And the next day, she wasn’t at work. Her son, swarthy and feral, with cap in hand but eyes that showed no respect, came in to say that his mother wasn’t well.
Matteo continued to go in early every morning to open the shop: just biding his time. And Filomena returned, with the same shawl covering her head that she had worn when she had come to the shop for the first time.
He took a step forward, holding his breath. What have you decided? he whispered.
Out in the street, a carriage went by, its iron-rimmed wheels thundering over the cobblestones. A street vendor’s cry pierced the air.
Filomena recoiled into the semidarkness to avoid his touch, until she fetched up against the shelves behind her. Her shawl caught on a roll of cloth and fell away, uncovering her face.
At first Matteo thought the shadows were playing tricks on his eyes, and then he saw clearly.
There was a piece of antique furniture in the bedroom. In the challenging lives of a married couple who had brought six children into the world and had always struggled, it had been a luxury. A gift from Raffaele, back in the days when laughter was a more plentiful commodity than even conversation was now. A tribute to her femininity. It was as if a hundred years had gone by since then.
Lucia Maione was standing with a dustrag in her hand, looking at the little dressing table. It resembled a writing desk, the slightly curved legs surmounted by two small drawers and an inlaid tabletop. Above that, an oval adjustable mirror supported by two wooden posts. A useless piece of furniture, too fragile to support anything heavy; you couldn’t have used it as a place to keep sheets or tablecloths, nor could you really have leaned your elbows on it while eating or studying. Only her two daughters occasionally played at it, making it home to a couple of rag dolls.
Lucia gazed and remembered.
She remembered her husband, stretched out on the bed, drinking in the sight of her as she brushed her hair in front of the mirror, his eyes filled with the joy of love. She remembered his adoring smile and her tenderly mocking response: What do you think you’re watching, a moving picture? And he had replied: There aren’t any actresses as pretty as you. What would I want to go to a picture show for?
A hundred years ago, life had given her a strong, cheerful husband, and then six wonderful children. Laughter, hard work, quarrels, Sundays in the kitchen, every morning mountains of clothing to wash, down at the washhouse in the piazza, singing old Neapolitan songs as she scrubbed. Life had given her gifts. And life had taken away from her as well. She hadn’t even been able to pick out Luca’s clothes, to dress him one last time. He’d left the house one morning with a slice of bread in hand, as usuaclass="underline" Cheer up, Mamma. And that morning, too, he’d taken her in his arms and made her fly, whirling her around and leaving her breathless.
The last time she’d seen him alive. He wouldn’t live to see that evening. He was my life. Why should it come as a surprise that I’ve stopped living?
Lucia took a step toward the vanity and ran an inquisitive finger over the tabletop. No, not a speck of dust. She’d become even more fussy about cleanliness and tidiness; her children knew it and they were careful. There was no dust, but there was no life either. The apartment seemed like a church; one could hardly tell that five other children still lived there. She understood that they weren’t eager to spend time with their now close-lipped and irascible mamma. She was sorry, but there was nothing she could do about it. They would go outside to play, enlivening the street below, beloved by everyone in the neighborhood, including her: but from a distance.
No dust; but there was still a black cloth draped over the mirror, the only one still in place, three years later. When the period of mourning was over, she’d gotten rid of all the other signs of it, except for her black dress and the cloth draped over the mirror. She wondered why: just that mirror. She took the chair that completed the set, a chair that for years now had only been used as a stand for their dressing gowns at the foot of the bed, and scooted it over. She sat down. She tested the seat to make sure it was stable: she’d forgotten how comfortable it was. She moved it a little closer to the vanity, careful not to drag it across the hexagonal ceramic floor tiles. She sat there for a moment, perched between past and present; her heart was racing in her chest. Why? The sounds of the neighborhood entered through the open window: Pesce, pesce, chi vo’ pesce, è vivo ancora. Fresh fish, who wants fish, fish still alive. She heaved a deep sigh, impulsively reached out her hand, and pulled the black cloth off the mirror.
Lucia had always been conscious of her beauty. Blonde, with beaming blue eyes, and a full-lipped, slightly pouting mouth. A narrow nose, just a little long, to give her face a touch of personality. Pretty. And she knew it. She’d stopped thinking about herself; who was this stranger looking in the mirror?
She looked at her eyes: a hard, slightly reddened gaze. Her mouth, thin-lipped. The new creases and wrinkles, at the corners of her eyes, running along her cheekbones: the signs of enduring, daily grief.
How old am I now? she wondered. Forty. Almost forty-one. And I look like an old woman of seventy. She looked around, bewildered. Invisible, the springtime danced in the shaft of sunlight that struck the mirror frame, turning it red. She heard Luca’s voice; she thought of her husband, who had left for work that morning without turning to look up at the window from the street, something he’d always done, a hundred years ago.
She ran her fingers through her blonde hair. She turned her face slightly to one side and tried out a smile.
XXVI
By the time Ricciardi left headquarters and set out for the Sanità quarter, there could be no doubt that springtime had made its grand entrance. There was a note of cheerfulness in the air, a gentle wind blew in changing directions, with varying intensity, carrying off the ladies’ little hats and the men’s fedoras and bowlers, rumpling the occasional overcoat. A childlike wind, one that was capricious and playful, but had stopped biting.
The dominant scent was that of the sea; but mixed in with it were the smells of new green grass and leaves, which became stronger the closer he got to the forest and the verdure of the Villa Nazionale or the Orto Botanico, the botanical gardens. The scent of flowers hadn’t yet emerged, but it hovered in the air, like a promise.
All up and down Via Toledo that morning, acquaintances had begun lingering for a chat. It wasn’t hot out exactly, but at this point the season was clearly warming up.
In the vicoli there were snatches of song and voices calling, balconies thrown open to let in a bit of sunlight. Clotheslines strung tightly between one window and another shared sheets and shirts, moving lazily in the fresh breezes. People struck up conversations with a smile, for no special reason; here and there strolling vendors spoke in familiar, even intimate tones with the young ladies who leaned out their windows, lowering coins in baskets and hauling up fruit and vegetables, or soap, in exchange.
The street organs were churning away beautifully: Amapola, dolcissima Amapola, Amore vuol dir gelosia. From the little neighborhood marketplaces rose the tone-deaf symphony of the vendors: for once, their cacophonous rumba was a pleasure to hear. Although no one saw it, if you looked closely the springtime was dancing on tiptoes, leaping from one hat to another, from one of the trees that lined the street to the next, from balcony to balcony.
And with the newly diminished space between one person and another, coin purses vanished from pockets and handbags were whisked off café tables, here and there friendly conversations deteriorated into slapping fights, and now and then a knife blade glittered in the sunlight. But this too was part of springtime. The lines of sailors and construction workers outside the box office windows of the whorehouses grew longer: it was the new season casting its spell, stirring the blood. Young women could be seen weeping over their lost loves. And the springtime laughed mockingly at all the promises that would not be kept.