Free Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci Page B

bosom straining against a black sweater, came bustling out of the same door wiping her hands on her apron. She stared hard towards our table for a moment before disappearing again.
    ‘Do you like it here?’ my mother said.
    But despite the coins I’d collected in the market, the tinny fives and tens and the large one
lira
, despite the new shirt that lay wrapped in brown paper on the chair next to me, despite the photographs we’d had taken, a silent resentment had been building in me since my mother’s conversation with Luciano, and I would not let go of it now until it had some issue.
    ‘What’s the matter with you?’ my mother said. ‘Do you have a bug in your pants?’
    She reached under the table and poked me lightly in the ribs, but I pulled away from her sulkily.
    ‘
Beh
, do what you want,’ she said.
    We sat silent. A bottle of wine appeared, set out and poured expertly by Luciano’s son, then a bowl of
tortellini
and a plateof
trippa
in tomato sauce for my mother. We had begun to eat already when I felt the shadow of a large shape looming over us, and looked up to see the black-sweatered woman smiling down on us, her hands on her hips, a thin line of moustache overshadowing her smile. A dark wart stuck out prominently on one cheek, a few thin hairs spiralling up from it.
    ‘
Buongiorno, signora
! And this must be your little son! How handsome he is! Are you going to tell me your name?’
    She had reached down to run her fingers under my chin.
    ‘His name is Vittorio,’ my mother said, curt. ‘He’s shy.’
    ‘Isn’t that sweet! And so many boys these days are little devils.
Diavoli
!’
    My mother took another bite of her food.
    ‘And your friend?’ the woman said finally, her mouth remaining open around her last syllable.
    My mother raised her eyebrows as if she had not understood.
    ‘Yes, of course, he’s gone out of town,’ the woman said, forcing a laugh. ‘A shame—do you like the way I’ve made up the tripe?’
    ‘I’ve had worse,’ my mother said.
    ‘Yes, Luciano bought it in Tornamonde, you can’t find good meat here in Rocca Secca anymore. But you should be careful how much you eat! A friend of mine ate tripe every day for a week, and she gave birth to triplets!’
    My mother forced a smile. Pig tripe was what people in the region fed to grooms on their wedding nights, to help them have children.
    ‘And did they have little tails, the children?’ my mother said, still smiling.
    The woman’s face darkened for the briefest instant before she let out a long falsetto laugh.
    ‘Oh,
signora
, always joking!’ She laughed again, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Well, enjoy your meal, Luciano will be sorry he missed you. I’ll give you a good price on the wine.’
    ‘Eat your food,’ my mother said when the woman had gone, returning to her own meal with a vengeance. My appetite, though, had died, the wet texture of the pasta in my mouth beginning to make my stomach turn. But when I set down my fork my mother looked at me in irritation.
    ‘What’s the matter with you? Oh!
Basta!
’
    ‘It tastes like shit,’ I said.
    I had got it out now, spit out my resentment like something that had stuck in my throat. But an instant later my face was burning: my mother had slapped me, hard, against the cheek. A lump rose in my throat but I swallowed it, my lips sealed tight. There were a few people sitting at the tables around us now, but only the old thin man glanced over at us, peering up above the top of his newspaper for an instant before returning again to his reading; though almost at once I looked up through the restaurant window to see if the black-sweatered woman had been watching us. For some reason it was the thought of her having seen my mother’s anger that made me burn more than anything now, the thought of the large false smile she would light for us then if she returned, like someone who had won an argument; and when I could not make her out anywhere I felt a great