The Women of Saturn Read online

  “He’s cheap,” I reply. “He’s been in politics too long.”

  J.P. was an aide to the federal Member of Parliament, Alex Di Principe. When the Liberals lost to the Conservatives the previous fall, J.P. was promoted to party strategist to help reorganize the troops and passed on his old job to Sean. J.P.’s efforts paid off when Joe Clark’s minority government was defeated last February.

  “Some interesting and major changes may be brewing for me, Cat,” Sean says, gravely, as I join them in the living room.

  “Oh, I’d like to hear about them,” I reply. There have been too many changes lately both in Federal and Provincial governments that have kept the two huddled together for hours.

  The night before, I had filled them in on what I’d heard about Lucia and my relationship with her. J.P., ever sensitive to the nuances of news reporting, only comments on the coverage the domestic violence story received on the radio and Saturday paper. “I find it unusual that they should report a domestic quarrel when there are no confirmed deaths,” he says. “Maybe there is a link with the café torchings. Still, connected families don’t take it out on their women and children. They settle their private affairs differently, wouldn’t you say, Catterrina?”

  “How would I know?” I say, not bothering to correct his mispronunciation of my Italian name. “But I can’t believe them tying such a story to the Mafia.”

  “It’s a bloody ethnic slur!” Sean says. He gets more easily upset by media stereotyping of Italians than I do.

  “What do you think?” J.P. asks me. “I’m only asking because I want to understand how an ‘ethnic’ would perceive the innuendo.”

  “It’s not an innuendo when they report a family squabble and make it sound as if it’s a mob hit, just because the family involved is Italian,” I reply.

  “Are you two thinking of getting married?” J.P. suddenly asks.

  Neither Sean nor I react to the unexpected question, as if each waiting for the other to answer. This is a delicate subject between us, one we have not broached in a while, and it surprises me that J.P. would bring it up so casually. The telephone rings. It’s my mother.

  “Poor Comare Rosaria … she’s at the Jean-Talon Hospital. You’ll take me, won’t you?”

  It’s a very Calabrian thing to do, to rush to the hospital as soon as we hear about a close friend’s sudden illness. These visits have become a point of contention between my mother and me. I feel uncomfortable rushing to someone’s bedside. I try in vain to explain to my mother that, if the illness is serious, most people want to be left alone. But, among Southern Italians, the desire to show concern by making themselves physically available is stronger than common sense. By their presence, visitors like my mother want to express, “We will leave everything behind: the cooking, the dishes, and even work if necessary, to be here with you.” Offering assistance by telephone doesn’t mean a thing.

  This time, I want to go to the hospital, to get more news from the family. I also hope to see Angie, and warn her to expect a call from the Social Services worker to whom I spoke earlier.

  During lunch, Sean discloses what had been discussed at the party meeting and what has been speculated for a while: Di Principe or “The Prince,” as he’s jokingly nicknamed by friends, is expected to be appointed a Senator. Di Principe’s appointment is seen as a reward for the financial support his fundraising efforts have contributed to the party and also to win more favours in the Italian community of Montreal that helped elect the Liberals.

  J.P. is trying to convince Sean that he should grab the opportunity to run for office in a by-election for his boss’s vacant seat, and has set up a lunch meeting with key party supporters to discuss just that possibility.

  Sean is especially pensive. He doesn’t seem ready to jump at the idea, though he complains continually to me and J.P. about the instability of his position once Di Principe moves on.

  “I don’t know if I could stomach the stress of another campaign, so soon after the last one, and the referendum. Politics in Quebec is getting too dirty for my liking. They’re still rehashing the October Crisis,” Sean says. Pierre Trudeau’s draconian measures to subdue the Separatist movement in Quebec in 1970 have been receiving a lot of media attention.

  “C’mon Sean! Get out of that sixties haze, and wake up to the realities of the eighties,” J.P. interjects. “The people of Quebec spoke out in May, remember. With a fifty-nine percent vote of confidence for federalism, the PQ and separatism in Quebec will soon be ancient history.”

  Sean remains quiet, and J.P. insists: “I’d switch your major to Political Science, though. It will look better on the ads.”

  Sean is enrolled at Concordia University, still pursuing a Master’s degree in Philosophy, which he started while working in education. He resumed his studies this past fall after a three-year break. J.P. has already questioned the practicality of such a degree now that Sean works in politics.

  “Stick to politics. You’re still young enough to start at the grassroots level,” J.P. continues. “And your tie to an ethnic community is an asset.” Then he turns to me: “Imagine one day being invited to a dinner at 24 Sussex Drive as a special guest of the Senator.”

  While serving a platter of veal scaloppini with mushrooms and cream, I, nonetheless, take notice of how J.P., polite and suave as ever toward me, only manages to include me in the conversation when he brings up my “ethnic tie” to Sean.

  “Would Sean be working mostly out of Ottawa?” I ask.

  “Once the election is called, he’d be working the Italian constituents in the riding, so it would be best to establish his home address here,” J.P. answers, and then turns again to Sean. “By the way, Sean, how’s your Italian shaping up?”

  “Sean’s idea of speaking Italian is to add vowels to French words: la tabla, la chaisa, la porta…. Sometimes it works,” I say, laughing. But Sean is too immersed in thought to find the comment funny, and J.P., while he’s a silver-tongued speaker, doesn’t have much of a sense of humour.

  “I’d have to brush up on it,” Sean answers pensively.

  Sean would surely be running against a Conservative candidate of Italian origin. J.P. asks for permission to use a photograph of Sean and himself taken with me and my family at one of our Sunday lunches, to use on a potential promotional brochure.

  15. LUCIA AND ANGIE

  AT THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR, I had been surprised to get a phone call from Lucia. “I don’t know what to do with Angelina. Maybe you can speak to someone in your school?” my old friend begged.

  An only child, Lucia’s daughter had spent most of her high-school life in special-education classes. In her fourth year of high school, the guidance counsellors informed her parents that the girl had exhausted their resources.

  “They want us to go to St. Justine hospital and meet there every week with a psychologist,” Lucia had explained. “Her father doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. He thinks all she needs is a good spanking.”

  According to Lucia, the main problem with Angie is that she’d never taken to the French school. When she started, she spoke Calabrian dialect and some English she had learned from watching American cartoons on television.

  “The minute she went to school, she became a babba,” Lucia said. “She didn’t want to do anything. They put her in the special classes, but babba she was and babba she remained. When it suits her, she can be very smart, and she won’t let a fly pass by her nose. Her father says it’s the fault of this bastard country we live in. I think that the country has nothing to do with it. It’s destiny that has to go this way…. Maybe if she learns a trade like you did…”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I replied.

  “Do me this favour. Don’t you remember our ruga? I can still see you with that big pink bow in your hair. You were like my little sister.”

  The mention of the large pink bow
had the power to transport me to another life. Sometimes a scent, a song or a picture could also spark an image out of nowhere. Lucia still spoke as if she had just stepped off the balcony in Mulirena and called me at her house to give me some figs or cherries that her mother had picked from their fruit orchard. Never once, however, did Lucia mention our crossing in 1957, as if it had never happened. This is the Lucia I had known before the summer of 1956, before our voyage. How could I refuse her a favour?

  I asked Bruce to intercede. He convinced the school guidance counsellor and the principal, Mr. Champagne, that admitting Angie would provide the perfect opportunity for a trial project between the Vocational and Special Education departments. Other vocational teachers had refused to accept special-ed students in their classes before, fearing that it would deter regular students from taking their courses.

  With Angie starting school in September, Lucia had moved into her mother’s apartment in the city, leaving her husband alone in Sainte-Rose, Laval. She had lived in an upper-scale housing development that Lucia’s brother’s construction company had built. Since Lucia and her family had moved there, years before, they had isolated themselves from the rest of the paesani, so I had seen even less of her than of the others. Whenever I see other paesani, at weddings, funerals, first communions, I no longer associate them with their village life. In their solidly built, all-stone, ceramic-tiled duplexes in Saint-Léonard, Lasalle, and Rivière-des-Prairies, they have constructed an existence that is far removed from their past and yet not quite in-step with the present. They work and function in broken English, broken French, and even broken Italian. They’ve become the “ethnics,” an entity unto themselves, and a useful demographic group courted by politicians during election periods.

  To me, these older, first-generation immigrants seem to have become quite smug in their newly-forged identity. I find that the younger generation I teach at WLHS seems just as comfortable with the label. It’s my age group, the eager beavers, who try to straddle both sides of the cultural fence, that feel the most unease in this predicament.

  When Angie walked into my class for the first time, dressed completely in black, I was taken aback by her scruffy appearance. She wore ill-fitting polyester pants and a turtleneck sweater, rather than stylish brand name jeans and a T-shirt as most of the other students. Her wiry, dishevelled hair and thick unshapely eyebrows gave her a somewhat sinister look. Her thick lips pouted, not in the self-conscious sexy fashion of the other girls, but in a perpetual sneer.

  What lay behind that sneer? Her mother’s temper had been easily provoked from what I remembered, though she could be coy when it suited her. Angie’s uncle and Lucia’s brother, Alfonso, was known to short-circuit easily. I don’t know Angie’s father well since he isn’t from my village. He hasn’t socialized much with the rest of the paesani. He’s a small contractor compared to his brother-in-law Alfonso, whose construction company has built and sold many residential developments in Laval and is now involved in major city projects,

  I wondered whether anyone would ever be able to break through Angie’s façade. Her first interaction with the class hadn’t been promising. Considering the trouble that I had gone through to have her placed in my class, Angie showed little sign of appreciation. When I asked her to throw out her chewing gum, I saw her mouth the word “bitch” as she reluctantly pitched the gum in the wastepaper basket.

  I gave her the usual talk about class rules and regulations—the dos and don’ts—personal cleanliness, punctuality, dress code, no gum chewing, no swearing, no loud talk or gossiping among students. “Always pretend there are clients present, even when you are just working on the mannequins,” I told Angie as I handed her the short uniform smock that was part of the dress code.

  “Why should I wear that ugly thing?” Angie asked.

  “Everyone in the class has to wear it. It’s more professional.”

  “Nobody sees us down here in the basement. This is not a professional saloon.”

  “You mean salon.”

  “Salon, saloon. What’s the fuckin’ difference?”

  “Watch your language,” I replied sternly. “Using the right language is very important when dealing with the public. People will judge you by the way you speak. This business is all about impressions and image. There is a difference. A saloon is a bar. A hairdresser works in a hairdressing salon in English, and a salon de coiffure in French.”

  “You teach languages too?” asked Angie with a smirk.

  The rest of the class laughed, and judging from the look on her face, Angie had enjoyed the attention.

  I thought the exchange had gone far enough. “Angie, you have two choices. Wear the uniform and stay in this class, or don’t wear the uniform and go back home.”

  Angie wasn’t ready to give in. “It’s bullshit! This is a pretend place with pretend clients,” she said loudly, pointing to the mannequins on the counter. “Pretend I’m wearing it.”

  Maybe this kid is much smarter than she looks, I had thought, and then wondered whether Angie also saw me as a pretend teacher in a pretend school.

  16. FARE L’AMORE

  SEAN AND J.P. LEAVE FOR the afternoon and will be out for dinner for an official party event, after which J.P. will drive back to Ottawa. I tidy up the kitchen and get ready to pick up Mother in Notre Dame de Grace.

  Since I’ve known Sean, I’ve seen less and less of my friends from the village. It’s not a surprise to me that Lucia’s brother, Alfonso, is said to be associated with some shady characters through his business and in-laws. But I’m sure that the mafia association is highly overestimated and if there’s any connection at all, it stops with him. The media suggestion that Lucia’s immediate family is also directly involved with organized crime is hard to swallow. I can’t picture Comare Rosaria in the company of such people, any more than I can imagine my own mother cooking for known criminals.

  That the private problems between Lucia and her husband are receiving some attention is a result of the media’s penchant for sensationalizing anything remotely associated with Jack Russo, a good-looking gangster in his fifties. He’s reputed to be the head of the Montreal Mafia. Still, Russo, of Calabrian origin, has been immune to prosecution, despite the questionable dealings attributed to him.

  Mother lives with my older brother Luigi, his wife Rita, and their baby Teresa, named after my mother. It’s the accepted norm in Calabrian families for a widowed mother to live with a married son. Mother looks after the baby, and runs the household. My brother had been attracted by the older established neighborhood of Notre Dame de Grace, or NDG as it is popularly known, after another paesano from our village Gaetano, and his wife, Tina, bought a duplex there. Luckily, there’s no traffic on the Decarie Expressway, and the drive is quick. The day has been sunny but cool, the days getting shorter. Mother is waiting for me at the door of my brother’s modest bungalow on Trenholme Street, wearing the sombre face she reserves for funerals and hospital visits. She’s bundled up in her fall, navy-blue coat, and in the paisley blue scarf that I have matched for her.

  Before getting into the car, Mother asks, “Mangiasti?” as if to suggest that we’d go inside in case I haven’t yet eaten.

  I drive a block from my brother’s home to pick up Tina too.

  In the car, driving east toward the hospital, Mother keeps going on and on about her friend, Comare Rosaria. I remind her that it’s Rosaria’s daughter, Lucia, who has been beaten unconscious.

  Rosaria and my mother call one other comare because sometime in their shared village past, someone in each family had served as godmother to the other. I never could keep track of all the comare relationships; they could go back a generation or two. The two women are not related by blood, but the fact that they had shared part of the house in Piazza Don Carlo is a kind of unspoken tie. Both their husbands were musicians in the village band. I often heard about how the two men used to gather with the
ir friends in the evenings and take turns serenading the girls. This tradition of serenading disappeared after the war. Maybe it was because most of the young men were away so much of the time. As I drive the long stretch of Jean-Talon Street, I listen to Mother and Tina recount how the fortunes of Rosaria’s family changed after the war.

  “Comare Rosaria was never fortunate,” is how Mother puts it.

  Rosaria’s family had lost favour with her wealthier cousin Don Cesare, heir to Don Carlo’s title, the richest and most influential man in our village, because her husband, Don Mario, had been a Fascist, while Don Cesare was a staunch Christian Democrat. During the Fascist heydays, Don Mario had worked at City Hall and had supervised his wife’s olive groves, which provided them with an income, but political fortunes changed after the war. He suffered a wound that left the right side of his body paralyzed. He could still move around the town but was unable to trek to the countryside by the river to oversee the harvesting of olives. Every year, groups of women from the countryside and from the village were hired to pick the olives off the tree, one by one. It was back-breaking work. In payment, they received their yearly provision of the emerald-coloured olive oil.

  “After Compare Mario returned from the war, all he could do was walk with a cane and talk politics,” Mother says. “Poor Comare Rosaria. She couldn’t keep up, and her children were not much help.”

  The children had been spoiled, Mother claimed. After Don Mario’s incapacitation, Alfonso had tried to take over the family farms, but he wasn’t cut out for the task. Apart from the difficulty of handling so much land, times were changing. Getting women to pick olives had become increasingly difficult. The peasants were emigrating to the U.S., Canada, Argentina, and Australia. Those who couldn’t emigrate left to find work in the northern Italian cities. Most of those who stayed behind had relatives who sent money orders in each letter—not huge amounts, but enough for them to buy their own olive oil in the grocery stores. The younger girls stopped going to the country altogether. Like most of the other young men, Comare Rosaria’s youngest son, Pietro, had tried going to Milan to work, but he came back after only two weeks and became a joke around town. He seemed at a loss to explain why he hadn’t been able to get used to the life of a labourer in the big city. He simply said: “Come lunch, who would cook my pastasciutta?”