Lambrusco (2 page)

An invitation. A banquet, with guests of the German Army.

Respectful. Earnest. He was a fan. He had a speech in his head, delivered like a recitation at school.

“Signora Fantini, I once heard you sing in your late husband's
trattoria
by the shore, as long ago as that, before he moved up in the world to have a grand, well-known restaurant, named Aldo for himself, which your son made twice as successful, as young as he is. I'm sorry that, due to needs of our government, he's no longer in charge of it, not that I've had the pleasure of a meal there, as it's a mess hall for officers only. When I heard you sing, although I don't recall what the tunes were, I said to my mother and father, because we'd just got a power line to our house, ‘I feel that this beautiful lady is singing to us like electricity, but without any wires or plugs.'”

“My voice, unfortunately,” I answered, “is not what it was. It's full of static these days.”

“I'm told it has aged like the best of wines.”

“You were misinformed.”

“Signora, please, I'm not insensitive to the personal struggle you may feel, because of the location of where they want you to come. It would be wise of you not to refuse them. I've been instructed to ask you, how is your son? It's been said he's not well.”

Beppi was living at home then, pretending to be a lunatic. The squad was just beginning to be formed.

All through the visit, Beppi walked around in the nut orchard, briskly. Now and then, as if some inner peasant self of his had kicked in, he pulled at weeds or tall grasses; he swung his arm like someone who held a machete. He was out of breath in five minutes, but he put up a good front.

Marcellina stepped forward to answer the young Fascist's question, and the others he came up with. There was never only one.

Look, out the window. Look at poor Beppino in the orchard—we let him out for exercise. You can see for yourself what sort of state he's in since the change in command of the restaurant, not that I'm bringing up that subject. No work. No women to pay lavish attention to. He's taking it personally, what else could one expect? He's nonpolitical; his whole existence is his work. He has become unbalanced. Soldiers everywhere; he can't remember why. We give him medications; he has to be treated like an
anziano,
like he's ninety. He goes around like his bones are as heavy as metal—we keep remarking on it inside the family; it's almost a prophecy come true. He sits in a chair with a shoe in one hand, six hours at a time. If you want the shoe on his foot, you have to do it for him. All day he asks the same crazy things, over and over: why are my waiters, whom I loathe, coming to see me at home, talking cheerfully about absolutely nothing, like I'm a patient in bed, and why am I home all the time anyway, did my restaurant fall into the sea? The doctor's here twice a day, Ugo Fantini, yes, the cousin, the same one who looked after poor Aldo. He's tearing his hair out trying to find a cure. For Beppi, anything. Also, the priest comes daily, yes, Don Enzo Malfada, of the cheese family. There's always solace in prayer.

“What was that about a prophecy coming true?” asked the Fascist, stricken with curiosity.

Marcellina had managed to fully engage him, so he didn't know that I'd gone into the kitchen to gather up the guns we'd been cleaning at the table. I got them into the broom closet as Marcellina talked and talked.

“Don't you know about Beppino Strepponi? You poor boy, you were deprived! He's a legend! I could swear he's better known than even Pinocchio!”

“What's the legend about?” For an instant, the soldier's voice was the voice of a boy.

“Beppino Strepponi,” said Marcellina, “whom our Beppi was named for, lived to be two hundred years old, not that he ever died.”

“Wait a minute. Beppi Fantini was baptized Giuseppe,” said the Fascist. “I looked it up, which I had to do because I'm investigating him.”

“That's right. Giuseppe, for Verdi. A formality only. Let me enlighten you. The bones of Beppino Strepponi, which were made of iron, had ended up rusting. It's all this sea air. He was a giant and as rich as the Pope. He knew everyone, he was fantastic. In fact, he was a direct descendant of Adam, on the Italian side. Do you know the big rock hill by the sea, near the pier called Crab Point? Of course you do, you grew up here. If you don't know the legends, you at least know geography. Those rocks were once a mountain of dangerous cliffs, against which boats kept crashing. As his last act of life, Beppino Strepponi slammed his fists at that mountain and battered it to pieces, most of which fell into the water. It's said that if you move the rocks of Crab Point, you'll find a bunch of rusty old pipes. But they're not pipes at all. They are a hero's bones.”

“I used to swim there.”

“The original Beppino protected you from drowning,” said Marcellina.

Good for her for changing details to make the story local. She'd never made up anything before; she hadn't thought she had it in her.

In the original story, invented by Aldo for an operetta that was never written down, the iron-boned giant was a Sicilian pirate. The part about rusting was true. The hero's remains were buttressing a fishermen's pier, but he came to life every couple of years to rob banks, private vaults, and even the Vatican, which was not, he'd point out, like robbing an actual church. It was more like robbing a
palazzo
in which the king, or maybe a duke, was so awash in riches, he'd never notice that anything was missing. Beppino Strepponi, always mindful of his roots, brought all the loot south, off the mainland, to his people.

Aldo had planned an intricate theatrical production for the restaurant, with guitars, tambourines, accordions, drums. He talked about it all through Beppi's childhood. I'd play the pirate's mother.

“It's Raining Gold Coins In Palermo” was the only song he had actually composed. It was Beppi's favorite lullaby.

It's raining gold coins in Palermo,

It's raining gold coins in Palermo,

So thank you, Beppino Strepponi.

Go to sleep now, you deserve it.

Sleep well. Tonight we love you even more.

I was now back in place beside Marcellina. “I apologize if you've been bored with old legends no one knows about anymore,” I said to the Fascist.

“I enjoyed it.”

Then came the presentation of a gift. The boy was all business again. “For you, Signora. A fine, dry Lambrusco, your wine of choice, and the specialty of your adopted region. It's distressing to see your son unwell. I'm sure you agree with me that it's imperative he come to no harm, especially due to an incorrect decision you might make, at this moment.”

I accepted the bottle, but it was never opened. Later that night Beppi shattered it on rocks behind the house.

Suddenly the train slowed down, with a huge metallic shudder and a hissing of brakes. An unscheduled stop? For military reasons?

When I was on it last month for a flour-and-gun run, it came to a halt nowhere near a station; the
nazifascisti
who came aboard were prowling for partisans. When they reached my compartment they merely peered inside, and one of the soldiers grinned at me. He pointed to my bags—from a hat shop that time. He told me in bad Italian he was sure my new purchases would look spectacular on me, and if he weren't so busy, he'd love to have me open the bags and model them for him, as there was always a place in his heart for pretty hats.

It was all right. This was not a forced stop, just a regular one: civilian comings and goings. I'd miscalculated the length of time between stations.

Four more to go. The train was running on schedule. At this time of the morning, the soldiers on Mengo station duty went inside to tell a clerk to make them coffee. If there wasn't any, they headed across the street to a bar.

I had to steel myself up for the long walk home from the station. It would take at least an hour, involving footpaths and old wagon lanes.

On the main road it was twenty minutes, but the main road was full of Germans. There was no gasoline for the car. My bicycle was at home in the yard, untouched since the notices went up in the village with the curfew alerts—in German, but you got the idea. Bicycle riding by Italian people
verboten.
How many Germans had entered Italy in the last few weeks? A hundred thousand. Two. Hard to tell.

I didn't hear the sound of the compartment door being opened. It was a current of cool air from the passageway that made me turn and look up.

A nun. A very tall, slender nun, ducking low in the doorway as if bowing. Coming in.

I nodded at her, said nothing. The nun took a seat by the door, leaned back, and adjusted the long rosary hanging down from her belt, so that the big black beads on the silver chain lay smoothly, not all bunched up. She reached into a pocket—nuns always had deep pockets—and took out what appeared to be a small Bible. She placed it on her lap and folded her hands on top of it.

She was almost six feet tall. If I weren't so weary and worried, I would have enjoyed the pleasure of finding this astonishing. Her age was close to Beppi's. She had a long, smooth oval of a face: attractive without being pretty, with a high forehead, high-set cheekbones, a narrow nose, thin lips, and not a spot or blemish. She made me think of the word “rugged.” Her skin looked as weather-exposed as a farmer's. Her eyes were wide and slightly squinty, like eyes that gaze very often into sunlight.

The main garment of her habit—the long dress—was dark gray, and made of a light wool or flannel. It didn't belong to a local order. Over the dress was a black, surplice-type second layer: a sort of jumper, ankle-length like the dress, but without side seams; it was held in place by her belt.

The headdress was a gray veil, edged with a semicircular, narrow white band. Not a hair of her head was exposed, but her eyebrows were brown-blond, the color of dry beach sand. The veil went down her back to well below her shoulders, lightly. At the top of the dress, covering most of her neck, was another white band, cuff-like.

Not Italian. Absolutely not German. French, maybe, but probably not; the habit was too simple. French nuns dressed elaborately, like white-winged, exotic birds, always about to fly away. American? English? Did England have nuns? Weren't nuns supposed to travel with their orders, or at least in pairs?

What did it matter what the rules were? All rules were off in wartime.

I moved closer to the window, pretending that everything out there fascinated me, as if looking out the window were the reason I rode this train. The bags were on the floor between my feet. The weight against my ankles was comforting, like a pair of sandbags.

We chugged on, rocking in a jittery way. Soon the sea would appear. I looked forward to the sight of the coastline above Rimini. So far, there were no encampments in the area. I loved the names of the towns: Cervia, Cesenatico, San Mauro, Bellaria, all tucked in with their colorful cottages and gaudy hotels, autumn-lazy and placid, staring out at the sea as though nothing could ever go wrong.

The night I came home from singing to the
nazifascisti
at Aldo's was when I committed myself to the strike.

What did I sing to them? I kept trying to remember. There were requests from the audience. I'd been handed a typed list of song titles with instructions at the top, in Italian, saying, “Members of tonight's audience will make requests from the list below, allowing the beautiful singer to concentrate on her performance by sparing her the trouble of putting her own program together.”

I was driven to the restaurant by a German soldier who talked to me in German and never seemed to notice I didn't answer. I'd walked into the restaurant the back way, at the kitchen entrance. Talking to the cooks was forbidden.

The head chef, Mariano Minzoni, was there, along with the four other cooks. Not by choice. They were not getting paid. In two chairs near the main prep table were two Germans. Kitchen guards.

In the old days, everyone used to call sharp-faced, leathery old Mariano a tyrant, as if the worst thing that could happen to them was abuse from a bullying chef. Even Aldo had been afraid of him.

He was flanked by soldiers, in his apron, a knife in his hand, getting ready to carve the roast that smelled so good. When he looked at me, his eyes welled up and he grabbed for an onion, leaning in close to it to chop it. He made a point of tipping his head in a particular way, then turning, as if he'd cramped his neck and had to loosen it. He did this several times, until he got it across to me that he wanted me to notice his ears.

He had stuffed them with cotton. Was he telling me he had a head cold or infection? Did he want me to get the message to Ugo Fantini that he needed a doctor? Everyone knew that Ugo's house, with his office on the ground floor, was being watched. Fascists followed him on house calls, sometimes in their own cars, sometimes in his. They suspected there was a squad; they figured its leader was Ugo. But if Mariano needed him, he would come.

I was about to say, with my eyes and a tilt of my head, “You have earaches, Mariano, I understand, I'll fix it up with Ugo,” when I realized that the others had paused in their labors and were showing off their ears, too: little Rico Pincelli, the pimply apprentice, whose brother was a waiter on the squad, and who had to be watched so he wouldn't run off and try to join them; shy, blond Fausto Fabbi, the seafood specialist, whose hands were always red, always cold; Romano Buffardi, pasta and vegetables, who was beginning to form a paunch; and sullen Gigi Solferino, the sauces and soup man, who was next in line to be
capo della cucina
if Mariano ever retired, which was highly unlikely. Gigi was older than Mariano by several years, and suffered from a palsy that made his hands shake; he couldn't be allowed to use a knife.

All their ears were plugged with cotton, same as their boss's. The guards had no idea. “Sing as badly tonight as you can, and we won't know, as we've made the effort to restrict ourselves to your best,” they were saying to me. Or simply, “We won't join the bastards in hearing you.”