The Scent Of Rosa's Oil (16 page)

“Whenever I’ll look at this rose,” Rosa said in a soft whisper, “I’ll always remember this moment.”

“The flower will die, but this moment never will,” said Renato.

“I know how to keep flowers from dying,” Rosa said.

“How?”

“You place the petals in a book, so they dry. Or you can transform the flowers into other things, things that know all about the flowers’ lives.”

“Tramonto,” he said, taking her softly in his arms, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I know is that you and I will never leave each other.”

Gently, Rosa embraced him at the waist. They stood there a long time, staring at the interplay of darkness and light, breathing in the enchantment of the nighttime. A shiver shook Rosa’s shoulders at one point.

“Feel like walking back?” Renato asked.

Rosa nodded.

They took a narrow, steep road paved with stone tiles, unwinding downhill amidst house walls hidden by ivy and bougainvillea, their steps the only audible sounds. Downtown was also quiet when they arrived. “I’ll walk you home,” Renato said as they crossed the street headed for the
caruggi
.

Rosa shook her head. “I’ll go alone.”

“Why?” he asked.

Without talking, she moved away from him.

“It’s late,” he argued, following her. “You can’t walk around by yourself in this darkness.”

“Please,” she said, “I need to be alone. I’ll meet you again tomorrow at nine.” She blew him a kiss. “Good night,” she murmured, then ran off, turned the street corner, and disappeared from Renato’s view. Puzzled, he stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking in the direction Rosa had taken. Then he ran after her, trying to spot her in the dim glow of the streetlights. He couldn’t see her, but her scent lingered, and he followed that trail through the
caruggi
, Via della Maddalena, Vico Corona di Ferro, and Via Luccoli, all the way to Piazza Soziglia, where he stopped, no longer sure of which direction to take. Rosa’s scent was everywhere—to his right, to his left, and in front of him, in every portal and in every bend of the alleys. There was no one in the street. He yelled, “Tramonto!” A shutter opened on the fourth floor of a building. “Shut up!” an angry voice said. “We’re trying to sleep here!”

Baffled, Renato stood still in the middle of the ancient piazza, looking helplessly at the sky. He made his way slowly to Vico Cinque Lampadi, while in Isabel’s booth Rosa sat on her bed with her heart racing. Isabel peeked in from the distillery and noticed at once Rosa’s peaceful expression and dreamy eyes. She turned around and tiptoed back to her rocking chair. Much later, in the flower room, as her eyelids turned heavy and her breathing slowed, Rosa began to dream of Renato’s eyes, large, blue, and transparent like the sea. She saw herself standing at the edge of the eyes, as she would stand on a beach, and slowly walking in and sinking into his pupils till she disappeared.

The following day, on Piazza Banchi, Rosa felt as if she were floating on a cloud. The sky had never seemed so blue, the sounds of the piazza had never seemed so sweet, the people around her had never seemed so beautiful. In the evening, she rushed back to Isabel’s booth, where she put on the black wig and some makeup. At nine sharp she was at the port entrance, where Renato was waiting for her with his loving smile.

“I ran after you last night,” he said when Rosa arrived, “but I couldn’t find you.”

“Promise me you won’t do that again,” she said.

“Why are you so mysterious?” he asked.

“There are things I cannot say to you now. Please trust me.”

“I trust you,” he said. “I’m only worried about you.”

“There’s no reason for that.” She paused. “I missed you,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“I miss you every moment.” He lifted her and kissed her face everywhere. “Even when I’m with you.”

“I like that,” Rosa said.

“Would you go with me to a special place?” he asked.

“Where?”

He pointed at the warehouses. “There.” He saw the quizzical look in her eyes. “We’ll be able to talk in peace. It’s dark outside”—he pointed at the sky where a few clouds were passing—“and it may rain.”

She followed him, unable to resist the sweetness in his voice. Her legs shook as they held hands and walked, and all she could think of while they strolled silently along the pier was how warm the skin of his hand was and imagined the same warmth on his neck, chest, and every part of his body.

“This is where I work,” he said, as they approached a warehouse, “but we can’t go inside now. It’s closed. There’s a shack around the corner, where we keep tools we need to pack and unpack the cotton and other goods. It’s by the water. I go there sometimes when I want to be alone and think. It’s peaceful at this time of night.” He embraced her again, and they held each other tightly as they turned the warehouse corner and crossed a yard, reaching the opposite side of the pier.

The shack was filled with empty brown cloth bags and ropes, set in various piles. It had no door, only a large opening that faced the water. The only lights outside were those of the ships resting in the basins and the intermittent glimmer of the
lanterna
, the lighthouse, standing tall at the west end of the port on a rocky promontory edging into the sea. They sat on a pile of soft bags, next to each other, looking at the calm water. The silence around them was deep, broken only by the occasional squeaks of the moorings and by the soft lapping of the sea against the pier.

“I brought you this,” Renato said, handing Rosa a small, smooth blue stone. “I found it years ago on a beach. I was there with Giacomo. I can’t even say why I liked this stone so much. After I took it home, I told Giacomo I would give it to the love of my life.” Gazing at her face, he added, “It has the color of your eyes.”

“I’ll take it with me wherever I go,” Rosa said.

“Wherever you’ll go, I’ll go,” he murmured, kissing her. As she returned his kiss, Rosa pulled him closer until the weight of his body pushed her down into the sacks, and she felt liquid and boneless, filled only by her longing for him and by her certainty that she had found love. “I love you,” he said with his lips on hers.

“I love you, too,” said Rosa.

He kept repeating “I love you” as they groped for laces, buttons, and pins and their limbs entangled in long and passionate embraces. They left their clothes where they landed and made love desperately, with the ardor and intensity of those aware of being part of a miracle yet afraid the miracle won’t last. As the waves kept lapping the pier, Renato guided Rosa as they discovered each other’s textures, and odors, and sighs. Their bodies danced, their beings became one, with Rosa following Renato’s lead unhampered by her childish awkwardness and with never a hint of regret or indecision, as if she were following a preset destiny and she had known all along exactly what would happen and how. When they left the shack later that night, the bags were soaked with their sweat and fluids, their bodies were drained of strength, and their hearts brimmed with the sensation of completely belonging to the other. They walked back to the port entrance in wobbly steps, leaning against each other, like two drunkards searching for ground for their feet.

“The scent of your skin,” Renato said, “is the most maddening odor I’ve ever smelled.”

Rosa nodded. “Someone warned me that this scent would have powers.”

“This someone is right,” Renato said. “I can feel the power of it. It’s…bewitching.”

“I am bewitched by your eyes,” Rosa whispered. “I was the very first time I saw you, talking on the podium.”

“I had no idea you had seen me before we met,” Renato said.

Rosa gave Renato a clever smile. “We met because I had seen you.”

Renato laughed. “I’m realizing now that you never asked me my name,” he said after a moment. “Did you know it?”

Rosa nodded, then stopped walking. “You said that wherever I’ll go, you’ll go. Did you really mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Even if I wanted to cross the ocean on a ship?”

“Why would you want to cross the ocean?” he asked. “Don’t you like it here?”

“So you wouldn’t go with me if I wanted to cross the ocean?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid of floating on water. The very thought of it makes my stomach tight, and I can’t breathe. Ask me anything, take me anywhere, but not on water, I beg you.” He looked at her. “Come with me. I’ll show you where I live. Then,” he added, “maybe you can show me where
you
live.”

He took her to Vico Cinque Lampadi, where they entered an old building with a wooden portal corroded by years of sea salt. A narrow stairway of smooth slate took them upstairs. On the fourth floor, Renato placed a finger on his lips as he opened the door to his apartment. “Two friends live here with me,” he whispered. “They’re asleep.” In the darkness, they tiptoed through a living room and a small kitchen, then reached Renato’s bedroom, frugally furnished with a bed, a table, a chair, and a tall bookshelf filled with volumes. “Stay here with me tonight,” he said. “I don’t want to be without you.”

“I can’t. I have to go,” Rosa said, uncertain about the reliability of her disguise.

“Why?”

“Now that I know where you sleep,” she said, “I’ll think of you here.” Before he could object, she tiptoed back to the apartment door. A moment later, she was rushing down the stairs.

“I won’t let you walk away alone tonight,” he said, taking the stairs after her.

“If you love me, you will,” she replied as they reached the street.

“I love you, and I won’t.” He took her hand. “See? You’re trapped.”

Gently, she shook his hand off hers and, before he could realize what was happening, ran away.

He hesitated only a fraction of a moment before following her once more, but that minuscule amount of time was sufficient for Rosa to turn the street corner and disappear once more from view. He looked right and left, amazed at the speed with which she had vanished from his sight. Then he took the street Rosa had taken, determined to find her, knowing that she must still be close by. There was complete silence in the
caruggi
at that time of night, and in that silence he could hear the echo of her steps on the cobblestones. He followed that echo and the unmistakable trail of her odor. Rosa, who knew all the shortcuts and little alleys by heart, stayed clear of the lit streets, choosing the darkest and most mysterious passageways, never losing her bearings or looking back at her stalker. She hid in dark portals for a few moments, squatted behind piles of garbage, and took long detours that took her away from her destination. None of those tricks succeeded in deceiving Renato, who remained close to her until she reached Vico Usodimare. At the corner, Renato stopped in front of Isabel’s booth, realizing he could no longer hear the steps’ echo. He stared at the booth a moment, then, in the darkness, thought he saw shadows inside. Without exactly knowing why, he knocked on the glass door three times. Isabel opened the door in her black vest, and a waft of the distillery stench hit Renato in the face. “Yes?” she said.

Renato took a step back. “I’m looking for a girl,” he mumbled. “Her name is Tramonto. Is she here?”

“Tramonto?” Isabel asked with a surprised face. “Have you been drinking, my friend?”

Renato shook his head without talking.

“The only girl in this joint is me,” Isabel continued. “And I don’t think I’m the one you’re looking for.”

“No,” Renato said quietly. “Good night.”

Isabel closed the booth door and turned around. Rosa, in her black wig, still breathing fast from the run, was seated below the window, on the floor. “You told him your name is Tramonto?” Isabel said with a slightly scoffing tone.

Rosa didn’t reply.

“I like him,” Isabel went on. “His eyes are clear like yours.”

T
hey made love in the shack behind the warehouse every night, with an intensity that scared them and at times made them cry. Afterward, on the way to the street, Renato kept asking Rosa questions. Rosa kept being evasive. “How can I love you so much,” he’d say, “and not know where to find you? I asked around, you know. No one has ever heard of a girl named Tramonto. Even Giacomo, who knows everybody in this part of town, has never heard of you or seen you anywhere. Where do you go at night when you leave me?”

“Why can’t you just take me for who I am?”

“Who are you?” Renato asked.

Rosa cocked her head. “The girl with black hair who loves you and waits for you at the port every night.”

In those days, when she was in Isabel’s booth, Rosa spoke less than usual. She sat in corners in long silences, fidgeting with the blue stone, tangled up in thoughts she couldn’t chase off her mind. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Isabel asked, half curious, half concerned about Rosa’s long absences at night. One morning, Rosa told Isabel everything: the comment of Clarissa’s father, the reason for the disguise, and how much she was in love with Renato. “But he’s not in love with me,” she explained. “He’s in love with a Gypsy girl named Tramonto, who has black hair and a mother buried on a hill. What should I do?”

“Lies never solve anything,” Isabel said. “They make trouble.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Rosa mumbled. “Every time I tell the truth, bad things happen.”

“I don’t believe you,” Isabel said.

“You should. I told the truth about my life in an essay at school, and I was labeled a prostitute. I told Madam C the truth about what happened with the mayor, and she threw me out of the Luna. I’m done with the truth. Forever.”

“I’ll give you my advice anyway,” Isabel said. “Tell him everything. If he truly loves you, he’ll understand why you used a disguise and he’ll love Rosa as much as he loves Tramonto now. And if he won’t understand, then you’ll know his love is not real.”

“I’m afraid of losing him if I speak,” Rosa sighed, squeezing tightly the blue stone in her hand. “I can’t even breathe without him.”

“He may find out on his own,” Isabel pointed out. “Then it’ll all be so much harder to explain.”

“Guess what,” Rosa said after a moment of silence. “He’s afraid of going on boats.”

“Really?” Isabel asked.

“From the first moment I saw him,” Rosa said, “I had this vision of me and him on a ship, crossing the ocean. Now I know it’ll never happen.” She smiled. “Of all men, why did I have to fall in love with one who’s afraid of the water?”

“You don’t pick whom you love.” Isabel smiled back. “And when you love, you adjust your dreams. But most important, when you love, you don’t lie.”

Rosa nodded. “I’ll try.”

At the oil stall that day Rosa was edgy and moody. She almost passed out when she saw Renato and Giacomo come out of the Grifone and cross the piazza, headed in her direction. “I liked you better with your hair long,” Giacomo said.

Rosa shrugged.

Giacomo inspected the oil bottles while Renato stood back and examined Rosa up and down. “I want to buy one of your oils,” Giacomo said at a certain point. “It’s my mother’s birthday, and she told me she would like one that can soften the skin of her arms.”

“The best oil I have to soften the skin is this,” Rosa whispered, afraid that Renato would recognize her voice. She handed Giacomo a bottle. As he examined it, she cleared her throat then spoke again in a timbre much lower than normal. “It’s sandalwood and laurel, diluted with sunflower oil.”

“I’ll take it,” Giacomo said, handing Rosa money.

“What’s your name?” Renato asked. Giacomo gave him a look.

“Rosa.”

“Why were you looking for me?” Renato continued.

“I wasn’t,” Rosa replied. She turned to Giacomo. “Here’s your change,” she mumbled in her deep voice. In her confusion, she dropped a coin; at once, Renato bent down, picked it up, and handed it back it to her. She froze, realizing that their motions were an exact replica of those they had performed at the time she had dropped her handkerchief in front of the port entrance. Renato froze, too, and they exchanged an uneasy glance.

“Do you know a girl named Tramonto?” Renato asked.

“Tramonto? What kind of name is that?” Rosa murmured back.

“She wears an unusual perfume. I thought she may have bought it here.”

Rosa shook her head. “I sell perfumes to a lot of people.”

“I bet,” Renato said, “but you may remember her. She’s striking. Shiny black hair. Blue eyes.” He looked closely at Rosa. “Much like yours.”

Rosa cleared her throat. “Like I said,” she mumbled, handing the fallen coin to Giacomo, “I see many people every day.” She turned away from Renato and Giacomo. “I have other customers. Good-bye.”

Renato’s questions to Tramonto about her home and whereabouts continued insistently for several more days, until they became more infrequent and finally ceased. In the shack by the water, glowing in the rays of the lighthouse, all they’d talk about after making love were their dreams of spending the rest of their lives together. “We’ll have a house with a hill behind it,” Renato said once, “and we’ll watch the sunsets with our children.”

Rosa nodded. “I like that.” She paused. “When we’ll have our house and our children, would you consider going on a boat?” she asked. “Just for a short ride. I’ll hold your hand.”

“Tramonto, the thought makes me shiver. I’ll do anything for you, I swear. But I
must
keep my feet on land.”

Rosa spoke softly. “Sometimes, when you’re afraid of something as a child and then you grow up, your fears go away. When I was a child, I used to be afraid of old women. I thought they were witches. I’m no longer afraid.”

“It’s different,” Renato argued. “Did an old woman actually make you feel sick or hurt you in any way?”

“No.” Rosa admitted. “But maybe, after all these years, you won’t feel as bad anymore.”

Renato smiled at her. “I doubt it. I see ships and boats every day. I know how I feel.”

“Won’t you even try?”

Renato laughed out loud. “Do you ever give up?”

Rosa laughed back. “Never.”

He bowed his head. “If it’s so important to you, I promise I’ll try. Maybe I could try on a boat moored in the harbor, where there are no waves. You’ll have to hold me tight.”

“Thank you,” Rosa said, thinking of all her childhood dreams about crossing the ocean. They had never seemed so far. She looked at the sea, longing for the very brief moment she and Renato would spend together on the deck of a moored ship, knowing she’d have to make that moment count for a lifetime. She closed her eyes and thought back on her kitchen games, Antonia’s stories about the Gallinara Island, the
passeggiate
to the port, the images of her father in the hut across the ocean. “I love you,” she said, cuddling tightly against Renato.

“I love you, too,” he whispered. They remained silent a while, eyes fixed on the water.

“Genoa is so beautiful,” Renato said at a certain point. “I become more attached to it every day. Its hills, its waters, its people. The markets, the
caruggi,
the port. There’s no other place like it. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

Rosa took a deep breath “I love Genoa, too,” she said, “but I always thought I’d like to see the world, especially the world on the other side of the ocean. I can’t explain why or what I expect to find, but I’ve thought about that for as long as I can remember.”

“So I’m the one ruining your dream.”

She looked at him fondly. “No,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “My biggest dream is you. And if it’s important to you that we stay here, we’ll stay.”

“It’d be hard for me to leave the longshoremen, their battles, their hopes. They are what gives meaning to my life. And now there’s also you.” He kissed her on the cheek. “And our house, and our children.”

Rosa nodded. “One boy, one girl.”

He smiled. “That sounds fair.”

“Did you tell him who you are?” Isabel would ask every night, when Rosa returned to the distillery with her black wig in hand and her eyes shining with dreams.

“I’ll tell him tomorrow,” she’d reply.

“I’m worried,” Isabel said one evening.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t separate the pine oil from the steam today,” she whispered. “I tried twice. Azul used to say that when the oil didn’t want to leave the water, it was a sign that nature was angry at us for some reason.”

“What did we do to anger nature?” Rosa asked.

“I don’t know.” Isabel paused. “Tell the truth, Tramonto. Before it’s too late.”

In the morning, the longshoremen’s strike resumed, more intense than ever. There was a large demonstration in front of the port entrance, with people holding signs and shouting slogans. The population of the neighborhood and a number of university students had joined in with the longshoremen, so that the number of demonstrators had doubled, prompting the presence of more police. Renato was often on the podium, inflaming the hearts of the crowd with his powerful speeches. Without her wig, Rosa watched him from across the street. In the early evening, as the demonstration wound down, Tramonto showed up at the podium, looking for Renato. “Come with me,” he said when they found each other. “Giacomo wants to meet you.”

“Hi,” Giacomo said, vigorously shaking Rosa’s hand. “I’m glad finally to meet the girl who stole Renato’s heart.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rosa murmured, blushing.

Giacomo looked at her with a curious smile. He gazed deliberately up and down her body, occasionally squinting his eyes. Rosa swallowed twice, then turned the other way.
I’m busted
, she thought.

Then the circus arrived. They took over the road with ten long, colorful horse-drawn caravans with dancers and tumblers performing on the roofs and bowing every now and then to the passersby. The caravans were preceded by a marching band of drums, timpani, and trumpets, and followed by elephants, zebras, ostriches, and monkeys and by a line of contortionists, sword-swallowers, fire-eaters, jugglers, and clowns. They paraded through the streets of downtown and all along the shoreline with a loud clamor of shouts and music, raising the warm applause of the crowds everywhere. “I’ve never been to a circus,” Rosa said, fascinated, once the caravans had passed by.

“I’ll take you,” Renato told her.

With a soft voice that didn’t sound like his at all, Giacomo said, “I’m going with you.” One moment earlier he had fallen hopelessly in love. The girl he had spotted on the roof of the third caravan was a dancer, wearing a white and blue leotard and a shiny diadem on her head. She had long black hair that shone even in the evening’s fading light, pearly skin, and long thin bones that gave her the ethereal look that had instantly captured Giacomo’s heart. She had danced up and down the caravan’s roof gracefully, following the rhythm of the drums, smiling right and left, and seemingly never tiring. That night Giacomo couldn’t sleep. He knocked on Renato’s door at three in the morning, looking like a sick man and rambling incessantly about the girl.

The circus raised its tents slightly west of Piazza Banchi, in a vacant area two hundred meters from the water. A large red and black sign at the entrance advertised two shows a day, one in the afternoon, one at night. The day after the circus’s arrival, Rosa, Renato, and Giacomo went to the night show, scheduled for eight o’clock. They arrived at the circus around seven-thirty, Rosa still wearing her disguise. “I’ll meet you inside,” Giacomo said, pointing at the big tent. “There’s someone I must find.”

Giacomo never saw the show. He found the dancer behind a caravan, seated on a chair at the edge of a canopy kept upright by two poles in the front and by the caravan on the back side. She was alone and in street clothes. “You’re not dancing tonight?” he asked.

“I hurt my foot,” she said in a childish voice.

Giacomo kneeled by her and, without talking, lifted her long skirt and began kissing her knees and legs, all the way down to her bare feet. She didn’t move, or object, or speak. When Giacomo laid his head on her lap and kissed her belly, she got up, took his hand, and guided him to the caravan door and then inside.

“Looks like you found your girl,” Renato said, pleased, when Giacomo met him and Rosa at the end of the show. He had noticed at once his friend’s relaxed attitude and smile. “You no longer look like a madman. Maybe we’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

Giacomo returned to the caravan every night while the eight o’clock show was ongoing and he and the girl were certain they could be alone. They never asked each other questions and, indeed, hardly spoke. The only information they had exchanged, after making love the first time, were Giacomo’s occupation and their respective names. Hers was Camila Besic. Giacomo guessed she must have been fifteen. They made love furiously, with the desperation of those who are aware of the end being near. The circus was scheduled to leave town after two weeks, and throughout those two weeks Camila exaggerated the pain in her foot to make sure no one would ask her to perform, day or night.

“Don’t go,” Giacomo told Camila on the eve of the circus’s departure. “Stay in Genoa with me.” It was almost the end of the show. They were both naked on her bed inside the caravan, their bodies entangled and still sweating from their lovemaking.

“It’s late,” Camila whispered with a hint of worry in her eyes. “You need to go.”

He stood up and began to put on his clothes. “Take your things,” he told her, “and leave this circus now.”

He was buttoning his pants when the caravan door unexpectedly opened and a man walked in. He was gigantic, with muscles bulging in his arms and legs, a shaven head, one earring, and a mean pair of eyes. He was a sword-swallower and also Camila’s father. Since her birth he had been very protective of his daughter and recently he had been seriously worried about her foot that, strangely, refused to heal. When he saw a half-dressed stranger in the room and Camila naked on the bed, it took him only a second to figure out what had been happening all that time. “I knew it,” he shouted. “I knew that your foot injury was a lie!” He turned to Giacomo. “I’ll kill you.” He grinned, grabbing a kitchen knife. “And I’ll chop your body into a million pieces!”