Across the Table

by Linda Cardillo

  “Girls alone disappear,” she had said.

  As the bus pulled away, I had looked out the window. Letitia stood waving from her balcony. She had changed from her morning housecoat to a green silk dress. In her hand was a lace-trimmed handkerchief that she dabbed at her eyes.

  I stood now in the rotunda of the Naples Stazione Centrale, about to make the same journey. This time, instead of depending on SITA buses to get me up to the mountains, I had reserved a car. But before picking it up, I detoured to the flower shop, hoping to find something that would survive until I reached Avellino. The saleswoman recommended a potted hydrangea and wrapped it extravagantly in layers of purple cellophane and a massive bow, wishing my grandmother buona sante as she handed me the gift with a nod of approval.

  Armed with a map and directions outlined for me by the clerk at Avis, I located my Fiat in the parking lot, took a deep breath and plunged into the late Sunday afternoon traffic, keeping an eye out for the Autostrada symbol and signs for the A16, the east-west highway that connected Naples with Bari on the Adriatic. About a quarter of the way across the ankle of Italy’s boot, I knew I’d leave the highway and head south into the mountains and Avellino.

  I was tired and hungry. My jet lag was catching up with me. A part of me longed to stop at the Agip motel on the broad avenue leading toward the entrance ramp of the Autostrada. Its familiar sign, a black, six-legged, fire-breathing mythical creature on a yellow background, beckoned like a McDonald’s Golden Arch, promising a cheap, clean room. But Giulia was expecting me at the hospital Sunday evening, and even though there’d be little I could do for her at that time—no surgeon to confer with, only a night nurse on duty—I pushed myself past the fatigue to be at my grandmother’s side.

  The highway had not existed seventeen years ago, and I was astounded that I was able to cover the hundred kilometers to Avellino in under an hour, compared to the nearly three hours it had taken the bus on my last trip. When I exited the highway, a sign welcomed me in four different languages.

  When I drove onto the grounds of the hospital of San Giuseppe Moscati, the doctor saint of Naples, it was nearly sunset.

  I grabbed the hydrangea and my tote bag from the backseat and headed into the hospital, moving from the brilliance and shimmer of light and heat that had surrounded me all day into shadowed dimness. Everything in the lobby was in shades of brown, like the sepia tones Renaissance artists used to create the sinopia, the preliminary sketch under a fresco. The highly polished linoleum, the wooden paneling that climbed three-quarters of the way up the whitewashed walls, the tattered seats in the waiting room, even the habit of the Franciscan nun sitting at the reception desk, created an aura of subdued and quiet sanctuary.

  She looked up as I approached. When I asked for my grandmother, she jumped up.

  “Oh, we’ve been expecting you! The signora was telling everyone that you were coming. Let me call Reverend Mother. She can explain your grandmother’s condition before you go up to see her.”

  Within minutes, Reverend Mother, an energetic and ageless woman and the director of the hospital, swooped into the lobby and kissed me on both cheeks.

  “Can I get you some tea, my dear, while we talk about your grandmother? Come, let’s go to my office.”

  I sank into the chair she offered and gratefully accepted the hot cup of tea that she produced within a minute.

  On her desk was a file on which I could read my grandmother’s name. I was beginning to feel—with some relief, given my fatigue—that Giulia had things under control here, if she had the hospital so well prepared for my arrival.

  “Your grandmother is quite a formidable woman, as I’m sure you know. She was very busy the last two days keeping us all informed of your coming. I believe she feels a need to protect and watch out for you. But I must tell you, my dear, she needs you to watch over her, although she’d be the last to admit it. She’s in a weakened state because of the night she spent alone after her fall—we’ve been replenishing her fluids with an IV, but at her age, even twelve hours of dehydration can be damaging. She was disoriented when she got here. She has recovered her faculties enough to issue edicts and lists, I understand, but I have to caution you that your grandmother has a long road ahead to recover from this fall. In many cases, with patients of this age, we would not even be considering a hip replacement.”

  I absorbed Reverend Mother’s report in silence, gradually comprehending the gravity of my grandmother’s condition.

  “I hadn’t realized how serious this fall was,” I murmured. “I naively believed I was asked to be here as a companion to her.”

  “I’m not trying to overwhelm you and burden you so soon after your arrival, but I felt it was important for you to understand the severity of her injury and to warn you before you see her. She’s quite bruised and also very angry with herself for falling. We’ve also had to increase her morphine dosage because of the pain, so she may begin to drift.

  “The surgeon will be in tomorrow morning at eight o’clock and can give you the details about her operation. More than likely he will operate on Tuesday morning.”

  I nodded, understanding that I would need to be an advocate for my grandmother.

  “May I ask you if you’ve booked a place to stay? If not, I’d like to encourage you to stay here with your grandmother. We can have a cot set up in her room. In my opinion, it would be a blessing for her to have you so close.”

  I set down my teacup because my hand was shaking. With four children, I’d seen my share of emergency rooms, and my youngest had been hospitalized for four days with pneumonia, so I was no stranger to the emotional fragility caused by illness and the need for a family member to be close at hand. But despite my confidence in Giulia’s ability to control even this situation, Reverend Mother had quickly and authoritatively set me straight.

  I leaned my elbows on her desk and put my head in my hands. I felt the adrenaline of the last two days seeping out of me and tears of exhaustion and doubt well up. Reverend Mother came around her desk with a handkerchief and put an arm around me.

  “Everything Signora D’Orazio has said about you convinces me that your family has sent the right person. Why don’t I show you where you can wash your face and then let’s go see your grandmother.”

  Once again, she whisked me down the hall, this time to the ladies’ room. When I was ready, we took the elevator up to the orthopedic floor. As we passed open doors, I saw and heard clusters of people gathered around patients’ beds, family members taking advantage of the Sunday-evening visiting hours, and was relieved that now Giulia would have someone at her bedside, too, even if what I could offer was simply a voice and a face from home.

  Reverend Mother knocked at a partially opened door.

  “Signora D’Orazio, she’s here! Your granddaughter is here!”

  I willed a smile to my face and walked into the room.

  “Nana,” I said. “It’s me, Cara.”

  She turned toward the door and reached out her hand. I was glad Reverend Mother had prepared me, but even so, her bruised and swollen face and the black-and-blue marks on her arm appalled me. She looked as if someone had beaten her, and then I remembered the stone steps in Letitia’s house.

  I went to her, put the hydrangea on the floor and threw my arms around her, careful of the IV and reluctant to hold her too tightly for fear of hurting her sore body.

  “How good you are to be here!” she whispered.

  I sat on the side of her bed and she stroked my hair, by now flying out of its ponytail. She rubbed my bare arms, as if assuring herself that I was truly there.

  Reverend Mother left us, letting me know that she was going to order the cot.

  Shortly afterward, Giulia’s supper tray arrived. When the nun bringing the food saw that I was there, she said she’d call down to the kitchen and have them send something for me. In the meantime, I busied myself with cutting meat and buttering bread for Giulia. She waved me away when I lifted a spoonful of soup to
her mouth.

  “I didn’t break my arm, for God’s sake. Just help me sit up a little higher so I don’t dribble all over myself.”

  This was the Giulia I knew, and it was a relief to have her scold me.

  By the time we’d both eaten, an aide had delivered a cot, sheets and pillows and made up a bed by Giulia’s side. I went down to my car and retrieved my suitcase and then stole a few minutes to peel off the clothes I’d been wearing for two days and take a shower in a bathroom down the hall from Giulia’s room that the aide had pointed out to me.

  When I rejoined Giulia, she’d had her evening medication, and some of the strain I’d seen in her face was eased. She beamed at me. I was now scrubbed, my hair neatly braided, and wearing fresh clothes.

  “Sweetheart, did you bring the things I asked for?”

  I patted the tote bag. “It’s all in here, Nana. Do you want anything now?”

  She wavered, but then threw up her hands as if surrendering to an irresistible need.

  “The box. The cigar box. You found it, where I said to look?”

  I nodded and dug it out of the bag. “Here it is, Nana.”

  She took the box and stroked the outside of it, tracing the colorful image of Francisco Fonseca. Then she held the box to her breast, cradling it with her eyes shut. At last, she lifted the cover and stared at the stacks of letters before slipping one out from its ribbon binding. She closed the box and brought the single letter to her lips before unfolding it.

  For a few moments I watched as she scanned the lines. I thought she was reading, but then she turned to me in restless exasperation.

  “My eyes are no good at night. I can’t see the words. Sweetheart, you’ve done so much, just to come, but do this for me. Read to me. Read me the letter.”

  She handed me the blue sheet of paper.

  I took it hesitantly.

  “Are you sure you want me to read this, Nana?”

  She looked at me and the letter in my hand, agitation rising in her as she struggled between the absolute sanctity of the message in the letter and the urgency she felt to hear it again.

  “I need to hear it tonight, Cara. Go ahead. I trust you.”

  And so I began to read the words on the page—an elegant, flowing Italian script. At first, my brain attempted to translate silently for myself as I read the Italian out loud, but after a few minutes, I stopped trying to decipher the meaning and simply pronounced the words. I felt as if I were singing a song whose soul and emotion were in the music, not the lyrics.

  Dearest Giulia,

  Don’t forget what I asked you last night—to find five or ten minutes before noon. I have the most important things to communicate to you. If you only knew how much I suffered this morning, to go to work without even seeing you or telling you that I love you.

  I am crazy with love. I have never loved with so much devotion. You are the star that shines brightly, a sparkling beam, and you adorn my poor heart with infinite madness. Now that I am writing to you, I believe I have you near me. It seems as if we are talking. How I long to embrace you!

  I cover your face with my tears, and dry them with my kisses.

  Most faithfully,

  Paolo

  When I finished, I glanced up. Giulia’s eyes were closed and the agitation that had disturbed her earlier was gone. I gently removed the cigar box from her lap and put it on her bedside table. As I reached to turn out the light, she stirred and touched my wrist.

  “Grazie, figlia mia.”

  I slipped into the cot, the words of my grandfather Paolo echoing in my head.

  Chapter 3

  The Beginning

  THE NEXT MORNING I accustomed myself to the weekday pace of San Giuseppe Moscati. Breakfast trays, medication, bath, changes of bed linen. I could see the distress in my grandmother’s face, the tension in her body, as the procession of nurses’ aides and nuns moved in and out of her room. She scolded a cleaning woman who attempted to move the cigar box of letters that I had placed on the bedside table.

  “I’ll put it in a safe place, Nana,” I reassured her as the bustle around her continued. “We can read more later, when it’s not so busy.”

  The surgeon showed up around ten. He was in his late thirties, a trim, athletic-looking man, wearing a stylish blue shirt under his white coat. His eyes, also blue, conveyed intelligence and compassion. After he’d checked on my grandmother, I conferred with him in the hall, along with Reverend Mother and the sister in charge of the orthopedic ward.

  He had scheduled Giulia’s surgery for Tuesday morning and felt she’d need at least ten days of recuperation before I could take her home. He explained the details of the operation and his expectations for her recovery. I brought up my concerns about her medication and the discomfort I was witnessing, and he agreed to make adjustments, giving the sisters some latitude in monitoring her painkillers. Within ten minutes he was gone.

  Before returning to Giulia’s room, I leaned against the wall in the corridor and considered what I had just heard. Ten days. This was more than I’d bargained for. More than I thought I could handle. I chafed at missing my family and our long-awaited week at the beach; I worried about upcoming projects at work; I wondered how I’d fill the long hours sitting at Giulia’s bedside. But I’d made my choice. I’d said yes, I could do this. I walked back into Giulia’s room.

  She turned her head as I pushed open the door and she smiled.

  “I was wondering where you were, sweetheart. I thought maybe I’d only dreamed you were here. But then I saw your valise in the corner and I told myself, ‘You may be an old woman, but you’re not a confused one.’”

  I glanced at her IV and assured myself that it was flowing smoothly. Then I sat in the chair by her bedside. We talked about what the doctor had told me and I pressed her to be vocal when she was in too much pain.

  “Don’t suffer in silence, Nana. He’s written orders to give you more painkillers if you need them, so speak up.”

  “I don’t want to be in a haze, not knowing what’s going on around me. Letitia didn’t even know I was there at the end.”

  “This isn’t the end for you, Nana! You have a broken hip, not a terminal disease. Dr. Campobasso can replace it and you’ll walk again, back in your own home.”

  “Okay. Okay. But if I start babbling like my crazy cousin Elena, you make them reduce the morphine. I’d rather have a little pain than be seeing visions at the foot of my bed.”

  I smiled and promised her as I stroked her hand. As I did so, her clenched fingers released their hold on the bedcovers.

  “How about a cup of tea and I’ll read you another letter?”

  She drew my hand to her lips and kissed it.

  I went down the hall to the ward kitchen and poured two cups of tea into china cups and brought them back to her room on a tray. When she was settled, I retrieved the box and passed it to her so she could select a letter. She spent some time sifting through the fragile sheets. None of the letters were dated, and the envelopes had no postage or street address, only her name in a flourishing, emphatic script.

  She finally pulled one out and gave it to me.

  “This one.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes and I began to read.

  Adorata Giulia,

  I cannot explain in words how my heart beats for you. I dream of you all the time. If you love me as I love you, we would never suffer. We would always be happy. You have become the owner of my heart. I am yours. How can I give back all the love you show me? My love for you grows day by day and nothing can stop it, not even the anger and disapproval of your family. What have I done to these people that they don’t want me?

  My heart is full of love for you. I adore you and want to kneel at your feet. I will love you always, in spite of what others say. I await your reply.

  Paolo

  I folded the letter again. Who was this passionate, intemperate man whose blood I carried in my veins? I gazed at my grandmother, the woman he had loved so despe
rately, who had so consumed him.

  “Tell me about my grandfather, Nana. Why did he write you these letters?”

  “We had secrets in those days, Paolo and I. Secrets we kept hidden, concealed. But that wasn’t the beginning. The beginning was open and innocent, because I was not aware of what lay ahead—with him or my family. I was just a girl. A girl newly arrived in America who didn’t want to be there. I believed my parents were punishing me by sending me to America. It was killing me, breaking my heart, to leave Italy.”

  She turned her face to the window; the late-morning light filtered through white curtains. Beyond lay the rock-strewn hills of her childhood.

  “The beginning, the girl I was when I met Paolo, started out there.” She thrust out her chin and gestured toward the window.

  “My own grandmother Giuseppina was a maga. I suppose now people would call her a sorceress,” Giulia began, and I listened.

  Chapter 4

  The Convent of Santa Margareta

  Giulia

  IN MY GRANDMOTHER Giuseppina’s garden grew the plants she mixed into her medicines; in her head lived the magic words she sang to release her spells; in her fingertips danced the powers she used to heal. She cured the pains and the sorrows of those who came to her, who asked her to speak for them to the saints.

  She was known outside our village of Venticano. People came from Pietradefusi and Pano di Greci, some even from as far as Avellino. She turned no one away.

  I have a distant memory—sometimes I think it was a dream. In it, Giuseppina, speaking to my mother, raised her very dark eyebrows and nodded in my direction. “I’m watching that one.”