How Fires End

by Marco Rafalà

  “Don Fiorilla,” I said. My legs felt weak. “Are my parents alive?”

  He shook his head no and said, “I’m sorry, my son.”

  I dropped to my knees and took the priest’s hand, kissed it, and held it against my forehead. I cried. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I cried. “I ran, Father. I heard shots, and I kept running. I was so scared. I ran like a coward.”

  “From the beginning, my son.”

  I looked up into Don Giovanni’s face, crossed myself, and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . .”

  22

  When I finished, I took the chair at the head of the table and sat down, feeling like the crack in the bottom of an empty bucket, feeling like I could sleep for days and never get enough sleep.

  Don Giovanni studied the wall as if he read my penance in the grapes and vines stenciled over the plaster. His lips moved, but he did not speak. He lowered his head. “Prayer is good,” he said. “God likes prayer, but for this—” He kissed his Saint Anthony necklace. “For this, God likes action better. You are to take a basket of vegetables from the garden to Aldo’s family.”

  “Yes, Father,” I said. I wiped my face with a tissue and blew my nose.

  “Not one time,” Don Giovanni said. “You must do this each week for the remainder of the season.”

  As I got up to leave, he said, “And, Salvatore. Make the pilgrimage. You will know when you are ready.”

  23

  My first time delivering the vegetables in the morning, I walked up the three flights of stairs and heard Aldo’s parents arguing over money. Their voices grew louder as I neared the top floor, with the mother saying they had nothing left to sell except for sheets and their wedding rings, and the father saying it was bad all over with so many men out of work and what more could he do.

  I knocked on the door and the mother answered, a small, stocky woman. She let me in without a word, cupping her hand over her mouth.

  They lived in one room with a window into the alley. The parents’ bed stood in a little alcove with a curtain strung on a wire for privacy. Aldo slept on a cot beneath the window. His nose was crooked from where it healed wrong.

  “At least our good-for-nothing son has brought us a bit of luck,” the father said. “Bring the basket here.”

  I set the basket down on the metal folding table in front of him, his lanky frame slouching in the wooden chair. “These are from my garden at Saint Anthony’s,” I said. Then I turned to Aldo, who had thrown off his blanket and sat up in his cot. “I’m sorry I broke your nose.”

  He wiped the sleep from his eyes and shrugged, saying, “Forget about it.” Then he grabbed a ball from under his cot and said, “You want to go outside?”

  “I have to get back,” I said.

  In the stairwell afterward, with the door shut behind me, the bickering started all over again. I heard the father slap Aldo and say, “What are you doing, asking him to go outside? Give me that ball. You should be looking for a job.” And it made me smile. At least they were together. A family, whole.

  The second time I delivered the vegetables, I asked Signore Fabrizi if he needed anything done around the house. And he smacked the back of his son’s head, saying, “You hear that? You could learn something from this boy who broke your nose.” Then he said to me, “You can start by sweeping the floor. The broom is in the closet.”

  Signore Fabrizi made Aldo watch. The boy sat at the foot of the cot, a dim look on his face like the lights behind his eyes had little power in them. I kept quiet and swept the floor, taking my time to do the job the right way. I got down on my knees, cleared dust from under the bed, and sneezed into the crook of my arm.

  Aldo and Signore Fabrizi both wished me good health, and I thanked them. Then Signore Fabrizi slapped my back and said, “At least the boy hasn’t lost his manners, eh?” And he helped me move the dresser to get at the dirt there.

  When I finished, I collected all the dust with the dustpan and emptied it into the trash bin. Next, I saw that the dishes needed washing, so I set about washing them, wiping them down, and placing them on the drying rack in clean rows.

  One evening, in the middle of summer, when Signore Fabrizi had found a construction job, he stopped by the rectory with a deck of cards after work. Nella showed him to the garden where I stood watering my plants.

  “So this is the famous garden,” he said.

  I turned off the hose and gave him the tour of tomatoes and peppers, eggplants and zucchini. Then we sat inside at the kitchen table and drank coffee.

  “Do you know how to play Scopa?” he asked. He shuffled the cards, dealing three to me, three for him, and four on the table, faceup. “The goal is to get the most cards, though some are worth more than others,” he said. Then he showed me the value of each card and explained the rules.

  We played late into the night. I lost most of the games at first, but I caught on in the end. Then I walked Signore Fabrizi to the little gate outside, and he thanked me for the company. “My son,” he said. “He won’t play. He thinks it’s an old man’s game.”

  “Is it?” I asked.

  “Beh, it’s an old game.”

  For the rest of the summer and into the fall, I found myself looking forward to picking the vegetables-always the best ones from the garden-and walking the four blocks to where the Fabrizis lived. And with each visit, I started feeling better, lighter, not so tired. I slept easier. So when winter came, and I no longer had to deliver the baskets, I still visited them. I cleaned their apartment-it never looked cleaner than when I worked on it-ran errands for them, and played cards with Aldo’s father.

  24

  “When are you going to Melilli?” Nella asked.

  I set the box of nativity figurines down-it echoed in the church-and said, “Are you crazy in the head? I’m not going back there.”

  “I heard Don Giovanni,” she said. “You’re making the pilgrimage.”

  “You were listening,” I said. “All those months ago, like a mouse waiting for a crumb to fall from the table.” I waved her off. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going. The past is the past.” Then I gave her my back and took a figurine wrapped in newspaper out of the box. I removed the paper and wiped dust from the wood carving with a dry cloth. “This is our home now,” I said. And I placed the little donkey in the manger.

  Nella pulled me around, saying, “Don’t turn your back on me.” And I raised my hand against her. She cringed away from me, shielding her face with both arms. My hand shook. I had almost hit someone again-my sister, my family, the only one left in the world. And my job was to protect her. I grabbed the communion rail and sat down on the floor of the sanctuary, feeling sick in my stomach.

  “Turiddu,” she said. “Signore Fabrizi isn’t your father.”

  “No, he isn’t,” I said. I buried my hands under my armpits. “I have no father.”

  She knelt down, cupped my face in her hands, and said, “Yes, you do. We have a father. Even dead, he is still yours and mine. We should be tending his orchard. A few more months and the trees bloom.”

  “We don’t have an orchard anymore,” I said. I looked at her face, framed by the shell-like dome overhead. “I’m sorry.”

  She kissed my forehead. “Get up,” she said. “Finish the nativity scene. I have an errand to run this evening. Will you walk with me?”

  Later, when I walked with Nella on her errand to a three-story building in the Old City, she asked me to come in with her. On the second floor, she pushed open a half-closed door. A young woman greeted us in the narrow hallway.

  “I am Giulia,” she said. “Come with me. Serafina is this way.”

  We followed Giulia into a little room. Serafina-a plump old woman-sat at a table by the window. Her hair as white as the pale stones of the city. Across from her, a middle-aged man, the age my father would’ve been, with thinning gray hair and a weather-beaten face, fingered his hat in his lap. Serafina said something about the opening of t
he eye, and then she stuck the pointed end of a pair of scissors into a soup bowl filled with water and oil set between them. I looked away. I didn’t want any part of this business.

  “Why are we here?” I whispered.

  Nella shushed me.

  I wanted to leave, but I remembered today, in the church, how I’d almost hurt my sister and how she forgave me. So I waited beside her.

  In the corner stood a knee-high porcelain statue of the Virgin Mary with rosary beads hanging from her outstretched hands. A dusty painting of Saint Lucia, who held her eyes on a tray, hung from the cracked wall behind the old woman’s chair.

  “In the sink,” Serafina said. “Be careful.”

  Giulia took the bowl and left the room, followed by the man-his hat still in his hands. He pushed past us and mumbled, “Excuse me.”

  Nella tugged at my arm and then pulled me along to the table.

  When I sat down, Serafina studied me with her cloudy eyes. I wondered if she might be blind, but I felt her gaze going through me. She leaned to one side, looked over my shoulder, and said, “When we are children, our guardian angels are so loyal to us that they turn their faces from the sight of our misbehavior. In that moment, if we wander off while they are not looking, they can become lost. You have lost your guardian angel,” she said. “I’m sorry. I cannot help you.”

  “Please,” Nella said. She dug through her purse. “We’ll pay more. I think I have enough.” The coins tinkled.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go. I came with you, now we can go home.”

  Serafina took my hands and said to Nella, “Your brother, he is a strong boy.” Then she turned them palm up. “And stubborn, yes?”

  I pulled my hands away from her feather-light touch. I had expected her skin would be rough like sandpaper with all the wrinkles and folds, the large knuckles and crooked fingers.

  “Do not be afraid,” she said.

  “I’m not,” I said.

  “No, you are not,” she said. “Not afraid of me.” Then she clasped her hands together with a loud smack, held them in the air, and looked at the ceiling. “But you carry something,” she said. Her voice almost a hum, like music. “Something from long ago, something heavy. A weight not of this world.” She put her arms down and looked at me. “This is what frightens you, this thing that you carry.”

  I gripped the table edge, remembering my father, his eyes the color of hazelnuts, his mouth a thin, serious line cut across his face, the way he carried himself when he walked, like he bore the statue with him everywhere he went. How the weight made him strong. His shoulders, his back, hard like lava stone. And I remembered how the accident in the orchard took that strength away from him, and me.

  I turned to my sister and said, “What have you told this woman?”

  “Nothing,” Nella said. “I swear.”

  “Bring the bowl and the oil,” Serafina said.

  Giulia entered with the white soup bowl and an olive oil tin. She set them down on the table. Then she lifted a jug of water by Serafina’s feet and filled the bowl.

  Serafina added three drops of olive oil.

  Beside me, Nella took a breath and held it in. We waited. Serafina, Nella, and Giulia, they all watched the droplets of oil coming together, producing an island on the surface of the water.

  “Very bad,” Serafina said, tapping out the words with a fingernail on the table as she spoke. “A strong curse.”

  Nella squeezed my shoulders.

  “You see,” Serafina said. “The oil is as one. This is a sign that the source of the malocchio comes from beyond the grave.”

  I couldn’t look at this woman and her cloudy eyes anymore. I couldn’t listen. I covered my ears with my hands as if I’d never heard of the statue of Saint Sebastian washing ashore, never once believed in its power, or in the name Vassallo.

  Turiddu, Leonello called out to me. And the hairs on my arms stood on end. My brother’s voice felt cold to me, colder than any winter chill I’d ever felt before.

  Leonello and Emanuele stood behind the old woman. Their faces and clothes looked flat, faded and yellowed like an old black-and-white picture. Emanuele raised his arm in a jerky movement, the outline of his body flickered. He pointed at Saint Lucia’s eyes on the tray in the painting. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, and when I looked again, my brothers were gone.

  “This is nonsense,” I said. Pushing my chair back from the table, I got to my feet. The water sloshed around in the bowl but the island of oil remained intact.

  “You can help him?” Nella asked.

  Serafina leaned back into her chair, her sides pushing against the armrests. “I cannot,” she said.

  “Why did you bring me here, Nella? Come on, let’s go.”

  “Wait,” Serafina said. “There may be a way. Tell me, what did you see? You saw something, yes? This could be important.”

  “I saw nothing,” I said. “We’re leaving.” I took Nella by the arm, led her to the door.

  Giulia cleared her throat and said, “Your brother should listen to my grandmother. She has helped many people.” Then Giulia held out her hand for payment.

  On the way home I said, “That was a waste of money.”

  Nella folded her arms across her chest. “You give me so little and hide the rest under your mattress. I’ll spend what is mine however I like.”

  “Okay,” I said. I slung my arm around her shoulder. “Where did you find that crazy old woman?”

  “One of the girls in school,” Nella said. “She had headaches, she complained about them all the time. And she felt tired in class, always yawning. She told me that her mother took her here and that Serafina cured her.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “If I’m sick, I’ll go to the doctor.”

  She stopped and said, “You need more than a doctor. I know about the nightmares. I can hear you from my room. I just wanted to help.”

  “Help?” I took both of her hands in mine. “This woman, she steals people’s money and tells them what they want to hear. You understand? Now we have a good home here with a nice garden. And I made my confession, delivered the vegetables. I thought you would be happy with this.”

  “I am,” she said. “But it hasn’t stopped the nightmares.”

  “Just bad dreams. Nothing more. They will pass.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think they will, not until you go back to Melilli with flowers for our parents’ graves, and beg their forgiveness and the forgiveness of the saint.”

  I let go of her hands. “No more, Nella. No more talk about going back.”

  25

  In the morning, I ran errands for the rectory, buying sausage, fish, and bread from the market. On my way back, I stopped at a street vendor who sold jewelry. “I want to get a little something for my sister for Christmas,” I said. “What do you have?”

  “My wife made these,” the vendor said. And he showed me bracelets and necklaces, earrings and pendants, little charms and pins.

  I looked through his cart and saw a Saint Sebastian medallion, big like the ten-lira coin. “That one,” I said. “She’ll like that one.” I paid the man but hesitated before taking the medallion from him. I stared at the image of the saint. “Cover it up,” I said.

  The vendor nodded and wrapped the medallion in thin paper.

  At the rectory, I found Don Giovanni in the kitchen with a pot of water boiling on the stove. He added pasta to the water, stirred it, and then took a can of sauce from the overhead cabinet. He turned and smiled as I entered. “Perfect timing,” he said. “Fry up those sausages.”

  I put the fish in the refrigerator. “Where’s Nella?”

  Don Giovanni released the blade on the small opener on his key ring and said, “A GI gave me this. American boy. Protestant, but nice. Have you seen one like this before?” He punctured the top of the inside rim of the can and advanced the opener with rocking motions.

  “No,” I said. “Where’s Nella?”

  He tilted his head at a
note on the table. “She left that for you.”

  I read the note. “You let her go back there?”

  “Take it easy,” he said. “I arranged for a driver to take her and bring her back when she’s ready. She’ll be well looked after. Now be a good boy and fry up the sausages, please.”

  I took the pan from where it hung on the wall, added some olive oil, and placed it on the burner. Then I cut up the meat and put the slices in the pan. “She’s going back there because of me,” I said.

  Don Giovanni heated the sauce in a saucepan and drained the pasta in a strainer in the sink. “This is something she needs to do,” he said. “Why don’t you add some peppers? We still have a jar in the pantry. And get an onion,” he called after me.

  When lunch was ready, he brought out a bottle of wine and set it down on the table between us. Then he handed me the heel from the bread and took a seat.

  But I couldn’t eat. I read the note again, crumpled it in my fist, and said, “This was a mistake.”

  He opened my fist, took the note, and smoothed it out. “Let it go,” he said.

  “How, Father?”

  “Eat,” he said. “You won’t find the answer on an empty stomach. And don’t forget to take a bottle of spumante to the Fabrizi house.”

  After lunch, I looked in on Nella’s room and saw the bed made and her slippers by the bedside table, and the little desk in the light of the sun coming through the window. A small gull perched on the ledge outside. It tapped at the glass with its beak. As I stepped into the room, the bird made a squawking cry. I put my hands up and said, “It’s okay.” And the gull looked at me sideways. Then I pulled out the chair from the desk and he backed off the ledge, catching the air with his dark-gray wings. He hovered there for a minute and then flew away. I sat down, picked up my sister’s pen-the one she had used to write the note.