him.
Her mother-in-law went to the grocery store that very day and everything was arranged. When Fausta returned to work, the grocer did not look at her. They spoke only of the essentials and never of what was already becoming a figment of the past. Soon he was unlovered by time, reduced to being her boss, her uncle by marriage, how had she ever desired that graying man?
That is when she began to age. Her body became matronly, thick waist, heavy hips. Her passion closed in on itself until it vanished altogether. She lived that way, a goodwife, half-dead, for three more years, hoping for nothing except the tenuous dream of Bruno’s return. But then the letter came telling her to come to the New World, and now she was here at the gate of the Américas, a dozen paces from the gatekeepers. The doctor would not hear the hidden cemeteries of her heart. He would not see, on examining her teeth, the unsaid words haunting her mouth. How many secrets were being smuggled, on this day, into the New World? She looked out at the dock, with its wooden awning under which she could hear the roil of a gathered crowd (Bruno surely among them). The awning had no label, but it seemed to her that it should wear a gargantuan sign emblazoned with the words LAST HOPE , because that was what this place was to so many of the people on this ship, you could see it on their faces full of hunger, and why else would they have come?
She was next in line. The man in front of her stepped forward and opened his mouth for the doctor. Fausta tried to imagine her own future, as a trick to calm her nerves. She would have—how many children? Was there still time for three? Boys, all boys, and they’d distract her from the sorrows of daily life, they’d redeem the ones who had to die. She was getting nervous now; these thoughts weren’t helping. She shifted her tactic to picturing the future of that girl Leda. She was lucky, that girl, she had it all ahead of her; a pristine canvas; as young as Fausta had been when she married. She could see Leda’s vibrant future stretching out before her. Four children, maybe five. A long marriage that might have its torrential fights but ultimately would become solid and happy, a bulwark against the world. Joy in her role as a mother; and, one day, many years from now, that Leda girl—no longer a girl—would take her whole big family back to Italy, where she would watch her great-grandchildren play in the orchards of her youth.
As she stepped forward and opened her mouth for the physician, Fausta held these predictions in her mind like talismans.
Leda had no trouble with the doctor’s exam. It was perfunctory, and went by with surprising speed. The examination of her papers was equally smooth. The men were quick and businesslike, there were so many people to admit to their nation, all in a day’s work.
She stepped onto the gangplank. Below her lay the dock, a long platform packed with people whose faces tilted eagerly upward to receive their wives or cousins or nephews or neighbors from Italia, their voices raised in wails of joy and chanted names— Francesco! Emilia! Alessandro! Vito! —as though the calling were a kind of invocation, as though their loved ones could appear here from Italia on the power of the crowd’s voices alone. The migrants on the gangplank surged with a current of excitement, and she was not Leda, in that moment, but a single drop in a river pouring from ship to dock with a force of its own, longingto merge with a new soil, unified in its direction, down, down, down. She searched the crowd with her eyes. A swarm of faces looking up at her, then quickly past her, at the rest of the immigrants slowly pouring down the gangplank, she was not their arrival— Paolo! You’ve arrived! Paoooolooo —though the faces were Italian, as were the words they called out— Blessings of all the saints! A joy a joy —she listened keenly for Dante’s voice, but could not hear it.
Her foot touched land.
Her mother-in-law went to the grocery store that very day and everything was arranged. When Fausta returned to work, the grocer did not look at her. They spoke only of the essentials and never of what was already becoming a figment of the past. Soon he was unlovered by time, reduced to being her boss, her uncle by marriage, how had she ever desired that graying man?
That is when she began to age. Her body became matronly, thick waist, heavy hips. Her passion closed in on itself until it vanished altogether. She lived that way, a goodwife, half-dead, for three more years, hoping for nothing except the tenuous dream of Bruno’s return. But then the letter came telling her to come to the New World, and now she was here at the gate of the Américas, a dozen paces from the gatekeepers. The doctor would not hear the hidden cemeteries of her heart. He would not see, on examining her teeth, the unsaid words haunting her mouth. How many secrets were being smuggled, on this day, into the New World? She looked out at the dock, with its wooden awning under which she could hear the roil of a gathered crowd (Bruno surely among them). The awning had no label, but it seemed to her that it should wear a gargantuan sign emblazoned with the words LAST HOPE , because that was what this place was to so many of the people on this ship, you could see it on their faces full of hunger, and why else would they have come?
She was next in line. The man in front of her stepped forward and opened his mouth for the doctor. Fausta tried to imagine her own future, as a trick to calm her nerves. She would have—how many children? Was there still time for three? Boys, all boys, and they’d distract her from the sorrows of daily life, they’d redeem the ones who had to die. She was getting nervous now; these thoughts weren’t helping. She shifted her tactic to picturing the future of that girl Leda. She was lucky, that girl, she had it all ahead of her; a pristine canvas; as young as Fausta had been when she married. She could see Leda’s vibrant future stretching out before her. Four children, maybe five. A long marriage that might have its torrential fights but ultimately would become solid and happy, a bulwark against the world. Joy in her role as a mother; and, one day, many years from now, that Leda girl—no longer a girl—would take her whole big family back to Italy, where she would watch her great-grandchildren play in the orchards of her youth.
As she stepped forward and opened her mouth for the physician, Fausta held these predictions in her mind like talismans.
Leda had no trouble with the doctor’s exam. It was perfunctory, and went by with surprising speed. The examination of her papers was equally smooth. The men were quick and businesslike, there were so many people to admit to their nation, all in a day’s work.
She stepped onto the gangplank. Below her lay the dock, a long platform packed with people whose faces tilted eagerly upward to receive their wives or cousins or nephews or neighbors from Italia, their voices raised in wails of joy and chanted names— Francesco! Emilia! Alessandro! Vito! —as though the calling were a kind of invocation, as though their loved ones could appear here from Italia on the power of the crowd’s voices alone. The migrants on the gangplank surged with a current of excitement, and she was not Leda, in that moment, but a single drop in a river pouring from ship to dock with a force of its own, longingto merge with a new soil, unified in its direction, down, down, down. She searched the crowd with her eyes. A swarm of faces looking up at her, then quickly past her, at the rest of the immigrants slowly pouring down the gangplank, she was not their arrival— Paolo! You’ve arrived! Paoooolooo —though the faces were Italian, as were the words they called out— Blessings of all the saints! A joy a joy —she listened keenly for Dante’s voice, but could not hear it.
Her foot touched land.
Similar Books
