Unto the Sons (79 page)

There also seemed to be little in the way of social prestige for his son’s future offspring as a result of a marriage into the Bianchi family—nothing beyond a frayed link to their threadbare title. In conclusion, even though Francesco did not boldly state it to the baron, a marital union between Antonio and Olympia did not on first reckoning appear to be a favorable deal for the Cristiani family, and on second reckoning it seemed worse—and made so by the supposition that such a union would be followed by the return of the large Bianchi family as patrons of Cristiani’s tailor shop, patrons who would come in often, would select the most expensive fabric, would demand the finest in workmanship, and would assume a kinsmen’s prerogative in ignoring all bills.

As if the foregoing assumptions and facts were not sufficient to mark Olympia as an undesirable marital catch, her father often repeated in his talks with Francesco that she would be very difficult
to
catch; and the baron made such statements in tones of commiseration, as if there were nothing in the world that Antonio in Paris might want more than the hand of Olympia in marriage, if, alas, she were not virtually beyond reach. Poverty did not rob the nobility of their presumptuousness. But neither did this presumptuousness affect Francesco’s pragmatic nature. He knew a bad deal when he saw one. And yet he remained respectful as the baron spoke, never entirely unaware of the flowered white royal rosette on the baron’s lapel, and the heavy row of old Bourbon medals pulling down on the breast of his faded frock coat. Francesco also felt a certain empathy toward the baron, who after all was a caring father like him, a man wishing only that his daughter find love and happiness. And since there seemed no threat of the daughter’s finding love and happiness with Antonio, Francesco relaxed as the baron rambled on in the circuitous way that is common in the south, using many words to say very little, rhapsodizing on the joys of having grandchildren, lamenting the brevity of one’s lifetime on earth, quoting a line from Dante’s
Purgatorio
, pondering the price of keeping peace in the postwar Balkans, and then circling back slowly but surely to the subject of Antonio and Olympia.

“It is truly a pity that those two cannot be brought together somehow,” the baron reflected with a sigh, shaking his head slowly as he leaned lightly on Francesco’s showcase and gazed out the front window toward the road uphill, where the old shepherd Guardacielo was leading a flock of mangy-looking sheep.

“Yes, it is a pity,” Francesco lied, standing on the other side of the counter.

“Wouldn’t you think that the two of us, loving our children as we do, could come up with a solution?”

Before Cristiani could think of a reply, the baron snapped his fingers and turned with sudden enthusiasm toward the tailor.

“I think I have an idea!” he announced, as Cristiani stiffened. “Yes, I think I know how I can help your son get to know my daughter, although he must go about it cleverly, as I’m sure he’ll be capable of doing—with a little help from me. When he gets to town, the two of us will get together in some secret place where I’ll be able to point out Olympia to him, as she takes her daily walk to the post office. Every day after the siesta, at four o’clock or thereabouts, she goes over to unlock her little steel box and collect her mail—most of it, I don’t doubt, from out-of-town admirers. And all that Antonio would have to do would be to cross her path, once or twice,
and pay her absolutely no attention!
He should appear to be very aloof or conscious only of himself. He should be wearing one of his fancy French suits, and maybe have a French novel tucked underarm, and as he walks along he should be looking at the ground, or staring at the sky, as if his mind were contemplating universal questions. While she is approaching the post office from one direction, he is walking toward it from another—and then, briefly, their shadows blend together
—but he keeps walking!
Eyes straight ahead, he never looks back,
never
, just in case she’s hiding somewhere to see if he does!

“If Antonio will follow this advice for three or four days,” the baron went on avidly, somewhat bewildered but in no way discouraged by the blank expression on Francesco’s face, “a magical thing will happen. Take my word for it, a magical thing
will
happen! It will be a subtle thing, done with all the subtleness that a vain and beautiful woman is capable of when she realizes that she has gone unnoticed by an important and worthy man. She will
find
a way for him to take notice. Without his becoming aware of it, she will begin courting
him!
”

Although Francesco could imagine nothing he wanted less, he did not want to insult the baron with even a hint of demurral, for paternal meetings over matters such as this were typically complicated by fragile
egos—and especially so in this case. A baron without money was more sensitive to slights than a baron who was rich. In either case, he was still a baron; and yet here was a baron practically humbling himself in Cristiani’s tailor shop with a plan designed to make the younger Cristiani his son-in-law—an act that in another age would have more than flattered any family of tailors. Indeed, even now a certain flattery was evident, for among the noble ancestors of the Bianchis had been cardinals and bishops, one of them a delegate to the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, and such spiritual enrichment in a family was beyond the measure of mere property and coins. Francesco’s devout wife, Maria, and her equally devout father, Domenico Talese, would undoubtedly gain added strength in their faith from the knowledge that through Antonio’s marriage to Olympia they might claim a retroactive relationship with men who were surely in heaven.

As he was berating himself for his mercenary tendencies, Francesco heard the baron’s raised voice, repeating the question: “So we are in agreement, then?”

“Yes,” Francesco tentatively replied.

The baron extended his right hand over the counter and Francesco took it, forcing a smile.

“We are now Cupid’s messengers,” the baron announced cheerfully, “and if we are lucky in our work—if Olympia and Antonio fall in love and marry—you and I will become relatives. And if we are not lucky, well … we’ll remain as we are—fellow villagers and good friends. So how can we lose?”

“Yes, how can we lose?” Francesco repeated, trying not to give the matter more thought.

“And as soon as your son arrives, you’ll send me word so that I can meet with him and point out Olympia?”

“Yes,” Francesco said.

“And you’ll get a letter off to him right away so he’ll be advised of my ingenious strategy?”

“Yes,” Francesco said.

True to his promise, Francesco began composing a long letter to Antonio as soon as the baron left the shop. He spent two hours working on the letter, uninterrupted by any profitable visits from customers, or chats with his fellow tailors, who had been reduced to working only in the mornings. Before addressing the envelope, and gluing to it six express-mail stamps, and then posting it, Francesco reread his letter three times. With each reading, the baron’s scheme seemed more preposterous.

Francesco could not believe that his son would ever be able to take the idea seriously.

But after Antonio read the letter, he thought the idea was fascinating. It was creative and logical. Carrying out the baron’s plan would also be
fun!
All that Antonio would have to do was walk around Maida like a narcissist, which for him would not be entirely out of character. If he played his part well, he would soon be vulnerable to the seductive intrigues of a beautiful young noblewoman. What could he lose? And if she won his heart, he could cancel those less convenient appointments that his father had arranged out of town—notably the one requiring that Antonio climb on foot up to Polia in the interest of igniting the passions of a shy maiden who probably
did
belong in a nunnery; and also the long trip down the coast to Bovalino that might subject him and his traveling companions to the raids of highway robbers—and for what? For the chance to dine at the table of a respectable local family and make furtive eye contact with yet another heralded daughter whose beauty and other assets might well exist only in the imagination of her adoring or conniving father.

No, Antonio decided, the baron’s daughter definitely topped the list of possibilities. She would be the first stop—and, he hoped, the last. A man as ambitious and busy as he was deserved a woman who would court
him
, saving him valuable time and energy; yes, he had time only for a woman who wanted him
desperately
, who would lose all pride in claiming him as her own. Now Antonio closed his eyes and fantasized about the aggressive female who would soon make him her prey, a victim of her desire. Fatigued though he was from the interminable, putrid ride on the southern train that ran counter to all of Mussolini’s strong-armed demands for railroad reform, Antonio could barely wait to make himself available to this shocking new proposal of courtship in reverse.

But as he swung his suitcase onto the platform, he was grabbed from behind and embraced by an older woman. He recognized her immediately—mainly because of what she was wearing: an elegant blue dress that Mademoiselle Topjen had designed for last year’s Paris collections but had been unable to sell even though Antonio had resewn it completely. So he had mailed it to his mother in Maida as a birthday present; and as she wore it now at the station, he was pleased that it fit her so well, although he was upset on seeing the tears in her eyes.

“Antonio,” Maria cried out, “Antonio …” It was all she could bring herself to say, resting her head on his shoulder until Francesco pulled her away to give his son a paternal kiss on both cheeks. He held Antonio by the shoulders and stood looking at him in silence for several seconds. It
was presently so noisy along the platform that conversation was impossible. There were the whistles and hisses of the train, the shouting and shoving of other passengers greeting those who had met them. Glancing behind his father’s back, Antonio studied the townspeople and was bewildered by the proletarian style of dress that so many people seemed to have adopted. Women as well as men were wearing peaked caps, and overalls, and ankle-length boots, and they covered their upper bodies with several layers of sweaters. The Socialist workers had dressed this way in the cities of industrial Europe in an attempt to cushion the blows they received from right-wing strikebreakers; and the abundance of sweaters also made factory floors softer when strikers staged overnight sleep-ins. But Mussolini had long since checked the strikers in northern and central Italy, and in places like Maida there had never been any factories to strike against; and yet this proletarian fashion had somehow filtered down to the rural south, belatedly and incongruously, or perhaps, on second thought, quite properly.

His father was now gently pushing him back, trying to be heard, but Antonio still could not make out clearly what he was trying to say. Antonio felt his mother’s soft hand on the nape of his neck, and he turned toward her, smiling. She had stopped crying. Her face was flushed, but as always she was pleasant to look at, especially since her habitually serene expression—which Antonio associated with how she used to look at Mass when returning to the pew after Communion—was restoring itself to her countenance.

The Paris-made dress that her aura of gentility imbued with an enduring fashion unintended by Mademoiselle Topjen, and the brocaded silk shawl that she now drew more closely around her slim shoulders against the cold wind sweeping across the platform, allowed Antonio to imagine his mother as ideally attired to attend any public event that was worthy of her presence, be it a High Mass, or an opera, or a grand banquet held in his honor, or, yes, his wedding.

Not quite so pleasing were Antonio’s impressions of his aging, though still dapper father, whose surety and strength Antonio had grown up expecting to be eternal, since they had once seemed so abundant and natural: he remembered Francesco’s upright posture and unflinching manner, his energy as a worker and his shrewdness as a businessman (a shrewdness that usually dominated whatever kindness existed in his heart, although he
was
capable of much kindness, Antonio quickly amended in behalf of this man on whom he had largely modeled himself). But Antonio’s father on this day at the station was more slope-shouldered than Antonio
had ever expected to see him, and he had forgotten to wear his fedora, which he never used to forget in wintertime, and as a result Francesco’s once wavy gray hair was revealed to be less gray than white, less wavy than frizzy, and noticeably thinning at the crown. His father’s face, which Antonio had remembered as a lean and alert façade in search of opportunities, was now sagging, in particular under the eyes and beneath the chin. Antonio was grateful that his success in Paris had allowed him to send generous amounts of money home each month; and he was also pleased to note that his father’s blue pin-striped suit was newly made, and that its waistcoat was so expertly cut as to nearly conceal his father’s middle-aged paunch. It occurred to Antonio that the tailoring business in Maida had declined to such a degree that his father’s best customer was probably none other than Francesco Cristiani himself.

Finally, as the noisy train moved beyond the station and most of the crowd dispersed from the platform, Francesco could make himself understood.

“I’m very sorry about what’s been happening,” he began, facing Antonio. “I owe you an apology.”

Although Antonio was not exactly sure what he was referring to, Francesco’s words surprised him nonetheless. Antonio had never before heard his father accept the blame or apologize for anything.

“But I promise you one thing, my dear Antonio,” his father went on, with some of the old force returning to his voice, “I’ll straighten out this mess. I tried to deal sensibly with these madmen in Maida, but it was a mistake from the start. That crazy baron is the worst of them. But somehow I’ll get us out of that trap he’s trying to set for us, and …”