It is late evening, and I am studying for a history test at the kitchen table, while my mother is occupied with feeding my brother. Outside our open door, there is a fuss. I see Pia running toward our house crying, her long hair untied and trailing behind her. She has red marks all over her face and neck as if someone has hit her. She runs toward me and grabs me by the shoulders.
“Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve ruined me! I’m ruined!”
Her parents are not far behind. They demand to know what I have told zia Rosetta.
“What lies did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I didn’t tell her anything.”
“Face to face, come with me. Let’s have two words with her.”
My uncle Achille, Pia’s father, grabs me by my right arm and starts to walk up the mountain. I can hardly keep up with him. The others follow behind. In the back, I hear my brother wailing and my mother shouting.
“What are you doing? She is just a child!”
Every step to zia Rosetta’s house makes me feel like Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine. Neighbours and relatives are gathered outside, waiting to see what comes next. Pia is beside her mother sobbing. Her future uncertain, she doesn’t look at me or talk to me. The fate of her wedding hangs in the balance of the argument between her parents and her in-laws. Maurizio sits beside his mother. Her arm is around his shoulder.
Someone says, “Well? Let’s hear it.”
Zia Rosetta speaks first. She points at me.
“The girl is anxious about the filth she witnessed. She couldn’t wait to tell me.”
She pauses. Then, in a voice full of sorrow, she says, “My son comes from a good family. He has no need to marry someone who looks for cover, una che deve coprirsi.”
Above me, I can feel zio Achille’s anger. It is like a savage storm about to break. Pia’s mother steps in front of him in case he is about to do something foolish. Her voice is shaking.
“Why don’t you look after your own daughter, since half the time you don’t even know where she is?”
Composed, and waiting for just this opportunity, zia Rosetta answers her.
“My daughter has no secrets from me, and she does not go to the city to put herself on display.”
When it is almost too much to bear, and the threat of more ugliness is about to swallow all of us, I hear my mother call me. With my brother on her hip, she makes her way through the crowd and takes my hand.
“Li, tell the truth,” she says.
But her eyes tell me something different. I weigh the options in my head. I don’t hesitate.
“I didn’t see anything,” I say.
Zia Rosetta turns to me. Her eyes are slits that disappear into her head.
“You take me for a fool,” she hisses. “Evil runs in your blood. God help my poor son.”
Maurizio, quiet, waits for instructions from his mother. He hopes zia Rosetta doesn’t win this one because if the wedding is off, he stands to lose a great deal. He cannot expect to keep the “soft job” Pia’s father promises him. He will have to leave town and try to make a life for himself, far from his beloved mamma.
Sensing victory, Pia’s father comes down on the whole family like a fist.
“I will have my daughter examined. If your son has so much as touched a hair on her head, you will all pay. Either there will be a wedding or there will be a funeral.”
Then I hear another voice, pleading, afraid. It belongs to zia Gilda, the aunt with no children, the aunt with useless legs. I have never seen her leave her house unless zio Napoleone carries her on his back.
“For the love of God, don’t tempt destiny,” she says. “Make peace before we have another sciagura.”
Everyone knows what she means. It is the first time I hear the wife of a Giganteschi mention the tragedy of Natalia in front of outsiders.
On a hot day in July, Pia marries Maurizio. I am a guest, but I am alone. My mother cannot be with me because my grandfather has stubbornly insisted she look after the farm while he and my grandmother go to Rome to visit his sick brother Alberto. My father is a thousand kilometres away working in Germany. By the end of a long day, Pia is absolved of all wrongdoing. She is happy. She changes out of her wedding dress into a cream-coloured suit with a matching hat, and leaves with Maurizio for their honeymoon. She has no idea what she unleashes on me the day she takes me with her to be her chaperone.
Just before my tenth birthday, I ask Alarico a question about curses. He is two months older than me and knows many things.
“Alarico, how do you know when you have a curse on you?”
“When bad things start to happen.”