Yet she had softened a little with the coming of our friends. At night she sometimes dealt out chips of old memories, which I filled in like the penny postcards of her vaudeville days. “Swimming in the moon,” she’d announce.
I’d say: “Yes, wasn’t it beautiful that night when the moonlight made a white road in the bay? Remember lying on our rock looking up at the stars?”
“Hmm,” she might say, and then: “Nannina dancing.”
“You mean when you sang and clapped for us and Nannina taught me the tarantella?”
Or: “Lemons and olives.”
“Yes, they were so delicious, her lemon salads with olive oil and black olives.”
Not every memory was pleasant. “Dr. Galuppi!” she cried once, jerking herself upright.
“He’s dead. Lie down, Mamma, and I’ll tell you what happened.” When she was quiet, I shared Paolo’s story. It had happened during one of the doctor’s “cures”: having Ugo, the hulking assistant, hold a woman underwater in a copper tank until she nearly drowned. Suddenly Ugo rebelled, tired of being the doctor’s henchman. He freed the woman, and together they drowned the doctor in his own tank. Then they released his caged patients, emptied his safe of a sizable fortune, seized everything of value, set fire to the laboratory, and slipped out of the city. None of the patients were ever found. Some said they had gone with Ugo and the woman to a villa in the south of France where they all lived peaceably together.
Mamma was silent. Then came a new delicious sound: a low, heaving huh, huh, huh. By a glimmer of moonlight, her teeth flashed in an almost-smile before she turned to the wall. Little bursts of huh, huh, huh led her into sleep.
On the afternoon before Elisabetta and Paolo were to return, Roseanne sent me to Lula’s for beer. Isadore was there, drinking with union brothers. “Ah, Lucia, it’s good to see you. I just heard from Josephine. She’ll be back soon. She’s arranged meetings in Kalamazoo with suffragettes and pastors and the WCTU. Everyone’s ready to strike. You know what she says.”
“Long pickets make short strikes.”
“Exactly.”
“To the corset workers!” cried one of the men, raising his mug. “Hold on tight! Keep those laces snug!”
Isadore laughed. “Don’t mind them. Are you going to Michigan, Lucia?”
“She’s got things on her mind besides corsets, Isadore,” Lula called out.
“Well, think about it. Josephine could use the help.”
“What’s wrong with Henryk?” Lula asked as she filled my bucket. “If his face gets any longer, it’ll hit the floor. Yours too. Did you have a fight?”
“No,” I said wearily, “and he’s not my fella. We just spent some time together.”
Lula’s dark eyes peered into mine. “And that time was too much for ‘friends’ and not enough for more than friends?”
The question untangled itself in my mind. “Yes. I guess so.”
She slid the heavy bucket to me. “I’m betting you’ll work it out soon. Elsewise both your faces will fall off.” A regular called for whiskey. She patted my cheek and plunged into the crowd. I hauled the bucket home, pondering my problem once more. Yes, caring for Mamma in a new place would surely be difficult in ways I couldn’t predict. But I might see workers win. And I wouldn’t see Henryk and whatever new Miriam his father recruited. Don’t think about him.
Mamma was knitting quietly in the parlor. In a neat row on the windowsill were strands of hair she’d broken off. I sighed. In Michigan, she’d be a crazy lady from Ohio. But if we didn’t go, what would happen to me after more months with silent Mr. Hess? By careful saving I could eventually earn enough for college. Could I still care for Mamma? And the picture of me in a book-lined library had become troublesome, too silent when so many workers needed a voice.
At breakfast Roseanne asked if I’d be going to the Hiram House dance. That simple choice overwhelmed me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t decide.”
Elisabetta and Paolo returned the next day, delighted by neat Amish farms and orchards, white wooden churches with steeples, forests, fields, and so much space, such endless sky. They’d seen an “enchanting” snowfall on the Cuyahoga River, slept in country inns, had pancakes with maple syrup, and watched horses race down a country road. Paolo read me a list of animals they’d seen: white-tailed deer, badger, gray and red fox, skunk, otter, porcupine, beaver, and raccoon. They’d met real Indians at a general store and been invited to a square dance. They’d eaten squirrel meat after presenting themselves at a farmhouse and offering to pay the astonished family two silver dollars for a meal. Elisabetta unfolded a quilt she’d bought at an auction. “See how perfect? It’s a cloth mosaic.” Both she and Paolo had modest gifts for drawing, I discovered, and had filled two notebooks with the wonders they’d seen. My mother sat quietly through the long account. She rarely listened so long to me, I thought peevishly.
“Everyone should visit Ohio. There’s so much to see,” Paolo concluded.
Roseanne stared as if he’d proven himself even crazier than Mamma. “Enough about Ohio. I’ve made you good Italian pasta al forno.” In fact she’d made a feast, ending with espresso in delicate porcelain cups she used on special occasions. Mamma was sleepy after wine and the heavy meal. I put her to bed and came down to the parlor.
Elisabetta and Paolo were waiting. “We’d like to talk to you, Lucia,” she said. Paolo closed the doors, and she began. “Paolo and I have discussed this, so I speak for him as well. You said you want to stay in America.”
“Yes.”
“But Teresa needs care, and giving her that care is difficult for you, is it not, especially if you want to go to college or help your union?”
“Yes, but—”
“I understand. She’s your mother and you won’t leave her with strangers.” I shifted uncomfortably. Why repeat the obvious? Her next words stunned me: “Paolo and I want to take her back to Naples and care for her there.” Elisabetta spoke casually, as if proposing some mild change to the villa, buying a new painting or acquiring a cat.
“But that’s impossible! You’ll never know when the bad days will come. She has to be watched all the time. Her symptoms change. She sees Toscanini everywhere. You never know when—”
“We understand. We spoke with Dr. Ricci today. We know she may never recover. We have seen a ‘bad day,’ and he described other behaviors and symptoms she could develop.”
“She cleans, but only if she wants to. You can’t give her orders.”
“Teresa would not be returning as a servant,” Paolo said firmly. “She would be part of the household.”
“She won’t even sing when you ask her.”
Elisabetta smiled. “I haven’t had headaches since we buried Filippo. Dr. Ricci thinks the villa could be a good solution, quiet as a sanitarium but familiar, with people she knows who speak her language. She can help Nannina if she chooses, when it pleases her. If not, she could knit or swim, walk in the gardens or watch Vesuvius. She may be calmer, with more good days, even if she is never again how she once was. And you could go to college or do your union work.”
My mind slowed. “You take her to Naples and I stay here?” Elisabetta nodded. Strange that my first response wasn’t relief, amazement, or gratitude. No, I was seized by fear of floating unconnected in America. Sick or well, Mamma was mine, a heavy care, but a fixed point in my world. “She’ll miss me,” I blurted, “she’ll miss me so much.”
Elisabetta nodded. “She would, I’m sure, but—”
Exactly. She’d miss me, but perhaps Vesuvius and a warm sea could do as much for her as I ever could. Yet why take on this burden? And why now, when their reward for so many difficult years had just begun? “Elisabetta, Paolo, I don’t understand. You were good to us even when she was difficult. You helped us escape from the count. Wasn’t that enough?”
“No,” said Elisabetta. “It wasn’t enough. I’ll tell you why.”
Paolo squeezed her hand as if giving strength and sil
ently moved to a far corner of the parlor, pulling a random book from the shelf, unobtrusive as a shadow.
Elisabetta ran a finger along her wedding ring and raised her eyes to mine. “Lucia, you understand that I barely knew Filippo before we wed?”
“Nannina said it was a brief courtship.”
Elisabetta laughed. “Yes, exceedingly ‘brief.’ I saw him at two balls and had one gelato with him at Caffè Gambrinus. That was our courtship. My father had just died, leaving me the villa, a noble title, and many debts. Filippo seemed elegant and gracious. He had graduated brilliantly in mathematics. His father made a fortune in shipping and wanted a title for his son. Filippo charmed my mother and promised to pay our debts. Everyone said it was a brilliant match.” She glanced at Paolo.
“You must understand that all I knew of men in those years was my father. He was always a gentleman, kind and courteous to everyone. He adored my mother. I never knew him to raise his voice. He never mistreated our servants or allowed others to mistreat them. Filippo seemed the same, but once we married, the playacting ended. Our wedding night he spent in a brothel. I was trapped with a gambler and libertine. I thought my life was over. A month later, Paolo found me with a vial of poison. He took it away and promised to help me live with Filippo. Truly, without him I could not have endured my husband. I moved, as you know, to another wing of the villa and had no more intimacies with him.”
“And my mother?”
“She was just fourteen when she began service with us. At Carnival time we gave a masquerade ball.”
I clenched my fists. The bastard wore a mask.
“Filippo was dressed as Louis the Fourteenth, the Sun King. As were two other men. It was the year of Sun Kings,” she said ruefully. “Paolo served guests in the villa, and we had tables by the water. He sent Teresa down with more champagne. From the balcony I saw the gold of the kings’ cloaks flash in lantern light. When I realized that Teresa hadn’t come back, I looked again and saw two people struggling on the rocks. One wore a gold cloak.”
He pushed me in the seaweed.
Paolo quietly returned from his corner. “I should have brought the champagne down myself,” he said, “or used one of the footmen. Instead I sent a young girl alone in the dark among drunkards. I was new in service. I was an idiot. That was unforgivable.” He waited until I lifted my eyes to his. “Entirely unforgivable. I am so sorry, Lucia, that I did this to your mother.”
“Teresa wouldn’t speak of what happened,” Elisabetta continued, “but she was different after that night: silent, angry, avoiding men. She cried often. She was nearly a child herself, remember.”
“I know.”
“And this disgrace happened in my household. I know such things are common, even usual in great houses, but not in our villa, not when my father was alive. When her belly grew, I said I’d find her a place in another household. But we both knew that any new master would make her give you away.”
“To be an esposito.”
“Yes, exactly. Teresa said she’d stay with us, even with Filippo there. She seemed comforted by the water and the gardens and lemon grove. So Paolo and I promised to protect her as much as we could. We owed her that much. She began to sing, and I discovered that her voice soothed my headaches.”
“The count?”
“Filippo denied that he’d touched her. What proof did I have besides shadows and a flash of gold? When you were born and cried as a babe, he wanted you given away. I said that was entirely Teresa’s choice, and that’s when he bought his own villa in Capri. As you grew, I hoped that if he heard you read and saw how quick you were, he’d be proud or kinder to you, even if you weren’t his own. But by then his mind was weakened from syphilis. He was often in pain, more than we knew.”
I couldn’t rouse myself to sympathy. “He called me bastardina.”
“I know. I cringed every time, for that and for his constant cruelty to your mother. What she suffered in my home may have led to her collapse. Lucia, we want to give her a safe and comfortable home. We can do this now with the count gone. You could be free for your work. Perhaps you’ll visit us. We would be happy if you did. Please, Lucia, think what’s best for Teresa, and for you.”
I did think about it all that night, coming to work so bleary that Mr. Hess lifted his head to ask, “Are you quite well, Miss D’Angelo?”
That evening I walked to Lake Erie and stood on the shore, my head aching. It was true that in a large villa the cost of feeding and clothing one more counted for little. The rich, I thought bitterly, had more solutions at hand than the poor. In their walled world, Elisabetta and Paolo could easily give Mamma what I couldn’t, even if I sacrificed every dream and pleasure for her sake. She might be calmer in the villa and “see” Toscanini less often. But without her, I’d be alone in America. And what if she grew worse? I might fade to a shadow in her weakened mind, a faraway daughter in a forgotten land. Still, these were my troubles. For Mamma, what course would be best? I watched fog roll over the pier and then walked slowly back to the boardinghouse, knowing what I must do.
In our bedroom I explained Elisabetta’s offer to my mother: that she could live in the villa, not as a servant but as part of the household. The count and the doctor were dead. Nobody would ever abuse her. She could sit by the water and swim in moonlight. She could knit, pick lemons, and sing to Vesuvius again. She could have familiar sights and smells and sounds around her. She could be home. My voice shook.
“You come too, Lucia?”
“No, Mamma, I’d stay here, in America. I could visit, but I need to live here.” She made a swirling gesture by her head, grimacing. “Bad thoughts?” I suggested.
She nodded. “In America.” Breathing heavily, as if summoning strength, she leaned her head against my shoulder and whispered, “Let me go.”
“Yes, Mamma, I will, but I’ll miss you so much.” When she pulled away, my blouse was damp.
She touched my face. “Like vaudeville?”
“More. Then you were only a few hours away. But I hope you’ll be happy in the villa, like you were at first in vaudeville.”
“The countess?”
“Yes, we’ll talk to Elisabetta and Paolo.”
In the morning, we gave them our answer. “We’ll try to make you happy, Teresa,” Elisabetta said. “We’ll try very hard.” Mamma almost smiled, rocked a little, and then buried herself in knitting.
While Paolo arranged passage home through an agency in Little Italy, Elisabetta and I risked taking Mamma to buy traveling clothes at the May Company. The venture passed nearly without incident. She seemed to be already living in our old world, seeing the beautiful rooms fill with sunlight, hearing fishermen call, gathering lemons and plums. I was like the mother whose child was too absorbed by a coming journey to note the pain of those left behind.
I telegraphed Josephine that I’d be going with her to Kalamazoo. Mrs. Taylor at Taylor’s department store grudgingly said I might be rehired on my return, “given the good reports from Mr. Hess.”
“You’ll see, Lucia, there’s no greater joy than winning a strike,” Isadore assured me. Perhaps. Was there one last chance to claim a joy all my own? This time I didn’t need Lula’s reminder to take my leave of Henryk. I found him at work with his father, putting up shelves for dry goods. He said something to his father in Yiddish and stepped off the ladder when he saw me. We stood silent for a minute, facing each other.
“My mother is leaving soon for Naples. I wanted you to know,” I said finally.
“Yes, that’s what I heard from Lula.” He ushered me into the neat office and closed the door firmly behind us.
“And I’ll be going to Kalamazoo,” I added. “Perhaps you know that as well?”
“From Pepe, yes, who had it from Isadore.”
“He got an apple for the news?”
“Two apples.” The smile flashed and faded; the dark eyes turned grave. “Lucia, I was coming tonight to talk to you.”
“Do Lula and Pepe kn
ow?”
“No, nobody knows.” He moved us gently away from the small window, squared his shoulders, and began. “Lucia, you said to decide what I wanted. That’s what I’ve been doing since the night I walked you home. In fact that’s all I’ve been doing. This shop is mine now. My father bought another one in Cleveland Heights. There’s a flat above us, just three rooms, but it’s warm and sunny. Lucia, will you live there with me? Will you marry me? Just as you are. Not changed, not converted or different, just you.”
“What will your parents say?”
His smile lit the room. “That’s my job. You win over the Kalamazoo Corset Company, and I’ll win over two grocers. I’ve already started.”
“You’re on strike? You gave them a list of demands?”
The warm hands gripped mine. “Not a list. Just one: to marry the woman I love. If she wants me.”
“She does,” I said. “Very much.”
Now his words came in a rush: “We could get married at City Hall if you like, no church, no synagogue. You could go to college. We can manage with what I make at the store. Or you could work for the union. We’ll figure out the rest.”
“You mean negotiate?”
“Yes. All I want is a life with you. Just—will you play Simon Says with me?” I nodded. “Simon says: Put your right hand on your heart and tell me you’ll come back to Cleveland.”
“Yes, I promise. Now you. Simon says: Put your right hand on your heart.” He did. “And promise you’ll wait for me.”
“Yes, Lucia D’Angelo, I’ll wait out any strike for you.” Then without thought or willing any action, we wrapped ourselves in each other’s arms and the face, the neck, the shoulders and chest, all that I’d dreamed of for so long were mine, our hearts beating against each other.
A sharp knock jolted us apart. Henryk opened the door. His father was standing stiffly there, wiry gray hair framing the familiar face and eyes. He pushed past his son and squared himself in front of me, filling the room. “I have question for Lucia.”
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