Solitaria (15 page)

But of course, all I could do was to follow the needle from the woman's hand, to the end of a pair of rusty pliers, to the flame on the stove where the tip turned black.

“How are you going to make it so it doesn't hurt?” I asked her, my voice tremulous.

“It'll hurt,” she said, “but only for a moment.” She narrowed her eyes. “You're not the first girl to have her ears pierced,” she said.

I bit my lip. Mamma kept a hand on my shoulder, and when the woman advanced with her blackened needle, I closed my eyes. The pain was sudden, quick. Tears surged up and out onto my cheeks. Poor Mamma was so distressed to see me cry, she pat-patted my arm. When the woman approached the other ear, I cried harder.

The woman laughed. “What do you think you are?” she said. “A princess?” She slipped a round metal ring into each hole and clasped it at the back.

She didn't tell me to disinfect the holes with alcohol. The piercings soon swelled, reddened, and secreted pus. I fingered my sore lobes and cried until my eyes, too, reddened and swelled.

Later I realized that woman must have been incensed that a seventeen-year-old trackman's daughter should need to have her ears pierced, let alone to plug the holes with more diamonds than half the town's women were likely ever to see, and out of spite, she made the holes crooked. I would be forced to wear the mark of her disapproval forever.

On the morning of the wedding, instead of a celebration there was brooding and sobbing, because Sandro had opted for a private ceremony and arranged everything. He had sent me a suit of his dead mother's to wear, and had arranged for a white organza blouse to be tailored out of fabric belonging to his twin sister Domenica. The holes in my earlobes had not yet healed and were itchy and weeping.

I was trying to be happy, grappling with my conscience while Clarissa wailed upstairs, her heart broken; trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach at the thought of Sandro's hands on my body; trying to suppress my pride for the new life ahead of me. I repeated to myself that this was a marriage of convenience, and I, a virtuous martyr sacrificing myself for Vito's wrongdoings. We were all in various stages of agitation. Renato had climbed a tree and refused to come down no matter how much I coaxed him. Mimí, poor child, put on her best dress, thinking she was going to be the flower girl. Daniela walked around in my shoes and hat, mimicking Mimi's “Who will look after me?” Aldo, home for the occasion, watched me warily, and only once whispered, “Are you sure about this? He's a smart man, but so old.” Papà, while pleased for me, for the whole family, was furious that none of them were invited to the wedding. Only Mamma was spirited, but not with happiness. She pulled me aside and spilled out a story of her own marriage, how she met Papà when she was only fourteen, and that although she liked him, she was dreaming of another man, one who would take her to Milan, where she could sing in the opera house. Mamma could have had a career like Clarissa; she had a spectacular singing voice.

Papà did what men in his situation were accustomed to doing when a young woman was being difficult. He coaxed her to the outskirts of town, a little at a time, offering small gifts, candy, inventing a game for her. He had her sing arias for him, while he manoeuvred her to a secluded spot, then he kissed her and stroked her and, overriding her objections, he forced himself into her body. Mamma, who until that moment had not really known what was happening, began to cry, and Papà shushed her, and kissed each tear as it splashed onto her cheek, murmuring, “It's all right. We'll get married. I love you,” and so on. She found herself married before her fifteenth birthday, convinced by Papà that she had led him on, had seduced him, and that it was her fault.

After she told me this story, her eyes glistened. “Sandro hasn't touched you, has he?” she said.

I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, saying, “No, Mamma. Don't worry.” Then I went out in the yard where six scrawny chickens pecked at the ground. I plucked three feathers from the whitest one, and tucked them into the band of my new felt hat, next to the blue one.

We were to have a private wedding in Conversano, and I did not mind, because since our engagement, I had begun to feel a little ashamed of my family. What once was normal now seemed unpleasant. Why did the children throw olive pits on the floor? Why hadn't we installed screens on the windows to keep the geckoes out? Why must Papà go about town in a cart pulled by a donkey? I felt guilty thinking this, knew that with Aldo and Vito gone, and Mamma not herself, Papà worked for the railroad all day, then went to the field and toiled alone till dusk. Once I'm married, I thought, I'll be able to assist them all.

Sandro came to collect me — I am not superstitious and was not worried about seeing my fiancé before the wedding — and we rode the train to Conversano together, he in a black wool suit, me in his dead mother's blue suit, his sister's thirty-year-old white organza made into a blouse, diamond earrings in my festering earlobes, and three white chicken feathers in the band of my blue felt hat When I think about it now, I wonder why I didn't insist that Papà walk me, his eldest daughter, down the aisle. Why didn't I ask Sandro to buy Mamma a suit for the wedding? Money was not a problem. But I didn't even think to ask, having been raised to be proud.

When we arrived at the church, I was dismayed to see all Sandro's relatives seated in the pews. All I could think of were the children whimpering because they had never been to a wedding, Clarissa miserable, and my mother and father bravely waving, knowing I was leaving home forever. Tears dripped onto the marble mosaic all the way up the centre aisle. Everyone thought I was crying for happiness, but I knew in my heart that I had betrayed my family.

This program, via satellite, is seen simultaneously in all the countries of Europe and the Mediterranean basin.

Our answering machine receives approximately 40,000 responses a year.

August 3, 2002

Web Update

(Episode of July 17, 2002)

On Aug 7
th
, watch our in-depth interview with Ms. Clarissa Santoro, world-famous soprano and sister of Vito Salvatore Santoro, whose remains were discovered in Fregene on July 12, 2002.

Vito Salvatore Santoro's murder remains a mystery.

If you have any information regarding this victim, as well as any information regarding the circumstances of his death, please call the number at the bottom of your screen.

Belisolano, Italy, August 3, 2002

After Piera has eaten a large bowl of
stracciatella
, she lies down for her afternoon nap. She appears stronger, David thinks, as if confessing her secrets has unburdened her, now that he has become her reliquary. He tiptoes out, locks the door, goes to his room and connects to the Internet. An email from Julia, updating him on the class, and a notification from E-cards.com with a link, which he follows to find a Love Candy greeting from Bernette.

Downstairs, everyone has congregated outside for the midday meal. He watches them all for a moment, their faces half-hidden by a tapestry of thick shiny leaves. My family, he thinks, uncomfortable with the familiarity, the larger-than-life characters, their boisterous voices, their tears and accusations. He is accustomed to Clarissa's antics, which never concern the past or the family or anything remotely emotional or troubling. Her inner life is exhibited only unwittingly through unconscious gestures and facial expressions.

Oriana, dressed in dark skinny jeans and a long mint tank top that accentuates her tanned shoulders and arms, slowly orbits into his field of vision. Half-crouched, she stares at him from the other side of the glass. She holds up the camcorder, questioning. Her self-possession makes him feel inexplicably exposed. As soon as he opens the door, she springs forward, ponytail swishing across her back, to record his every gesture and inflection. He wonders what she'll get out of all this. A documentary about family secrets isn't exactly newsworthy.

“You've been in there for hours,” Clarissa says, as if he has purposely locked them all out of the room. On the table, a feast awaits them: minestrone for the
primo
, poached trout, battered deep-fried eggplant, and sautéed beans for
secondo
, ending with an arugula salad, a variety of fruits — grapes, oranges, figs — and a lemon
sorbetto
.

David sits down and updates them while Oriana ebbs and flows among them, shooting different angles. Sometimes, she sets the camcorder in front of David and has a few bites of her food. The rest listen quietly, without interrupting, until he is finished.

“I can't believe she's still fooling herself,” Clarissa says.

“She's always the martyr, isn't she? The one who wallows in misery so that we can have wonderful lives.” Mimí sighs, a bored expression on her face. She reaches for a crusty roll, breaks off a piece, sets both parts at the side of her plate.

Aldo picks up one of the newspapers on the ground beside him, opens it, and begins reading.

“Zia Piera feels misunderstood,” David says.

“Misunderstood,” Clarissa says, mocking. “There's nothing to misunderstand. She has lived a spoiled life doing nothing.”

“What do you mean by ‘misunderstood'?” Oriana asks, aiming the camcorder at David.

“Point of view,” David says, bewildered by the contrasting versions: everyone hostile towards Piera, interpreting her actions as destructive and self-serving, while Piera considers herself a matriarch, the daughter who saved the family. “Zia Piera did what she thought best for others. Sometimes, this translated into misery. But think about it. Mom, you wouldn't have had your career had Zia Piera let you marry Sandro.”

“And how do you know I even wanted that career? Or whether or not Sandro might have nurtured it? You can't know.” She pauses.

“Not that it would have made a whole lot of difference,” Mimí says. “When Sandro died, you would have been, what? Twenty-five? You were destined to be single. The only difference is you might have been called a widow.” She laughs.

“Laugh all you like.” Clarissa shakes her head. “The fact is that Piera tortured that poor wonderful man.” She pulls her chair closer to the table. “I'm not regretting staying single, you understand?” she says, “but if I'd married Sandro as was intended, we'd all have had different lives.”

Different lives, David thinks. He looks at his mother. In her different life, she would not have had an affair, and he would not have been born. Is this what she's wishing for? He wants to ask her about his father, where she met him. Was he kind, cruel, tall, short, did he love her? Is it possible that David is running in front of his house? That he is brushing elbows with him in the tobacconist shop? Buying
prosciutto
or cheese or wine from him? Could he be the choirmaster of the local church? The priest himself? He wants to know the details, the possibilities of a different life that might have awaited him.

“Is that what we want then?” Oriana says, setting her camcorder down. “Different lives?” She reaches into her back jean pocket and produces a tiny tube of sunscreen, which she applies to her lips and shoulders with the tips of her fingers. David watches her, imagining her shoulders and lips under his fingers.

“I could definitely use a different life,” Teresa says, “Any life without Piera would be a blessing.”

“This is your life right now,” Aldo says, without looking up from his paper. “Instead of wishing for other lives, make this one meaningful.”

Oriana continues to stroke her shoulders, obviously fully aware that David is watching her. Now and then, she sends him coy glances. He plays along, stares openly at her, until she looks up and holds the tube towards him. “Want some?” she whispers, her eyes mischievous.

“Sunscreen or a different life?” he whispers back. He reaches for the tube, and their fingers touch for a few moments longer than necessary.

“What good is all this?” Fazio says. “It's all in the past.”

“Yes, it's in the past, but in a different past Vito would still be here with us.” Clarissa chokes back a sob. “Piera was a monster!”

“Clarissa, calm down,” Aldo says, looking up from his newspaper. “There's no point getting into a state.”

“Did she tell you that she forbade even Mamma and Papà from going to the wedding?” Clarissa continues. “What kind of selfish person does that?”

“Zio Sandro arranged it, didn't he? And weren't you terribly poor?” Marco says.

“My father had land,” Clarissa says sharply. “And we were proud. He worked for us all his life.”

David waits, because these are more words than his mother has ever uttered about her family. He realizes now her evasion was much more complex and required his complicity. In Canada, anxious to divorce himself from what he had not experienced with his mother, David was more than happy to ignore the past. Years later, when in one of her letters Zia Piera recounted the story of his return to Canada after one of his summers with her, he saw himself as a mirror image of Clarissa. When they arrived at the airport in Rome, where he was entrusted to a family travelling to Canada, Zia Piera told him, she bought him paper and coloured pencils to distract him during the flight. He was so delighted by the paper and pencils, he hardly said goodbye, and neither looked back nor waved to her as he went through the gate.

Because this is not one of David's memories, he can't dispute its veracity. But, he wonders, could he have been so heartless? Or was he simply so excited about returning home that when he boarded the plane, the past became terra firma, while he flew towards a hopeful unpredictable future called Clarissa?

“Zia Piera said there was no money for clothes,” David says, uneasy, as if he's betraying his aunt.

“And did she also tell you that Papà used every blanket, every piece of useable material to have fancy clothes made for her?”

“Like
Gone With the Wind
,” Mimí says. “Remember the green velvet curtains?”

“Our lives were a far stretch from
Gone With the Wind
,” Clarissa says. “In those days, ‘gone with the wind' would have meant a swarm of locusts or a bad harvest.”

“I was being ironic,” Mimí says, rolling her eyes. “Don't you think I remember how it was?”

“Did she really forbid your parents to go to her wedding?” David asks.

“You mustn't believe everything she tells you,” Clarissa says. “You know how she is.”

But David doesn't know how Piera is at all. Oh yes, in the past few days, he's heard the family stories. If he were to begin a character sketch of Piera based on these stories, it would go something like this:

Donna Piera — La Solitaria, as she is referred to by the townspeople — is not docile or senile, ill or still. She rarely goes out of her house, yet people of her generation cross themselves when they hear her name — either as a protection against her or as a benediction towards her. She is not bedridden, penniless, or feeble. She interacts with the world outside her house through the telephone, with a tongue so sharp and barbed, people inspect their ears after a call, looking for puncture marks.

On Clarissa's finger, one of the earrings given to her by Piera when David was born. Clarissa had the earring set into an extravagant ring that is often mistaken for a rosette of zirconia. She wears it as an amulet, she has told David: a stony concretion that will counteract the poisonous effects of any of Piera's words.

“And really,” Teresa says, spooning soup into their bowls, “is she implying that Vito was trying to seduce her? What nonsense! Vito could barely stand the sight of her. If anything, she was the one lusting after him. Shameless!” She flits around them, citing a litany of good deeds she has done for Piera. “She's saying all this to spite me. She's always trying to spite me.” She slaps her napkin on the table, and everyone winces. “I have spent my life serving that ungrateful witch,” she says. “Even while she tells everyone I'm lazy.”

“Oh, I'm sure she wouldn't say that,” David says.

“How do you know?” she says sharply. “Do you think it's easy holding my head up in town, knowing what she has told people about me?” Her eyes fill with tears.

“Mamma, please,” Marco says, “don't upset yourself. Here, sit down. Sit down.”

“Teresa, really —” Clarissa begins.

“You don't understand,” Teresa says, her voice rising. “No one does. Piera… it's too much. It's too much. I can't take any more.” And she begins weeping. “And now this — about Vito. This is her way of punishing me,” she says, wiping tears off her face, “as if I haven't been punished enough by God just by being near her.”

“Mom, Dad loved
you
,” Marco says, but the words sound condescending, as if he doesn't totally believe them either.

“Does Piera really think that none of us will remember anything?” Clarissa says. “We were there. Vito treated us all with the same neglect. He was charming, oh so charming. That's why people trusted him, and that's why he could so easily swindle them all.”

“He didn't swindle them on purpose,” Teresa says, her voice tight. “He was kind and generous. He never kept any money for himself. He'd buy drinks and food for everyone.”

“However he used it, he used it until it was gone.” Clarissa says. “And it wasn't his money to use.”

“I heard he gambled,” Mimí added.

“Zio Aldo,” Oriana says, pointing the camcorder in his direction. “What do you think about all this? You were there. How much of this is true?”

Aldo looks up and raises his eyebrows. He has been reading two sets of papers, apparently uninterested in their autopsy of Piera's words. He slowly folds one of the newspapers into fours and sets it on the table beside him. “Do you mean ‘true' versus ‘false'? or ‘true' versus ‘fake' or ‘insincere'?”

“Just because Piera believes it to be true, doesn't make it so,” Mimí says.

“Does what she says correspond to the way things were?” Oriana asks.

“If you're asking ‘Was there poverty?' the answer is yes. If you're asking ‘Did the events unfold as Piera tells them?' the answer is maybe, some of them.”

“Appropriately vague,” Oriana says. “Ah. The nature of truth.”

“I have a version of the truth that none of you know about,” Aldo says. “A bit of Vito's past.”

Everyone turns attentively. Oriana settles herself directly in front of him. “A monologue,” she says. “Perfect. You should all do monologues. Multiple truths.” She winks at David.

“We were at war,” Aldo begins, “yet, as you may have noticed, all Piera recounts are family narratives, the quotidian exalted. She has lived such a tiny life, she has elaborated on it, over and over — with both recall and invention — until she has transformed the minutiae into drama.

“No, Piera didn't see Vito in his other self, wasn't perhaps, even curious. Her memories stress arrivals and departures, but nothing in between, as if he didn't exist away from us. But of course, he did.

“For example, would it surprise you to know that Vito was never in Malta, nor was he part of any British Intelligence, as Piera claims? That story was simply one of many he used to charm women.

“Perhaps Piera didn't want to know what drove Vito to steal from Mamma's purse, to take her gold confirmation ring and sell it. Can you imagine a son doing this? And Vito didn't steal and sell to buy necessities. No, he used the money for gambling, and to buy cigarettes, or gifts for women. He liked cards, but he was unlucky — or maybe unskilled. In any case, he lost more money than he had, and he promised what he didn't own. Despite this, he was more careless than evil. People forgave him, lent him money, let him live in their houses, and tried to reform him. He continued to swindle them, to seduce their sisters and daughters, all the while charming them all. He had memorized volumes of poetry, and would, at the most opportune moments, endear himself to all with recitations. Who could be angry at a poet? Who could insist he repay a debt after hearing an entire Canto of Dante's
Inferno
intoned mournfully? (Of course, Vito always avoided the Cantos to do with the Treacherous. The Ninth Circle, Cocytus, the coldest place in Hell, where rivers and blood and guilt drain to form a sheet of ice solidified around the sinners.) Oh, Vito was charming indeed. No wonder Piera sees him through rose-coloured glasses.