“Or I can take the train to-”
She looked at her watch. “We’ll decide later if there’s time, but we need you here tonight.”
“What should I say in the telegram?”
“Come home at once.”
“Where’s Carmela?” Renata asked, a hand on her forehead.
“She didn’t tell you?”
While she told them about Carmela’s job in Paris, Renata busied herself in the kitchen. Dishes and cups, pots and silverware trembled in her daughter’s hands. Vicenzu paced. Maria’s piano played that awful Brahms, but at least the youngest were in the other room or upstairs. Serafina hugged Renata, popped more olives into her mouth. There was purpose in her step.
Serafina looked at Assunta. She was sitting in her corner in the kitchen, one hand covering her eyes, the other holding a rosary.
“I want you to do some research,” she said to Vicenzu, as she stroked her daughter’s back.
Vicenzu smiled.
“Tomorrow I want you to go to the office of Messageries Maritimes in Palermo. We’ll need… she tried to count in her head, but couldn’t, brought out her notebook and sat, pushing back the curls that had fallen into her face. “Let’s see,” she mumbled and began to scribble. “Tell them we’ll need accommodation for a party of at least seventeen from Palermo to Paris, six or seven staterooms.”
“Paris?” Renata asked. Her eyes were wide. She carried an empty plate to the table, carried it back.
“Do the same at the other shipping lines but give them different destinations-Sao Palo and New York. Tell them we leave as soon as possible, but don’t buy anything yet. I just want an approximate cost. And not in steerage. I want first class accommodations. Hard enough leaving.
“Assunta, I want to talk with you in private.”
In the parlor she told the domestic they were leaving, she didn’t know where yet.
“The land is bad,” Assunta said.
“Yes, and we must leave. I pray you’ll come with us, but it’s your decision.”
“Where are we going?”
“A better city, but I don’t know where yet. Think, and tell me tonight, but tell no one else, not the caretaker, not your friends, not anyone else except perhaps Gesuzza.”
“Does she go with Rosa?”
“I don’t know yet. And now I have to leave.”
Rosa had heard about the fire. “Let’s go back to Paris,” she said. “Perfect for Tessa. It doesn’t have to be forever. The caretakers and guards can watch the houses.”
“Besides Tessa, who else?”
“Formusa and Gesuzza. I must have them both.”
“I asked Assunta. We’ll meet tonight after supper.”
Is leaving really leaving if it’s not forever? If I bring all that I love? Would I go without Rosa, without my children?
Serafina opened Loffredo’s door. The waiting room was crowded-women with pale faces, men with bandaged limbs or swollen ankles, an old soldier with a growth on his face. She sat. He wasn’t back fifteen minutes and already had patients. Would he want to leave his practice? Of course not, but would he?
Loffredo was about to call the next in line when he saw her. He waved her inside. “My wife,” he said, shrugging to the room. “You know how it is.” He smiled.
“The drugstore burned to the ground. Carmela knew and didn’t tell me.”
“We must leave,” he said.
She nodded, staunching her tears with a linen. No time to cry. “I’ve told Rosa. She’s coming for supper tonight. But first I need to find out who’s behind this.”
“How could you not know? He calls himself your brother.”
Serafina had to sit. “He told you that?”
He nodded.
“You knew all this time?”
He held up his palms.
“And you never said.”
“Why would I? I’m not sure I believe him, but what difference does it make?” He scratched his chin, peering at her. “Although I have to admit, there’s a physical resemblance.” He touched her curls and smiled. “Told me you share the same mother.”
She shivered. “Why?”
“Who knows?” Loffredo shrugged. “He’s cunning, you must admit. I think he’s trying to spoil your happiness. What we did to his men in Paris, he won’t let go of that.”
“He’ll crush us if we have to keep paying protection. When did he tell you about my mother?”
“A few years ago. I remember it was in the spring. He was standing in front of the music store. I was passing and he stopped me. Weird sort of thug, he was listening to the Brahms coming from Lorenzo’s shop. He mentioned Maria’s name, said it was her piano. He said she was his niece. Brahms is an odd thing for a thug to like. You’re pale.”
Delivered in a deathbed coup, Maddalena told her tale to Serafina, a story about bearing a son out of wedlock. Don Tigro had ginger curls like hers, gestures and a saunter like her mother’s. You’ve given me a burden, Mama. But after all, the woman was delirious when she told the tale, perhaps a chimera. Poor Mama, she must have been so lonely. No one else knew except Don Tigro, and come to find out, Loffredo. Could the don have told others? Her children must never learn of it. A real burden, Mama.
She had to calm herself.
“Fina!” He held her and she wanted him right then and there so she kissed him hard.
“We can’t, you have patients.”
Seven minutes later she left Loffredo’s office, blowing him a kiss and re-pinning her hair.
But he caught her before she opened the door, kissed the shoulder where she’d been shot.
“Have you read Busacca’s letter?”
She shook her head. “We’ll talk after supper. All of us.”
“Perhaps Paris?” he asked.
She had to think. So she hurried to the public gardens, the gardens that used to be lush, a place where birds gathered. Today a few flowers wilted in the dusty light and no birds sang. She sat on the same stone bench where she and Giorgio had courted. One night they faced Betta and Tigro, the four of them talking as two young couples will do on the edge of new life, Betta’s stomach distended with twins. Now that world with Giorgio was gone.
She steeled herself and walked around to the other side of the piazza and sat, staring at the burnt wood and ashes, the remnants of Giorgio’s apothecary shop. She choked, glad she hadn’t seen the flames and felt tears crowding her eyes, a throbbing in her head. Remembering Giorgio in his white shirt and black vest as he stood in back of the counter-his counter, his father’s, their store for generations-she smiled. He was young then, young and certain, eating his morning snack, honey dripping from the corner of his mouth. She pictured him pouring the wine while they were gathered around the table, his laughter tumbling over them, the children grabbing, the house rich with the smell of roasted pork. They were prosperous then. She longed for five more minutes of that time. But that could never be: Oltramari had changed, and she’d been holding onto the dream for too long.
She dried her eyes and drove a fist into her thigh, thinking, he’ll pay, one day he’ll pay. In her mind she slammed a splintered board into the side of his head, crushing it, just as the Virgin had done to the snake. Devil, he’s a devil. She imagined one side of Don Tigro’s head missing, like the woman Elena had killed in the Rue Cassette. She squirmed. No, she wouldn’t sink to that level. But she owed him a visit or her anger would corrode.
When she arrived, two men lounged outside his baglio on the outskirts of Oltramari squinting into mid-afternoon light, sweat on their faces, the air around them sour. She asked to see Don Tigro.
“Not here,” one said, rolling the straw to the other side of his mouth. He adjusted himself while he stared at her. A tough, he wore cheap suits and cardboard shoes.
Serafina’s eyes fell to the bulge underneath his vest, a gun.
“Tell him it’s Serafina.”
Inside his office, Tigro told her to sit. She declined.
“Where’s the money you owe me?” he asked, his teeth gleaming, his body unmoving.
She stood there, calm. She said nothing.
He wore a Savile Row suit, a diamond stud in his cravat. “I gave you protection while you were on your little outing-”