“He will stay with my family, and he will be safe.” She turns on the lights. There are a few round tables and a microwave above an empty counter. Nicosa checks his cell, but there is no service in the basement.
“That will never happen,” he says, addressing the cigarette machine.
“Are you going to stop me?” “I don’t have to. He will never choose to leave Siena.” “He will have no choice. I’m taking him. That’s all.” “If you are trying to punish me by taking Giovanni away,” Nicosa says slowly, “there is no need. I blame myself for what happened. I should have kept a closer eye. Not let him stay out all hours with people we don’t know, like that boy he met on the Campo, the African punk who gave him his first joint — it was all downhill from there.” I recall Inspector Martini speculating that Giovanni most likely had tried drugs, and wondered how far down was “downhill.” “Does he still get high?” I ask.
“No,” Cecilia answers. “Not anymore.” “It’s in the past,” Nicosa says irritably. “Right now he is very sick. He needs our prayers.” “I’m wondering if Giovanni’s involvement with drugs has anything to do with the attack,” I said.
“Giovanni is not involved with drugs!” Nicosa says. “Did you not hear me? I said I take the blame. Sometimes I am not as good a father as I should be or want to be, but right now I am going upstairs to be with my son. Don’t even think about taking him to El Salvador,” he tells his wife. “Now or ever.” “Infuriating man,” Cecilia says when he’s left.
The basement lounge is like a bunker, soundproofed from activity in the hospital above. With no cell service, we have no way of knowing that at that moment, Giovanni’s condition has drastically changed. Instead, we slump in plastic chairs, mindlessly eating potato chips with packets of garlic mayonnaise Cecilia found in a drawer.
“I hid my pregnancy for seven months,” she is saying. “At the beginning, Nicoli didn’t know. We met in the aftermath of an earthquake on top of a civil war — everything was in confusion. You are young, you want to affirm life, you go to bed with a handsome stranger. We were madly in love, but we did not expect to be together again; it was too far-fetched. He went back to Italy. I studied for my medical degree. I felt the pregnancy was my responsibility. I was afraid to ask this man I hardly knew for help, so I went against everything and decided to have Giovanni on my own.” “Did your family support you?” Cecilia snorts. “My mother said she wanted to die. I ruined all her hopes that I would be a doctor, and she had sacrificed so much for my education. After the birth I was very unhappy and in a deep depression, but all I could do was struggle and manage to work and do good in school. My aunts had to talk to my mother and say, ‘You need to be stronger, and hold her, and don’t let her sink, because if you let her go, what’s going to happen to all these years of working so hard? Why give up now? For what people will say?’ How can I put this to you? In the Latin culture it is not even your choice to have an abortion, because the idea is that to have this baby will be your punishment. You did it, and that will be the consequences. Of course, the moment he was born, Giovanni became my mother’s joy.
“She urged me to contact Nicoli. I was terrified he would refuse to answer, but it was just the opposite. He cared more than I knew, and he was so proud to have a son. He was just starting out in the coffee business, but he did manage to send money. He insisted that we wait to get married in Italy, in the contrada, in the proper way. It took three years for him to make his way back to El Salvador. In the meantime I was a single mother.
“Giovanni was born before Christmas. In the New Year, when the next term started, I had to take this little tiny bundle to school. I fed him at midnight. I would come home so tired. I worked sometimes three days straight in the hospital. When he was older, I would come home half dead, and Giovanni would say, ‘Let’s go paint!’ and I would fall asleep on the table and Giovanni would say, ‘Mama, wake up, you’re not playing with me!’ and sometimes I would cry because I felt I was not giving my baby enough. It was a rough and hard time in my life. It was like everything was crumbling. The only thing I held on to was the belief that Nicoli was coming back.
“He didn’t see Giovanni until Giovanni was three. We left for Italy, and Nicoli and I were married immediately. Of course, I had to be baptized into Oca first, so Giovanni would be of Oca. I embraced everything my husband put before me. I learned to cook Italian food. I took care of Nicoli’s mother, even though my heart was breaking because I had left my own mother behind. It was known that Nicoli had other women, and I was supposed to accept that as a way of life. He once had a mistress who disappeared in a supermarket parking lot; probably she’s dead. It was a scandal. They said she was part of the mafias.” “Was she?” I ask.
“I did not hire a detective to find out,” Cecilia says sarcastically. “Nicoli apologized a thousand times, offered to do anything to make it right. There were so many nights we both just cried. Once you go through something like that, no matter how much you try, the marriage is never the same. At one point I was going to leave him, take my son back to El Salvador, but that would have been too hard on Giovanni. We break apart, we heal, we continue. Nicoli pays for my clinics and pulls the political strings necessary to get the permits and paperwork and all the rest of it. Without his influence, we could not be of service to our poorest patients.” “Is that what Nicoli meant about not being a good father? Was he talking about his influence with the mafias?” Cecilia shuts it down.
“Things are as they are.” When we get up to the surgical floor, an old man is standing in the hallway outside Giovanni’s room. He wears discreetly checked trousers and a raincoat thrown over his shoulders. A young muscular fellow wearing a T-shirt and a jade disk on a leather thong around his neck helps the old man into his raincoat. He needs help because he has no hands. In place of his hands there are two black prostheses — medieval contraptions of polished stakes and wooden levers. Dressed, the old man nods politely at us and says “Arrivederci,” as they pass.
Cecilia’s eyes widen. She bursts into Giovanni’s room. Giovanni looks no different; a sixteen-year-old full of life who isn’t moving. Eyes closed, the machine breathing for him. She swiftly checks the monitors that show his vital signs.
“Cecilia — what’s wrong?” “Do you think that man was inside this room?” “Who? The old guy in the hall?” I scan the place. The only sign of another’s presence is the big chair where visitors sit. The shawls and pillows Cecilia brought for napping are in disarray on the floor, as if someone has thrown them off quickly.
“It looks like someone was here. Maybe Nicoli. Let’s call his cell—” “It doesn’t matter,” my sister interrupts quickly. “Giovanni’s okay. He’s okay,” she says again, to reassure herself.
“You seem afraid.”
“I’m fine.”
“He scared you. Why? Who is he?” She wets her lips. “Just a confused old man.” The door opens, startling Cecilia, but it is only the nurse, a squat, large-breasted woman speaking nonstop Italian. Cecilia listens, and stares her son, who is apparently in a deep, drugged sleep.
“She says Giovanni is responsive. He squeezed her finger, just a few minutes ago!” Cecilia says. “She called my cell, but we were in the basement with no service. This is wonderful news! We can take him off the ventilator!” The nurse smiles widely, showing gold teeth. Then she rams Cecilia with her bosom and crushes her in a euphoric hug.
TWELVE
“His name is Cosimo Umberto, but they call him Il Fantòccio, the Puppet,” Dennis Rizzio says on the phone from Rome later that night. “Worked his way up to capomandamento, head of a district of mafia families.”