The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(14)
Chapter 8
Poppy
1959
Trespiano, Italy
The entire country of Italy, it seemed, was booming in the 1950s, especially those in the “Industrial Triangle”—Milan, Turin, and Genoa. Billions of dollars were streaming into our country, thanks to the Marshall Plan. But our small Tuscan village of Trespiano, just outside of Firenze—the Italian city of Florence—remained more or less untouched. My father, a hardworking farmer, was missing out on the windfall.
My oldest brother, Bruno, along with Rosa’s handsome fiancé, Alberto, worked in the fields alongside Papà. Each week they took their crop to market, and returned with barely enough money to cover the rent and family expenses. Although he had toiled for years in these fields, Papà still leased his land. The wealthy landowner was the one who was making money.
Rosa’s fiancé was the first to voice his frustration. In a few years, Dolphie, who was still too young, would join the trio. Alberto wondered how the farm could support four men and their families when it could not support three.
All the while Alberto hoed the land and tilled the soil he was planting seeds—literally and figuratively. He and my brother Bruno, both twenty-four at the time, would leave this place where they were not appreciated. They would go to America, where milk and honey flowed from the riverbanks.
Alberto had an uncle who had immigrated to the United States three years earlier. This uncle, Ignacio, wrote to Alberto, telling of the place he lived, New York, and the refrigerator in his apartment and the machine that washed his clothing. Ignacio had opened a little store called Lucchesi’s in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Bensonhurst, where many of his fellow Italian immigrants made their homes. But Ignacio needed help slicing meats and preparing foods in the kitchen. If Alberto and his friend Bruno came to America, they would make more money in one month than in an entire year of farming.
My brother Bruno thought it was a grand idea. He and Alberto began saving their money. Alberto would marry Rosa before he left. Once he was settled in America, she would join him and they would start a new life in America. Dolphie would soon follow. “You will be welcome, too,” Alberto told my parents. “Paolina as well.”
The thought of going to America, a country brimming with modern ideas and freedom, a daring new Guggenheim museum that was said to look like a nautilus shell, and the handsome senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, rumored to be a future presidential candidate, thrilled me. But not my sweet sister Rosa. At night, beneath the eaves in our tiny bedroom, she shared her fears with me. Though she was two years older than I, and sassier than most men, Rosa was timid, even cowardly at times. She craved security and safety and certainty. She wanted nothing more than to remain in Trespiano forever, surrounded by our family and Alberto and a flock of children.
Alberto and my father talked every night at the dinner table. Bruno and Alberto would leave for America. They would have no trouble getting visas. Uncle Ignacio would sponsor them, assuring the US government that the men would have jobs upon their arrival.
Behind his back, Rosa scoffed at the idea, claiming her fiancé was a dreamer, that they would never leave Trespiano and Mamma and Papà. But I knew her fate was sealed. She would soon be married to Alberto. Women in our family had no voice. Once her husband was in America, she would be expected to join him. Alberto wanted a strong, hardworking wife in his new homeland, a woman who would bear him many children. And if Rosa wasn’t willing to travel to America, there were plenty of girls in the village who would.
Alberto Lucchesi was smooth as a swan on the dance floor, and when he laughed, you couldn’t help but join in. Over six feet tall, he had a thick head of black hair and a twinkling gaze that seemed to mesmerize. I witnessed him charm more than one of my girlfriends, though I never told my sister. She was already insecure. And Papà was no help. He congratulated his eldest daughter on her prize fiancé, joked about her good fortune. “You, my dear daughter, are a simple fishing net. Yet somehow you have managed to catch the biggest fish in the sea.”
Each time Papà made comments like these, Rosa seemed to shrink. And when Alberto read books and newspapers or used words that Rosa could not pronounce, let alone define, Rosa’s self-doubt grew.
“Alberto will soon be bored with me.”
“The kindest girl in Italy?” I would say. “The most wonderful cook in Trespiano? The one who will make him a perfect wife? Nonsense.”
“And mother,” she added. “Alberto wants many children.”
“Of course. You will make the best mother.”
Rosa said nothing when Alberto began saving money for his voyage to America. She didn’t want to think about what would come next—a trek across the Atlantic all by herself. Often she would wake with nightmares and cling to me, relaying the visions of the whirling waters, the tiny ship’s cabin that she could not escape.
One day at dinner, Rosa announced that she had wonderful news. My father continued to roll his pasta onto his fork, uninterested in his daughter’s silly thoughts, but I sat up, curious.
“Alberto has written to his uncle Ignacio,” Rosa said.
My father’s eyes lifted.
“Ignacio has agreed to marry Paolina.”
I choked on my bread.
“They will marry as soon as Paolina and I arrive in Brooklyn.”