by Laura Newman
The little ice girl was never seen on the San Yisidro border crossing again. Her Yeti was found and recognized but where was the girl? No one had the slightest suspicion of what Ana had seen, they could not dream of the splendor in the ice, or with what joy she ended the first day of summer.
Good as Biscotti
Emboldened with silk lingerie and a pomegranate,
Vittoria is on her way to becoming Joan of Arc
It could be that only prostitutes are free of their past, able to discard each day like a Goodwill sweater. Every lover I have ever had sooner or later makes me into an archaeological dig. Tracing a finger up a scar, on my thigh, or in my heart. They poke, poke, poke at my past. No man would ever do that to a prostitute. She is held in a suspension of time that is seldom extended to me. They always want to know. What am I, Show and Tell?
I only told one time. It’s in the court documents …
Rome, Italy 1990
Once in my lifetime there was a spring snow in Rome. Mamma still wanted to paint. So we left our flat in Trastevere, shut the faded green door, Parrot squawking behind us, “Hey, big boy.” One red tail feather caught in the draft and followed us, landing on the white snow. I looked over our small piazza formed by our building and several others clustered in a loose rectangle. The buildings reminded me of elderly, afternoon-limoncello ladies, tending to lean on each other.
The corner grocer was open, baskets of onions and eggplant covered in burlap under the awning, the wake-up smell of espresso coming from the tiny Café Stella d’Italia. Signora Bianchi had left her laundered sheets hanging out overnight and now they were stiff, drifts of snow forming on the lines. Just last week Parrot had flown up to those lines and shit on her bloomers. “Hey! Sacco di pidocchi—you bag of lice,” yelled Signora, shaking her fist at the bird. Parrot looked down at Signora Bianchi and called, “Pretty boy, pretty boy.” Pooped again.
Mamma and I headed into town. The snow continued to fall. It seemed we were walking through baby angel wings as we crossed over the Ponte Sisto, the water a dull silver. It snowed so seldom in Rome, even the birds were shocked. They sat stone-still on the fountains and statues we passed until they themselves appeared carved. When one or another took flight, snow trailing from wings, it was as if the statues had come alive and flown away. It was so quiet. All the Vespas stayed home.
By the time we reached the busier streets and jumped on a tram it was obvious the snow had no chance of survival under the weight of city traffic, which was slowed but by no means stopped. The snow could only stick to the rooftops and monuments. We passed by the filigreed coliseum and made our way to Piazza Navona. Most of the artists and vendors had taken the day off, but the cafés were open; surprised tourists in too-light sweaters drank hot chocolate with their hands wrapped around their cups. The fountains were running, cold and clear. My mother retrieved her big umbrella from the back room of Angelica’s Gelato. Angelica’s sign is a cherub eating a cone of pistachio.
“I didn’t expect to see you today, Lia,” said Angelica, as Mamma dragged the umbrella out.
“I guess neither of us will sell much,” agreed Mamma. “But the snow! I want to try and paint.” I helped Mamma carry the heavy umbrella out and set it up toward the Fontana del Moro. She did this without me most days, but on weekends I tended to go with her. Liliana used our house for work, and who knew which room she would end up in. It was better for me to be out.
Today Mamma didn’t bother to lay out her table with her finished paintings, instead setting her easel up just outside of the protection of the umbrella and clipping a thick piece of rough-press paper into place. She let the snow fall on the paper and I wandered off to visit Signor Cacibauda.
“Vittoria,” said Signor Cacibauda, stretching out my name like soft nougat. I wish I had his musical accent; Mamma is from America, arrived not much ahead of me. We basically learned Italian together, never quite getting the sound quite right. “Why are you here, in the snow, an April snow?” asked Signor Cacibauda, putting his hands out to catch a surprise of flakes. “It only snows in Rome when Mary is crying.” I could smell the olive oil and garlic, the vinegar he used to marinate the eels. Anguille Tevere Fritte said his sign in bright red script—Fried Tiber Eels. He handed me a paper cone of hot bites. Signor Cacibauda’s son was one of the last eel fishermen of Rome. It was possible I was eating mercury and sewage, but Signor Cacibauda had found a way to bread and fry the Tiber itself; he served up little pieces of the silver river.
“Mamma wants to paint,” I said with a shrug. He motioned me to stand on the scale he used to weigh pails of fresh eels for the Piazza Navona restaurants, where tourists could pay three times as much to eat the same thing Signor Cacibauda sold, but overfried and soggy. He was lucky to have a stand in the touristy Piazza Navona, because we all know locals will not buy food from a Siciliano sporco—the cooks sent the dishwashers to his stand so the cocky cooks could pretend they didn’t know where the eels came from. Idiots.
“Let’s see if you weigh forty-five kilos yet,” he said, and I climbed up on the scale. I was a wisp of a girl, like a sentence that fades from hearing. At fifteen I was most often mistaken for a thirteen-year-old boy. I had hope. My mother was beautiful, at least I thought she was beautiful, but I was about as attractive as an eel in a pail of muddy-bank water. This week I weighed forty kilos even with my boots on. “Forty! That’s up from last week! Five more kilos and that twenty thousand lire is yours. Eat up!”
O Dio! I wanted that money.
When I went back to Mamma I saw that she was working with snow-dampened paper; she was adding streaks of watercolors that washed down and spread in plumes. It was mostly out of her control, but I saw an upside-down forest in blues and grays, and when she turned it over it was so evocative I could feel the Gunnywolf peering round a bend of a faint forest road. A whisper of his eyes, the folktale of him. It was perfect. A painting based in snow.
The next week was warm and Signora Bianchi’s window box colored with violets and periwinkles. The burlap was off the grocery baskets and the oranges presented in green waxed paper. Parrot was out again, Signora shouting at him, Parrot parading across the courtyard like a peacock. Alberto was sunning himself in his wheelchair, calling, “Pappagallo, vieni da Papà!” But Parrot did not consider Alberto his papa, only a mate whom Parrot was happy to join when Alberto had apples or grappa or limoncello on a hot day. Or best of all, when Alberto went about town and Parrot could ride on his shoulder and pretend Alberto was a pirate and the wheelchair, shaking over uneven pavement and cobblestones, was a ship at sea. Parrot would say, “Shiver me timbers,” in Italian-Parrot, which no one understands. But I’m sure that’s what Parrot wants because he keeps trying to poke out one of Alberto’s eyes, so that Alberto would have to wear a black leather eye patch.
Honestly, though, Alberto can’t afford to lose the use of any more body parts.
Parrot flew over and joined me on our balcony. Our apartment is really quite nice. We have four bedrooms and a large kitchen with a farmhouse sink. Leaded French doors lead to a tiny, walk-out balcony looking over the piazza, big enough for two folding chairs and a little chipped mosaic-topped table that always sports an overflowing ashtray. We have blue silk curtains so old they might be made of dust and an overstuffed couch of faded brown velvet. Alberto lives with us, and he has the only downstairs room, because of the wheelchair. Mamma and Liliana each have a room upstairs and I have the smallest room, a converted linen pantry that still smells of starch and mothballs. I sleep on a long, fairly deep shelf and it’s not going to work much longer, but for now, as long as the door stays propped open, I am content to pretend it’s a bunk bed.
While I idle on the balcony I try to come up with a plan. Everyone knows the devil lives and breathes in Rome like no other city on earth. I want that twenty thousand lire. I’m getting tired of falling into the Quattro Fiumi.
On the following Sund
ay, as with most Sundays, I go with Mamma to Piazza Navona. Today we go as a family. I push Alberto, Parrot sitting on his shoulder, talons digging into Alberto’s sweater. Alberto’s legs are supported straight out in front of him, so sometimes Parrot walks the plank of his legs. Mamma and Liliana follow a little behind, arms looped. Liliana has short, dark curly hair and bouncy boobs in an off-the-shoulder dress, high heels. I am jealous. My chest requires no sanctuary. Mamma is shorter, dressed in rolled-up jeans and a white linen men’s button-up shirt, her brown hair in a high ponytail. Mamma used to dress more like Liliana, more like most Italian women, but she says she is a feminist and “it’s hard to be a feminist when men keep pinching your fat.” So she switched to the painterly look. And why not—it’s what she’s selling. Liliana says, “If you’re going to wear something it might as well say hello.” That’s what she’s selling. I’m in shorts and a faded T-shirt that says When in Rome that Mamma bought secondhand because she thought it was funny. I have spare clothes in my satchel.
After we all help set up, Mamma’s watercolors laid out like daydreams of paper, Liliana, Alberto, and I wander off on our own. Alberto pulls out his old red-and-silver Illy brand coffee tin and starts to push himself through the pigeon-flocks of tourists. Alberto’s legs are as skinny as the word Illy and he has several scabs on his face. His clothes are ill-fitting, mostly because it’s just hard to get dressed. He is only in his forties, which makes the fact of him even sadder. Habitually burning Fortunas, but seldom inhaling, the long coils of ash fall in a heap in his lap. And then there is Parrot. Parrot is certainly an attention-getter. He shits on Alberto’s sweater, plucking threads with his beak when he’s nervous. And Parrot steals leftover food from café plates before the busboys can clear them and then eats the food while perched on Alberto’s shoulder. Crushed chicken bones cascading from his parrot beak litter Alberto’s chest. It’s not hard for Alberto to earn money. People just want him to get away. He makes his weekly living in a day. Besides, he’s a solicitor during the week, but that’s mostly gratis for poor people. And addicts. He used to be one himself.
Liliana finds a wall where the old terra-cotta of the building is complementary to her outfit. She just looks and waits. She says it’s all in the eyes. She’s a daytime lady-of-the-night. She calls herself a day lily. She says the hours are better and the clientele behaved. She only does hand and blow jobs, and I should not know these things, but she told me because she wants me to think better of her. She is quite beautiful in a Gina Lollobrigida way. Apparently she can also do it just with her boobs but I am not quite clear on the details. Sometimes I think there must be sperm all over our house and I wonder if I got one of those black lights if the mess would show up in a purple glow. Honestly, I should probably avoid the couch. Liliana tells me she’s saving money to move to Iceland because she is certain the northern lights, the sky fields of greens and blues, are the exhales of the ancient Behemoth and she wants to see it for herself. But I know that’s a faerie tale.
I don’t want her to leave. I know she spends some of her nights in Mamma’s bed, and if that would make her stay, it’s okay with me. I want them both to just be what they are. If they could be in love, she could stay and I could have two mothers. And then, also, I would get my own room. If they came out of the closet, so could I.
I might look as if I’m wandering through Piazza Navona, but I’m not. I make my way over to the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi—Four Rivers Fountain—and climb up on the edge and balance. This is not allowed. I know it; everyone knows it. But I have the persona of a boy in a tourist shirt. Boys will be boys. Some tourist moms are glancing about, wondering where my mother is. I see Mamma. She sees me. Ignores me. I have the choice of the Nile, the Danube, the Ganges, or the Rio de la Plata. Like Moses, I go into the Nile. I go all the way under and start picking up as many coins as I can while I kick my feet so the choppy water will obscure my hands. I can’t get much. If I stay under too long some American hero will jump in to save me. I pop up, all smiles, and climb out of the fountain. The tourists are relieved. Just then I see Giorgio, the security guard, coming my way. He’s watching me like I’m a monkey with a monkey wrench going to pound that fountain to dust. What does he care if I grab a few lire? No time to change clothes. I run out of the piazza.
I’ve got to come up with a new gig.
First things first. The following weekend Alberto is outside drinking espresso from a little red cup across the piazza at the Stella. Parrot is reading La Repubblica over Alberto’s shoulder, tsk-tsking the most recent shenanigans of Presidente Cossiga. While they are thus occupied, I go into Alberto’s bedroom. He has a sort of footlocker by his bed where he keeps this and that and his pot. His Venetian blown-glass bong. I know there is a metal cross in there, over a foot long, heavy, Jesus’s face the color of old pewter, his hands veined in gray. I put the cross in my satchel and run up to my room.
When we get to Piazza Navona I go over to see Signor Cacibauda. “Vittoria, Vittoria, are you here for your weigh-in?!” He hands me a cone of salty-sweet eels and I eat them first, as I always do to put on the extra weight.
“Today’s the day, Signor Cacibauda,” I say, “I feel it right over my heart.” I climb up on the scale, the metal cross tucked into my tightly belted jeans, Jesus’s arms stretched across my chest, secured by a thick Christmas ribbon tied around my body. How much does sin weigh? Apparently about eight kilos.
“Vittoria, you did it! Forty-eight kilos! You are a woman now! What have you been eating?!” He hands me the twenty thousand lire and I want to hug him, I really do, but I can’t, because he would feel Jesus come between us. I give him a Mona Lisa smile.
In the summer, I turned sixteen and Liliana made me three-layered lemon cream cake. I blew out all the candles. Nope, no boobs.
Rome was on fire. Parrot lost enough feathers to make a half a dozen shuttlecocks; he pulled them out himself. He only went outside to walk under the cool water pouring from the little fontanella in our piazza. Parrot begged Liliana to take him with her to Iceland. Mamma took pity and bought him a personal fan and plugged it in by his perch. When Parrot felt the soft wind he reached up with one talon and petted her face.
Alberto was writing a novel set in the Himalayas. Something with snow leopards and avalanches. His words were cooling him down. Mostly he stayed in his room, going over to the Stella when he hears Liliana’s heals clicking on the cobblestones. She steps hard as she gets close, code for “Go out the back door now.” She always fumbles with her purse to find the key to the already unlocked door.
Mamma goes to work almost every day, selling her watercolors, anything in shades of blue and green selling like bottles of water. In the evenings we walk to the Lungotevere—the night markets—pop-up summer bars and restaurants along the banks of the river, illuminated by strings of bistro lights and hot-colored neon. We can’t bring Alberto because it’s a long staircase down to the embankment from the Ponto Sisto, but we bring him back half bottles of cheap, garnet-shaded Chianti and fabric bags full of biscotti so light they almost fly away.
During the days, I am free. I kiss a boy from my class and he squeezes my flat chest. I will my boobs to pop up like those pop-up children’s books, fast as that. We are behind the Basilica of Santa Maria and when the bells go off, so does he. I see the wet through his pants. We both feel silly. We used to play cops and robbers together. We don’t know yet how to grow up. I don’t know if we will tease each other, or maybe we’ll try it again. Maybe I’ll write his name, Roberto, in a heart with a lacy border drawn in pink-wax crayon.
On an early morning I joined Liliana on the balcony. It was still cool out and the air smelled of lavender and thyme coming from the Stella kitchen gardens. Pepi, the black cat, lazed by the fountain. Liliana lit up a smoke and I drank milk straight from the cold glass bottle I brought from the kitchen. “Liliana, why do you want to move to Iceland?” She inhales and does not look at me.
�
��Because it’s uninhabited.”
“People live there.”
“Sure. But when they die they get buried and that’s that. Here, they keep digging them up, or putting up statues, or painting portraits. Nobody dies in Italy, the past never … passes. In Iceland I’ll be young and that will count for something. Here you practically have to be dead to be remembered.” She takes another drag. “Iceland is windswept on a regular basis.”
I picture a land where the wind is a broom made of twigs. I push further. “Why do you put up with all those teste di cazzi? Why not go wait tables or go to night school?” I know she has a drawer full of lire; she really could afford her own place.
“I did once, wait tables.”
“Why’d you quit?”
She watches Parrot and Pepi have a chitchat out on the piazza. “There was this boy, Luca, same age as me, nineteen, but retarded. Well, slow. He was the busboy. The state paid his wages, so it was free labor for the owner. I worked hard, Cara, I was in a hurry to make money. I wasn’t going to be a waitress forever! Luca was costing me tips—he was slow as potatoes. I resented having to work with him and I guess he could read emotions better than menus. One day he handed me a wadded up paper napkin. On it he had written in pencil, Ti odio Lili.[I hate you, Lili.] Oh, he shamed me, Vittoria. I realized this was the best job he could hope for. Waitressing was only a twirl for me, but busboy was his aspiration. I gave him all my tips and quit. Luca deserved better than a cartoon like me.”
Liliana lit another cigarette and continued. “That was right after my mom died of breast cancer and my dad married that whore who probably is a really nice person, but it had only been maybe four months, and it made me feel, I don’t know. Replaceable. So one night I got drunk at a bar and this man came over. I thought he was going to offer to buy me a drink because I was all that, but he leaned in and said, “How much?” And I said, “Let’s go, big boy; I’ll be your blow-up doll.”
