Solitaria (13 page)

“Mamma,” I called. “It's Vito. He's home.” I straightened my skirt, smoothed the wrinkles of my blouse, ran a comb through my hair, and pinched my cheeks.

Although twenty-one now, he hadn't changed. I watched him approach, butterflies fluttering. When we were within two metres, he opened his arms, and Mimí and Daniela ran into them.

“Vito! Vito!” Mimí said, and Daniela echoed her, although she was a newborn when he left. Ever since the letter, the children had been telling her all about Vito, saying
remember when
? until they had convinced her that she shared their memories. Vito scooped them up and flew them through the air. When he set them down, he pecked me on the cheek and I murmured hello.

We followed him inside, where, when Mamma saw him, she burst into loud sobs, as if she had only now discovered that he had been gone two years. He sat on her bed and held her hand. He had been on the outskirts of Milan for the past two years, he told us, enrolled in a technical course on the installation of heaters and air conditioners. He now wanted to open his own business here. He had not known that Aldo was in Milan studying at the university. We all spoke at once: Renato trying to show him books, Clarissa telling him about her voice lessons and her upcoming concert performance, Mimí holding out a rag doll, Daniela excited by everyone's excitement, and me watching him for changes, noting his shoulders were more squared, his hands more steady and assured, his eyes casual.

When Papà came home, Vito brought out small gifts for us all: a rosary with amber beads for Mamma, a shirt for Papà, the first in a set of encyclopedias for Aldo, which Mamma said she would put away for him, a package of lace handkerchiefs for me, the soprano vocal score of
La Traviata
for Clarissa, a train set for Renato, a porcelain doll for Mimí, and a knitted rabbit for Daniela. Papà smiled and patted Vito on the back. Prodigal son. He sent Renato up the hill for some fresh
mortadella
and cheese. “With Vito home to help,” Papà said, “we're back on track. Mamma, the children will all be educated, you'll see.”

“What about me?” I said. “Could I go to university too?”

Papà frowned. “Piera, you know perfectly well that your mother cannot cope alone. And your sister must continue her lessons.” Clarissa had inherited Mamma's voice. A year before, she was singing a solo in the Bari church choir when the famous soprano, Mafalda Favero, happened to be in the congregation and heard her. Since then, Favero had been paying for Clarissa's private lessons, and Clarissa was beginning to sing professionally. “You must think of the family first.”

We had been living here in Locorotondo for the past two years. Papà was trying hard not to cause trouble at work. He knew it would be difficult to move us when we were all at school now. I had been taking my schoolwork to the nuns up the hill once a week for corrections. I had almost completed high school. I used to dream that I would go to university, that I would travel the world. Instead, here I was, seventeen, the surrogate mother. Family first, I told myself.

Throughout supper, I glanced at Vito, who was cordial and quite unlike the sullen boy who had left us. Perhaps he didn't want to upset Mamma, who sat beside him, her hand in his, a wide grin on her face. Clarissa sat on his other side, smiling. Across from them, Renato and Mimí flanked me, and Papà loomed at the end of the table. Daniela swung her arms and legs in the make-shift highchair. “Let us all give thanks,” Papà said, and bowed his head. All the children followed, repeating the prayer with Papà. I opened my eyes and found Vito staring at me.

After supper, when we were all seated outside in the cool air, Sandro Valente rode up on his bicycle. He had taken the train from Belisolano, where he was the Chief Magistrate. He was in his late thirties, tall, and slender, with a sensitive face — high cheekbones, full lips, pale skin, hair neatly parted in the middle, and thick black lashes under which his eyes sparkled. He had once been engaged to a beauty in Florence, and was known to have had a bevy of lovers. At the turn of the century, his family had owned two-thirds of the town. Sandro had inherited not only the fields and town properties, but his father's generous disposition. He was loved and respected for his gentle manner, his wit, his ability to settle disputes, his willingness to advise the townspeople on legal matters, often for little or no payment.

He leaned his bicycle against a tree and joined us, choosing a seat between Clarissa and me. He had been coming here for the past six months, ever since he was introduced to Clarissa and me when we were raising money to help the orphanage.What did we talk about? I ask myself. What did a magistrate find so appealing about two young girls of limited education — though intelligent and well read? We were poor, but not peasants, you understand. We had always owned the land Papà cultivated, no matter how small a plot, or how fallow.

Papà was encouraging these visits, because he was certain that Sandro was interested in one of us, although neither of us was certain whom he was courting. Already, Sandro had offered to help Vito with contacts, so that he could open his heating and air conditioning business.

Sandro was only one of a number of suitors we discovered daily, loitering outside our
casello
, waiting for us. Clarissa, who at fifteen was so beautiful she was called
La Madonnina,
happily flirted with all of them. While I kept my eyes fixed on my embroidery, she laughed with all her white teeth showing. She had almond eyes, smooth olive skin, and hair thick and wavy to her waist. Already, she was a star in Locorotondo, where she sang solo in the church choir, and gave concerts at weddings and baptisms. I was pretty too, delicate, petite, perfectly proportioned. Men were drawn to me.

One of these was Cesare, the son of one of the railway engineers, whom we had met at the station in Bari some months earlier. I remember him so clearly, because I was attracted to his lean body, to his tanned forearms and to the long fingers of his hands which implied an artistic disposition. Already I was imagining myself in love, married, imagining a silly romantic life of embraces and kisses, forgetting the example that Mamma had been, bearing babies for the past nineteen years. Of course, around him, I was careful not to be “too familiar,” as Mamma had taught me. But in the privacy of our loft, I confessed my interest to Clarissa. Within days, she had taken him from me, not because she wanted him, but simply because I was interested in him. The following Sunday at church, Clarissa and Cesare sat together, and everyone knew they were intended. I thought, he'll be very disappointed and upset with her when she leaves him, which was inevitable, because Clarissa tired of one young man as soon as a better one came along, and this is exactly what happened a couple of months later when Sandro began to hover around our
casello
in the evenings.

The day after their breakup, Cesare had waited for my train at the station. I nodded briefly and walked past him, but he grasped my arm.

“Please, Piera,” he said. “Let me explain. It was all a great mistake.”

I shook his hand off my arm. “Do not be disrespectful of my sister,” I said.

He followed. “Wait. I must tell you,” he began, and his voice filled with emotion, weakening my resolve. I stopped and waited for him to continue, if only to hear what had happened between him and Clarissa.

“You know it's you I came to visit. It was you all the time, only you never even looked at me.” He paused, but I did not respond. “I don't know what happened. Clarissa… she was always smiling and happy to see me, and…” He waved his hand, as if this would explain everything.

I turned and resumed walking.

“Piera, it all happened so quickly, almost by mistake…we were travelling from Bari together, and… so… Wait!”

I had continued to walk away. I wanted nothing to do with him, a man so easily manipulated. And how could my own sister do this to me? But this is how she was. We were only two years apart, yet we could have come from separate centuries. Whereas I was always proud, Clarissa thrilled in shocking and mortifying everyone in the family with her antics. She pushed the limits of everything, not caring about customs or traditions, about codes and modes of behaviour that she believed were pointless and outdated. Mamma excused her everything because Clarissa was born in January, and so was destined to be choleric, but likeable. She was to have a strong constitution, a tenacious will and a long life — although not always a happy one.

Sandro leaned back in the chair, his arm brushing mine. In front of us, the town of Locorotondo rose
four hundred metres above sea level, one of three natural balconies that surround the Valle d'Itria, a karstic depression, not actually a valley, but a firmament of green hills and vales studded with over 20,000
trulli
— the white conical ancient dwellings — and with limestone farmhouses. In the daytime, the horizon was a pervading green — Mediterranean brush, an indigenous vegetation that includes groves of Macedonian, bay and holm oak, laurel, myrtle, hawthorn, lentisk, wild olives, and black orchids — stone walls built without mortar, fields of red poppies and yellow daisies.
At night, the town sparkled in the dew, a nativity scene.

“You can visit clients,” Sandro was telling Vito now, “get a deposit, then when you have enough orders, I'll call an associate who can arrange for the transport of the equipment.”

Papà smiled. Vito was finally living up to his potential. “You must get started right away,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

Sandro nodded. “It's very timely. People are starting to rebound from the war. Soon they'll be thinking of comforts. We've all had enough of damp and cold winters, of hot humid summers. What better business than the one you've chosen?”

Vito lit a cigarette and leaned his chair back against the
casello
wall, so that the two front legs lifted up off the ground. “I'm grateful to you,” he told Sandro. “I'll come by in the morning.”

When Sandro left, Clarissa and I helped Mamma settle in her bed, then we tucked in Daniela and Mimí, and arranged all our clothing for morning. Vito stood outside with Papà and smoked a cigarette. The murmur of their voices wafted in through the open door.

Clarissa yawned. “Do you think Sandro is handsome?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “very handsome. But a little old.”

“And he's a wonderful man,” Clarissa continued. “Very kind, considerate…”

“Yes, yes, he is.”

“And he knows how to make girls laugh.”

“Clarissa, you're far too young to be thinking about this. He's almost as old as Papà.”

“I don't care,” Clarissa said.

“You have a marvellous career ahead of you,” I told her. “That's the only thing you should be thinking about.”

“A career, a career. That's so easy for everyone to say. You're not the ones who have to spend hours inside every day, practising. It's like being a prisoner. I want to have a life too.”

I shook my head. She was so talented, yet so childish. “You'll thank me when you're older,” I said.

She smirked. “You think you know everything, Piera. But you know what? You don't. You don't ever leave this house. What do you know about the pressures of performance, of rehearsals, of expectations?” She paused. “Sandro is kind and handsome, and I've decided,” she said. “If he asks me to be his, I will say yes.”

She turned and ducked behind the thick burlap curtain that separated the second floor into two bedrooms, one for the girls, and one for the boys. And when there was nothing more to be done, I joined her. I lay awake, thinking about how silly Clarissa was, and how she must not throw her life away, until finally, I heard Vito come up. He drew the curtain aside and we stared at each other. Clarissa and Mimí were asleep beside me, their breaths even and settled. Daniela was curled in her crib. He motioned for me with a shake of the head. I got up and tiptoed to him. We stood inches apart. He touched my hand. “I came back because of you,” he whispered.

I stood still a moment, my heart thudding. “You must not say such things.”

“Tell me you don't feel the same,” he said, touching my arm.

My throat felt tight. I swallowed once, twice. Shook my head in the dark, pulled back my arm, and fled behind the curtain.

What drew me to him? I don't know. These mementos give glimpses of our lives, years apart. What's difficult to explain are the contradictions of Vito's nature. He could fight with Papa one moment, then help him in the field the next. He could steal money from Mamma's purse, then buy her extravagant gifts. With the younger children, he was always sweet, considerate. He beseeched Clarissa to sing him for him; he recited the poetry of Carducci, Virgil, and Dante, and patiently taught me the verses line by line; he whittled wooden dolls for Mimí and Daniela, and recounted exciting war stories to Renato, who sat enthralled at his feet. He was a chameleon, and we all loved him, and of this, he took advantage.