The Florios of Sicily Page 3

  They can hear the sounds of a harbor in full activity. The scent of the sea is replaced by an acrid stench: dung, sweat, and pitch, mixed with stagnant water.

  Neither Paolo nor Ignazio notices that Giuseppina’s eyes are still fixed on the open sea, as though she can still see Bagnara.

  They don’t know that she remembers Mattia’s hug. Mattia, the woman who is more than a sister-in-law to her, but her friend, her rock, the voice who guided her during the difficult first months of her marriage to Paolo.

  Giuseppina had initially hoped that Barbaro and Mattia would follow them to Palermo, a hope soon stifled. Paolo Barbaro declared that he would stay in Bagnara, and go back and forth to Palermo, so he could trade with the north and have another safe harbor. And that he needed a woman to look after his house and children. Giuseppina suspected that, in actual fact, he wanted to keep his wife away from her brothers. He didn’t like their proximity very much, especially the bond between Mattia and Ignazio.

  A solitary tear runs down her cheek and drops on her shawl. She remembers the rustling of the trees that come almost all the way down to the sea, and running down Bagnara streets to King Roger’s tower, with the sun refracting on the water and pebbles on the beach.

  There, on the pier beneath the tower, Mattia kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t think you’re all alone. I’ll ask the scribe to send you letters and you’ll do the same. Now please stop crying.”

  Giuseppina clenched her fists. “It’s not fair! I don’t want to!”

  Mattia hugged her. “It’s the way things are, cori meu, dear heart. We’re our husbands’ property, we have no power. You must be strong.”

  Giuseppina shook her head because for her it was impossible to be uprooted from her land like this. Yes, women were their husbands’ property, the men were in charge. But often husbands had no idea how to treat their wives.

  That was the case for her and Paolo.

  Then Mattia’s face changed expression. She let go of Giuseppina and went up to Ignazio. “I knew this day would come. It was just a matter of time.” She kissed him on the forehead. “God be with you and may the Blessed Virgin watch over you all,” she said, blessing him.

  “Amen,” he replied.

  Mattia reached out with her hand and held Giuseppina and Ignazio in a single embrace. “Mind our brother Paolo,” she said. “He’s too hard on everybody, especially on her. Tell him to be more patient. You can do it because you’re his brother and a man. He won’t listen to me.” Remembering it all, Giuseppina feels a knot in her stomach. She stifled her tears of love on her sister-in-law’s shoulder, rubbing her face against the coarse fabric of her cloak.

  “Thank you, my dearest heart.”

  The response to this was a caress.

  Hearing these words, Ignazio’s face darkened. He turned to look at Paolo Barbaro. “What about your husband, Mattia? Is your husband patient? Does he respect you? You’ve no idea how much it upsets me to leave you here alone with him,” he then added with a soft huff.

  She cast down her eyes. “He’s the way he is. He behaves the way he behaves.” Just these words. A hiss, like burning straw.

  And Giuseppina read in that expression what she already knew. That Barbaro was rough with her, that he treated her harshly. Their marriage had been arranged by their families for money, just like her and Paolo’s.

  The men can’t possibly understand that what the two of them have in common is a broken heart.

  Vittoria calls her. “Look, Auntie, we’re nearly there!”

  She is happy, excited. The prospect of a new city, far away from Bagnara, has filled her with joy from the very beginning. “It’s going to be beautiful, Auntie,” Vittoria said the day before they left.

  Giuseppina responded with a grimace. “You’re too young to understand. It’s not like here in the village . . .”

  “Exactly,” Vittoria replied, refusing to be discouraged. “A city, a real city.”

  Giuseppina shook her head while grief, resentment, and anger were gnawing at her stomach.

  The little girl leaps up and points at something. Paolo nods and Ignazio starts waving his arms.

  A launch breaks away from the cluster of ships and guides them to the dock. By the time they land, a small crowd of onlookers has gathered. Barbaro stretches an arm to grab the rope and secure it to the bitt. A man comes forward to welcome them.

  “Emiddio!”

  Paolo and Barbaro jump off the boat and greet him with familiarity and respect. Ignazio sees them talking as he pulls out the gangplank to help his sister-in-law disembark. Giuseppina stands motionlessly on the deck, holding the baby tight, as though trying to protect him from a threat. So he gently guides her down and explains, “That’s Emiddio Barbaro, Paolo’s cousin. He’s the one who helped us buy the aromateria.”

  Vittoria jumps off and runs to Paolo. He harshly motions at her to be quiet.

  Giuseppina sees a strange tension in her husband’s face. Like a deep vibration, a crack in that self-confident attitude that so often makes her stifle a cry of rage. But it’s just a second, and Paolo’s face resumes its hardness. He looks tough, wary. If he’s afraid then he conceals it well.

  She shrugs. She doesn’t care. She turns to Ignazio again and, softly so no one will hear them, says, “I know him. He used to come to Bagnara until two years ago, while his mother was still alive.” Then her tone becomes gentler. “Thank you,” she mutters, cocking her head, granting him a glimpse of skin between her throat and her collarbone.

  Ignazio slows down, then follows her.

  He sets foot on the stone quay.

  Palermo goes from his eyes to his stomach.

  He’s in the city now.

  It’s a feeling of wonder and warmth that slides into him, and which he will remember with longing when, just a few years later, he really gets to know her.

  * * *

  Paolo calls Ignazio so he can help him unload their things on the cart Emiddio Barbaro has brought.

  “I’ve found you a place next to many other folks from Bagnara who live here in Palermo. You’ll like it.”

  “Is it a large house?” Paolo throws a wicker basket full of crockery on the cart. A crashing sound heralds the destruction of at least one dish. Immediately afterward, two porters load the corriola, the trunk with Giuseppina’s trousseau.

  He grimaces. “Three ground-floor rooms. Of course, they’re not as large as the ones in your house in Calabria. A fellow Calabrian told me about it after his cousin went back to Scilla. More important, it’s just a few steps from your putìa.”

  All Giuseppina can do is stare at the stones of the quay and keep silent.

  It has all been decided.

  Her rage rises and roars inside her. It sticks to her fragmented heart and haphazardly glues it back together, so shards stick into her ribs and throat, hurting her.

  She wishes she were anywhere. Even in hell. Just not here.

  Paolo and Barbaro stay behind to unload their merchandise on the pier. Emiddio leads her and Ignazio through Porta Calcina.

  Along the way, she is attacked by the city voices. They sound brutal, ungainly.

  The air is rotten here. The whole city is dirty; she took just one look and saw it. Palermo is a wretched place.

  Ahead, her niece is laughing uproariously and doing a pirouette. What’s she got to be so happy about? she thinks grudgingly as she drags her feet on the muddy cobbles. Fair enough: she had nothing so she’s lost nothing. Vittoria can only stand to gain something from this.

  As a matter of fact, the little girl is picturing her future and dreaming, dreaming of no longer being just an orphan taken in out of charity. She pictures having a little money, and perhaps a husband who isn’t a relative. More freedom than what awaited her in that village squeezed between the mountains and the sea.

  Giuseppina, on the other hand, feels destitute and crazy.

  Past the city gate, the street runs between stores and warehouses that lead to alleys, side by si
de with houses like hovels. She recognizes a few faces but does not return their greetings.

  She feels shame.

  She knows these people, she knows them well. People who left Bagnara years ago. “Beggars,” her grandmother called them. “Wretches who didn’t want to stay in the village,” her uncle added, who chose to live by their wits in a foreign land, or to force their wives to be scullery maids in other people’s houses. Because Sicily is another land, a world apart that has nothing whatsoever to do with the mainland.

  And her rage increases because she, Giuseppina Saffiotti, is not a wretch who has to emigrate for a loaf of bread. She owns land, she has a trousseau, she has a dowry.

  The narrower the street gets, the heavier her heart. She can’t keep up with the others. She doesn’t want to.

  They arrive at a widening. On the left there’s a church with a portico enclosed by pillars. “This is Santa Maria la Nova,” Emiddio says to Giuseppina. “While that one is San Giacomo. You’ll have no shortage of places of worship,” he adds, conciliatory.

  She thanks him, crosses herself, but it’s not prayers that are on her mind right now. Instead, she remembers what she was forced to leave behind. She looks at the flagstones where leftover fruit and vegetables are drowning in muddy puddles. There’s no wind to blow away the smell of death and dung.

  Finally, they stop on one side of the square. Some people slow down and steal glances at the newly arrived, while others, more impudent, greet Emiddio while eyeing their belongings, assessing clothes and bearing, prying into their lives.

  Giuseppina wishes she could scream, Get away, all of you! Get lost!

  “Here we are,” Emiddio announces.

  A wooden door. Baskets of fruit, vegetables, and potatoes stand against the shutters. Emiddio approaches and kicks one of the containers. He puts his hands on his hips and speaks in the tone of someone making an announcement. “Master Filippo, aren’t you going to remove all these? The new tenants from Bagnara are here.”

  The seller is a hunched-over old man with a watery eye. He comes up from the back of the warehouse, holding on to the walls. “All right, all right, I’m coming.” He looks up and reveals another eye, much more alert, which immediately studies Ignazio and lingers on Giuseppina.

  “At last!” Emiddio says. “I’ve been telling you to remove this stuff since this morning.”

  The old man shuffles to the baskets and takes one down. Ignazio is about to help him but Emiddio puts a hand on his arm. “Master Filippo is stronger than you and me put together.”

  But there’s another meaning to these words.

  This is the first lesson Ignazio learns: that in Palermo, half a sentence can be worth an entire speech.

  Huffing and puffing, the seller clears the passageway. He leaves behind leaves and orange peel.

  It only takes a glance from Emiddio for them to be picked up.

  They can finally go in.

  Giuseppina looks around. She immediately senses that the place has been vacant for at least two months. The hearth for cooking is here, right by the door. The chimney flue is faulty: the wall is blackened, the tiles are chipped and covered in soot. There’s just a table; no chairs, only a stool, a few cupboards wedged in the walls, closed with swollen, cracked wooden doors. The beams are covered with spiderwebs, and there are silverfish on the ground. The floor creaks under her feet.

  It’s dark.

  Dark.

  Anger turns into revulsion, rises to her stomach, and turns to bile. It’s so overpowering that Giuseppina retches.

  A home—this? My home?

  She walks into the bedroom, where Emiddio and Ignazio are. It’s a narrow room, almost a corridor: a sickly light comes in through a window, with bars, that looks out on the inner courtyard. She can hear the roar of a fountain outside.

  There are two other rooms that are little more than closets. No doors, only curtains.

  Giuseppina holds Vincenzo tight to her chest and keeps looking around, still unable to believe her eyes. And yet it’s all real. The filth. The poverty.

  Vincenzo wakes up. He’s hungry.

  She goes back into the kitchen. She’s alone now: Ignazio and Emiddio are outside, beyond the threshold. She feels her legs give way and sinks onto the stool before collapsing on the floor.

  The sun is setting and darkness will soon fall over Palermo and this hovel, and turn it into a grave.

  That’s how Ignazio finds her when he returns. Overwhelmed, with the child whining.

  He busies himself with the luggage. “Shall I help you?” he asks. “Paolo will be back soon with the other baskets and the corriola.”

  He wants to erase Giuseppina’s look of horror. He wants to distract her. He wants to . . .

  “Stop.” Her voice is broken. She lifts her head. “Couldn’t we afford anything better than this wretched place?” she asks in one breath, without anger, without strength.

  “Not here in Palermo. The city is . . . Well, it’s a city. It’s expensive. Not a village like ours,” Ignazio tries to explain but realizes that his words will never suffice.

  Her eyes are blank. “This is a hovel. A pigsty. Where has your brother brought me?”

  * * *

  It’s dawn. Piano San Giacomo, the square Florio and Barbaro’s putìa looks out on, is almost deserted.

  The store door creaks. Paolo goes in. He’s attacked by the stench of mold.

  Behind him, Ignazio lets out a breathless sigh. The counter is swollen from the damp. There are odd bottles and jars lying around.

  Discouragement travels from one to the other, wraps around them, and settles between their chests and throats.

  The store boy who’s just handed them the keys tries to explain. “Nobody told me you were coming here. And then Don Bottari is ill, you know . . . He’s been in bed for weeks.”

  Ignazio thinks that it’s not so much that Bottari is ill, as the fact that he’s completely lost interest in the store. This desolation isn’t just a few days old.

  Paolo doesn’t comment. “Give me the broom,” he says, instead. “Go get some pails of water.” He grabs the broom and starts sweeping the floor. He does it with controlled anger. This is not what the putìa looked like last time he was in Palermo.

  Ignazio hesitates, then heads to the room he glimpses behind a curtain.

  Dirt. Mess. Papers piled up all over the place. Old chairs. Chipped pestles.

  The feeling of having gotten it all wrong, of having gambled and lost, grabs hold of him. The rhythmic sound of the broom tells him that Paolo is feeling the same way.

  Whoosh. Whoosh.

  Every sweep is a slap. Nothing has gone the way they expected. Nothing.

  He starts to pick up the papers, empties a jute sack to collect the trash. A large cockroach lands on his feet.

  Whoosh. Whoosh.

  His heart is a small pebble he could squeeze with his fingers.

  He kicks the insect away.

  * * *

  By the time midday rings, they have finished cleaning. On the threshold, Paolo—barefoot, his shirtsleeves rolled up—wipes his flushed face.

  Now the aromateria smells of soap. The store boy is dusting the glass bottles and jars and arranging them according to Paolo’s instructions.

  “Ah, so it’s true. He’s reopened the store.”

  Paolo turns around.

  The voice is that of a middle-aged man with eyes of a blue so pale it looks washed out. A receding hairline forms a light patch on his forehead. He wears clothes made of thick cloth and a plastron with a gold tie clip.

  Behind him, a girl in a lace-trimmed cape and pearl earrings, on the arm of a young man.

  “What’s happened to Domenico Bottari?” the second man asks. “Has he rented it out?”

  Paolo’s eyes drift to him. He’s younger than the other one, with a strong voice and accent, and a face covered in freckles. “I’m the owner, with my brother and brother-in-law.” He wipes his hand on his damp trousers turned up at the
ankles and proffers his hand as a greeting.

  “Are you the owner?” The young man’s face scrunches up in a laugh. “What kind of an owner can’t get someone else to wash the floor?”

  “Another Calabrian!” the girl exclaims. “Honestly, how many are there? When these people speak, it’s like they sing.”

  “So what are you going to do? Still trade in spices?” The older man has ignored the girl’s quip. Maybe she’s his daughter. Paolo thinks it’s possible, since she looks very much like him.

  The other man approaches and looks at him attentively. “Or are you also going to buy and sell other things? Where will you get your supplies from?”

  “You must be in contact with other Calabrians and with Neapolitans. Are they going to sell you the spices?” the older man also asks.

  “I . . . We . . .” Paolo would like to stop this volley of questions. He stretches out his hands, looking for Ignazio, but the latter has gone to the carpenter’s to look for timber to repair shelves and rickety chairs.

  He sees the store boy on a corner, not far from the store. He’s holding a pail and watching the two men with reverence. He motions at him to approach but realizes the boy won’t come.

  The older man comes to the door. “May I?” He walks into the store without waiting for an answer. “Bottari did good business with this store but now it’s been a while since . . .” A glance is all he needs. “You’re going to have to work very hard before you can sell something without being embarrassed.” He rubs his hands. “If you don’t know from whom to buy and how to sell, you’ll end up being open just from Christmas to Saint Stephen’s Day.”

  Paolo leans the broom against the wall and rolls down his sleeves. His voice is no longer cordial. “True, but we have resources and goodwill.”

  “You’ll also need a lot of luck.” The younger man has followed the older. He’s evaluating the shelves, counting the jars, reading the labels on the bottles. It’s as though he’s putting a price on everything he sees. “You won’t get far with this stuff. You’re not in Calabria anymore. You’re in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, and this is no place for wretches.” He picks up a bottle and follows a crack with his finger. “You’re not thinking of getting ahead with cracked containers, are you?”