Home to Italy (3 page)

Peppi waited
until well after the New Year before announcing to the rest of his friends and relatives that he intended to return to Italy. The news was greeted by almost unanimous dismay and anguished attempts to dissuade him. By then, however, Peppi had already booked his flight for Rome. His mind was made up to go in early February.

The day before he was to leave, Angie and Delores came to help him pack. Peppi could have managed the job well enough on his own for he didn't plan to take much, but the two women had insisted. They were worried sick about him. In truth, Peppi finally relented and agreed to let them help him partly because he knew it would make them feel a little bit better, but mostly because it would keep them from pestering him about the whole thing.

“I still don't understand why he wants to go back and live next to some filthy old mill when he has this beautiful home right here,” said Delores.

“I don't understand either,” Angie agreed. “It doesn't make sense. I tried my best to talk him out of it, but he won't listen.”

They were folding Peppi's shirts and trousers, placing them in neat stacks on the bed. On the floor two suitcases lay open, awaiting the final decision on which articles of clothing would be chosen for the journey and which would be left behind. Peppi was in the closet, sifting through his old suits and looking over his shoes. Before long he emerged with two sports jackets, one pair of dress shoes, and a pair of work boots.

“That's it?” cried Angie.

“How can you go to Italy with just those two pairs of shoes?” added Delores.

“I'll have the walking shoes I'll wear on the plane,” offered Peppi. “Plus I'll have my cycling shoes.”

The two women glared at him and shook their heads.

“Your cycling shoes?” said Delores. “Why are you packing those?”

“How else will I ride my bike?” said Peppi.

“What bike?” said Angie.

“My bike,” said Peppi. “I can't leave it here.”

“You have a lifetime's worth of things in this house and all you're worried about taking is your bike? And how do you plan on carrying it onto the plane?”

“Don't worry, I'll manage,” Peppi replied. With that he left the room and headed downstairs.

“How did Anna ever put up with him all those years?” he heard Angie saying as he descended the staircase.

“They're all the same,” echoed Delores.

Once downstairs, Peppi went into the garage. Wasting no time, he took the stepladder, opened it, and climbed up to the rafters. Peppi kept in the rafters many of the things he and Anna had collected over the years. Souvenirs from their trips together. Boxes of old clothes he'd been meaning to give away to the poor. Books and magazines. Some broken chairs Peppi had planned to repair one day when he found the time. The bicycle traveling case he wanted was kept stored against the back wall along with some old bicycle rims and an odd assortment of cycling equipment for which there was no storage space down below. Nearby was a cardboard box atop which rested a photo album that caught Peppi's eye.

Peppi knelt beside the box and opened the album. Inside were pictures from a trip Anna and he had taken to Saint Thomas some twenty years earlier. Until that very moment he had long ago forgotten the trip. Seeing the pictures from it brought back a flood of wonderful memories. Peppi flipped through the pages, pausing now and then to marvel at how tanned and beautiful his wife had been, how happy they were together. He gazed at every picture, trying to relive every moment. One in particular made him pause. It was of Anna. She was standing on the balcony, her face and hair bathed in the warm, soft light of the sun setting over the bay behind her. He gazed at the picture for a long time before he heard Angie calling for him. With one last look he kissed the picture, closed the album, and tucked it safely into the box. With a heavy sigh he grabbed the bicycle case and climbed back down into the garage to dismantle his bike.

The next day, Angie and her husband, Carmine, came to drive Peppi to the airport. Peppi's flight wouldn't depart Boston until after eight o'clock, but it was midafternoon and a few snowflakes were drifting down from the slate gray sky. It would be dark before long and Angie was anxious for them to leave before the weather turned bad. She hurried inside to get Peppi while Carmine kept the car running.

Peppi was sitting at the kitchen table, looking over a checklist he had written up of things that needed to be done in the house at different times throughout the year. Angie came in and looked over his shoulder.

“Boiler to be serviced every first week of September,” she read. “Change batteries for smoke alarms every six months when clocks are set forward or back. What's this for, Peppi?”

“It's for Stacy,” he told her. “When she gets married and moves in here next year, I want her to know what to do.”

“I'm sure my daughter and her husband will be able to figure out all that on their own, Peppi.”

“Eh, you think so,” he replied, “but it's hard to know all these things the first time you move into a house.”

Angie looked at her cousin and smiled. “Don't worry, Peppi,” she told him. “They'll take good care of the house. Besides, they won't be here very long.”

“Why do you say that?” said Peppi.

“Ayy, because you're going to be moving back here before long, that's why.”

“No, Angie,” he said. “My mind's made up. When I go, the house will be theirs.”

“But why!” cried Angie.

“Because this house has always been a happy house,” he tried to explain to her. “Anna and I worked hard to make it that way and that's the way I always want it to stay, happy, with happy people in it. I don't belong here anymore.”

Peppi paused and looked about the room for a few moments. It truly had been a happy house. He and Anna had always loved entertaining family and friends in their home. Whether it was hosting a surprise birthday party or serving a holiday dinner to a houseful of guests, or maybe letting some of their nieces and nephews enjoy a sleepover at Uncle Peppi and Auntie Anna's, it seemed that the two of them were rarely alone. One of Peppi's favorite events was the party they held each year the first weekend after Christmas. Peppi loved the dreamy, relaxed days after Christmas Day when all the hustle and bustle had passed and people finally slowed down enough to let themselves catch their breath. It seemed to Peppi that it wasn't until then, when the frantic rush was over and all the stress had evaporated, that the true spirt of the season settled onto everyone.

The party was a day-long affair with people coming and going all afternoon and well into the evening. Everybody would come, friends and family alike. Anna's brothers and sisters with their wives and husbands and children always came early and stayed late, as did Angie and Carmine and their kids. Peppi's cousin Erio would make the drive down from New Hampshire with his family. Even Vincenzo, another of his cousins from his mother's side of the family, would fly in every few years from California to visit. Anna would always lay out for them a feast worthy of King Wenceslaus. For starters she would put out some appetizers for them to pick on, a variety of dried sausages and cheese, olives, roasted red peppers, and fresh baked breads. These she would follow with a big platter of the real antipasti: clams casino, fried squid, broiled scallops wrapped in bacon, snail salad, smelts, and other seafood delights. Later she would bring out the lasagna or the penne or whatever type of pasta she decided to cook that day. As if that weren't enough, there was always a sirloin roast on hand with rabes and roasted potatoes and other vegetables on the side. Anna never bothered to prepare a dessert because the other women inevitably brought more pies and cakes and cookies than they could possibly fit on the dessert table. The eating and drinking and laughing and talking would go on all day, but the festivities were never quite complete until Anna sat down at the piano and the children gathered around to sing their favorite carols. That was always Peppi's favorite part of the day, for he loved the magical sound of their angelic voices.

Inevitably, Anna would be too exhausted the day after the party to even lift a finger, so Peppi would light a fire in the fireplace and the two would recuperate by spending the day snuggled together on the couch. The blissful glow from those wonderful times would stay with Peppi and Anna for days afterward and always carry them into the New Year on a high note.

Now, sitting at the kitchen table, Peppi let out a sigh. Even though he would not be there to see them, he hoped that, one day, happy times such as those would return once again to the house.

“But all your things…” said Angie.

“I'll send for what I want once I get settled,” he told her. “The rest stays with the house.”

Angie pressed him no further on the subject. Instead she let out a long irritated sigh before giving him a slap across the shoulder that knocked the pencil from his hand.

When it was time to leave, Angie held the front door while Peppi carried his two suitcases out to the car. Carmine had opened the trunk. He waited there with Angie while Peppi went back inside to get his bicycle case.

It was dark and quiet in the house now. Peppi stood for a few moments in the front hall, looking about, wondering if there was anything he had forgotten to do. When he was satisfied that he had not, he picked up the bicycle case and walked out onto the front step. He turned to close the door, but something made him stop. He paused, opened the door wider, and peeked back inside.

“Anna?” he called softly.

Peppi waited, half-expecting to see his wife come to the door to make sure that he was wearing his hat or to fuss with the scarf around his neck or to make him promise to call if he was going to be late coming home. Slowly, Peppi pulled the door shut and turned the key to lock it.

“Ciao, bella,”
he whispered. Then he turned from the door and walked away.

“You'll be back
one day, Peppi,” Luca had assured him that morning long ago when Peppi left Villa San Giuseppe for the last time.

They had been standing on the piazza by the fountain, waiting for the bus to come that would take Peppi to Naples where the ship for America awaited him. Luca nodded to the mountains on whose roads they had trained together so often. “And when you do, I'll make you suffer,
amico mio,”
he added for good measure. “Of that you can be sure.”

“Well, at least I'll always have something to look forward to,” Peppi told his friend.

There was a long silence.

“I'd stay and wait for the bus,” said Luca, his voice quavering, “but I have a hundred kilometers to ride today.”

“I know,” replied Peppi.

With a nod of his head, Luca turned quickly, mounted his bike, and began to pedal off out of the village.

“Ciao,
Peppi!” he called over his shoulder.

“Ciao,
Luca!” Peppi called after him.

Peppi stood there watching and waving until his friend had disappeared down the road. It wasn't until that moment that he realized all that he would be leaving behind. He looked about the village at the houses and the familiar faces. The tears had just begun to well in his eyes and Peppi was sure he was about to cry, but then from behind him he heard the sound of the bus rumbling into the village.

 

Peppi awoke with a start, the roar of a bus still ringing in his ears. He felt sad and alone, the dream and the memories still fresh in his mind. He opened his eyes and looked about at the unfamiliar surroundings of the sparsely furnished room. Sitting up, he peered through the dim light to the window. The shutters were closed, but they did little to muffle the incessant clamor of the traffic crawling up and down the street below. Peppi might just as well have been sleeping out on the sidewalk for all the difference they made. With a yawn, he set his feet on the floor, stood, and walked to the window. He opened the shutter a crack and looked out at Rome.

His was not a particularly inspiring view of the Eternal City. The street below was snarled with traffic and people hurried to and fro along the crowded sidewalks. It was a colorless section of town, but Peppi didn't mind; he hadn't come to sightsee. He had chosen the hotel in which he was staying because Termini, Rome's central train station, was just a few blocks away. His plan was to spend a day in Rome to get adjusted to the time change before taking the train to Abruzzo the following day.

This was only the second time Peppi had ever visited Rome. The first was as a teenager when he came to compete in a bicycle race on the outskirts of the city. The race, he well remembered, had ended badly when he was unable to avoid a spectacular crash just meters from the finish. Peppi was one of the first riders to go down in the pileup. Afterwards, scraped and bruised and vowing never to ride in Rome again, he quickly cleaned his wounds and headed straight back home to Villa San Giuseppe on the next available train.

Looking down the drab, congested street, Peppi was just as eager to get out of town as he had been that day after the race. But first he needed to rest. The trip over the Atlantic had tired him more than he had expected and he had slept almost all of the seven hours since he first checked into the hotel.

It was late afternoon now and the sun had already dipped behind the buildings across the street. Near the corner, the neon sign of a little trattoria glowed amidst the gathering gloom. It had been many hours since Peppi last ate and he felt the first few pangs of hunger gnawing at his stomach. He turned from the window and went into the bathroom to throw some water on his face. When he came out he sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments. Feeling as much revived as he could reasonably expect that first day, he slipped on his shoes and reached for his jacket.

The air was cool and dry when Peppi stepped outside and began to make his way down the sidewalk. It felt good to get out and walk after being cramped up like a canned anchovy for so many hours on the plane. Now, with all the shop lights glittering in the growing darkness, the street seemed far livelier to him than it had when he first rode in from the airport that morning. He strolled along, glancing into the windows as he passed. Soon he came to the trattoria he had spotted from the window of his room. He gave the menu taped to the window a cursory examination before stepping inside. It was still early for dinner by Roman standards and the tables were all empty.

“Buona sera, Signore,”
the owner greeted him. He smiled at Peppi and made a sweeping gesture to the rest of the room. “The restaurant is all yours,” he said in English.

“Un tavolino vicino la finestra,”
responded Peppi, nodding toward a table by the window.

“Ma lei parla bene italiano!”
exclaimed the delighted owner. “You speak Italian very well for an American.”

“How do you know that I'm an American?” said Peppi, still speaking in Italian.

“Le scarpe,”
sighed the owner, looking down at Peppi's well-worn shoes. He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Only an American would wear such shoes to dinner.”

Peppi looked down at his feet and chuckled. “I've been away from Italy for too long,” he admitted. “Not that I had much of a sense of style when I left.”

“Stay here in Rome a little while, my friend,” said the man, “I can tell you where to get some nice shoes.”

“Maybe,” laughed Peppi, “but for now I need to eat.”

“D'accordo,”
the owner agreed. “Go sit and I'll bring you a nice bowl of minestrone while you look over the menu.”

Little by little, the restaurant began to fill while Peppi ate his dinner. Most of the patrons seemed to be tourists or students. They arrived two or three at a time and talked excitedly amongst themselves in French and Spanish and German. The trattoria's owner, who later introduced himself to Peppi as Marcello, waited on all the tables with practiced efficiency. He was always busy, always in motion, but he still managed to find time to exchange a few words of lively banter with the other patrons in whatever language they happened to be speaking. As Peppi was the only one dining by himself, Marcello paid extra attention to him so that he wouldn't feel alone amidst the hubbub.

Later, when Peppi was finishing and there was a quiet moment in the restaurant, Marcello brought out two cups of espresso and sat down at the table with him. He slid one cup over to Peppi and kept the other for himself.

“I need a little break,” he told Peppi, taking a teaspoon of sugar and dumping it into his cup. Then he added another spoonful, and then another.

“You've earned it,” said Peppi with a smile. “You work hard.”

“Everybody works hard,” sighed Marcello. “We all take our turns. That's just the way of things.”

“It's a good way,” said Peppi.

Marcello took a sip of espresso. “So tell me, Signor Peppino, how is it that you speak our language so well, and what brings you all the way across the ocean from America to my little trattoria?”

“I was hungry,” said Peppi with a shrug.

Marcello burst out in laughter. “Well, I hope it was worth the trip!” he exclaimed. “Tell everybody else to do the same when you go back to America.”

“I'm not going back to America,” said Peppi. “I'm going back to live in Abruzzo where I grew up.”

“Che pazzo!”
cried Marcello. “You give up living in America to come back here? What are you, crazy?”

Peppi smiled and took a sip of his espresso. “That's the same question everyone back home kept asking me. Now that I've come back to Italy, people are still asking.”

“That's because it's a good question, my friend,” said Marcello, wagging his finger at him. Then he broke out in another great smile. “Of course, if you're going to be staying, that's a good reason to go get some new shoes.” He was just about to tell Peppi where to find the best shoes in Rome, but then one of the other patrons called to him to order a second bottle of wine.