“That’s so tacky it’s almost cool,” he said. “Why do you want to go there?”

“What could be more American? Besides, I think it would be fun to go on a boat ride.”

On the boat over, they were with all the colors and types of people who are American. It made Tina remember old Umbertina, whom she hadn’t thought of for some time. She had, in fact, turned her back on the old ancestor, forgetting the urgency she had felt in Calabria and withdrawing more and more into academic life. Now, as she stood among the Puerto Ricans and blacks and Indians and Orientals and tourists from all over, Tina recognized that her focus on her work was not all pure devotion but also the fear of facing the outside world—thus the reversal of Umbertina’s aggressive assault on the world of her day, which she made produce for her.

On board, a couple in very sophisticated casual dress were talking. One said to the other, “With all this talk of equality of sexes, they shouldn’t have Liberty be a woman anymore. It should be an angel and sexless.”

“I agree,” Allan said to her, winking.

They got to the top of Liberty and took each other’s photos and then they visited the Museum of Immigration at the base.

Among the exhibits were figures of men, women, and children clothed in the original costumes of their native land at the time of their arrival in America. A special exhibit called the “Anna Giordani Collection” was made up of clothes, trinkets, and other belongings of the immigrants that one Anna Giordani, the collector, had assembled over her years of working with the poor on the Lower East Side. Tina stood entranced at the spectacle of a magnificent bright-hued gloriously woven bedspread that bore the motifs of Calabrian design she had seen repeated in modern-day spreads during her trip through her ancestral region. In fact, as she neared the glass of the case and read the card, it said “Origin: Calabria. Owner unknown. Acquired by Anna Giordani in 1886.”

“Look at that, Allan, isn’t it gorgeous? Calabria—that’s where my grandmother’s people were from. In fact I’m named for the immigrant named Umbertina. She should have brought such a spread with her—isn’t it gorgeous! Then it would have been passed down to me, maybe.” Tina stood before the glass drinking in the beauty and warmth of the old spread. Its colors irradiated her spirit; the woven designs of grapes and tendrils and fig leaves and flowers and spreading acanthus spoke to her of Italy and the past and keeping it all together for the future. It was as if her old ancestor, the Umbertina she had fruitlessly sought in Castagna, had suddenly become manifest in the New World and spoken to her.

44. Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-four