Read The Unfinished Angel Online
Authors: Sharon Creech
The Unfinished Angel (5 page)
P
eoples, why are they so compelsive, no, what is the word, propulsive, no, obsessive, yes obsessive! Why they are so obsessive about time, and why they think it is like a cake you can divide into pieces, why? Why they have to have seconds, pinutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, sentries, on and on, tick-tick, whoosh there goes two seconds, whoosh, two more. What, they are thinking time is going somewhere? Where it is going, I ask you, where?
Listen. You hear any ticking? No. You hear just the world being the world. You see any clocks in the sky? You see calendars on the trees?
Zola, she keeps asking me time questions, like: How long will the childrens stay in the tower? How long will the childrens sleep? What will they do when morning comes? How many hours, how many pinutes, what time, when,
ack, ack ack
!
Hokay. Hokay. I am calmed down now. Hokay.
This was a problem last night: Childrens have to go to the toilet. Goodly, there is a toilet in the basement, but still they have to go up and down the narrow creaky stairs to get to the toilet and when you flosh the toilet it makes a noise like a frog burping. So all night long there was
creak, creak, crickle, creak, BURPLE BURP, creak, creak, crickle, creak.
Then a tiny quiet. Then
creak, creak, crickle, creak, BURPLE BURP, creak, creak, crickle.
And whenever I hear the creaks and the burples I am fearing that Mr. Pomodoro will wake up and think there is a burglar in the house, and what if he has a gun and tries to shoot the burglar who isn't really a burglar but is a children going to the toilet? So all night long, I am going up and down the creaking stairs with the childrens to protect them.
Maybe peoples will tell you that the night has eight hours or seven hours or wentever, but I tell you there are long nights and short nights, not same-number-hours nights, and this night was a very, very, very, very long night. Goodly, though, Mr. Pomodoro did not wake up. Neither did Zola, which I found a tiny bit annoying because wasn't
she
the one so worried about the hungry childrens?
When I am finally draping myself in the gauzy hammock on the balcony, and the pink headfore of sun is peeking over the mountain, Zola bounds up through the trippy-trap doors and into the rooms below bringing bread and cheese, and then she zips up to the balcony. She is wearing three dresses: blue over pink over white, and green socks and green shoes and six or nineteen ribbons in her hair. It looks more attracting than you might think.
The childrens snore on. They don't even wake up for the food or for more creaking to the toilet. They are tired from all that down and up the stairs all night.
“Angel!” Zola says. “We've got to get busy!”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Are we telling anyone about the children? And then what? What if someone takes them away to an orphanage? That's where they were, Paolo says. A bad orphanage. But not in this country. And then they lived in ditches. Ditches! What's the plan?”
“Plan?” She is expecting
me
to have a plan?
“What's next?”
“Next?”
“Angel! Are you having a hearing problem?”
And she goes on, “When should . . .” and “What time will . . .” and myself is woozy sleepy and I want to go lie down in the pasture of the goats.
B
ehold,” I say to Zola. “Behold the sky, pinking with morning. Behold the soft white moon going to sleep now. Behold the blue mountains, so tall, all around us, with the white snow far up on the tops. Behold the green trees and the yellowy stone houses and the rock paths terracing up the mountainsides. Take a big bulp of air. Ahhh. Behold the towers of the churches. Behold the lake down there at the feets of the mountains, so green and silver, so still. Take another big bulp of air. Ahhh.”
Zola is leaning against the balcony wall, smallingâwhat is that word again?âoh, smiling! Zola is smiling at the paradise around us.
“Zola, peoples is running around like chickens and they forget thatâ”
Pocketa-pocketa-pocketaâ
“Eww,” Zola says. “What is that noise?”
“It is the noise of the wall-making man at the school of Pomodoro. Wait! Wait!”
“What?”
“That's it! The hungry childrens will go to the school of Pomodoro, andâchildrens can live at the school, right?”
“Well, older children canâhe wasn't planning on having young children boarding there, and besidesâ”
“No besides! Is perfect! Perfect!”
“Butâ”
“No butting! Is perfect!”
“Angel! He is going to find a lot of reasons why the children would not be able to go to the school.”
“How many childrens he has already enrolled in this school?”
Zola studies the snow on the far mountains. “I couldn't say for sure.”
“Guess. Appiximately. A hundred? Two hundred? Seven hundred?”
“I don't have the exact figuresâ”
“Appiximate! I am trying to understand if there is space for the childrens.”
“Well, there aren't actually confirmed enrollments for everyone yet.”
“Zola, for how many is there the confirming?”
“Let me see. There might be, I think, maybe four.”
“Four hundred students? And how many beds?”
“No, four students. Four.”
“Four?”
P
apas especially do not usually like surprisements, unless it is the gold falling in the laps or the horses winning the races. Papas can react very badly to surprisements, this I have seen, like when Signora Divino's husband was a papa and his son said, “Papa, the car went into the lake.” This was a surprisement that Papa Divino did not like and he went very much loudly crazy.
Usually the mamas are standing there saying, “Now, now, let's calm down, shh, shh, no need to throw the chair out the window, shh,” which is what Signora Divino often found herself saying. And when the papas do calm down, the strange thing is they are very soft in the heart and they are just glad their childrens are alive and well.
When Zola goes to get Mr. Pomodoro to show him the childrens, I am thinking maybe we should have prepared him first. This will not be a good surprisement, and where is the mama to calm him down?
But here is the funny thing that happens: Zola leads Mr. Pomodoro into the first tower room, where all of the childrens have gathered to eat the bread and cheese. As soon as Mr. Pomodoro enters the room, Josef, the little wow-boy, runs to him and grabs his knees and says, “Papa! Papa! Papa!” and then shy Rosetta runs to him and does the same, and the rest of the childrens gaze at Mr. Pomodoro with big, round eyes, very black, like the eyes of kindly puppies.
And Mr. Pomodoro does not throw a chair out the window or anything like that. Instead, he stands there with the childrens hugging his knees and he weeps. Just a little bit. And very quietly.
N
ow it is true that Signora Divino and her grandson, Vinny, sometimes make me want to throw pinecones or to pinch them slightly, but I need to tell you more so you will understand why I watch over them.
I am there when Signora Divino is born. I am summoned because she is stuck inside her mama. It takes a lot of flishing here and there and much calming of the air and the midwives, but at last the baby is delivered. Her name is Marianna DiPuccio. Her lips curl up at the sides in a friendly way and her wee mouth is puckered as if to give a kiss or make a bubble. I like this little baby and I stick around to be sure she is hokay.
Such a funny child, like she will ask a tree if she can borrow a twig, and she will burst into song in the middle of church, and she will tell you everything you might want to know about fairies or dinosaurs. Sometimes she is an impish child, too, sneaking chocolates and bringing worms into the house. I like to be in her energy. So much laughing and goodwill.
I am there for her wedding to Signor Divino and when their son, Massimo, is born and while he is growing up and losing the car in the lake and taking flying lessons and many things like that. And I am there when the son marries Bette and when they have a son, Vinny. Signora Divino is so happy to have a grandson.
And one day, a day of blue sky and spring breezes, Massimo tells his mama and papa to sit on the terrace with Vinny and watch the sky and maybe in an hour or so they will see something beautiful. And so Signor and Signora Divino and their two-year-old grandson, Vinny, sit on the terrace in the afternoon sun and they enjoy the air on their faces and they watch the sky.
They hear a humming sound, the drone of a small plane, and they turn as the plane enters the valley between the mountains. Vinny claps his hands. He loves planes.
And then Signora Divino knows. “It's Massimo!” She waves elaborately. She sees the yellow scarf of Bette, Massimo's wife. “Look, Vinny! It's your mama and papa!”
The plane flies lower and dips its wings toward the house of the Divinos. Oh, it is exciting to see! Signora Divino calls to the neighbors. “Come, come, look! It's Massimo!”
The plane soars to the end of the valley, rises and turns elegantly, heading back toward the local airport to the west. Such a day! Such blue sky and purple mountains so sturdy and silver lake so calm and still. Such a day!
And then
bip-bip,
an odd noise, a stuttering
bip-a-bip-bip
and a narrow plume of white smoke and a loud banging and the jerking of the plane and Signor and Signora Divino and their friends shouting, “No, no, no!” and little Vinny clapping his hands.
Bip-a-bip-bip whirrrr.
The plane regains its course and dips over the mountain as everyone strains to see and listen. Is the plane in good form? Will it crash? Will it make it to the airport?
All they hear is a low drone.
“Is normal?” Signor Divino asks no one in particular. “Is good?”
Signora Divino slumps into a chair and remains like a flour sack, limp, mute.
Signor Divino and a neighbor race to the airport. An hour later they return with the triumphant Massimo and Bette.
“Whew!” Massimo says. “Whew! There must have been an angel watching over us!”
Ho boy! Not just “watching,” but flishing and flailing and swirling the air currents!
“Papa, Papa!” Vinny says.
Massimo sees his mother, aflump in the chair. “Mama?” Massimo says. “Mama?”
Signora Divino cannot speak. The shock has been too much. For two weeks she does not speak. When she hears the drone of a plane outside, she covers her ears and crouches.
And then one day, she speaks. “I make ravioli,” is what she says, and on she goes, but she is not the same. She seems hard on the outside, but inside is soft and fragile like an egg. When her husband dies later that year, the outside gets harder and the inside softer.
Now her son, Massimo, and his wife, Bette, are in America for three months. They are thinking of moving there, to Virginia, where Bette's sister lives. Her sister wants to open a school, an international school. Signora Divino thinks this is crazy idea.
And now Mr. Pomodoro says he is opening an international school right here, in Switzerland, and she thinks the whole world is looloo. Why can't Mr. Pomodoro go home and Massimo and Bette come back and open their school here, so Vinny and Massimo and Bette could stay close by and Signora Divino would not be alone? Why?
I protect the Signora if I can. If I pinch her and Vinny or throw pinecones, it is only because I do not want them to become crooked and bitter. I want them to remember what it is like to think, “Such a day!”
S
o, we have the childrens from the chicken shad in the tower, clinging to Mr. Pomodoro's knees, and he sees their big black soft puppyful eyes, and little Josef is saying, “Papa! Papa!” and outside is the
pocketa-pocketa-pocketa
and the
arf, arf, arf, arf, arf.
Mr. Pomodoro does his best. He goes in search of the mayor of the
commune,
but the mayor is in the Canary Islands on holiday, so then Mr. Pomodoro searches for the vice mayor, but he is away at his fishing cabin, and so round and round Mr. Pomodoro goes, trying to find someone to give the permission to sort out the childrens.
The police decide it is their job, and they want the passports of the childrens, but of course the childrens are not walking around with passports. They don't know what the policeman is talking about.
“We don't have any credit cards,” Paolo says.
“Not credit cards, passports. PASS. PORTS.”
The childrens shrug.
The policeman thinks the childrens should come to the police station, but the childrens start crying and shouting, “Papa, Papa!” and outside is the noise, the
pocketa-pocketa-pocketa
and the
arf, arf, arf,
and the policeman tells Zola's father, hokay, he can look after the childrens until something official is sorted out.
“And when might that be?” Mr. Pomodoro asks.
The policeman looks at the crowded tower room and the dirty childrens and he hears the noise outside and inside and he says, “I don't know. It's a bigga mess.”
T
he childrens are taking turns up and down the creaky stairs to bathe in the big tub and to wash their hairs. Much water is dripping.
Mr. Pomodoro goes zoomzoom down to the Migros by the airport to buy eight pairs of jeans, eight shirts and sweaters, and eight pairs of socks and underwear, all in the same colors so no one will be fighting. Rosetta and Terese do not want to wear the jeans; they want to wear Zola's swirly skirts.
Signora Divino knocks on the door of Casa Rosa. Zola shouts up to Mr. Pomodoro. “It's Signora Divino. She wants her hair.”
“Her what?”
“Her hair.”
Paolo is summoned to translate. “Her
hat
,” he says. “She wants her
hat
. She says the bad children stole it.” He turns back to Signora Divino and says something in Italian and then he stamps his foot and goes upstairs and returns with the hat of Signora Divino's deadened husband.
Later that day, Mr. Pomodoro leads the clean childrens in their clean clothes through the village, stopping at various casas along the way.
“Signora Mondopoco? Your scarf, I believe?” Mr. Pomodoro's long, wibbly arm nudges Terese forward. When Terese offers the scarf, Signora Mondopoco smiles broadly and clasps her scarf as if it is a lovely, new present.
“
Grazie,
” Signora Mondopoco says. “
Molto grazie!
” And then she returns the scarf to Terese, draping it on her neck, and says, “
Molto
better,
sì
?
Molto
better.” The Signora waves good-bye.
Two people are not so friendly. Signora Pompa roughly snatches a sweater back from Nicola. Nicola stomps her foot and says, “Be
nice
to me!” When Franz reluctantly returns a leather pouch to Signor Rubini, Signor Rubini says, “Bad! Bad! Bad!” Franz interrupts with, “
Glocken, glocken, glocken.
” Signor Rubini slams his door.
As Zola, Mr. Pomodoro, and the childrens return to Casa Rosa, they hear
boom, boom, boom-de-boomâ
Zola puts her hands to her head. “Auf . . .”
Paolo alertens to the sound and runs to the gate of the Divinos. Vinny is drumming like the
pocketa
man, very fast
pocketa-boom, pocketa-boom, pocketa-boom-boom-boom.
Josef says, “Wow!
Was ist das?
” and he, too, runs to the gate of the Divinos. Soon all the childrens are gathered round, and when Vinny realizes he has an audience, he goes faster and faster with the wooden sticks, what you call them? Drumsticks? Is that not chicken legs?
Faster and faster Vinny goes, and the childrens clap. They say, “Bravo! Bravo!”
And you can see Vinny's cheeks with their pinkness of pride and you can see Signora Divino peeking out of the kitchen window almost shyly.