Enchantments (9 page)

I find this story more exciting than
Wuthering Heights.
That night Clara and I discuss it.

“Here's what I think. I think he should kidnap her. They could find a priest to marry them in secret, and the two of us could be witnesses.”

Clara says, “I don't think they'll get married.”

“And why is that, excuse me very much.”

“Because Mariapia doesn't want it.”

“But you're not listening–I told you he'll kidnap her and they'll get married in secret.”

“Yes, fine. But you'll see–when he comes to her house to kidnap her, Grazia will say no, that she doesn't have the courage to do it.” Then, after a moment of silence, Clara adds, “Do you think Papa will be as terrible with us, the way Mariapia is with Grazia?”

“But what are you saying!” I blurt back. “Just because they're cousins doesn't mean they have to be alike.”

But at the same time I have a sudden doubt because I remember the way Papa says that if any suitors show up for us he'll kick their backsides.

Not long after that, Mariapia, Elisabetta, and Grazia came to visit. Grazia had swollen
eyes. I couldn't wait for the grown-ups to settle into their chairs in front of the house so we could go to the park. Once she was alone with us, Grazia said that it was all over, that her mother had begun to suspect and one day she'd followed her to the gas station where they'd agreed to meet to go up into the hills, that her mother had dragged her home, hitting her the whole way, and that Aunt Elisabetta had had the husband of a friend of hers telephone the owner of the shop so that the boy was fired. Now she could only leave the house if she went with her mother, and next year her mother was sending her away to boarding school. She burst into tears, and Clara and I each held one of her hands. Then, still sobbing, she said, “My mother says he's lower class and for me to get it into my head that I'll marry at least a notary.” She burst into tears again, and I tried to find something comforting to say, and I racked my brains for some ray of hope or some dramatic turn, but nothing came to mind so I began to cry too, praying with all my might that Papa wouldn't take after his cousin Mariapia.

This ship is a city without danger where Clara and I can live on our own. Of course our parents are there, but we don't have to ask their permission and there's so much space we don't have territorial disputes with our brothers. We have a cabin all to ourselves—the key is by turns a hard little bulge in my pocket or my sister's.

We can do whatever we want whenever we please—either play “sky” on the promenade deck or go to the movies—in the morning, for free. When we come out we're blinded by the unbroken light of the sky and the sea. Some nights, with blankets pulled up to our noses, we lie on deck and count the stars, starting all over again when we lose count until we begin to see red and green
planets and it's time to go to bed. For the first time in our lives we stay up till dawn, but it turns out to be a disappointing paleness.

One morning we see a whale's spout draw a mustache on the horizon, but no one believes us, neither our parents nor our brothers, four sniggering faces at the dinner table. We ignore them—we're strong after all these days that are ours alone.

The crossing to America lasted ten days, and then my mother pointed to the Statue of Liberty and the ship came into port, entering her slip to a volley of skyrockets. In the crowd on the pier there are Mama's cousins, their eyes glistening and laughing, their mouths forming words that are lost in the general cheering and fanfare.

In New York, Mama spends all her time talking with her cousins, so Clara and I always go out with Papa, walking for hours along avenues that are like immense diving boards stretching out into space. For some reason I kept expecting to see Cary Grant coming out of a revolving door from one of the buildings in Midtown, his necktie blowing in the wind—all of it in black and white.

Papa took Clara and me to a huge store
with three floors where there was nothing but toys.

At the entrance he turned us loose, saying, “You can pick three toys each.” He turned to me and said, “You keep an eye on the clock. When the hands reach here and here it will be half past ten, and we'll meet at the cash register. All right?” Yes, that's fine, but I'm already losing my head and I say to Clara that we'll never manage to choose, all those possibilities are making my head spin. And of course I go wrong. In the coloring section alone there are two dozen shelves. I finally pick a box of crayons, which I don't usually like to use, but on the box there's a tiger with three tiger cubs, my favorite animal of the moment. Then I grab a teddy bear dressed like a forest ranger, not much of anything but certainly better than my next choice, completely absurd— a baseball mitt, for a sport that it has never entered my head to play but whose red stitching and beautiful leathery toughness somehow hypnotize me.

When I meet my father at the cashier's counter I'm discontented and upset, as if I've been defeated in a way I can't bear to admit, and I start complaining about how cold I am because of the air-conditioning. So it all ends badly with
me getting a scolding: “Stop that sniveling. What a whiner you are! And you're spoiled.”

We take a trip to the north in a rented station wagon that for days and days I saw as completely immense until my eyes got used to that big country, filled with highways that had no curves. We reached Cape Cod on a gray afternoon, with the sea, the sky, and the dunes all the same color. My brothers and I suddenly got a desperate urge to run on the beach, so we began chanting our “chorus of persuasion” that consisted of each of us, one after the other, saying “Come
on,
Papa!” faster and faster. It worked. We spilled out of the car and ran headlong toward the dunes. They were so high that as I watched my brothers scramble farther and farther up they became smaller and smaller, and when they reached the crest they were as small as shriveled trees on a gigantic mountain and I was afraid that a gust of wind would blow them away. I yelled with relief when I saw them come tumbling down to me in billows of sand.

We rented a bungalow by the sea, and for the first time Clara and I were separated, each of us sharing a bedroom with a brother, she with Carlo and I with Pietro. That evening, as we lay
in our beds, Pietro taught me the game of composing the ideal menu. I always put in lobster, which I'd discovered on Cape Cod. We ate them at rough wooden tables with long plastic bibs tied around our necks. I would say, “I want another,” and Mama would say no and Papa would say yes. She thought it would make me sick, but Papa was happy that I liked something that much.

The people we met were certainly nicer than in France, where, whatever you asked them, they answered with an irritated shrug or a puff of disdain. But in contrast to Italians, each nice in his own way, the Americans had a ready-made niceness—set formulas that were always telling you to do something. The gas station attendant said, “Have a nice day.” The waiter said, “Enjoy your meal.” The bellboy said, “Watch your step” as he showed us into our hotel room.

One time when Papa was in a terrible mood because we had a flat tire and it was getting dark, Mama laughed and said, “Don't worry! Be happy!” and he started laughing too.

After Cape Cod we went to see Niagara Falls, but I found it depressing. The incessant roaring in the middle of all that mist upset me, and at the museum they showed us a barrel in which an old woman had thrown herself over the
falls and died. That evening, however, we slept in a motel, all of us in the same room, and we took turns telling jokes in the dark, and when I closed my eyes I hoped it was forever, now that I was there, once more happy and safe.

For a long time, every afternoon around three, there was a quarter of an hour of traffic in our building between the first floor and the fifth. Clara and I, along with Anna and Gabriella, loaded the elevator with dresses, purses, scarves, hats, umbrellas, a rocking chair, a trunk—and then a teapot, teacups, and books—and we kept it going up and down, up and down, while the residents of the other floors looked at us sternly. It would have been useless to explain what on earth we were up to or how important it was, because they wouldn't have understood in the least. At that very moment they were no longer Monsieur Gramont or Madame Desmoulins with children and grandchildren of their own, but citizens of the building—co-owners whose right to
the undisturbed and prompt use of the elevator (clearly posted in the regulations) was being intolerably violated. So, pretending not to hear the pounding on the elevator doors and avoiding the icy looks of those who'd given up and were using the stairs, we lowered our heads and carried on with our work.

Depending on whether it was a Monday or one of the other weekdays, we were moving the stage setting of our favorite game, Little Women, either from our friends’ apartment to ours or from ours to theirs. Since certain indispensable elements belonged either to them or to us—too bad for the neighbors. It was a case of absolute necessity.

The first time we played Little Women we had to assign the parts, and I was in a panic because I knew exactly which part I wanted but was not at all sure of getting.

Anna, the eldest, will be Margaret, called Meg, the oldest March sister. Sensible and poised, she'll wear the long, blue, somewhat severe dress that belonged to Anna's grandmother, and she'll wear her hair in a long braid. So far, so good, we all agree. But now my anxiety has increased because if we keep on assigning the parts by age, it's all over for me. And in fact I hear
Anna saying to me, “You're a year younger than me, so you'll be Jo, the second—”

“No, that's impossible, that's out!” I suddenly explode, stamping my feet because I want, I want no matter what, the part of sweet, tender, beloved Beth, who plays the piano and then comes down with scarlet fever and dies, breaking everybody's heart.

“Well, who do you want to be then if you won't be Jo?” Anna asks.

“Beth” comes out in a hoarse whisper, but when they all ask why, I can't say—I'm in the grip of a shameful dark wish, and the more ashamed I am, the more I insist. “I want to be Beth.” I'm so unreasonable and obstinate, even threatening to go home, that Anna is forced to give in. “All right,” she says, “but that means that Gabriella will have to be Jo.”

It's only now, now that I'm worn out and guilty, that I can think of plausible arguments. “Yes—Gabriella is perfect for the part. She's independent and lively, just like Jo. And she likes books, just like Jo. Isn't that right, Gabriella? Whereas I prefer music … “

So Clara will be Amy. They're both the youngest, and they both have turned-up noses.

My sister protests, “But I'm not vain like
Amy.” She says this in a whiny voice, on the brink of a tantrum, and I'm so afraid that something will happen to unsettle the casting that I sweetly reassure her, “Of course you're not. When you act you have to pretend to be a certain way, and you're not vain at all, so if you can make us all
believe
you are, you'll be a really good actress. See?”

Yes, she seems to have gotten the idea, because she's rummaging through the basket of barrettes, ribbons, and brooches, reconciled to adorning her hair as elaborately as the script calls for. “And don't forget this,” I say, handing her a clothespin. “You have to put it on your nose the way Amy does to keep it from growing too wide.”

“But it'll hurt.”

“If you want to be a good actress, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices,” I say sharply, I the good Beth. Anna comes to the rescue. “You don't have to wear it the whole time. I'll give you a signal during the scene when it's time to put it on.” And each of us finishes gathering up the bits and pieces of her costume in silence.

I consider my booty on a corner of the bed: a long satin dress with a purple skirt and a lilac top, a snood, a bowl of flour, and gray eye shadow.

I get dressed in front of the mirror and gather my hair up in the snood. With a cotton ball I cover my face with flour, a nice thick layer. With the eye shadow I turn my eyes into two ghostly sockets. I'm very happy with the effect, and I ignore Clara when she says that I look as if I'm already dead. Anna and Gabriella don't seem particularly keen either, but because of my earlier outburst they avoid saying anything. At last we're ready, and Anna says, “I'll begin with the scene where the sisters get the letter from their father after he's gone to war.”