“If you marry the wrong girl, you’ll have a very sad life.”
“It sounds like I’m going to be sad any way it goes.”
“Only at first.”
Nicky turned off the hose and took a seat on the lawn chair. He offered Elsa a cigarette. She took it. He lit hers and then his own. “You have some experience with a broken engagement?”
“I do.”
“No kidding.”
“I was betrothed to a man before the war. He was a good man. His name was Peter. He was a professor, and he was driving home from a conference, and he was killed in an accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We were going to marry, and our plan was to come to America together and bring my family and his parents. He died, and the plan fell apart. His mother didn’t want to leave his grave there. So she insisted on staying.”
“And your family?”
“My mother and father thought it was all a terrible mistake and that the people in Germany would come to their senses and take back their government. We know now that didn’t happen. I lost my family. My sisters. For nothing.”
“And you had already lost Peter.”
“In a way, that prepared me for the worst. I was already broken—the war just finished me off.”
“But you met Dominic.”
“He looks like Peter.”
“No kidding.”
“I thought Dominic was him. The war was over, and the Americans came in, and I was standing with a group of girls—we had been working in a hospital; spared, they called us—and he came in with the American officers, and he looked at me as though he knew me, and I felt the same when I looked at him, and that was that.”
“Did you marry right away?”
“We were liberated, and as soon as he could, Dominic came for me.”
“Based on one meeting?”
“He knew.”
“And you?”
“I felt safe with him. For me, that’s love. Nick, you have to decide what love is for you. Everybody does. And people are different.”
“I’ll say.”
“You should find a girl who is the same as you are in the ways that matter.”
“Peachy wants the wedding, the house, the kids, but I have a funny feeling she doesn’t really want me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She could have everything she dreams of with just about any guy in the world. She doesn’t really need me to have her dream.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t feel that way.”
“I don’t think she’d understand, even if I explained it.”
“But you’ll have to.”
“I know. She’s waited so long.”
“Don’t feel badly about that.”
“Why not?”
“Because she didn’t have to wait. No one made her wait.”
Nicky thought about this, and it made sense. Never once did Peachy ever say, “I’ve had enough.” She never forced an issue or took any side but his; she waited patiently, knowing that if she did, that Nicky would eventually do what she wanted, because he always had.
Elsa put out her cigarette and stood. “I’m going to check on the baby.” She started down the stairs, but before she left, she turned back. “Nicky, of all the things I hope for you, I want you to know the joy that comes from watching your baby sleep. It almost makes up for everything I’ve lost.”
“I believe you.”
Elsa went down the stairs, and Nicky leaned back, took a slow drag off his cigarette, and wondered where he’d find the courage to change his life. He remembered sometimes valor just shows up. If he was going to do any praying on the subject, it would be to ask for the vision to recognize it when it did.
*
Calla listened at her father’s bedroom door. When she heard his loud, rhythmic snores, she smiled and walked down the hallway to her room. She left her bedroom door slightly ajar in case her father needed her during the night, and climbed into her bed. Through the open window, a cool breeze floated over her. She heard the soft echo of laughter from the street below as a man and a woman walked by, laughing over a joke. She shivered and pulled the coverlet up to her chin.
Lately, Calla had gone off to sleep playing the same scene in her mind, Act 4, scene 5 of Twelfth Night. She felt the velvet gown stand stiffly away from her body, the heat of the spotlight on her brow, the grainy finish of the paint on the stage floor, and Nicky Castone’s touch when he brushed the hair out of her eyes. Her mind would wander to the witnesses, the audience beyond the curved lip of the stage, watching the scene. She would remember the note she gave the actors about wedding scenes in Shakespeare’s comedies. The characters commit to marriage in front of a crowd in order for the vows to stick. People are unlikely to break a promise when they have made it public.
Calla had a recurring dream whereby Nicky and she would pop up in other scenes in the play, sometimes as themselves. The scene would unfold, Nicky would say his lines, but when it came time for Calla to speak, she couldn’t. Calla never spoke in the dream, and yet she knew the lines. She spent the dream frustrated, trying to get the words out, to explain that she understood, that she knew her lines.
Calla thought she might confide in Frank about the strange dream, but decided not to, even though, as they became closer, it was exactly the kind of thing she believed she should share with him. What she couldn’t figure out is why she dreamed of that scene and continued to, and when she woke up, it stayed on her mind.
When she examined the memory of that night, she recalled that she was unable to control her emotions. She remembered that Enzo and Nicky were very good, and for reasons she could not name, she had lost control of the scene. It didn’t matter, of course—she was a last-minute understudy with minimal acting skills. It wasn’t that she had not hit the mark in her own estimation. It was something else entirely, something that had not yet revealed itself to her. In time, she hoped to crack it.
Ambassador Carlo Guardinfante woke up in a hospital bed, not knowing where he was or how long he had been there. He had a view of a small patch of gray sky from his window. When he tried to move, his midsection, bandaged tightly like a corset, would not allow him to bend, sit up, or breathe deeply.
The last thing he remembered was sipping champagne and eating lobster with the American Italians and the captain of the MS Vulcania.
Carlo panicked and cried out.
A serious nun, the sober nurse, Sister Julia Dennehy, wearing a full-length blue and white habit, pushed through the door. She helped Carlo lie back in the bed.
“You must rest, sir.”
“Parli Italiano, Sorella?”
“Poco.” She smiled.
The nun could speak a bit of Italian, and the Ambassador knew enough English, that the pair could cobble together a conversation, enough to assuage his fears.
“Dove sono?”
“L’ospedale. Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village. New York City.”
“Cosa mi é successo?”
“You collapsed aboard ship, you were very sick. They brought you here as soon as the boat docked. The surgeon removed your appendix.”