‘You must eat.’
‘Forget it! I’m not accepting charity from some soup kitchen set up to save immigrants like me from starving to death and making you guys look bad.’
In the doorway, strongly shadowed, Mirella turned.
‘I am also an immigrant.’
‘Oh sure.’
‘It’s true. I’m arbereshe. Five hundred years ago, when the Turks conquered our country and burned our cities, my ancestors emigrated from Albania to a town just north of here, San Demetrio Corone. In our language, Shen Miter.’
‘Whatever you say, signorina,’ Tom replied coldly.
The next thing he knew, she was leaning over him and shouting angrily.
‘I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, you know! You could be shut up at the men’s barracks with a truckle bed and food fetched in from the canteen. I invited you here out of the kindness of my heart and you treat me as disdainfully as you would a whore!’
Her fury astonished him.
‘I’ve never been with a whore,’ was all he could find to say.
‘You’re impossible!’ she cried and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
Pots clanked and thudded, water ran, there was the crinkle of a plastic bag. Tom got painfully to his feet. Stay mobile, the doctor had told him. Don’t bend or stretch or lift anything, but keep moving as much as you can. Just normal movements. He walked through to the kitchen. Mirella wasn’t there. He leant back against the doorpost exploring the messages that his body was sending him. The first twenty-four hours will be the worst, the doctor had said. Pleasure is a fleeting illusion but pain never lets you down. It’s the real deal. On pain, you can always count.
‘Excuse me, please.’
Mirella brushed past him. She had showered and changed into a crisp white blouse and black pants.
‘What are you making?’
‘A pasta sauce. I also bought a roast chicken and some salad.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘No, only adequate. My mother is a wonderful cook. I take after my father.’
He watched her fingers working on the wooden chopping board, the spreading stain of the onion’s white blood.
‘Italian-Americans are always bragging about how great their mother’s pasta sauce is.’
‘Then it’s good that you’re homeward bound. Over there you can live your dream of Italy. Here we have to live with the reality. My father would kill me if he knew that you were spending the night here. But you can forget the idea of talking your way on to that business jet with your employers. One is dead, the other has fled the country.’
‘What? How?’
She streamed pasta into the boiling water.
‘They were dumping a crate at sea from a helicopter and something went wrong. Never mind, there are plenty of commercial flights from Rome. Go! Leave! The people who return don’t fit in. They’re an embarrassment, like house guests who’ve outstayed their welcome. They think they’re family here, but they’re just another kind of tourist. Chine cangia a via vecchia ppe’la nova, trivuli lassa e malanova trova.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You see? You don’t even speak the language! It means that changing your old way of life for a new one removes minor problems only to create newer and bigger ones. You have to have been born and raised here to be Calabrian, but these people think they’ve inherited the title like some baron in the old days. A friend of my father who lived abroad for many years said that America nourishes your body but eats your soul. Maybe it eats your brain as well.’
She added chunks of raw, lumpy, hunchbacked tomato to the simmering onions.
‘And you accused me of being cold,’ Tom said.
‘I’m simply a realist. You Americans are idealists, and when reality doesn’t measure up to your expectations you turn brutal. You invented your own country and think that gives you the right to invent everyone else’s, even though you know nothing about their history or traditions. Why should you bother? History and traditions are the consolations of the poor. Rich people like you don’t need them.’
She turned away from the stove and started to lay the table.
‘I apologise. I invited you into my house and now I’m insulting you and your culture. That’s unspeakably rude. I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight.’
‘I don’t care. Just keep talking. I like listening to your voice.’
She glanced at him sharply.
‘You mustn’t fall in love with me, you know.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re homeward bound, Tommaso.’
‘I am home.’
‘Don’t start that again! It’s just expatriate sentimentality, and sentiments are of no importance here. All that matters is power. Sex may matter. Pregnancy and marriage certainly do, because those things have consequences. But don’t imagine for a moment that anyone gives a damn about your feelings. Or mine, for that matter. The pasta’s ready, let’s eat.’
They ate in almost complete silence. Tom felt totally exhilarated and utterly crushed. He’d never been talked down like that in his life. Mirella said nothing more, and he was afraid that anything he said would sound stupid. But he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He remembered now something that had been submerged by the shock of what had happened in that alley, when she was taking his attacker down with her feet and threw her hands up to maintain her balance and he’d seen the tufts of hair in her armpits and realised that she wasn’t a brunette but a redhead who dyed her hair to blend in on the street. An Albanian redhead, at that. The prospect was challenging, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t wait for her to speak to him again, couldn’t wait to suck the sweat off those hairs, to lick the tender hollow beneath and inhale the sweet, gamy essence of her flesh.
When the meal was over, Mirella brusquely rejected Tom’s offer to help with the dirty dishes.
‘That’s woman’s work. Go and lie down. You need rest.’
‘So do you.’
‘It’s quicker and easier if I do it myself. After that I’m going to watch TV. Later on, I’ll come and check the dressing on your wound.’
‘Are you a doctor as well?’
‘No, but I’ve got excellent first-aid skills. We have to take basic training and then refreshers every year. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing and it won’t hurt.’
She piled up a stack of plates and dishes and set them in the sink.
‘And then, if you’re not too tired, we might fuck.’
Clatter, bang went the pots and pans.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to move much,’ Tom said.
‘That’s all right, we’ll work something out. It’ll help you sleep.’
‘And you?’
She shrugged.
‘I like being manhandled once in a while, and opportunities for casual sex don’t come along often in Calabria. Besides, since you’re staying here everyone will assume we’ve done it anyway, so I’d be a fool not to take advantage. But if you don’t want me…’
‘Are you crazy? Of course I want you!’
‘Then there’s nothing more to say. Go and lie down.’
Tom stood there uselessly, taking up space in the tiny kitchen, getting in Mirella’s way. He had no idea what to say or do, so he asked the question that was uppermost in his mind.
‘May I kiss you, Mirella?’
‘No, that’s too intimate.’
