Olivia

by Judith Rossner

  Helena didn’t have a dishwasher and I’d intended to dry dishes as she washed, but she was so uncomfortable having me around that after a few minutes I “remembered” an errand and said good-bye. Then, as I reached the street, I had an idea. If my parents’ suitcases were emptied, I could store them at home so they wouldn’t clutter up the tiny room. I turned around and went back upstairs.

  Since this was the hour when Livvy usually napped, and she’d become so comfortable with my parents, I thought she might have fallen asleep, I knocked very softly, then opened the unlocked door. Livvy was, indeed, curled up at one side of the bed, happily asleep. Back to back against my daughter was my mother, and then, facing my mother, his arms around her, was my father. They, too, appeared to be asleep. And of course they were dressed. But as I watched, they snuggled even closer to each other, and their faces touched, and they kissed lightly, then passionately.

  When I could move, I closed the door and went downstairs, leaving the boarding house without saying good-bye to Helena. I didn’t know where I was going, but it wouldn’t be home.

  It was the first time I’d actually understood that my life rested on false assumptions. My parents, particularly my father, had always been visibly affectionate with each other; my brain had refused to connect their affection to sex. After all, they hugged and kissed us, too. Never mind that they’d had three children. Intercourse didn’t have to be all that sexual. Then there was the converse cliché of peasant warmth and affection, the fantasy that had carried me, when I was no longer a kid, through pregnancy and marriage to someone whose brain was foreign to me. Once I’d asked Angelo why he never—I think it was why he never came up behind me to hold me, lift my hair and kiss my neck, as he’d done before. He’d looked at me as though I were crazy and said, “You are my wife.” An answer so absurd that it had silenced me, although I now had to see the parallel between those words and my view of my parents’ marriage.

  I had never seriously considered leaving Angelo except for long enough to get some ingredient I couldn’t find in our neighborhood. Now, as I walked, I tried briefly to let my mind roam among the possibilities for another life. It resisted. It could not contemplate either winning or losing a custody battle with Livvy’s father.

  What it could think about was dinner for my parents. They’d told Angelo they wanted to take us all out. But not only would shopping and cooking help me pass time, suddenly I was eager for them to see the way I lived, to take in what until now I’d wanted to conceal. I wanted them to register a horror that would make me do something. Or, alternatively, that would help me understand how to remain with Angelo, to believe our lives might be better in Rome.

  It was all a fantasy, of course. They would have been horrified by any salvation fantasy that included trying to take Livvy from her father.

  Their adoration of Livvy smoothed over spots that might have been rough during the visit. They were wonderful with Angelo, questioning him at length about the wine business and Italian wines, marveling at his expertise, nodding and clucking as he explained how Eleanora Steinpark had prevented her husband’s vineyard from doing as well as it might have. He, in turn, nearly puffed with pride as they marveled over Olivia’s beauty and brilliance, the extraordinary ease with which she was learning the English words they were teaching her, the quality of the questions she asked. If his face clouded over when Olivia asked me to make rice cakes like Helena’s (he detested rice), this was quickly forgotten when my father said that soon she would be writing the recipes for them. And he appeared to be pleased when they said they would try to rent a summer house in one of the beach towns outside of Rome. By then we would have moved. They hoped Livvy would be able to spend lots of time with them.

  Our only rough moment came during their last evening, as we sat in a restaurant Angelo had chosen because the friend who owned it was crazy for Livvy. My father began to describe an extraordinary meal they’d had with friends in Bologna. Maiale al latte. Pork loin braised in milk.

  Angelo put down his glass. He looked nauseated.

  “Is anything wrong?” my father asked.

  Angelo picked up his glass, but didn’t respond.

  “I thought you knew already,” I said with a laugh. “He can’t stand butter, milk, any cow stuff but cheese, and he thinks they’re really disgusting with meat.”

  My mother giggled. “And we thought he wasn’t Jewish.”

  “It’s nothing to do with Jewish,” Angelo said, turning to her. “I don’t like the taste.”

  “This pork loin might change your mind,” my father said, so absorbed in his taste memory as to be insensitive to Angelo in a way that was unusual for him. “They use a little butter in the oil, and then, after the meat’s browned, they add milk”—he’d closed his eyes and didn’t see Angelo fighting with himself about leaving the table—“and later, uh, whipping cream. And Parmesan. Sometimes, not always.” He smiled. “The Parmesan, I mean.” He opened his eyes, was startled to see Angelo on his way to the men’s room, glanced at my mother, then at me, smiled and shrugged.

  The matter of dishes mixing meat and dairy products did not arise again, but shortly after we’d moved to Rome, my father sent me, with a note saying he was sure Angelo would enjoy it even more than I did, a book called The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews. I didn’t even open it. If my father’s impulse in sending it had been mischievous but benign, I knew Angelo better than I’d once been willing to and sensed the trouble it might cause. Life was complicated enough.

  Complicated, but not really awful. In the last couple of months before our move, if Angelo wasn’t home, I usually knew where he was. He had become thoroughly absorbed in dealing with contractors, buying equipment, and overseeing every aspect of the restaurant’s renovation. Even Livvy saw little of him during this time—or during our early months in Rome. She did not appear to mind, although she usually ran to him at the end of the day with an eagerness suggesting she’d been waiting the whole time.

  When I returned to the States, my friends who knew Rome would be sympathetic to hear I’d lived on Via dei Greci, one of the tiny alleys close to what they called the Spanish Steps. They remembered the noise, the commerciality of the area, the tourist hordes. I minded none of the above. In fact, my misery became even less dense within days of our move. I was enchanted with the blooming azaleas on the Steps, thrilled to hear English (not to speak of German, Japanese, and Swedish) being spoken, delighted to follow Livvy as she climbed toward the top, asking any tourist who greeted her if he or she was American. She loved steps but we’d seldom been near any in Florence recently except the steep, dark ones up to Anna’s—our—apartment. There was no time of day or night when the Steps weren’t covered with hundreds of people, many of them kids, quite a few of whom had managed to bring their guitars to Rome. These public places were a wonderful solution for a mother who didn’t have the will to look for friends for herself or her kid but needed human life and noise around them.

  I slept later than I’d have expected to, given the noise from the workmen below. In the morning, Livvy and Angelo shared an early breakfast, then he went downstairs and she climbed into bed with me, sometimes with a picture book. Often I awakened to find her nestled against my back in a way that reminded me of her with my parents in Florence. Once up, I’d make myself a caffé latte and have it with a chunk of bread and jam—when we had it, bergamotto—while Livvy had her second piece with the ghastly American grape jelly my parents sent her, which they’d explained that American kids loved. (When I was young they’d refused to buy “junk” like grape jelly and American cheese.)

  Our apartment, which belonged to the syndicate that owned the building and the restaurant, was all brown leather, chrome, and glass. Not uncomfortable, but not a warming place to be. When we’d finished breakfast, I would dress and help Livvy, then we’d head downstairs with her collapsible stroller, also a gift from my parents. (We’d never had one in Florence, no doubt one of the reasons she was walking when she was e
leven months. Angelo always picked her up the moment she got tired.) We’d wave to the workmen, stop to say hello if Angelo was around.

  I remember Livvy’s triumph the first time she made it to the top of the Steps on her own, how she ran around telling people she’d done it by herself. The first time she heard people speaking English, she asked if they knew her Nonno and Nanna. She loved the fountain near the base of the Steps, which she called the fontana di barca, the boat fountain. Once she’d seen older kids doing it, she insisted we walk the narrow path to the stone barge in the middle of its pool. She also liked the Fontana di Trevi, about fifteen minutes from home, and the one she called the fontana di pesce, the fish fountain, in front of the obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo.

  As Rome grew familiar, we ventured farther and farther. On a happy day a month or two after we’d moved, we stumbled upon the wonderful fontana della tartarughe, the turtle fountain, which was responsible for Angelo’s and my first serious fight in Rome. It stands at the center of a small courtyard in what is still known as the Jewish Ghetto. It is surrounded by very old stone and stucco buildings, at least one with a beautiful courtyard of its own. Around the fountain’s pedestal, holding the big saucer with its water spout, are four naked, very beautiful boys. At first, you think they’re sort of sitting, but as you examine them closely, you realize they’re standing and leaning against the pedestal. Each rests one foot on a dolphin. Each lifts a turtle to the fountain’s huge saucer, above his head. Water from that fountain and from a couple of spitting satyrs under it runs down the front of the boys’ bodies. Setting off the pool from the surrounding square is a very low wrought-iron railing, easy to climb under or over.

  On a morning not long after Livvy and I had discovered the turtle fountain, we came downstairs and walked through the dining room, looking for Angelo so we could say good-bye. He was in the kitchen next to the newly delivered stove, yelling at the guy who’d delivered it that it was rugginoso. Rusty.

  He stopped yelling when he saw us, took Livvy from me, kissed her. She asked him what rugginoso was. He explained, his voice low and caressing, his anger gone, as it was always gone when he spoke to her, no matter what had happened before. A reality of which I continued to be jealous.

  He showed her the rust spots on the stove, then he kissed her again and handed her to me with a signal to get her out fast. I obliged him. But before we’d even reached the Steps, Livvy announced that she wanted to go to the turtle fountain.

  We made our way down the Via del Corso, around the Piazza Venezia, toward the courtyard with the fountain. Nobody was there, except a man sweeping in front of one of the buildings. Livvy climbed out of her stroller and, with one hand on the rail, began to circle the fountain, stopping at each boy to regard him seriously and at length. She showed no interest in the trickly water she usually wanted to put a hand in. Finally she settled in front of one of the boys. They’re all so beautiful and graceful that their models might have starred in some ballet movie, but over the years, the streams of water have left rusty trails down their bodies, most particularly down the torso, the penis, and one leg of the boy in front of whom Livvy had stopped.

  Suddenly I understood.

  “The boy is rusty, just like the stove, isn’t he,” I said, smiling as she looked up at me.

  She nodded seriously, sat down on the cobblestones of the courtyard, and stared at him for a long time, consenting to get into the stroller only when I told her we could search for rust in other places. As we walked home, I pointed out spots on car fenders (or she pointed them out to me) and explained why she mustn’t touch them.

  The following morning we came downstairs to find Angelo’s rusty old Fiat parked in front of the restaurant.

  Livvy pointed to the fender and said it was rugginoso.

  “Do you believe this child?” Angelo asked proudly, looking around to see if anyone else had heard. “I tell her a word once and she—”

  But Livvy had already turned to me to say, “Voglio vedere il ragazzo con il pene rugginoso.”

  I want to see the boy with the rusty penis.

  “I meant to tell you yesterday, Angelo.” I giggled. “We went to the fountain, you know, with the—”

  He was furious. “I don’t believe what you’re teaching the child!”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “She learned what a penis was because she had boy cousins who—”

  “Stop!” he shouted, no longer concerned with whether workmen were listening.

  I stopped. Waited. He had been about to hand over Livvy to me, but now he wasn’t sure I could be trusted with her.

  “Sweetheart, you want to come with me in the car?”

  She nodded. She must have assumed that she would get to see her boy again. But that night her father informed me that I was never to take her back to that place. I didn’t argue or point out that all over Rome there were statues of naked men and boys. The next time Livvy wanted to see the turtle statue, I told her to ask her father. She never did; she just kept asking why I wouldn’t go there.

  I wrote my parents, telling them the whole story. I said I hoped they wouldn’t mind if I confided in them from time to time; I hadn’t a friend in Rome to share jokes with or help me get things off my chest. They said that of course I should write, but they thought life would be better once I was working again. Maybe I should start planning the menu. Opening day wasn’t that far away, after all. I took this excellent advice.

  If you know even a little about Italian food, you know that Italy has many regions, each with its own favorite dishes and modes of preparation. Some dishes—omelets, sardines, salt cod, artichokes, eggplant, and lasagna come to mind—are prepared in many regions, albeit with variations. While Anna had always been willing to try any recipe and had a wide range of their dishes on her menu, she understood that men, in particular, tended to prefer those remembered from childhood and to resent deviation. One of the reasons she got along with Angelo was that she had a bias toward the Sicilian, but, when she experimented, never gave the result the name of a classic Sicilian dish. Walter and Anthony, raised in Rome by parents with more catholic tastes, were open to new dishes and had scorned Angelo’s provinciality.

  Our wedding feast, because there was no negotiation with Walter and Anthony (Angelo’s problems were just with Anthony, but from the time of our ouster, we lumped them together), included caponata; farsumagru, the stuffed beef that was Angelo’s favorite main course in the world, meat having been a precious commodity in the poor seaport where he was raised; pasta con le sarde, that is, with fresh sardines brought up from Sicily by our supplier the morning of the wedding; a wedding cake that was essentially a cassata siciliana, the extraordinary layered pound cake with almond paste, candied fruit, and unsweetened chocolate; and superb cannoli, another Sicilian classic.

  The arguments about food when nobody was getting married were kept under control while Anna was alive but grew in number and intensity after her death. As much as any about money, quarrels over the menu between Angelo and Anthony had precipitated our ouster.

  Friday dinners in Angelo’s home, where the family fasted through breakfast and lunch, had consisted of pasta con la mollica, pasta with breadcrumbs and anchovies, fresh ones whenever possible. Anthony was accustomed to having the dish with Parmigiano-Reggiano and liked it that way. Angelo’s family had used only breadcrumbs, an even more important staple in Sicily than elsewhere, and the idea of using cheese, or even a mixture of breadcrumbs and Parmesan, was repellent to him.

  Angelo’s mother didn’t use rice, though many Sicilians do. Little filled rice croquettes, arancini, are sold like sandwiches at bars in Sicily. If they’re not wonderful, they’re awful, and Angelo had long since dismissed them and anything else made with rice as unfit for human consumption. Anna’s sons had been raised eating as much rice as pasta, there had always been risotti on their menu, and Angelo wouldn’t have dared to quarrel over them, even if they’d been less popular. But one of the first arguments in the spring
after her death had been about risi e bisi, a rice dish with peas and pancetta that Anthony was crazy about and told me to put back on the menu after Angelo had ordered me to take it off.

  Gnocchi and polenta were two other northern dishes Angelo disliked. Nobody in the family cared much about polenta, but gnocchi had always been on the menu. It occurred to me that it would be fun to play with gnocchi, which are usually made with potatoes, and with canederli, dumplings from the northern border territory of Trentino, but this time made with stale bread instead of mashed potato. I felt virtuous in my choices, all of these items being cheap to make at a time when we were concerned about keeping expenses down to please our investors.

  Though it was spring and the dish was economical, I dismissed the possibility of putting risi e bisi on our new menu. Nor did I consider most of the Florentine or Milanese specialties (turkey and anything with spinach come to mind) that I knew Angelo detested. Risotto, a universal classic, was another matter and we’d always had its variations on the menu at Anna’s including the classic risotto alia milanese, which is made with butter. He’d kept quiet about that. But one of his rare spats with Anna had occurred when he said something nasty because she’d put arancini on the menu. She’d informed him they were a Sicilian classic and he’d vehemently denied this, saying that the fact that you could find them at a lot of cheap bars and sandwich joints didn’t make them a classic. (At other times he railed against the snobs who wouldn’t give a cheap bar or sandwich house a chance.)

  If Angelo had fallen in love with my caponata, praised my preparation of various dishes, asked me to learn others, and shown a continuing desire to eat the food I prepared, he had at some early point in our marriage begun to take my cooking for granted, as he took it for granted that my warm body would be waiting in bed when he chose to enter one or both. I’d assumed that even if he was too absorbed in the problems of renovating and reopening a restaurant before the tourist season to think about my misery, he understood, in his own way, that the loss of my adopted family, not to speak of my occupation, had been as painful to me as his quarrels and losses had been to him. Surely he would be pleased to learn that I’d turned my attention to our new menu, that I was already working hard to make the restaurant a success.