by Lina Simoni
“You’re not in hell,” Rosa said. “This is Isabel’s home.”
“And by some miracle you’re alive,” Renato added, wiping Giacomo’s forehead with a towel.
“Camila…” Giacomo whispered. “Don’t let her leave.”
The explanations took everyone some time, during which Giacomo couldn’t stop staring at Rosa. “She’s the girl with the black hair?” he asked with disbelief.
Renato nodded. “She’s also the one who saved your life. You’re wanted,” he continued, “and the circus put out a reward for your capture. You must stay here, and don’t even think of leaving.”
Giacomo’s eyes lit up. “The circus is still in town?”
“Yes,” Rosa said. “All the circus people are looking for you, and not in a friendly way.”
“The reward they’re offering, I heard in the street, is a thousand liras for you dead or alive,” Renato said. “In this part of town there are people who would kill their own mother for much less than a thousand liras.”
“Go find Camila, please,” Giacomo begged, “and bring her here.”
Renato stopped to think a moment. “Your first and last names are in the paper. How did anyone know who you are? The police didn’t know. So the only explanation is that the circus people knew. How?”
“The only person in the circus who knows my name is Camila,” Giacomo said sadly.
“She turned you in, and you want me to go look for her?” Renato asked in disbelief.
“If I don’t see her again,” Giacomo said, closing his eyes, “I may as well stop breathing.”
Rosa turned to Isabel. “Didn’t you tell me one day that your oils can make people snap out of love?”
“That was Azul’s claim,” Isabel said. “I have no idea if she was right.”
Renato looked at the two of them. “Giacomo is twice as stubborn as I am. Believe me, no oil will make him change his mind.”
“Then we’ll have to find this girl,” Rosa said. She took Renato’s hand. “I know how it feels when you can’t live without somebody.”
“Do you really think that any one of us could get close to her after what happened?” Renato asked.
“Not you,” Rosa said. “I, on the other hand, may be able to find her.”
Rosa and Renato returned to the circus that very same day. “We’re closed,” said the man seated by the entrance. “There are no performances today because we are mourning Manari.” He pointed to a sign—The performances will resume tomorrow at the usual times.
“The circus is not leaving?” Renato asked.
“Not for a while,” the man replied. “The owner decided to stay here until Manari’s killer is found.”
“This is good,” Rosa pointed out after she and Renato had left the circus’s grounds. “We have time to find the girl and talk to her.”
Renato asked, “How? We don’t even know what she looks like. What Giacomo said about her—black hair, long legs—could be true of all the dancers in this place.”
Rosa gave him a cunning smile. “I know how to lie, remember? I’ll figure something out.”
The following day Rosa returned to the circus when the afternoon show was almost over. She approached the main tent and circled it with nonchalance until she found the side entrance. When she had attended the show with Renato, she had noticed the performers going in and out of that entrance at the beginning and end of their numbers. Three clowns left the tent through that entryway as Rosa arrived. “Excuse me,” she said. “Where can I find Camila?”
The clowns gave her a stare. “Do we know you?”
“No,” Rosa said.
“You’re not supposed to be here if you don’t work for the circus,” one said.
“I’m an old friend of Camila’s from out of town,” Rosa explained.
A second clown said, “And?”
“Please tell me where she is. It’s important that I talk to her. I heard what happened.” She paused and spoke in a sad voice. “I was also a friend of Manari’s.”
The clowns looked at each other a moment, then one of them pushed aside the curtain that hung over the entryway. The show was in its final phases, with several groups of performers on the floor, moving to the rhythm of exotic music. “There,” the clown said, pointing at a group of dancers with their faces covered by veils. “She’s the last one on the right, with the white and gold dress.” As the clowns walked away, Rosa heard one say, “He was a good man, that Manari.”
She waited by the side entrance for the show to be over and the performers to begin exiting the tent and head for their homes. In the confusion, no one took notice of her. She recognized Camila by her dress and followed her through the animals’ pens to the area where the caravans were. She approached Camila as the girl was opening the door of her caravan, about to go inside. “Camila?” she called.
Camila turned around. “Yes?”
“I’m a friend of Giacomo’s,” Rosa said softly. “He misses you and sent me here to find you. Would you like to see him?”
Camila looked at Rosa with expressionless eyes. “I don’t care about Giacomo,” she whispered as she stepped inside. “I sleep with many different men in every town.”
“What a fool I’ve been,” Giacomo said when Rosa told him what she had found out. “I’m in this mess now, and for absolutely no reason.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Renato said.
“At least we solved one of your problems,” Isabel said. “The worst one of all, in my opinion.” She pointed at Giacomo’s heart. “You’re no longer sick with love.”
“What a pair you and I are,” Giacomo told Renato later, when the two of them were alone in the flower room. “Your girl pretends to be someone else, my girl pretends to love me.”
“Rosa had an excuse,” Renato pointed out, “the stigma society puts on people. I was part of it. I judged her that day outside the Grifone, along with everybody else. Camila had no reason to do what she did. I never met anyone that cruel.”
Giacomo stared at the ceiling and sighed. “I never met anyone so beautiful.”
For more than a week, Giacomo lived hidden in Isabel’s booth. During that time, as Isabel took care of his wound and pampered him with her perfumed remedies from Costa Rica, the two grew fond of each other.
“When I first saw you,” Giacomo told her one day, “I thought you were a creature from hell.”
“Don’t worry,” Isabel said. “Happens with everybody.” She reflected a moment. “When I first saw you, bleeding in that dark alley, I thought you were the ghost of Francesco Carravieri, returned to Genoa to drag me with him to hell, where he certainly is.”
“Who’s Francesco Carravieri?” Giacomo asked.
Isabel’s eyes fogged up for a moment. “Someone I wish I had never met.”
While Giacomo recovered in the flower room, Rosa slept with Isabel in the distillery and during the day continued to sell oils on Piazza Banchi as usual. Renato returned to work and to his political demonstrations, after being questioned by the police numerous times about Giacomo’s whereabouts. He and Rosa kept making love in the shack, because that was the place Rosa considered their home. They also took care of Giacomo’s mother, who had gone into a panic at the news that her only son was wanted for brutally murdering a sword-swallower and fleeing the scene. “We can’t tell her where Giacomo is,” Renato had told Rosa as they were heading for her home. “Giacomo still lives with her and says she has the biggest mouth in the neighborhood. She can’t keep a secret. We should reassure her that Giacomo will be all right, but not a word about Isabel, or the distillery, or Vico Usodimare.”
The investigation into Giacomo’s disappearance continued in full swing, until rumors began to circulate that maybe the circus people had killed him, that he had fled to Africa on a ship, that he had drowned himself because he couldn’t live with his guilt. Renato, who continued to visit Giacomo’s mother daily, implored her to ignore those rumors. “He hasn’t been killed,” he comforted he
r, “and you and I know all too well that he would never flee to Africa or drown himself. It’s just gossip. Don’t believe it.” After that particular conversation, and in view of all the preceding ones, Giacomo’s mother began to suspect that Renato knew more about Giacomo than he had told her, and, without specifically mentioning Renato, shared her thoughts about that matter with her neighbors. The grapevine came instantly alive, and before a day had gone by the theory spread that someone in the neighborhood was hiding Giacomo from the circus people. At that, both the police and the circus people began searching the buildings in the area where Giacomo’s mother lived, which was only a few blocks away from Vico Usodimare.
“We have to get you out of here,” Renato told Giacomo one night.
“How?” Giacomo asked.
Rosa made a worried face. “Even if he made it out of here unseen,” she said, “where would we take him?”
“I have an idea,” Renato said.
The family of Gabriele, the sailor who shared the apartment on Vico Cinque Lampadi with Marco and Renato, lived on a small farm in Vercelli, a town northeast of Turin. Renato had never been there, but Gabriele had invited him and Giacomo to visit numerous times, as a token of gratitude. A year earlier, he had gotten into a fight at the Grifone with some strangers, and Renato and Giacomo had gotten him out of the fight as the strangers had begun to pull out their knives. “Thank you,” Gabriele had said, “for saving my life. You can count on me for anything anytime.”
“We’ll take him to Vercelli,” Renato said, “to Gabriele’s farmhouse. No one will ever look for him there.”
“How would we travel?” Rosa asked.
“By train,” Renato replied, “if we can get him to the station.”
“We can’t do that,” Rosa said, alarmed. “He’ll be recognized. His picture has been on the front page of every newspaper.”
Isabel spoke in her serious face. “It’s time that Rosa’s black wig be used for a worthy cause.”
Giacomo looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“She’s right,” Renato said. “No one will pay attention to a woman.”
“You’re joking,” Giacomo said.
“Would you rather go to jail?” Isabel scolded him. “Or be lynched by the circus people?”
Several hours later, as the light of dawn began to settle on the rooftops, a woman peeked through the door of Isabel’s booth. She looked to the left, then to the right, then to the left again before stepping gingerly outside. She was Giacomo. He was wearing the black wig and clothes Rosa had borrowed the night before from Maddalena: a long brown skirt, a long-sleeved matching shirt, and a light jacket. A hand-knitted shawl hid the bandages wrapped around his shoulder. Shortly, Renato, Rosa, and Isabel joined him in the deserted street.
“Take care of yourself,” Isabel told Giacomo.
“I will,” he replied. “Thank you for everything. I owe you my life. I’ll never forget what you did for me.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Isabel said. “Just don’t scare me like that ever again, or I’ll be the one passing out. At my age,” she smiled ruefully, “things don’t get any easier.”
“Rosa, or Tramonto, or whatever name you want me to call you,” Giacomo said, hugging Rosa, “thanks for stopping by the alley that night. I’d still be behind that pile of furniture if it hadn’t been for you.”
“I’m so glad I found you,” Rosa said, hugging him back.
“I’ll be back in three days at the most,” Renato told Rosa, taking her in his arms, “as soon as I drop Miss Gattamelata at his new home.”
Giacomo elbowed him. “There’s no need to rub it in,” he said.
“Let me go with you,” Rosa said. “Please.”
Renato shook his head. “I don’t want you to be involved in this escapade if we get caught.”
“I’m already involved,” Rosa begged, “and I can’t be without you.”
“When travelers see a man and two women,” Renato said, “they wonder more. It’s safer for us if Giacomo and I go alone.”
Rosa sighed.
Renato kissed her on the lips. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
As Renato and Giacomo began walking down the street, Rosa took Isabel’s hand and clasped with the other hand Renato’s blue stone. She whispered, “I have a bad feeling.”
Isabel caressed her head. “Your Renato is a wise man. He’s doing what he has to do to help his friend. Be proud of him. You are a very lucky girl.”
CHAPTER 9
The wait was unbearable. At the oil stall, the days passed with a slowness that made Rosa wonder if someone had by accident stopped time. Hour after hour she watched the Grifone and the longshoremen going in and out of it; she listened to the sounds of the harbor; she smelled the odors of Piazza Banchi, a mixture of food, saltwater, dampness, and spices that for months had been her daily, inseparable companion. Nothing felt good to Rosa anymore, not even the scent of her own oils. The Grifone and the longshoremen looked as if they belonged to another world; the sounds of the port were a cacophony of clanks and shrieks; and the neighborhood odors felt acrid and stale. Everything seemed to be missing Renato. And worse yet, there came the nights. Back in the flower room after Giacomo’s departure, sleepless, Rosa broke into sweats and shivers all over again, as she had done when she had first seen Renato. In the middle of the second night, weary and restless, she got up and walked to the shack by the water. The docks were deserted, the silence deep. Inside the shack, Rosa lay on the bags where she had made love to Renato so many times, sinking in memories of the smell of him, feeling the warmth of his skin. For a moment she thought she heard his voice, talking to her about their life together and the children they would make and the house by the hill they would have. She stared at the dark water and the friendly rays of the lighthouse, wondering if it had all been a dream. The rest of the night, she became a vagabond, strolling aimlessly from one caruggio to another, avoiding all the streets she had walked with Renato. In the silence, she could hear the echo of her steps on the cobblestones, which sounded deafening to her even though it was a barely audible sound. At a certain point she found herself at the corner of Vico del Pepe and instinctively walked down the narrow street without entirely realizing where she was going. Ahead of her, the familiar silhouette of the building that hosted the Luna appeared like a ghost sprung from the past. It was four in the morning; all the windows were dark. In front of the Luna door Rosa stood still a while, staring at the aged stone walls. She sighed deeply as a wave of melancholy took hold of her, filling her bones. Slowly, she sat on the ground, back against the door, head leaning against the marble frame, hugging her bent knees, and stayed there immobile and thoughtless, blending with the shadows, almost invisible to the naked eye. She stood up when the neighborhood awoke, at the sounds of open shutters and sleepy voices.
At the end of the third day, when Renato didn’t show up at the distillery as they had agreed, she went looking for him at his usual places. She knocked on the door of his apartment, but no one replied. She went to the cotton warehouse, but he wasn’t there. Back at her stall on Piazza Banchi, out of sorts, she watched the Grifone across the street, imagining Renato coming out of it with his friends and walking with them toward the water. Several men went in and out of the café, but not Renato. At some point, Paolo Disarto, the bar owner, stepped outside, leaned against the external wall, lit a cigarette, and puffed smoke rings up toward the sky. Hastily, Rosa crossed the piazza as the man tossed his cigarette away and walked back inside. After a short hesitation, she pushed open the door of the Grifone. It was a busy time of day, with all the café tables occupied by men talking and drinking wine. A few were sipping espresso from minuscule white cups set on matching saucers. Timidly, Rosa stopped past the door threshold and listened to the buzz of the men’s voices and the jingling sounds of glass and china. A few heads turned as she crossed the room, and curious eyes followed her as she approached the crowded counter. Paolo was behind the counter, a few m
eters away from Rosa, busy pouring wine from a carafe into a row of midsize glasses. He didn’t notice Rosa until some of the customers began to murmur. He gave her a half smile. “White or red?” he asked in a mocking tone.
Rosa took a deep breath and spoke to the point. “Have you seen Renato today?”
Paolo put down the carafe. “You don’t give up, do you,” he said with a second half smile.
One of the customers elbowed Rosa. “Renato, Renato. What does he have that I don’t?” Everyone laughed.
“Have you seen him or not?” Rosa burst out in anger.
“Haven’t seen him these past days,” Paolo Disarto replied in a more normal tone of voice. He turned to the customers. “You guys?”
There were several “No”s and heads shaken.
Without another word, Rosa turned around and headed outside, her heart heavy, her cheeks burning with shame.
Later, as dusk approached, in the booth, Rosa looked at Isabel with sad eyes. “I can’t find him anywhere,” she said in a raspy voice.
“It’s exactly three days since he left,” Isabel pointed out. “There’s no reason for you to worry. He’ll be here. Now you need to sleep, because you haven’t for the past two nights. Your voice is a screech, and your eyes are red and tired. You’re going to eat this soup,” she said, pointing at a pot on the stove into which she had dropped a sprinkle of her white powder from the shaker, “and go to bed.”
Contrary to her own expectation, Rosa slept peacefully through the night and didn’t wake up till noon. At that time, she came out of the flower room with eyes still dazed from the deep sleep. Isabel was seated on the rocking chair, watching the street through the open glass door. She spoke before Rosa asked. “He didn’t come.”
