Quatro Angeli
In August 2009, I discovered my husband was having an affair with a very young woman working in his TV production office in Mexico City, Mexico.
This affair came as a giant shock. In our twenty-five years together, my husband had never cheated on me. In fact, he was kind of a straight arrow. Once, when I asked how his friend’s bachelor party was, he said, “Awful. These girls were dancing on the bar, and I held my hand over my Diet Coke the entire night for fear some errant pubic hair might fall in.”
But here it was. The fifty-seven-year-old TV writer takes up with the local twenty-six-year-old production assistant and blows up a marriage after twenty-five years. It’s a cliché story. But it was MY LIFE.
The emotional pain? Excruciating.
He had a new life. I had my old life, in tatters. I dissolved. I couldn’t function. I cried. I whined to my friends. And cried some more.
The “girlfriend” came to California on a student visa — and moved in with him. Friends told me he was a creep. Get over it and move on. I tried. But, at night, lying in bed, the bed was just so damn big. My world was upside down.
I never expected this to happen to me. And when I looked to my future, it seemed less certain that it once did. Or perhaps that’s the greatest magic trick ever, thinking you understand what your future will be like? What’s that stuff about “in a blink of an eye?”
Anyway, I had to get out of town that Christmas 2009. The year my marriage fell apart. According to our separation agreement, he was to have our daughter for the Christmas holiday. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle the holidays.
So, I took myself to Sicily… a pilgrimage of sorts, back to my roots. I stayed my first couple of nights in Palermo at a convent. My thought was it would be safer as I was traveling alone and also, I didn’t speak any Italian.
After two uncomfortable flights, I landed at the Palermo airport only to learn that Alitalia lost my luggage. The woman at the counter laughingly tells me, “It is quite common for luggage to be lost. In fact, Alitalia, stands for all is lost in Italy.”
I spent several hours at the airport while they tried to trace my luggage, but with no luck. It’s lost. They tell me I might as well leave, and they’ll contact me when they find my stuff. Wearing only a t-shirt, a thin California jacket, sweatpants, and loafers, I exit the airport.
That year, the weather in Europe was horrible. Snow storms paralyzed London, Paris and parts of Germany. In Sicily, no snow, just constant torrential rain. In seconds, I am completely drenched, and it is so late that I miss the last shuttle bus to Palermo. Here I am trying to escape the emotional mess of my marriage blow-up and instead I’m standing in the rain outside the Palermo airport looking for a taxi.
I finally get a cab to take me to the convent address. The cab arrives at an empty alley and stops. The driver says, “Out. This is it.”
“No, no, no, take me down there. To the door.”
After some grumbling, he drives down the alley, stopping at a large, brown, wood and iron door. No number. No sign. No indication that it’s a convent. Now I’m thinking, “Oh shit, I’m going to get out of this cab and he’s going to bop me on the head and steal my euros.”
I won’t budge. “You go. Must see person first.”
The cab driver curses under his breath, goes to the door, and knocks.
An odd-looking woman of indeterminate age opens the door. The driver speaks to her. She answers “Si si.” Okay, I get that means ‘Yes.’ I grab my backpack and get out of the taxi.
I look at her. She’s dressed like a charwoman from the 18th century. Swollen feet are stuffed into dirty slippers, with the backs crushed flat. A shabby apron tries to cover a positively antiquated dress. A tight bun at the nape of her neck is a counterweight to a severe face with an enormous nose, small steely eyes overshadowed by bushy eyebrows and a chin sporting several prominent chin hairs — Chin hairs, a constant theme in my life.
She looks more Transylvanian than Italian. In my mind, I name her Igorina. Oh, and have I mentioned I haven’t eaten in 12 hours? I’m starving. I try speaking to her in English, but she shakes her head, “No, no. No Inglese. Italiano, solomente Italiano.”
I suddenly remember some words from my Italian grandmother.
“Mangia?” (Eat.) “Affamato.” (Hungry.) “Prego. Affamato, Mangia.”
Igorina imprints a medieval-looking key in my hand, points to another entrance farther down the alley and slams the door.
Alone again. Drenched, cold, hungry.
Then I see two men in their early forties in the alley. They had heard my useless pleas to Igornina. One says, “I’m Alberto. This is my friend, Roberto. We are going to eat. You can come with us.”
He tells that to his pal who I swear to God was so handsome, he looked like Jean-Paul Belmondo. I could tell he did not want me to come. They argued for a few moments in Italian. Then Roberto snarls and walks down the street in the rain. Alberto follows him and I follow Alberto.
We walk. A right here, a left there, down an alley, across the street. For the second time that night, I’m wondering if these guys are going to bop me on the head and steal my euros.
Calculation, if I die tonight, at least I will no longer be wet or hungry. Besides, I have no idea how to get back to Igorina and the convent. We continue in the rain, zigzagging down streets and alleys until we come to a small screen door. Roberto goes in. The door snaps shut.
Alberto pulls me aside. He leans in and says, “Let me do all the talking. You don’t speak any English here. Okey dokey?” Okey dokey. Yep, stealing my euros for sure.
We enter a tiny restaurant. There are only six tables in the whole place. Formica tables from the fifties. Speckled mirrors on the walls attempt to ease the claustrophobia. Little twinkly lights are a poor attempt at festive. I follow Alberto to a table where Roberto and two other men sit. A waiter comes over to take our order.
And thus begins one of the best feasts I have ever had in my life. Antipasto, baked clams, squid, octopus, chicken, beef fillet, artichokes, broccoli, and hot bread and wine. The four men, I find out, were stonemasons working in the city to restore the cathedral from Monday through Thursday and then return to their families for the weekend.
After desserts of tiramisu and cannolis, we are all friendly and smiling, stuffed and happy. We pick at some nuts and fresh fruit as the waiter comes with the bill. I tell Alberto, “I have euros and want to pay.”
“No, no, no, no,” he says, “You are our sister now. You are family. Even Roberto likes you.”
I look over at Roberto/Jean-Paul Belmondo. He winks and smiles.
It was beautiful. I named them, “Miei quattro angeli,” my four angels.
On the walk back, we laughed, linking arms. Up in the sky, in between the buildings, a small sliver of stars twinkled.
These angels, posing as stonemasons, delivered me back to the convent door. These angels, posing as stonemasons, revived me… made me believe in myself again.
