I stared into my wineglass, as though the claret could reveal the secrets of my family. “There was one cousin she was really close to, from the Christian side of her family, named Frederica. Frederica had a baby out of wedlock the year before Gabriella came to Chicago, and got sent away in disgrace. After the war Gabriella kept trying to find her, but Frederica’s family wouldn’t forward the letters-they really didn’t want to be in touch with her. Gabriella might have saved enough money to go back to Italy to look for herself, but then she started to be ill. She had a miscarriage the summer of sixty-five and bled and bled. Tony and I thought she was dying then.”
My voice trailed away as I thought of that hot unhappy summer, the summer the city burst into riot-spawned flames and my mother lay in the stifling front bedroom oozing blood. She and Tony had one of their infrequent fights. I’d been on my paper route and they didn’t hear me come in. He wanted her to sell something which she said wasn’t hers to dispose of.
“And your life,” my father shouted. “You can give that away as a gift? Even if she was still alive-” He broke off then, seeing me, and neither of them talked about the matter again, at least when I was around to hear.
Lotty squeezed my hand. “What about your aunt, great-aunt in Melrose Park? She might have told her siblings, don’t you think? Was she close to any of them?”
I grimaced. “I can’t imagine Rosa being close to anyone. See, she was the last child, and Gabriella’s grandmother died giving birth to her. So some cousins adopted her, and when they emigrated in the twenties Rosa came to Chicago with them. She didn’t really feel like she was part of the Verazi family. I know it seems strange, but with all the uprootings the war caused, and all the disconnections, it’s possible that the main part of Gabriella’s mother’s family didn’t know what became of her.”
Lotty nodded, her face twisted in sympathy; much of her family had been destroyed in those death camps also. “There wasn’t a schism when your grandmother converted?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s frustrating to think how little I know about those people. Gabriella says-said-the Verazis weren’t crazy about it, and they didn’t get together much except for weddings or funerals-except for the one cousin. But Pitigliano was a Jewish cultural center before the war and Nonno was considered a real catch. I guess he was rich until the Fascists confiscated his property.” Fantasies of reparations danced through my head.
“Not too likely,” Lotty said. “You’re imagining someone overcome with guilt sixty years after the fact coming to make you a present of some land?”
I blushed. “Factory, actually: the Sestieris were harness makers who switched to automobile interiors in the twenties. I suppose if the place is even still standing, it’s part of Fiat or Mercedes. You know, all day long I’ve been swinging between wild fantasies-about Nonno’s factory, or Gabriella’s brother surfacing-and then I start getting terrified, wondering if it’s all some kind of terrible trap. Although who’d want to trap me, or why, is beyond me. I know this Malcolm Ranier knows. It would be so easy-”
“No! Not to set your mind at rest, not to prove you can bypass the security of a modern high rise-for no reason whatsoever are you to break into that man’s office.”
“Oh, very well.” I tried not to sound like a sulky child denied a treat.
“You promise, Victoria?” Lotty sounded ferocious.
I held up my right hand. “On my honor, I promise not to break into his office.”
III
It was six days later that the phone call came to my office. A young man, with an Italian accent so thick that his English was almost incomprehensible, called up and gaily asked if I was his “Cousin Vittoria.”
“Parliamo italiano,” I suggested, and the gaiety in his voice increased as he switched thankfully to his own language.
He was my cousin Ludovico, the great-great-grandson of our mutual Verazi ancestors, he had arrived in Chicago from Milan only last night, terribly excited at finding someone from his mother’s family, thrilled that I knew Italian, my accent was quite good, really, only a tinge of America in it, could we get together, any place, he would find me-just name the time as long as it was soon.
I couldn’t help laughing as the words tumbled out, although I had to ask him to slow down and repeat. It had been a long time since I’d spoken Italian, and it took time for my mind to adjust. Ludovico was staying at the Garibaldi, a small hotel on the fringe of the Gold Coast, and would be thrilled if I met him there for a drink at six. Oh, yes, his last name-that was Verazi, the same as our great-grandfather.
I bustled through my business with greater efficiency than usual so that I had time to run the dogs and change before meeting him. I laughed at myself for dressing with care, in a pantsuit of crushed lavender velvet which could take me dancing if the evening ended that way, but no self-mockery could suppress my excitement. I’d been an only child with one cousin from each of my parents’ families as my only relations. My cousin Boom-Boom, whom I adored, had been dead these ten years and more, while Rosa ’s son Albert was such a mass of twisted fears that I preferred not to be around him. Now I was meeting a whole new family.
I tap-danced around the dog in my excitement. Peppy gave me a long-suffering look and demanded that I return her to my downstairs neighbor: Mitch, her son, had stopped there on our way home from running.
“You look slick, doll,” Mr. Contreras told me, torn between approval and jealousy. “New date?”
“New cousin.” I continued to tap-dance in the hall outside his door. “Yep. The mystery relative finally surfaced. Ludovico Verazi.”
“You be careful, doll,” the old man said severely. “Plenty of con artists out there to pretend they’re your cousins, you know, and next thing-phht.”
“What’ll he con me out of? My dirty laundry?” I planted a kiss on his nose and danced down the sidewalk to my car.
Three men were waiting in the Garibaldi’s small lobby, but I knew my cousin at once. His hair was amber, instead of black, but his face was my mother’s, from the high rounded forehead to his wide sensuous mouth. He leapt up at my approach, seized my hands, and kissed me in the European style-sort of touching the air beside each ear.
“Bellissima!” Still holding my hands he stepped back to scrutinize me. My astonishment must have been written large on my face, because he laughed a little guiltily.
“I know it, I know it, I should have told you of the resemblance, but I didn’t realize it was so strong: the only picture I’ve seen of Cousin Gabriella is a stage photo from 1940 when she starred in Jommelli’s Iphigenia.”
“Jommelli!” I interrupted. “I thought it was Gluck!”
“No, no, cugina, Jommelli. Surely Gabriella knew what she sang?” Laughing happily he moved to the armchair where he’d been sitting and took up a brown leather case. He pulled out a handful of papers and thumbed through them, then extracted a yellowing photograph for me to examine.
It was my mother, dressed as Iphigenia for her one stage role, the one that gave me my middle name. She was made up, her dark hair in an elaborate coil, but she looked absurdly young, like a little girl playing dress-up. At the bottom of the picture was the name of the studio, in Siena where she had sung, and on the back someone had lettered, “Gabriella Sestieri fa la parte d’Iphigenia nella produzione d’Iphigenia da Jommelli.” The resemblance to Ludovico was clear, despite the blurring of time and cosmetics to the lines of her face. I felt a stab of jealousy: I inherited her olive skin, but my face is my father’s.
“You know this photograph?” Ludovico asked.
I shook my head. “She left Italy in such a hurry: all she brought with her were some Venetian wineglasses that had been a wedding present to Nonna Laura. I never saw her onstage.”