The Italian Party Page 2

  Michael stared straight ahead. He looked as if he were in some kind of trance. She felt a new kind of worry bloom inside her like a fungus. Why wasn’t he doing anything? His hands were still on the steering wheel, as if somehow the crushing jaws of this unfriendly place were going to suddenly open up and free them and he could race forward. Even though it was silly, she couldn’t help but feel it was all her fault—in Roman Holiday Audrey Hepburn had stuck her fingers into the Bocca della Verità, an ancient carving. It bit you if you were lying.

  It made perfect sense that the jaws of Siena had snapped shut on her.

  2.

  As he sat in the stuck car, feeling the persona he had presented to his new bosses and to Scottie disintegrate, Michael remembered something his literature professor had said, that in Dante’s Inferno the worst, Ninth Circle of Hell was reserved for those guilty of treachery. Because they had made a mockery of love of family, of country, of friends, of God, they were exiled to a place where they were frozen, their screams rendered immobile and eternal. While Scottie’s natural instinct was to defuse tension and laugh at complications, Michael had a more operatic temperament. He was hearing the clashing cymbals that foreshadow the hero’s agonizing death, already seeing the coffin with his body being unloaded at the pier in New York, his mother weeping over it. But not, a voice crept into his thoughts, weeping as much as she had wept for his war-hero brother. He sighed. It was truly a bad day when even thoughts of death were not a consolation.

  Trapped in the car and deeply unsure what to do about it, he found himself staring at an election poster plastered to the wall next to the car. A man’s enormous face stared back at them. VOTARE GIANNI MANGANELLI, it shouted in huge type. A single word was scrawled over it in red paint: MAI.

  “I would vote for him,” said Scottie brightly, as if they were stuck in a traffic jam instead of between two walls. “Looks like a friendly type. What’s he running for?”

  “Mayor,” said Michael. He pretended to study the party shield in the corner of the poster, as if he didn’t already know it by heart. “Looks like he’s the Christian Democratic candidate. That’s the Catholic party. They’re pro-American.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good. And what’s mai mean?”

  “Never.”

  “Oh,” she said again. “So a Communist wrote that?”

  “Yes,” he said, his fear deepening.

  “That’s not very nice.”

  “No,” said Michael. “It is not. The Communists are trying to take over Italy.”

  “Oh dear,” she said. “But not here, right?”

  “Yes. Here,” he said, trying to sound casual. “This is the heart of Italian communism.” The blood red heart, was what he had been told. And you must cut out its aorta.

  Michael did not actually work for Ford. That is, he was coming to Siena to open a Ford office there to convince the Tuscans that a fine American tractor was the way to prosperity. But that was not his real job; it was only his cover. His real job was to secretly make sure Gianni Manganelli, Catholic party candidate, won the Siena mayoral election. Michael was, unbeknownst to Scottie, working for the CIA. Being a secret agent was not what he had originally planned to do with his life. He had planned to teach art history at a small boarding school—green fields, quiet libraries, sherry—but somehow, he had shocked even himself, and now he, the person his classmates would have voted least likely to do anything more heroic than rescue a kitten from a tree, was on a top secret mission. He had been told by none other than Clare Boothe Luce, the American ambassador to Italy, that the fate of the world might well depend on him. “Half the planet is enslaved by communism,” she had intoned. “Do you want the entire globe in chains?” As if suspecting his doubts about his abilities, she added, “This is a new kind of war. Men who have the talent of being invisible are the ones who will win this one.”

  All he had to do was single-handedly sway one small election, so all of Western civilization didn’t come tumbling down.

  Thus far he had bluffed his way along, pretending to be confident, competent. But he was scared out of his mind. His father was right. The world would be better off if his brother Marco had lived instead of him.

  “Well, gosh,” said Scottie, who of course knew none of this. “Getting our car stuck doesn’t really set a good example for our side, then, does it?”

  The children who had been following them started climbing all over the car. They were laughing and pounding and putting their faces up against the glass. Scottie was making monkey faces at them when Michael began shouting, “Off! Get off!”

  3.

  I hate Italians, he thought. He had always despised the way his parents, who had emigrated from Sicily in 1914, clung to their traditions even as they were at each other’s throats, so proud. Proud of what? Coming from a place that was stuck in the Middle Ages? A country that had sided with the Nazis until it was no longer convenient? That was now flirting with the Kremlin?

  His family had managed to embarrass him even at the minimalist city hall wedding he and Scottie had agreed on. He was relieved when his sisters refused to come at all, claiming a wedding not held in a church was not a wedding in the eyes of God. He told Scottie they were ill. Scottie’s Aunt Ida was there, clearly disapproving of the match, which was bad enough. Then there was Scottie’s roommate and best friend, Leona, who had mistaken him for the elevator operator even though they had met several times before. But his parents were the worst. He cringed as they embraced Scottie, and his mother cried and told her in broken English that this was the happiest day of her life. His father handed her a small paper bag.

  “Candy-coated almonds,” he said. “Tradition. To remind you that life ahead will be both bitter and sweet.” Then his mother had given her a piece of iron to ward off evil spirits.

  Scottie seemed charmed by all the superstition, but Michael saw Leona and Aunt Ida exchanging a look. He knew that look. All he wanted was to get away from anyone who would embarrass him or turn Scottie against him. But now he was in an entire country of people just like his own family.

  4.

  He’s frightened, she realized. And ashamed of it, because of course men weren’t supposed to ever be frightened. Maybe Michael was right to be scared. What did she know? They must be in real danger. They were trapped, and the place was full of Communists. But even Communists wouldn’t actually let them die here, would they? And they wouldn’t hurt them? They could rob them, she supposed, and redistribute their wealth, but they’d have to get inside the car first.

  Scottie tried to summon fear, but she couldn’t. Really, small twinges of guilt aside, she was having fun. She was already planning what she would write to Leona about this. And then we got the car stuck! She reached into the backseat, picked up the copy of Footloose in Italy Leona had given her and hid her smile in it. She ran her finger slowly over the words: “When they are happy Italians will sing, and when they are sad they are sour. They have a rather low boiling point, and when they get angry it is best to stand clear of flying gesticulations.”

  As if on cue, Michael shouted, “Via! Via!,” making shooing motions with his hands. The children laughed and slapped their palms on the car hood.

  Finally, a woman with a broom—a real broom, Leona, like in a fairy tale, a collection of long twigs bound together—came and shouted at the children and chased them away.

  Eventually Scottie would come to know Signora Beatrice Mulinari, known in the contrada, or neighborhood, as Nonna Bea, whose ancestor had first made panforte, a fruitcake, for the barefoot monks of the Chiostro del Carmine back in 1205, and whose recipe Nonna Bea still used when making panforte for the current generation of monks. She was the only bad cook in all of Italy, operating on the theory that tasteless food brings us closer to God. Her panforte, in fact, was so hard as to be almost inedible, but the monks didn’t complain, perhaps also feeling that suffering through it was a form of penance. Toothless and subsisting herself on a diet of thin broth, she had never in he
r life been farther than Colle di Val d’Elsa, ten miles from Siena. She was expecting her seventy-five-year-old son home for lunch—he did not dare resist her watery pappa al pomodoro—but how could he get through with this thing blocking the road? She stood in front of the car and shouted and gestured at it, as if it were a recalcitrant goose.

  “Incastrato!” Scottie shouted. Michael looked at her in surprise. “It means ‘stuck’ … right?” she said, suddenly unsure. It did have an odd sound to it that was awfully close to … She hoped she hadn’t just announced that they were castrated, or wanted to be castrated, or that someone else should be castrated.

  The old witch jabbered at them. It was unclear whether she was angry about the stuck car, or sympathetic, or insulted by the suggestion that castration was imminent, but at last a carabiniere arrived to point out that they were blocking the road.

  Leona, who had traveled to Italy the previous summer, had described the carabinieri—military police—in glowing terms. Long capes and ridiculous Napoleonic hats. Tall black leather boots and crisp uniforms and black horses. Every last one handsome and dark-eyed. Dreamy!

  5.

  Tenente Bruno Pisano had fought alongside the Allied Forces after the carabinieri arrested Mussolini and was not ill-disposed toward Americans, but he was deeply irritated because he had been on his way home for lunch and now had to deal with this idiocy. His pici con le briciole was getting cold. He stared at the car and at the foreigners trapped inside. He threw up his white-gloved hands in disgust and shouted at them.

  6.

  “What’s he saying?” asked Scottie.

  “It’s illegal to block the road,” said Michael.

  Scottie laughed and said, “Well, he’ll have to get us out in order to arrest us, won’t he?”

  Michael looked at her, then, to her relief, also laughed. He put his hands in the air. “We give up!” he said.

  Scottie heard a bellow and turned around in her seat. She could see two gigantic white animals through the rear window of the car. She gasped at their size.

  “Oh my God,” groaned Michael. “What next?”

  “Oxen! I’ve only seen them in books.”

  “Neutro! Neutro!” shouted the carabiniere.

  “Neutered?” Scottie asked, flipping through her book.

  Michael sighed and put the car in neutral.

  An old man in a tattered sweater put a chain around the frame of the car, or at least that’s what Scottie imagined from the clanking and the little she could see through the rear window of the Fairlane. She slid into the backseat to get a better angle. The man whistled to a boy who sat astride one of the oxen, barefoot and in short pants. At the old man’s command, the boy backed the yoked oxen up slowly, talking to them. The beasts loomed over the old man, their massive shoulders rippling with muscle extending way above his head, their chests as wide as a doorway. The boy sat so high up that Scottie thought of illustrations in children’s books of elephant boys in India, tapping their charges with sticks. She had never seen such huge animals—they had to weigh three thousand pounds each. They looked prehistoric. They tossed their horned heads and their wet black noses glistened.

  “Ciao,” she called through the window to the boy atop the ox. He had thick curly blond hair, and when he looked down to wave to her, she saw a flash of blue eyes. His thin legs, outgrowing the short pants, hung down the animal’s rib cage.

  “Hello, missus,” he called down. “I speak English good.”

  “Are you learning in school?” she called out.

  “Andiamo, Robertino,” called the old man, interrupting them. The boy kicked the sides of the ox, which bellowed and began to pull forward, its mate holding back for a moment, then, resigned, leaning into the collar.

  7.

  “Tirate, ragazzi,” urged the old man, Bernardo Banchi, who had been growing wheat just outside the walls of the city for sixty years, as before him his father, grandfather and a long series of nearly identical Banchis going back to medieval times had grown wheat and sold it to breadmakers who made bread for the inhabitants of Siena. He had just received an offer for his farm from an American hotel chain. He had told the impatient man he would have to think about it. He was raising his grandson, Robertino, who was fourteen. Banchi had always imagined that Robertino would grow wheat, too, but he spoke English now and wanted to go live in Rome someday. Though it was only a half day’s train ride away, Banchi had never been to Rome, nor had he any desire to go, as it was no doubt full of Romans. He lit his cigar and watched his animals work.

  8.

  Scottie felt the car lurch, and then there was a terrible scraping sound and it began to slowly roll backward. The boy cheered and patted the oxen. The crowd that had gathered to watch also moved backward, as if they were extras in an opera.

  “Ruined,” said Michael.

  They could have started the car at that point and slunk off under their own power, but the old man continued to placidly tow them backward with his oxen.

  As soon as the street was wide enough, Michael kicked open the jammed door and jumped out onto the cobblestones as they rolled slowly along. He tried to talk to the old man, but Banchi just nodded and waved and kept the oxen walking. Michael fell in meekly beside him.

  Scottie watched her new city reveal itself outside the window as the car moved backward through the streets at the pace of a slow walk. The carabiniere was silent, marching along and frowning, no doubt calculating the fines he would levy, but the old man seemed to be narrating the story of their rescue to everyone they passed. People laughed and shrugged and pointed to the scraped-up car. Michael was red-faced, staring at the ground.

  The Italian boy stood up atop the moving ox, showing off, swaying like a hula dancer.

  Women wearing thin housecoats and hairnets over curlers peered out at them from darkened doorways. Scottie waved and smiled, the way Grace Kelly had from the deck of the Constitution, not too vigorously, as if she were halfheartedly hailing a cab. The women stared at her.

  “Americani,” they said to each other, and people began calling it out to each other. “Americani, gli americani si sono incastrati con la macchina.” They were laughing, yet it almost sounded like a threat.

  “I thought you said today was the anniversary of when we liberated them from the Germans? Eleven years isn’t that long,” Scottie whispered through the lowered side window to Michael.

  “The French liberated Siena. And the partisans, who were … Communists.”

  “Jeepers,” said Scottie, an adorable expression Michael felt he would soon come to loathe.

  I don’t want to save the world, he thought. I want to go home. What have I done? As the carabiniere in his black uniform and shiny black boots demanded his papers, Michael felt as if he were about to be shot. He pretended to look through his wallet for the missing documents. He had visions of them being locked in some disease-ridden jail. Not a jail—a dungeon. They had those here. What if something happened to Scottie? My God, he thought. This poor innocent girl. Forgive me.

  9.

  “Documenti, per favore,” snapped Tenente Pisano again. He wanted to get these tourists out of his hair immediately, but certain procedures must be followed.

  Scottie unsnapped her large square purse and handed their passports out from the slowly moving car.

  “You … is … American?” said the old man in halting but proud English, as the blue passports changed hands.

  The boy began singing “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog” and gyrating atop the ox. Michael ignored them both. Scottie wondered if she would ever again see the confident, suave man she thought she had married.

  “My husband has come from America to sell tractors,” she called to the old man.

  “In quale albergo alloggiate?” demanded the tenente.

  “We’re not staying in a hotel,” said Michael in Italian. “We’ve come here to live. I’m opening a tractor business.”

  10.

  Tenente Pisano’s brow d
arkened. His prospects for consuming even tepid pici were fading.

  “You cannot just arrive here and open a business. Where is your permesso di soggiorno? Where is your Modulo Vanoni? Has the Guardia di Finanza been advised? Who has authorized this? I must see the proper documents immediately, and make sure they have the proper signatures and bolli.” These Americans think because they saved us from the Nazis, they can do whatever they want.

  11.

  As Michael looked through his wallet, the old man turned to Scottie. “Trattori?” He laughed. “I like the beasts instead. More, how you say … reliable. The old ways, still good.”

  “You’ll be able to plow twice the land in half the time,” she said.

  “And then what I do with the rest of the day? I’ll get into trouble. I stick with the buoi!”

  The boy was attempting a handstand atop the ox as they turned into Via di Città. A child with a toy drum and several stray dogs now in tow, they passed a woman leaning against a building under an ad for Lucky Strikes plastered to the wall. She was about thirty, Scottie guessed, a little heavy, dressed simply in a knee-length pale pink dress and flat shoes, her large breasts sagging underneath the thin fabric. She was smoking. She could use a better bra, Scottie thought, but then noticed something strange: The entire procession in front of them—the old man, the men and women laughing and joking at the impromptu parade—fell silent at the sight of the woman and turned away, as if to look at her would burn their eyes. The woman smiled slightly as she met Scottie’s eye and blew a plume of smoke, as if they were sharing a private joke.