Linda Cardillo - Dancing On Sunday Afternoons (19 page)

The Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel was ful , and I took a seat toward the back with Zi'Yolanda and my sisters. Claudio had paid his respects at the house. He spent as little time inside a church as possible.

The priest droned, banks of candles blazed—al lit by the obsessive grief of Signora Scarpa—and a pungent incense wafted from the nave, attempting to mask the odor of the decaying body.

More than once, Antonietta and her brothers searched the congregation, only to whisper with shaking heads to their bent and wailing mother, "No, Mama. He's not here."

At the final blessing, the five boys took their positions at their father's casket, leaving an empty place where Roberto should have stood to shoulder the weight. At the sight of her sons, Signora Scarpa accelerated her keening, and Antonietta, awkward and heavy, struggled to support her mother as they fol owed the casket out of the church. Zi'Yolanda-eSst a meaningful glance at me as the brothers marched past us, but I focused on the eyes of my friend and offered her my blessing.

Zi'Yolanda was determined to accompany the body to its final resting place, not out of respect for the ritual but in anticipation of the drama that would stil , she was convinced, play itself out. She had talked Claudio into providing us with a carriage for the trip to the cemetery in Riverdale, so we joined the cortege threading its way through the Bronx.

By the time we arrived at the gravesite, the tension that had fil ed the church had lessened. Only a smal group of family and friends had made the trip, and if the police were watching, they were wel hidden. The grave was a short walk uphil from the drive where we left the carriages. The flowers had arrived ahead of us and were piled around the recently dug hole. Mountains of flowers, wreaths, hearts, sprays of lilies and carnations, ribbons printed with endearments or prayers, a profusion of familial grief and community solidarity.

Somewhere in the masses of blooms was one with the Fioril o name attached. Up close, one could see that the edges of the flowers were already tinged with brown.

We clustered around the grave. The Scarpa boys, their father's coffin safely positioned at the side of the hole, gathered around their mother. My sisters and I and Yolanda were opposite them and to the rear.

The priest intoned the Latin prayers for the dead. Then the gravediggers, who had been standing at the periphery, leaning on their shovels, moved forward, slipped two canvas straps under the coffin and lowered it.

Michele, the second-oldest son, held his mother back as she attempted to throw herself across the polished wood of her husband s coffin. The grave- diggers, used to the hysteria of widows, continued methodical y.

Shovelful by shovelful, they began to fil the grave. The rest of us began the final procession, grabbing a handful of dirt and tossing it into the hole. As I reached the edge, I looked across at one of the gravediggers, at his long, muscled forearms and powerful hands gripping the wooden shaft of his shovel. I held my breath as I raised my eyes to his face, obscured by beard and visored cap pul ed well over his brow. For an instant, he lifted his head and looked directly into my eyes without breaking the rhythm of his shoveling. In his gaze was recognition and defiance, pride, cunning, warning.

I saw new lines around familiar eyes, pressed into flesh that had become reacquainted with the sun. I saw, stil smoldering, the glint of desire that had once pul ed me into feverish dances and intimate conversations. I saw the man I had lost, not only to Italy but also to violence. I knelt to fil my hand with earth, my lungs with air. The movement brought me close enough to see the hairs on his long fingers bleached even lighter now; close enough to remember my hand enclosed within those fingers. This was no apparition. No figment conjured up by the crude chants of my aunt. No dim memory that I could conveniently wipe away or easily put aside with false assuredness.

This was flesh and bone and breath, inches away from mine. Defying me to reveal him, daring me to leap across his father's grave, ful of a man's confidence that I would do as he demanded—stay or come, be silent or profess my desire.

I stood again to steady myself, to hear my own thoughts instead of his. And as I slowly sprinkled the earth over his father's coffin, I let him slip through my fingers as wel , brushing the last bits of dust from my palms.

CHAPTER 28

Flora's House

Flora came to the store to ask me a favor. She had become a friend to me, offering me welcome and kindness. I found myself so lonely at home, no one taking my side, no one wishing me well. I was so exhausted by the voices battering at me every day—my aunt and my sisters, harpies who conducted my life like an orchestra leader with his baton; the neighbors, who watched every step I took, whether alone or accompanied. My own voice, that used to sing, chant, cast simple spel s, spin funny stories, was now stil ed, dumbstruck, seeking words that did not want to be found.

So Flora was a relief—like a sensible, solid hearth. She baked me delicious coconut cakes and listened to me.

It was automatic for me to agree to the favor. She and her husband had to go to New York City, something legal they had to attend to. She wanted me to come and stay with the baby. Nino was in school most of the day, so it was only the baby who needed tending. I told Til y and Pip I wouldn't be in the store and steeled myself against their complaints.

"She has no sister to help her," I told them. "If you want, I'll take the accounts with me and work on them while the baby sleeps."

I got to Flora's apartment early enough to catch a smile from Nino as he left for school. I slipped him the sour bal I had waiting for him in my pocket. I winked as he shoved it into his mouth, shifting it with his tongue to hide it from his mother as she kissed him goodbye.

"God bless you for doing this, Giulia. There isn't anyone else I'd trust with Rosina. Is there anything I should explain to you?"

"I don't think so, Flora. I've taken care of my share of babies, from my little brothers to Claudio's boys. I don't expect any surprises. And Rosina knows me. She'll be fine. Go, go. Look after your business and don't worry about us. That's my girl!"

I took Rosina into my arms and sang her one of our childhood rhymes. Then I swept her into the kitchen for her porridge while Flora and her husband quietly left.

Rosina scooped up tiny fistfuls of oatmeal and licked it from her fingers as I assisted her with a slender silver spoon— a christening gift from Paolo, Flora had told me. She was hungry and abandoned herself to the milky pleasure, humming softly as she sucked on her fingers, leaning eagerly forward every time I approached her with the spoon. She laughed and opened her mouth.

When she was ful , she turned her head in distraction toward the window, the light and shadow, the sounds of the street below: the screech of the trol ey, the clatter of horse and wagon, the urgency of voices greeting, bargaining, arguing. Food no longer held her interest. The life al around was cal ing to her.

I took my cue, and wiped up the remnants of her oatmeal, playing the finger games Giuseppina had sung to me. Then I lifted her from her chair and carried her over to the window so that she could see what had so attracted her.

Rosina slapped her hand against the glass, making her own music, trying to get the attention of those in the street below. The avenue was just coming to life. Mercurio the butcher was rol ing out the awning over his shop window to shade the rabbits hanging from metal hooks, the tripe mounded in bowls over ice. Ferruzzi the greengrocer was fil ing his sidewalk bins with potatoes and onions. Til y was removing her key from her bag and about to open the door of the shop.

Rosina was growing tired of the display of sunlight and street life at the window and began to tug on my right earring. I carried her to the corner where Flora had a smal box of amusements for the children—a rag dol and a cigar box fil ed with wooden blocks. I sat cross-legged and stacked the blocks for her to tumble with a gleeful swipe—a game I'd seen her play with Nino more than once. But Nino had far more patience than I, far more playfulness. In time, however, Rosina knocked over her last column of blocks, crawled to her dol and, clutching it, climbed into my lap with drooping eyes.

I crooned no more than a few minutes before her head fel heavy against my breast. I sat stil , accepting the stil ness, enjoying the moment of doing absolutely nothing except feeling this baby sleep contentedly in my arms.

As I sat, I heard a knock, a man's voice, Flora's name cal ed from the other side of the apartment door.

I rose careful y, shifted Rosina's weight to my shoulder and went to answer the door.

"Who is it?" Flora had not told me to expect anyone. What man would visit her during the day?

"It's Paolo."

I opened the door immediately.

"Giulia! I didn't see you this morning on your way to the store and I thought that I'd missed you—that I'd been too lazy to get up as early as you and was being punished for my laziness. But here you are! What brings you here? Is Flora il ? Is that why you're holding the baby?"

"Oh, Paolo. What a surprise! A wonderful surprise! No, no. Flora's not il . She and Giorgio had an appointment in the city. She asked me to take care of Rosina for a few hours and I knew Til y and Pip could spare me at the store for a day."

Paolo took off his hat and entered the apartment, giving me a tentative and awkward kiss on the cheek as he reached around the sleeping Rosina. It was not our usual embrace.

"I was just about to put Rosina down. I'll be right back. Do you have time for a cup of coffee, or are you in your way somewhere?"

"It can wait." He unbuttoned his jacket as I moved down the hal way to Rosina's bed. She stirred and fumbled for her dol as I laid her as softly as I could upon her mattress. I did not want her to wake up at this moment.

Paolo and I had experienced great intimacy in these few short months. But it had been mostly an intimacy of words. When we'd been together—our encounters on the street, his stealing into the back of the store—we had never been truly alone. Bodies, voices—noisy and inquiring or merely haphazardly aware of us—al encroached upon us, obstructed us from that final intimacy.

I knew so much about Paolo. How he thought, how he felt, how he spent his days and nights. But I did not know the warmth of his bare chest, the shape of his back, the weight of his body molded to fit the hol ows and curves of my own.

I walked back down the hal to Paolo after assuring myself that Rosina slept. I walked slowly, soundlessly. I did not want to wake her; I did not want to reveal myself to any listeners lurking beyond the walls and windows. I wanted to be silent, invisible. I did not want to exist at that moment to anyone except Paolo.

CHAPTER 29

Stil ness

Paolo lifted his head as I approached. He had bolted the door to the landing, drawn the curtains in the front room. Done what he could to shield us.

I saw the flicker of longing in his eyes. A smile on his lips, opening his heart to me. A stil ness. No words. No gestures. Not even that nervous habit he had of pushing his hat back, running his fingers through his hair. No movement at al . It was just Paolo and Giulia facing each other in a dim room. The space between us was a gulf, an Atlantic Ocean of the unknown, the uncertain. Potential destruction or potential happiness. We did not move toward each other. We did not turn away, breaking the stil ness with a gesture or a word.

Part of me was ready to jump into my sil y chatter—to be the girl peeling eggplants so long ago who took a man's handkerchief so unknowingly, who gave it back saturated with unspoken and unrecognized promise.

I felt no certainty in that moment. I looked across the space between Paolo and me and saw my future, my pain, my salvation, my honor, my desire, my dreams. I felt the blood begin to surge into the vein on my neck, swel ing it to a knot. My hand fluttered, then rose to cover the vein as if it were my private parts, some shame that I must hide. Did Paolo feel the same hesitancy? The same sense that stepping forward was stepping off the edge of the world?

I looked into the blueness of his eyes. So transparent, so clear. I felt that I could look through them. Not like Claudio's almost black eyes—guarded, hidden, a mask. Paolo wore no mask, at least not with me.

What did I see during that silence between us? Heartache. Hope. A questioning. Not a demand, not an order, not an expectation.

He was asking, "Do you want me? Wil you have me? Are you willing to step to my side, separate yourself from your family?"

And I asked myself, am I? Do I move into the circle of Paolo's arms and leave the grasp and clamor of my sisters and aunts, the rules of my mother, the protection of Claudio? Can Paolo protect me? Can he place his body between the world and me? In his arms, in his bed, wil I find a refuge? Wil I find a life? Not only food on my table and in the mouths of our children, but also nourishment for my loneliness and weariness. Wil he be able to feed me with his words, his music? Wil he sing to me in our bed? He had told me that I came to him in his dreams. So real that he thought I was already there, in his arms, in his bed. He woke up sweating, breathless, spent, as if I had embraced him. He woke up, he said, fil ed with my light.

I moved toward him.

"This is unbelievable to me. To have you here." I drew briefly back. "Did anyone see you come in? Does anyone know that you're here?" My face constricted in fear of this last obstacle.

"No one knows where I am. And Flora wasn't expecting me. I stopped by on a whim, without a plan. Just a good morning to my sister was al I had on my mind. Now, of course, there's much more...." He smiled and pul ed me back into his embrace.

We held each other in silence and at length. There was, for the first time, no urgency, no anxious listening for the approach of others, no bittersweet sense that this joy would be cut off long before we wished it to be. We had time.