Maurizio de Giovanni: Blood Curse

With the flash of motion that never failed to startle her, the old woman beat her fist down on the deck she’d pointed to, cawing out: “ Munacie’, damme voce! ” Spirits, give tongue!

From the little balcony, two pigeons took flight, startled. In the street, four floors below, the chorus of urchin voices fell silent for a moment. Time stood still, as the woman once again witnessed an act of magic in which she believed implicitly and wholeheartedly. Now the old woman’s eyes were closed and she was breathing hard, lips clamped shut, white hair gathered in a bun, head sunk between her shoulders, both fists clenched on the table. After a moment she relaxed, took a deep breath, and lifted the first card from the chosen deck.

The King of Coins.

Filomena Russo emerged from the basso , knotting her scarf around her neck; she was cold, and this year’s winter seemed to go on forever. The icy wind battered her as she stopped to lock the deadbolt on the wooden door. She saw the word “whore” written in chalk. Goddamn them , she thought. Damn them .

The Vico del Fico was a blind alley, an inset halfway up one of the steep streets of the Spanish Quarter. At the entrance to the alley was a shrine to Our Lady of the Assumption, a few flowers placed there in hopes of response to prayers that had gone unanswered; then there was a little piazzetta , invisible from the street: five bassi teeming with life, surmounted by the tall, darkened windows of ancient, half-empty buildings. Sunlight for just a few hours a day; the rest of the time, shadow and damp reigned uncontested.

A tiny village in the heart of the city, and she was an outsider in that village.

Head down, lapels lifted to cover half her face. Her handkerchief covered the other half. The man’s overcoat, old, worn and shapeless, shoes with cardboard soles. She carefully avoided puddles; otherwise, her feet would stay wet all day. And her feet were crucial. They had to support her during the long, exhausting workday in the fabric store on Via Toledo. She walked quickly, looking down at the ground and keeping close to the wall. She could feel the hostile eyes all over her, following her from the windows. She could feel hatred.

Luckily, that evening she’d be home before her son; she could erase the word on the door. It was chalk or whitewash, and it would come away with water. It had happened before: some lowlife had carved the word with a knife, and she’d had to scrape away at it for an hour. Gaetano had asked about it. Nothing, she’d told him. Nothing. They have nothing else to think about.

Behind her raised lapel, she smiled wryly. To call her a whore, she who hadn’t felt the touch of a man’s hand in two years, she who shrank from the eyes of everyone. To call her a whore, when she’d only had one man in her life, and one was all she’d ever have, because her Gennaro was dead and she’d never be able to stand anyone else’s hands on her body.

At the corner of the vicolo , Don Luigi Costanzo stood waiting, as he did every morning. She would have liked to just avoid him, but the one time she’d taken a different route he had shown up that night and knocked on the door of the basso . He seized her by the arm, hurting her and hissing into her terrified face, Don’t you ever try that again, I’ll come and get you where you live. Gaetano watched from the shadows, a scream in his eyes but not on his lips. She had reassured him with a glance: Don’t be afraid, my darling son, don’t worry; this bastard will be out of here any second. Don Luigi was young, but people said that he’d already killed two men: an up-and-coming young guappo and the future capo of the quarter. He was married, with two children born in two years. So what did he want from her? You’re driving me out of my mind; I have to have you. What are you talking about? What did I do to make you lose your head? When I’ve never even looked in your direction, when I live like a slave, working from dawn to dusk, to feed my boy, to let him earn a trade, so he can earn a living, so he can have a future?

And she had driven him out the door, threatening to scream, to bring shame upon him, to tell his young wife everything, or, worse, to inform his father-in-law, the true capo of the quarter. And he’d left. But before turning to leave, he’d smiled at the boy, the smile of a demon from hell. Why, what a handsome young man, he’d said. Tender flesh, just waiting for a knife. Filomena sobbed all night long.

The old woman turned over the second card in the pile. Seven of Swords. The old woman’s hand, twisted like a centuries-old oak branch, trembled for a moment, and her eyebrows came together. Emma held her breath and didn’t blink. Garlic, urine. The shouts of children in the street below. The morphology of fate.

Filomena picked up her pace, as much as her broken-down shoes and the wet cobblestones allowed. She did her best to avoid the man, but he took a few quick sidelong steps and blocked her path. She stopped, head lowered, her face concealed by the upturned lapels of her coat. He emitted a ridiculous sound, smacking his lips in imitation of a long kiss. She stood motionless, waiting. He pulled his hand from his pocket and reached out for her; she took a step back. Then he said, Filome’, it’s only a matter of time. A matter of time, she thought. He asked her, with a laugh: What are you doing, all covered up like that? It’s like you’re ashamed. Are you ashamed? She maneuvered around him and strode off briskly toward Via Toledo. Yes, she thought to herself, I’m ashamed. Filomena Russo was ashamed of her worst defect, her curse. Filomena Russo was the most beautiful woman in the city.

The old woman turned over the third card: an Ace of Cups. Her lips clamped shut. A fly smacked against the windowpane and the sound rang out like a shot. Emma realized that her own hand was at her throat; she could feel her suddenly racing pulse. Her feet were like ice. Another card, the fourth one: the Five of Swords. The old woman’s expression remained unchanged, but her hand trembled.

Over time, she’d learned to recognize the card that represented him, the man she loved: the Knight of Clubs. It had always turned up, from the very beginning, accompanied variously by cards that urged flight, change, life. Why was it failing to appear, this of all times, now that she had made up her mind?

The old woman turned over the last card in the deck, her last chance. It was neither a knight nor a king. It was the Queen of Coins. To her horror, Emma realized that a tear was running down the old woman’s cheek.

Filomena waited for the first customer to enter the fabric shop where she worked. Standing on the street corner, bundled in her overcoat, with her handkerchief tied tightly around her head, she was indifferent to the wind. She’d have been glad to feel the warmth of the shop’s large stove on her skin-it was certainly already lit by now-but she couldn’t go in yet. She knew that Signor De Rosa, the shop owner, attached a great deal of importance to making sure the place was cozy from the minute it opened, convinced as he was that, that way, women chilled from the cold would gladly linger to make their choices, and therefore, to buy.

But she also knew that Signor De Rosa, in his fifties and already a grandfather, had been threatening her for some time now. Filome’, out you’ll go. If you don’t come with me right away, I’ll toss you out on your ear. But if you’re willing, I’ll make you rich, shower you with gifts and jewelry. Filome’, you’ve bewitched me. You’ve driven me mad and now you have to heal me.

Speaking with his wife would have been pointless; Filomena’s word against the word of a respected man, held in high regard for his seriousness and professionalism, and for his love for his family. In the best possible scenario, he’d throw her out, and she couldn’t afford to lose her job, not as long as Gaetano was still an apprentice; she’d be forced to send him to do menial labor, and he’d be poor for the rest of his life. And Gaetano’s well-being came before all other considerations. Standing erect at the street corner, all her beauty concealed in an old overcoat, Filomena Russo waited and wept silently.