Matelda hadn’t had a good night’s rest since she’d entered the hospital. She would have liked to have slept, but there was perpetual drama on the third floor once the sun went down. Patients would yell for nurses. Some were in pain, God bless them, but others didn’t know how to operate their phones or the television remote. It wasn’t worth it to try to rest on this particularly noisy night on the third floor, so Matelda raised her bed to the sitting position.
Matelda’s phone was charging on the nightstand. She reached for it. She scrolled through the apps and tapped on Classic Movies. The titles of the movies of her youth in 1950s Italy were listed. There were star ratings next to their titles. She paid no mind to the reviews. Instead, she scrolled through, looking for the first movie she had ever seen in a theater. She remembered her father taking her to Lucca for a treat.
She became giddy when she found Sciuscià on the queue. She tapped on it, slipped in her earbuds, and lay back on the pillow. Shoeshine. She had thought about the film through the years but could never find it. Matelda could not believe how many of the scenes she remembered. The boys shining shoes to buy a horse, the boys riding on the horse, the juvenile prison. The bad boy who got the good ones in trouble. As the scenes played out, her thoughts took her back to her childhood in Viareggio. Her mother and father had tried to make her feel safe in the world. Matelda naturally felt dread so much more easily than courage, as if fear was her primary emotion.
Matelda turned the movie off. She felt her chest tighten. She thought of her doctor’s conversation with her. Who knew the heart was the cause of memory loss? It seemed to Matelda that the heart should hold every experience, making the muscle stronger. Instead it was revealed that the heart, like any good machine, could only take the stress of age, use, and disappointment until it no longer could. Eventually, the parts would wear out. She lay still and listened to her own heartbeat as she drifted off to sleep. When she woke, the breakfast tray was untouched and her doctor was looking at her.
“Oh, Dottore, it’s you. What time is it?”
“Nine a.m. How are you feeling, Matelda?”
“Better. I’d like to go home.”
“I don’t advise that.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. But I’m not trying to get well, because I can’t get well. You and I both know I’m at the end.”
“We don’t know that, Matelda.”
“It’s harder for me to breathe. I can’t walk. Sometimes I can hear my heartbeat in my ear, and I know that’s not good. So let’s make a deal. I’ll wear my oxygen tank and I’ll do my exercises and anything else you ask of me at home. Please let me go. I have lots of help, meals, and so forth. Dottore, I have a terrace that looks out over the sea. It’s so blue this time of year—there’s no jewel plucked from the earth as spectacular. I don’t want the last thing I taste to be your broth, the last thing I see to be this pressboard ceiling, and the last thing I hear to be the beeps of these machines. I want to see the waves and the sky. I want to hear the birds and feel the breeze from the ocean, and I want to take a shot of whiskey whenever I please.”
“How are you doing today?” Olimpio said from the doorway. Anina followed him into the room.
“I feel grand. Tell him the good news, Dottore.” Matelda looked up at the doctor.
“Matelda can go home.” He smiled down at his patient, took her hand, and gave it an affectionate squeeze.
* * *
“Aren’t you glad I put the elevator in?” Olimpio wheeled Matelda off the lift into their apartment.
“I’m so happy.” The sun split the apartment with stripes of white light illuminating the place and things she loved most. “But I’m thrilled you convinced me to take the penthouse. I love the light.”
Anina emerged from the kitchen. “I juiced some kale for you, Nonna.”
“Oh, bella, you enjoy. Pour Nonna a Campari and soda.”
“Coming up.” Anina brought Matelda’s bag to her room.
“I’d better call Nicolina and tell her we’re home,” Olimpio said.
“Before you do, leave me outside in the sun.”
* * *
Anina brought Matelda’s cocktail and an oil pretzel on the terrace. She pulled a chair over to sit next to her grandmother. “It’s early for alcohol.”
“Not when you’re over eighty. It’s never too late,” Matelda said.
Anina tore the oil pretzel in two. The spongy center was buttery and fresh, while the outer shell was glossy and hard. She handed half to her grandmother.
“I’m going to miss oil pretzels.” Matelda dunked a piece into her drink to soften it. She tasted it. “The nuns in Dumbarton used to make the Scottish version. They called them popovers. I miss those too.”
“We could try to make them for you,” Anina offered.
“Sometimes the memory is sweeter,” Matelda said. “At least for me.”
“Italians never forget what they eat if it’s good.”
Matelda nodded. Her granddaughter had just summarized her entire life in an oil pretzel.
PART THREE
LET WHOEVER LONGS TO ATTAIN ETERNAL LIFE IN HEAVEN HEED THESE WARNINGS:
When considering the future, contemplate these things:
Death, than which nothing is more certain
Judgment, than which nothing is more strict
Hell, than which nothing is more terrible
Paradise, than which nothing is more delightful
CHAPTER 34
Glasgow
JULY 3, 1940