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“Signora,” Armando cleared his throat to rid of the break in his voice, “Rosa would like me to translate something for her.”
I nodded slowly, concentrating hard, trying to pick up words coming off Rosa, but my Duolingo step one was no match for the flow out of her mouth.
Armando held up his hand to silence her so he could translate.
“Rosa was married off very young by her family. Her husband was older. A violent man. He would assault her every night and…” he continued after a nod from Rosa, “abuse her.”
“Oh, Rosa…” I shot up in my chair to comfort her, but Armando held up his hand, signalling to wait. Rosa encouraged him to continue.
“She knew no one in Cosa Nostra, and they didn’t know her. But someone got to know of this and brought it to Signor Capizzi’s grandfather’s attention.”
I sat down again, not liking where the story was going.
“At first, they sent some men to speak to her husband, warning him in no uncertain terms to stop harming his wife. But he wouldn’t listen. Then, one day, Signor Capizzi’s grandfather visited her in her home. He asked her if she was happy in her marriage. When she said no, he asked if she would be happy if her husband was no longer in her life. She knew what he was asking. Yet, she said yes. That night, her husband didn’t return home. They found him with a bullet in his head and,” Armando looked down, gazing at his shoes, “And some missing body parts.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my dry throat. I had never known that this sweet lady with a smile on her face every day had had such a tragic past.
Rosa rattled off more details to Armando, and with a nod, he looked up at me.
“Rosa wants to know if you think she’s a bad person?”
“Of course not,” I exclaimed.
“Then why…” Armando rushed on, “Do you think so badly of Signor Capizzi?”
I put down the fork, Cora’s food forgotten on her plate. Luckily, she seemed to be happy playing with the buttons on her chair, making the occasional nursery rhyme ring out.
“That is different,” I answered softly.
“It is the same,” Armando said firmly. “No one is perfect. Everyone has good and bad in them. She,” he said, pointing to Rosa, “could have let her husband walk, sent off somewhere. But she chose to have him killed. Signor Capizzi didn’t have to get involved over a matter that didn’t involve his family. But he chose to help out a young girl who had no way out.”
Cora dropped one of her rattles on the floor and Armando came immediately to pick it up and laid it back on the chair. He looked at me sternly but with a glimpse of kindness in the depths of his dark brown eyes.
“Perhaps it is not my place Signora…” he said as he frowned his thick grey eyebrows, “but I feel I have to defend Signor Capizzi. Rosa’s is not the only story in this house. Signor Capizzi’s father and grandfather have done a lot for many people and so has Signor Capizzi. Are they bad men? Yes. Especially if you anger them. But there is also good in them. You should not believe everything Signora Capizzi tells you.”
He turned to Rosa to listen to her before turning back to me with a soft smile. “Rosa says she should never have been a wife, let alone a mother. Rosa can be, how do you put it… dramatic sometimes. But this time, I will have to agree. Neither her sons nor her husband could ever be good enough for her.”
He watched me stir Cora’s food absentmindedly.
“We…” he gestured to Rosa and the house, “all of us would appreciate it if you would think about this. Sì?”
The cacophony of my thoughts in my head wore down on me. I felt an impending headache and rubbed my forehead.
He backed away at my silence. “I think we have taken enough of your time, Signora,” he said, quietly leaving the room with Rosa in tow.
I went over and over the words uttered by Armando the next day like one would a song on a recorder, trying to understand the lyrics of it.
Under the pretence of reading a book, I had dragged myself to the back terrace, but my book remained open on page one, the story unread.
I didn’t know if Antonio came home or not last night. I had gone to bed early, exhausted in mind and body, to wake up just as tired but to the faint smell of an absent man. He had been in the room, I was sure. But I didn’t dare ask the staff after yesterday.
What I didn’t fail to notice was my previous bedroom, with the open doorway, was now completely bare. Even the lonely bed had been taken out.
The sound of footsteps drifted to my ears, and I turned my head to find Angelo walking towards me with a glass of amber liquid in his hands. The glass and the smell of it instantly brought me back to Antonio and our first night together. So much had happened after that amazing “wedding night,” as he called it.
“Buona sera, Cognata,” he greeted me, giving me a peck on the cheek and settling down on the chair next to mine.
“What does it mean?”
