Silence Is Golden (13 page)

She shoots me a stony look in response, and I smile to myself. Helga eventually gave in. When that little girl who gave me the idea in the first place came back in the store with her mother one day, I asked her if she’d like to come back and hear some Christmas stories one evening at a store event. Helga’s glare had been fiery, but the little girl enthusiastically said yes. The mother smiled, as if to say that was a great idea. After they left, I gazed at Helga with puppy-dog eyes.

“All right,” she finally responded. “But I don’t want to lift a finger. You have to set everything up and put it all back again.”

I restrained myself from doing a happy dance right then and there. Okay, so I played dirty, but I’m sure Helga will enjoy herself in the end.

Today’s the day of our holiday event. Emma and Benedetto have put up flyers in their shops, and Giorgia’s put one up at school. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but I’m trying to be optimistic. It’s set for six thirty in the evening on December 23, after the bookstore closes to the public. I selected passages from
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, and I found a copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s
The Fir Tree
. Aris lent me a colorful rug from his childhood room for the children to sit on. Linda made chocolate chip cookies, and Benedetto gave me a few bottles of orange soda. Emma sent me a red-and-green bouquet that I set on the counter, and Giorgia promised to stop by. She arrives at six twenty, accompanied by a child who looks about five years old.

“This is my neighbor,” she exclaims, clearly proud of acting as the parental figure for the night. She helps the intimidated child get settled on the rug. Helga is nowhere to be found, although I’m having a hard time believing she’s already gone home. Giorgia and I wait, pretending not to be disappointed by the fact that by ten to seven, no one else has shown up. Five minutes later, the door opens and in walks the little girl who helped me convince Helga, accompanied by a man who must be her father. I show her to the rug, and I thank the father, inviting him to sit on the bench. After five more minutes of awkward waiting, I decide to start the show. I sit in front of the two children and Giorgia and begin to read. The children become quickly enthralled with the story and hang on my every word. At one point, I ask Giorgia if she’d like to read, and she delightedly agrees, taking the book from my hands. As she begins to read, the door opens, and Aris slips inside. He sits in the corner, smiling at me in his irresistible way that rids my heart of disappointment or bitterness. Giorgia is so focused on her reading that she hasn’t noticed his arrival, and I’m secretly relieved. I don’t want to ruin the performance. Sometime during the reading of
The Fir Tree
, Aris leaves, as lightly and quietly as he arrived.

The children clap their hands, their eyes bright with the joy that only the magic of storytelling can bring. Giorgia looks as though she might burst with pride. The little girl’s father thanks me sincerely.

“If you do this again, we’ll definitely come back. And I promise we’ll bring other children with us next time.”

Helga is leaning against the doorway of the back room, wearing an inscrutable expression.

“Apparently, it wasn’t a great success,” she says to me when we’re alone.

“Change is always slow,” I reply, grinning.

Aris greets me with a hug outside the bookstore. I’m tired, but when he cups my face in his hands, I feel rejuvenated. I kiss his carpenter’s mark, and he takes my hand.

“Let’s go home,” I say.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I run my fingers through Aris’s hair; it’s shining brighter than the golden wooden centerpiece he brought me a few hours ago, along with the decorations he purchased at the flea market. I still think he could make much better decorations than those of that carpenter at the flea market. Any storeowner here would be happy to display his centerpiece in their window.

“You know,” I say, pointing to the centerpiece, “that would look great in Benedetto’s café.”

“It’s yours if you want it,” he replies.

“Seriously? I’ll display it until the New Year. Then I’ll take it out again next Christmas. It’ll be mine forever.”

We smile.

“Just like me,” Aris replies.

Aris and I spend Christmas together. He decorates the tree just outside the door with a string of lights, and we sit on my doorstep, looking at it together, wrapped in a blanket as the snow falls. For Christmas, I give him a shirt to match the color of his eyes. He gives me a carved wooden pendant in the shape of the red cat’s face, which I hang on the bookshelf. As usual, we don’t talk. It’s the best Christmas I’ve ever had.

After a few weeks consumed with a happiness that I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams, reality slaps me in the face. I know it won’t be the last time that happens.

As usual, I’m headed to Emma’s during my lunch break. I spot Giorgia on the path that leads to the store, and I smile. Instead of smiling back, she stops abruptly a few feet in front of me and glares at me with pure hatred in her eyes.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” I ask.

“No!” she exclaims. “Now get out of my way. I gotta go.”

I’m frozen in place, suddenly cold, and it has nothing to do with the snow. I shudder, and Giorgia passes right by without even glancing at me. What was I thinking? Did I really imagine that the villagers wouldn’t talk? I was clearly living in a fantasy world. I hate that Giorgia has obviously found out about Aris and me.

I saw the nasty look on Dora’s face the day after Aris slept over for the first time. He must have ordered her not to speak to me, so I’ve been lucky enough to avoid being attacked by her when we’ve crossed paths. But even Aris can do nothing about how angry she feels whenever she sees how Aris looks at me. I think she’s hated me ever since she first saw me at the supermarket; she was clearly blessed with the gift of foresight. But there’s a palpable difference between her hatred and Giorgia’s hatred toward me. I don’t give a shit about Dora, but having upset Giorgia makes me feel so awful that I want to go cry in a corner. But I can’t do that, since now I have to face Emma, whom I hold in even higher regard than her daughter.

I slowly enter the shop, head hanging, and I find Emma sitting behind the counter like always, arranging a bouquet. She doesn’t say anything, so I sit next to her and begin helping. After a few seconds, she reaches out and lifts my chin up with her hand, looking me in the eye.

“Hey, don’t worry. It’ll blow over,” she says.

I’m so relieved, because I couldn’t handle her feeling the same way as Giorgia does. But I can’t help but sense that something is wrong, that perhaps she is angry with me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Maybe I should have told her.”

“I don’t know,” she replies in her usual sharp tone. “Maybe it would’ve been less painful for her, but I don’t think it would change the situation much. At her age, this feels like a personal betrayal. And there’s only you to blame.”

“But what can I do? I love him.”

For a moment, she gazes at me with understanding. Perhaps she sees a past version of herself in me, the version that was in love with Giorgia’s father and thought that he would love her forever. But her expression soon changed.

“The rest of the town will turn this into a war, you know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“So you think I should have told Aris, ‘I’ve been in love with you from the moment I laid eyes on you, and I’m glad you love me too, but no, I’m sorry, we can’t be together because the rest of the town won’t like it’?”

Emma unexpectedly bursts out laughing. I stare at her in disbelief, but her laughter’s infectious, and eventually I laugh a little too.

“I understand,” she says, wincing as she catches her breath. “When you’re caught up in love, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. And if Aris feels the same way you do, then there’s no cure.”

“But I don’t want there to be a cure, Emma. I’ve never been so happy, and God only knows how much I’ve suffered in my life.” A tear slides from my eye. She looks at me strangely, and only then do I realize that I haven’t shared much, if anything, of my past.

“If you want to talk about it someday, I’ll listen,” she answers. “Now, however, I have to ask that you not come work for me anymore.”

And here’s the second slap in the face from reality. I stand up, facing away from her so that she can’t see the tears streaming down my cheeks.

“I’m really sorry, but Giorgia specifically asked me to let you go, and I can’t say no to her. She’s just too upset, and she doesn’t want to risk running into you here.”

I nod, unable to speak.

“It’ll all blow over soon, you’ll see. When it does, I’ll call you, and you can come back if you want. I’m really sorry, Emilia.”

I want to tell her that I’m sorry too, that I’m grateful she welcomed me and gave me a job and that she is like a friend to me, but I can’t. Emma doesn’t say anything else, so I leave the shop. I know I’ll miss this place, despite my initial misgivings about potting plants and cutting flowers. This is all so terribly, terribly wrong. Don’t I have the right to love whomever I want? Especially if he loves me too? Apparently not, according to locals. They’re acting like Aris is their public property, yet they ignored him before, calling him strange. And he kept to himself. I feel like Emma and Giorgia have cut me off too.

Once outside, I consider going over to Benedetto’s to say hello and to let him know that I probably won’t be in to pick up lunches anymore. But then I realize that given the time, I’ll probably run into Dora, and I just can’t handle a confrontation with her right now. So I head back to the bookstore, hoping that Helga has decided to take her lunch break at home instead of staying at the store. I’m in luck, if you can say that, seeing as my friend just gave me the sack, and I stay in the bookstore until three o’clock, thinking about what happened. Emma’s right. She did warn me, and now I have to face the consequences of my choice to love Aris. Is he really worth all this, and any other disappointments that may come my way? Absolutely.

When Helga returns, I manage to greet her with a smile. Ever since I found out about Mr. Moser and her, she’s looked at me with a confused expression, as if wondering how I can still be so nice to her. I don’t mind. I’m used to people’s petty worries, and I even sort of understand.

A handful of customers come in the shop that afternoon, and I’m happy to help them since their questions distract me from thinking about Emma and Giorgia. Plus, working passes the time until I can seek refuge in Aris’s arms. At six o’clock sharp, I say good-bye to Helga and head out. The snow keeps me from running at breakneck speed toward the carpenter’s shop.

When I arrive, the lights are on, and Aris is sitting at the drawing table. He gets up when I come in.

“What happened to you?” he asks.

I had hoped no one would notice. Since pretending otherwise won’t work with him, I fly into his open arms.

“Emma fired me. Her daughter Giorgia has a crush on you and now hates me.”

Aris squeezes me tightly and tries to raise my head, but I keep it tightly pressed against his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Emi. It’s all my fault.”

“Yeah,” I reply, burying my face in his shirt, with its familiar scent of him. “It is all your fault. How can I ever forgive you?”

Suddenly, I don’t care about losing my job anymore. I look at Aris, and I know he understands me perfectly.

“Would promising to love you and respect you my whole life, until death do us part, be enough?” he says with smiling eyes.

“That would be a good start,” I say, laughing.

We don’t work on the desk. Instead, we head straight for my house, never once letting go of each other. We walk through streets full of still-open shops and pass people who throw malevolent glances our way. We are united by our love. Together, we are invincible.

“You understand me when I’m silent, right?” Aris asks me later in bed.

“I think so,” I respond.

“Do you know why I talk so little?”

“Because even when you do talk, no one but me understands you?”

He throws his head back and laughs.

“Where have you been all my life?” he asks, staring at me as if seeing me for the first time. Then he kisses me, and I’m left breathless.

You get used to happiness pretty quickly. As unhappy as your past may have been, or perhaps precisely because of it, happiness tries to seduce you into believing it’ll last forever. Maybe some people fall into this trap, but though I’m so happy with Aris, I can’t ignore a strong sense of impending threat. I can escape it when I’m with Aris, but not when I’m alone. And now, Emma’s abandonment sits heavy on my heart. I met quite a few people while working at the flower shop, but now I do nothing but spend all my time in the bookstore, counting down the hours until I can see Aris. Spending time with Helga has become increasingly difficult. I thought that things were better between us since she let me decorate the shop and read to the children over Christmas. Instead, she seems to worry that I pose a danger to her now that I know about her and Mr. Moser. But really, if I wanted to spill her secret, the entire town would know about their relationship by now. I thought my silence on the subject would let her know she can trust me, but instead it’s made her hostile. And she wasn’t exactly friendly to begin with.

This morning, I walk wearily along the path to the bookstore and reflect on my current state. My thoughts are not rosy. If only Helga and I had a friendly relationship, then I would propose other activities for the store. I could read stories to schoolchildren or invite women to hold their volunteer meetings here, but Helga wouldn’t approve of anything like that. Not only is she uninterested in having more people in her shop, but sometimes I think she deliberately discourages customers from coming in. I bet she’d love to stay in her shop every day for the rest of her life as her business falls apart around her. I don’t want to be part of that dream. But for now, I need to keep my job so that I can pay the rent on my house.

By midafternoon we’ve had no customers, and it’s gloomy and quiet. Two policemen enter the shop.

“Good afternoon,” one says. I greet him and look at him questioningly.

“Ms. Emilia Russo?” the other one asks.

I feel a shiver run down my spine so strongly that it almost makes me jump out of my chair. Meanwhile, I hear Helga’s footsteps as she comes out from the back room.

“Yes, that’s me,” I answer.

“If you’d be so kind as to follow us please,” the first one says.

“Why? What’s happened?”

“It’s nothing serious. We just have some questions, and we have to ask them at the police station.”