Day of the Dead by Maurizio de Giovanni, Antony Shugaar Page A

groceries, dripping rain onto the floor. The
tata
had immediately invited her in, but Enrica hesitated, as if she were afraid of something; in the end, she had made up her mind and walked through the door, eyes on the floor until she got to the kitchen. She set the groceries on the table, being careful not to look around lest she seem to be prying. At that point Rosa had invited her into the living room, while she made a pot of coffee. When Enrica protested, stammering that she didn’t want to impose, the
tata
brusquely pointed her to the sofa: if she wanted to offer the girl a cup of coffee, she wasn’t about to tolerate objections of any kind.
    In the meantime Enrica was inwardly experiencing a bout of panic. The minute she’d found herself on that landing, outside that apartment, all the courage and determination she’d built up over the past two days, endlessly repeating to herself that the only way to get beyond that impasse was to make contact with Ricciardi’s
tata
, had melted away like a gelato in mid-August. She’d thought about it so much, dreamed about it so often that now she was terrified: the phantom of a possible disappointment, the thought of hearing bad news, of learning that he was engaged or something even worse, gripped her by the throat, literally suffocating her. So she sat there, at the center of her heart’s temple, silently gasping for air with a demitasse in her hand, praying to be struck dead then and there.
    Rosa, unaware of these thoughts but realizing that the young woman was struggling, finally said to her:
    â€œSignori’, if you wait any longer, we’re going to have to toss it out, that espresso. It’s very good, you know; I make a good cup of coffee.”
    Enrica started when the old woman said this, coming close to spilling most of the good coffee on the carpet. She drank half of it in a single gulp, burning her tongue in the process.
    â€œReally very good, very good,
grazie
.
Grazie
again. I only wanted to help you carry the groceries upstairs.”
    Rosa blinked: the situation was worse than she’d thought at first. Enrica was truly distraught; it would be no simple matter to make her feel comfortable.
    â€œAnd what do you do, most days? Do you stay at home, do you study, do you work?”
    â€œNo, I . . . that is, I have my high school diploma, I’m a teacher, but I don’t teach. No, I mean, I teach, but the fact is that I teach at home, I tutor children at our apartment, not at a school. I help them prepare, and then they take their exams at school.”
    She realized she was acting like a complete idiot. She needed to get a grip on herself, or this was going to end badly.
    â€œBut I do housework, too, of course. That is, I help my mother, I give her a hand around the apartment. I especially like to cook, and my father says that I’m very good at it, too. And I embroider.”
    Rosa liked that surge of pride, and smiled approvingly. A woman who knows how to keep house instinctively recognizes another like herself. A kind of informal sisterhood.
    â€œReally? That’s nice. My
signorino
lives here, did you know that? I look after him, but he’s the master of the house.”
    That direct reference to the object of her thoughts and dreams shattered Enrica’s mounting equilibrium with the force of a hurricane uprooting a delicate young sapling. She started stammering again.
    â€œAh, is that so? I had no idea . . . that is, I knew, but . . . of course, I live across the street, and I’d seen a man, but I didn’t think . . . not that I was looking through your windows intentionally, but you know, living right across the way . . . ”
    Rosa was afraid the girl would burst into tears right in front of her. She decided to go all in, relying on the no-nonsense approach of her birthplace:
    â€œSignori’, I know that you already knew it. And I also know that the
signorino
Luigi Alfredo, my young