The Women of Saturn Read online

  THE WOMEN OF SATURN

  Copyright © 2017 Connie Guzzo-McParland

  Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Collective Agency (Access Copyright).

  We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund..

  Cover design: Val Fullard

  Cover artwork: Enzo De Giorgi, “Il girotondo,” 2006, oil on canvas,

  120 x 100 cm. Artist website: www.enzodegiorgi.it.

  eBook: tikaebooks.com

  The Women of Saturn is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Guzzo-McParland, Connie, 1947–, author

  The women of Saturn / a novel by Connie Guzzo-McParland.

  (Inanna poetry & fiction series)

  Sequel to: The girls of Piazza d’Amore.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77133-357-3 (softcover). — ISBN 978-1-77133-358-0 (epub). — ISBN 978-1-77133-359-7 (kindle). — ISBN 978-1-77133-360-3 (pdf).

  I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series

  PS8613.U99W64 2017 C813’.6 C2017-900303-8 C2017-900304-6

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Inanna Publications and Education Inc.

  210 Founders College, York University

  4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3

  Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765

  Email: [email protected] Website: www.inanna.ca

  THE WOMEN OF SATURN

  A NOVEL

  Connie Guzzo-McParland

  INANNA PUBLICATIONS AND EDUCATION INC.

  TORONTO, CANADA

  ALSO BY CONNIE GUZZO-MCPARLAND:

  The Girls of Piazza d’Amore

  For my brother, Vincenzo, who loved telling stories, and for all those who have dared cross rough seas toward unknown shores.

  For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.

  —T.S. Eliot

  importante é imparare

  che l’immaggine vera é nel profondo –

  contentarsi di sembrare

  (di essere)

  incoerenti incompleti –

  ricominciare ogni giorno

  sereni

  il percorso della vita

  —Elettra Bedon

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE: ROME, JUNE 2016

  PART I: OCTOBER 3, 1980

  1. How’s Your Bird?

  2. WLHS

  3. Angie Was Here

  PART II: THE VOYAGE, 1957

  4. Days One and Two

  5. Day Three

  6. Day Four

  7. Day Five

  8. Day Six

  9. Day Seven

  10. Day Eight

  11. Days Nine and Ten

  12. Day Eleven

  13. Day Twelve

  PART III: OCTOBER 4-5, 1980

  14. Sean and J.P.

  15. Lucia and Angie

  16. Fare l’Amore

  17. The Journalist

  18. Sean and I

  19. Sunday Lunch

  PART IV: OCTOBER 6-7, 1980

  20. The Finger-Waving Lesson

  21. The Ultimatum

  22. Reading Glasses

  23. Bad Air

  24. The Perm Lesson

  25. Stink Bomb

  26. Miss Park Ex

  27. Alfonso

  28. The Proposal

  PART V: THE LANDING, 1957-1961

  29.A New Home

  30. First Winter, 1957

  31. Sundays on Tenth Avenue, 1959

  32. Ville Verte, 1960

  33. The Wedding Dance, Spring 1961

  34. Heat Wave, Summer 1961

  35. Back to School, Fall 1961

  36. November 1961

  PART VI: OCTOBER 13-17, 1980

  37. Thanksgiving

  38. The Hair Straightening Lesson

  39. Bar à Go-Go

  40. Bruce

  41. Modern Furniture

  PART VII: OCTOBER 18-24, 1980

  42. The Ethnic Wife

  43. The Canadian Brigand

  44. Supervision Duty

  45. Règlement de Comptes

  PART VIII: TOTU, 1964-1967

  46. The Italian Tour, 1964

  47. Of Men and His Worlds

  48. The Roller Coaster Ride

  PART IX: OCTOBER 24-27, 1980

  49. A Settling of Accounts

  50. The Hairdressing Lesson

  51. Pasquale and Micu

  52. Venetian Masks

  53. The Missing Pieces

  PART X: OCTOBER 31, 1980

  54. Costume Day

  55. Deceptions and Floating Devices

  56. Looking for Angie

  57. The Office

  PART XI: NOVEMBER 1, 1980

  58. The Fall Out

  59. Angie’s Halloween Party

  60. Girotondo

  61. The Lullabye

  PART XII: NOVEMBER 2, 1980

  62. A New Beginning

  EPILOGUE: ROME, JUNE 2016

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE: ROME, JUNE 2016

  IN MY CHILDHOOD IMAGINATION, life—my own and those of friends and people around me—was to be lived like the black-and-white cinematic images of the post-war Italian films that the village parish priest projected onto an open-air screen on religious holidays. That perspective would soon be altered by a momentous, though woozy, trip across the Atlantic that promised new vistas and experiences.

  The journey began in the deep of winter of 1957, at a train station in Santa Eufemia, and ended at Windsor Station in Montreal, twelve days later. I had planned to keep a diary of the sea voyage, so that I could write about it to my friends back home. No one else I knew had done this before. It was as if people left for another world, and once they were there, the passage itself was forgotten, like a bad dream. We heard about the seasickness and about passing customs, but nothing about what it was really like to live on a ship for ten days, and then slog for another full day on a train to get to our final destination.

  The idea of writing came to me when, a week before leaving, I received a perfect ten on my last composition assignment. There was also a note from my fifth grade teacher, Signor Gavano, telling me to keep up the good work in the new country. I had decided to pack a notebook along with a book of prayers and a copy of a novel that Signor Gavano had given me to read on the boat.

  To savour my perfect mark, I doodled with the zero of the ten, sketching rays around it like a sun. Then I drew a larger sun next to it and numbered it like a clock from one to twelve, for each day of the journey. I would circle a number at the end of each day, as I wrote about it. That the total duration of the trip fit inside a perfect circle, like a clock, was the
happy coincidence that made the voyage and writing about it feel like a game.

  For a few days afterwards, I kept on playing with the drawing of twelve small suns inside a larger one, dividing each day into hours and another twelve smaller zeros. If a twelve-day trip required so many suns to recount, I wondered how many circles inside other circles it would take to write about all the hours of one’s life. One would need a sphere as large as the planet to contain all the stories on earth.

  The voyage left its indelible mark on an impressionable young girl, and, for years afterward, in my new home, I replayed in my mind the hazy images and scenes I had recorded so fervently in scribbled notes.

  It was in 1967, in the euphoria of Montreal’s Expo 67, and in an effort to impress a journalist friend of mine, that I divulged my secret ambition to write and “preserve my memories.” He answered, “The only thing worth preserving is giardiniera, and even then….” Still, I offered him a story based on the crossing, which I had titled, “The Voyage.” I sought his advice, but I mostly craved his approval. He offered neither. With a bruised ego, I stopped writing altogether, but buried my face deeper and deeper into books.

  In the autumn of 1980, some unfortunate happenings to common friends of ours brought the journalist and me together again. In spite, or maybe because of, the turmoil around me, my creative juices kicked in again, and in a four-week period, I managed to reconstruct my old manuscript, as well as write drafts of several new stories while keeping an extensive journal of present events.

  I resolved to use the material to write a novel. But for reasons too complicated to explain in this brief note, it would take many more years, to reconcile the voyage with the landing, the past with the present, the written with the unwritten…

  —Cathy Anastasia

  PART I

  OCTOBER 3, 1980

  1. HOW’S YOUR BIRD?

  I AM STONEWALLED BY A full-length mirror, unable to go on with my day. None of the clothes on my bed fit me properly this morning. Everything hugs and pulls—my petite body proportions thrown out of sync by a mere five-pound gain. It’s Friday, and I wish I could be more relaxed about my clothes, like everyone else at school. But I’m the beauty care teacher, trained and conditioned to make the pursuit of esthetic perfection the ultimate objective of each of my lessons. I want to look the part, especially this morning. I have a meeting with my school principal and an old friend of mine, Lucia Abiusi in Tonnelli, whom I haven’t seen in years.

  I pause to listen to the radio news when I hear “epic journey towards Saturn.” Actual photographs of Saturn’s rings are to be transmitted to earth by Voyager 1. The mention of Saturn reawakens an old childhood fascination with the planet, named after the Roman god of harvest and reaping who fled to Rome from Greece and established the Golden Age—a time of perfect peace and harmony.

  But it’s the sleek free-standing mirror I brought home from the Danish House yesterday afternoon that is stalling my movements the most. I’m as unnerved by its teak frame as by my reflection within it. In the morning light I notice with disappointment how badly its beige colour jars with the yellowed wood of the bedroom furniture that belonged to my parents. Convincing Sean to buy a new mirror was one thing, but getting him to invest in a brand new bedroom suite will prove a bigger challenge. It’s the eternal question of commitment!

  “How’s your bird?” the DJ, Ralph, booms from the clock radio on the nightstand. Echoing bird screeches jump-start the groggy brains of those who must be out of the house and in rush-hour traffic before eight. After the weather and traffic reports, newsflashes repeat the headlines I’ve already read in this morning’s Montreal Star: momentous discoveries in outer space; in the Middle East, Iranian planes strike a nuclear power plant; south of the border, Ronald Reagan appeals to religious fundamentalists as the election race with Jimmy Carter heats up; teachers’ unions across Quebec threaten the government with massive school disruptions; a former chairman of Montreal’s executive committee is accused of fraud in connection with the 1976 Montreal Olympics; another Italian café in St. Leonard is torched; an unnamed woman is found unconscious on her kitchen floor, a victim of domestic violence.

  I know the street where the marital dispute occurred. The victim’s name isn’t released. The only pertinent information given is the link between the family and Jack Russo, a well-known underworld figure, followed by the allegation that there might be a possible connection between the café torching, the domestic violence story, and the Montreal underworld. The suggestion that a woman’s beating is related to these events sounds unlikely to me.

  “Are you ready to go, old chap?” a voice calls out from the kitchen.

  It’s Jean-Pierre, a close friend of Sean’s who likes to stay with us on his frequent visits to the city. J.P. is pure laine Québécois, born and bred in southeast Montreal. His annoying British accent and vocabulary are the result of a year’s stay at Oxford.

  “We’re on our way,” Sean yells from the kitchen. “Bye, Cat.”

  Over breakfast I had a little tiff with Sean and J.P., and I’m still mildly irritated by Sean’s attitude.

  “They must have a set of stock stories they rehash on slow news days…” I said.

  “Such as?” J.P. has a habit of putting me on the spot whenever I try to make an original point in a conversation. Sean looked up from reading the paper.

  “Conflict in the Middle East … the Quebec government’s disputes with public employees … corruption in the construction industry,” I stammered. “Urban crime in the city, and now domestic violence in the home. The news has not only become predictable, but … categorizable.”

  “Maybe ‘generic’ might be a better term,” Sean interrupted, folding the paper, “urban and city mean the same thing, and domestic and home are also synonyms.”

  “Whatever. You know what I mean,” I said, getting up to go get dressed.

  I become completely inarticulate whenever I get nervous, especially if J.P. is around. The way Sean corrects my choice of words in front of J.P. makes me wonder if he’s trying to apologize to his intellectual friend for my poor command of the English language. I should have retorted that, unlike J.P.’s, at least my accent is genuine and not a put-on.

  The mirror reflects fleeting slivers of life outside my apartment building. It’s a flawless Indian-summer day, jewel-bright and clear. A briefcase hanging from his right hand, J.P. strides confidently toward his car, followed by Sean, who carries a heavy knapsack on his shoulders and a thick binder under his arm. J.P. works for the Liberal Party of Canada. He’s a party strategist and a weathered politician; Sean, his assistant, tries earnestly to follow in his footsteps.

  The evening before, the two men had talked through the night, preparing for an important meeting with some key party members. I had been grateful to be left alone, preoccupied as I was with my own problems at work. Today I must argue the case for Lucia’s daughter, Angie, who has been placed in my class on a trial basis. At the urging of the assistant principal, I have invited her parents to a meeting to discuss her progress (or lack thereof, as he would view it).

  I had long ago lost contact with Lucia. Only since her daughter’s inclusion in my class have we spoken again and, every time, images of the past sneak into my consciousness.

  Angie’s behaviour in class has been disruptive, though not unexpected. Even my mother discouraged me from getting involved with the girl.

  “What did you expect from Lucia’s daughter?” she said. In her Calabrian village mind, character, and destiny are predetermined by the family into which one is born.

  My destiny seems defined by mismatched furniture and ill-fitting clothes, I muse as I stare at the unmade double bed, piled like a bargain table of used clothing with the skirts, blouses, pants, and dresses I’ve taken from my packed closet, tried on, and found unsuitable. Scattered next to my pillow, underneath the clothes, are some fashion magazines and
a book, The Betrothed, my bedtime reading from the previous night. It’s a translation of the Italian novel I had read in the lounge and on the deck of the ship that brought me to Canada, the Saturnia, while a Roman steward, who claimed to be a descendent of the god Saturn, hovered around Lucia. By sheer coincidence I came across the book at the Concordia University library during the summer, after I heard from Lucia, and I brought it home.

  But last night the book didn’t help me fall asleep. I felt agitated by the stilted and forced English translation. I stood out on my balcony for a while to admire the new moon before returning to bed. I fell asleep half-dreaming of floating in outer space and reaching for Saturn’s rings.

  Nearly eight already! By now I should be out of the house, but after all the outfit changes I still look frumpy and pudgy in the beige linen dress. It’s not how I want Lucia to see me. She was a slim eighteen-year-old with teasing eyes and a perky bosom when we travelled together, and I was barely out of childhood. Had she become as matronly as some of the other forty-year-old women from the village whom I now see at weddings and funerals?

  “Five minutes to the hour,” the DJ reminds me. Still facing the mirror, I lift the two shoulder seams with my hands and find the solution. I grab a blouse from the heap on the bed, snip off its shoulder pads with nail clippers, fit them under my dress’ shoulder seams, and secure them with a straight pin. The larger pads lift and square the shoulder line, making my hips look less prominent. It’s enough of an improvement to give me the confidence I need to face Frank, the assistant principal, though the pins make me feel like a prickly pear and I hope no one will squeeze my shoulders.

  I collect the magazines from the bed, head down the hall, and note how neat the kitchen is compared to the mess in the bedroom. Sean tidied up before leaving. He always does, and he has become as predictable as the news. Just as I grab my purse and car keys from the table to leave, the telephone jolts me.

  “Did you hear about Comare Rosaria’s daughter?” It’s my mother. I’m annoyed. Why is she calling me to gossip about a paesana this early in the morning?