“Era beddu u putrusinu. Arrivò u iattu e ci pisciò,” they whispered in strict Sicilian dialect, meaning she was ugly from the start and the makeover only made it worse. “And with those legs! Who does she think she is, showing so much skin?”
It wasn’t just physically that Rosalia changed, her whole attitude had new potency, and Santino could not stand it. He started criticizing her lightly at first, telling her she could not sleep in his bed because he didn’t recognize her. Then he got heavy-handed, at times even physical, and Rosalia began detouring him. The island women dressed in black crossed their hearts when they saw her pass by. They thought she was possessed by “u spiritu du Donna Nzula,” the spirit of Lady Nunzia, the island’s only professional prostitute who had taunted married women until her death. They thought Tindara had invoked Nunzia and placed her inside Rosalia’s body. Santino was right if he chose to disown her. Rosalia was offending his honor. It didn’t matter that nobody on the island had cared enough about him to send him to school or give him decent clothes. Now he was suddenly one of them—a fellow islander ranged against his immoral, dissolute wife.
“The whole island is talking about it,” Alma announced with a tinge of excited local gossip at dinner.
“About what?” I asked.
“What you did to Rosalia.” My uncle spoke with a grave expression. “Why did you do it?”
He got up and cleared the table, annoyed.
“You’ve become so American,” he groaned. “All this stuff about self-improvement and looking pretty and making the best out of what you have. It’s silly. Like those stupid American commercials. We never had that kind of business on this island. People here don’t even know how to read and write. Why should they care about straightening their hair when they barely have food to eat?”
Suddenly I felt stupid, as if I’d toyed with a pillar of society, a fixed ancient law that had been there before I landed on the island and would be there when I left. A law not worth questioning.
Lay low, even out. Lay low, even out. I thought about the motorboat warning. Why did I ignore it? Why couldn’t I stay put? Where did that restlessness come from? I knew the answer, but kept tiptoeing around it. I tiptoed around the memory of Arash’s doey eyes, so similar to the ones of the island donkeys. I looked away when the porous lava rocks reminded me of the little dimple on his chin. I avoided men in white T-shirts and despised the darker Sicilians who looked Middle Eastern because they reminded me of him. My grief for Arash was a brick I’d safely packed in a box, something tangible I had to carry with me. The box was heavy but sealed, the contents perfectly isolated. As long as I didn’t open the packaging I’d be fine. I shifted the load from one side of my head to the other, never finding the courage to throw it off. I knew I couldn’t change Rosalia’s life, but I could help a new person emerge from her armature because it was the same thing I was trying to do with myself.
“She’s not your experiment, you know,” Alma asserted dryly.
“But she’s happy. She’s happier. She smiles now. What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
—
Rosalia started spending more time in nature to avoid her husband. After twenty-three years living life indoors she was curious and alive. The pangs in her chest had diminished. Sometimes they were barely noticeable, she told me. Tindara said it was because she was on the right track. There were moments when I looked at her on the rocks by the sea, and she seemed beautiful, like a new being.
Her daughters were inspired by their mother’s new freedom. They all hiked to the top of the island to look at wild goats and chase the rabbits that lived in the crater’s shrubs. During winter, islanders hunted them with rifles. The girls were used to eating them off the grill, but now all they wanted was to hold them in their arms.
“Are we allowed to pet them?” the younger one asked as she ran after a bunny.
“Are we allowed to love them?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Rosalia replied in the grip of newfound mirth. What she felt in her chest for the first time in years was the feeling of love, an expanse of possibilities, a lightheartedness. It made her jump out of bed at dawn and go to sleep with a smile on her face. No pangs. She was in love, she said. Not with her husband or with anyone. Just in love: a fluttering heart and air in her legs. The island beasts sang to her. She sat on the stairs and spoke to lizards. She started to take care of Angelina and Maradona and the ostriches, cleaning them, curing their sores. Everything on the island seemed interconnected in her eyes, unified and divine—people and prickly pears and prehistoric canyons, the wild and tame animals, the disappearing fish in the sea—all bound together under the same wide moon, the same relentless sun.
The former schedule of the house—lunch at noon, dinner at eight—ceased.
“Eat when you’re hungry,” Rosalia told the girls. “Sleep when you’re tired.”
The sisters descended the mountain with bunnies in their arms. They brought them home and kept them as pets. Rabbits chewed through electrical cords. The refrigerator broke, the TV short-circuited. Santino went wild with rage. Out of all the beings his wife seemed to have chosen to share her love with, he was not one of them.
He took out his revenge on me because I’d started it. At first he stopped saying hello. He avoided me at all costs and if we ever crossed paths he wheezed, spat on the ground, and moved on.
I bumped into him as he climbed the mountain one day. He was whipping Maradona’s flanks with a switch, urging him up the shaky path, loaded with water and beer for the Germans who lived on top. I was coming down with his girls, bunnies in our arms. He elbowed his way past them and kept walking up.
“No more rabbits,” he commanded.
The girls looked down and giggled.
“Go back home! You look like feral children,” he screamed at them. He huffed and kept making his way up the mountain without acknowledging me.
“Accà!” he brayed at Maradona, whipping him harder. The word meant “right here,” but it had the same sound as casa, meaning “home.” Here. At home. With me. Stay. Do as you’re told. Those small ideas were the only things he had to latch onto—the reassurance that everything had a place that could not be altered. Stick to me! his eyes cried, but he cringed inside. He clung to little convictions—home, wife, food, quiet—with all his strength, but nobody listened anymore: not his wife, not his animals, not his daughters. A silent rebellion had insinuated itself under their skin and there was no going back.