Kiss Carlo

  Minna had taken the first step out of her prison. Instead of collapsing, she stood tall. Tomorrow she vowed she would take another. And the day after that, yet another until she reached Mary Farino’s, then Constance Stampone’s, then the post office, then the coffee shop, until she reached her goal. Minna had a mission, and more important than making the effort, she believed she could achieve it. Someday soon she would walk to the top of Garibaldi Avenue into Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church where she would sit in a pew surrounded by the saints and inhale the scent of the beeswax candles and incense and kneeling at long last at the altar of the Blessed Mother, she would pray and be healed. As Minna walked back into her house, she envisioned herself sitting in the pew and she could see it clearly. Tomorrow she would take another step forward.

  * * *

  Calla had been directed by Ed Shaughnessy’s office to the Fountain of the Sea Horses, where after months of repairs, he was scheduled to turn on the waterworks.

  Calla wore the prettiest sundress she owned that day, a hand-me-down from her sister Portia. It was an ice-blue cotton number, with a full skirt and bows tied at the shoulders. She wore flat sandals and brushed her hair until it was as shiny as her mother’s gold bangle bracelet from Sorrento, which dangled from her wrist. She had learned the importance of choosing the right costume when putting on a show.

  “Mr. Shaughnessy!” Calla waved from the footpath behind the fountain. “It’s me, Calla Borelli, from the theater.”

  Ed wouldn’t have connected the woman in paint-splattered coveralls at Borelli’s theater to the one in the dress. This fetching girl was a dish.

  “You got the old Bernini going.” Calla splashed her hand in the cool water.

  “What’s Philly without the fountain?”

  “Dry,” Calla joked. “My dad always wanted to put a small park and fountain next to the theater. I guess that will stay a dream for now anyway. Frank just told me all about his plan for the theater. What do you think?”

  “I hate to see history die in a neighborhood.”

  “Ed, how relevant is that old barn to the audiences of today?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not for me to decide. You’re a theatrical person, I work for the city.”

  “It’s too expensive to renovate, don’t you think?” Calla was coy.

  “It can be done. If you want to renovate that building, you could do it. It would be expensive. Getting it up to code would mean gut work from the inside out.”

  “That’s what Frank says.”

  “He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Thank goodness. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He doesn’t like to burden me with the big decisions.”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “I need my mind clear for the creative aspects of my job.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “What do you think about his plans for the lot?”

  Ed shrugged. “He thinks there’s a market for apartments on Broad.”

  Calla swallowed hard. “Do you?”

  “South Philly needs housing. It’s lucrative. Frank knows how to take an opportunity and make something out of it.” Ed turned on the water that filled the dishes in the fountain. The water rippled in the sun, sparkling like sapphires. “But, I’d hate to see a building of the Belle Epoque era brought down for an ordinary apartment complex. I like the historical stuff,” Ed admitted.

  “There’s no way to save the building and put up apartments?” Calla asked.

  “I don’t see how. Frank says it can’t be done.”

  Calla’s worst fears were confirmed. She felt faint. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Shaughnessy.”

  Ed Shaughnessy jumped into his truck and drove off as Calla sat on a bench by the fountain.

  Bernini’s sculpture was resplendent in the sun as waves of water cascaded over the tiers of marble in bright blue sheets into the wide pools of stone, held high by the carved sea horses. It was then she saw the future. Calla imagined the fountain toppled to rubble; in a hundred years or less, it would be gone. Sooner than later every available space in the city would be filled with a high rise, streets jammed with cars and sidewalks cluttered with people who were strangers to one another. Borelli’s Theater had no place in such a world, unless someone saw the merit in its existence. Calla surprised herself, as she smiled instead of giving in to the futility of her situation. It was the splendor of Bernini’s creation that changed her mind. The art was worth the fight. If Borelli’s Theater was to survive, then a Borelli had to save it.

  * * *

  The members of the Borelli Theatrical Company were gathered on the stage of the theater, under the work lights. A few of the actors sat on folding chairs, others on the stage floor, while the crew stood, but all were waiting for their director.

  Calla sprinted down the aisle and leapt up the steps to the stage.

  “Thank you for coming today. I want to thank you for being such wonderful friends after the passing of my father. He loved you all and thought the world of you. He was a great teacher. You know there was no better director and producer. He never told you anything that wasn’t true, and I’m going to keep my word to you too. I hope to honor his long legacy in the theater, especially his artistry, which was something to behold. I’m not saying I can ever be as good, but I am saying I will try. There are a lot of rumors flying around, and they’re just gossip. I am determined to keep this theater open. We’re going to do Shakespeare until we’re all too old to play Lear. So, with that in mind, I want you to keep your hopes up, and trust that I’ve got all this under control. I plan to post the next production on the board in six weeks and I hope you’ll all be part of it.”

  The company erupted in applause, underscored by a spirited stomping on the stage floor. Calla embraced members of the company and crew one by one. She thanked them for their service. As she reached the end of the line, she saw Frank Arrigo out of the corner of her eye, standing in the wings. She joined him.

  “Hey, babe, I made reservations at Palumbo’s.”

  “I can’t go to dinner, Frank.”

  “You’re busy?”

  “No. We’re through.”

  “What do you mean?” He was stunned.

  “I know all about your scheme. It’s not my charms that reeled you in—it’s this half-acre lot on Broad with the unlimited air space that enchanted you.” The members of the company gathered behind the scrim and listened.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Frank said defiantly.

  “Your plan to buy the building and put up apartments.”

  “Honey, I say that about every old building in the city.”

  “Well, not this one. Not anymore.”

  “Okay. Fine. Keep the theater. Whatever you want.” Frank took her hand in his. “You should know what I want. I’m serious about you. The building is just a pile of bricks. Nails and wood. I don’t care about it. It doesn’t mean anything to me. You mean everything to me.”

  “If that’s true, then you’d understand what this theater means to me. It’s not just a pile of bricks.”

  “You know what I’m saying. Look, you’ve been through a lot, you’re grieving for your father.”

  “That’s true. But I’m not inventing scenarios. Just tell me the truth. You wanted to buy this building.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  “If I were selling.”

  “Right.”

  “And you wanted me and the building?”

  “Why not? You’re my girl. And I can build you a theater anywhere in Philly. A new one. With state-of-the-art lighting. Sound. Seating. A lobby. Everything you’d ever want. And better parking.”

  “Everything except history.”

  “You need a new building. A modern facility. Something new and exciting to bring the people in. Give me a chance to give you everything you want.”

  “I have it already. Every time I walk through the stage door, I see my dad. When I look out into the house, I see my mom
, sitting quietly during rehearsal sewing the hem on a costume. And I look up to the mezzanine, and see my sisters, little girls, running back and forth across the aisles. I remember every production—the hits, the flops—was equally spectacular to me. My childhood is in this theater and now it’s my life. And it would have been nice to share it with you.”

  “We can share it. We will.”

  “But I don’t want you anymore, Frank,” Calla said calmly. “You failed the audition. Your performance wasn’t truthful.”

  Frank took a moment to think. “You mean it?”

  “I do,” she said. Her voice broke. Calla was sad, but resolute.

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Could be.”

  “You’ll never survive here without me.”

  “Do you think that’s what I’ve been doing here?”

  “You’re not making it, Calla.”

  “Maybe not on your terms. But I get up every day and come to work and do a job I love. I pay seventeen artists a week, and that goes up to forty artists on the payroll during a large scale production. I think I’m doing all right.”

  Frank Arrigo walked out of the theater. It seemed of late as though every man that Calla Borelli loved left her. This time, however, was different. She was the one showing the gentleman the door.

  Calla walked backstage to find the entire company waiting for her. From the looks on their faces, she knew they had heard the conversation. Like children overhearing their parents argue through bedroom walls, there was no hiding the truth. Calla was producer, director, and mother to this troupe of talented semi-professionals who loved Borelli’s as much as she did. She knew their secrets and they knew hers. In this moment they needed her reassurance.

  By day, an actor might drive a soda truck, a costume assistant might work the steam presser in the blouse factory, an actress might wrangle six kids and work a shift in a doughnut shop—but at night when they came to Borelli’s, they put on their costumes and makeup, they became a company of players who stood in beams of candy-colored light and acted in the plays of William Shakespeare. They lived for the life behind the velvet curtain, where they slipped out of the present and away to another place and time, to make some sense of words written by a man long gone but who somehow understood everything. This wasn’t just a theater, and the process wasn’t simply show business or entertainment to them, it was their chance to be part of the poetry.

  Interlude

  October 29, 1949

  Roseto Valfortore, Italy

  The silk curtains blew into the bedroom of the palazzo like the billowing skirt of a woman’s ball gown mid dance. Nicky laced his work boot, looping it across at the top and tying it snugly with a double knot. He stood up and marched in place. The boots felt secure, not too tight, one more trick he had learned in the army that had held him in good stead ever since.

  He walked over to the curtains, securing them behind a hook. He opened the French doors out onto the balcony and went outside. The sun was cresting over the mountain to the east. He imagined the cobalt blue waters of the Adriatic beyond the mountain and smiled. How different this journey had been from his visit after the war. Peacetime had an elegance, a courtly manner that only a soldier who had been in a brutal war could appreciate. A teaspoon of honey on hot bread might as well be gold. Icy water from a stream unpolluted by sulfur and shrapnel was an elixir. Air, in its purest form, where wind made the sound of silk as it grazed a woman’s skin, was a delight.

  Italy had changed Nicky Castone for the better.

  He stretched his arms over his head and inhaled deeply. The war had built the muscles in his legs; laying stone in Roseto Valfortore had built his arms. His penance had empowered him, as true contrition might. The sinner sheds his selfish intent, and when he does, his true purpose reveals itself.

  Nicky leaned against the iron grid of the scrollwork fence of the terrace. His biceps now possessed the chiseled grooves of a Michelangelo sculpture. His back had broadened, his waist had whittled, and his mind had been cleared. With the road near completion, it would soon be time to return home. He wasn’t anxious to leave Italy, but he was determined to take what he had learned here and change his life.

  The annual fig harvest on the hillsides of Roseto Valfortore was nearing its end. Autumn in Apulia was a race to prepare for the winter, as the Rosetani cured meat and made hard cheese that would last through the long months of barren cold. Folks had gathered their baskets and were scattered across the hills that morning, plucking the trees clean of what remained of the figs. Some would be sliced and eaten now; Nicky savored them, tossed in fresh greens with a bit of lemon juice and salt. A few bushels would be made into jam for each household, and the rest would be dried, cut into small wheels, and saved in cheesecloth bags, to be baked into pastry or layered with cured meat for a meal when the skies turned to snow.

  There was a soft rap at the door. Nicky called out.

  “Finalmente.” The ambassador stood in the doorway of Nicky’s room, with a look that was both happy and sad, if there were such a thing.

  “Will you walk the road today?” Nicky asked him, partly in words, partly in mime. “Andiamo Spadone!”

  “Si.” Carlo marched in place: Every step, he indicated.

  Carlo Guardinfante and Nicky Castone had been thrown together under the strangest of circumstances, but they had an affinity for one another that neither of them could explain. Perhaps both men had secretly longed for a brother and when they met, they recognized one another. Whatever the case, their affection for one another had grown over these months, surprising them.

  The Rosetani in Italy thought that their connection was mystical. Gemelli!—long-lost twins, reunited over a vast ocean. For the Italians it was a spiritual manifestation of God’s hand on earth. On the American side, it was a con. Nicky had played a part, a vaudevillian type, and when the real guy showed up, so did the cops. It was hilarious until it wasn’t. It’s only a great story if you can get away with it, blow town before you’re discovered. That’s the American way.

  To the two men, it was something more. Nicky’s Italian hadn’t improved, nor had Carlo’s English, so they communicated as children do, mirroring behavior, checking for cues, and making each other laugh. They developed an empathy for one another that became their language. There was an undeniable solidarity when they walked together during la passeggiata; the Rosetani observed their bond with admiration. Loyalty, the deep river of sympathy whose currents flow on the understanding that one brother would give his life for the other, was the center of every Italian family. In that sense, Carlo and Nicky were brothers.

  The ambassador was dressed for the trek to the bottom of the new road in work boots, a chamois shirt, and wool pants. Nicky grabbed the straw palmetto hat with the bandanna on the brim off the finial of the chair, motioning that he would follow Carlo out.

  Below the piazza, down the mountain, at the entrance of the road to Roseto Valfortore, the band of American workers from Roseto, Pennsylvania, hurried to finish the job. They had worked side by side with the local men to build the road, and as they were in America, they were in Italy. Their skills and stations crossed the Atlantic. Therefore, Rocco Tutolola was the leader.

  Rocco had been elected chief burgess in a landslide, and there was good reason. He had a natural way with his people, knowing what they needed (plumbing, parking, and roads), devising a plan, executing the work while encouraging them to use their talents to achieve the goal. He was a good man, but he had a wanderlust that could only be satisfied off hours by the attention of women at the Stone Crab Bar in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. But after months away from Cha Cha, working in the sun, his hands in the dirt, laying stone, he made the decision to reinvigorate his commitment to his wife, which unleashed a passion in letters that he wrote and sent, which she read week after week as she hiked the steep hill of Garibaldi Avenue in tears. Up and down she went, working through her feelings while reading her husband’s thoughts, described ar
dently in navy-blue ink on onionskin paper.

  Rocco would return home to the sweet girl he married. Cha Cha’s figure had returned to its former glory, along with her attitude, but now she had the benefit of experience under her tightened grommets, which gave her an edge. She knew how to make Rocco happy. His letters assured her that he was ready to do the same for her.

  “Hey, Funzi!” Rocco hollered as he headed down to the bottom of the road. He had checked the gutters on either side of the road from the top to the bottom, installed to handle any flooding of the Fortore River in the future. These drainage channels had been time-consuming to put in, adding two months to their stay, but the Americans would leave knowing the road was secure.

  Funzi stood up, wiped his hands on the bandanna in his pocket, and looked down at his handiwork. He motioned for Rocco to join him and showed his boss the flat curbing of the road. “What do you think? Not bad for a janitor.”

  Rocco looked down and smiled. “What do you think the ambassador will say?”

  “What can he say? It’s done.”

  Funzi had laid the stone at the entrance of the road and selected stones with hand-carved letters, set among the native fieldstone. R O S E T O P A was spelled out across the expanse of the entrance.

  Rocco whistled up the hill for the remaining crew of eight Americans, who hiked down the new road to join them. The men looked up and saw Nicky and the ambassador approaching in the middle distance. Rocco grinned, happy at the completion of the mission, and pleased with the quality of work they had done. It was the Roseto way in Italy and America, one shared philosophy: Everybody gives a little, what they can—a little cash from Nicky Castone, some more from the proceeds of the Cadillac Dinner, the Italians pitch in their lire—and everyone lifts the stone, whatever weight they can carry, and soon the road is built.