Death 5 Rape （Marriage） #10
“Yes, I do.” She was calm now, her position unimpeachable.
“You know I am engaged to Stefano Morello.” She turned to Carmelo and smiled.
“He’s away at war in Africa now, but he writes me letters.
” It had only just occurred to Stella that if she fudged some of the details of her tenuous and halfhearted courtship with faraway Stefano it might protect her from the more aggressive intentions of any Hartford skirt-chasers.
“We have an arrangement to get married,” she said. “After the war.”
“After the war—that could be a long way away,” Carmelo said. Did he look disappointed? She thought he did. Well, good. Better disappointed now than later.
But she had a flash of pity for him, now that he was no longer any risk to her, this very good-looking man all alone in this country and maybe just on the hunt for a family to be part of.
She looked him in the eye and gave him her best, happiest smile.
His cherry-round cheeks were pink as he smiled back.
AFTER DINNER, as the two young men collected their coats, Rocco Caramanico asked Tony if he could speak to him alone. Tony led him to the kitchen.
“I’d like to marry your daughter Concettina,” Rocco told him. Everyone in the hallway could hear every word.
Antonio had been waiting all night to deliver his line.
“If you come back alive,” he said, “you can ask me again.”
* * *
THE FIRST SATURDAY OF MAY 1942, Joey escorted Stella, Tina, and Fiorella to the Italian Society spring ball.
There were fresh bouquets of carnations on every table and the crowd was both celebratory and jittery.
The roar of conversation was so loud that Stella wasn’t always sure what song the band was playing.
Boys had come in their new uniforms, because everyone was enlisting.
Opinions about homeland, duty, and opportunity were strong and contagious and became more so with the distribution of alcohol.
Joey had been bragging about thinking about enlisting for months now, and had plenty to talk about with the khaki evangelists.
Stella knew Joey was especially attracted to the uniform itself, the effect he’d seen it have on women.
There was a separate sense of urgency among the ladies.
Now that so many of the Hartford boys were going off to war, the screws were tightening on relationships and engagements.
Some girls had sweethearts or approved family matches back in the villages; others were hunting with fresh voracity, collectively agitated by the feeling that something needed to be set into action with some young man before they all shipped out.
The Fortuna girls were above it, Tina armed with her standing promise from Rocco Caramanico, Stella with her artfully embellished half-imaginary fiancé in Africa.
She was amused by the romantic fervor infecting the Italian girls.
What sense did it make to put yourself in a position to be widowed by a man you barely knew?
Better a widow than a spinster, apparently.
That had always been the way of the world, hadn’t it?
Well, let them all prance around like fluffy roosters in their spring dresses.
It was pure joy to be the only two people in the crowd with no agenda.
Stella and Tina were themselves celebrating: the Fortunas had bought the house on Bedford Street.
The old Napolitano had decided to move back to Italy and had sped up the deed transfer.
He had been angry, or maybe scared, when the FBI agents had come to his home and confiscated his radio.
He accepted $1,860 from Antonio in cash for the house, together with the promise that Antonio would send along the rest to an address the Napolitano would forward.
In fact he would never send Antonio his address, and so the balance of $140 would sit untouched in the Fortunas’ bank for five years.
They assumed he must have been killed in the bombings.
In any case, they had a house now. As a reward for their accomplishment, the girls had new three-dollar dresses from Sears with capped sleeves and large buttons up the front.
Stella felt extremely American in her dress, which was watermelon-red.
Her forearms were bare, but she didn’t feel self-conscious about her scars, which seemed to match her dress, pinkly unobtrusive.
Fiorella had brought them congratulation presents: enamel brooches shaped like little butterflies. “After all your hard work!” Her long, gentle face was bright with her smile. “I have so much respect for you girls. Tanti auguri!”
Carmelo Maglieri strolled up as Stella and Tina were pinning their butterflies on their dresses.
At first Stella didn’t recognize him in his plain gray suit.
Her brain turned over on the flash of familiarity—this good-looking blue-eyed man, who was he?
Oh yes. But what was he doing here, and without his uniform?
He bowed to them, pressing his fedora to his chest. “Good evening, beautiful ladies.”
“Carmelo!” Tina almost shrieked.
Carmelo kissed Tina’s cheeks warmly but did not try to kiss Stella. “What are we congratulating you on, Stella?”
“Stella bought us a house,” Tina said, a little giddy at seeing him. “Three stories, on Bedford Street!”
“I didn’t buy it, we bought it together.” Stella was irritated with herself for not recognizing Carmelo immediately, and for having found him attractive.
“Oh, Stella, give yourself some credit,” Tina said. “You were so smart with the bank, and the savings . . .”
“Our Stella, the smartest girl on Front Street,” Fiorella said, squeezing Stella’s arm.
“That doesn’t surprise me at all to hear,” Carmelo said. He inclined his head toward Fiorella. “Stella, would you do me the honor of introducing me to your friend? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” It felt so staged, Stella was certain he was acting out some scene he’d liked in a film.
“This is Fiorella Mulino,” Stella said, keeping her voice dry. “Her family is from Puglia.” Carmelo bowed again and Fiorella, blushing, replied, “Piaccere.”
“May I bring you ladies something to drink?” Carmelo said. “Have you tried the punch?” They shook their heads. “Stay right here.” His voice was as warm and animated as she remembered it. “I’ll bring you some from the bar.” With a third bow, he turned and stepped into the mass of frocks and suits.
“What a kind man he is,” Tina said. Stella had nothing to say in response, and neither did Fiorella, who seemed a little starstruck.
The girls pretended to listen to the band until Carmelo returned, four glasses of red punch clutched together between his large hands.
He distributed them carefully and the four young people clinked, wishing one another health.
The punch tasted like red wine but fizzed with carbonation.
Stella felt a happy ripple through her nerves—they were toasting like adults, drinking alcohol with a strange man.
Her cheeks warm, Stella asked, “Carmelo, where is your uniform?”
Carmelo smiled that big, friendly smile. “Oh, didn’t you hear? The army kicked me out. I’m unfit for service.” His blue eyes were shining; even his bad news was something he’d admit good-naturedly. “Flat feet.”
“Flat feet?” Tina said. “What does that mean?”
“Flat feet, just what it sounds like.” Carmelo lifted his hand level with his nose, curling his fingers into a dome.
“The middle part of your foot is supposed to arch like this. If it doesn’t, it makes problems when you have to walk or run for a long time, like soldiers do.
Now, God gave me feet like this.” He splayed his hand flat and peered, smiling, across it at Tina, who smiled back.
“Flat as a pancake,” he said in English, and Tina and Fiorella giggled. “So much for me as a soldier.”
“So much for your papers,” Stella put in, then felt her face heat up—that had been aggressive, undignified.
But Carmelo shook his finger. “Aha, no, no, signorina. I served thirty days in the U.S. Army. I’m a naturalized citizen of the United States now. No going back.”
“Really?” Stella couldn’t believe it. “Why didn’t they check your feet at the beginning?”
Carmelo shrugged. “It’s just my luck. I’m a very lucky man,” he said. “Even when I’m born with bad feet it turns out bad feet are good.”
“Truffatore,” she said, con artist, and she meant it, but she smiled to take the edge off.
“That’s what Rocco said,” Carmelo replied, rueful. “Oh, he was mad. It was my idea to enlist in the first place, and here he is going off to war on his own.”
Stella watched Tina’s expression, waiting to see this all come together for her sister. “What did he say?” she asked.
“He tried to get out, too,” Carmelo said. “But he’s got perfectly good feet. Nice arches, Tina,” he said, as though complimenting her on her choice of man.
They chatted for another ten minutes or so, Carmelo asking Fiorella about her family.
As they were almost done with their punch, Carmelo bowed and took his leave.
Stella felt a pang of jealousy as he left; he had not, then, come over to try to flirt with them, he had only been paying his respects.
Well, his respect was all she wanted. It was just that she had enjoyed thinking that he liked her and could not have her.
STELLA SAW CARMELO ONE MORE TIME that summer, when Joey invited him over for his enlistment party at their new house on Bedford Street.
It was the second Saturday in June, and the weather was beautiful.
All of the Fortunas’ friends—the Nicoteras; the Perris, whose boys Mario and Mikey were also enlisting this summer; the Mulinos; the Cardamones; Zu Vito Aiello—packed into the freshly painted rooms and spilled out into the backyard, where they could admire the tomato garden Assunta had planted the week before.