The Coming of Fabrizze: A Novel (Black Squirrel Books) (2 page)

S
WEET was the welcome for Augustine. Surely it carried an expression of love and longing for America. All his friends followed his mother and nephew down the mountain to meet him in the sunlight. His mother wept. The watchful men saved their smiles until he came to them. Women with eyes like jewels were moving in to squeeze his hand. Several of them held babies up to be admired and then they slipped away behind their men. An old woman called down a greeting from the edge of the village square. Suddenly everyone was shouting his name. Augustine would remember the sound of it ringing through the mountains of Italy.

“Eight years, eight years,” he used to say. “I worked like a horse for eight long years. I swore to come home and tell the truth about America. And then what happened? One kiss from the village and I surrendered on the spot.”

So it was that peace came to him in the year after the First War ended. And yet he gave no peace to the village of Rivisondoli. It seemed that the one kiss turned him into a lover of America. By the time that he left home again he had enriched the local myth in a way that stamped him a man of high imaginative power. Friends would send for him to hear his glowing account of life in the New World. It was like a song. His voice grew ever stronger with it. His brown eyes would close and his nostrils dilate at the sudden overwhelming fragrance of his “lost bride, America.” It was said that Augustine had three varying accounts of his rise to power in America. There were two more accounts, quite as thrilling, of his rise to power over two charming widows right in Rivisondoli.

No one remarked on the fact that his hands were swollen with work. At home Augustine would put his hands on the kitchen table and gaze in silence at his mother.

“Please, Augustine, please,” said Rosa. “Must we look at your hands again tonight? Put them away. I understand that you worked. A man lives and he works.”

The truth is, Augustine had lived in America as though in a cocoon. He worked for the railroad and hoarded his money. Room and laundry cost him eight dollars a month. He spent about thirty cents a week for food and so his diet never changed. He paid five cents for a bag of white beans, or lentils, and then bought three pounds of the cut odds and ends of spaghetti for nine cents. The grocery clerk was fascinated by him.

“What is it this week?” the clerk would say, in Italian. “Is it the beans again?”

“The lentils,” said Augustine. “Are you really an Italian? It's a long way from home, eh?”

The clerk was filling the bag.

“Wait, wait,” said Augustine. “I was thinking here. Let it be the beans then. Do you mind?”

The clerk emptied the bag and started with beans.

“Wait, wait,” said Augustine. He mopped his brow as though on the verge of panic. “Be kind enough to change to the lentils. How sorry I am. Really, I don't know what's happening to me. It's the living alone that does it. You said beans, my boy, and I found myself saying beans just to show my affection for you. But I settled on the lentils before I came in. I must make my own decision.”

Sympathizing, the clerk threw in an extra handful.

Augustine cooked the lentils and spaghetti in a fine tomato sauce seasoned with garlic and parsley and basil leaf. Five days he ate from the same pot, and with the same crazed appetite. When he reached bottom a wild exultant cry would escape him and bring the landlady flying up the stairs to his room.

“How you frightened me!” said Josephine. “What does it mean, Augustine, what does it mean?”

“It's of no importance,” said Augustine. “A thing that comes out now and then. Don't upset yourself, my dear.”

“Give me warning,” said Josephine, piteously. “Let me prepare myself a little. It freezes me to the bone. And my sister almost choked on a piece of beef.”

“A piece of beef,” said Augustine.

“What can I tell you?” said Josephine. “It's like a terrible thing is loose to devour us all. Will it happen again?”

“Toward the end of the week,” said Augustine.

Josephine thought about it.

“Perhaps you should find a wife,” she said. “How about the butcher's daughter? She has uncommon strength and beauty. You can take hold of such a girl. Let me arrange it. She'll be tickled to have you.”

“Very nice, very nice,” said Augustine. “But I can't afford a wife. You forget the people back home.”

“But they expect too much of you,” said Josephine. “Are you to sacrifice your life for them?”

“I am in chains,” said Augustine, huskily. And here he put his hand to his throat and began to choke himself.

“Poor soul,” said Josephine.

Augustine had let it be known everywhere that he was the sole support of his mother and his nephew. Thus he was overwhelmed with food and drink when he made his round of visits in the neighborhood. At least once a week he turned up for supper at the house of his railroad foreman Rossi.

“Take a glass of wine with me,” Rossi would say. “We were just going to have supper. A glass of wine.”

“You don't mean it?” said Augustine, with hapless brown eyes on the floor. He was holding a hat which looked as if it had been used to beat out a fire.

“Of course I mean it,” said Rossi, flushed with wine. “And I want you to take supper with us.”

“It's a trick,” said Augustine, in his innocent way.

“What a fellow he is,” said Rossi, throwing up his hands. “I tell you, Augustine, you don't leave this house till you take food to warm you. Do you hear me? I say I won't let you out the door. Nancy, snap the lock on the door.”

“I believe you mean what you say,” said Augustine, musing and stroking his chin. “You speak from the heart. And yet I was on my way home this very minute to bake a loaf of bread.”

“He makes his own bread,” said Rossi. “Nancy, Nancy. Come and listen to this.”

“Perhaps I'll stay the next time,” said Augustine.

“I'm giving an order,” said Rossi. “Why, it's a curse to eat alone. Stay, stay. Talk a little. Tell me about things in the old country. Your people are from the Abruzzi, eh? How well I know it. The mountains, Augustine, the mountains! First thing in the morning your eyes lift up and your heart pounds!”

“I am in chains,” said Augustine.

“But I know about you,” said Rossi. “I know how you do without things for your family. Your landlady told me. You give your heart away and all the while you count your beans. I was thinking about you. The way you live gets me excited. It's going through me like a music. You're living like a saint!”

“Like a spider,” said Augustine.

Suddenly his nostrils dilated.

“Is it hot sausage we're having?” he said, unable to control himself any longer.

“If I could only paint your picture, Augustine, if I could only catch the look of such a man! Nancy, do you see it there? Look, look! It's around the eyes! My name would live forever!”

Sausage was hissing in the oven.

“Good, good,” Augustine was saying, softly.

“Forever and ever!” said Rossi. “Such devotion and sacrifice! It's a look of the spirit!”

Sausage was sizzling and popping.

“Wonderful,” said Augustine.

“In a class by yourself,” said Rossi. “Think how many people depend on you! A lion would break his teeth on such a man!”

“A bit of meat,” said Augustine.

“We'll talk later over the wine,” said Rossi.

“If you wish.”

“You are mine, Augustine!” said Rossi. “My prisoner! I'll have the secret of your strength before the night is done! Nancy, Nancy: snap the lock on the door!”

“Augustine snapped it,” said Nancy.

“The mountains, the mountains,” said Rossi.

D
URING those bleak years Augustine moved between the railroad yard and his lonely room as though dragging a cart. It seemed that his life was reduced to shoveling and sleeping. He was fixed so fast that he carved his initials in a shovel and would sulk all day if someone took it by mistake.

“A man made sick,” he said.

He failed to recover until his return to Rivisondoli. Friends were waiting to celebrate his arrival. They marched him up the mountain and danced him through the streets into his home. On the way up Augustine was made well, and made so dangerously well it was a kind of affliction. Certain it is that he was instantly alert to the wonder surrounding his adventures in the New World.

“I discovered America when I came home,” he said.

Serenity came to his spirit. He took to strolling round the town and lounging in the cool clean square. Villagers came out of their way to listen to him. Children followed him.

“Tell us something,” they would say.

Augustine sipped red wine under the chestnut trees and for a time he was speaking almost in parables. It took him half the morning to walk one block to the square. Sporting a cane he tapped his idling way through the narrow cobbled streets. Windows were opened. Women leaned on sills and called down to him with restlessness and longing in their voices.

“Augustine, Augustine,” said Filomena. “Is it true what you say about this America? You're making it up, eh? Come now, tell the truth for once.”

“Say my name,” said Augustine, leaning on his cane. “Say it again, Filomena.”

“Augustine?”

“You make a question and my answer is yes.”

“O, Augustine.”

“A revelation,” said Augustine. “Yes, my dear, most of it is true about America. Except some things. But most of it is true.”

“Except some things,” said Filomena. “Come and have a bit of coffee then. Arturo is in the fields.”

“And he is smiling,” said Augustine, going in. “A rare one, Arturo. A provider. Work is the bread of the soul.”

“I'll tell Arturo when he comes,” said Filomena. “But how is it you brought no woman from America? Are they good to look at?”

“There are no women like the women of Abruzzi. You are born on the heights and it's where you belong. Listen then. Do you know that everyone used to ask why Arturo had the little smile at the corner of the mouth?”

“He has that smile,” said Filomena.

“He was smiling at the funerals, too,” said Augustine. “And then he grew the moustache to hide it. But we knew he was still smiling. Now I know why he smiles and smiles. I guessed it when you looked at me with those blue eyes. Tell me what you see in mine. Look closer.”

Augustine sipped the hot black winy coffee. Presently he was reaching over to pinch her cheek and chin and thigh.

“You mustn't, Augustine, you mustn't.”

“I was a fool,” said Augustine. “I thought the mountains shut the world out. Now I see they may shut a world in.”

“Augustine!”

“A little fun,” said Augustine.

“It isn't right.”

“A little play,” said Augustine.

“But we're getting beyond that age.”

“Where do you get this information?” said Augustine. “Come down the mountain later. I'll be hiding in the forest. Hunt me down, my dear…. Tell Arturo I was asking after him.”

Augustine paid several more calls and then he drifted into the quiet little square. He sat in the brilliant sun and watched Umberto putting up, brick by brick, the first hotel in the village.

“Come and take a glass of wine,” said Augustine.

“No time, my friend. Each brick is a brick less.”

“Or more,” said Augustine. “Do you never rest?”

“Never.”

“Listen a moment. What if someone came to tell you that you were going on a journey? A far long journey, you understand, from which you'd never return.”

“I'd make ready.”

“Do it then,” said Augustine.

“I'm going nowhere.”

“And I say you should make ready.”

Appetite fully awake in the nipping mountain air, Augustine strolled homeward for lunch and an afternoon of meditation. Here and there the faces of children were vivid and startling as flowers. Augustine stopped to look into the eyes of a radiant little girl. With his cane he drew a circle round her beauty. He was moving on when he heard Don Antonio calling to him from the church.

“A word with you,” said Don Antonio, coming down. “I've been watching you, my friend. I'm beginning to see the color in your face again. You were so thin and pale when you returned.”

“It was a ghost you saw,” said Augustine.

“It's good to have you home,” said Don Antonio. “You'll share a fine harvest with us. It will be better than last year. And next year, we pray, will be even better.”

“Don Antonio, this is my home,” said Augustine. “I left here and the people were eating bread and pasta. They're still eating bread and pasta. You talk of progress, Don Antonio?”

“It's you who talk of progress,” said Don Antonio. “I would say there is no progress but in the realm of the spirit.”

“And so there is no progress?”

“You're teasing,” said Don Antonio.

“A man's diet affects his spirit,” said Augustine. “Beans and pasta did a serious thing to me, I'm sure of it.”

“Come, come,” said Don Antonio.

“I find it impossible to soar, as I used to.”

“I'll tell you a secret,” said Don Antonio. “Nothing is sweeter than sacrifice.”

“The secret is safe with me,” said Augustine.

“I see you must have laughter,” said Don Antonio. “Will you be going back to America then?”

“Once more perhaps,” said Augustine. “I miss my home when I'm there and now I miss this America. I may take my nephew and then I'll return for good.”

“Your nephew, your nephew,” said Don Antonio, clasping his hands in delight. “Who can resist him?”

“A fine young man,” said Augustine.

“He used to sing in church when he was a boy. One day he was singing higher and higher. ‘There it is,' I was saying. And then he went higher. The others stopped singing. I was looking the other way. I pretended not to listen.”