The Demon Catchers of Milan #2: The Halcyon Bird (14 page)

“Oh, yeah. My father’s a carpenter,” I said.

Bernardo’s eyes lit up. “Really? In America? Does he do this kind of work, too, for your family?”

“No, not the same,” I replied, embarrassed. Maybe he didn’t know the story—but his family had been friends with ours for
so long, surely he knew my grandfather had left for America after his cousin’s death, and had cut ties with those who had remained behind? Maybe Bernardo had never heard. “He has a toolbox like yours, though,” I volunteered.

Bernardo was looking for a place to park, but I saw him give a slight smile as he said, “He does, does he?”

Then we were out of the van, scoping the area. Emilio had obviously been here since my visit with Nonno, because he led the way, not into the courtyard of the Strozzi apartment building, but into a nearby courtyard, where five BMWs were parked in a row, facing the doors of a bank. Bernardo teased, “How come you don’t drive a BMW, Emilio?”

“Because I don’t work for the Intesa Sanpaolo,” Emilio replied, a hint of scorn in his voice. Bernardo chuckled.

We walked to the bottom of the parking lot, looking up until we found the tall window we were going to use, and then went back to start unloading lumber and scaffolding. We got the scaffolding assembled and stowed the lumber beneath it. By the time we stopped for the night, we were covered in sweat, even though the air was still crisply cold. As we were sliding the last planks into place, Signora Strozzi came walking down the lot, her diamond earrings flashing their warning. She stood looking at our afternoon’s work with her hands on her hips, eyeing the scaffolding.

“
Buona sera
, Signora Strozzi,” I said when I realized that I was the only one she recognized. I was used to Emilio handling
this stuff. “May I introduce you to my cousin Emilio Della Torre, and to our friend Bernardo Tedesco?”

“Piacere
,” she said, shaking hands with both of them. I had thought she wouldn’t; none of us were remotely clean. But she smiled much more warmly at each of them than she did at me.

“Where is Signore Della Torre?” she asked Emilio, sounding polite but concerned.

“Probably at the candle shop,” he told her cheerfully. “He’s getting too old to do anything but order us around.”

She smiled the same grim way her son had.

“Well, I told him that the building was not to be harmed, and no mark to be left on it,” she said.

“Oh, he made sure we knew,” Emilio said, nodding. I wanted to add, “I know! I was there, Signora Strozzi!” But I didn’t.

Signora Strozzi went on examining the scaffolding.

“How long will it take?” she asked abruptly.

“That depends,” said Emilio. Bernardo had walked off to the side, looking up at our handiwork. I drifted over to him as Emilio went on, “You know how it is. If I give you a time, the bottom will drop out of the lumber market the next day, and I’ll have to tell you something else.”

She shrugged, running her eyes over Bernardo in a way that creeped me out. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“A month?” she persisted.

“Could be a month,” Emilio conceded. He met her eyes,
and held them. “We will be in time, Signora Strozzi,” he said in a low voice.

“You had better be,” she replied, matching his tone.

He did not blink. And in the end, she was the one who looked away. After a moment, he said, “This stage is always an anxious one. Your concerns are normal,” so much like a doctor I wanted to laugh.
Concerns?
I thought.
This woman is terrified … and furious
.

She didn’t answer him, but looked up at the side of the building, as if scanning it for new scratches and dents. Then she said, “
Buona sera
. Pleased to meet you,” and walked to the front entrance of the apartment building. Bernardo came back, raised his eyebrows, and said mildly, “That went well, I thought.”

Emilio caught his eye and they both chuckled.

“We are workmen to her,” Emilio said.

I turned to Bernardo and said, “Her husband didn’t even offer me and Nonno anything to drink, the day we came to interview him.”

“Servants,” agreed Emilio. “Sometimes it’s like that. Depends on the family.”

“Same thing in my business,” said Bernardo. “Our society, with all of its class restrictions. In America, it’s more equal, isn’t it, Mia?”

I started to say yes, and then thought of all the housewives talking down to my dad and the other carpenters when they left sawdust on the carpet.

“Sometimes,” I hedged. “Some people treat you like servants and other people treat you like equals.”

He looked disappointed but not surprised.

“That’s too bad. I had heard it was different, and it’s hard to tell from TV,” he said.

“Oh, it’s different.” I smiled suddenly.

“Tell us on the way to the wine bar,” suggested Emilio. “Because, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I must eat immediately.”

I had been too excited to work with these guys to remember how hungry I was. Signora Gianna would have had a word or two to say about that, I thought. But I felt proud, proud of what I had learned, proud of my dirty work clothes, as we headed off to the wine bar. As we turned down the street I wondered what my father would think of me. Would he be proud, too?

T
he bar was a normal Milanese one, smelling of fried food and wine and smoke, with a marble countertop covered with dishes. When we walked in in our sweaty, dirty work clothes, a couple of patrons gave us a look, but the barista eyed Emilio and Bernardo the way any normal, breathing woman would, and said, “What would you like,
raggazzi
?” They both ordered prosecco. Then she said, “And for the boy?”

I looked over my shoulder, not sure who she meant, before realizing, my face hot, that she meant me. For a moment I saw myself in the mirror and thought,
I’d make a cute boy
. I blinked.

Bernardo and Emilio thought this was hilarious and didn’t
correct her. I didn’t, either, deciding instead to fill a plate with appetizers from the bar: hand-sliced salami,
mozzarella di buffala
, pickled asparagus, olives, and a small piece of foccaccia. Emilio lumped a couple of slender fish in oil onto my plate, saying, “You should try these,” even though I made a face at him. “Be a good boy.” He grinned.

I stuck out my tongue. When we sat, I felt even more depressed by her mistake. Did I really look like a boy?

Bernardo smiled at me kindly.

“You don’t see a lot of women in my trade,” he said. “And people look at the clothes. Do you feel bad about it?”

“I did, but now I’m not sure,” I admitted.

“You make a cute boy,” Emilio said, echoing my own thoughts in a thoroughly irritating manner.

“It’s true,” Bernardo agreed helpfully.

I stuck out my tongue at both of them this time, and they laughed again. Bernardo sampled a slice of salami and shut his eyes, chewing carefully. I was glad that Nonna Laura, Nonno Giuliano, Francesca, and just about everyone else had patiently scolded me for the last five months to get me to stop “eating like a wolf.” In the States, people who eat too much eat like a horse, but in Italy, they use wolf, instead. Maybe that’s where we got the expression “wolf down your food”?

Watching these two hungry guys eat slowly, I could really see the difference between them and the young guys on my dad’s jobs. I thought maybe there might be other differences as
well, and had to keep my eyes on my plate for a while, until my face (and the rest of me) stopped burning again.

“This is really good,” Bernardo said, pointing at the salami on his own plate. “Where’s it from, do you think?”

“It reminds me of the salami from the market near the Stazione Centrale,” said Emilio. “I think he gets most of his stuff from a farm on the way to Vigevano. But I don’t know. Alba and I found his stall by accident, and now I have a hard time going anywhere else.”

I had gotten more used to hearing her name, now, and it was easier with Bernardo sitting there, too. Then a pit opened up in my stomach: What if Bernardo had a girlfriend? What if there was an Alba in his world, too?

“Everything better now?” asked Bernardo.

“Oh, yeah,” said Emilio.

“You’re lucky,” Bernardo told him. I pretended I wasn’t listening.

“Women are a pain,” Emilio said, just as if I really wasn’t listening.

“Hey!” I said, looking up.

Bernardo’s eye sparkled. “Yeah, Emilio! Hey!”

“Oh, but you’re a boy,” Emilio explained.

I smacked him with a piece of bread.

“Stale joke,” said Bernardo.

I wanted to hear more about why Bernardo thought Emilio was lucky. Instead, Bernardo said, “The farm we always go to,
up near Como, has the best salami I’ve ever tasted. And the cheese, oh, the cheese. You have to taste it to believe it.”

“Didn’t we go up there one year?” asked Emilio. “My mother brought us. And Rodolfo tried to kiss my sister. They did have incredible soft cheese. Incredible.”

“I remember that,” said Bernardo.

These men were so confusing; was Bernardo referring to the cheese or the kiss?

“Francesca hit him with a huge squash, didn’t she?” Bernardo recalled. Emilio laughed again, and so did I.

“No, really? A squash?” I asked.

“A big one, a Chioggia.”

“Those are really good,” Emilio put in. “I like ravioli with a squash filling.”

“She just whacked him over the head with it? Did it break?” I asked, ignoring my cousin.

Bernardo grinned. “I wasn’t there. But you’re not supposed to do that with the farm’s produce. Rodolfo behaved like a gentleman, though, and took the blame.”

“Must have been the only time,” put in Emilio, tearing his thoughts away from food for a moment.

“That he treated a squash like a gentleman?” I asked.

They both burst out laughing, and Bernardo gave me an appreciative look.

“A squash
or
a woman,” Emilio said.

“Oh, I don’t know. Rodolfo’s all right,” Bernardo mused.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“My eldest brother,” Bernardo said.

I thought about whether I would ever talk about Gina this way, so casually that you wouldn’t guess we were sisters.

“Do you think we got enough done tonight to satisfy your grandfather?” Bernardo asked, changing the subject.

“Probably. He’s in a hurry, but he’ll understand.” Emilio made a Nonno face. “
Roma non fu fatta in un giorno
. Rome wasn’t made in a day.”

“Thank God we’re not making Rome,” Bernardo said, and helped himself to some more pickled asparagus.

“Need to go soon; kickoff is at eight forty-five,” said Emilio when he came back to the table.

I decided that I hated soccer.

Bernardo didn’t rush the asparagus, however; it seemed to me he preferred to rush the driving. He dropped us off quickly, giving a final opinion on AC Milan’s chances in the game instead of saying good-bye. Emilio and I got back to the apartment in just enough time for Emilio to race back to his place for a shower and a loaf of bread, and for me to set the table. Dinner wasn’t its usual two-hour affair; instead, we took our dessert
(torta di mele)
and coffee into the
soggiorno
to watch the game. I don’t remember who won, to be honest. I mostly remember thinking about how Bernardo smiled at me when I made a joke, as my relations made noises I never thought they could make.

“What do you think of this, eh?” asked Francesco.

“I think you sound like a bunch of
elefanti
,” I told him. He slapped his leg, laughing, and accidentally knocked my coffee over, spattering everyone but me.

“Francesco!”

“Aiuto!”

“Mi dispiace!”

“Clean it up before it stains my carpet, you
elefante
!” Nonna ordered amid the chaos. We missed a goal, I don’t know whose, and Aunt Brigida chewed her son out for not automatically bringing me another cup right away.

“She will think you were raised in a cave, my child, not in our apartment! Shame on you.”

I heard my mother’s voice saying, “Who raised you?!”

Falling asleep that night, I felt as if I could cup the memory of the afternoon and evening in my palm—all the hard work followed by good food and talk and jokes, and the feeling that I belonged. Most of the time, anyway.

The next day was Francesco’s half day, so he joined Bernardo and me. Every day after that, though, I spent more time up on the scaffolding than anyone but Bernardo. Then again, I was the only Della Torre besides Nonno without a day job. Despite everybody’s busy schedules, however, we always had two or three family members with us, to my disappointment.
It’s not like he’s a demon, for goodness’ sake
, I thought to myself.

It wasn’t that bad. I was happy. Every day that week, I got to work near him, smelling his Italian-boy cologne and his sweat.
Every day, I started out shy, like I had in the van the first night, and got over it when he showed me how to prepare the wall or square off the doorframe. Once he corrected my grip on the
cacciavite
by laying his palms over my hands while he stood behind me. I found it totally impossible to remember what he’d shown me, and hoped he wouldn’t notice that I stripped the next five screws and had to work them out with the claw of a hammer.

About eight screws after that, Emilio came over to show me how to place the silver nails, like the ones in my demon-catching case. Turning his back on Bernardo, he murmured a soft chant. I felt dizzy at the sound of his low voice, but I was used to feeling this way around Emilio. I did as he did, using an old-fashioned square iron nail to tap a hole in the wood, then fitting the silver nail in place, watching my steel hammer flatten the head against the board. I could begin to see the pattern they would form as we placed them around the Second Door.

Bernardo was working on the other side of the balcony and didn’t seem to notice what Emilio and I were doing. I couldn’t tell if he was pretending. Our families had known each other for so long that he must know something about what we did. I made a note to ask Emilio about it later. I did notice that Emilio chanted under his breath, so low I could hardly hear what he was saying. Bernardo had hung a radio off a beam, and Emilio used the sound to mask his words. I also realized that Bernardo made sure to let us know when he was moving closer to our side of the balcony or dropping down the scaffolding to go to the van.