An Italian Wife Read online

  “From coughing himself to death,” her mother explained. Her mother was dry-eyed too, even though out in the kitchen, all of the other kids were sobbing.

  “It turned to pneumonia,” Betsy said, more interested in the clinical aspects of this than any personal ones.

  She expected everything to go on the same as it always had, except without her father around, until her mother announced that he had left them no money and the older girls would have to drop out of school and go to work in the mill.

  “Not me,” Betsy said. “I’m going to go to college.”

  “College?” her mother said. “Are you crazy? We need to put food on the table.”

  The very next day, Belle and Julie brought home papers for their mother to sign, agreeing to let them drop out of school. Belle had stayed back twice already anyway, and Julie liked boys more than studying.

  “Where are yours?” her mother said.

  Betsy shook her head. “I want to be a scientist. I need to finish high school.” She was fifteen years old, a sophomore. Already she’d been voted social committee chairman, won a spot on the JV cheerleading squad. She was a person going places.

  “Tomorrow you bring the papers for me to sign.”

  The next day, Betsy watched Belle and Julie get ready for their first days at the mill. They giggled and whispered as they got dressed, helping each other fix their hair and choose what to wear.

  “We’ll tell you all about it,” Julie promised. “It won’t be so bad.”

  “But you want to be famous,” Betsy reminded her.

  Julie shrugged. “Maybe a handsome man will fall in love with me. Maybe even the owner of the entire mill.”

  Belle took two cigarettes from the pack she kept hidden in the top dresser drawer. “I’d rather work than go to school anyway,” she said. “Dying was the best thing Papa ever did for me.”

  Betsy wanted to tell her sister that she would graduate in a year. Then she could get a better job, as a secretary or a stenographer. But Belle was smearing red lipstick on her mouth, trying to look older and sexy.

  “You’ll see,” she told Betsy, “it’s going to be fun working.”

  That afternoon, Betsy had cheerleading practice. Her cartwheels were so strong that the team captain told her she’d definitely be moved up to the varsity team during basketball season. On the way home, Betsy walked as slowly as she possibly could, forming arguments to convince her mother she had to stay in school. But when she walked into the house, instead of the angry atmosphere she was expecting to find, her mother jumped up and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Look,” she told her, “look who’s come to rescue you.”

  Sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and anisette, was Father Leone. And grinning beside him was her little sister Clara.

  “Rescue me?” Betsy said.

  “I told him that you were supposed to be a scientist but Papa left us broke—” Clara began.

  “Shh, Chiara,” her mother scolded. “Let Father explain.”

  “He’s going to help you get a scholarship!” Clara blurted.

  “What?” Betsy said. She dropped onto the floor at the priest’s feet.

  His strong hands grasped her forearms and lifted her so that they were eye to eye.

  “After your sister here explained what was happening, I called the school. They told me you maintain a straight A average,” Father Leone said in his smooth voice.

  “I do!” Betsy said, in case he needed more evidence.

  “I offered to tutor you, in Latin and mathematics, two nights a week. If you continue getting straight A’s, it can be arranged for you to get a scholarship to study at Salve Regina College.”

  “College?” Betsy said. She needed to be certain she understood what she was hearing.

  “Of course,” the priest said, “in addition to your studies I’ll expect you to do some work at the church. Filing, typing. That sort of thing. Nothing is free, child. You must earn what you get.”

  Betsy was nodding.

  Her mother said sharply, “But surely I could do the church work for her, Father?”

  “I’ll do it, Mama!” Betsy said. It would be just like her mother to ruin this one opportunity for her.

  The priest glanced up at her mother, almost dismissively. “You won’t have to take care of anything, Mrs. Rimaldi,” he said.

  “But I will,” her mother said evenly. “So she can work on her studies.”

  Silently, Betsy willed her mother to shut up.

  Father Leone rose. He was such a tall man; Betsy had never noticed this when he stood at the pulpit in his flowing purple robes.

  “You have enough to do holding a family together alone,” he said, patting her mother’s hand. Then he helped Betsy to her feet. “We will begin studying Latin next week then, Elisabetta?”

  “Betsy,” she said, deciding right then that she was going to marry Father Leone.

  “Betsy?” he said, laughing. “So you are American through and through,” he continued in English.

  Later, in bed with her sister, she whispered her plans to Clara.

  “You can’t marry a priest,” Clara said. “It’s against the law.”

  “No, it’s not,” Betsy said.

  “It’s against God’s law,” Clara said.

  Betsy closed her eyes but she couldn’t sleep. She felt as if her life was finally beginning.

  THE THIRD THING THAT HAPPENED, and Betsy believed this was the thing that really changed her life, was that her brother, Carmine, came home from the war. His best friend, Angelo Mazzonni, had been killed in action; Carmine, the Army notified them, was shell-shocked. He had been in an Army hospital for months and months, but there was no more they could do for him. None of them knew what to expect, although Belle said someone at the mill said it only meant he would be afraid of loud noises, and maybe he would tremble a little. This did not seem so bad.

  But although those problems may have existed, clearly something very bad had happened to Carmine. He looked confused and said crazy things. It was like his brain had been injured, even though the Army assured them he had not suffered any wounds at all. In fact, he had medals, lots of them, for trying to save Angelo and others during battle. When they asked him about his bravery, he looked even more confused.

  “Battle?” he said. “France?”

  In bed that night they whispered together. How could they tell Carmine that while he was fighting the war, getting shell-shocked, being brave, his girlfriend, Anna Zito, married Nicola Padua and they had a baby on the way.

  “Honestly,” Belle said, sitting on the windowsill so she could blow the smoke from her cigarette out the window, “I don’t think he’s going to care about Anna Zito.”

  “But he loves her!” Julie said.

  “I don’t think he’s shell-shocked,” Betsy said, promising herself to look the symptoms up in the big science dictionary at school. “I think he’s brain damaged.”

  “The Army said ‘shell-shocked,’” Julie said. “He just needs some rest.”

  But the next morning, when their mother carefully brought up Anna Zito’s name, Carmine laughed.

  “You remember Anna?” their mother said gently.

  “That puttana,” Carmine spat. “Of course I know her. I put my thing in her all the time.”

  “Carmine!” their mother said.

  He shook his head. “Anna Zito is a whore.”

  The mill wouldn’t give him a job, not with the crazy things he said, or the confused look that swept over his face most of the time. But Chiara spoke with Father Leone, and the priest said Carmine could sweep the church, replace the candles and incense, small things like that.

  “Good,” their mother said. “He can go on Tuesdays, when Elisabetta studies her Latin with Father Leone.”

  Elisabetta groaned. “Why does he have to come with me? He’s creepy!”

  “He’s your brother and he will go to the church with you,” her mother said.

  On Tue
sday evenings, after supper, Elisabetta and Carmine walked together to the church.

  “Anna Zito liked me to fuck her like a dog, from behind,” Carmine said.

  Elisabetta covered her ears and conjugated Latin verbs in her mind so she wouldn’t hear him.

  “Anna Zito is a puttana,” Carmine said as they climbed the steps to the church.

  Once inside, he got the broom from the closet and began to sweep. He was extremely methodical, which was also creepy. He dragged the big broom up and down the aisle, beginning against the wall and then up the aisle. Down and up. Elisabetta paused to be sure he was lost in the sweeping before she hurried into Father Leone’s study behind the altar.

  Father Leone was always waiting for her at his desk. He had a glass of red wine and the Latin book opened to their next lesson. Elisabetta loved his mustache. At night sometimes she imagined what it would be like to kiss him. Certainly it would tickle. Her friend Connie at school had kissed a soldier with a mustache and she said she could taste soup in it. Father Leone would taste like wine, Elisabetta thought.

  “Always smiling,” Father Leone said when he saw her standing in the doorway.

  Kiss me, she thought. Let me see what your mustache tastes like. She hoped that if she thought these thoughts hard enough, Father Leone would receive them through mental telepathy. She had read in a science magazine in the school library about a man who could bend spoons by staring at them.

  “What is going on in your pretty head, Betsy?” the priest said. He leaned back in his chair and she saw that he was dressed like a normal man: black pants, white shirt. No collar or crucifixes in sight.

  “Do you know about mental telepathy?” she said, taking her seat across from him.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “You mean communicating through thoughts?”

  She nodded. “There is a man in England who can bend silver spoons just by staring at them.”

  “Ah!” he said. “Shall we try it?”

  “Bending spoons?”

  “No, mental telepathy. Send me a message and let me see if I can get it.”

  “Oh, no,” Elisabetta said, embarrassed. But then she looked at the priest and with all of her might thought: Kiss me! Kiss me!

  Father Leone shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not very good at reading minds, I guess.”

  Disappointed, she opened her Latin book.

  “Sweeping’s done,” Carmine said from the doorway, startling them both.

  “Fine,” the priest said. “Scrape the wax from the altar then. Get it all, now, Carmine. Be sure.”

  Carmine nodded but he didn’t leave.

  “Is there something else?” Father Leone said impatiently.

  “She’s a puttana,” he whispered, pointing to his sister. “Watch out.” Then he walked away.

  “I’m sorry,” Elisabetta said.

  “You? No, no, Betsy. It is God who is sorry for making a world where war can do that to men.”

  Elisabetta studied the priest’s face. I love you, she thought.

  He patted her hand. “God loves us all,” he said.

  SOMETIMES ON TUESDAYS they all three walked to church after supper: Chiara and Carmine and Elisabetta. Chiara prayed as they walked, her lips moving, her fingers caressing the rosary beads. She prayed for Carmine to stop being shell-shocked. She prayed for the end of all war. She prayed to turn twelve soon so she could become an initiate. This last would happen in two months; Chiara knew that. But she prayed anyway.

  “In Coney Island I fell in love with a woman,” Carmine said one night.

  “No, you didn’t,” Elisabetta said.

  Chiara finished her prayer and said gently to her brother, “No, Carmine. You were supposed to marry Anna Zito.”

  “That puttana?” He laughed.

  Elisabetta rolled her eyes and walked faster, leaving those two behind her. The week before, Father Leone had said he was worried about her. You can be a scientist, he had told her, but you cannot forsake God for science. What have you given to God? he’d asked her. He had told her that her mother gave anything God asked. Think about it, Betsy, he’d said.

  She had thought about it. Tonight she would tell him that she put up with a brain-damaged brother for God. She put up with stupid sisters. She tolerated her mother’s lack of affection. When she became a scientist, she would give her knowledge in God’s name. She was pleased with her response.

  Father Leone was in his usual place, waiting for her. She heard Carmine and Chiara come in. She heard the sweeping begin and Chiara go down the basement stairs, where she would wash all of the holy linens used in Mass.

  Before Father Leone could say anything, Elisabetta gave him her answer. He smiled as she talked.

  “You are intelligent and beautiful and holy, Betsy,” he said when she was finished. “You are sixteen now, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, pleased.

  “Then I think you should have a glass of wine with me. First, I will bless it, and we will drink it in honor of God.”

  She watched him bless the wine and pour two glasses. When she sipped it, she wrinkled her nose and he laughed.

  Father Leone got up and closed the door. Standing behind her, he put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Do you remember when we tried to do mental telepathy?” he asked her, his voice low.

  She remembered everything he had said to her, ever. Everyone believed his handsome, still youthful looks were a gift from God. But she knew he was more than that. He was a man. I love you, Father Leone, she thought, sending the words out to him.

  “John,” he said. “My name is John.”

  She smiled. He could read her mind. He could. John, she thought.

  She tried to turn in her seat to face him, but his hands held her in place.

  “I believe you were telling me to kiss you that night.”

  Elisabetta gasped.

  “I didn’t want to say it because I am a man of God, Betsy, and we do not partake of bodily pleasures. You are such a beautiful girl. Believe me, if I were not a priest—”

  “I shouldn’t have such thoughts,” Elisabetta said, dropping her head. “But I do, Father. At night, especially after we study together, I can’t stop imagining it.”

  “Imagining what?”

  “Is this confession?” Elisabetta asked, jerking her head up. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned—”

  His hands reached in front of her and stopped her from making the sign of the cross. “Not confession.”

  She took a breath. “I imagine you touching me,” she said. Would he give her a penance now? How many rosaries for forgiveness of such a sin?

  “Where?” he whispered. His mouth was pressed against her ear and she felt the tickle of his mustache.

  She didn’t want to say it. She couldn’t. It was a sin. Elisabetta shook her head.

  “Betsy, you can tell me anything.”

  But she shook her head again. She couldn’t say it.

  Father Leone released her hands and walked around, kneeling at her feet. “I’m sad that you don’t trust me. That you don’t trust God.”

  Elisabetta leaned forward. She felt sweat trickle down her arms. She took the priest’s face in her hands and whispered in his ear: “Down there. I imagine you touching me down there. I imagine that we do all kinds of dirty things together.” She released his face and pushed away from him, running out of his office and down the long aisle of the church, past Carmine sweeping, out the door into the night.

  THE NEXT WEEK, Elisabetta said she had a stomachache and couldn’t go to study Latin with Father Leone. She pictured him in his office, waiting for her. How long would he sit there? she wondered guiltily. But then Giulia came home, flushed and dreamy, and announced she was getting married. She had met someone at the mill, a foreman, and they wanted to get married next month.

  “No,” Josephine said. “Out of respect for your father you have to wait one year.”

  Giulia cried and carried on about love and desire, but
their mother wouldn’t budge. “Next fall,” Josephine said, “we can discuss this.”

  “Isn’t this romantic?” Chiara whispered to Bella.

  Bella agreed. But Elisabetta thought it was terrible. “You want to be famous,” she reminded her sister.

  “No,” Giulia said, “I want to marry Mario.”

  “Enough about Mario!” Josephine said. “No one’s getting married until the year is up.”

  “You’re jealous,” Chiara whispered, “because you can’t marry Father Leone. Ever.”

  Josephine reached across the kitchen table and grabbed Chiara by the hair, hard. “What did you just say?”

  “Nothing,” Chiara said.

  Josephine turned her attention to Elisabetta. “What has he told you? What has he done?”

  Elisabetta thought of the priest’s hands on her shoulders, the tickle of his mustache, the way he’d asked her what she’d imagined about them. She thought of what she had confessed. I imagine that we do all kinds of dirty things together. She felt her face grow hot.

  “Elisabetta?” Josephine said. She stood in front of her beautiful daughter, her mouth dry with fear. He had told her that she was doing these things for God. She had felt holy as he bent and suckled her breasts. She had believed that his flesh was not like other men’s.

  “Why didn’t you go to Latin tonight?” she demanded.

  “Stomachache,” Elisabetta said, and her stomach was aching now.

  Chiara began to pray for forgiveness. She had gotten her sister in trouble by saying her secret. Would she ever get to the safety of the convent? She prayed for the next six weeks to pass swiftly. She prayed to be twelve.