Frank Polizzi - Somewhere in the Stars

“After what happened to our buddies and my relatives, I don’t know if I can step foot in a shul again.”

The next day a nurse led them to the inner courtyard that had a garden with a fountain in the center. The sun felt luxurious on Nick’s face as he read a library copy of Dante’s La Vita Nuova. Nathan had a bunch of newspapers on his lap and spread out the International New York Times, scanning it for any news about Northern Italy.

“There’s not a damn thing in this rag about the Italian Jews. And what about my cousins in Venice? It’s like we’re an invisible people.”

“You have to keep saying to yourself, no news is good news. I think I’ll write to my father before we get the mail, this way it’ll go out sooner.”

Nick wrote to his father:

Dear Papà ,

How is Mamma ? I am sitting in the garden of the hospital now. I’m sorry that I have not written lately but I feel mighty bent. I miss my cuginu , Paul, and my friend Al, the paisanu from Roseto. I feel guilty I survived and they didn’t, but then again I also feel lucky to be alive. I don’t know what to make of it, Pop.

You know, many GIs feel you’re lucky to be wounded, so you won’t have to face the daily routine of killing or being blown up yourself. Never knowing when it would happen. My leg has been severely damaged but it’s considered bona fortuna . I have heard of soldiers creating their own luck, if you know what I mean. I suppose I should be careful as to what I say in a letter. Papà , all I can say is that I would lie prostrate at the altar of our parish church, pray that if I had a son, he should not have to go through this. No one should. I would like to come home right now, but that is just a dream. I need to change the subject, pop.

I shouldn’t be talking about this stuff, so do your own censoring for Mamma when you read it aloud.

Con affettu, Nicolo

By the time Nick finished writing, a hospital attendant was bringing in the mail and Nick placed his father’s letter in the attendant’s hand. Nathan waited for Nick to read the news aloud from his own family instead of his stumbling over the blurred words. After reading the letters for his buddy, Nick read his first letter and a short while later, he let it drop to the floor.

“What happened? You look white as a ghost.” Nick didn’t respond and focused on the drizzling fountain outside the window. “Okay Nick, give your old pal a clue.”

“Your sister ditched me. Met someone else. Says she’s sorry, but it’s all over. That’s just grand with me stuck on the other side of the ocean.”

“Come on, Nick. You know my father well enough that this was bread that wasn’t going to bake.” Nathan groped his way over to Nick’s hospital bed, but he turned his head away. “What are you scared of? Before I got hit in the head, I got a bunch of letters from Deb. Turn around you jerk and listen up.” Nick faced Nathan. “My kid sister has nothing but good things to say about you. Deb said she worries about you and me every day. She needed something to get her mind off things. That’s why she started dating this guy in college.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“She wanted to let you know, so you won’t think about her in the same way.” Nick’s eyes floated to the ceiling. “This relationship with Deborah is all in your head, spinning around like the stars you like to gaze at.”

“Humph! And I thought you were my friend.”

“Look, I’m sorry, Nick. We’re both caught in this juggernaut and nothing will ever be the same. Just forget my sister. I know it’ll be hard, but you’ve got no choice now.”

“You always have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“Slow down when you speak, Nick.” Nathan pointed to his ear. “You’re making a tragedy out of this. You knew where this was going with Deb.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Buddy, let’s just try to get through this war in one piece. That’s all we can do. I am really sorry about this mess.”

Nick left the other letters unread, inching his way on crutches to the garden, and sat on a ledge surrounding the fountain. He fixated on a distorted reflection. Nathan shrugged and went back to his bed, skimming the words in his letters. Nick didn’t acknowledge him after that, even though their beds were just four feet apart, except for the morning when Nathan woke up for breakfast and had a seizure, falling onto the white terrazzo floor, while Nick screamed for a nurse. Nathan had no recollection of what happened after he recovered. The concussion from bashing his head against the metal of the tank had left its mark. He resigned himself to waiting for Nick to work things out, checking him out from the corner of his eye as he read his newspapers with a magnifying glass the nurse had lent him.

A few days later, as if they were in the middle of a conversation, Nick blurted out: “You know, Nate, a woman would do anything to have somebody love her the way Dante loved Beatrice.”

“You’re in a Renaissance mood.” Nathan laughed. “Certainly in the right country for it.”

“Why don’t we get out of this crappy room and go into the garden? You can sketch it. It would be like old times. Me watching you do magic with colored pencils, pen and black ink, pastel chalk, you name it.”

“I don’t know. I’m still having trouble with my vision.”

“Come on. Give it a try. Something to remember this place by.”

Since their condition showed signs of improvement, they were allowed to sit outside in the garden on a regular basis. One day before dusk, the light was perfect for Nathan to exhibit his chiaroscuro techniques. Nick still felt anger inside when he thought about the loss of Paul and Al, and then more gloom, when he thought about his first love, Deborah, as he muddled along in a hospital garden.

“ Minchia .”

Nathan looked up. “What did you say?”

“Nothing, Nate. Just finish what you’re doing.”

When Nathan completed the drawing with several crumbled attempts on the ground, he showed it to Nick. “What do you think?”

“Turn it into an oil painting.”

“Guess you like it.”

“Why don’t you get some supper without me? I want to stay here for a while and watch the sunset.”

“Sure, buddy.”

Nick struggled with a cane over to the fountain. He sat on the edge and ran his hand through the scant water, barely creating a ripple. He glimpsed at the North Star blinking, the rest of the sky empty. He heard a nightingale sing in a trance-like pattern from a hidden spot. His mood muted the bird’s song and he was unable to stop the sadness from creeping its way back into his thoughts. Nick remembered last drinking wine with Paul that tasted of raspberries and spice, so far away, Zia Concetta smothering him with kisses and Ziu Francesco telling tales of the old country at family parties, very far away, Mamma and Papà and the magnetic field of family charges, enduring but also invisible, now so far away, playing baseball with Paul on the grass in Lincoln Park or a story of Al playing catch with his brother in Roseto, so very far away, yet still closer in his thoughts, holding Deborah close to him in the San Francisco Botanical Garden, framed by pink azaleas, conjuring up a shower of cream-colored, magnolia petals floating around them—the magnolia part never really happening to Nick, but that’s how he wanted to remember it now, like a remembrance of lyrics or melody of a favorite song of his and connecting it to her countenance. Nick wished that he could somehow write an exquisite love sonnet like Dante, for a brief time to have the fire of the poet’s words, so he could let all the pain drain out of his head, but he didn’t have it in him, not like Nathan anyway, instinctively a painter, Nathan more like a brother than a friend, a cliché that Nick recognized and in verità, Nathan was even better than any real or imagined brother. All he could do now was struggle to move along, putting pressure on the cane to ease the pain in his leg, glaring at the fading sun, not a inamorata or a sparkling star in sight, the North Star already gone and even the damn bird speechless.