The Knotty Bride (4 page)

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carmelina exhales. Spying Francesca’s cup on the windowsill, she snaps it up and slurps it with relish.

“Mother!” Beatta cries, leaping up and hurrying over in an attempt to pry the cup out of Carmelina’s hands. “That’s for our guest.”

“Swill for a swine!” Carmelina cries with grand enthusiasm and I begin to feel distressed. There’s a lot of bizarre activity in this room, what with Carmelina screaming and Francesca rolling her head and Beatta actually thinking that anyone would want to drink her greasy tea.

“Burnt every damn time, why can’t you make tea, child?” Carmelina shouts with a pained expression. I want to say that it’s more than just burnt, that tea shouldn’t be thick and glossy and exit its cup in one long lump. But I don’t want to be tactless like Francesca and besides, I find myself feeling quite saddened by what Carmelina has just said.

“Well, damn!”

My mild curse is enough to cause the two Cavalis to stop fighting over the teacup. It also has the added bonus of causing Francesca to stop rolling her head and sit up.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to curse like a sailor. It’s just that this is all so disappointing. We’ve come all this way, hoping to find a relative. Then wonder of all wonders, we meet both of you and find out that you are Carlo Buschi’s cousins– and for a moment I thought we might be close to finding Signor Buschi’s long lost daughter.”

“Buschi had no daughter. What nonsense,” Carmelina harrumphs. Slowly she creaks across the floor with her walker. Despite the fact that there are three complete strangers sitting in her living room, she turns on her tiny TV. The appliance is so old that it takes a long time before an image flickers across its screen.

“Mama, per favore, we have guests,” Beatta implores as she sits back down on the couch, still holding the teacup she has wrested from Carmelina. For her part, Carmelina shoots everyone a round of dark looks. When she finishes giving us all the evil eye, she turns back to the TV and smiles down at the green-tinged figures. The picture is so poor that I wonder how she can make out what she’s watching.

“I’m so sorry that we can’t help you.” Beatta stares forlornly at the empty teacup she still holds. “I feel awful making you come all this way and not having any information. But it was so odd to receive a call about Cousin Carlo out of the blue. It seemed rather strange. But now here you are, and I can see you are good folk who are truly trying to locate his heir. I’m afraid I agree with my mother though– there is no daughter. You’ve been misinformed. Now, if you don’t mind, may I ask how Villa Buschi is these days? I’ve only been there a couple of times, and that was when I was much younger.”

“Because Carlo was a penny pinching jackass!” Carmelina spits, joining our conversation with unanticipated ferocity. “We were his cousins. He could have put us up in that fancy house of his, but no, we were only invited a few times. Ah tutto questo e fottuto.” This last part she says directly to TV as she delivers an extra sharp blow to the side of the appliance. You will have to forgive me, dear reader, if I do not translate her latest sentiment. It is dirtier than anything I would ever repeat.

“Mother, please,” Beatta pleads.

From my chair, I am still trying to make out what Carmelina is watching on the television. I tilt my head and screw up my eyes in order to make out the shadowy figures. “Is that Ray Liotta?” I ask.

“Si, si, Ree Leeootta” confirms Carmelina before delivering another percussive blow to the television. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Rupa’s impertinent look. It’s a why-the-hell-do-you-care-if-that-is-Ray-Liotta look.

I reply with an arch of the eyebrows, which means, “I don’t know, I was just curious that’s all.”

“Well, Beatta, we won’t take up any more of your time,” Rupa says, standing up and straightening out her long, blue sari. “If you ever do hear anything about a child of Signor Buschi’s, will you call me? As I explained briefly on the phone yesterday morning, Buschi’s will mentioned an heir. It specifically mentioned he had a daughter, and I’m happy to report that this woman is in for a large inheritance. If we can locate her before the time runs out. You see, if we don’t find her soon, the money defaults to the Italian state.” Finished straightening her skirt, Rupa fishes around in her purse and hands Beatta her calling card, which has a copy of her rescue logo on it.

“You rescue animals?” Beatta asks, reading the card.

“I do. Cats and dogs mostly, with the occasional farm animal. We have lots of lovely babies for adoption if you need a companion,” quips Rupa, ever the sales woman.

Beatta stares at Rupa gravely. “Do you have a minute? Would you mind coming with me, I need to show you something.” She stands up so abruptly she brushes the coffee table with her knees.

“I don’t see why not; we’re not in a rush,” Rupa responds as Beatta motions for us to follow her out into the hall. Courteously we bid farewell to Carmelina, who waves us away with an angry hand before creaking her way over to plop herself down on the couch. Out in the hallway, as we pull on our coats, I can hear Carmelina slurping away, enjoying everyone’s leftover tea.

I
f you have ever had
the displeasure of accompanying a cat to the veterinarian’s, or for that matter driving a cat anywhere, then you know that the cacophony that can be raised by such a small animal is truly amazing. And the cacophony raised by five such animals in a tiny Multiplus as it shoots up the autostrada can be enough to drive the sane mad.

Yet three hours after we left Banoreggio, this is the exact situation in which we find ourselves, as we head back to Arona with five adolescent male felines and one mammoth-sized dog. With the fevered yowls of the caged cats growing louder with each kilometer of the autostrada, I glance back at the terrified dog. He pants heavily and squashes himself against Francesca in an attempt to find a safe haven from all the unnerving noise.

The savvy reader has probably surmised that the “thing” Beatta Cavale wanted to show Rupa was all the unneutered strays of Civita di Bagnoregio.

“I’ve been trying to feed them all, but they eat me out of house and home,” she said as she marched us about Civita di Bagnoregio in a dull gray overcoat that exactly matched the dull gray of her housecoat. She wore a determined look beneath the unraveling scarf she had wrapped about her head.

“Once you see them, I know you’ll want to help them!” she exclaimed.

Of course she was right. I knew as soon as Rupa laid eyes on the scruffy bunch of adolescent cats and the skinny dog that we’d be taking them home.

“That one needs to be fattened right up,” Rupa whispered as we closed in on the dog we’d chased into a lane that ended in a walled garden. It was a good thing for us that he was friendly. Cleverly, Beatta took the scarf from her head and twisted it around and around to fashion a sort of collar that she wrapped around the dog’s neck. It took all three of us working together to lead him back across the narrow bridge and down to the car park. Once we had him safely installed with Francesca in the car, Rupa and I went back for the cats.

That’s when the adventure started. My attempt at capturing the felines– and again I say “
my
attempt,” (because in her dark blue sari, Rupa was useless) , went like this:

Spot a cat.

Try to act cool.

Realize kitty knows exactly what is up.

Run for it.

Be amazed how fast kitty is.

Leap for it.

Become an amusing toy for kitty to watch as it climbs from roof to roof.

Persuade local man to borrow ladder to retrieve feline.

Dance dangerously across rooftop only to encounter now frightened, hissing, spitting creature that double-dog dares me to reach down and pick it up.

Grasp small kitty and wrap it quickly in my jacket so as not to be shredded in manner of meat in grinder.

Repeat process four more times till exhausted and bleeding profusely from gashes on wrists, thighs, kneecaps and other places where I made contact with kitties’ claws.

And finally, be amazed when friend says, “Hmm, maybe we should have tried luring them with bits of tuna. That might have been easier.”

After about an hour of this activity, with too many scratches to mention, I refused to chase another stray. Only then did Rupa share her tuna idea with Beatta. “If you can trap and lure the rest of them in with a bit of fish, then we’ll be back to pick them up.”

By the look on her face, I could tell Beatta really didn’t want us to leave any cats behind, but I was bleeding so badly she had to admit I needed medical attention. I did eventually make it back across the bridge and looked for the bright green cross that indicates a pharmacy. There I doused myself in antiseptic, before covering myself in no less than twelve bandages.

Fifteen minutes later we drove out of Bagnoregio with the five stray cats defying physics. They were everywhere at once: on the dashboard, underfoot, climbing over the big dog– who would howl as if he had been stuck by a hot poker– and dangling from the car ceiling like strange fuzzy dice. Rupa and Francesca had all they could do to keep scooping cats off my lap as I drove. Guiding the car as prudently as possible, I headed for the nearest big box store on the outskirts of Orvieto. There the three of us shelled out our collective funds to buy a large cage. With a lot of muscle power and sheer luck we forced the oversized cage into the back of Multiplus. And just when it looked like feline wits might prevail over human ones, we popped the last cat into the cage and shut the door. Then we beat a hasty retreat to the inn, packed up our things, shoved all our belongings into the backseat and headed home.

I do believe it’s true that loud, prolonged noise can cause permanent hearing loss. When we pull into Rupa’s driveway, I swear all the caterwauling has rendered me deaf.

“Huh? Whaddya say?” I yell.

“I said darn, Dario’s here,” Rupa sputters ominously as we pull around to the kennels.

By the looks of the large suitcase in his arms, Dario’s here to collect more of his things. He throws Rupa a hurt look when he spies the large dog and the cage of cats in the back of the Multiplus.

“Really, more animals?” he asks in an icy tone. My, how times have changed. After all, this is the man who brought home Rupa’s very first rescue, a very pregnant mother dog with an upper respiratory infection that he’d found living on scraps in an alley. This is the same decent man who sat on the floor of the laundry room and cried when the mother dog gave birth to five stillborn puppies. The fact that Dario now speaks to his wife in such a cold manner can only mean he has been pushed beyond his limits.

“Well, you know, animals are always constant,” Rupa replies flippantly. “They never betray you.”

Okay, my hearing must have returned because that came through loud and clear. Not wanting to witness an all-out fight, I sing a hello to Dario and start off in the direction of the cattery with a small calico in tow.

“Dio mio, Lily! What happened to your eyebrows? Why all the bandages” Dario calls after me.

I no longer have eyebrows, I want to tell him. But it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. So I just chuckle and say evasively, “Oh, well, you know, all in a day’s work” before hurrying away. When I reach the cattery, I throw open the door.

Behind me the voices escalate and I give a little shiver. I shouldn’t have masterminded the great cat rescue at Villa Buschi back in June. That’s what pushed Dario over the edge. But if I hadn’t rescued all those cats, they might not be alive today. Life’s so full of thorny dilemmas, sometimes it’s impossible to know what to do.

Feeling sentimental and confused, I deposit the calico in the isolation room with a gentle scratch on the ears. The animal begins to stalk about the enclosure, puffing up and hissing at the smell of the other animals on the other side of the door.

“You tell them!” I close the door to the isolation room and step back out into the main room of the cattery. Here I am greeted by a flood of displaced felines. There must be twenty of them. Craving affection, the animals rub against my legs, longing to be petted. I do my best to give a scratch here, a word of encouragement there, before making my way over to the dog kennel to fetch a leash.

Red leash in hand, I make my way back to the car but stop short. Ada Brunetti, Dario’s mother, has come out of Rupa’s house and has joined the domestic argument. If my ears are not mistaken, she is bantering about the super nasty “D” word.

Now there are all sort of super nasty “D” words like dork, drivel, dolt, dunce, daft, ditz, dereliction-of-duty and dill-flavored potato chip. But the super nasty “D” word I am thinking of is the word “divorce.”

I swallow hard. How could they be talking about divorce? Surely things haven’t gotten so bad. Although back in the grotto last night, Rupa did say Dario wants a more permanent separation. I guess there’s nothing more permanent than a divorce.

Completely deflated, I keep my head down and make my way to the car. Quietly, Francesca and I try to sneak the big, shaggy dog to his kennel without being seen.

“What’s that?” Ada shrieks, pointing an angry finger. “Another animal to be fed on my son’s dime?”

Unbelievably, Dario doesn’t try to calm his mother down. Instead, he folds his arms across his chest. Emboldened by his silence, Ada becomes a machine gun of rapid-fire insults.

“I knew you were bad news since the day my son brought you home. You don’t belong here. You never tried to adapt. Obviously, the culture you come from is
too
different.”

Unable to believe what we’re hearing, Francesca and I stop dead in our tracks.

“In Italy, we value our homes and our investments, and we don’t squander them,” Ada continues. “Your culture knows nothing but the mean streets. Here in Italy, we are more gentrified. We don’t have millions of people living in squalor. I suppose you married my son to escape the poverty of New Delhi. Tell the truth, you used him to get out of India, didn’t you?”

“Mother!” Dario’s voice cuts in loud and forceful. “That’s completely inappropriate!”

I stand rooted to the spot with one hand wrapped around the leash of the burly dog.  In my mind, I try to comprehend how anybody could say such horrible things to their own daughter-in-law. At times like this, it seems obvious to me that there are two kinds of people in this world, the xenophobes and the non-xenophobes. Xenophobia, of course, is an irrational fear of all things foreign. Back home in America, we know all about this. People who migrate across our southern border seem to be the subject of constant ridicule, despite the fact that they generally take jobs that Americans don’t want, like picking lettuce or meatpacking. In Italy, it’s no different. In a country constantly trying to adapt to its new place in the world as a receiver of mass immigration there are a lot of people like Ada. People who love to blame others for their troubles.

For the true xenophobe, having a daughter-in-law from a different country provides for a never-ending source of conflict.

Unable to contain my indignation, I turn to deliver a rant about how Ada doesn’t know the first thing about the Indian culture, as if I, myself, am some kind of expert– when I see Rupa striding towards her house in tears. Rupa is a strong woman, not one prone to demonstrating her feelings. She glances in our direction with a flash of embarrassment.

Right then. Time to move on. Brusquely, Francesca and I herd the big dog to an empty kennel with a small white board on it that says “Kennel 14. Welcome home _____.” Here at the rescue, Rupa has certain protocols in place, and we are supposed to write the name of any incoming animal in the provided blank with an erasable marker. I pick up a green marker to write a name but can’t think of anything. Slowly, I write P-h-i-l in the blank. It’s the only name that comes to mind.

“There you go, Phil. I think you’ll find the accommodations and food at this establishment superb. Not to worry, the time will fly by, and soon you’ll be in a permanent home of your own.” Tuckered beyond belief, Phil curls up on his bed in the corner and shuts his eyes. I glance down at him and wonder what will happen to all the animals if Dario decides to proceed with the divorce. And what will happen to Rupa? She won’t have any money. Will she have to return to New Delhi?

Afraid of witnessing any more ugliness, Francesca and I crouch down by Phil’s bed and give him a heap of adoration. With a slam of a car door and a rev of the motor, we hear Ada and Dario drive away. After a few rounds of “Who’s a good dog?” I say a fond farewell to Phil who, despite the adoration, looks so beaten down by life that he doesn’t even wag a tail. He keeps his eyes shut tightly as if to keep out the cruel world.

“Your world is going to change, Phil.” I try my best to sound positive. “No more scrounging for scraps. Like I said, soon you’ll have a home of your own with a wonderful, loving owner.” Phil doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t even bother to look up as Francesca and I close his kennel door behind us.

When we circle back around the front part of the main house, we find Rupa sitting on the front steps. She looks terrible, as if she has just lost her best friend. She stands up, dusts off her trousers and then helps us unload the other three cats. All the while she pretends as if we haven’t overheard what must have been one of the most embarrassing moments in her life.

By the time I swing into the driver’s seat of my own ugly Punto the sky turns jet black. I pull out of Rupa’s driveway with a feeling of dread. Dario and Rupa can’t get divorced, they just can’t. They are two people who belong together. Somehow I need to put things right. Somehow I need to remind them of how much they mean to each other. Somehow I need to get Rupa and Dario back together. All they need is a fresh start, much like Phil.