An Italian Wife (12 page)

With each accusation he made, Josephine grew wilder. She pushed him. He was a small man, a nothing man. She pushed him again and this time he lost his balance.

“Where is she?” Josephine screamed.

When he didn't answer, she fell on top of him, her fists landing on his shoulders.

“Where is she?” she screamed over and over.

Two men came, maybe policemen, she wasn't sure, and they lifted her up so that her legs kicked at the air and her hands fell on nothing.

“Just get her out of here,” the doctor who spoke terrible Italian said as he got to his feet and smoothed his suit.

“Crazy wop,” one of the men said, laughing.

“Oh, they're crazy,” the other one said, gripping Josephine harder than was necessary. “That's for sure.”

Later she found four angry bruises above her collarbone where he'd held on to her so tightly. She watched them turn from purple to green and then yellow until they faded away. But sometimes, even after they were gone, Josephine thought she could still see their imprint there, like the man had marked her.

“HOW MANY PEOPLE
LIVE IN VERMONT
?” Josephine asks Elisabetta.

The train is almost in Montpelier. They have been on it for a long time, changing in Boston and eating the provolone and salami and fresh bread that Josephine packed. Elisabetta has only nibbled, wrinkling her nose at the sharp smell of the cheese and steadily sipping her apricot brandy.

“Not a lot,” Elisabetta says. Her eyes have grown heavy-lidded and her mouth looks puffy.

Josephine smiles. Maybe she would walk down the street in Montpelier, Vermont, and catch sight of a six-year-old girl, who looks like her, a girl on a bicycle, smiling with her hair blowing in the breeze. And then Josephine would walk up to that girl and say:
You are mine.

“What's funny?” Elisabetta asks, frowning.

She's had a book open on her lap for a long time now, but she hasn't even glanced at it. The book has a blue cover with a woman's eyes looking out from it. When Josephine asked what the book was, Elisabetta said: Only the most brilliant book published this year. And when Josephine sounded out the title—
The Great Gat-sby
—Elisabetta rolled her eyes at her mother.

“I'm imagining wonderful things,” Josephine says.

Elisabetta grunts. “Such as?”

But Josephine just shakes her head.

Or maybe, she thinks as the train slows, the girl would look nothing like her. Maybe she looks like her father. Even thinking this makes Josephine's heart lurch. What would it be like to see that face again?

Elisabetta stumbles slightly as she stands to get their valises from the compartment. The bottle of apricot brandy is empty, rolling about on the floor.

Josephine picks up the book. “You forgot this,” she says, holding it out.

But Elisabetta waves her away. “It's too depressing,” she says. “Leave it.”

The eyes on the book stare out at Josephine. It seems wrong to leave it there.

“What?” Elisabetta says mockingly. “Are you going to read it?”

“You said it was brilliant,” Josephine reminds her.

“I changed my mind. All right?”

By the flush on her daughter's cheeks and the thin layer of sweat on her forehead, Josephine sees that she is drunk. She thinks back to the night Elisabetta arrived home, how she tripped coming up the stairs. And then last night, she fell asleep on the sofa, early, her mouth open, snoring lightly.

They are in the aisle now, moving with the other passengers toward the door.

“Elisabetta,” Josephine says softly, placing her hand on her daughter's shoulder.

Elisabetta turns around, shaking her mother's hand from her.

“Betsy,” she hisses. “I told you it's Betsy.”

“Betsy,” Josephine says. It comes out more like
Bitsy
when she says it. An ugly name, she thinks. Foolish-sounding. “You drank that whole bottle of brandy?” she asks.

“It wasn't full,” Elisabetta says.

Their eyes meet briefly before Elisabetta continues down the aisle, the valise banging angrily against the seats she passes. The lies between them settle on Josephine. This is what happens, she thinks. Years pass. Wrongs are committed. Secrets take hold and the only way to protect yourself is to lie. A mother hopes her children don't have to hide things from her. She watches Elisabetta's green wool coat in front of her, the pleated back and fine workmanship in the stitches. She's unhappy, Josephine realizes. The thought surprises her. This is the child who she knew was going to become something. Even as a little girl, Elisabetta was orderly, motivated. She used to write a little newspaper every week, full of stories about the neighborhood, with illustrations she drew accompanying them. Josephine imagined she might become a writer or a scientist. Someone important. Someone special.

The urge to take her daughter in her arms overcomes her. But she knows that Elisabetta would resist such an impulse. She never hid how much Josephine and her sisters and brother embarrassed her. One Christmas she went all by herself to the five and dime and bought a bottle of cheap perfume for Josephine. She wrapped it in shiny blue paper and tied it with silver ribbon. Wear it, Mama, she'd said when Josephine opened it. Wear it every day. That was when Josephine understood that she repulsed her in some way. She'd done it too, for Elisabetta. She'd sprayed a big spritz of the overly floral perfume on herself each morning. But Elisabetta never seemed to notice.

Josephine follows her daughter out of the train, carefully stepping down the steps onto the platform. It is cold here in Vermont, much colder than back home. The air cuts through her thin coat and makes her shiver. How did a mother keep a baby warm in the winter in such a cold place? She thinks of all the children she swaddled in blankets she'd knit for them. Even now she can feel the weight of them in her arms. But this daughter she never held, who had wrapped her in soft wool and held her close enough to let her own warmth spread to her?

THE CONVENT IS
STUCCO
with ivy climbing on it. Inside, arched doorways, high ceilings, the smells of candles and bleach. No sounds, except a distant door shutting, perhaps soft voices.

Josephine sits up straight, her purse in her lap. Elisabetta slumps beside her, asleep or passed out, Josephine does not know which, her head gently bobbing. So pretty, this daughter was. So smart. But now she looks smudged, like God took his thumb and tried to erase her. Footsteps approach, heavy and rushed. The door opens and there is Chiara, in her black habit and thick stockings and black shoes. This one, unattractive as a girl, looks almost pretty as a nun, her hair hidden beneath the wimple so that all you see is her face, round and smooth, her brown eyes framed in long lashes.

Behind her is an older nun, stern-faced and bespectacled. Neither of them moves toward Josephine, so she gets to her feet and approaches them.

“No physical contact,” the older nun says.

Josephine struggles to understand.

The nun puts a possessive hand on Chiara's shoulder. “She belongs to God now,” she says.

Chiara smiles. “Isn't it wonderful, Mama?” she says. “Sister Gregory is my mentor. She stays by my side almost all day and night.”

The older nun is frowning. “A long trip?” she says.

Josephine follows her gaze to where Elisabetta slouches on the bench.

“Very long,” she says.

The three women stare at Elisabetta in an uncomfortable silence.

“Elisabetta,” Josephine says finally, her voice sharper than she intends.

Slowly, Elisabetta opens her eyes and looks around, confused.

“Chiara is here to greet us,” Josephine says, unable to take the edge out of her voice.

Elisabetta licks her lips, shifts her heavy-lidded eyes from face to face as if she is trying to place everyone.

Sister Gregory makes a clucking noise.
Like a hen
, Josephine thinks, and as she thinks it she decides that the nun even looks like a hen with her big, round bottom and narrow chest, the soft folds of her neck above her habit trembling slightly.

“We'll go to our motel,” Josephine says firmly, taking charge now. “And we will see you tomorrow morning at the chapel.”

“You can take this with you,” Sister Gregory says, holding out a large sack. “It has all of her worldly goods in it,” she explains as Josephine takes it from her. “She won't be needing any of it any longer.”

Chiara beams at this.

Josephine resists the urge to open the sack and see what her daughter has given up. She doesn't need to look really; she knows Chiara has given up everything.
For God
, she reminds herself. But that thought doesn't comfort her.

THEY EAT DINNER
in a small café on the main street in Montpelier. Elisabetta has ordered something called an open-faced sandwich—turkey smothered in gravy on top of two pieces of toast. It looks nothing like an open face.

“Elisabetta,” Josephine begins.

“Betsy,” she says in a tired voice.

“Why are you so . . .” Josephine struggles for the right word. Unhappy? Angry?

“How should I be?” she says before Josephine finishes. “I am trying to finish my degree, but we have to keep moving because Kip can't keep his pants on.”

Josephine frowns. Can't keep his pants on?

“Oh,” Elisabetta moans, “I'm such an idiot.”

Josephine chews the stringy pot roast, considering what to say. But her mind stays blank.

“I should have married John Leone,” Elisabetta says unbelievably.

“Father Leone? How could you have married a priest?”

“I could have,” Elisabetta says in her drunken sleepy voice. “I had my chance.”

“Blasphemy,” Josephine mutters, and she makes a rapid sign of the cross.

Outside the window, beneath a streetlamp, a family walks past. The father is tall and lean and wears a red knit hat with a pom-pom on top. The mother has a long, blond braid down her back, and giant fuzzy earmuffs, and she holds the hand of a girl in a powder-blue coat. A light snow begins to fall, and Josephine feels like she is watching a movie of a family walking down a street in the snow in Vermont.

The girl stops, and slowly turns and faces the café. Josephine holds her breath. The girl seems to be looking right at her. Josephine stares back.
I am here
, she thinks, willing her words to leave the café and float out into the street, where they could settle on the girl.

“A pretty moon,” Elisabetta says in that way she has that seems like she is talking to herself and not Josephine.

Still, Josephine nods. The moon is a perfect crescent, her favorite, silver in the blue-black sky.

Now the girl smiles.
At me
, Josephine thinks.
She is smiling at me.
Her heart lurches and she gets to her feet. Without thinking she is moving toward the door, and then she is out the door, standing in the cold night air.

But the family has continued walking, and the father is saying in a loud voice with a strange accent, “That's a good one. Tell it again.”

The girl's high-pitched voice drifts in the air. “Why shouldn't turkeys do math?”

Turkeys? Math? Josephine starts walking after them.

“Because if they add five plus three, they get eight!” the girl says, and the three of them burst into a fit of giggles.

The street is slippery with snow, slowing Josephine down. At the corner, they have vanished. She looks in every direction but the streets are empty. Did she imagine them? Did she imagine that girl staring at her, finding her in the café window?

“Valentina?” she says softly.

Elisabetta runs up behind her. “What the hell?” she says when she reaches her mother.

“I thought I knew them,” Josephine tells her.

“Knew them?” Elisabetta shakes her head, confused. “Like you know people in Vermont?”

Josephine could not know it that night, but for many years to come, whenever she visited Chiara in Vermont, she would chase girls like this one, girls of a certain age. She would lean in closer to hear them talk. She would memorize their faces, their clothes, the sounds of their voices. She would search crowds at Masses and train depots until she found one who might be hers. But in the end, they always disappeared, swallowed up as if they never existed in the first place. Perhaps this was the fate of mothers who lose their children: they spend the rest of their lives trying to find them, even though they know it is impossible. But isn't that faith? Isn't that hope? That maybe one of them will pause under a perfect moon on a snowy night and, when she hears her mother's voice, will turn toward it?

Dear Mussolini