Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [11]
Nunzio and Giovanna sat on the edge of the cliff above the village and looked out at the moon-drenched sea. It was a night so clear and bright that it was timeless. This moment, too, was timeless. They were married adults in their late twenties, but two decades before, they had often sat in the exact same spot talking of their future while they devoured fresh cheese and bread that they had traded fish for. There was no longer cheese and bread, but they still dreamt.
While Nunzio wove fantastic plans that included wealth and status, Giovanna prayed that her self-diagnosis was wrong. She hadn’t menstruated in three months; she believed that this wasn’t because she was pregnant but because she was starving.
“You know, Giovanna, one day we will sit here and I will call you Doctor,” declared Nunzio.
This comment was so outrageous that it interrupted Giovanna’s thoughts, and she laughed.
“No, Giovanna, I mean it. When things change, I will work in the north for a few years while you go to school. We will come back to Scilla as a doctor and an engineer with our five little children.”
She almost laughed again, but she saw that Nunzio’s eyes had hardened, which meant he was serious, so she kept quiet. She loved planning the future with Nunzio, but this dream was impossible. She would be happy if their plans simply included no separations, food, and children.
“Giovanna, you will make the most wonderful doctor. When I was in school, I read about women who had done many things, and I even met a woman doctor. That’s when I thought my Giovanna could be a dottore. Why not?”
It was impossible for Giovanna to say anything, so she simply gazed at the sky. Were life not currently a contest for survival, it would have been unthinkable to hear a husband encouraging his wife to become a doctor. But in times of turmoil, tradition became a detail.
After their wedding, Nunzio was forced to travel to find work. He spent time in Reggio helping to build ships and went as far as Naples to oversee the construction of a dock. At first Nunzio and Giovanna considered moving to a city with more work, but it soon became clear that there wasn’t any city in the south with enough work to keep Nunzio employed more than a few days a month. In the north there were public works projects, but after five years in Rome he knew that, engineer or not, in the north he was still considered a southern peasant.
Within a few months there wasn’t even work in other cities. Nunzio would fish, but there was little to trade for the fish, and no one had the money to buy it in the store. To make matters worse, the sea’s bounty had diminished, and often they would return with barely a basket of fish to sell. Occasionally, the glantuomini—the gentry—walked into the fish store. Their felt hats set them apart from the villagers wearing worn wool caps. Giovanna cringed when they entered. Even though there would soon be coins in the coffers, she hated the manner in which she had to greet them, “Vosia, sa benadica”—“bless me, your honor.” She refused to kiss their hands as the others did. The gentry were in full control of the local government and the police. They made the laws, enforced the laws, and exempted themselves from them. Giovanna often heard the men in town end a story with, “Chi ha denaro ed amicizia va nel culo della giustizia”—“he who has money and friends fucks justice in the ass.”
Giovanna and Nunzio’s families survived on fish and the food and sundries that were given to Giovanna in exchange for delivering babies. But it was the money sent by Lorenzo from l’America that allowed them to keep their house and pay the taxes.
Giovanna knew they were better off than most. A year ago, she started to notice curious dents in the walls of houses she visited. The mystery was solved when she entered a home to check on a mother who had delivered a few days before and saw her scraping plaster from the wall and adding