtain to know that there was more frost on that window than glass.

Lucia, time to go on. You look so beautiful tonight.
I could hear them—Beppi, Nizarro, Geppo, Lido, Zoli, Nomad, all of them, and the cooks, too, gathered by the kitchen door, growling at each other, arguing over the best spots. On would come the spotlight like a star. Inside me, a voice.

Don't let this be the day you leave me.

Always a talk with it. Always in a tone of supplication. Was that true?

Had I been wrong about that, like being wrong about the deaf girl and her mother, holding Beppi against his will? He'd gone there of his own free will, all right.

Do
not
let this be the day you leave me.

Maybe it had never been a prayerful sort of thing. Maybe it had never been weak of me. Funny how I'd always thought so. Maybe it had been more of a command, all along.

“Annamaria, good morning,” I'm saying, leaning down to her.

I can do this. The regular routine, the right motions, like putting on the right dress, like walking the right way to the place at the front of restaurant all eyes would turn to.

“Soon you'll be going home. Ar-ee-zo-na! Do I pronounce it correctly?” Stroking her hair. Not the time now to look for snarls.

The eyelids slowly open. It's still a shock to watch those eyes try gamely to make sense of what they're looking at, then give up, like Cesare trying to sing to the people still alive in Cassaromilia.

“Annamaria, look, it's me, Lucia. Look at me. Here I am, same as always.”

“I want to go back to sleep.”

“You will, later on. Keep your eyes open. If you shut them, I'll pry them open myself, with my own fingers!”

“Don't yell at me.”

“I won't, if you do as I say. Now your washing-up and some powder. Soon they'll give you something for a good, sweet sleep, and then you'll wake up again. Waking up won't be hard. You'll see. Ugo, do you remember Ugo? Of course you do. Soon he'll be here. He's going to take care of you, and then we'll have a celebration. We have some very nice wine. Do you see that bottle on the shelf, with my clothes from Ireland? From Ireland, isn't that
bizarr-o
? That bottle's for us. It's just a little procedure. You won't feel a thing, and then we'll have a nice talk about how it will feel for you to go home and win more trophies. Win! Isn't that a good word? You can tell me all about your golf. Tell me what it's like to hit the little white ball into the hole. Everything's going to be all right. All the news is good. Listen to me. After Ugo comes, your sweetheart will come also.
Tom.
Without his wife. There's no wife! Isn't that something to look forward to? Where I'm standing right now is where he'll be. That's a promise. I know what I'm talking about! A voice in my heart explains everything! Would you like a song? As it happens, I know one about this very type of wine. Shall I sing it to you? I'm a little out of practice, but I'll try.”

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellen Cooney is the author of six previous novels. Her short fiction has appeared in
The New Yorker, The Literary Review, Glimmer Train,
and many other publications. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she taught creative writing at Boston College, MIT, Harvard, and the University of Maine. She was a lifelong resident of Massachusetts and now lives in midcoast Maine.

ALSO BY ELLEN COONEY

A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies

Gun Ball Hill

Small Town Girl

All the Way Home

The Old Ballerina

The White Palazzo

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Ellen Cooney

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cooney, Ellen.

Lambrusco / Ellen Cooney.

p.                  cm.

1. World War, 1939–1945—Underground movements—Fiction. 2. Intelligence officers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS
3553.
O
5788
G
86 2004

813'.54—dc22                                    2007015270

www.pantheonbooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-307-37711-1

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