A marching band could be heard somewhere in the distance.
“Oh, Angelo!” she said, looking to the sky. “I could have made an Easter torta for the children. I could have sung them the songs my mother sang. There were so many songs to sing.”
“Mom,” my father said. There were great tears in his eyes. “Why didn’t you say something to him?”
“It was not my place,” she said sadly.
“Oh, Mom,” he said. He walked slowly to her. “I never knew,” he whispered to her, looking into her darkened eyes.
“Mother,” he said, squeezing her ancient hands in his. “We’ve wanted the same thing all along. Why…” His voice trailed off. He kissed her hands and rubbed them against his face. “Why? Why have we fought?” he asked. She shook her head, lowered it.
“My bambino, my beautiful, curly-headed bambino. You had the most beautiful curls.”
My father turned to us for what seemed the first time in his life and gestured for us to come forward and enter the circle he and his mother had made with their arms. We hugged each other, all four of us. I ran my fingers through my grandmother’s hair and streamers.
“My children,” she whispered, “my children.” I felt our arms around her. She would die in the afternoon of this embrace. She was making her peace with us and with the world at the last moment — and we with her.
“Grandma,” I said, “I like your shoes.”
“Oh,” she said, looking at them and pointing her toe. “I’ve been saving these shoes for a lifetime.”
“Grandma,” Hetcher said, “that’s a nice tambourine.”
“I made it in crafts,” she said. “You know, my people always loved music. My father played the mandolin like an angel.”
On hearing this something rose in my father like an anthem and he began to weep uncontrollably and embraced his mother tighter.
“Michael,” she said, “I’m so sorry.” And he nodded. His head was pressed against her bosom, which seemed larger, more maternal somehow, softer. My father left his head on that wonderful place for a long time; when he finally looked up, her face was lined suddenly with the past.
“We used to eat these,” she said, bending over and plucking a dandelion from the green lawn. “We used to like these very much. A simple weed. We cooked it with garlic and olive oil and a few flakes of red pepper. We ate weeds and we were happy.”
My grandmother waved her arms above her head in some private choreography now, bending over and brushing her ankles in a wide, delicate sweep, a graceful rhythmic gesture.
She was humming the tarantella again. She separated from us and whirled and whirled, moving one hand to her eyes as if shading them from some brutal Italian sun.
“Piccolini,” she said. “The piccolini—” I thought those tiny fish must be tickling her childhood ankles. “The piccolini,” she smiled. To whom was she speaking? Not to us anymore — to her mother, I think. There was wonder in her voice, the wonder a daughter has for her mother when they are seeing the same thing for the first time. She pointed into the grass. “The piccolini.”
Already explosions could be heard far off. Something would burst in her head as bright, as spectacular as the year’s bicentennial display.
She danced now more quickly and continued to sing louder and louder as she whirled from one side of the large nursing home lawn to the other, spinning away from us, further and further away with each gesture. But then she came closer and seemed to focus for one moment, halting the dance with this last memory, arrested by it. She looked right at us. “We used to make little Christmas cakes of honey,” she whispered. “We called it strufoli. It was very good.” Slowly she began to dance again.
She shook her head with amazement. “I can taste it right now,” she said. Her eyes were wide. She stopped. One foot was pointed into the earth, one arm raised toward the sky. “It tastes so sweet,” she said, “just like I remember.” She closed her eyes and smiled.
Though it is the middle of the night and we are both in our nightgowns, our meeting is formal. She appears in the doorway of my bedroom holding a fistful of pens and pencils as she has so many times. Her hair, as always, is falling from the bun she wears to work. As always she looks exhausted. But this time is different. This time my mother steps forward. This time my mother is going to speak. She sits close to me on the bed. I look into her face and, much to my surprise, I see things I have never seen before, though I thought that surely I had memorized that face. There is new beauty there — or more beauty, though that scarcely seems possible. The moon is out, the stars, but it is Venus that dominates the sky, and I watch my mother intently against that fantastic backdrop. I love you so much, I will love you forever, I think. I watch her put her pencils in her pocket. Her lovely white hand falls to the bedspread.
I am surprised to hear the voice she has when she finally speaks. I expected it to be dreamlike and soupy, but it is not. It is as if she is someone else entirely, not my mother but the woman who gives interviews, the woman who has written six books, the one who gives readings. Her voice is strong, bell-like on a clear day.
I could easily touch my mother, but I do not want to frighten her away or make her feel as if she’s trapped. I do not want her to misconstrue the situation or to think that I am changing.
Though I have made no move, she seems to back away, and I feel as if I have taken such care to keep her next to me that I begin to cry. Why must she always be leaving? Her face is pained. Why must she suffer so much?
My mother looks at me as if she sees some weakness of hers in my face and grows fierce.
“No one,” she says coldly, putting her hands on my shoulders, “should feel sorry for me. I’ve had a very good life, Vanessa,” she whispers. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m a very lucky person,” she says slowly. “I wouldn’t have wanted it any different. No one should feel sorry for me. People read what I write. Don’t cry for me, Vanessa. Don’t you dare cry for me.”
She sits back as if she is getting ready to tell a long story. She brushes the hair from my neck.
“Sometimes, you know, when I have just finished a poem or have gotten a glimpse of another, made some connection I’ve never made before, felt some wholeness that has eluded me and everything falls into place, I think to myself I must be the luckiest, the happiest person in the whole world. It’s important for you to know. It’s true. I’d never lie to you.” She kisses me, hugs me, rocking me in her arms. “Oh, Vanessa, don’t you cry for me.”
“No crying now, Marta.” I bend down to her. Her face is in the pillow. I touch her curly head, its unspeakable darkness. “You’ll feel better after this,” I say. We have run out of drugs. Everything about the world bruises us — its color, its shape, its sound. It is painful for her even to move. Still she turns to me, ever hopeful.
“Come on,” I say, helping her up. She is an old woman, I think. Her foot steps are loud as we walk down the hall. I lead her into the curving w hite room. “Here now. Sit down, Marta,” I say, placing her on the edge of the bathtub and slowly undressing her. The old woman turns into a child. She looks up at me with large brown eyes, all hope, as I run hot water into the sink. She is hunched over. She says nothing, rubs her eyes. Is her head still in the pillow? Is the walk down the dark hallway, the warm water in a sink, my hands that skim the top, is it all a dream? I empty what looks to be green sand into a jar and add warm water. We are little girls playing in mud, in clay. She does not take her eyes from my hands. Her eyes are dark — almost black — beautiful, her long eyelashes, her thick eyebrows. I watch her as I mix the paste in a jar.