"I married his brother, Father."
"And what of your child?"
"I never went back for him. I left him. I never told anyone he even existed. I left my baby in the orphanage. I left him. . . ."
He heard the brass curtain rings clicking and peered through the grille as Sophia ran from the church.
Emanuel watched Graziella being driven away in her car. The stenographer asked if he would need her further, and he shook his head. He was tired; he didn't want to continue working.
He had done what had to be done; if it appeared hard, cruel even, it would in the end prove a kindness. Graziella would have been put through worse on the stand, and she had, as he had known to begin with, no evidence that he could use. He had simply wasted his valuable time.
Sophia kicked off her shoes while pouring herself a vodka. She took two Valium and lay down, fully clothed, on her bed, and drained the glass. But she could not forget. She found herself reliving all the emotions she had felt when she stood in her cast-ofif shoes, her cheap hand-sewn dress, waiting outside those huge wrought-iron gates of the Villa Rivera, only to be told that Michael Luciano, the boy she had loved, was dead and buried.
The guilt descended like a black cowl; her body felt as if she were drowning in a swamp of emotion. The guilt she had never allowed herself to face began to emerge, and she fought it, twisted it until it surfaced as rage. Michael Luciano, the father of her bastard child, Michael Luciano was to blame for everything. If it hadn't been for him, her husband, her sons would be alive. . . . She hurled her glass at the wall.
"Bastard! Bastard! Bastard" she screamed. Her rage was out of control. She tore the duvet from the bed, the pillows, hurled everything she could lay hands on across the room. She swiped her perfumes and creams from the top of the dressing table, then opened her wardrobe and started dragging out her clothes, ripping at them in her frenzy, kicking the rows of shoes until exhausted, she fell to her knees. Clinging to the side of the bed, she wept uncontrollably, asking God to forgive her, repeating over and over, "It was not my fault. No one can blame me. ... It was not my fault. . . ." But she knew there was no one to answer for her sins but herself.span>
Sophia returned to the confessional. "Don't you understand what I have done? Don't you understand?"
The priest quieted her, said he understood, could understand her heartache.
"No, you cannot, you can't understand."
"Well, my child, tell me what I cannot understand."
The white hand, the red-painted fingernails, again scratched at the grille.
"I wanted so much to be a part of the family. I wanted everything they had. I wanted to be—" As disturbed as she was, Sophia still held back, still could not say the name Luciano. "I wanted everything I had never had. I was so poor, Father. My mother scrubbed floors. It was all I saw for myself, scrubbing, washing other people's clothes. That was all I saw ahead of me. When I had the baby, I was sure, so sure, that they would accept me. I was sure he loved me."
"Do you know what became of the child?"
"No ... I made myself forget him. I had to forget him to survive. . . . And then, after I was married, how could I tell them? Do you think I would have been allowed to marry the son of—" Again she would not speak the name. If she explained further, he would know who she was; the deaths of the Luciano family had made headlines.
"Do you now want to find your child?"
She leaned back. She could smell the mustiness of his robes just as he could smell her distinct, heavy perfume. She answered on a long, low sigh. "Yesss . . . yes, that is what I want."
"Then that is what you must do. Trace this child you harbor such guilt, such deep guilt for. Your sense of betrayal is natural, you know what you have done in the past, and you know the reasons. Find him, ask his forgiveness, and God will give you the strength. Now together we will pray for his soul, pray for you, my daughter, and pray for God to forgive your sins."
Graziella looked toward her husband's study. She could hear the murmur of voices. She handed Adina her veil and black lace gloves.
"It's Signor Domino; he said it would be all right. He has three gentlemen with him, signora."
"In future, Adina, no matter who it is, no one is allowed here, especially not in my husband's study, unless I have given you authority. You may go."
She waited until Adina had returned to the kitchen before she moved closer to the study door. She paused, listening; she could hear Mario Domino speaking.
. . Panamanian companies. Listed alongside are the U.S. state bonds. We were recycling the proceeds through our bank to Switzerland—"
Graziella walked into the study, and Domino froze in mid-sentence.
"Graziella, I was not expecting you to return. ... I apologize for the intrusion, but . . . Please allow me to introduce these gentlemen. They are from America and are handling the legal side over there for Don Roberto."
Graziella did not offer her hand but remained standing at the open door. Domino made the introductions, first gesturing toward a tall, well-dressed man in a dark gray suit. His eyes were small but accentuated by heavy, horn-rimmed glasses.
"This is Eduardo Lorenzi from New York."
Lorenzi gave a small bow. "Signora."
The next man was squat, his face shining with sweat, his collar stained. His plump hands clutched at a large white handkerchief. "I think you have met Signor Niccold Pecorelli, a very old and trusted friend, now taking care of the don's interests in Atlantic City. And last, Giulio Carboni, also from the East Coast, who has been assisting me here."
The latter was very much younger than the others but stockily built. He was wearing an open-necked casual shirt and rose-tinted glasses. Graziella glanced around the study; drawers and even the safe door were wide open. Stacked around the desk were files neatly tied with string, obviously ready for removal.
"I shall be in the dining room. If you wish refreshments before you leave, please call Adina." Graziella walked out, leaving the door open and making it obvious that she wanted the men to leave.
She sat in the cool dark dining room in her husband's chair with her back to the shuttered windows. She could hear the men preparing to leave, their hushed voices sounding to her like those of conspirators. Then Mario himself appeared in the dining room.
"I am sorry, Graziella. I was hoping to have everything completed before your return. Don Roberto was conducting international transactions. I am not the only lawyer involved with the businesses, so we had a lot of work to do. They will be handling all the American issues."
She had never seen Mario so hesitant. He looked guilty, mopping his brow with a silk handkerchief. "They have removed only the files necessary—"
She stared at her folded hands. "Perhaps in the future you would be kind enough to warn me if you require access to my husband's study."
"Of course, but I doubt if I will have to intrude again. Forgive me."
He bent to kiss Graziella's cheek, but she averted her face. Hurriedly he retrieved his briefcase from the study, his eyes darting around the ransacked room, making sure there was no trace of incriminating documents. There was not one room in the villa that had not been thoroughly searched. Now he would begin the marathon job of assessing the Luciano holdings, knowing that many of the territories had already been taken over, that someone had already stepped into Roberto Luciano's shoes. He had known the moment he had been approached by the three men Graziella had just met.
Graziella watched Domino drive away before she picked up the heavy package of her husband's tapes. She carried it to the study desk and looked around. The room smelled of the men's cigar smoke and of charred papers. . . . Sure enough, there in the grate were the telltale blackened scraps of paper.
Adina entered with a tray. She had prepared some soup and a small side dish of pasta. "You must eat, signora, just a little."
Graziella nodded, taking the tray and putting it down on the desk. "You may leave now. I can take this back to the kitchen."
/> "No, signora, I'll stay, if just to make sure you at least take a little soup."
"That will not be necessary, please leave me. And, Adina . . . in the future you show no one into my husband's study, no one, is that clear? This room will remain locked, no one is allowed in, do you understand?"
Adina closed the door quietly behind her. She paused, listening for the sound of cutlery being used, knowing that Graziella had not eaten for days. As if a ghost crossed her soul, she froze, hearing clearly the deep, warm tones of Don Roberto Luciano. She could not help crying out, and the study door opened.
Graziella's face was white with anger. "Leave me alone. Leave the house now."
Graziella stood in her husband's study, eyes closed, feeling the evening breeze as it dried the tears on her cheek, tears she made no effort to wipe away, as she listened to the don's voice.
"My name is Don Roberto Luciano. I give this statement on the eighth of February, 1987. I have certified evidence to prove that I am of a sane, healthy mind and have a witness to prove that these statements are given freely without any undue harassment or pressure from any quarter. I make these statements of my own will. . . ."
His voice hurt her, pained her. But she had to listen, had to know what her husband knew and what she did not. She would hear exactly how her son had been murdered; she would hear, in those same, warm tones, another side of the man she thought she knew and loved.
CHAPTER 5
Teresa looked down into the New York street and watched Father Amberto hail a cab. He was carrying two heavy suitcases filled with her husband's clothes. She remained standing at the window until the cab merged into the stream of continuous traffic on Thirty-fifth Street, then turned back into the small room she and Filippo had used as a study. She went to the desk where she had stacked all Filippo's unpaid bills and company papers in preparation for work that evening, but now nothing could be further from her mind. She was so angry she was still shaking. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, flushing at the thought of what her daughter had said to the priest. Suddenly she yanked open the study door and walked into the narrow corridor.
"Rosa, Rosa!'
Her daughter's bedroom door remained firmly closed. Her radio blared, the volume turned up to earsplitting level.
"Rosa, Rosa, come out of there!” Teresa hit the door with the flat of her hand, kept on hitting it until the music was turned off. Then she stepped back, hands on her hips, as Rosa opened the door.
"How could you do that? How could you say that to Father Amberto?"
"What?"
"You know perfectly well what. How dare you! I have never been so humiliated in my life."
"Didn't faze him, he was too busy stuffing the suitcases with all the clothes."
"I want you to apologize to me, you hear me?"
"Sure I hear. So can half the block. There's no need to act so hysterical. You think he's never heard the word before? All I said was—"
"I know what you said: 'Check the pockets for rubbers!' For rubbers! What in God's name possessed you to say such a thing? Search your papa's suit pockets!" Teresa put her hands over her face. "What will he think of us?"
"I don't think he'll be saying Hail Marys over it, Mama. It was nothing, forget it."
"Forget it! Why did you say it, Rosa, why?"
Rosa shrugged her shoulders and turned to go back to her room. "Maybe because I can't stand the way you're acting, creeping around the place. It's been two months, Mama, and every time I look at you, you start blubbering, or you're going to every mass. It's a wonder your knees aren't calloused."
Teresa pulled her daughter by the shoulders, her face red with rage. "How do you expect me to behave? You want me to play music so loud I deafen everyone? You want me to throw open the blinds and have a party? My husband, your father is dead! So help me God, what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know. I just don't want anyone else coming here with their prayer books and clasping me by the hand, people I don't know pinching my cheeks as if I were a kid."
"They're being kind, Rosa. They're trying to help us."
"No, they're not. They're just prying. We don't even know them."
"They're from the church."
"But they don't know me; they never knew Papa. He never set foot in church unless you dragged him there. They're just nosy, and you are loving every minute of being the center of attention."
Teresa slapped Rosa so hard she crashed into the wall. She staggered for a moment, then hurled herself at her mother, fists flying, screaming, "Leave me alone!"
"Fine, I'll leave you alone. I won't cook for you, clean for you, wash for you—"
"You don't have to anyway—"
"Sure I don't have to, and I don't have to give you money every day to go to college. Sure I'll leave you alone. I won't speak to you until you apologize. May God forgive you, and you'll need his forgiveness for what you said to Father Amberto."
"Why? It was the truth, wasn't it? You think I'm deaf? I heard you two fighting and arguing. I could hear you screaming at each other. He never loved you. He had other women. I know it, everyone knew it. ..."
Teresa couldn't stop the tears. "Why, Rosa? Why are you saying these things? Since we got home, you've been behaving crazy, I don't know you." Teresa searched for a tissue and blew her nose.
"Oh, don't cry, Mama. Please, I'm sick of the sight of you crying."
"Because you don't—"
"Why should I cry? Tell me why? Cry for Emilio? He never loved me; it was all arranged. I'm glad he's dead because I feel used. I was handed over like a piece of meat."
"May God forgive you, you know that's not true, Rosa."
"Yes, it is, and Papa never loved you; they handed you over just like me."
Teresa couldn't listen anymore. She walked into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. How little her daughter knew, how little she understood. She took out a photograph of herself on her graduation, wearing her cap and gown, younger than Rosa.
Rosa was sitting in front of her dressing table, trimming her bangs with a pair of nail scissors. Small snippets of hair covered the glass top, fell onto her cosmetics, but she snipped and snipped, anything to stop herself thinking, remembering.
"Rosa, can I come in?"
"No."
Teresa hovered in the door. "I want to show you something. It's a photograph of me when I was your age, in my cap and gown."
"I've seen it, Mama. Grandma used to have it on the mantelpiece."
"Look at me, such a stern little face, with such thick glasses."
Rosa gave only a fleeting glance at the photograph, and Teresa continued. "You remember Grandma and Grandpa? I was brought up in that bakery. Papa was always dreaming of going home someday, but Mama never wanted to; she felt that they had done so well here in America. Papa was so proud the day I was accepted in college; he thought by just getting accepted, I was already a qualified lawyer. He told everyone, and they streamed into the bakery with gifts and congratulations. ..."
Rosa blew at the hair on the dressing table, only half listening. She had few memories of her maternal grandparents, though she never passed a bakery without the smell somehow reminding her of the times she had seen them.
"My father worked in the bakery, Rosa, he didn't own it, and he rented the apartment in the basement. It was dark, airless, and we ran a constant battle against cockroaches. They came in the hundreds as soon as the ovens went off—"
"Why are you telling me this? I've heard it so many times, about how you used to chase them with a broom. ..."
"Because the man who bought my father the bakery, and bought him the little apartment on the top floor where there weren't any cockroaches, was Don Roberto."
"So what was Don Roberto going to give Papa for marrying me off? Move us out of this dump? Was that the deal? What was I worth, Mama? A new apartment or a bigger slice of the family business? You complained enough that they never treated you like family, like Aunt Sophia! Well, you got even more than
you bargained for, didn't you? Now you'll be rich. ..."
Teresa was too late to stop Rosa from ripping her graduation photograph in two, tossing the scraps aside. She bent down to retrieve them. Then she sprang forward, grabbed her daughter's shoulders, shook her. She shrieked, "You don't know anything, you don't know—"
Rosa dragged herself free and picked up her scissors, jabbing at her mother. The small, sharp blades cut into the back of Teresa's hand. "Why don't you leave me alone?"
Teresa went into the bathroom and ran cold water on her hand, watching the trickle of blood from the deep cut spread down her fingers.
Rosa appeared, shamefaced, at the door. "Are you okay?"
"Yes."
"You need a Band-Aid?"
"Yes."
Rosa opened the cabinet. Her father's shaving brush, razor, and cologne were where he had left them. She took out the box of adhesive bandages and opened it.
"This size?" She held one up and watched as her mother dried the cut on a towel, then held her hand out. Rosa gently placed the Band-Aid over the cut. "You forgot to take Papa's things out of the cabinet. I'm sorry, Mama, and I'll apologize to Father Amberto next Sunday."
Teresa sat on the edge of the bath. Rosa hesitated before she bent to kiss her mother's head. Teresa slipped her arms around her daughter, resting her face against her. She felt Rosa's body tense, but she tightened her arms around her. "Listen to me, please . . . just listen."
Rosa eased herself away but remained close. Teresa, without looking up, continued. "I never had a boyfriend, you know. All through college. It wasn't for want of trying. I made the excuse that I had to study so hard that I never had the time. My mother was always asking questions, prying, wanting to know if I had 'a young man,' as she called them. She was so scared I'd be left unmarried. Mama was frantic, like there was something wrong with me. Some days when I got home, she would have old women there, ready to introduce me to their sons, grandsons, uncles. . . . The whole neighborhood was intent on finding me a husband, but none of the introductions ever came to anything. My father was still proud, informing every customer that his daughter was a lawyer, though I wasn't. In fact, I never did finish."
BELLA MAFIA Page 12
