Before she opens it, she pours herself a glass of wine. She walks outside, letter in hand, and hopes what she reads will not upset her as much as the last letter. She looks at the fig tree and its branches seem to nod, to say, I’ll provide a safe canopy for you.
Toledo #9
November 2017
My Dear Lavinia Lavinia,
I couldn’t sleep after writing to you, so here I go again. I feel remorse for what you’ve lost. You deserve to know the story of your life. I keep seeing you as the child I scooped up and took home with me to America, away from all you loved and those still left who loved you. I wanted to make a new home for you, to make it better for you. To get you away from the stinking tragedy of our family. That’s all I could think of! Now I’m not so sure. Maybe I could have faced it here with you.
You remember the picture I left you of the two of us taken here in Naples? It was the first day I ever saw you, the day I introduced you to Bubblicious, and how excited you were when you learned to blow bubbles. When that thing popped, you were so surprised that you laughed and giggled and then made another and another.
I have no excuse for not telling you the circumstances of my taking you away from here, adopting you, and raising you in San Francisco. Only that I didn’t know how to tell you about my dear sister Angela’s untimely death at twenty-one years old.
I didn’t know until I met Giovanni recently anything about the circumstances leading up to your birth or anything about your father. This year, Giovanni filled me in on the details of your mother’s courtship with your father. Giovanni is your father’s uncle. You probably won’t believe me, but it’s the truth. I only spoke with your father once, when he contacted me before I left to tell me he, too, was moving to San Francisco. I can still hear him say, “I want my daughter.”
As I said before, you deserve to know about your early life. So here I am, good old Uncle Sal, halfway around the world, floundering. What I need to tell you I want to tell you face-to-face. Maybe sitting by the fig tree. You always loved that tree. But I couldn’t ever tell you, could I?
Your parents met in a small village. Your mother was fifteen years old and spent part of every day with the other village women at the watering trough, a system set up in ancient times by the Romans long before washing machines existed. Our parents had a simple grocery store and Papa worked every morning collecting garbage. He was proud of his work, of his wife, his daughter and son, but the pride ate us all up. He insisted that I, as the oldest and the only son, take over the business. No way did I want to collect garbage in Naples. He wouldn’t hear of my dreams to become an accountant. I never told him of my plans to leave because I was scared. He threatened me whenever I mentioned going to school, bettering myself, always saying, “On my grave will you leave me.”
I left the old man and escaped the old country with Rose. That’s when I lost touch with my beautiful sister, your mother. I never met her lover. Never saw her pregnant, and never laid eyes on you until that day I gave you the gum in the spring of 1996.
I left Naples in 1989, before you were born, for the United States to get away from my domineering and controlling father. When I left, Angela was a vibrant fifteen-year-old. Alive. When I returned five years later she was dead and you stood in her place, a young, innocent child who had lost her mother in a freak accident.
She was hit by a trolley car. Okay, here it is!
When your nonna called me to tell me my sister and father were dead, I returned to Naples immediately.
Oh, how can I tell you in one letter all that Giovanni has revealed to me in the year I have been living away from you, my dear Lavinia? Giovanni has suggested that I send for you so that he can tell you in person about the love your parents had for one another. But then, it was always so difficult for me to tell you anything in person. It still is.
Another friend I’ve made here has suggested we set up something called Skype where we can see each other’s faces on the phone or something like that. You’re smart, you must know about Skype.
What do you think of all of this, Lavinia? We could use the telephone, but this is such a precious conversation to have by telephone. Please let me know your feelings after receiving this letter. I still have my same cell—you can reach me on it.
I remain your greatest fan, Lavinia Lavinia.
Your loving uncle,
Salvatore
Idiot! Uncle Sal, as always, only telling half the story. Why can’t he ever just tell it straight? He spoke to her father once before he left and didn’t tell her. Wimp! He didn’t even tell her he was moving to San Francisco. And now here’s this information—that her mother was hit by a trolley car! Why didn’t he tell her all these years? Why were there two people dead at the same time? Who else? Where is her father? Why the hell can’t Sal just say who and where he is? After all, isn’t this story her story, too?
She throws the letter away from her body to get away from its sting. The letter burns her in the way electricity generates a charge. Like electricity, her uncle is jumping around, all over the place, reminding her of when she brushes her hair and the static pulls it in different directions. She thinks of his words, each a strand of fine hair pulled by electricity, weaving the story of her life. But he just won’t tell the damn story straight! Her hair is a charged mess, just like her insides.
Look at the space behind and before you, the DJ recommended at the dance. Lavinia sees many views and many rooms to explore. What will she find? Where will she begin? Is Sal’s motivation to write somehow connected to the fact that he knows Lavinia’s dad moved to San Francisco? She believes it is. When she reflects on his words, what remains for her among all these threads is the knowledge of her father saying that he wants his daughter, and the idea that he’s living in San Francisco somewhere.
She will find him.
Chapter 18:
TIME TRAVEL
Lavinia takes a cab to Zack’s. It’s already been a long day. She is struggling to believe that it was only this morning she had the interaction with Don, now that the letter from Sal stands between that experience and where she is now.
When she arrives, Zack answers the door and Lavinia follows him into the living room. She watches the tall, orderly man smooth down his thinning hair and then put a black comb in his front pocket. He turns toward her, motioning her to sit. He looks nervous, and she braces for another request—or perhaps he wants her to commit to taking him to Ely.
“Have you given any thought to my proposal?” he asks. And there it is. He needs an answer. He stands by his wife’s beautiful linen-covered table, directly across from her. “Please don’t think I’m too forward, but I’d love your company.”
“Thank you,” she says, and just as she’s ready to accept his offer, he interrupts.
“It’s a long drive, maybe eight hours. So I’d like to pay you five thousand dollars rather than four.”
Lavinia’s eyes widen. She feels her mouth open. “Five thousand dollars,” she repeats, astounded.
“Worth it to me. A few days of your valuable time.”
“Yes.” She laughs. “I’ll do it.”
Zack smiles at her warmly, quietly steps closer. His house slippers flap like dust mops. “I think you’ll love the mountains and the bristlecone pines. That is, if you don’t mind traveling with an old goat.” He laughs when he says that.
She shakes her head and smiles back. He’s becoming for her more of a curious goat than an old one. She’s excited by his offer, but also for the adventure. She wants to get out of the city, away from the possibility of another letter from Sal.
“I’m going for my swim now,” Zack says. “I’ll leave you to your work.”
After he leaves, she puts in a wash, rinses a pair of plaid swim trunks by hand, and thinks of traveling with Zack to see the old forest and the site of the clock. She can’t wait to tell Mario—a whole thousand dollars more than the original offer. When the wash is done, she places it in the drier, sets the timer, lets herself out, and skip
s down the stairway.
She rushes down Columbus, dying to see Mario and tell him all the things that have transpired over the past twenty-four hours. She charges into the café line where Steve is on duty. Her heart skips when she doesn’t see Mario behind the counter. But then she turns and there he is, sitting at a corner table with someone she recognizes—a friend of his she met at the club.
“Join us, Lavinia.” Mario gets up to give her a peck on the cheek.
The man stands up, too, moves another chair closer, motioning her to sit. “Carmine,” he reminds her.
“Thank you.” She sits between the two men. “Yes, I remember you from the dance,” she says. Then she looks at Mario, anxious to be alone with him. “I have a few things I want to tell you.”
Carmine politely excuses himself, saying, “I’ll see you both later. Dance again tonight!”
“Thank you, Carmine,” she says. When he’s out of earshot, the words gush out. “Mario, so much is going on. I’m freaking out. Nina’s husband almost hit me today. And Sal told me in a letter that my father lives in San Francisco. And get this—I know I’ll find him. And on top of all that, Zack offered to pay me five thousand to go on the trip with him. Can you believe it?” She hardly stops for breath, the whirlpool is spinning her around.
“Wow! This is a lot!” Mario says, reaching for her hand.
“My head is spinning, Mario. I feel like I’m exploding.” She moves so close to him she can feel his warm breath on her forehead.
“Let’s slow it down. I want to hear all the details.” Mario kisses her forehead.
“Yes, that’s what I need right now.” She looks at him and shivers, thinking about what happened with Don.
“Where do you want to start?” he asks gently.
“I’m afraid of Don,” she confesses, although certainly the information about her father has farther-reaching consequences. Still, she forges on in this direction. “He came back after Nina left today. He came right up to my face with his fists all tightened in a ball and scared the hell out of me.”
“He sounds like a nut case,” Mario says. “I wonder if you should press charges.”
But Lavinia knows she doesn’t want to bring that kind of energy into her life. She shakes her head. “I’m worried for his wife. Maybe he abuses her. I feel I should tell her,” she says, twirling a piece of her hair.
“I’m worried for you, Lavinia.”
“I’m quitting, so I’ll be fine. I’ll tell Nina why I’m quitting, too.”
Mario holds her, and she knows he’ll support her decision either way. Satisfied, she moves closer to him, feeling his nearness, his body heat.
He reaches for her hand. “I smell something.” Mario bends forward, cups her face, and kisses her lips. “Coffee and gum,” he says.
“Not enough coffee today,” she says, and Mario rises to his feet. “Let me make you a double espresso,” he says, leaving to make the coffee.
When he returns, he hands her the warm cup, which she holds close to her face, inhaling the nutty aroma.
“I’m sorry.” He puts his arm around her shoulders. They sit quietly. “You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?” He kisses her on the forehead.
“And it’s only 2:00 p.m.”
“So tell me about your father?”
“My father lives in San Francisco, and Sal just told me so in a letter. Can you believe it?”
“Man, that’s incredible.”
“I’m going to find him, Mario. I swear I will.”
“I’ll help you,” he says.
“Maybe dancing will help,” she says.
“Yes,” he says, and then looks at her for a long while.
Lavinia sips at her coffee, feeling content and safe with Mario.
“Stay here with me after?” he asks, looking to the ceiling and his flat above the café.
“Maybe—or at my place,” she says, standing up to leave. She winks at him, giggling inside, and kisses him again before striding away.
As she walks toward Columbus, she gets a text from Kinky. “Dinner? Your place or mine?”
Lavinia strolls around North Beach, daydreaming about her childhood above the bakery. She stops and stares into the shop through the window, drooling over the scents of sweet dough and creams. She smells the rum in the babas, which overflow with yellow patisserie cream. Taken by the colorful meadow of pastries, like flowers on a spring day, she feels alive. She goes inside and buys an assortment: two babas, two cannoli, two Napoletana, and two sfogliatelle.
A text alerts her. Kinky again. “Come here. I’m home early today.”
She skips away from the storefront with the Italian pastries, excited by her purchase, thinking about Uncle Sal’s letter. It is coming in dribs and drabs how her pastry-baking mamma disappeared into thin air, while Lavinia left home to fly to San Francisco. He said she was hit by a trolley, but he is still not telling her the whole story. Coward, she thinks, and the bounce leaves her step.
With a heavy heart she walks the long walk to the Mission, thinking of Giovanni now, wondering when she’ll hear from him—if she’ll hear from him. She reaches into the bag, takes out a cream baba, and takes a bite, savoring the sweet cream and rum syrup.
Will Sal ever tell her straight? Or will he continue to drag it out forever? Will he really leave it up to Giovanni to tell her?
As she relishes her pastry, she wishes Sal weren’t so guarded, that they could just sit and talk. Why this secrecy? Was my mamma a putana who disgraced her family? She dismisses that thought quickly, though, knowing in her heart that her mother was not a whore, knowing that her mother had stood up to her own father and had loved Lavinia at all costs. But what is the secret? And does she really want to know?
Lavinia stops by her house before going to Kinky’s, and the answers to some of her questions come sooner than she imagined they would when she checks her computer to find an email from Giovanni Dellarosa.
My God, this day! Lavinia thinks, hesitating before clicking on the message. But she feels compelled to know, so she opens it up.
November 2017
Via Toledo
Naples
Dear Lavinia Lavinia,
You don’t know me except for brief mention by your uncle Salvatore. My name is Giovanni Dellarosa. I have decided to tell you about your mother and father. Your uncle Sal has cautioned me not to do so, but I know he wants my help. He withheld knowledge of what I’m about to tell you because he always thought it best to protect you. But I can’t be closed-mouthed any longer. Enough!
So I’m seizing the day, and the new century. Carpe Diem and Carpe Millennium.
I have lived and worked my entire life as a sculptor in this beautiful old part of Napoli. My studio is above the community water trough, which still exists, though everyone has washers now. But then, when your mother was a teen, it was a vibrant place where women came daily to do their laundry and to laugh and to cry together. I used to go there to fill my water buckets to keep my clay moist, but mostly to see your mother, Angela Campana, who came daily to do the family laundry.
My sister Anna lives in New York. She left for America as a young woman and fell in love with an Italian American man. They had a son, Giorgio, who from the start had a proclivity for art. I suppose he took after me. I bow my head here. He drew everything he saw—people on the buses, cars and trees, little dogs, squirrels, everything. He kept a box of Crayolas in his pocket. Anna used to complain about getting the wax stains out of his trousers until she remembered to check his pockets before she washed.
You’re probably asking, why this story? Giorgio wanted to be a fine artist and to go to the Art Institute in New York. Before art school, my sister sent him to Italy to study sculpture with me. He was a fine boy, so attentive to the clay. He could make that clay sing. His hands and the clay worked as one. He spent hours in the studio, sculpting, taking breaks only to fill a bucket to moisten the clay.
Pretty soon I noticed his breaks were longer and longe
r, and I began to understand that the teenage boy was at his turning. One day I followed him and watched him sitting beside Angela, your mother. He was helping her wash the family clothes, but mostly staring into her eyes. Angela had blue eyes.
Angela was fifteen years old then, and Giorgio sixteen. It was a first love for them. I think everyone in the village knew about it and, like me, they were joyful to see it and to remember such love in their own lives. Angela’s father, your grandfather Antonio, was very strict with his daughter, jealous of anyone who paid attention to her, and thought the only safe place for her was at the washhouse with the other girls and women. But the women didn’t mind when Giorgio sat with her to chat. None of us worried, because we were in love with love.
Such a love as theirs enchants.
Pretty soon they would disappear up into the hills above our center for long hours each day. Beautiful woods in the city near the great museum, Capodimonte, called to them. When Giorgio returned to the studio in the late afternoons he’d sculpt from memory amazing pieces. First her head on an armature—she was so sweet. He even included the little birthmark on her cheek like Marilyn Monroe. I understand from Sal that your birthmark is similar to Angela’s. Then he began to sculpt Angela’s nakedness. These sculptures are still here in my studio for you to see someday. Your mother’s torso was beautiful. I can still see her innocent beauty when I look at them.
A blessed year passed, and then it was time for him to leave for school in New York. Of course, the parting was excruciating for my nephew. He begged me not to make him leave, but I’d promised my sister I would not let him stay. That he, unlike her, would go to college.
I had to peel him away from your mother, not knowing his child was growing inside her. She convinced him with her joyful ways that it would work out; that she would always be with him; and that someday, when he finished school, they would reunite.
Giorgio left and Angela kept her beautiful smile, washing clothes at the well. Of course, I had to intervene when your grandfather Antonio saw that his daughter was growing in the panza. Do you know Italian, or have you forgotten? As she grew larger Antonio flew into rage, cursing the day, cursing me for arranging the boy’s visit. He refused to speak to me ever again, in fact, and he disowned her on the spot, cursing, ranting, “You are not my daughter, on my grave.” Oh, he was a proud man and his pride ruled. Your grandmother was helpless in the face of this.
The Laundress Page 14
