Death 5 Rape （Marriage） #17
Tina and Rocco greeted each other, after almost four years apart, with a handshake and shy smiles.
Tina sat clumsily in a woven-backed chair near the couch, Rocco’s roses spilling off her lap.
Stella stood in the doorway, listening silently as Tina and Rocco made bland, compulsory small talk.
The lamp on the round table between them had a Tiffany-style stained-glass shade, gold with green and purple grapevines; in its tinted light, Tina’s complexion looked particularly tawny, Rocco’s particularly jaundiced.
Stella thought of all the things that could have happened to him during the war.
How lucky Tina was that none of them had.
Assunta poured wine, then announced she was going to make dinner.
Tina stood and followed; Barbara stayed where she was on the couch.
She would be part of the negotiations. Stella, who would hardly be expected in the kitchen, took a silent step backward so she stood in the hallway, tucked into the shadow of the doorframe, hoping no one would think to wonder where she was.
“Well, I came back alive,” Rocco said to Tony without preamble. “I would like to ask for your daughter Tina’s hand.”
It was really happening, right now. This was what a man proposing looked like.
“I’m glad to see you, Rocco,” Tony said. “I’m glad it went well for you.”
“I was lucky.”
“God watched over him,” Barbara corrected. There was a lull as they murmured thanks to God, and then as Tony lifted his glass and they drank a toast.
“I would like to marry Tina,” Rocco said again when they had swallowed. “I think she would make me an excellent wife.”
“But would you make her a good husband?” Tony shot back.
Rocco sat up even more rigidly. “I believe I would be a husband any smart, good girl would be happy to marry.”
Tony chuckled. “You would, would you?” Stella wasn’t sure whether he was teasing Rocco or not; Rocco wouldn’t know, either.
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, all right, so you think you two would be a match. I think you might be right, myself, from what I’ve seen. Writing letters to each other all this time.”
“So I have your permission to marry her?” Rocco said.
“You have my permission to ask. This is—” Tony coughed into his hand. Rocco and Barbara sat at attention as Tony took a sip of wine and wiped his mustache on his wrist. “This is America, boy. I’m not just going to arrange something for her. It has to be her choice.”
One beat of silence. Stella wondered if her mother and sister in the kitchen were straining to hear; she didn’t hear any pot-banging, tap-running, or garlic-frying.
Rocco extended his hand. “Thank you, sir. It will be my honor.”
Tony hesitated, or maybe just waited, before shaking Rocco’s hand. “Well. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rocco said again. God, he was so stiff.
Now was Barbara’s turn. “About the matter of the dowry,” she said, and that was all she had to say. She’d hit Tony’s switch.
“Dowry?” he roared. “Dowry? Is that what this is about? You think I’m going to pay you to take away my Tina, the backbone of my house?
Pay you, from the scraps I’ve saved slaving away for the last twenty-five years?
” He shook his head, blowing like a bull.
His hair had expanded into a halo of rage.
Stella felt the natural gut terror at her father’s anger—fists could very well fly—but she also recognized this as a performance.
“I think you have the wrong end of the stick there, signora. How about you tell me how your brother is going to provide for my daughter?”
Barbara was tough; she’d been screamed at by men before. “Scusa, Zio, but you know very well it is the bride’s responsibility to provide a trousseau. Otherwise what are she and her husband supposed to start their lives with?”
“My daughter has an excellent trousseau, don’t you worry.
” Stella could hear him fuming so hard he was gasping for breath.
“Not that that’s any of your brother’s business, if you’re asking me for money here.
Where I come from, a man proposing marriage to a woman has a home to take her to live in.
Does your brother have a house for my daughter to live in?
” And to Rocco, “Well? Do you have a house?”
A hesitation. “Not yet, sir.”
Barbara said bravely, “It is custom for the bride’s father to help a groom buy—”
“Custom!” Tony was roaring again. “Custom where I come from is for a man to be a man. It seems to me in your family men count on their women to take care of them.”
Stella had leaned forward, dangerously out of the shadows, to see the expressions on the siblings’ faces. Barbara had crossed her arms and her legs tightly. Rocco was still sitting in an attitude of military attention. His mouth was a dark yellow line.
Barbara’s voice was even, but angry. “Custom is that a man supports his daughters when it is time for them to wed.”
Tony was silent for a moment. “It sounds to me like you’re not ready to make a serious offer here.”
Stella felt her heart pounding at the suspense. Was Tony backpedaling on his permission? Would he really give Tina nothing for her new house? Or was this just bluster? Stella tried to imagine how her sister, listening in the kitchen, must be feeling.
“If—” Barbara began, but Rocco lifted a hand and she fell silent. He’d sat so still for so long his movement surprised Stella.
“I am quite serious,” Rocco said. Stella realized he was radiating anger, as well. What kind of person did he become, she wondered, if things didn’t go his way? “I will buy your daughter a house. I have all of my combat pay saved. In another two or three years I will have enough.”
“What kind of house?” Tony asked. He gestured broadly, taking in his own castle. “My daughter’s children will grow up better than this, if their father is a retired American soldier. It will need to have at least three bedrooms.”
Rocco blinked. Stella waited, too tense even to take a breath. “I will promise her a house with at least two bedrooms.” Rocco was negotiating, Stella realized. It was just like buying a donkey at the animal fair.
This seemed to satisfy Tony. “All right,” he said. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, poured them all refills. “Well, in that case—”
Rocco raised a hand again, this time silencing his future father-in-law.
“And,” he said. “And you will buy all of the furniture. All of it.” He ticked off items on his fingers.
“Two beds, one for each bedroom. Two dressers for clothes. A sofa for the living room, and a coffee table. A kitchen table, a dining room set.” Tony had been laughing scornfully through the list. Rocco, waiting for a response, added, “And a refrigerator.”
At this Tony stopped laughing. “A refrigerator? In the house?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea how much a refrigerator costs?”
“Soon every house will have one,” Rocco said. “Your daughter will need one to run her kitchen.”
There was silence for what felt to Stella like a long time.
Finally Tony said, “Once you have bought the house, I will buy two beds and one sofa. I will buy your dining room set, but how my daughter furnishes her kitchen is her business, so you will buy your own refrigerator. That is my whole wedding gift to you, two beds, one sofa, and the dining room set.”
Rocco said, “All right, Tina will pick out her own kitchen things and I will buy them for her when we move in. And I will not ask you for a coffee table. But you will provide the dressers, one for each bedroom.” Stella felt a wash of relief; they were reaching a denouement.
But then Rocco added, “And you will buy two lamps for each room in the house. Good lamps.” Stella heard a thread of vitriol.
“And you will buy the lightbulbs to put in the lamps.”
He was making a joke, she thought. It must be a joke.
Tony laughed again, this time with what sounded like genuine joy. “No, boy, you can buy your own lightbulbs.” Still chuckling, he extended his hand. “I think we are done here. You may go speak to her now if you’d like.”
Rocco stood, ignoring the offered handshake. “You will buy the lightbulbs, or you can keep your daughter.”
There was a moment of shocked silence. Barbara’s eyes were wide; she liked Tina, Stella knew, and probably wasn’t sure if she should say something or let her brother fight his own battle.
“That’s it, Signor Fortuna,” Rocco said.
“I am done here. If you think your daughter can do better, then I wish you both the best.” He wiped his hands on his pants; perhaps they were sweating.
“I know plenty of good girls who would be happy for any husband right now, never mind a U.S. Army combat vet with a good service record. I don’t need to settle. ”
A nervous thrill ran through Stella, a thrill at the viciousness of it. Was this really the man Tina wanted to marry? Would he really have exchanged her for eight or ten lightbulbs? Even after four years of letters and care packages? Or was this bluster, too?
Tony stood, too. He said soberly, “All right. I will buy the lightbulbs. Two for each room.”
“The lightbulbs, and the lamps,” Rocco said.
“Yes,” Tony said quietly. “Lightbulbs and lamps.”
Rocco and Barbara did not stay for dinner.
It would have been excruciating to have to sit through a meal after that, and for the girls not to be able to rehash.
And Joey might have emerged stinking from the boys’ bedroom at any time; Stella was relieved he hadn’t chosen to do so during the shouting earlier, since he was sometimes drawn out for drama.
Instead, Rocco asked Tina to join him in the hallway for a private conversation.
They had to pass Stella in the hallway, but Rocco didn’t seem to notice her.