The Unfinished Angel Read online

  The childrens shrug.

  The policeman thinks the childrens should come to the police station, but the childrens start crying and shouting, “Papa, Papa!” and outside is the noise, the pocketa-pocketa-pocketa and the arf, arf, arf, and the policeman tells Zola’s father, hokay, he can look after the childrens until something official is sorted out.

  “And when might that be?” Mr. Pomodoro asks.

  The policeman looks at the crowded tower room and the dirty childrens and he hears the noise outside and inside and he says, “I don’t know. It’s a bigga mess.”

  The Drums

  THE CHILDRENS ARE taking turns up and down the creaky stairs to bathe in the big tub and to wash their hairs. Much water is dripping.

  Mr. Pomodoro goes zoomzoom down to the Migros by the airport to buy eight pairs of jeans, eight shirts and sweaters, and eight pairs of socks and underwear, all in the same colors so no one will be fighting. Rosetta and Terese do not want to wear the jeans; they want to wear Zola’s swirly skirts.

  Signora Divino knocks on the door of Casa Rosa. Zola shouts up to Mr. Pomodoro. “It’s Signora Divino. She wants her hair.”

  “Her what?”

  “Her hair.”

  Paolo is summoned to translate. “Her hat,” he says. “She wants her hat. She says the bad children stole it.” He turns back to Signora Divino and says something in Italian and then he stamps his foot and goes upstairs and returns with the hat of Signora Divino’s deadened husband.

  Later that day, Mr. Pomodoro leads the clean childrens in their clean clothes through the village, stopping at various casas along the way.

  “Signora Mondopoco? Your scarf, I believe?” Mr. Pomodoro’s long, wibbly arm nudges Terese forward. When Terese offers the scarf, Signora Mondopoco smiles broadly and clasps her scarf as if it is a lovely, new present.

  “Grazie,” Signora Mondopoco says. “Molto grazie!” And then she returns the scarf to Terese, draping it on her neck, and says, “Molto better, sì? Molto better.” The Signora waves good-bye.

  Two people are not so friendly. Signora Pompa roughly snatches a sweater back from Nicola. Nicola stomps her foot and says, “Be nice to me!” When Franz reluctantly returns a leather pouch to Signor Rubini, Signor Rubini says, “Bad! Bad! Bad!” Franz interrupts with, “Glocken, glocken, glocken.” Signor Rubini slams his door.

  As Zola, Mr. Pomodoro, and the childrens return to Casa Rosa, they hear boom, boom, boom-de-boom—

  Zola puts her hands to her head. “Auf…”

  Paolo alertens to the sound and runs to the gate of the Divinos. Vinny is drumming like the pocketa man, very fast pocketa-boom, pocketa-boom, pocketa-boom-boom-boom.

  Josef says, “Wow! Was ist das?” and he, too, runs to the gate of the Divinos. Soon all the childrens are gathered round, and when Vinny realizes he has an audience, he goes faster and faster with the wooden sticks, what you call them? Drumsticks? Is that not chicken legs?

  Faster and faster Vinny goes, and the childrens clap. They say, “Bravo! Bravo!”

  And you can see Vinny’s cheeks with their pinkness of pride and you can see Signora Divino peeking out of the kitchen window almost shyly.

  Ravioli

  AT NIGHT I flish some more in the heads of the sleeping villagers. It is not much I am doing. Mostly I am sprinkling images of the hungry childrens with the puppy eyes. Sometimes, hokay, I admit, sometimes I also sprinkle soft sounds, like the childrens saying very softly, “Papa, Papa,” and “Mama, Mama,” and “Nonna” and “Nonno.” But that is all. I do not want to intrude too much.

  The next day, around noon, Signora Divino knocks at the door of Casa Rosa. Zola opens the door and, suspicious, peers around the Signora to see if she has brought snakes or slugs with her.

  Signora Divino says, “I make ravioli. Andiamo, andiamo! Let’s go!” She turns toward her house. “For the bambini, the ragazzi, ravioli! Andiamo!”

  And so all of the childrens, along with Zola and Mr. Pomodoro, file into the kitchen of Signora Divino, where Vinny is setting plates on the table.

  Zola says, “What are you smiling about?”

  “Ravioli.”

  As soon as the childrens start eating, Vinny begins playing his drums. Boom, boom, boom-de-boom, boom-diddy-boom-diddy-boom-boom-boom.

  Signora Divino beams. “Entertainment.”

  Boom, boom, boom-de-boom, boom-diddy-boom-diddy-boom-boom-boom.

  At the end of the meal, when the childrens have eaten every last ravioli and mopped the sauce from their plates with their bread, they turn their black doggy eyes on Signora Divino.

  “Hokay, hokay,” she says. “Tomorrow, ravioli. Ancora. Again!”

  Little Nicola whispers “ravioli” with reverence. “Ravioli, ravioli.”

  “Ecco,” says Signora Divino. “I need to know one thing. Who is the one who took the hat of my dead husband?”

  The childrens stare down at their feets, ashamed. It is quiet in the room.

  “Tell me.”

  Josef stands up. “I sorry. I did it. Head cold, hat warm.”

  Signora Divino leaves the room, returning moments later with the hat in her hand. She places the hat on Josef’s head. “Ecco,” she says. “Is better on your head. My dead husband no need a hat.”

  And then, because the childrens are a little greedy, it is true, Paolo says, “Is there anything else your dead husband doesn’t need?”

  Signora Divino gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. Then, boops, she laughs, a modest laugh that gets bigger and bigger and soon everyone is laughing.

  Signora Divino says, “I will have an inspection. I will let you know. Now go away. I need a resting. And remember, tomorrow—ravioli!”

  Meatballs

  IN THE VILLAGE live mostly old peoples. Why this is, is puzzlement. There used to be few houses and many childrens; now there are many houses and few childrens. The young families, they are urgent to go to big cities or to other countries. It will be perfecto there! they think. We will be rich! and We will have big house! Big car! Big boat!

  Sometimes the young men and women go because their parents are driving them crazy. We will be free! and We can do whatever we want!

  And so off they go, the young men and women and the young families and the little bambini, leaving the old peoples behind to bend for themselves. They leave behind the beautiful mountains, the lakes, the clear air and blue skies and the sheep and the goats.

  And after the young men and women and families have been in their new cities or lands for some short while, they wake up in the night sometimes and they miss the mountains and lakes and air and skies and sheep and goats. They miss the old peoples.

  Why am I telling you this today? Because all night long I was tending the old peoples: Signora Mondopoco, of the sheep boots, who felt a heavy goat on her chest; and Signor Rubini, with his drawer full of socks, who could not sleep—so much he was missing his son and his grandchildrens off in America; and Signora Pompa, who was calling out in the night for her daughter who lives in Paris. When finally I return to my tower, I fall asleep in the hammock and hear nothing until the church bells at noon. Noon! Lazy head!

  I discover Zola and Mr. Pomodoro and the childrens at the casa of Signora Divino. They have eaten more ravioli, and now they are entering the alley behind her house. There they find a dozen villagers seated in plastic chairs behind a long table. How funny they look, all lined up like that, as if they are at a fly market.

  On the table is a mishmasheroni: hats, scarves, gloves, socks, meatballs, chocolate cake, a lightflash, crocheted slippers, a fishing rod, bars of chocolate, cuddle animals, dolls, a music box, necklaces, a figurine, soccer balls, a drawing tablet, coal pencils, an easel, yarn, and rice pudding.

  The villagers are smiling proudly, their hands clasped neatly in their laps.

  “Ecco,” Signora Divino says, wivvling her arm over the bounty on the table. “Ecco.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Paolo asks.

  Manue
l, the jumpy boy, says, “It’s a testo. They want to see if we will steal, and then if we do, they will shoot us.”

  Nicola whimpers. “No shooting! Please!”

  Signora Divino says, “No, no, no shooting. Is for you…” Again she wivvles her arm over the meatballs and soccer balls and dolls and hats. “Is freely! Freely!”

  Still the childrens hang back. They are not trusting.

  Mr. Pomodoro leads the quietest child, Rosetta, to the table. “What would you like to have?”

  Rosetta lowers her head, tucking her chin into her neck. “Niente.”

  “Nothing? Surely there is something here—what about a necklace? Hmm? Or a scarf?”

  Rosetta tilts her head to one side, her chin still safely tucked into her neck. “Cavallo?” she says softly.

  “No!” Stefan says. “Is trick! They shoot you!”

  Rosetta’s lips tremble as she ducks behind Mr. Pomodoro.

  Little Nicola crouches behind Zola. “No shooting! Be nice!”

  Mr. Pomodoro turns to Signora Divino for help. “What did Rosetta say? What’s cavallo?”

  “Ah, bella, bella,” the Signora says, reaching across the table for one of the cuddle animals. “Horse—cavallo—sì?”

  Rosetta beams and reaches up to touch the horse.

  “Bang!” shouts Stefan. “Bang! Bang!”

  Rosetta snatches the horse and whackles Stefan on the arm with it.

  Franz is standing at one end of the table, eyeing a soccer ball. He taps his fingers on the table. “Glocken, glocken, glocken.” Tentatively, his fingers crawl toward the soccer ball.

  At the other end of the table, Terese’s fingers are creeping toward the rice pudding.

  And then, as if a signal has gone off that only the childrens can hear, all of their hands are reaching and grabbling and snatching. Manuel and Paolo are fighting over the meatballs, until Manuel overtakes and shoves them in his mouth.

  “No, no!” says Signora Divino.

  Nicola snatches the chocolate cake and gobbles it.

  “No, no!”

  Franz grabs the soccer ball and hugs it possessively. Stefan and Josef battle for the fishing rod.

  “No, no!”

  Zola and her father and the villagers are watching with their mouths widely open, as if they are thinking, What creatures are these?

  Finally Signora Divino manages to explaterate that everyone will have a chance, that there are plenty of meatballs and cake and pudding for all, and that other things can be shared, and really they must all stop fighting right this minute.

  Signora Divino suggests that the villagers form a committee and find a better way to give things to the childrens. The villagers will try again domani, tomorrow.

  “Domani? Domani? No, no, oggi! Today!” Paolo insists.

  “Sì, sì, oggi!” chime in the others.

  Even those who don’t speak Italian take up the chant: “Oggi! Oggi! Oggi! Today! Today! Today!”

  The villagers look a little bit frightened.

  The Nature of Zola

  ZOLA, SHE IS intrigueful to me. In her many-layered clothings, with her chippy-choppy hair and the eyes with the big black poppils, in her sometimes bossy way, she has also the soft heart of a bunny. The soft heart is also a smart heart because it is not soft for every puny silly thing, but over the things that are matterful. Are you knowing what I am meaning?

  Today she clabbers up onto my balcony and says, “Angel! You have to do something!”

  She is always telling me this. “What is it now?”

  I know that the hungry childrens are not hungry today, and at night they no longer sleep in the tower rooms, but instead they have beds in the other rooms of Casa Rosa. I know that this morning Franz and Rosetta walked Signora Pompa’s dog and even scooped the dog poop. I know that Terese and Manuel helped Signor Rubini stir the rice pudding, and Paolo and Stefan clumped meatballs with Signora Divino. Below, I see Nicola and Josef kicking a soccer ball.

  “Angel!”

  “Zola, is it about the childrens?”

  “No,” she says. “It is Signora Mondopoco.”

  Signora Mondopoco is the old woman with the sheep boots.

  “You have to do something!” Zola repeats. “She’s very old and she thinks she is going to die!”

  “This I know.”

  “Well, what are you going to do, Angel?”

  I do not know what to say to Zola. Very old peoples do die. Their bodies have the parts that stop working and fall off, no, not fall off but fall—how do you say? Apart? They fall apart. It is hard to keep going on when your body is clunking away.

  “Angel!”

  “Zola, you know what Signora Mondopoco likes? She likes poppets.”

  “Poppets?”

  “Little dollies. You have any little dollies?”

  “No. I’m too big for dollies.”

  “Oh. Well, Signora Mondopoco is very big and she loves dollies. She is like a little girl in her mind sometimes.”

  Zola thinks about this, and then she goes away and later that day she brings to me a poppet dolly that she has made out of a dish towel and many colored ribbons. It is a sweet little doll but it has no face.

  “Zola, maybe you could give the dolly some eyes and a nose and mouth.”

  “Oh, right.”

  So Zola goes away and returns later with the dolly that now has large round blue eyes with fluttery black lashes, a pink smalling mouth, and spots on her cheeks.

  “She has the measlies?”

  “Those are freckles, Angel. Freckles.”

  “No nose?”

  “I couldn’t do a nose.”

  Zola takes the dolly to Signora Mondopoco, who is so happy to meet the dolly. Really, really happy. She claps her hands. Then she pulls from her pocket a worn and smudged wee dolly and introduces the worn dolly to the new dolly. Signora Mondopoco uses doll voices:

  “Ciao!”

  “Ciao!”

  She carries on in Italian, but what she is saying is, “I am happy to meet you” and “Me too!” and “Will you live with me?” and “Do you snore?” and “Only a little.” It is not a very advanced conversation, but it is one that makes Signora Mondopoco very happy.

  Later, Zola says to me in a sober way, “I like that Signora Mondopoco. I like her very much.” In Zola’s palm is a small granite rock, which she balances on the stone wall. “I hope that when I get old, someone will make a dolly for me.”

  Transport

  TODAY IS SUNDAY and throughout the valley the church bells are pealing dong dong la-dong, that most warming of sounds ringing in the air, dong dong la-dong. The childrens in Casa Rosa are beginning to wake up, Mr. Pomodoro is making pancakes, and Zola is—where is Zola? Somewhere out and about already.

  Signora Divino, I see her in her yard in her pink bedjacket, gazing up at the mountains and listening to the bells. Vinny is in the kitchen, stirring hot chocolate. Soon one of the villagers will come to the gate of Signora Divino and give her the news about Signora Mondopoco.

  Last night when I visited Signora Mondopoco, she was in her bed, draped with a soft blanket, her hands gently crossed on her chest. Beneath her hands she protected her worn dolly and her new dolly. She closed her eyes and said, “I am ready, dollies.”

  On her rooftop I placed a sleeping frog. When it woke and made its croaky sound, the transport angel would come. I was going to stay and wait and ask the transport angel all my questions, but it did not seem right to interrupt the flight of Signora Mondopoco.

  And so I returned to my hammock on the balcony and just as the pink headfore of morning rose above the mountain, I heard the frog speak and I saw, in an instant, the golden light surround the casa of Signora Mondopoco. Sometimes when the sun is directly overhead and shines onto the lake, the light is so bright it pickles your eyes and you have to turn away from it. But the golden light is different; it becomes paler and paler so that you have to strain to see it, and you wish your eyeballs were bigger, and then, then, it
is gone.

  What Zola Knows

  ZOLA CLOPS UP to the balcony and collapses in the hammock. “Oh, Angel!” she says. “How can you bear it?”

  “Bear what?”

  “Signora Mondopoco is gone. Did you visit her? How can you bear it, to see them go?”

  “Well, it is peoples, you know. Peoples are not going to live a million years.”

  “Well, then, what am I supposed to be doing?”

  Zola. There she is in her violet dress over the green skirt over the yellow skirt, bare feet, orange ribbons around her ankles and in her chippy-choppy hair. Between two fingers she holds a slenderly gray feather.

  “I don’t know, Zola. Peoples find ways, they find things, interests, you will find…” I am all tangled up with the words.

  “But I am not a peoples,” Zola says.

  “What?”

  “I am not a peoples.”

  “What?” My head, I think, has come off and is jumping in the trees. “But you have a papa—Mr. Pomodoro….”

  Zola lazily swings a foot over the side of the hammock. “He is not my papa. I am not a peoples.”

  “What?” I think my head is now my foot and my foot is my head. “But the peoples—they can see you.”

  “Yes,” she says, scratching a scab on her knee. “Why is that?”

  “But—but—ha! You cannot float or flish.”

  “Of course. I’m not nearly finished. I’m not a finished angel, like you.”

  “What? Me? Finished?” I think the mountain is downside up and the lake is in the sky. And then I think, does she mean “finished,” as in kaput, over and done with, out of commission? “Finished?”

  Zola twirls one of her ribbons in her hands. “Eugenia, Bedenia.” She leaps from the hammock and as she slips down through the trippy-trap door, waving the gray feather, she says, “Sa-la!”

  “Sa-la,” I say automatically, and then I have to float off and up into the mountains and be with the goats and find my head and the words again.