The Scarlet Thread (3 page)

It was a time of ecstasy and madness, and a time of discovery. Because they talked together. He talked to her as he had never before talked to a woman or imagined that he could. He spoke of his love for her, his childhood, searching her eyes for answers to her past. And she gave them freely. She told him about her home and family, of a reserved, choleric father, a mother kind but vague, a household where decent reticence covered the gamut of human emotions, from happiness to sorrow, and the calm was never broken.

She told him of her love for her dead brother, the shy intimacy they shared as they grew up, and the aching sense of loss when he was killed.

“I minded so desperately that he couldn't be buried,” she told Steven, her eyes full of tears. “It seemed so incomplete, being blown up and scattered over the sea.” She had never put the thought into words before. And he understood. He talked more about his family, and she began to visualize them.

“You asked me, do I feel American? On the hillside, remember?”

“I remember,” she said softly. Only a few weeks away, and yet it could have been a lifetime.

“I've thought about that,” he said. “You make me think about things, Angelina, things that never bothered me before. Let me tell you. My grandfather came to America; he came on a ship where they packed the immigrants in like animals below the decks. He carried all he owned in a bundle on his back. When he got to New York he was hungry; he roamed the streets till he found some relatives. They took him in; they gave him work to do. He made a life and got a home for my grandmother to come to. She never learned to speak English. My parents followed, bringing me. My mother didn't want to leave Sicily, she told me once.”

“Couldn't they have stayed?” Angela asked him.

“No,” he said after a pause. “Things were bad for them. Like for my grandfather. They were hard times for people like us in Sicily. The landowners were trying to drive us out. A lot of men with pride in themselves got into trouble. I was a stranger; I was seven when we came to America. I had to learn to speak English, to change, to become someone I wasn't born to be.

“But always I had my family … and the other families, Sicilians like ourselves. They kept the old values, the old loyalties, alive. A lot of people didn't like it. We lived in a hostile world. We learned to fight back, to make our own way. Above all, to be loyal to each other.

“It was rough. I learned to use my fists; it was my father who taught me to use my brains. He believed in education; he sent me to college. He was proud of me, and he wanted me to do well. I owe him everything. My brother too. He didn't like school; he didn't go to college. But he served my father just as I did.”

Served
. It was an odd word. But as he'd said, English was his second language.

“You'd love my mother,” he said suddenly. “You will love her, Angela, and she'll love you. Why do you blush like that? Don't you understand what I'm saying?”

“I'm not sure,” Angela answered. They were walking, the clean wind off the sea stinging their faces in the cool of the evening. “What are you saying?”

He stopped and took her in his arms. He tilted her face up to his and kissed her gently on the lips. “I'm going to marry you,” he said.

“Steven, we can't,” she whispered. “Your army doesn't allow it.”

“If we have to wait, then we wait. But we'll be married. There'll never be another woman for me but you. You know that, don't you?”

She closed her eyes, resting against him. She felt safe and loved, and everything seemed possible. Even the end of the accursed war. “I know it,” she said. “And it's the same for me. I love you, Steven. I'll wait for you. I want to be with you so much.”

He drove her back to the hospital. She was on night duty.

“I haven't a ring to give you,” he said. “I gave my graduation ring to my mother. To keep till I got home. I'll write and ask for it. I'll tell her it's for you.”

“No,” Angela protested. “I don't need rings, Steven. Let her keep it for you. Now kiss me. I've got to go.”

“I love you,” he said, and took possession of her mouth.

“What happens when he's posted?” Christine demanded. “They're all going, as soon as the weather's right. Walt says it's going to be a bloodbath. He gets killed, and you're left with a brat! Angela, be sensible,” she begged. “You can't go through with it. I'll help you. Look, you're only just over six weeks. It'll be a day off with a bad period. No one'll know.”

Angela sat up. She had been violently sick in the lavatory and sent to the lounge to lie down. She felt dizzy, but the dreadful nausea had passed.

“I shouldn't have told you,” she said. “I wish I hadn't said anything. Have you got a cigarette, Chrissie? I've run out.”

“Here. Keep the packet. Thank God you
did
tell me. You can get away with throwing up once, but what are you going to say if it happens every morning? Don't you realize you'll be chucked out and sent home in disgrace?”

“He wants to marry me,” Angela answered. She lit the cigarette. It tasted bitter.

“He can't, and he bloody well knows it,” Christine retorted. “He'd never get permission. One mention about getting married, and they're posted within forty-eight hours. I wish you'd let me talk to him. Listen, if he loves you, he won't let you go through with this.”

“You don't know him,” Angela said. “I keep telling you, Steven isn't one of your Yanks. He's different; he'd want the baby. I just haven't told him yet. I wasn't even sure for the first couple of weeks.”

“He's no different from any other man.” Christine turned away impatiently. “Oh, I know—he loves you, he wants to marry you.” She hesitated and then said, “I'm sorry, but I'm going to be cruel. You'll hate me for saying this, but I think it's all pie in the sky. He'll sail off with the invasion fleet, and that'll be the last you'll ever hear of him. And you'll have buggered up your life for nothing.”

“I won't get rid of it,” Angela said slowly. “You're not right, Christine, but even if you are, I won't kill my own child. So don't mention it again, will you? I'm seeing Steven tonight. I'll tell him.”

“You do that,” Christine said grimly. “And if you change your mind, just let me know. But it's got to be soon. I'd want nothing to do with it at three months. Now I'd better get back to the ward. I'll say you're asleep.” She went out and closed the door hard. It was as near as she dared go to slamming it with frustration.

Angela stubbed out the cigarette. It wasn't a comfort anymore. She felt no sign of the change taking place in her body, just a sudden revulsion from the remembered stench in the lavatory and the acrid taste of tobacco in her mouth. For a moment she put a hand on her stomach. She wasn't afraid of what was to come. Tough, practical Christine couldn't understand that total lack of fear. She thought it was irresponsible, unrealistic.

“For Christ's sake,” she'd insisted. “It's not a
baby;
it's not much bigger than a pinhead!”

Angela hadn't even tried to explain to her that this was not the point. It was Steven's child, conceived on the hillside or on the hard little bed in the room above the café. She didn't know, and it didn't matter. All that mattered was the intensity of her love for him and of his love for her. She had no doubts about that love. That he couldn't marry her didn't matter either. They'd find a way to be together when the war was over. The invasion of mainland Italy was very close. She didn't believe he would be killed. She lay back and closed her eyes for a moment. She would tell him. She would choose the moment when they lay together after making love.

She got up, put on her cap and apron and went back to the ward.

The head nurse looked up briefly as she reported back for duty. “You're sure you're better, Nurse? Good, there's plenty to do.” She watched Angela while pretending to read through some charts on her desk. Actually, the ward was only half full now; the worst casualties had died or been sent to the base hospital. Angela had never been sick before. If it was food poisoning, she wouldn't have recovered so quickly. Everyone knew about her affair with the American captain. He was always hanging around outside, waiting for her. She was a good nurse, and the Sister hoped she hadn't made a fool of herself.

He held himself above her; the single light bulb flared over their heads. His body glistened in the heat. Angela reached up and ran both hands from his shoulders to his belly and down to his thighs.

“I want you,” she said. “I want you so much it hurts me.…”

“
Cara bella, bella
,” he groaned, and came down on her. The love talk was silenced as her mouth reached up for his. Her cry was fierce and brought him to a turbulent climax that left him collapsed and emptied, his head cradled between her breasts.

Angela stroked his hair.
It'll be a dark child
, she thought, and smiled with happiness. His weight pressed on her, and she said softly, “You mustn't lie on me, darling.”

“Why not? I like to feel you next to me.… You like it too.”

Angela ran one finger down the side of his face, tracing the line of his brow, to the prominent cheekbone around the curve of his jaw. For a moment the tip of her finger teased his lips apart.

“It might hurt the baby,” she said.

“I'm going to marry you.” He had taken her out in the jeep and driven down to the quayside, where the sea breeze brought coolness.

It was dark, and they held each other close.
Christine
, she thought,
how very wrong you were
.

“I'm going to find a way.”

“You can't,” she told him. “After the war is over; we'll get married then.”

“And have my boy a bastard?” He cursed in Italian.

Angela had never seen him angry. She was calm and happy and reassured. She teased him. “How do you know it's a boy?”

He frowned and said, “Because I know it is. Boy or girl, it's my child. Our child. Don't make a joke, Angelina. We'll get married. I'll find a way, even if I have to—” He stopped and eased her a little away from him. “You want to marry me, don't you?”

“I don't care,” she said. “I love you; that's what's important. I'm so happy about the baby, I don't see that anything else matters.”

He was silent for a moment. He
was
angry, and she realized it suddenly.

“You don't understand,” he said. “It matters to me that my child is a Falconi, born into my family. And that they accept you. They will,
cara mia
. They'll love you and be happy for us. But not if the child is born in dishonor.”

Dishonor!
She said slowly, “Steven, you sound like something out of the Middle Ages. We can't get married because they won't give you permission. Everyone knows it's American policy to stop this sort of thing. There's nothing we can do about it except for me to have the baby. Then we'll get married and make it right as soon as we can.”

“It won't be right for us,” he answered. “You don't realize, people will disrespect you. Listen to me, sweetheart. You're happy and not making any sense. Let me decide what to do and how to do it. You must be protected. You must have my name. I'll think. I'll find a way. Now I'm taking you back. It's late.”

He walked her to the nurses' quarters, stopped and took her in his arms. She had been quiet during their drive back. He had upset her. He had been a fool, forgetting that she wouldn't understand.

“Listen to me, my darling,” he said. “You think it's just because of the baby? You don't think I care about you? I don't want our child to be a bastard. I'm not going to let it happen. But it's more; I won't have people disrespecting you—pointing at you. And do you think I'd let you have this baby without a husband to protect you, to see you through it? Without support, except some promise to marry you sometime after the war? I'll soon be sent away from here. And what happens to you when I'm gone? Just another girl who got herself knocked up by an American—that's how it would look. That's how you'd be treated. No. No, my Angelina. You will be married to me, and everyone will know it.”

He held her close to him. She could have faced the future secure in his love and his promise. But what was possible for her was inconceivable to him. Dishonor. His family. She didn't understand, but she didn't doubt that he meant it.

“I'm so happy about the child,” he said. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I'm going to take care of you,
cara mia
, you and the baby. There's only one way to make sure of that. Will you trust me? Will you do what I ask?”

She nodded, blinking back tears.

“Friday is your free day?”

“Yes,” she said. He kissed her on one cheek, then the other, and lastly, with great tenderness, on the lips.

“I will have arranged something by then,” he said. “I promise you.”

They came out of the cool, dim church into the blinding sunlight. For a moment they paused, and he slipped his arm around her. The street outside was empty in the midday heat. No wedding party, no friends to greet them, not even a flower for her to carry. But his family would accept the marriage. Accept her and their child.

It had been a hurried ceremony, conducted swiftly in Italian. He had prompted Angela to answer in English. The priest was sullen; he refused to take Steven's offering. He didn't bless them or shake hands. He turned and hurried back into the sacristy, divesting himself of his stole as he went. But it was valid. It would be entered on the church register.

Steven looked down at her with tenderness. “Not much of a wedding for you, my darling,” he said softly. “But I'll make it up to you.”