Linda Cardillo - Dancing On Sunday Afternoons (18 page)

By the time I got home, I was distraught, frantic at the thought that Paolo and I had no safe place to meet. I knew we could defy Pip, but that increased our risk of being discovered. And then what? Would my family forbid me to see him?

Paolo saw the tol our secret was taking on me, how unhappy I was when I couldn't see him, how worn down I was by the berating of my sister, her demand that I not bring shame to the family but act with propriety. My freedom to come and go was restricted. Pip or Til y did the marketing in the early morning before we opened the store. Paolo and I had counted on those morning excursions as an opportunity, however brief and wordless, to feast our eyes on each other as we passed on the street. He had swallowed me with the piercing blue of his deep-set eyes. My pulse quickened as we passed within a few feet, the air between us stirring and our hunger for each other leaping across the chasm of the sidewalk. It was enough, that glance that took in al of me, embraced me with the pleasure and appreciation of his whole being. It got me through the day.

But my family put a stop to even that. They didn't know who was admiring me, but they believed if they kept me out of sight, whatever fire I had kindled would die down, cooled by my disappearance.

But the longing only increased, the fire raging even stronger because we were denied one another. Somehow, despite our loss of those precious moments of public contact, we managed to sustain the private exchange of words. The letters continued, written in secret on my part, passed with a packet of fine- gauge cotton to Flora or left under a rock behind the store for Nino to retrieve and bring to his uncle.

We fil ed the letters with our dreams and our tears. He wrote to me: I cannot explain in words how my heart beats for you. I dream of you al the time___ When I write, I am so happy because I have your image in front of me. I'm crazy about you, Giulia. You are home cleaning the house, but I feel you next to me. I was suffering terribly earlier today when I had to go to work and didn't see you. I needed to tel you I love you. How much longer do we have to wait? Our hearts are suffering, and for me, it's painful to stay away from you.

The torture of separation was too much. Paolo watched the store whenever he could get away from work early and waited for my sisters to leave. One day Pip went to New York to shop for new stock. I offered to close the store at the end of the day so Til y could go home and start supper. I was sweeping up when I heard a tap on the back door.

I thought it might be Claudio or Peppino checking up on me again, but when I looked through the glass and saw that it was Paolo, I dropped the broom and leaped into his arms. Tears fil ed my eyes as he held me.

"Listen to me, Giulia. I've made a decision. Flora has convinced me that this secret we carry in our hearts is dangerous. To go on hiding like this could end in disaster with your family if they find out. I've decided to speak to Claudio, to tel him I want to marry you." He stepped away from me for a moment to see my face and watch my reaction. I saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. He was questioning whether I'd heard him clearly, whether I believed him, whether I would accept him in front of my family.

"You would tel Claudio that? I am bursting with joy, Paolo. But what if he says no? What will we do?"

"Believe me, Giulia. It's the best way. We act honorably. We can be honest about how we feel in front of the world instead of this concealment. I will present myself as a respectable man, cal ing on you at your home instead of hidden in back rooms. As much as I desire you, it shames me that I have to treat you like this, sneaking behind your family's back, risking your reputation.

No, I'm determined to do the right thing. I'll convince Claudio that I respect him and your family. I'm not a stranger. Let me do this for us."

He promised to come to my house the next night to speak to Claudio. I was agitated the whole day, jumping every time the bel rang over the door, dropping a whole tray fil ed with spools of thread and having to get down on my hands and knees to retrieve them. When I got home that night, I washed up and combed my hair after supper.

"Who are you primping for?" Pip wanted to know. "What's going on? Don't think you're leaving the house at this hour of the night."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm expecting a visitor who's coming to talk to Claudio."

It was Pip's turn to be agitated. I picked up a stack of shirts that needed darning and calmed myself by threading a needle and starting to stitch while I waited for the doorbel to ring.

At eight o'clock, I heard a familiar voice at the door, and Angelina cal ed out from the hal .

"Claudio, Paolo Serafini is here. If you want a cup of coffee, ask one of your sisters to make it. I'm stil putting the children to bed."

Pip looked at me. "I don't believe it! Not him. No. No. No! What a mistake. This must be a joke or a bad dream. He's nothing but trouble, him and his union. You'd be better off in a convent than keeping company with him."

Pip fretted in the kitchen, banging pots on shelves and furiously scrubbing the sink, muttering some kind of litany under her breath while she anxiously eyed the closed door to the parlor, where Paolo and Claudio were drinking their coffee. I strained to hear their words over the angry din Pip was making. Final y, Angelina yelled from upstairs that she couldn't get the kids to sleep because of the noise. The baby started wailing. I kept my head down over the mending, trying not to prick my finger.

I worried that Paolo's plan to be open was a mistake. As difficult as it had been to hide from my family, to write my letters in secret, to sneak an embrace in the back room, at least I hadn't been forced to confront their anger. What if Claudio said no? What if that provoked my sisters to an even stricter watch over me? I might not be al owed out of the house at al , not even to go to the store.

My mind began to race ahead, to scenes of disobedience and defiance. I had climbed out of windows before; I knew I'd do it again to be with Paolo, not just to dance for an evening in the moonlight, but to run away with him. A recklessness rose up inside me as I contemplated the aftermath of Paolo's conversation with Claudio. I was ready to walk out of the house with him that evening if my family forbade me to see him.

The door to the parlor opened and a haze of cigar smoke wafted into the kitchen. Pip stopped her scrubbing and turned around, her hands dripping and red. I stood up from the table.

Paolo came out first and turned toward me, with a gentle smile and a nod. He reached for my hand and brought it to his lips.

Pip threw her dishrag in the sink.

"Are you crazy?" She directed her wrath at Claudio. "What do you think Papa would've said? Do you think he would have al owed this?"

"This is my house. My America. I make the rules here. If she goes back to Italy, Papa can tel her what to do, but for now, it's my decision. Better for her to see someone I know than a stranger. Better that Paolo come to me honestly than to have her hiding."

Claudio and Pip acted as if Paolo and I weren't there. Let them battle with each other rather than with me, I thought. Pip's mistake had been to cal up Papa's name.

I walked Paolo to the door, ignoring my brother and sister. He took my face in his hands and kissed me publicly for the first time. It was another turning point for us, this acknowledgment in front of others. But the recklessness I had felt while waiting for Claudio and Paolo to finish their conversation fled in the face of Pip's animosity. I was no longer sure how wise it would be, even with Claudio's permission, to flaunt our love.

The doubts I felt that night were accurate. The women in the family almost immediately began an assault on my relationship with Paolo. They shook their heads; they whispered knowingly to one another, mouth to ear, eyes cast quickly back at me; they clucked in disapproval or pursed their lips.

"He's so wrong for you, Giulia. Think of what Mama will say, what she expects. A good partner for Claudio, yes, he's good with the books. But he'd be nothing, have nothing, without Claudio carrying him along. What does he do with himself, when he isn't doing Claudio's business, except moon over that piano fingering tunes?

It's nice to have him around on a Saturday night, but what about the rest of the week when you need to put food on the table?"

"What kind of life can you expect from an agitator like Paolo? Somebody in the neighborhood with a cousin upstate told me Paolo was involved in that GE strike. With the life he leads, he could be thrown in prison any minute. And then where would you be?"

"You think you can eat those letters after you marry him, or use them to put clothes on the backs of your children? Do you expect Claudio to keep you, like he does now, after you marry?"

"You had a much better prospect in Roberto, Giulia. His family has a good business. He's got the same instincts as Claudio. You'll see. Roberto wil be back, ready to step into his father's place. I heard that the old man's sick. Roberto's just waiting for the right moment, a quiet moment when the cops are occupied with someone else. Then he'll show up, looking for you. And where wil you be? In some tenement with two bawling kids and not enough to feed them, with your body sagging, your fingers rough, and your husband playing the piano every night, or worse, in jail. Wait for Roberto, Giulia."

"Paolo's so funny-looking with that red hair. Remember how you used to swoon over Roberto's looks?

Remember how elegant he was, how everyone noticed him at the dances? Al the other girls envied you, wishing he had chosen them."

"You need to think, Giulia, instead of peeking out the curtains every five minutes. Who needs it, I ask you? It's like you're sick. A sickness in the head. You act like you'll die without his love poems every day. Pretty words on a page. I can live without those, thank you very much."

CHAPTER 27

Funeral

Roberto Scarpa's father final y died after al the murmuring speculation that he was mortal y il . Some people said he died of a broken heart; others that it was from anger over Roberto's rash stupidity. Some, the police included, thought Roberto might come back to bury his father. The family held off putting him in the ground for a few days and the rumors that the Scarpas were waiting for Roberto could not be contained.

No fragment, no matter how absurd, escaped my sisters or Yolanda, who sat every afternoon with the grieving widow. In the evenings at dinner, each scrap of information was dutiful y brought to our table for discussion and, of course, for my continued indoctrination in the wisdom of waiting for Roberto and abandoning Paolo.

"Zi'Yolanda says she and Signora Scarpa are saying the rosary twice every afternoon at four o'clock. Once for the soul of the father, that he'll make a good journey home to God, and once for the heart of the son, that he'll make a good journey home to his mother who needs him, "Til y reported earnestly.

"I heard that one of the brothers sent a telegram to Italy even before they had the priest in to hear their father's last confession," said Pip.

Even Angelina had news. "One of the boys said the cops have been watching the house ever since the old man died. They got a tip that Roberto was already on his way."

Everyone had an opinion, a theory. How quickly had Roberto's family gotten word to him? When was the next ship leaving Napoli? How would Roberto disguise himself to thwart the police?

Zi'Yolanda's prayers were as fervent as those of the distraught Signora Scarpa, abandoned by her husband in death and by her oldest son in his flight from the law. Zi'Yolanda held out hope of Roberto's return, convinced that I would leave Paolo and fly willingly into Roberto's arms over the coffin of his father.

What did they feed each other, Signora Scarpa and my aunt, as they bent and muttered over their clacking beads? Two crazy old women concocting a frothy zabaglione of despair and fantasy that was al air—no eggs.

And my sisters? How they ate it up every evening when Yolanda made her daily report. They concocted fantasies themselves, remembered swirling dances and whispered intimacies in the parlor of the Hil crest Hotel. They weren't there at the christening. They didn't have the memories I did, of swirling snow flecked with blood and screamed obscenities. They heard the music of the piano on Saturday nights. I heard the silence in the hal on Sunday afternoon: a suddenly emptied room encircled by sirens, shouts, the crack of baton upon head. A suddenly emptied life, adrift and cut off from the dreams and il usions that had fled through the crack forced open by my lover's brutality.

They al prodded me, wondering if-—hoping that—I had doubts about my fledgling love for Paolo, faced with the prospect of Roberto's return.

I went to the Scarpa funeral. Antonietta was my friend, after al , before her brother had become my dance partner. She was pregnant again. Natale was a robust little baby despite the difficult omens at his christening, and he appeared to resemble his father more and more with every passing day, putting to rest—or at least putting behind closed doors—whatever wild accusations had ignited the events at the christening.

Antonietta did not look well. I think it was more than burying her father and holding up her desolate mother.

She was not the girl who'd giggled and daydreamed with me behind John Molloy's back. But then, neither was I.

The Scarpas had waited a week before asking the priest to say the Mass of the Dead. Not enough time for Roberto to travel from Italy. Roberto's younger brothers, convinced of the futility of waiting, final y extracted permission from their grief- crazed mother to lay their father to rest without Roberto as witness. Antonietta, who seemed so weakened by her situation in life, missed Roberto terribly and blamed herself for his forced disappearance. She'd probably been right there with Signora Scarpa and Yolanda praying for Roberto's secret return.

During al the heated speculation before the funeral, Paolo said nothing to me. If he burned with the same question as my sisters—"If Roberto comes back, Giulia, whom wil you choose?"—he kept those fires to himself. Paolo did not go to the funeral. He made some excuse about needing to be in the city that morning, leaving me to go with my sisters. Leaving me to make my choice, if I had to, without his presence.