Anina went into their small bedroom and closed the door. She ripped the large poster of the romantic beach in Montenegro off the wall. There would be no honeymoon where catamarans floated on still waters lit by the moon. She sat down on the edge of the bed as their future plans slipped through her fingers like sand. Paolo’s tears were one thing, but where were hers? Having a good weep always made her feel better, cleansed in some way. But Anina could not cry, which meant the real pain would come later.
* * *
Matelda sat up in the chair by her hospital bed. She took a small bite of a biscotto before dunking it into her weak tea. “Did you make these?” she asked Nicolina.
“Rosa made them. No good?” Nicolina remade her mother’s hospital bed with sheets from home.
Matelda took another bite. “A little too much baking powder.”
“She’s a better cook than baker.” Nicolina shoved the pillow into a satin pillowcase. “It doesn’t matter to Matteo. He thinks she is Venus.”
“He does.” Matelda nodded. “They say love is better the second time around. I will never know.”
“Neither will I, Mama.”
“Your brother and you are a lot like Nino and me.”
“Are we?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“We don’t bicker as much, Mama.”
“I don’t fight with Nino at all anymore.”
“Is that true?”
Matelda nodded again her head. “He helped me remember a story my grandfather used to tell us about India.”
“The elephant story?”
“Don’t tell me you know it.” Matelda put aside her tea.
“Sure. Nonno Silvio used to act it out for Matteo and me. He learned it from Bisnonno.”
“When?”
“When we stayed overnight with them. When you and Papa took your trips. We loved the story because it was scary, but it also had a moral. Like all good stories.”
“I remembered the beginning, and Nino filled in the story through the mine collapse. But neither of us can remember the ending. Do you know it?”
“Let me think.” Nicolina sat on the edge of the bed. “There was a fire. The elephant was pulling a flatbed of rubies. When she got outside the mine, the load was so big, it ripped away the roof, and it triggered a rock slide, which sealed the entrance.”
“Is that when the mahout died?” Matelda asked.
“He hung on, but then the smoke got him and he slid off the elephant and died.”
“Was he run over? I think he was run over by the flatbed.”
“I don’t remember, Mama. The elephant was free of the mahout and the chains and the beating. She began to run. She got to the town—”
“Karur!”
“That’s right. All the people in the town came out of their homes to cheer the elephant. The rubies were priceless, and the elephant saved the town. They took her to the river. She dipped her trunk into the depths and filled it with fresh water. She showered herself with the cold water, bathing herself. She slurped up more water and let it run off her back. I loved that part. Nonno Silvio was so funny when he did the snout.”
“My grandfather was funny too.” Matelda smiled.
“I’m sure he taught Nonno Silvio. He would watch Bisnonno Pietro act out the story sometimes.”
“That’s the beauty of all the generations in a family living in one house,” Matelda said wistfully. “Everybody shares the same stories. Go on.”
“There was the sad part. The elephant remembered her babies, and how she bathed them in the river. She remembered the faces of her children even though they were long gone. That was depressing enough, but then the story took a turn. The elephant laid down on the riverbank. Her head was resting on the ground when she heard the mountain collapse from within from the fire. The elephant understood what happened and she wept.”
“The elephant didn’t die at the end?”
“Not in the version I heard. Why, Mama? Are you disappointed?”
“Not at all. I remember the point of it was that you had one life to live and it was important to live it in service to others, no matter the cost. The noble elephant gave her life for the town.”
“That’s what you got out of it? I heard it differently. It was the story of how women, represented by the female elephant, are abused and lose their children just because they are more valuable hauling rock than they are free.”
“Nicolina, bedtime stories aren’t political statements. They weren’t to your grandfather, who told them—I promise you. He wanted you children to understand where these gems we cut came from. There was a great deal of sacrifice involved.”