by Lina Simoni
“Where is he?” Rosa asked in a broken voice.
“Maybe they had a hard time finding the farmhouse,” Isabel said. “Maybe the weather was bad and they got delayed. You never know when you travel. Things can be out of one’s control. Be patient. Wherever he is, he’s thinking of you, I’m sure.”
“I lost him,” Rosa murmured. “I can feel it.”
“No, you haven’t. It’s only the beginning of the fourth day.”
The sun was shining and the streets were loud and crowded when Rosa went looking for Renato all over again. After checking out once more the Grifone and his house, she stood by the port entrance hour after hour, asking every longshoreman if he had seen Renato. The answer was a no every time. Then the last longshoreman left and the docks became quiet. That sudden silence screamed at Rosa. “He’s gone,” she whispered, staring at the sea. Nearby, on the deck of a fishing boat, two seagulls spread their wings and took off, circling the water. “I wish I were a bird,” Rosa said, “so I could fly all over the earth till I’d find Renato.” One seagull dove in a hurry, disappearing underwater. Shortly, its mate followed suit. Spellbound, Rosa watched the birds resurface and dive again, over and over, till darkness hid the cloudy sky. Only then did she leave the docks, slowly making her way back to the booth. Isabel shook her head the moment she saw Rosa arrive.
“It’s because of my red hair,” Rosa cried out. “Because it’s short and ugly. And because he thinks I’m a prostitute. And because I don’t understand what he says when he talks about his books and his politics. He must have found a beautiful girl with lush dark hair who went to school.”
Isabel frowned. “And you think he would have left his job, his house, his friends, his books, and all his personal belongings without saying anything to anyone?”
“Maybe he still thinks I’m a liar and he hates me.”
“He doesn’t think you’re a liar. As for hating you, I saw how he held you the night we brought Giacomo here. And I heard what he said to you, that the only thing that matters is that you two are together. That’s love, not hate.”
“Then why?” Rosa shouted. “Why? Why? Why?”
“I don’t know, Tramonto,” Isabel said softly. “I know for a fact, though, that whatever is keeping Renato from coming back has nothing to do with you.”
“Do you think that he and Giacomo were captured by the police?” Rosa asked.
“No, or we would have heard about it. The longshoremen would have told you.”
Gingerly, Rosa took the blue stone out of her pocket. “This is all I’ve left of him,” she said, entering the flower room. She spent a sleepless night, pacing the room, rushing to the door at every little noise that came from the street, murmuring to herself and sighing. Meanwhile Isabel sat on the rocking chair, eyes closed, humming occasionally one of her Spanish lullabies. She stood up around four in the morning, certain that she had heard sobbing sounds. In the flower room, Rosa was seated on her bed, cheeks flooded with tears. Isabel sat next to her and took her gently in her arms. She held her without talking, singing at times, slowly rocking her at others, until Rosa stopped sobbing and fell asleep.
Steam was beginning to fill the curly pipes when Rosa appeared in the distillery in the morning, carrying a bag and wearing a light coat. “I’m going to Vercelli,” she said, “to look for Renato.”
Without looking at her, Isabel placed two handfuls of eucalyptus leaves in boiling water.
“Did you hear me?” Rosa said loudly.
“Ice,” Isabel ordered. “Pass it over.”
Ignoring the order, Rosa walked out the door. She heard steps behind her as she began walking down the street. “Do you even know where Vercelli is?” It was Isabel’s voice.
Rosa stopped in her tracks and turned around. “No,” she admitted, “but I’ll find it.”
“How?” Isabel pointed out. “And what if he comes while you’re gone? How would we find you?”
Rosa dropped the bag on the cobblestones. “I can’t just stay here and do nothing!” She stuck her hand in her pocket and felt for the blue stone, freezing as she realized it wasn’t there. Without a word, she ran back into the booth, to the flower room, where her eyes examined thoroughly and quickly the corner where her mattress lay. “I set my stone here last night,” she said in an agitated voice, “next to my perfect oil. Where is it?”
Isabel joined her in the flower room. “Did you put it in the bag? Or in a different pocket?”
“No. The blue stone is always on the floor next to the perfect oil or in my right pocket,” Rosa said, lifting the mattress, then shaking the sheet. “Where is it?” she screamed. “Where is it?”
“I have no idea,” Isabel said, then she watched Rosa frantically push around the fruit boxes and the flower vases and every object she could find, silently but with fast movements and an icy look in her eyes that betrayed the depth of her fury. When there was nothing left to move, Rosa grabbed Isabel by the shoulders. “Where is it?” she screamed again. Isabel said nothing while Rosa kept holding on to her. Suddenly, the girl let Isabel go, ran to the distillery room, and started her feverish search there as well, inside the cooking pots and the distillation equipment, under Isabel’s bed, and in every corner, until no space was left unexplored other than a large bag where Isabel had placed the discards of several days of distillation. The bag was full of a stinking, muddy mush of cooked, rotten leaves, into which Rosa dipped her arms to the elbows and began rummaging furiously like a starved animal, until she became certain, beyond any possible doubt, that the stone wasn’t there, either. Then she pulled her forearms out of the mush and looked at Isabel with mean eyes. “Did you take it?” she grunted.
“I think you’ve lost your mind,” Isabel said calmly.
Rosa grew more infuriated. “If you didn’t take it, where is it?” she shouted.
“I don’t know,” Isabel said. “Wash your arms,” she added, pointing at a pot full of clean water.
Isabel found the stone twenty minutes later, in a corner of the flower room, under a pile of clothes Rosa had shaken during her mad search several times. “When you look too hard, you don’t see things that are under your nose,” she said, handing Rosa the blue stone. In silence, Rosa took the stone and sat on her mattress, her lips closed tight to keep from crying.
“I’m going to the flower market,” Isabel told her. “I’ll be back in two hours.”
When she returned, Rosa was lying in bed, cuddled into a ball, arms around her stomach, shaking. Her face was pale and swollen, and her eyes had turned gray. “Dear God,” Isabel exclaimed when she saw her, “this can only be the sickness of love.”
Rosa didn’t get up for five nights and four days, during which Isabel heard no news of Renato. All along, Rosa remained motionless in her curled-up position on the bed, emitting on occasion barely audible moans. Soon, she refused food and water, and the only way Isabel could keep her hydrated was with a dropper placed at the corner of her mouth. Every hour, she dried Rosa’s cold sweat and wet her dry lips with rags dipped in water. At the same time, she tried on her all her incantations: oils, leaves, massages, and Spanish lullabies. She recalled the time of her own youth when she had been sick with a fever and Azul had spent the night at her bedside, singing and burning oils, and she repeated faithfully Azul’s healing routines for Rosa. Nothing worked, one of the reasons being that all those remedies reminded Rosa of Renato. One morning, out of options, Isabel placed the open flask of her perfect oil under Rosa’s nose. Rosa let out screams so loud that Isabel’s heart began to race. She sat on the floor and cupped her hands over her ears, praying for her heart to calm down. “I won’t do that again, I promise,” Isabel said later, after recovering from the scare, as she rubbed Rosa’s back to calm her down.
Rosa got up briefly on the fifth day, only because the old mattress and the pillow stank from being soaked in her sweat and tears. She crawled out of bed and sat on the floor like a discarded rag while Isabel took the mattress and the pillow outsi
de and threw buckets of water on them and then scrubbed them with one of her oils. The neighbors thought it was one of her witchcrafts and made the sign of the cross repeatedly as they walked by. When nine hours later the mattress and the pillow had dried, Isabel took them back to the flower room. Rosa, who in all that time hadn’t said one word or moved from her position on the floor, murmured, “Take me to my bed. Please.”
Isabel helped her up. As Rosa struggled toward the mattress, leaning on Isabel’s arm, Isabel realized with horror that the girl had lost so much weight that she, an eighty-year-old woman, could have lifted her easily off the floor. The moment she was on the bed, Rosa curled up again and began to cry. Isabel crossed her hands on her heart. “Azul,” she prayed, “please make Renato return safely, and until then, please see Rosa through her pain.”
It was around midnight when one of the Luna girls heard knocks on the door. She was coming down the stairs from the second floor and deemed those knocks unusual, as the door wasn’t locked and all the clients had to do was push it to come in from the street. There was business in the parlor that night. Three men were waiting for girls, one was talking to Margherita, and three more were relaxing in armchairs before going home. Behind the counter, Madam C was making conversation and keeping the financial matters straight. When the Luna girl opened the door, she looked curiously at an old woman with penetrating dark eyes and tangled white hair, wearing a black vest that covered her feet. “Can I help you?” she said.
“I need to see Maddalena,” Isabel said.
“She’s busy,” the girl replied. “Who should I tell her came by?”
“Call her,” Isabel ordered, looking the girl straight in the eyes. “Right now.”
“But—”
“Call her, I said,” Isabel groaned, pointing her hands toward the girl, “or I’ll turn you into a toad before you know it.”
Maddalena was at the door one minute later, her face the reflection of her surprise. “Isabel,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I need help,” Isabel said. “I’m afraid Rosa is dying.”
“What?”
“Please come with me,” Isabel begged, tugging at Maddalena’s sleeve. “She’s terribly sick, and I don’t know how to help her anymore.”
“Wait here.” Maddalena crossed the parlor and took Margherita by the arm.
Margherita shook her off. “I’m working.”
“It’s Rosa,” Maddalena explained. “She’s sick. Go find Stella and come to the door.”
“What’s going on here?” Madam C demanded, arriving at the door as Margherita and Stella were coming down the stairs. She stared at Isabel, then turned to Maddalena. “What is she doing here?”
“Rosa’s very sick,” Maddalena said. “Isabel says that she may die.”
“I wouldn’t care if Rosa were already in hell,” Madam C said in her cold voice. “Everyone back to work,” she added. “We’ve got clients.”
Stella stepped in front of Madam C with eyes of fire. “How can you be so cruel?” she shouted. “She’s not even seventeen and she’s dying! Do something, for Christ’s sake! She’s your daughter!”
“She’s not my daughter,” Madam C stated. “And I feel sorry I spent so much time and energy raising her.”
“Let’s put it this way,” Margherita said in a cold tone to match Madam C’s. “You can either stop acting like a mean, jealous spinster and go with us to Isabel’s booth, or we’ll all quit working this instant. We’ll shut down the Luna. What do you choose?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Madam C said with a frown.
Maddalena stepped forward. “Try us.”
The five women arrived at Isabel’s booth ten minutes later. Madam C pinched her nose as she crossed the distillery and entered the flower room. In the penumbra, she squinted her eyes in the direction of a small bundle of clothes. To her dismay, she realized that what was inside those clothes was Rosa. She stared at the short, disheveled hair, the pale, gaunt cheeks, the gray eyes swollen with tears, and felt the first quiver of tenderness in almost a year. In an instant, she relived Rosa’s birth and Angela’s death, the trips to Mafalda down the street, the good-night kisses, the strolls to the port to see the ships, and the harshness of Rosa’s life in school. She whispered, “I never thought…”
“She needs a doctor,” Margherita suggested.
“I’ll go find one,” Maddalena said, then ran out of the booth.
Stella crouched next to Rosa. “Rosa?” she called, rubbing her hair. “Say something.”
At that, Rosa stirred and turned her head toward the voice. Through tired eyes, she gazed at Stella, Isabel, Margherita, and finally Madam C. She turned away. “Why is she here?” she murmured.
“We are all here to help you,” Stella said. “Including Madam C.”
Rosa sank her face into the mattress. “Liar.”
Madam C took a step back. “I should go.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Margherita said. “Remember? Shut down?”
Madam C took another step toward the door. “Isn’t it obvious that Rosa doesn’t want me here?”
“Maybe,” Margherita rebutted. “But she needs you here. And you know it.”
In the corner of the flower room, Isabel nodded. “She does.”
“What is this?” Madam C said. “A conspiracy?”
Margherita and Stella smiled.
“All right,” Madam C said through her teeth. “Rosa?” she called. “I’m here to help you. I promise.”
“Did you hear that?” Stella whispered in Rosa’s ear. “Madam C wants to help. Tell me, how are you feeling?”
Rosa lifted her face from the mattress. “Like I have no life in me…”
Shortly, Maddalena returned with Michele Merega, the doctor of the Luna girls for many years. The last time he had seen Rosa was on the night of her sixteenth-birthday party. When he saw her in the flower room so thin and pale, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He examined her carefully for half an hour. “Rosa has nothing wrong with her,” he finally said, “other than her desire to die.”
“We can’t just let her die,” Stella said.
Margherita turned to Isabel. “How did she get herself into this state?”
Over the next twenty minutes, Isabel told everyone Rosa’s story. She told about Renato and the reason Rosa had cut her hair, and about Giacomo, the circus, the murder, Giacomo’s disguise and escape from town, and the farmhouse in Vercelli where he was going to hide.
“Who would have thought that my black wig would have so much power?” Maddalena said at the end of the story.
“Renato was supposed to be back eight days ago,” Isabel continued. “Rosa went looking for him all over town, then dropped on this bed, and here you see her. I’m afraid that the only person who can make her feel better is Renato, but I have no idea where he is.”
“Do you think that he may have run away with a street girl or decided to stay in Vercelli with his friend?” Stella asked.
“No,” Isabel said. “He’s very much in love with Rosa, and in Genoa he has a job, friends, and a home. The only explanation for the fact that he hasn’t returned yet is that something happened to him along the way.” She paused. “Rosa had a premonition.”
Madam C spoke with a tinge of disdain. “There are no such things as premonitions.”
“Premonition or not,” Margherita said, “we must find Renato.”
“How?” Stella wondered. “We don’t even know what he looks like.”
“I know what he looks like,” Isabel said with a clever smile, “but I’m a little too old to be chasing men.”
“Then Rosa will have to go with us,” Maddalena concluded. “There’s no other choice.” She squatted next to Rosa. “Rosa?” she called. “Try to get up. Lying here crying will do you no good. We’ll help you find Renato, but we need you on your feet.”
Rosa uncurled her body and stretched her legs.
“Good girl,” Maddalena said.
Stella headed for the door. “I’ll run to the Luna and bring back some food.”
“How about you?” Margherita asked, looking straight into Madam C’s eyes. “Are you going to help us or are you just going to stand there?”
“If you ask me,” Madam C muttered between her teeth, “Rosa needs a long bath and a change of clothes.” She bent her neck in Isabel’s direction. “So does she.”
The investigation began the following morning. Rosa, whom the girls had forced to sit up and swallow bits of food, had explained in a tremulous voice the exact location of Renato’s apartment and the fact that the farmhouse in Vercelli belonged to the family of Gabriele, a sailor. At once, Margherita headed for Vico Cinque Lampadi. “I’m looking for Gabriele,” she said when Marco opened the door.
“He’s not here,” Marco replied.
“When will he be back?” Margherita asked.
“In four months,” Marco said. “His ship left three weeks ago for Rio de La Plata.”
Margherita’s disappointment was clear. “Do you know where in Vercelli is the farmhouse his family owns?” she asked.
“No.”
“Do you know anything at all about his family or their place?”
Marco thought a moment. “The last name is Valle. And the only details Gabriele ever told me about that farmhouse are that it’s next to a rice field, off a dirt road, and that when he was a kid he could always find his way home when he walked back from town because at the corner of that road there’s a funny-looking tree. Its trunk is shaped like an amphora.”
Meanwhile, Madam C, who had finally given in to everyone’s insistence that she do something useful for Rosa, had gone to the Stazione Principe, Genoa’s main train station. “A close friend,” she said when she was seated in the office of Quasimodo Martelli, the stationmaster, “took a train one week ago from Genoa to Vercelli and is supposed to be back by now. I haven’t heard from him, and I’m worried. Have there been any accidents along that line?”
“No, madam,” Quasimodo Martelli replied. “No accidents.” He proudly lifted his head. “And not a single delay.”
