The Scent Of Rosa's Oil (4 page)

Madam C frowned. “Why?”

Angela circled her hand over her belly. “Someone more important.”

Madam C dropped her jaw. “Who’s the father?”

Angela shrugged. “It’s my baby,” she whispered. “There’s nothing else to say.”

“G
et ready, Rosa,” Madam C said. She paused. “The smell of apples is still here.”

“For you,” Maddalena said, handing to Rosa the cardboard box she had brought in earlier from the street.

“Tonight you’ll truly look like a princess,” Margherita echoed, pulling the pink ribbon on the box loose.

Stella lifted the box lid and two sheets of tissue paper. “What do you think?”

In slow motion, Rosa took out of the box a long white dress of silk and Brussels lace.

“It’s from all the girls,” Maddalena said, “although I did all the legwork, as usual.”

“I love you all,” Rosa mumbled.

“Try it on,” said Madam C. “It may need adjustments, and we don’t have a lot of time before the guests arrive. And you,” she told the three girls, “help me with the wine.
Santo Cielo
, we’ll never be ready for this party.”

The preparations for Rosa’s sixteenth-birthday party had been underway at the Luna for one week. Margherita, Maddalena, Stella, and the other Luna girls had been on long outings in the morning looking for the perfect dress for Rosa. Antonia, the cook, an old woman with a big mole on her cheek, had worked overtime in the kitchen for days preparing vegetable tortes,
pollo alla cacciatora
, and
stoccafisso in umido
for the thirty guests Madam C expected that night. Santina, the maid, who normally came to the Luna every other morning, had come every day that week to spruce up the first floor. In the parlor, she had scrubbed the walls to make sure the whitewash was clean, waxed the
graniglia
floor to make it shine, and washed the flowered curtains to remove the smell of smoke. Then she had cleaned every inch of Rosa’s bedroom twice. “This room has still a baby smell,” she told Rosa, mop in hand. “We need to scrub it off. When a girl turns sixteen, it’s a new life. No more baby smell for you.”

“Thank you,” Rosa said, grateful for the recognition of this important milestone, “but you seem to be the only one to notice. Could you explain that to Madam C?”

“Don’t worry,” Santina replied. “She knows.”

There was a baby smell in Rosa’s room because Rosa had slept there since her very first day of life, in the same double bed of wrought iron with a thick wool mattress, batiste sheets, and a soft white bedspread filled with goose feathers. Madam C didn’t believe in cribs. “Cribs are a wicked invention,” she had told Angela toward the end of her pregnancy. “Their only function is to keep mothers away from their babies. A man must have invented them, so he wouldn’t be bothered. Your baby will sleep in a bed with tall pillows on each side to prevent falls.” The double bed had been ready for Rosa for days in the room behind the kitchen—bedspread, pillows, and all. When the midwife had handed Madam C the newborn, Madam C had rocked her in her arms for a while. Then she had placed her gently on the bedspread, between the two lines of pillows, and sat on the bed next to her, caressing her tiny, soft, bald head and her forehead marked by three wrinkles. Rosa had fallen fast asleep.

Overall, Rosa was a quiet baby, at times absorbed in her own thoughts, at times staring at the people around her with large, startled eyes, as if she wondered where she was and why. She gave everyone big smiles. The Luna inhabitants were spellbound. Madam C, who had cried over Angela’s death for seven nights, held Rosa’s hands for hours and talked to her about anything just to see her smile. All the Luna girls took turns to bathe Rosa, sing her songs, and take her down the block to Mafalda, the wet nurse, four times a day. Puzzled by the number of different women who showed up at her house with Rosa, Mafalda, a housewife with huge breasts and two loud kids of her own, asked Madam C one day, “Who’s the mother?”

“I am,” Madam C said with pride. “Is Rosa eating enough?”

“She is. And she’s growing fast.”

“Your milk must be good.”

“It’s not my milk,” Mafalda said. “In all my life, I’ve never seen a baby surrounded by so much love.”

“We’re love experts at the Luna.” Madam C giggled. “You know that.”

Soon after Rosa’s birth, the schedule of the Luna underwent changes. Madam C moved the brothel’s opening hour from three to four in the afternoon, so there’d be time for Rosa to be brought back from Mafalda’s house and across the parlor while there were no clients lingering there. At the same time, the girls, who never got up in the morning before ten, now began to wake up at eight, ready to cuddle Rosa, wash her diapers, and take her out for a stroll in the
passeggino
. It was as if they had two faces, that of ruthless businesswomen who kicked men out of the bedrooms the moment their time was over, and that of unselfish, tender creatures devoted to the well-being of Angela’s daughter. The positive effects of the activities around Rosa spilled visibly into people’s lives: Rosa was calm and sociable; Madam C was relieved, as she didn’t bear the responsibility of raising Rosa all by herself; and for the girls, the time they spent with Rosa was a soothing break from their stressful work with the clients. They were happier than the prostitutes in other brothels. It wasn’t uncommon in those days to see men who had hopped from one brothel to the next for years become Madam C’s steady clients, fascinated by the relaxed, upbeat atmosphere they found at the Luna. They couldn’t have imagined, not even in their wildest dreams, that the reason for all that good humor was a child.

When Rosa began to crawl and experiment with climbing stairs, Madam C stated a few new rules for the girls. “The second floor is out. I’ll fire you on the spot,” she said in a tone that left no room for discussion, “if I find out that you let Rosa into your rooms. And after four in the afternoon she must stay in the kitchen or in her bedroom. We’ll take turns to keep her company till she’s asleep.”

The kitchen became Rosa’s evening world for a long time. She was fascinated by all the pots and pans, which she stacked on the floor to make strange buildings; she made music banging the stove with the silverware; she poured water in and out of cups for hours. Of all the girls who were at the Luna at that time, her favorite companions for those games were Marla, who taught her how to float pierced eggs in a pot filled with warm water; Lisa, who danced around the kitchen as Rosa drummed with spoons and knives; and Esmeralda, who told her tales of monsters, witches, and magic wands. The sounds of the parlor mingled in with the sounds of Rosa’s games: male voices, glasses tinkling, loud laughter. Odors seeped into the kitchen as well: strong, sweet perfumes, sweat, and the acrid smell of smoke. To Rosa, the sounds of her games and the lingering cooking odors became one with the odors and sounds of the parlor, and even many years later, when she no longer lived there, she’d still experience that strange combination of sensations whenever she’d think of the days of her childhood at the Luna. She’d also often wonder about love and loss, the two defining elements of her life, and how they had crept into her heart early, even as she drummed with the silverware and listened to Esmeralda’s stories. Transience came with the territory. By the time Rosa was four, other than Madam C, there was only one girl at the Luna who had witnessed her birth and had known her real mother. Marla had left around Rosa’s third birthday, Lisa and Esmeralda shortly after that. It was beyond Rosa to understand departures. Madam C explained to her that the girls who left had wanted to see the world and would return someday with beautiful presents for everyone, and new girls would soon be coming, who surely would love Rosa as much as the old ones. Rosa nodded in silence, thinking she’d give up all the presents gladly to be able to hold on to her friends, and what was the point of getting new girls when it’d be much easier to keep those who were already there.

It was shortly after Esmeralda’s departure that Rosa began to daydream. Madam C had taken Rosa on morning outings since she had been able to walk. They went shopping for food together and once in a while made their
passeggiate
longer, strolling all the way to the port. They’d look at the ships coming and going, the passengers embarking and disembarking, and the longshoremen loading and unloading merchandise on the docks. To Rosa, the port was magic. She loved to watch the ships detaching slowly from the piers and tooting their sirens in the air. She asked Madam C one day how far the ships were going.

“Some go very far,” Madam C explained, “to the other side of an immense sea called the ocean. The land there is called America. Others stay close by, just down the coast from here. They all have a great time speeding in the water.”

“Is America the place where Marla, Lisa, and Esmeralda went to see the world?”

“Maybe.”

“Can I go to America some day?”

“Sure you can,” Madam C said. “After you’ve gotten yourself an education.”

“How do I get myself an edu…education?” Rosa asked, having no clue what the word meant.

“By going to school, you silly girl.”

Rosa looked at Madam C with cheery eyes, thinking that whatever school was, she’d get it done quickly, and then she’d hop on one of those ships, those that went very far, and she’d go find all the friends who had left her, and when she’d find them all they’d have a big chocolate cake, like the one Antonia made on Sundays.

Antonia did not live at the Luna. She came every day from noon to four to cook dinner and lunch for the following day, and she had done that for years, since before Madam C had owned the brothel. In those days, Rosa liked to spend time in the kitchen in the early afternoon, watching Antonia dice and bake, amazed at the many uses kitchen utensils had beyond drumming, construction, and floating eggs. She thought constantly of Marla, Lisa, and Esmeralda exploring mysterious lands on the other side of the ocean.

“What are you thinking about, Miss Rosa?” Antonia asked once in a while, puzzled by the faraway look in Rosa’s eyes.

“The ship I’ll ride to America after I’ve gotten myself an education.”

“Who put these crazy ideas in your little head?” Antonia would laugh.

“I did,” Rosa said with one of her big smiles.

“Eat something. Thin as you are, you wouldn’t make it past the Gallinara Island. Forget America.”

“Where is the Gallinara Island?” Rosa asked.

“Couple of hours west of here,” Antonia explained. “I was born on the coast just in front of it.”

“Can you take me there some day?”

“There’s nothing on that island,” Antonia said, “other than rocks and caverns.”

As she nibbled at a piece of
focaccia
, Rosa felt relieved at the thought that maybe Marla, Lisa, and Esmeralda had stopped at the Gallinara Island instead of going all the way to America, in which case they’d be much easier to find. And they must be happy there, she thought to herself that night, with an island all to themselves and caverns where they could sleep and sit in when it rained outside. Still, it’d be fun to go all the way to America, and perhaps Marla, Lisa, and Esmeralda could go with her if they ever grew tired of sitting on the rocks of the Gallinara Island with no one else living nearby.

Rosa seemed always to pick her best friends at the Luna in threes. Marla, Lisa, and Esmeralda were her first friends; Maddalena, Margherita, and Stella would be her last. In between were Carla, Francesca, and Annaclara, her favorites at the time Rosa enrolled in school. It was 1901, and at that time there were no real schools in the
caruggi
. From Arianna, the woman who sold vegetables at the corner of Via Banchi, Madam C had heard of a certain Miss Bevilacqua, who taught children to read and write in her apartment, a four-room dwelling only three blocks from the Luna. Miss Bevilacqua was very selective, Arianna had said: she didn’t take children who had no manners, showed up dirty, whose mothers were unmarried, and whose fathers were thieves or had anything to do with the illegal activities that went on in that part of town.

Madam C went to see Miss Bevilacqua one day at noon, dressed in an outfit she had bought especially for the occasion: a blue dress with tiny white polka dots, a cream-colored brimmed hat with a fresh gardenia on its side, and a cream-colored parasol with a blue hem of French lace. She looked stunning. She found Miss Bevilacqua, a thin, tall elderly woman with gray hair and a wooden stick in hand, dismissing class for the day. The class was composed of seven boys and two girls, ages seven to thirteen. Madam C introduced herself as Miss Clotilde Paraggi, governess for the young Miss Rosa, whose parents were on a business trip to South America and had entrusted the child’s education to her before departing.

“I’ll take good care of Miss Rosa,” Miss Bevilacqua said in a humble tone, flattered that such important people had chosen her as their daughter’s only teacher. And if this is the governess, she thought to herself staring at Madam C and the envelope full of banknotes she set on the desk, imagine how beautiful and elegant the mother must be. Surely, having the daughter of such important people in her home school would add to her reputation and make her business grow.

“Don’t talk to Rosa about her parents, please,” Madam C said with an imploring voice. “She’s heartbroken, and any mention of their trip will make her cry.”

“You can count on me, Miss Paraggi. My lips are sealed.”

Madam C took Rosa to Miss Bevilacqua’s the following day. Rosa, then seven years old, dressed like a perfect young lady, was not thrilled at all, because going to school meant the end of her morning
passeggiate
to the port. She said nothing against it, however, because she knew she had to get her education, whatever that meant, before being able to ride one of those ships and cross the ocean. Hand in hand with Madam C, Rosa stood at the door of the classroom and looked around. For the first time she was seeing a room filled with children. She stared at them with her curious eyes, intrigued by their different looks, expressions, and voices. “Come in, sweetheart,” Miss Bevilacqua said with an exaggerated smile. “Children, let’s all say, ‘Hello, Miss Rosa.’”

Rosa was a fast learner. Miss Bevilacqua attributed her amazing progress to her good upbringing, unaware of the fact that Rosa was learning as fast as she could in order to cross the ocean. After two months in the classroom, Rosa could read and write, and had caught up with the older children and even left a few behind. She was a respectful, neat young lady, and Miss Bevilacqua couldn’t stop saying good things about her to the governess when she came to pick up Miss Rosa at noon. One day, a few months later, Miss Bevilacqua gave the four children who could write best an assignment: write about your mother and father. She had remembered Madam C’s request that Miss Rosa’s parents not be mentioned, but concluded that after that much time had gone by, surely those wonderful parents must be back from their trip and living with their daughter. The following day Rosa showed up with two wide-ruled pages beautifully handwritten with her ink pen. Miss Bevilacqua asked the four children to read their essays aloud, beginning with Miss Rosa. Rosa stood up and read her composition with pride: “I have ten mothers and no father, but there are lots of men who come to my house to play a game. They are not very smart, so they lose all the time and pay my mothers money. My favorite mother is Madam C, but I also love Carla, Francesca, and Annaclara a lot. They tell me stories and show me their rooms, where they play the game. Madam C doesn’t know. Luckily, or I would be in trouble.”