their hair.
Clearly this was not a state of affairs that could continue.
“We must do something about the children,” he told Pina one night. “They can’t carry on this way.” But Pina was languid and dreamlike; in her sickness, she did not seem aware that the boys were beginning to run wild. Still beautiful, her face had an insubstantial quality now that made him afraid to look at her. Always, before, she had been as solid as a Greek statue.
Eventually, Gesuina agreed to help Pina mind the babies, and Rizzu agreed to help Amedeo in the bar. “Not for the money,” said Gesuina. “Out of love. But the money I’ll accept, too.” She was almost completely blind now, but resourceful, and she found her way about. She could lull Aurelio to sleep in minutes, croaking island songs over his cradle. If the two elder boys fought, she would creep up behind them and floor them with an alarming roar of
“Basta, ragazzi!”
After Gesuina had done this four or five times, they stopped fighting altogether. Then, once she had the boys under control, Gesuina became kind, and plied them with sugared
ricotta
and fresh figs she peeled with her own hands.
So between them, Gesuina and Pina kept the boys in some kind of order and Rizzu and Amedeo kept the bar open, and the pregnancy progressed into the autumn. Because Pina craved the dust from the ground and the twigs of the orioles’ nests that fell from the poplars into the courtyard, Gesuina predicted that this child would be a girl: “Odd cravings,” she reasoned, “always mean a female child.” The old woman had her own kind of logic that could not be argued with, and they began to refer to the child as “she.”
Amedeo planned that his fourth child would be delivered in the hospital in Siracusa. His medical equipment was outdated and some had had to be thrown away due to rust; he had not opened a medical periodical since 1921. Plainly, he could not deliver a child. He had delivered two of his boys, but this was a responsibility he felt he could not bear for a third time.
“When the baby is due, we’ll go in Pierino’s boat to the mainland,” he said, as he lay beside Pina early in November, brushing out her ropes of black hair, caressing her aching shoulders, while the first winter storm troubled the windows. “I’ll take you there and you can stay there until the baby is born.”
It was all arranged: Rizzu had a cousin on the mainland at whose farmhouse Pina could stay, and the farmer’s wife would be paid twenty
lire
a day to act as Pina’s nurse. When the time came, the farmer and his wife would take her to the hospital in a neighbor’s motorcar.
But when he explained this plan to her, Pina would not agree. “Is it Gesuina’s superstition?” said Amedeo. “It’s quite safe to have a baby in the hospital, you know. You mustn’t listen to what the old women say. Gesuina’s never been in a modern hospital in her life, and she’s frightened of the electric lights and the doctors in white coats and the smell of disinfectant—that’s all.”
“It’s not that,” said Pina. “I don’t mind about the hospital. No, it’s just a sense I have.”
He knew better than to laugh at these notions of Pina’s. Hadn’t she predicted the births of Aurelio and Flavio—two more boys, she had said, and then perhaps a girl? “I know that my baby will be born here on the island, like her brothers,” said Pina. “She’ll come at her own time, before we’re ready. I know that for certain.”
Pina was right, as it turned out. The baby came suddenly, in a rush of water and blood, eight weeks too soon.
—
THE FIRST THING HE HEARD of it was Pina screaming,
“Ai-ee, ai-ee!”
They had installed a curtain between the bar and the kitchen during the chaotic early days of her pregnancy, so that he could listen for sounds of strife among the boys. Now Gesuina came hobbling through it. “Where are you,
dottore
?” she said.
“Here,” he said.
Clearly this was not a state of affairs that could continue.
“We must do something about the children,” he told Pina one night. “They can’t carry on this way.” But Pina was languid and dreamlike; in her sickness, she did not seem aware that the boys were beginning to run wild. Still beautiful, her face had an insubstantial quality now that made him afraid to look at her. Always, before, she had been as solid as a Greek statue.
Eventually, Gesuina agreed to help Pina mind the babies, and Rizzu agreed to help Amedeo in the bar. “Not for the money,” said Gesuina. “Out of love. But the money I’ll accept, too.” She was almost completely blind now, but resourceful, and she found her way about. She could lull Aurelio to sleep in minutes, croaking island songs over his cradle. If the two elder boys fought, she would creep up behind them and floor them with an alarming roar of
“Basta, ragazzi!”
After Gesuina had done this four or five times, they stopped fighting altogether. Then, once she had the boys under control, Gesuina became kind, and plied them with sugared
ricotta
and fresh figs she peeled with her own hands.
So between them, Gesuina and Pina kept the boys in some kind of order and Rizzu and Amedeo kept the bar open, and the pregnancy progressed into the autumn. Because Pina craved the dust from the ground and the twigs of the orioles’ nests that fell from the poplars into the courtyard, Gesuina predicted that this child would be a girl: “Odd cravings,” she reasoned, “always mean a female child.” The old woman had her own kind of logic that could not be argued with, and they began to refer to the child as “she.”
Amedeo planned that his fourth child would be delivered in the hospital in Siracusa. His medical equipment was outdated and some had had to be thrown away due to rust; he had not opened a medical periodical since 1921. Plainly, he could not deliver a child. He had delivered two of his boys, but this was a responsibility he felt he could not bear for a third time.
“When the baby is due, we’ll go in Pierino’s boat to the mainland,” he said, as he lay beside Pina early in November, brushing out her ropes of black hair, caressing her aching shoulders, while the first winter storm troubled the windows. “I’ll take you there and you can stay there until the baby is born.”
It was all arranged: Rizzu had a cousin on the mainland at whose farmhouse Pina could stay, and the farmer’s wife would be paid twenty
lire
a day to act as Pina’s nurse. When the time came, the farmer and his wife would take her to the hospital in a neighbor’s motorcar.
But when he explained this plan to her, Pina would not agree. “Is it Gesuina’s superstition?” said Amedeo. “It’s quite safe to have a baby in the hospital, you know. You mustn’t listen to what the old women say. Gesuina’s never been in a modern hospital in her life, and she’s frightened of the electric lights and the doctors in white coats and the smell of disinfectant—that’s all.”
“It’s not that,” said Pina. “I don’t mind about the hospital. No, it’s just a sense I have.”
He knew better than to laugh at these notions of Pina’s. Hadn’t she predicted the births of Aurelio and Flavio—two more boys, she had said, and then perhaps a girl? “I know that my baby will be born here on the island, like her brothers,” said Pina. “She’ll come at her own time, before we’re ready. I know that for certain.”
Pina was right, as it turned out. The baby came suddenly, in a rush of water and blood, eight weeks too soon.
—
THE FIRST THING HE HEARD of it was Pina screaming,
“Ai-ee, ai-ee!”
They had installed a curtain between the bar and the kitchen during the chaotic early days of her pregnancy, so that he could listen for sounds of strife among the boys. Now Gesuina came hobbling through it. “Where are you,
dottore
?” she said.
“Here,” he said.
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