I took stock of my situation in what I felt was a rational way, and the slant of my body, I decided, was like the figure of an inclined plane in one of Beppi’s science books, or maybe the subject was mathematics. Sometimes at Aldo’s I threatened to go home without singing unless Beppi put some effort into his studies. I’d hover over him in Aldo’s office while everyone waited for me, Aldo in a fury, the waiters impatient, the customers getting worried, the spotlight in the rafters like a big blind eye. Stubborn boy! He’d hold his pencil like a dagger, aiming it at his chest. “Mama, I’d rather stab myself than do these lessons.” I had wanted him to go to university in Bologna. I’d daydream of taking the train to visit him, then strolling beside him down narrow old streets and under splendid vaulted arches, nodding pleasantly as he greeted fellow students in bright scarves and loose jackets in need of repair, like the male characters of La Bohème. It wasn’t written in stone that Beppi had to grow up to run a restaurant.
