The Mermaid Garden(33)

“Do you have children?”

“Grown up now, living in Rome.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Yes, cara, I do.”

“Do you think Mamma misses me?”

Signora Bruno’s heart buckled, and she didn’t know what to say. “I should think she does, dear.”

“It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

“What doesn’t?”

“If she doesn’t come back, because I’m in love. I don’t need a mother, you know.”

“You talk a lot of nonsense, you do.” Signora Bruno dabbed her eye with her apron. “I tell you what, you go and fetch your father, and I’ll help you put him to bed.”

“Thank you.”

Signora Bruno pulled herself up slowly, her knees creaking and clicking as she straightened them. “Every child needs a mother. You shouldn’t have to be doing this at your age,” she sighed.

Floriana followed Signora Bruno across the courtyard. Nothing mattered because tomorrow she was going to see Dante.


Floriana found her father in Luigi’s just round the corner from where they lived on via Roma. He was hunched over the bar with an empty glass in his hand. Luigi was denying him another drink, and he was getting angry. Floriana approached him, and the huddle of men trying to persuade him to go home parted to let her through.

“Papà,” she said, prodding his arm. “It’s time to go home.”

Her father looked down at her irritably, his rheumy eyes cold and strange. “Go home yourself, scamp,” he retorted.

Luigi and the other men defended her angrily. “You can’t treat your daughter like that, Elio. You go home now and be a good father.” Floriana had heard it all before and wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of him. If she felt anything at all, she felt weary of this tiresome routine night after night. It astonished her that Costanza’s father still employed him. She wondered whether he, too, felt sorry for her and employed him out of charity. She didn’t imagine her father drove very well with his shaking hands and blurred vision.

Finally, they cajoled him into going home and watched, anxiously, as the little girl helped him out into the street, although she barely reached his waist. He leaned on her as if she were a walking stick, grunting and mumbling incomprehensibly. When she reached the door of her home, Signora Bruno was there as promised. She threw his arm over her broad shoulders and heaved him up the narrow staircase to their apartment. Once inside, she let him fall onto his bed. Floriana removed his shoes while Signora Bruno drew the curtains, noticing the hole in one and the stain on the other. No one could expect a ten-year-old child to wash and mend curtains. It was enough that she washed their clothes, as Signora Bruno had taught her to do after her mother left. “You’re going to have to be mother now,” she had said, and the little girl had listened bravely, trying not to cry. She had a way of puffing out her chest and holding her chin up in order to appear strong.

Signora Bruno watched Floriana cover her father with a quilt. He grabbed her hand, and his face crumpled into a sob like a soggy dishcloth. “Forgive me,” he mumbled.

“Go to sleep, Papà.”

“I should be a better father to you. Tomorrow I will stop drinking, I promise.”

“You say that every night. It’s boring.”

“Your mother’s to blame for leaving us. If she hadn’t left us, everything would be all right.”

“You started drinking long before she left.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Maybe she left because you drank.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I love her, and I love our son. Where are they now? Will I ever see them again? What sort of boy has he grown up to be? He probably doesn’t even remember me. But I love them and I love you. I drink to drown the pain of my pitiful life. I drink to forget my guilt, because I haven’t been a good father to you. Forgive me, Floriana. My little Floriana.” He reached out a hand to touch her face.

“Go to sleep, Papà.” He closed his eyes, and his hand dropped onto the bed beside him. She gazed down at him a moment, searching in vain for the father she longed for him to be.

“Have you enough to eat?” Signora Bruno asked as they left the room and closed the door.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Sure.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I think he’ll be dead in the morning.”

“Then what would you do?”

“Go and live with Aunt Zita.”

“She has enough children to feed.”

“I don’t eat much.”

“But you’ll grow and then you’ll eat plenty.”