The Women of Saturn

by Connie Guzzo-Mcparland

  7. DAY FIVE

  THE WAVES ROSE HIGHER AND higher as the weather grew rainier and windier. Mother and Giuseppina had stopped going to the dining room altogether, as they vomited up whatever went into their mouths. Large tin pails, which Armando emptied whenever he came, were kept next to each bed. We brought them dry bread to eat, but they only wet their lips with water, and only got out of bed to go to the toilet. As my mother walked to the bathroom, steadying herself on the walls, and wearing the thin slip that she slept in, she looked like a fragile ghost of her former self.

  We had all tried to find out what worked best to prevent us from throwing up. Luigi and Lucia were the only two who never complained about feeling sick. Though nauseous and suffering stomach pains, I had not yet vomited. We thought it was because we spent so much time in first class. But at night we were stuck in the room below with everyone else vomiting, and with Giuseppina and the crying girls, who were constantly sick with fever.

  The advantage of sleeping on the higher berth was that, while I heard the sounds of retching into buckets, at least I didn’t have it raining down on me while I slept. The top was also better lit for reading and writing. At times, reading in bed made me more nauseous, so I reserved my journal writing for the evenings, and read mostly in the first-class lounge. When I couldn’t fall asleep, I tried to imagine what my new home would be like. But I had so little to go by that I couldn’t really picture it. Mostly I tried to think of all the things about my life in Mulirena that I would miss the most. I hoped that by writing about them, I could somehow retain those memories. When I remembered picnics I had taken in the countryside with my girlfriends, the picture that swept through my mind was of tall red poppies swaying in the breeze against the yellow wheat fields. That image was all light and softness. I relived the processions on the holiday of Corpus Christi, when I had been chosen to dress up as a crusader. I had walked next to the priest, scattering rose petals at his feet as he shook incense at the onlookers, who kneeled, with their heads bowed in prayer. Would I be doing any of those things anymore? What would I write back to my girlfriends when I got there?

  I remembered walking on air the day that I was chosen to play the role of St. Bernadette in the church play. My neighbour Aurora was to play the Virgin Mother. In reconstructing those scenes in my head, it occurred to me that that was the beginning of the end of my joyful memories with my friends. Gossip and insinuations about Aurora flirting with Totu intensified until I watched her being brought down from Don Cesare’s house like a rag doll after she ingested a bottle of pills. It was a very public spectacle and yet no one spoke openly about the details of what had really happened, only in whispered conversations, so the children couldn’t hear.

  These memories distracted me from the seasickness, as I frantically jotted them down in my notebook.

  Lucia, Luigi, and I spent as little time in the cabin as possible.Luigi was always the first out of bed in the mornings. “Can’t you stay still and rest for a while?” Mother kept yelling at him.

  “I can’t rest in bed when there’s so much to do outside of this cabin,” he’d reply and run out to meet his friends.

  I often got stomach pains, but I still accompanied Lucia to the dining room and to the first-class lounge, where she and Armando met every day for a few minutes during his breaks. We took to using the lounge even when Armando wasn’t there, and people spoke to us as if we were first-class passengers.

  Another traveller who sat with us frequently at the lounge was the man with dark, spiky hair that had frightened me the day we crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. His name was Nicodemo. Lucia readily accepted his offer of a drink from the bar after he told her that he came from the same village as her husband Pasquale. He spoke in Calabrian dialect with her. He was also headed for Montreal, and had many acquaintances there. He knew all about Pasquale’s construction business.

  “Good person, Pasquale Tonnelli,” Nicodemo said, and he ordered an aperitif for her and an orange soda for me.

  Nicodemo seemed to coordinate his presence with that of Armando, and left the lounge a few minutes before the steward arrived from his work shifts. One day, when Armando noticed the man move away just as he was arriving, he said, “Watch out for the Calabrian … he’s shifty.”

  It’s precisely what I had thought on first seeing Nicodemo. Watching his figure leaning on the bar as we entered the lounge and then disappear on cue always left me with a subtle sense of fright. Lucia huddled and spoke freely with him, but in whispers. With Armando, she smiled and giggled at what he said, but he did most of the talking. I preferred our time with Armando who spoke loudly and often included me in the conversation. I often thought of afternoons in our village when Totu spent hours leaning against the wall facing Lucia’s window and the two of them exchanged glances and gestures. At the time, I never thought their story would end. Lucia and Totu had seemed destined to be together forever. As Lucia would often say later, Totu was never the same after the Aurora incident and after his uncle sent him away to Rome to study.

  Of her whisperings with Nicodemo and visits with Armando, Lucia would insist, “There’s nothing bad between us, we’re just friends.” In Mulinera, a woman could only be friends with another woman. I tried to sit as far away from Nicodemo as as I could.

  Our absence on the third-class deck raised some suspicions. Margherita came to our cabin a few times, and asked us where we spent our time since she never saw us up on deck. Lucia answered that we had become accustomed to going to the first-class lounge, to avoid getting seasick. Margherita answered, “I’m fine where I am. Armando asked me up once too, but I told him no. That one tries to make it with every young married woman he sees. Who knows how many he’s had. He thinks that we’re all whores, just because we’ve been away from our husbands.”

  8. DAY SIX

  THE OCEAN HAD BEEN VERY stormy, and all of us in the cabin had been awake most of the night. My mother and Giuseppina moaned the loudest. They hadn’t eaten for days. They kept on making vomiting sounds, but had nothing to throw up.

  I fell asleep reading about the other Lucia who is safe in the monastery, and poor Renzo who encounters one complication after another as he travels through Milano, a city looted by a famished population. I liked Renzo best of all. He is bitter about his helplessness in the hands of the powerful Don Rodrigo, but he’s all heart, sincere and kind, and means to do no harm. Totu, on the other hand, never even left a word for Lucia when he ran away to Rome.

  In the morning, the three of us, Lucia, Luigi, and me, still managed to get up to go for breakfast.

  “Where are you going?” Mother asked weakly.

  “Upstairs. I can’t take it in this cabin anymore,” answered Lucia.

  “How can you even think of eating?” Mother asked.

  Armando, as usual, came to check on us and to empty the buckets. He brought dry bread, and tried to cheer us up. He had wanted to bring Mother to see the doctor, but she said the thought of walking up all those stairs made her feel sicker.

  “This trip has to end soon. So many other people have made it. How many days are left?” she asked.

  “You have five-and-a-half days left,” Armando said in his cheerful tone. “You’ve made it past the midway point—the point of no return.”

  “Has anyone ever died of seasickness?” Giuseppina asked.

  “No, no one I know has died of seasickness,” he answered, “but a few people have wanted to throw themselves overboard. I assure you that the treatment doesn’t work.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “I’m saying that different people will try different things and some would rather throw themselves to the sharks than live in misery. To each his own medicine. And who can stop them? Sometimes it’s the only way to survive.” Armando spoke so seriously that he confused even me for a while.

  He continued, “I say to everyone: if you want to throw yourse
lf into the ocean, that’s your business. I only help those who stay on board. ‘Si salva chi puó,’ as we say in Rome. Just remember, if you fall in, hold on to whatever you can that will keep you afloat—a shred of wood, a plate, a fork … anything. Grab anything you can.”

  “But who is talking about falling into the ocean?” Giuseppina said. “Now you really want to scare us.”

  “You have already fallen in, signore e signorine. Remember, si salva chi puó,” he said as he left. He returned a few seconds later and added: “A bit of laughter helps too, eh? But you southern women are too serious. Always ready to cry, but never to laugh.”

  “Did you understand anything? The more he talks, the less sense he makes,” Giuseppina grumbled after he left a second time.

  Mother asked Lucia again, “How can you even think of eating after the night we’ve had?”

  Lucia was piqued by the question, “I eat just to eat. I have to go up for air.”

  “Too much air is no good either,” Giuseppina answered as she walked to the toilet.

  Mother then called Lucia to her bed and whispered something to her.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong,” Lucia blurted out loudly. Mother tried to shush her.

  “Maybe there’s nothing wrong to you, but things can happen. After all, he’s a man,” Mother said weakly.

  Giuseppina came out of the bathroom and Lucia stormed out of the cabin with tears in her eyes, saying, “Even on this boat I have to meet malicious people.”

  “But who is malicious?” asked Giuseppina.

  “Madonna mia,” answered Mother. “I thought I knew her well, like a daughter. When will this voyage end?”

  “We’ll be on land in five days. The worst is over, Teresa. Then your husband will be meeting you in Montreal and you’ll all be together.”

  “When we land in Halifax, I’ll make the sign of the cross, and no matter what I find in Montreal, I will never make this voyage back again. I swear it on my dead father.”

  I had never heard my mother swear on anyone before, but it was like her to swear not to do something ever again. But, how could she sound so final about never going back to Mulirena?

  Mother said, “You go and stay with Lucia. All I need now is for something to happen on the last days.”

  I screamed at her, “Why don’t you get up from bed and stay with her yourself, if you don’t believe her? Do you think that the ocean will swallow you up just by looking at it? You’re always afraid of everything and now you say we’ll never go back! Look at you … you look like a ghost! You’re worse than Don Abbondio!”

  “That’s the way I’m made, I can’t change that,” she said.

  “Who’s Don Abbondio?” I heard Giuseppina say as I also stormed out of the room.

  At the dining table, I couldn’t touch my breakfast. I had to hold my stomach; the cramps hurt me so much.

  “What’s the matter?” my brother asked me. “You’re white like a ghost.”

  “I’m in pain,” I said.

  “You read too much. You should come play with my friends. You should run to the bathroom, or you’ll vomit all over us,” he said.

  As I ran towards the bathroom, holding my tummy, I felt a warm, slimy flow drip down my legs. When I sat on the toilet, my thighs were all bloody. I screamed and then fainted on the floor. When I regained consciousness, I walked to the sink and splashed cold water on my forehead. I had fainted once before, when I fell on cement steps and saw blood run down my chin. After that whenever I saw blood, I knew to lie down and splash cold water on my face. This time I was really taken by surprise. I hadn’t fallen or cut myself in any way. Then I did what I could to clean myself up with one of the white hand towels on the ledge of the sink. I looked for signs of a cut on my legs, but couldn’t find any and saw the blood trickle down from inside me.

  I stared at the bloody towels and I remembered the red rags that the women of Mulirena kept hidden at the bottom of their baskets and beat on the cement slabs of the funtanella on wash days. Once I asked one woman if she had cut herself. She laughed at me and said I was too young to know, but that in time I’d find out. I figured now that this had something to do with that part of the body that the women whispered about amongst themselves. I remembered Lucia, Aurora, and Tina often complaining of stomach cramps, but always in hushed tones, as if there was something shameful about it. I didn’t want Mother to know what had happened. She hardly had enough strength to raise her head from the pillow, and I didn’t want her to be worried, especially if what I had was some kind of disease that women got down there.

  I took another towel and put it inside my panty like a diaper, and returned to the dining room as if nothing had happened. After breakfast I sneaked a couple of napkins inside my satchel, in case I needed them.

  The napkins also made me remember the time my mother had sent me with a gift of eggs to visit Aurora after she had returned from the hospital. Before I left, the girl asked me to hold her arm as she got up from bed to go to the bathroom. Her nightgown was spotted with blood and she picked up a white napkin from the dresser. When I helped her get back to bed, she placed a folded up soiled rag into a basket.

  When I was alone with Lucia, I wanted to ask her about what had happened to Aurora and what was happening to me. They had said she had been pregnant. Was I pregnant too? The question was too shameful and Lucia didn’t seem to be in a state of mind to care about me. I changed my mind and waited to see if whatever I had would pass on its own.

  9. DAY SEVEN

  THE DINING ROOM WAS ALMOST empty the next day for lunch. When Armando saw us he came by and hugged us both.“ Brave, ragazze,” he said and sat with us. “Get ready for action. The Saturnia is beginning to dance. Can you feel it?”

  I had felt the ship’s movements during the night, but I was more concerned about the blood that kept on dripping. In the morning, before breakfast, I had again used the dining room bathroom and walked away with all their hand towels. I was more frightened than ever. This time I’d have to tell Lucia, but she’d have to promise not to tell Mother until we landed.

  “I couldn’t wait to get out of that cabin, and away from that old witch,” Lucia said to Armando.

  “You’re in the worst part of the ship, but you’re welcome to use my cabin in second class anytime you want. I’ve told you before,” said Armando.

  Then he turned to me. “Do you know what this boat is named after, Caterina?”

  I shook my head, but then took a guess. “Saturn?”

  “Of course Saturn, but which Saturn? There’s the planet— the one with the ring around it— and there’s the god, my ancestor. I’m from Rome, you know. They say that Saturnia was the name of the village where the god Saturn lived before it became Rome.”

  Armando was very animated talking to me. Lucia sat there and looked bored, but I was smitten. “Saturn, the god, ran away from his kingdom in Greece and flew to Rome … like everyone does … Roma, Roma, captut mundi! How I miss her.”

  At the mention of Rome, Lucia got up as if upset and wanting to leave. I also missed Rome and the fun I had had when going there to get our visa to come to Canada. Totu had taken time off to bring us sightseeing. Was she also thinking of him?

  “Rome ruined many men,” I remembered her saying more than once after Totu broke up with her.

  Armando caught Lucia by the arm. “Where are you going? If you’re not feeling well, you can sleep in my cabin tonight. I’ll sleep at the top and you can sleep at the bottom. It’s simple, you know.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said.

  “We Romans are all crazy. We like to live, that’s why. It’s in our blood. Now the ancient Romans, they really knew how to live it up. They had a festival every year called Saturnalia. Eh, capito? Sa-tur-na-li-a. They drank and ate like pigs. Imagine what baccanale! Everything was turned upside down.”

  He lifted Lucia
’s chin to better look at her face. “You don’t look well, signorina. I’m concerned. Let’s take a little walk, it will distract you.”

  Before she could answer, he turned back to me. “Saturn was the god of the vine, but also the god of the underworld, the night. The Vulcania, the sister ship, is named after Vulcano, the god of fire and light. Eh, we Romans know all about these gods. I’ll tell you about it at another time. Now Lucia and I will be back in a few minutes. You can wait for us in the lounge. I want to distract her from feeling sick.”

  Lucia just walked away with him, without saying anything, and left me there by myself.

  I heard Armando say, “I still can’t believe how a kid like her wants to read all the time. She should have made friends with girls her own age.”

  I was really annoyed at both him and Lucia for treating me like a child. Just because my spoken Italian was not as perfect as his, because I spoke with a Calabrian accent, he probably expected me to be a dummy. It wasn’t my fault I wasn’t born in Rome with all of his gods and goddesses. He probably thought of himself as a god too, or a pope with all of his preaching. Lucia could have said something. She knew about my perfect tens in school, but if she could forget Totu so easily and overlook the fact that she was married, I couldn’t expect her to speak up for me. I had done all I could to help her in the village.

  When Totu returned from Rome and he started courting Lucia again secretly, she used me as her messenger. Now on the ship, I was relegated to the task of chaperoning Lucia, while Armando made fun of me. She never once said a nice word to me.

  After another trip to the bathroom, I went to the lounge by myself and sat curled up on the sofa. I felt queasy but the flow was not as heavy as the day before. There were only a few spots on the towel. Armando had managed to distract me from my worries. Despite his dismissive attitude, I liked what he told me about the origin of the name Saturnia, and I hoped he would pick up on it another time. I thought of the planet Saturn and I couldn’t imagine how big a circle it had around it. To my drawings of circles, I added one with a loop around it. I pretended to ride the waves, as Armando had told us, but even in first class that morning, the boat lifted me up and then threw me down. My stomach didn’t seem to have time to adjust to the movements, and when the boat came down, my stomach was still up. I didn’t want to embarrass myself by vomiting in the lounge, but I couldn’t leave without Lucia, so I read a few pages, and then closed my eyes for a while. I reopened them again to read a few more pages, but felt more and more nauseous.