“Oh, that’s terrible, Stella,” Cettina said. Stella was rolling her eyes at her sister’s obtuseness when Cettina added, “You know Giuseppe is too old to be an organ grinder’s boy. We’ll probably have to sell Luì instead.” The sisters shared a smile as Luigi squealed into his mother’s skirt.
For the second night in a row Stella stared at the black ceiling as Cettina and Assunta snored on either side of her. She was jealous of them—they could blubber themselves to sleep when they were tired, knock themselves out like babies with their own intemperate emotions. The blood vessels under Stella’s eyes pulsed and her head rang with exhaustion, but God gave her no gift of peace of mind. Instead, hallucinating through the night, she saw an ocean that stretched forever and she imagined a boat breaking to pieces and disappearing into the waves.
THECOUNTESS OFSAVOYSAILEDat eight o’clock the next morning, one day later than scheduled. It ended up being the last emigrant boat to leave Italy until after the war.
THIS IS WHAT THEFORTUNASwould miss by evacuating Italy when they did.
Six months after they departed, in June 1940, Mussolini would declare war on France and Britain. Before the Italian state crumbled in September 1943, four million Italian troops would be deployed to theaters all over the hemisphere, from Somaliland to Russia; half a million Italians would lose their lives, a third of them civilians.
For the average Italian, this was a time of privation and fear. Soldiers—Mussolini’s fascists, American and British “liberators,” and then, most cruelly, the German forces that had until 1943 been Italy’s allies—took turns occupying countryside villages, including Ievoli, where, one woman hesitatingly told me, “They took advantage of the beautiful daughters.” I met a man who was born in 1943, smack in the middle of the six years his father was gone as a soldier, then prisoner, in Russia. “We didn’t talk about it,” he told me. “My father had to accept that my mother didn’t have a choice.”
Nonna Maria, at least, would not suffer during the war. She would die only a few months after Assunta left. So would theciucciu,whom no one loved anymore.
In 1956, Cettina would go back to Ievoli, on a trip she and her husband took on their tenth wedding anniversary. When she visited her home village, she was distressed by how changed it felt to her—empty, listless, wounded. She let a cluster of vaguely remembered cousins dress her up in a fancypacchianaand take pictures of her,Calabrisella bella,standing in front of the church. Cettina would smile through her disorientation and bring her negatives home to develop and pass around among her Italian American friends.
But Stella would never go back to Ievoli. She would never again see the early-morning sunlight reflecting off the shiny ripening rinds on the lemon tree, the lemons themselves not as lemon-yellow as the sun. She would never again stand in the churchchiazzaand watch the smoking volcano Stromboli appear on the orange horizon at the last moments of sunset. She would never again walk down the fog-thickmountain path after a January cold snap to see steam rising off the ilex trees as the frost evaporated in the wintry Calabrese sun, or worry that acinghiale,a gray-tusked wild boar, might come charging out of the low-lying mist, leading its snorting brown babies to snuffle for bugs and mushrooms among the olive tree roots. She would never again sit on the red earth mound at the top of the olive grove and watch the leaves turn over in the wind, blue-silver green blue-silver.
You step on a boat knowing it is forever, one way or another. But understanding what forever means—that is something your heart tries to protect you from.
THE OCEAN IS VAST.You and I might forget its formidability; we can close our eyes and cross it in a few hours. For Stella, it was seven days of nothing but water in any direction, of watching anxiously every time a fellow passenger tapped the ash out of his pipe, of thinking about all hands and souls.
On the morning of the seventh day, Stella and Cettina stood at the bow, hands gripping the rail so that they weren’t jostled loose by the throngs of people who had collected to see the harbor come into view.
One of the crew chattered to the gathered travelers in fast Italian and Stella struggled to pick out words she understood. A middle-aged man standing near them caught Stella’s eye. “You don’t have Italian?” he asked in Calabrese.
“Only a little,” Stella said. She knew she shouldn’t talk to the man, but this felt like a moment she could shrug off rules. Besides, her mother was far away, hiding from her queasiness in their berth.
The Calabrese man with the gray fedora translated what the prolix young crewman was saying to the crowd. The boat was arriving three hours later than expected; your families who are waiting have been informed. It is Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas, everyone. The Lord has given us the gift of his only begotten son and also of a safe crossing to America. Up ahead on the left you’ll be able to see the statue.
“The statue?” Stella and Cettina echoed together.
“The Madonna of New York Harbor. Just wait,” the man with the fedora said, then added kindly, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, anyway.”
Of course you know what New York Harbor looks like, can imagine what it looked like in 1939. But now imagine you come from a world where the tallest building is two stories and where glass is used strictly for church windows. Imagine that you have a father who never thought to send you a postcard.
THE KINDCALABRESE MAN HELPEDwith the trunk as they disembarked. He explained what would happen as they progressed through the emigrant processing stations. Here there is a medical exam, but it is short, and there won’t be any problems because you’ve already had an examination back in Napoli. You can all go in together, I’ll be right behind you. Here is where we wait to be entered in the register. We’ll be here for a little while, just be patient. Your family is waiting on the other side of that wall. Now is when they give you your certificate of arrival. Whatever you do, don’t lose that form. You’ll need it when you apply for citizenship.
And last, as he left them—hispaesanfrom his village was waiting for him in the antechamber—he tipped his hat and said something to them in English. “That meansbuon natale,” he said, and winked.
“Say it again,” Giuseppe demanded.
The man repeated himself, slowly, and in chorus they answered back: “Me-ri Cris-mas!”
The Fortuna family was feeling buoyant as they stepped into the waiting room, their new U.S. residency papers in hand, happily feverish from a stranger’s kindness and eager to start their new life.
But Antonio wasn’t there.
Stella searched the crowd of hopeful and tired faces. It had been nine years since she had seen her father, and she had been a child then. She could conjure a strong visceral memory of him, but she wasn’t sure she would know what he looked like if she saw him. She glancedat her mother for guidance. Assunta looked worried, but she didn’t say anything to her children.
They stood, awkward with their trunk, by the exit door until a young man approached them and, speaking unintelligible English, guided them to the side so they would be out of the way of foot traffic. He wore a neat black shirt and trousers that looked like a military uniform to Stella. Still, Assunta said nothing, not to the man in the uniform, not to her children. Her mother was completely helpless here, a child among her children. Stella’s heart twisted, in compassion for her mother and also under the pressure of the idea that if something needed to be done, Stella would have to be the one to do it.
Where was Antonio?
The large clock on the wall, elaborate with filigree, had said three thirty-five when Stella had first checked its time. She watched as the minute hand moved up and then down again. Newly papered United States residents emerged and were absorbed into the tearful hugs or uncertain handshakes of the people who had come to wait for them. On the other side of the wall was New York, but Stella could see nothing of it but the thin white light that came down from the high windows. As she stood still she noticed the chilly air creeping up her arm. It was cold in here, as cold as the middle of a January night in Ievoli. How cold was it outside?
Eventually Cettina managed to settle Assunta on the trunk so that at least her sore legs wouldn’t bother her. What would Stella do if Antonio never came? Where would they go? Stella played through possibilities. They had his letter with his address on it. Could they find his house on their own? Would they be able to walk to Hartford? Most likely not, especially now that evening was approaching. They had no money; they couldn’t hire someone to take them. They couldn’t rent a hotel room for a night. Stella’s gut roiled with anxiety and anger. She’d spent her whole life trusting chaperones—now that there was no chaperone she was helpless.
As the clock hand rose again, the man in the militaristic suitcrossed the almost empty antechamber toward them. He spoke in English again, pointed at the clock, the doors, and through miming gestures succeeded in communicating that the building would be closing at six. Stella nodded, trying to look competent, and said in her best Italian, “Thank you, mister. We’ll wait here until six.” Assunta, looking small on the trunk, nodded as well.
