by Lina Simoni
Rosa thought for a moment. “I think that part of her would like to go, part of her doesn’t care. She has said it’s irrelevant where she will die.”
“False,” Madam C stated, putting her glass down. “I think it is important where one dies, even more so than where one comes into the world. I wouldn’t want to die anywhere other than on the third floor of the Luna. You know why?”
Rosa shook her head.
“Because it’s the only place where I feel at home. Find out where home is to Isabel, and make sure she gets there.”
“I know where Isabel’s home is,” Rosa said. “I have no doubt.”
“Costa Rica?” Madam C guessed.
Rosa nodded.
“Then you know what to do, dear. In my opinion, dying on the way home is better than dying in a foreign place.” She turned and waved her hand. “Waiter? One more serving of farinata, please.”
That evening Rosa went to Vico Cinque Lampadi, where Renato was staying. She found him in his room, reading the first chapter of Il Capitale.
“Do you like your books?” she asked.
“I do. The more I read them, the more familiar they seem.”
“It’s a good sign.” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “There’s something I came to ask you. Something…unusual.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s about boats and dreams. You don’t remember,” she said, “but the very first time you and I made love at the shack you told me that wherever I’ll go, you’ll go.” She paused. “Would you go with me on a ship across the ocean? To take Isabel home? She wants to die there and be buried next to her grandmother, on their hill, where my oil’s magic ingredient was made.”
“Costa Rica?” Renato wondered. “I’m not quite sure where it is, but it sounds like a long way.”
Rosa nodded.
Renato pondered a moment. “You’re right. I don’t remember anything I said to you before my accident. But I can see myself saying to you that wherever you’ll go, I’ll go.” He smiled. “And I don’t want to get a reputation as someone who doesn’t keep promises,” he said jokingly. Then he spoke with a graver voice. “If you want to cross the ocean, that’s what we’ll do. I’m glad to be helping Isabel. She helped you when you were in trouble. It’s our turn to do something for her. Will she make it all the way home?”
“I don’t know,” Rosa said. “Dr. Merega doesn’t know, either. He says that the only way to know is to try.”
“Then we’ll try,” said Renato.
Rosa fidgeted with her hands, then spoke with her eyes cast down. “There’s a small…detail I need to talk to you about.”
“What?” Renato asked.
She cleared her throat. “Before your accident, you were afraid of going on boats.”
“Really?”
“Really. I mean, very afraid. You told me the best you could do was be on a moored boat when there were no waves. You also said you felt sick at the mere thought of being on water.” She examined him with curious eyes. “Are you feeling sick now? Thinking of the boat ride?”
“No.”
Rosa smiled. “Good.” She hesitated a moment, then spoke in a whisper. “Maybe we should go on a small boat before boarding a ship,” she suggested, “to make sure you’re all right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about my fears at the shack, when I said I wanted to go on a boat ride?” Renato asked.
Rosa took a deep breath. “Crossing the ocean on a ship has been my dream since I was a child. When I fell in love with you, I thought my dream would never come true. So I was happy that you couldn’t remember your fear. Then Isabel helped me realize I can’t decide which things you should remember and which things you should forget. So I’m telling you the truth now.” She breathed deeply. “And there’s another thing you should know. You said you never wanted to leave Genoa and the longshoremen because your political battles are what gives meaning to your life.”
“I don’t remember anything about my political battles,” Renato said after a moment of reflection. “Right now, I’m reading these books and learning. I’m not concerned about leaving the longshoremen because I know it’ll be a long time before I can be helpful to them in any way. Giacomo, I hear, is doing great.” He paused. “As for my fear of being on water, we should experiment and find out.”
Rosa took his hand. “I’ll ask Giuseppe, a fisherman who buys many of my oils. He’ll let us aboard his sailboat.”
Renato nodded. “Let’s go fishing for my fears.”
Rosa didn’t waste time setting up the test. Early the next morning, shortly before dawn, she went looking for Giuseppe at the beach where he kept his fishing boat ashore on a row of dark logs. She found him by the boat in the company of other fishermen and conferred with him briefly before handing him two candles scented with Paradise Oil. He took the candles, nodded, and shook hands with Rosa. The following afternoon, after Giuseppe had returned from his daily fishing trip, Rosa and Renato met him at the beach. It was a windy day, and there were waves crashing ashore. As Giuseppe and two other fishermen held the vessel at the shoreline, Rosa jumped aboard with a radiant smile. It was her first time on a boat after thinking about it for so many years, and her joy was obvious in the sparkle of her aquamarine eyes. Renato, on the other hand, boarded cautiously, unsure as to what to expect from the experience. “Sit at the stern, next to me,” Giuseppe told him, jumping in. “You won’t feel the effect of the waves as much.” Then the two fishermen pushed the boat away from the beach, into the deep water, and Giuseppe rowed for a few minutes before lifting the sail. Off the boat went toward the more open sea as Rosa’s eyes shimmered and Renato looked curiously about. Aware of the reason for their trip, Giuseppe did the best he could with the tiller to minimize the pitching and rolling of the boat, but the choppy waves, with their crests whitened by wind, shook the hull right and left without respite. Seated at the bow, Rosa looked intently at Renato the whole time, trying to spot signs of discomfort, such as seasickness and fear.
“Are you afraid I’m afraid?” Renato asked jokingly at a certain point.
She didn’t answer.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Enjoy the ride.”
They followed the coastline east of the harbor for an hour before Giuseppe turned the boat around. “My boat is no ship,” he told Renato, “and it’s hard to tell for sure how you will feel when you’ll board a large transatlantic steamer, but it seems to me that you have no fears. With this sea, if you had any you’d be screaming by now.”
They disembarked safely on a pier. “You’re not afraid!” Rosa rejoiced, jumping up and down as soon as she set foot ashore. She hugged Renato tightly. “Our trip to Costa Rica will be the best trip ever.”
“I had no idea one could get so excited over a boat ride,” Renato said, hugging her back.
“I told you it’s the dream of my life,” Rosa said. “I hope you’ll be happy with it. It wouldn’t be such a good dream after all if you had to be hurt by it somehow.”
“Doesn’t look like that will happen,” Renato said. He added, “I’m glad you told me that I used to be afraid. I know more and more about myself every day.”
They headed for the distillery hand in hand. Inside, they found Madam C, Maddalena, and Stella in the process of trying to convince Isabel to leave the booth. “You need a place to stay while you get ready for this trip,” Madam C was saying.
“My distillery is fine,” Isabel said in a determined voice.
“No,” Madam C said. “We should sell this place for you before you leave. Let’s go.”
“I said no.”
Madam C exchanged looks with Maddalena and Stella, then the three of them lifted Isabel off the floor and took her outside. “You’ll live at the Luna for a couple of weeks,” Madam C said in her peremptory tone, “and that’s that.”
“I decide where I live,” Isabel disagreed. “I hardly know you. I can’t live with strangers.”
“I’m Rosa’s mother,” Madam C said. �
��Isn’t that enough for you?”
“No.”
“You’ll have to make do, sweetheart,” Maddalena said. “Madam C doesn’t take no for an answer.”
No one could argue with that. As Isabel’s resistance wound down, Maddalena and Stella crossed their arms and grabbed each other’s wrists. They lowered their forearms below Isabel’s buttocks and, gently, Madam C pushed Isabel onto the improvised seat. Before Isabel realized what was happening, Maddalena and Stella lifted her and began to walk.
Isabel was mute with stupefaction. As the group, headed by Madam C, turned the street corner and headed for the Luna, the neighbors crossed themselves at the sight of the witch being carried away in the arms of the prostitutes.
“What kind of witchcraft is this?” one said.
“Everyone look away, or you’ll turn to dust,” another hollered.
Despite her protests, Isabel found herself inside the Luna around six in the evening, as Antonia was leaving for the day. “Men, old women. What’s with this place,” Antonia mumbled as she closed the Luna door behind her.
Madam C settled Isabel in Rosa’s room. “It’s quiet, it’s cozy, it’s close to the kitchen,” she said once she and Isabel were there alone. “This bed has been Rosa’s since the day she was born.”
Isabel gave her a look of mistrust.
“Try it,” Madam C said.
Isabel pushed on the mattress with her right hand. “For today only,” she said, then laid her frail body on the white sheets. Madam C left the room without talking. When she returned ten minutes later, Isabel was sound asleep, her face softened by a peaceful smile.
Over the next days, the girls pampered Isabel, as their predecessors had once pampered little Rosa. They helped her take a warm bath in the lacquered tub on the third floor and washed the jungle of her hair twice with jasmine-perfumed soap. They were surprised to find no lice at all. “So you know, I never had lice once in my life,” Isabel scolded them when they asked, “not even when I was two months on Francesco’s miserable boat.” Combing her hair was another story. After ten minutes of pulling and fighting years-old knots, Stella said aloud what all the girls thought all along: “I give up. This is a job for Madam C.”
Madam C took out of her drawer the wide-tooth comb she had used for years on Rosa’s red curls. “It’s a curse,” she said, dipping the comb into Isabel’s stubborn locks. “I must have done something bad in my previous life and now have been condemned to untangle crazy hair till the day I die.”
Stella gave her a naughty smile. “Oh, stop it,” she said. “We all know that you love taking care of people.”
An hour later, Isabel’s hair was untangled and, neatly combed, looked like a summer cloud. Gently, Madam C gathered it at the base of Isabel’s head in a round chignon. With her new hairdo and dressed in one of Madam C’s light chamber vests, Isabel, everyone agreed, looked ten years younger. “I don’t know about this,” Isabel mumbled, looking at herself in Madam C’s mirror. “I think I’d like to have my black vest back.”
Margherita coughed. “I have bad news,” she said. “We washed it at the fountain with our clothes, using the soap we always use for our wash, and it lost most of its color. Right now, it looks more like a stained rag than anything anyone would want to wear.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have taken it off,” Isabel moaned.
“Must be a magic thing,” Stella whispered.
“We’ll get you a black vest, Isabel,” Maddalena reassured her. “I promise.”
To console her, Stella took Isabel to her room, where she showed her all her amulets and talked about her witchcraft, which she had learned as a child from her mother, a woman from Africa almost two meters tall. “What about you, Isabel?” she asked. “Where did you learn your witchcraft?”
“Perfumes are not witchcraft,” Isabel explained calmly. “They’re an art. Do you know the difference between witchcraft and art?”
Stella shook her head.
“Witchcraft is made up of rituals that come from popular beliefs. Lots of people can perform the same rituals. Art,” she said, placing a hand on her chest, “comes from your heart. No one can imitate it or take it from you.”
“I don’t know about that,” Stella argued with a friendly smile. “But,” she added, “I know for sure that no one will ever be able to imitate you, my dear.”
Because of the proximity of Rosa’s room to the kitchen, Isabel ended up spending time with Antonia during the afternoon. Despite her initial mistrust, Antonia grew fond of Isabel in a very short time, helped by the fact that Isabel volunteered to share with her the recipes of her soups, which Antonia gradually included in the Luna menu, gaining the approval of all the Luna people. Isabel never told Antonia, or anyone else for that matter, about the white powder she had twice sprinkled on Rosa’s soup and, in a few instances, on her own. It was opium. She had bought a handful of it years earlier from the Spanish sailors who brought her the eucalyptus leaves, and used it following Azul’s teachings about the prodigious healing qualities of poppy seeds and their by-products when used sparingly and on the right occasions. In gratitude for the shared recipes, Antonia cooked for Isabel her best vegetarian dishes: farinata, torta pasqualina, and torta di bietole. Overall, Isabel blended into the Luna’s life gracefully.
“With Isabel in the kitchen, it’s like having Rosa here all over again,” commented Margherita.
“The difference is,” Madam C said, “we don’t need to watch for her to stay out of the parlor.”
“She knows better.” Stella giggled.
“Do you think that Isabel understands completely what’s going on here?” Maddalena asked. “She seems so out of this world.”
“Isabel,” Madam C said in a grave tone, “knows a lot more about life than you and I can ever imagine.”
“But she hasn’t left her distillery in sixty years,” Margherita said doubtfully.
Madam C nodded and smiled. “That’s the beauty of it, my dear.”
The only accident involving Isabel and the Luna clients happened on a stormy night, while the parlor was packed and the clients particularly loud. Isabel stepped into the parlor from the kitchen around midnight, shoeless and in a dark gown. She looked right and left at the girls and the clients; then, with no hesitation, crossed the room under everyone’s stunned eyes. From across the counter, she tugged at Madam C’s sleeve twice. “The wind may have broken a window back there,” she said, then walked away before Madam C could recover from the surprise. All the men in the room gaped at Isabel as she passed by. “Good Lord,” one of them grimaced.
“Is she a ghost?” said another.
Stella took Isabel’s arm. “Don’t be bothered by what they say,” she told her as she pushed her back in the kitchen. “I know what ghosts look like. Nothing like you, dear. Keep this door closed now, and go to sleep.”
In the parlor, the men wouldn’t stop talking. “What was that, Madam C?” a sailor asked, rubbing a hand on Margherita’s hips. “Someone you save for a special treat?”
Madam C gave him one of her icy glares. “She’s my mother,” she said. “Don’t you dare make fun of her, capito?”
There was an exception to Isabel’s idyllic relationship with the Luna people: Cesare Cortimiglia. “I don’t like him,” Isabel told Antonia one day. “He smokes like a chimney and never looks you in the eyes.”
Cesare Cortimiglia never looked Isabel in the eyes because he was afraid of her. He had heard the shopkeepers talking about her many times during his days of sitting on Piazza Banchi, and despite his attempt to convince himself that there were no such things as witches, he was never capable of overcoming his fear. He had arrived at the Luna a few days ahead of Isabel, in the company of Madam C, carrying one suitcase and, with his long beard and red-rimmed eyes, looking like a creature from another world. “Girls,” Madam C had said after summoning everyone in the parlor, “I believe you all know my friend Cesare. He’ll live at the Luna, in my quarters, as of today.” She turned
around and smiled at the still disoriented former mayor. “Please make him feel at home.”
He climbed the stairs with weary steps. As he put down his suitcase in Madam C’s bedroom, he looked at the bed with melancholy eyes. “So many memories…” he whispered, then smiled as he saw himself lying naked on those sheets, surrounded by a flock of young girls, celebrating his farewell to the brothels. He blinked as he noticed, on the nightstand, his beloved briar pipe. All caught up in the fever of his love for Rosa, and later in his dementia with the poetry and the handkerchief, he had forgotten all about it, until Madam C had mentioned it in his living room earlier that week. Ever since the mishap on Rosa’s birthday, he hadn’t had a single smoke. He took the pipe gingerly, as if it were a jewel. “Here,” Madam C said, handing him a box of extra-long matches. “I took good care of your pipe, because I knew you’d be coming someday to reclaim it. There’s Cuban tobacco in it, ready to be smoked.” He took the matches and with a flick of his wrist struck one of them and dipped the flame in the bowl of the pipe. As he began to puff, a look of contentment filled his face. Madam C, who hadn’t allowed anyone to smoke in her rooms since the end of the mayor’s farewell marathon, watched him and said nothing at all. His only chore later that day was to cut his chest-long, matted beard and shave.
“Now I can recognize you,” Madam C said as they both looked in a mirror at his hairless face. “You haven’t changed much on the outside.”
He thought a moment. “I had a battle going on inside. I don’t know myself anymore.”
“We’ll figure you out, mayor,” Madam C said, taking his hand in hers. “What else have we left to do?”
He asked, “May I call you Clotilde?”
“Why?” she said, surprised.
“I like it better than Madam C.”
“You told me you liked Madam C. I remember your exact words. You said, ‘I like it. It’s exotic. I’m already turned on.’”
“I lied,” he said. “May I call you Clotilde?”
Madam C took a step back. “What else did you lie about?”
“May I?”
She pursed her lips then, spoke in a serious voice. “Only in private. Don’t you ever call me that in front of the girls.”
