The Knowhere Girl

Once: From the Old Country

We did the same old thing that we do every year for Easter and spent the day with my grandmother's family at my cousin Robert's place in Perth. I didn't even get any Easter eggs. Just stuff for my hope chest. It's so exciting receiving tablecloths and crocheted doilies while everyone else is eating chocolate bunnies.

I thought about the chest while I was sitting on the veranda on Wednesday night. The way my mother's relatives had looked at me pointedly when they told her how grown-up I was now.

If life were a silent movie I'd be able to see the captions under their faces. "A boyfriend next," Cousin Maria's pointed look would say. "Yes, then a three-year courtship," Cousin Camela would indicate by nodding her head. "On her twenty-first she could have her engagement party as well," Zia Patrizia would display with a proud smile. Mama and I would be the heroines who gasp in dismay.

Sitting outside with the sun going down, among the changing colours of autumn leaves, and feeling the breeze on my face made it all seem so frivolous and unthreatening. It was easy to slip away from the problems in my mind. Until my mother came out to tell me that she had to keep her cousin Camela company overnight while her husband was in the hospital. I was going to Nonna's.

Penance to me isn't saying a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers. It's sleeping at my grandmother's house.

"I'm seventeen, Mama. I can look after myself," I argued as I followed her into the house.

"Iron your school shirt before you go, so you won't have to iron it in the morning," was her answer.

"And pack your sweater."

"Oh God, Ma, I have to sleep in the same bed as her. She doesn't shave her legs."

"I'm leaving in five minutes. Be ready."

"She's old."

"You cannot catch old age by sleeping with your grandmother, Gita."

Somehow, lying beside Nonna that night made me wonder if that was true. The curlers she vainly insisted on putting in her hair made a rattling noise every time she moved. Her vanity really got on my nerves. I mean, why would a woman in her sixties want to look good and who cares?

She asked me a hundred times if I wanted to see some old photos. "No, I'm tired," I explained to her.

"You look just like I did, Gita. Just like Christina as well."

"Really?" I said, looking at her.

Normally people told me I looked like my father. Tall and red headed - Australian - apart from my darker skin, which was something I took pride in.

But now that I had dyed my hair brown, I guess I did fit in with the rest of my family. Played the part, kept my secrets.

I must admit Nonna has beautiful olive skin like Mama. Every day, because of the curlers, her hair looks as if it's been done at a hairdresser's. She doesn't wear makeup because she's natural-looking like Mama, but I have caught her on odd occasions bleaching her upper lip. One of the curses of being European is facial hair.

"Oh, Gita, Gita, when I was your age I ran around my paese like a gypsy. A gypsy, Gita. People would say, look at that zingara, Angela Torello."

I knew. It was a story she liked to share to anyone with an ear, she thought it a thing of pride. I loved listening to her Sicily stories, and wanted to live them for a while until I realised that back then I wouldn't have any value unless I had a husband.

"Mama and Papa, they used to tear out their hair. 'What are we going to do wit you?' they would say to me. Oh, Gita, tings these days are so bad because you can get away with anyting. But tings those days were so bad because you got away wit nuting. Nuting."