Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [39]
“I found it,” called Lorenzo from two rows over.
Giovanna’s feet rooted to where she stood. Her brother came, took her by the arm, and led her to the stone that was numbered 304.
“Giovanna, I’m sorry, but when we make more money, we will get a proper stone marker with his name—a big one. They don’t put a photo on the stone in this country, but the carver could make a boat. No, it’s better a building, maybe the triangle building.” Lorenzo babbled over the silence until he realized he should retreat.
First, Giovanna brushed the dirt off the stone. With her finger, she traced the outline of the new grass. There was nothing else to fuss with, nothing to arrange. All of a sudden she understood the reason for vases and candles in the cemeteries in Italy. It gave you something to do, a connection, a way to take care of the dead.
Left only with her prayers, she knelt at Nunzio’s head, kissing her fingers and touching them to the ground repeatedly. When that wasn’t enough, she laid her palms flat to the ground while she beseeched Nunzio to guide her and tell her how to live. The cold anonymous ground gave her no answers, and she collapsed forward on top of the grave. From afar, Lorenzo wondered if he should go to her, but not knowing how to comfort her, he turned away. Giovanna lay on top of Nunzio’s grave, letting the wails and sobs that she had locked deep inside escape. Lorenzo sat behind a tree for fear that someone would question why he wasn’t helping her, but he knew that this was a passage she must go through alone. He picked up a small branch, took out his penknife, and scraped at the stick.
It was one or two hours later when Lorenzo noticed that Giovanna’s cries had tapered off to exhausted whimpers. He walked to where she lay on top of the grave and lifted her into a sitting position. Taking the corner of his jacket, Lorenzo wiped the mud and tears from her face, and, sitting beside her, he planted the stick, now a slender crucifix, in front of the stone. This gesture reminded Giovanna that she, too, had brought offerings.
The first time she had walked into Lorenzo’s airless, dark apartment, she had looked for signs of Nunzio. Finding none, she had asked Lorenzo if he had any of Nunzio’s things. Lorenzo had produced a small box and explained that the clothes and tools had been given to those in need. Giovanna had taken the box to the farthest corner of the apartment and turned her back to the others while gently lifting out each object, starting with Nunzio’s cap. She had cradled his cap and then run his razor blade across her own skin, using it to cut the string holding a package of her letters. At the bottom of the box there had been two of the mustasole cookies that Giovanna had made Nunzio for his voyage. They had remained wrapped in the fabric of her wedding dress. The G and the N had been chipped but were still entwined, and the swordfish was missing part of its fin. Giovanna had remembered that she had made a third cookie, a crucifix. She had smiled, and the smile had turned into a big, throaty roar when she realized Nunzio had eaten the cross. “Ah, Nunzio,” she had laughed aloud, “I will say your prayers.”
The sight of this new woman laughing at their dead uncle’s things had frightened Lorenzo’s children. They hadn’t known what to make of her and of the urgency with which she hugged them. They had loved their uncle and understood that this was his wife, and their papa’s sister, but she had seemed sad and strange. Their mother, too, had seemed uneasy in her presence.
Now at the cemetery, Giovanna took the two mustasole cookies from the pocket of her skirt. She had also brought two of the ancient coins that they had played with as children and a lock of her own hair cut with Nunzio’s razor. She had thought she would leave these relics at his stone, but she feared they would