The Shoemaker's Wife(94)

“Butter and sage are my favorites. And I use a pinch of cinnamon sometimes.”

“Very good! You will make gnocchi for the cast!” he exclaimed.

“For everyone?” Enza put her hands on her face.

“Yes. Antonio, Gerry. The chorus. They sing. They need to eat.”

“But where will I cook?”

“Do you have a kitchen?”

“I live in a boardinghouse.”

“And I live in the Knickerbocker Hotel, which is getting to be like a boardinghouse. All the grandeur has left this city.”

“I still think it’s grand.”

“I’m spoiled, Vincenza. It’s a terrible thing to be old and spoiled.”

“You’re not old, sir.”

“I’m bald.”

“Young men go bald too.”

“It’s hitting the high notes—I blow the hair off my head when I hit them.”

Enza smiled.

“See there, you can smile. You’re too serious, Vincenza. We’re in show business. This is smoke, mirrors, rouge, and girdles. I wear one of those, too, you know.”

“Not if I’m tailoring your costumes,” Enza promised him.

“Really?”

“Really, sir. All it takes is proportion. If I build your smock for Tosca, I raise the shoulder, drop the sleeve, nip the waist in the back, pipe it boldly, and use double-size buttons. You will shrink underneath it. If I make the pants the same fabric as the smock, and give you a shoe with a pointed toe, it will slim you out even more.”

“Ah, la bella figura, Caruso style! I need to be slimmed out, but I don’t want to give up the gnocchi.”

“You don’t have to. I will achieve everything you hope for with illusion.”

“Jesus. Tell the old man whatever he wants to hear.” Geraldine Farrar stood in the doorway, puffing a cigarette.

Geraldine wore a long muslin skirt for rehearsal. Her light brown hair, braided like a milkmaid’s, lay on her chest on a white cotton blouse, over which she had tied the sleeves of a black cashmere shrug. Enza had never seen a woman so beautiful, and yet so completely unaware of it. Her style was casual, thrown on like an old sweater. Geraldine had the coloring of a gold pearl: tawny skin, offset by pale blue eyes. She possessed the ready and wide smile of an American girl.

“Get out, Gerry,” Caruso said.

“I’m looking for some amusement.” She rifled through the button box on the table.

“You won’t find it here.”

“No kidding.”

“Vincenza is going to make us gnocchi.”

“You’re supposed to drink warm tea and eat lettuce. The doctor has you on a diet,” Geraldine reminded him.

“Vincenza is going to make me magic costumes. I will look thinner from the mezzanine.”

“An elephant looks thinner from the mezzanine,” Geraldine reminded him. She scooted up on to the worktable. “What am I wearing for this shindig?”

“Crimson satin.”

“I’d rather wear blue. Cornflower blue. Who do I tell?”

“Miss Ramunni.”

“That old battle-ax?”

“You’re exactly one year younger than me, Miss Farrar,” Serafina Ramunni said from the doorway.

“Oh, you got me.” Geraldine fell back against the pattern table as though she had been shot.

“And you’re not wearing crimson or blue, you’re wearing green,” Serafina announced. “The set is raspberry red, and I won’t have the soprano looking like a cheap blue horn against the damask. Green will pop.”

“Ugh. For once, let me wear what I want!” Geraldine carped.

“She’s so dramatic,” Caruso said to Enza. “Demanding too.”

“Hey, watch it. I don’t need the criticism. I’m doing you a favor with this benefit,” Gerry said. “You owe me.”

“May I remind you, I’m Italian, and I’m doing this for the American soldiers. This is an act of generosity on my part. You owe me. ”

“Last time I checked, you Italians were on our side in the war,” Gerry said.

“So I’m killing two birds with two stones.”

“Two birds with one stone! God, I hate it when you people don’t learn the idioms.”

“I try to teach the Great Caruso, but the Great Caruso doesn’t want to learn,” Serafina said.

“At least she calls me the Great Caruso.” He winked at Vincenza. “When they start calling me Enrico, I worry.”

Enza stood in front of Geraldine Farrar’s dress dummy, over which was draped an A-line gown of emerald green satin, with pale green satin lining.

A series of small X’s across the bodice indicated where the paillettes would be sewn; a triangle, a drop crystal. Enza had been sewing the beadwork for two days, hoping to finish by the end of this long night. She picked up a needle and began to attach the delicate embellishments. She would sew each sequin on with precision, looping it twice through, to make sure Geraldine Farrar sparkled from the mezzanine as the lights danced off the surface of the beads.

Enza did some of her best thinking when she did detail work. Giacomina had taught her daughter that you must dig constantly for meaning in the sorrow of this life, and that this sorrow must galvanize you, not define you. During her years with the Buffa family, Enza had tried to find some meaning in her mistreatment, but she never could.