THE EVIL THAT MEN DO
PART 6
Benjamin Messenger stood in the small alleyway behind the shop, playing his violin. The sun filtered through the angles and corners of the old wrought iron fire escapes, the shadows looking like stripes and adding to the atmosphere of the music that seemed to surround us. Momma was in the back room sorting through boxes and reading labels, humming to the soft cadence of the violin, when she turned to look at me.
“Why is your shirt ripped?” she asked.
“Scaramucci wants me to give you a message,” I said, sitting down on one of the chairs.
“And he had to rip your shirt to tell you? Why do you have a burn in your pants?”
“He burned me with his cigarette. He was going to shoot me Momma,” I blurted out, tears coming to my eyes.
I swore at myself for letting things get away from me, but I couldn’t stop myself. She walked over to me and hugged me to her breast, kissing the top of my head. She held me tight, swaying from side to side, kissing my head as she murmured to herself. I couldn’t understand what she was saying—I don’t know if she even knew what she was saying—but I could feel her pressing her cheek on top of my head.
She kissed the top of my head again.
“What was the message?” she said, stepping back and putting her hands on my shoulders. She crouched down in front of me and looked me in the eye, wiping my face with her hands and shaking her head. For a moment, I felt like I was a little boy again, running inside to tell her that I’d fallen down and scraped my knee.
The music stopped and Benjamin Messenger stepped in from the alleyway. Momma stood up and leaned against the wall, smiling at him as he sat down in the chair across from me. I looked at him and tried to smile, but it was forced, and I think he knew it. I wiped my face and looked at Momma who was standing with her hands on her hips.
“What’s the message?”
I looked at Benjamin Messenger and then back at Momma, and she nodded. I didn’t know if she meant I should give her the message anyway, or if she understood that I didn’t want to speak in front of him. He seemed to understand and excused himself. I watched him leave, limping into the shop where Zia was setting up samples.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He said things, Momma. Things about Zia, and signora Rabizzi,” I said.
“What sort of…things?”
“Mean things. Ugly things—I don’t know; a lot of things. I can’t remember, or maybe I just can’t bring myself to say it. But he told me he didn’t kill Papà. He said that’s what people say because that’s what they want to believe.”
“He lied,” she said.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t know anything,” she said, shaking her head and forcing a smile; I wondered what she meant by that.
“I told him you said he never served, and he said that was another lie people said about him.”
“What else?”
“He said things about Zia,” I said, looking at the door to the shop, thinking maybe she heard me.
“You said that. What exactly were these mean, ugly, things he said?” Momma asked.
“That he was her lover,” I said, feeling myself blush just telling her. “He also said signora Rabizzi’s husband died because he was a patriot. He said signore Rabizzi wanted to go to Russia.”
“That’s not the message, though,” she said, sitting in the chair across from me. She reached out and took my hands, kissing them, then turned my left hand over, kissing my palm and closing my fist around it.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A piece of your heart so I’ll always have you with me,” I said. It was something she did every morning when she left me with signora Rabizzi. She’d be on her knees in front of me, call me her Little Prince while Zia would be holding the elevator, calling her. I’d look out the door at Zia, and she’d wave to me.
“That’s right,” Momma smiled. “You remember.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I thought maybe you’d grown out of it.”
“It was the best part of my day,” I said, and I saw her smile, a teardrop hanging on her eyelid.
“Do you know why I only kissed your left hand?”
I shook my head.
“They say when you marry someone, you wear a ring on your left finger because there’s a vein that leads from there, to your heart,” she said, tracing her finger from my palm up to my chest, where she placed her hand over my heart. “I wanted to touch your heart. Now,” she said, leaning back in the chair. “Tell me the message.”
“He told me to tell you that the price has gone up.”
“To what?”
“A hundred lira.”
“We can’t pay that much! He knows we can’t,” she said. “He’s going to burn the shop down if we don’t give it to him,” she added, looking around the room at all the supplies. “He told me he would; he promised me he would,” she corrected herself. “He’s done it to others.”
I shook my head.
“What? What aren’t you telling me?”
“He said he was going to hurt me.”
“Hurt you how?”
“I didn’t ask. He had his gun out. He put it against my forehead. I was scared, Momma.”
I heard the bell hanging above the shop door ring. Momma looked up, listening to the order and shook her head.
“One gelato,” she said. “That’s only the fourth one today. How does he expect me to pay him if we don’t have customers?”
She sat, thinking, and I could see her brow starting to furrow. She didn’t look up or say anything, even when the bell over the door rang again. Almost immediately, the swing-door into the shop opened and Zia was standing in front of us; Benjamin Messenger stood in the doorway, his violin tucked under his arm.
“That was Constanza, from across the street,” Zia said.
“I don’t care about Constanza from across the street,” Momma snapped. “We have enough problems without her gossiping about everyone on the block.”
“You’ll want to hear this,” Zia said, and Momma looked up at her. “Someone tried to kill Scaramucci.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Where?”
“Risorgimento.”
“I was just there,” I said.
“Did you see anything?” Zia asked.
I shook my head. There was an awkward silence and I could see Zia looking at me, and then at Momma. Finally, she stepped closer to me and looked at my shirt. She looked at Momma again
“What’s wrong?” Zia asked.
“Scaramucci wants one hundred lire next time he comes around,” Momma announced.
“We can’t afford that,” Zia said, pulling a chair out and sitting down. She was silent for a moment and then nodded to herself. “We have to do something.”
“Of course we have to do something!” Momma said. “But what? He’s going to hurt Lorenzo if we don’t pay.”
“Somebody tried to kill him,” Zia reminded her.
“Yes. What are you thinking?”
“Me? I wasn’t thinking anything,” Zia said.
“Yes, you were. Tell me,” Momma said.
“If we find out who wants to kill him, maybe we could help him?”
“I’m listening,” Momma said, and I looked at her, shocked to hear those two words.
“Let me talk to Alma first,” Zia said.
“I’m coming with you,” Benjamin Messenger said.
I followed Zia and Benjamin Messenger out of the back door of the shop and through the alleyway to the back door of the apartment building. There were empty boxes and broken wooden crates stacked up against the back of the buildings, threatening to topple over, as well as an old shoe that made me wonder how you could lose a shoe and not notice. The garbage cans were full, and overflowing, with rats scurrying about. We stepped around puddles of filth, the stench of them enough to make you gag. Someone had thrown out an old desk that sat at an angle, with more wooden crates piled on top of it. There was an old, stained mattress, sagging against a wall.
Zia pulled a keychain out of her apron and sorted through the keys, putting the right one in the door and holding it open for Benjamin Messenger. She followed him in and then turned to look at me.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because this has nothing to do with you. The less you know about it, the better.”
“I deserve to hear what you’re going to say.”
“You deserve?” she said. “How so?”
“He put his gun to my head, Zia,” I said, thinking it had to mean something. “He burned me with a cigarette,” I added. She looked down at the burn hole in my pant leg and considered what I said before pursing her lips and shaking her head.
“And that gives you the right to hear…what?” She stepped through the door, blocking the entrance and shaking her head again. “It’s better if you don’t know what we’re talking about, that way you won’t have to lie if anyone asks you.”
“Asks me what?”
“Exactly!” she said, closing the door behind her and locking me out.
I slammed my fist against the door, and then kicked it before I turned away in frustration. I leaned against the door and looked at the narrow walkway and the gate at the end of it, leading to the street. I’d have to climb over it. I made short work of it, pulled my keys out of my pocket and walked through the entrance. I paused long enough to feed the fish, and then opened the main door. I could hear the lift going up, and ran to the stairwell.
I reached the top floor out of breath, and waited long enough to feel my heart rate slow to a reasonable pace before slipping through the door and making my way down the hall. I was walking slowly, trying to be as quiet as I could. I looked at signora Rabizzi’s door and paused long enough to hear voices inside. I quickly made my way to the broom closet, opening it and closing it behind me before I pulled the peep-hole open.
They were all there; all three of them.
Zia was sitting on the trunk at the foot of the bed. She was doing most of the talking. Signora Rabizzi was in her chair, in front of her easel, painting. Benjamin Messenger was sprawled across the bed, plucking at the strings of his violin. I put my ear against the peep-hole. It was hot and stuffy in the closet and the little bit of cool air coming in through the peep-hole felt good against my skin.
“You don’t understand,” Zia was saying.
“Of course I understand. I don’t know how things work? None of us can afford what he wants. But do you think he cares? He doesn’t care. So just give out smaller portions of gelato and spread it out over a longer period of time. It’ll work its way back off the books, and after a while, you won’t even notice.”
“You make it sound so simple. Is that what you do?” Zia asked.
“Me? I let him fuck me,” signora Rabizzi said. “It’s easier that way.”
I pulled my ear away from the peep-hole and looked into the room. Benjamin Messenger was staring at her. I could see his reflection in the mirror. He looked as if he was about to say something, then put his head down and pretended to do something with his violin instead.
“Don’t pretend to be shocked, signore Messenger. A woman can have more than one lover at a time,” signora Rabizzi said, smiling at his reflection in the mirror. Zia looked at her, shocked, and then turned to look at Benjamin Messenger.
“I’m not shocked,” he said, looking at her reflection. “I gave up on being shocked years ago.”
“Then you approve?” she asked.
“No, of course I don’t approve,” he said, and then paused as if he’d thought it over. “Not as long as it’s something you do willingly. Is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well…Yes,” he said.
“Why?”
“If it’s something you do willingly, I’d consider that to be your choice. Probably sound business sense, considering.
“Considering what?” Zia asked. “How can you say something like that?”
“Considering he could have you killed and no one would do anything about it. But if it’s something he forces you to do—if you feel you have to preform lewd acts for him, or to him, or with him—because he forces you, then it makes all the difference in the world.”
“And why’s that?” Zia asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said.
“Not to me,” she said.
“Because it’s the very definition of the word rape.”
Signora Rabizzi smiled, dabbing her brush into a glob of paint.
“You don’t agree?” he asked.
“It’s almost been twenty years since the War,” she said, looking up at Zia. “What do you think half the women here did to survive? If it wasn’t our own soldiers doing it to us, or Mussolini’s Black shirts, it was the Nazis. It was bad enough when you were growing up and the priests were touching you, or the nuns. Or maybe there was an Uncle who held you a little too long, or an older brother who wanted to show you something? It’s a woman’s fate my mother said after my father beat and raped her. And so, now, Scaramucci has moved in to fill in that position. But the difference is that he’s been here since before the War.”
“Do you mean to tell me he’s been raping you for twenty years?”
“Who said anything about rape? It was never rape, not in that sense of the word. That might be what you say it is. But I was alone. I hadn’t been with a man for some time. A woman needs to be touched. She wants to be held. She has her needs. He never forced himself on me—on either one of us,” she added, looking at Zia.
“You too?” Benjamin Messenger said.
“It wasn’t just us,” signora Rabizzi added with a laugh. “There were plenty of others. I imagine there still are.”
“I never loved him,” Zia said.
“Of course you didn’t. How could you, thing after Lorenzo?”
“What’s Lorenzo have to do with this?” Benjamin Messenger asked. And I wondered the same. Signora Rabizzi couldn’t possibly know about Scaramucci’s threat against me, and I doubted if Zia had told her yet.
“She’s his real mother,” signora Rabizzi said. “Not Gabriella.”
“What?” He sat up on the bed. “And you haven’t told him? The boy deserves to know,” signore Messenger said, shaking his head.
And at that moment, it felt as if my world was collapsing around me.
Hmm, I was wondering if that was so, but I couldn’t figure out why.