The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna

by Juliet Grames

  Stella had seen the marina from the top of her little mountain, watched the far-off bowl of water change color, silver under a passing rainstorm, gold at sunset. But now, as the train waddled by on its tilted tracks, the sea filled the entire window. There was no horizon, only ripples of turquoise waves that turned white as they curled against the beige sand of the shore—Stella had never imagined the waves of the sea, or the endlessness. The day after tomorrow she would sail out into that nothingness. She was filled with an eerie but familiar sense of dread.

  They reached Napoli two hours after sunset. Passengers crowded and pushed to exit, bumping Assunta with their elbows and packs. The Fortunas assembled their belongings, Cicciu entreating them worriedly to hurry, hurry before the train pulled away with them still on it, until one by one they tumbled down the wooden steps onto the platform. Stella’s eyes struggled to fix on a single face in the unending blur of hats and kerchiefs. She stood dazed for a heartbeat as the crowd pressed into and past her, everyone headed in tacit union toward the exit, before her survival instinct shook her awake and she grabbed Giuseppe’s arm. “You stay close by me,” she snapped, then called, “Mamma!” Assunta, her face still blank with her grief, came to Stella’s side, Luigi clutched in one arm. Cettina, the good girl, followed Stella without instruction, hugging the Fortunas’ satchel to her chest like a fat toddler. “Zu Cicciu, we’ll follow you,” Stella told her cousin pointedly, and he rallied his wits, hefted their trunk, and led them into the rush.

  The Fortunas were sleepy and sore from twelve hours on the train, but they were not too tired to be overawed by the terrifically strange scene they met outside the station. The night streets were lit by glass-globed lanterns, the buildings rising as tall as trees. It was warm and muggy here by the sea, where the air felt wet and dense. There were people everywhere, despite the hour, walking, loitering. Clusters of Gypsies, whom Stella recognized now, stood in the shadows under the station’s arched stone porticos. Neopolitan men of all ages strolled arm in arm on their evening passeggià, or chatted with women with uncovered heads and dresses in all colors. Stella assumed they were Gypsies, too, and wondered why any men were talking to them—were they not worried about being robbed? Cicciu saw her staring and bent to whisper, “puttane.” His voice was almost gleeful. Maybe Cicciu had never seen a whore himself and was as fascinated as Stella was. These were the fallen, the defiled, women who chose to do the job with men, who took money for it. Were they born deviant? Or had men made them so? Could she see the difference in their faces?

  A horse-drawn cart clattered to a stop in front of her. “A ride?” the thick-accented driver shouted at them, shaking Stella out of her reverie. How stupid, to stand there staring like idiots, hanging themselves up like an offering to the thieves and con artists of this famously dangerous city.

  “You need a ride?” the driver shouted again. Stella looked at Cicciu and saw the uncertainty on his face. She felt her gut clench. Cicciu didn’t know what to do.

  “I’ll take you,” the driver said. “One lira, wherever you’re going.”

  Stella looked at Cicciu again, saw the stress sparkling in his eyes. He was paralyzed with his own doubt.

  “Come on,” the driver said, stern now. “Don’t you know how dangerous this city is? Anyone can see you are new here and will take advantage of you. Let me get you to wherever you’re staying before someone comes along and robs you or worse.”

  “One lira,” Stella said, surprised to hear her own voice. “One lira to anywhere?” This city was massive and strange; Stella would have no way of getting them to the right place when she couldn’t trust anyone she spoke to. She had to hope the driver was not one of the evil ones.

  “One lira,” the driver repeated.

  Stella looked at Cicciu again, and her cousin nodded. “One lira,” he said, and they all got in the carriage.

  Cicciu told the driver the hotel’s name and the road it was on—all information from Antonio’s letter. The carriage driver made small talk, turning over his shoulder to shout questions at them in his baffling Napolitano dialect. Cicciu and Assunta said nothing, and Stella felt obliged to answer at first, where they were from and that they were going to America. She felt increasingly uneasy about sharing personal details with this stranger and stopped responding, letting him fill the silence with his own halfhearted chatter. The moist air bore a sour tinge, like the smell that hits you when you uncover a rotten squash at the bottom of the vegetable pantry, only saltier. As they passed shops and dark alleys, her heart pounded at the notion of wasting a whole lira on a carriage ride to the hotel, but she reasoned they never would have been able to find it on their own.

  When the driver pulled his horse to a halt, Cicciu checked the name on the hotel’s sign against his paper. It took him a long time to check, Stella thought. She saw that his hands were quaking. The Fortunas climbed down from the carriage, and the driver helped them unload the trunk.

  Stella took out her purse, which she had been hiding in the folds of her skirt. As she pulled out the coin to hand to the driver, she thought of Cicciu’s quaking hand and tried to quell her own nerves.

  “One lira per person, signorina,” the driver said.

  Stella’s heartbeat accelerated. She knew that was not right, a full day’s wages for this short carriage ride—he was trying to cheat her. “I believe it’s supposed to be one lira for all of us, signore.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she scolded herself for saying “I believe,” for letting herself sound soft. She glared at him. “Six lire is far too much money for this short journey.”

  “Signorina, you are misinformed.” The driver’s deep-set eyes were earnest. “Maybe you don’t know about the road tax? All the prices have gone up these last two months. If I don’t give the officials the exact tax money for each person I transported I pay a huge fine, maybe lose my whole business—and they always know who’s coming through, those carabinieri, nothing better to do than spy on honest people all day. If anyone saw me with a cartload of six people and I can’t pay the tax—ffft.” He made a slicing gesture with his hand, as if he were cutting off his own head.

  Stella looked at Cicciu, who was looking at the ground. He would not help her now. She was seething in anger and drowning in doubt—she was sure the driver was cheating her, but at the same time she wasn’t sure. And there were her sweet little mother and Cettina and the boys looking at her with wide, worried eyes. She was the one with the money. She had to make the decisions. Well, soon they would be in America; they wouldn’t need this money anymore, anyway.

  She dug back into her purse, trying to find a five-lira coin. “I’m sorry it’s this way, signorina,” the driver was saying. “I know it’s hard for you emigranti, coming from the countryside where things are so different. I’m a country person myself.” She felt her pulse calming as she handed him the coin. The expression in his deep-set eyes did seem heartfelt. “But you live here in the city a long time and realize how the world works, you know?” He looked down at his hand. “And the rest, signorina?”

  Stella, who had been letting down her guard, was instantly angry again. “What do you mean, the rest? Six isn’t enough for you?” She felt her family shifting in their shoes around her; felt the pressure not to make a mistake for them all. “You want to rob us of even more?”

  The driver laughed, not unkindly. “No, signorina, six is quite enough. But you only gave me two.” He stuck out his palm, showing her two one-lira coins.

  “Oh,” she said gruffly, feeling sheepish for her anger. Could I have been that stupid? “Sorry.” She took back a one-lira coin and exchanged it for a five-lira from her purse. His fingers closed around it before it could even clank against its companion. Already her doubt had set in again, but the driver leapt up on his seat and tutted his horse away.

  Inside the hotel, the Fortunas stood together by the door, forming a protective ring around their trunk and bags, as Cicciu approached the desk to speak to the hotelier. They were in th
e right place, it seemed; there was a very long conversation between the two men. How could there be so much to explain? Stella, still jumpy from the confrontation with the driver, stood by her mother, a comforting hand wrapped around her arm, feeling Assunta’s stuttering pulse in the thick, hot vein that throbbed in the crook of her elbow. Eventually Cicciu summoned Stella to pay the hotel fare, two rooms—one for Cicciu, one for the Fortunas—for two exorbitant nights. They had been expecting this, though; Stella counted out the forty precious lire. As she set them on the counter, she looked at what remained, that unease in her gut rising again. There was too little in the purse.

  “Scusi, signore, could you tell me, how much should a carriage ride from the station be?” she asked the hotelier. “For all six of us?”

  The man shrugged. “One lira, no more.”

  One lira. “But what about the . . .” Stella tried to remember the driver’s words. “The road tax. That the . . . the carabinieri check?”

  “There is no road tax, signorina.” The hotelier shook his head. “I’m so sorry. The truffatori of my city. They give us all a bad name.”

  The man showed them to their rooms, where they settled in sullenly. Stella was so angry with herself she couldn’t speak. As her mother distributed their dinner, Stella poured out her purse and counted all her money. Sure enough, she was four lire short.

  “He cheated me,” she said out loud.

  “Oh, Stella,” her mother said. “It’s too bad, but there’s nothing we can do now. Five lire, but all past.”

  “No,” Stella said, the fire roiling in her belly. “He cheated me again. I knew I gave him six, but he must have switched the coin really fast, and he tricked me into giving him another five.” She was so furious—with the man as well as with herself—that her vision clouded with a silver fog. She blinked to clear her eyes and saw that Assunta and Cettina were looking at her blankly. “So altogether,” she explained, “I gave him a one-lira coin, a five-lira, and another five-lira. Even considering I took one lira back, I still paid ten lire for what should have been a one-lira journey.”

  Having wrapped her head around the tragedy now, Cettina gasped. Assunta clucked her tongue and said, “Madonn’.” Cicciu was intent on his suppressata, or perhaps on not meeting Stella’s eye.

  Stella took in a lungful of air. She needed to calm herself down. “How can a man be that evil? Stealing from people who can’t protect themselves?”

  “The world is full of evil people, my little mouse,” Assunta said. Her eyes were red from crying about her mother, but now she was focused on her daughter. Stella tried to swallow, but her mistake was caught in her throat. “You can’t trust anyone in this world, no one but yourself. You have to know exactly what you believe, so you can stick to it. Otherwise people will always try to cheat you or confuse you.” Assunta patted the bed beside her. “Come sit, Stella, and have some bread.”

  Stella turned to the wall to gather herself, but regarded her mother from the corner of her eye. Assunta’s advice to trust no one was an adage everyone repeated without thinking about what it meant. But Stella was thinking about what it meant. About knowing what you believe—she had believed she had given the driver six lire, and he convinced her her beliefs were wrong. It was her fault for being weak of mind and will.

  That night, Stella lay in the uncomfortable bed, head to foot with her mother and sister, and polished the crystal of rage and shame in her heart. She would not be weak. She would know what was what—she would never allow self-doubt again. She would be ready for every situation; she would never, ever let anyone take advantage of her. If they did, it would be because she deserved it.

  A BOY ONLY A FEW YEARS OLDER than Stella met the Fortunas at the hotel at eight o’clock the next morning to bring them to Signor Martinelli, the emigration agent. He checked to make sure they had brought their passport photos, then led them on a short walk through the stony streets, down a wide boulevard and into the agency office. There were fifteen other people already waiting. There was room on one of the benches for Assunta, but not for anyone else.

  “It’s a busy day, with the boat leaving tomorrow,” the boy explained. “Wait here and Signor Martinelli will call you.” Their escort left, Stella guessed to pick up other families at other hotels.

  They waited for perhaps an hour. Periodically the door to the private office opened, emitting a family, and Signor Martinelli would read another name from a list. The crowd in the waiting room ebbed and replenished itself with new arrivals. Assunta, who had cheered up a bit, sang songs to little Luigi. Cicciu taught Giuseppe the rules to a new card game. Cettina was mostly quiet. Stella didn’t broach conversation with her sister, though; she was beset by a distracting anxiety that overwhelmed even her exhaustion.

  Stella had begun to grow hungry by the time Signor Martinelli called them into his office. He sat behind a beautiful shining wooden desk and Assunta and Cicciu took the two stools before it. The children stood, Cettina holding Luigi, who was really too big for it, on her hip.

  Signor Martinelli, a balding man whose face was dominated by a fluffy gray mustache, examined a sheaf of papers. For Stella, the bad feeling had already set in—the conviction that something was wrong. His expression was confirmation.

  “You’re the Signora Fortuna,” he said at last. He had the same Napolitano accent they had been hearing since they arrived, but he spoke slowly and clearly. He must have been used to emigrants speaking dialects from all over the southern provinces. “Assunta Mascaro, yes?”

  “She is,” Cicciu answered.

  “And you must be Mario?” Signor Martinelli asked.

  There were several beats of silence. “No,” Cicciu said finally. “I’m their cousin Francesco. I’m just their chaperone.”

  “You’re not traveling.”

  “No, signore.”

  Signor Martinelli raised his eyes to examine each of the standing children. “All right. Which of you is Mario?”

  Another long silence descended on the room. Stella was the one to reply, finally, when Cicciu did not. “There is no Mario, signore. We are Stella, Concettina, Giuseppe, and Luigi.” She indicated each Fortuna as she spoke their names.

  “Stella?” Signore Martinelli repeated. “Stella who?”

  Stella blinked, the anxiety humming in her ears. “Mariastella Fortuna,” she said. “That’s me.”

  Signor Martinelli sighed loudly. “A problem, my friends. A big problem.” He turned the papers as if for them to see, not that most of them could read what was written there. “Your visa is for the wife of Antonio Fortuna, Assunta Mascaro, and her four minor children: son Mario, age sixteen; daughter Concettina, age fourteen; son Giuseppe, age thirteen; and son Luigi, age five. It seems to me someone replaced you, Signorina Stella, with a son with a different name. The whole visa is incorrect. I’m sorry to say you’re not going to be able to travel.”

  This time, the silence was a long one. Stella felt Cettina shivering beside her. Finally, Stella said, “What?”

  Signor Martinelli repeated himself. It took him many words’ worth of repeating to explain.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Cicciu said. Stella was relieved he was speaking up at last. “This has been planned for a long time. Zu Antonio paid to have all this paperwork taken care of. They have left everything behind. Za Assunta and the children must be on the boat tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” the agent said. “It’s very unfortunate, but the rules are strict.”

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Cicciu was saying again. “This doesn’t—”

  “How can we fix it?” Stella interrupted. Cicciu was trapped on the problem; she needed a solution, and fast, before Signor Martinelli kicked them out of his office.

  “You can’t fix it,” Signor Martinelli said, addressing Cicciu, as if he had been the one who’d spoken. “This visa is no good. I can’t do anything because the visa is issued by the American government. Antonio Fortuna must reapply for a visa.”

&n
bsp; Stella’s mind was frantically turning through options. She remembered what she had heard about telegrams, which could deliver a letter far away in only hours. Maybe she could still contact her father in America in time? “If he can fix the passport today, we can come back tonight with our—”

  “Signorina,” the agent said, curt but kind, “this will take many months to fix. Maybe years. Your father must reapply for the passport with the United States government, and they have strict quotas about how many passports they issue.”

  “Quotas,” Stella repeated. The word sounded familiar, but she wasn’t sure what it meant. Her mind was numb. “It was one small accident that made this mistake.” She thought she might explode into delirious laughter. “One tiny, tiny change, which no one noticed. Can’t you just change it back?”

  Martinelli’s mustache flared as he sighed. “I’m sorry, signorina. They are very strict about visas. They can turn your whole family away if there is any discrepancy, and then you and I are both in very big trouble.” His face was sympathetic, rueful—but then so had been the face of that swindling carriage driver. “I cannot let you on that boat.”

  “What do we do?” Cicciu asked Signor Martinelli. Assunta, beside him, was crying.

  “Go home to your village,” the agent said. “You go home to your village, signore.”

  WHAT WAS THERE TO DO?

  The Fortunas turned around and went home.

  At the Napoli station, Stella counted coins for the return fare. She’d had mixed feelings about going to America, but now that they weren’t going anymore she was subdued by a sense of futility. Dumping all their earnings into that dirty ticket man’s palm just to go back to where they had started—what was the point?