December 24 1997

Christmas Eve

    All Roberta wanted was a woman to be her family. She had singled out three or four in her life, but Klara definitely felt like the right one. Klara was bigger than Roberta, not heavier or even older, just larger and more imposing: like some great Northern Amazon. Roberta loved Klara’s physical and emotional stature; she could just dive into Klara and feel protected and safe. Klara was also a handsome woman, really a very handsome woman, kind, and generous. She loved sex. The two of them comprised a perfectly oiled domestic machine when they got home together in the evenings after work. Roberta would roll them a joint and Klara would get cold beers from the fridge. They would have a nice little chat and drink and smoke and eat potato chips then they would get dinner ready. As they moved in the kitchen, each woman knew what her job was without asking the other to do something, and in no time their smiling faces were hovering over sweating glasses of beer and hot food.

    Klara however, was gone. Klara was not from Imola, hell she wasn’t even from Italy. She was always off for three or four weeks at a time, doing things for her famil    y or with her family; her father had died a few years ago and there were vast fuzzy areas about Klara’s family, things that Klara never spoke about. All of Klara’s friends remarked on it behind Klara’s back, and when Klara wasn’t around they asked Roberta if she had any idea what it was. Roberta was sure it had something to do with money. Even Klara’s longtime friend Maura seemed concerned; she noticed that Klara would always change the subject whenever the subject of her father came up. This convinced Maura instead, that Klara’s father had abused her. Roberta pestered Klara about the situation with her father, and one day after they had been together for two years Klara finally revealed to Roberta the legacy her father had left her:

    “Nobody knows what my family situation is except for Mutti and my sister and me. Not even my brother-in-law knows. The truth of the matter is that my father left me …”

    “How much? How much money did he leave you?”

Klara was unmanned by Roberta’s jumping the gun over finances but shook her head and continued. “My father left me no money, Roberta, everything went to Mutti. The inheritance from my father is a legacy of secrecy and shame. He ran a concentration camp in Slovenia during World War II, and when the Allies arrived, he escaped. He left his first wife and baby son behind him at the camp and never found out what happened to them. He really had no choice, and only talked about it twice to me. It took him a decade to get back to Germany after starting his life over again in Brazil. When he did get back to Germany in the fifties, he met my mother and married her.”

    “Did he change his name?”

    “We never knew what his real name was. To escape from Europe he dug up a Serbian out of the mass grave in a small village the Nazis had scorched to the ground just before the war ended. My father was lucky; the man was buried with his wallet in his overcoat, and the lime hadn’t eaten through it yet. So my father unearthed a new surname and changed his identity. He took the dead man’s documents and boarded the first ship leaving Koper for South America. He stayed as far away as he could from Germany for the next ten years. It was the only way he could survive and avoid prison.”

    “No one knows what his real name is. Not even Mutti nor I nor my sister. It’s with him in his grave.”  

    Klara had always wanted to confide in someone and she certainly needed someone to talk to about it. The reverberations would still be dicey for her mother if anyone found out about her father. Telling Roberta had relieved Klara; Klara was glad she could finally unburden herself and she was pleased she had decided to trust Roberta. It was about time Klara trusted someone.

Roberta lost no time repeating what Klara had said about her father and the concentration camp and the dead Serb to Maura. Maura then, wasted no time in calling Klara offering her consolation and of course, total discretion about what had happened. Klara was certain that what Maura really wanted was more juicy details about Klara’s family history. Klara cut short the rest of the conversation with Maura, saying there was someone at the door and she would call her back later.

    Klara’s eyes flashed when she found out that Roberta had been once again pointlessly gossiping like the indiscreet dago dyke that she was. Klara didn’t say anything right then and there. Indeed, Klara never said anything more about her father at all and changed the subject any time the issue of family history came up thence forward. Roberta had no inkling of how much her indiscretion could harm Klara’s entire family. Klara could no longer trust Roberta. When Klara tried to explain it to her, Roberta placed the blame squarely on Maura for repeating what Roberta had told her. Trying to explain discretion to Roberta became more and more futile each time Klara attempted it. Klara eventually gave up confiding anything at all to Roberta. Roberta resented Klara for excluding her from certain parts of Klara’s life, and Roberta hated Maura because Maura had destroyed Klara’s trust in Roberta. That was not the only problem, however.

Klara wasn’t exactly a model of faithfulness either.

“I’m a free woman so I don’t really care if you bed other chicks. I like women, I like sex, and I like having a good time.”

Roberta burned with rage at this. How could the woman she loved, that she adored, how could Klara give her body to another woman, or women as Klara claimed she liked to do? Doubt and uncertainty eternally ate away at Roberta’s pancreas. They riled her to fever pitch anger more than once. Nevertheless, Roberta knew that she mustn’t create a scene or Klara would drop her like last year’s, must-have, gay woman’s, Metallica fashion accessory.

“Oh Roberta, There’s no use in staying together if you’re unhappy. If we can’t to get along there’s no reason…. “

Roberta despised hearing this, and in the end, Roberta started doing a few more of the things that Klara wanted to do, just to keep Klara happy. As much as Roberta complained about going on these outings, Roberta discovered she actually enjoyed travelling and going to Goth rock concerts and listening to Marilyn Manson. It really burned Roberta then, when Klara did not want to stay at home and watch television every night and all weekend in men’s flannel pajamas. Klara noticed Roberta was making an effort and tried to do the things Roberta wanted, but Klara had to draw the line at watching the San Remo Pop Song Festival every night it was on. Klara was strong-headed and willful and usually got her way. When Roberta refused to go along with Klara, Klara would retort with:

“I’m perfectly happy all by myself. I enjoy being alone. I enjoy being in a concert crowd and just having a meal with friends.”

Roberta was miserable when she was alone. She had left her family and embarked in a new world at the age of 38 when she finally came out of the closet. Her husband never found out, although her daughter did, because Loredana was gay too.

Now Roberta was all alone on Christmas Eve. All alone. She didn’t want to see her father or her sisters. She definitely didn’t want to see her mother. Or her brothers. One after another of Roberta’s friends had called her during the holidays but Roberta kept refusing to go out. Roberta was resigned to living in a dark place, suffering audibly for the woman she loved; she wrapped herself loosely in pain. She spent the days before Christmas sleeping, getting up just to eat banana yoghurt and cookies. She put on a ratty tracksuit and watched MTV on television. She drank beer and thought about Klara far off in the snowy night, having a delicious meal somewhere, surrounded by her friends and family. Why didn’t Roberta get to go there with her?

“Well Roberta, why don't you come? You know everyone adores you and we’d just love to have you. You need to decide though, make a reservation, and pack your bags.”

Roberta never got around to making a reservation so she didn’t even bother to  pack her bags. Indeed, Roberta did not even own a suitcase. She never even entertained the idea of seriously thinking about making the trip, so she ended up staying at home on Christmas Eve. She wouldn’t even go to Midnight Mass. Roberta was too focused on her pain and hurt, prostrated on her own bottomless agony.

Martyrdom, what is sweeter than martyrdom to the victim when everyone around her is happy; the martyr knows that she is righteous in her suffering, pierced by the darts of the altruistic scandalous selfishness and whipped by the lashes of nonchalant kindness of the contented people surrounding her. Roberta wallowed in acidic alizarin anguish because she was willing to sacrifice everything for love. Getting up and doing something to alleviate her suffering would just feed into Klara’s pure egocentricity. Mitigating Roberta’s suffering would perversely prove her martyrdom pointless. No, Klara had to come to Roberta, and beg. Roberta deserved it. Roberta deserved the respect, she deserved the pity, Roberta deserved compassion for the sorrow she was enduring for Klara.

The phone rang.

“Merry Christmas, Bertie sweet puss!”

“Oh, it’s you! It’s not very merry for me, that’s for sure!”

“Here! Everyone wants to say hello to you.”

“I don’t want to say hello to anyone. When are you coming back?”

“In two weeks like I said.”

“Well, it’s probably better if we stop talking right now. I’m in too much pain.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, what’s the matter? Got a headache?”

“No Klarona, I’m the dumps because it’s Christmas Eve and I’m all alone again. Alone! Alone! Alone! Maybe it would just be better if you didn’t call me again.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but if that’s what you want, I won’t call again. Merry Christmas!”

Roberta hung up the phone without saying good-bye.

How could Klara be so cruel to Roberta! How could she be so unfeeling! Was there no justice? Klara had everything; Roberta had nothing except her compact little boyish body and bubbly personality. Well, Roberta bubbled as long as she didn’t have to do anything else, like pick up the bill or actually lend a hand.

There was no use in going on with this relationship. But wouldn’t it be worse to be all alone? Roberta was all alone anyway, so at least she wouldn’t have to suffer the injustice of abandonment. Roberta knew Klara wouldn’t call her back. Klara would not be moved by Roberta’s depression or malaise. Klara was a heartless Teutonic Bitch! All Klara ever thought of was herself, she didn’t realize how much Roberta was suffering. If Klara had realized how much pain Roberta was going through, Klara would have called back. In fact, if Klara had had any idea how bad the situation was, Klara wouldn’t have gone off at Christmastime to begin with. Roberta used to be so happy those first years they had been together.

As unconventional as Klara seemed outwardly with her faux piercings and temporary tattoos, inwardly she was quite tradition bound. She wasn‘t religious in the very least but she planned things out carefully. On Christmas Eve the first year they had known each other, Klara had orchestrated a nice evening. Klara had insisted on preparing and cooking Christmas Eve tortelloni Bologna style for their meal. Even though Klara wasn’t a Romagnola at all, she had been a fast and easy convert to tortelloni for the high holidays. Actually, Klara had spent a couple of days doing different sorts of things: making mead for Christmas day, arranging greens for table decorations, preparing the sauces to go with the boiled meat, fixing dessert ahead of time, deciding what sort of wine to serve, washing their earthenware plates, polishing her Saxon pewter tableware, and inviting friends. Though Klara had attempted to get Roberta involved, Roberta really didn’t like to do that sort of thing. She would much rather just be served. Klara did however cajole Roberta into helping her close up the tortelloni, which was lengthy and laborious. Roberta got the hang of it quickly, and the five eggs of pasta Klara had rolled out turned into two nice trays of tortelloni, a little bigger than Roberta’s grandmother made them this is true, but they were all home made. Roberta was thus inspired to prepare a little antipasto. Klara knew well enough to stay out of Roberta’s way, lest Klara end up making the antipasto, too.

When their dinner guests arrived and it came time for the antipasto, Klara turned to Roberta. “Well Bertie, shall we have some of your scrumptious antipasto!”

“What! You mean you want me to put it on the table?”

“Well, if you don’t put it on the table, I don’t know how we can eat it.”

“I spent all that time making it, I mean the very least you can do is pull the fucking dish out of the refrigerator.”

Their dinner guests looked at one another perplexed. Klara was in fine mettle however, and so cheerfully got up and tried to serve the shrimp. She gave a long glance to Maura that intimated “Oh well, I can do this, too.” Since Klara didn’t know what Roberta had had in mind about serving the shrimp, Klara botched getting it to the table.

“All that time I spent slaving in the kitchen, and you’ve ruined it!”

The guests came to Klara’s help.

“Oh but it’s delicious!

“No, it’s not. You’ve ruined dinner, Klara!”

“Roberta, we’ve barely started to eat. I don’t think dinner has been exactly ruined.”

Instead, the rest of the evening was definitely going to be ruined. Nothing Klara did was quite right, and Roberta painfully pointed out every small shortcoming about the meal. Klara tried to keep the conversation lightly rolling along and managed pretty well. When Maura and her girlfriend Nicoletta left, Roberta complained she had a headache and went straight to bed, leaving Klara everything to clean up.

Now, you might think that Klara would get really put out at all of this, but she was pretty much accustomed to it. If Klara were going to lead the sort of life she wanted, which entailed seeing people and travelling and eating well, Klara had realized that she would have to make most of the effort and manage things herself. If things around you were not to your suiting, the only real way to get things to be the way you liked them to be, was to start and do it yourself. Most of these Romagnols were closed-minded, insular and unwilling to make an effort. They somehow felt they were entitled to the things they had, based on who they were and what they did. They never thought twice about flicking their cigarette butts into the street. Someone else was supposed to clean them up any way. That’s what they paid taxes for. The Romagnols  rarely had even small parties and when they did, everyone brought their own food, and even ate the food they brought without sharing it. But the Romagnols would come to your house if you put food out, and they would tell you they had invited some of their friends too, would that be all right? They would come if you made all the effort. They would show up with a bottle of wine and a tray of expensive pastries, which had cost them a total of about 20 minutes. Most of them rarely returned an invitation or asked you to dine at their home. When they did suggest getting together, the most they would make was reservations: Dutch Treat. Although Klara liked living in Romagna, she was starting to realize that it was really not the world that she wanted to live in.

 So, after she cleared and washed, Klara set up the table for breakfast on Christmas Day with big old tankards for the sweet mead she had made a few days before. When Klara got to bed, exhausted but happy two hours later, Roberta attempted to make love to Klara, but to no result. Klara was cooked.

Roberta remembered that Christmas as so beautiful, so nice. She had gone to all the effort of buying Klara a gorgeous set of very fashionable, high design Alessi tableware (and it was really pretty expensive, too!) Roberta was quite proud of the fact that Klara insisted on using it at least once a week, or mixing it up with the old family pewter that she had brought from home.

“There’s no reason to keep something around if you aren’t going to use it.”

Now Roberta felt like a fucking salad fork. She was literally used and only occasionally, something that could be cleaned up and put away in a drawer like the Alessi silverware. Why was Roberta putting up with all of this?

Because Roberta adored Klara. They had fallen in love at first sight, and they still clicked when they smiled at each other, when they kissed, when they went shopping, when they made love (which was less and less often), and when they had breakfast in the morning. Roberta loved having Klara around and Klara loved having Roberta around. They both knew that, they could both feel it. But Klara could do without Roberta, and even told Roberta so, so cruel and so unfeeling was Klara. Roberta hated being alone. Roberta was suffering, suffering, suffering and it would be useless to go out tonight and try to abandon that suffering.

She channel surfed. Commentators talked about the Midnight Mass that would be broadcast from St. Peter’s in Rome, and she switched channels to some old American movie with snow and blonde women dressed up in big woolen overcoats. She flipped to the news and the latest foolishness of the assholes in the Italian parliament. Then she flipped to a variety show that showed old clips from across the years. There appeared Mina in black and white, a hooded cowl over her voluminous hair teased up at least six inches off her head. Her eyes were ringed with the thick back kohl that she favored and she was singing Tu scendi dalle stelle. What a pile of shit! For a moment, Roberta forgot all about being alone on Christmas Eve, repulsed by the voice of this singer from her past. She thought of the Christmases she had spent as a little girl, arguing with her siblings, getting slapped by her mother and always, always disappointed by the presents she got. The toys she got were never the toys that she really wanted: a radio controlled car or a model plane that really flew. They had been too expensive for a family with five children.

The phone rang.

“Mami!”

“Oh, hello Loredana. Merry Christmas! How are you?”

“Oh, pretty good. We’re all here at Nonno’s house, why don’t you come over?”

“No, I don’t want to see anyone tonight. I just want to be alone.”

“Where’s Klara?”

“With her family.”

“Well, when’s she coming back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I just want to be alone.”

“Oh Mami, why don’t you come over and join us? Gran has made tortelloni and we’re going to have boiled meat with her mayonnaise and green sauce afterwards. And Pandoro for dessert, with mascarpone cream! Everyone would love to see you, especially me.”

“It’s too cold and I just don’t feel like washing my hair and getting dressed and going out. I want to look at Midnight Mass on television, so I’ll speak to you tomorrow and wish you a Merry Christmas. Tell everyone I said hello.”

Roberta hung up the phone. Was she worth so little? Was her love for Klara so negligible that Roberta wasn’t worth spending Christmas with, alone, just the two of them? Roberta didn’t want to belong to Klara’s family; she didn’t want Klara to belong to her family. Roberta wanted to create her own family with Klara, just the two of them, alone together. Klara didn’t want that. Even though Roberta and Klara were constantly together day and night whenever Klara was in town, Roberta was still not happy. So Roberta would go and visit her family and not take Klara along to see them. That would serve Klara right! Klara might understand what loneliness was like; she might understand what being excluded felt like. Roberta tried to make Klara jealous, talking about women who flirted with Roberta at her African dance aerobics class. Instead, it was just like water off a duck’s back. Roberta never got a rise out of Klara at all. “Oh, well that’s nice, Bertie. I’m glad you’re making new friends.”

Roberta hated it. Roberta wanted Klara to be exactly like her, except Roberta wanted Klara to do everything for her. Roberta wanted Klara to be The Femme and Roberta wanted Klara to treat her as The Dyke, the same way a Romagnol Azdor would be treated by his Azdora. Romagnol men! The men were accustomed to being worshipped by their mothers and wives, who waited on them hand and foot. Roberta wanted Klara to gift her an expensive watch. Roberta wanted Klara to split the cost of Roberta’s Jeep even though Klara insisted on riding her beat up old bike, which she said, was more “ecological.” Roberta wanted Klara to be around for her whenever Roberta needed her, she wanted Klara to manage all their money, their pooled money, and then Roberta wanted Klara to let Roberta do everything Roberta wanted to do independently: go out with her coworkers, see her friends from the country and high school, and spend time with her family. Roberta never really thought through the fact that she was leaving Klara purposely alone to teach Klara a lesson about being lonely. Roberta rejected the very idea that Klara would feel lonely, almost immediately.

”You can’t be lonely, Klara. You have all your friends who call you all the time.”

“When you get up at half past eleven on Sunday morning and announce you’re going to your father’s house, it’s too late for me to arrange to see anybody. Then you disappear and don’t come back until the late afternoon. I mean, why can't you take me with you?”

“I don’t want my mother to know about us. I want to keep my family separate from you.”

“But you want me to be your family, and you want to spend time with my family. How does this work, Bertie? That you can simply make up the rules as you go along to suit yourself? That you can go wherever you want, but I’m not supposed to even want that? It seems to me the only thing you’re really interested in is your own advantage.”

“That’s not true. You’re only interested in your own advantage.”

“No, I’m interested is our advantages together, as a couple. Doing things together. You just want to keep me in a drawer and pull me out when you need me.”

“Well, don’t you do the same thing when you leave me here in Imola?”

“No, I don’t, because to begin with, I ask you to come with me.”

“But I just can’t come at the drop of a hat. I have my things to do.”

“I hardly ask you to come at the last minute. I ask you months ahead of time.”

“No you don’t. You don’t make plans for me. You never make my reservations. You never pick up the ticket. You never really try to make me happy.”

“I have made plans for you and reservations and you changed your mind at the last minute. I’ve tried to make you happy. The problem is nothing makes you happy, except what you want when want it, and that means right now. You’re ruled by caprice and sloth.”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE! I WORK EIGHT FUCKING HOURS A DAY IN A FUCKING BANK. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WORK?”

“I know plenty but mainly I know not to raise my voice.”

“YOU’RE NOT FAIR. YOU’RE NEVER FAIR! YOU’RE NOT NICE TO ME!”

“Roberta, you need to calm down.”

“I WILL NOT! I’M TIRED OF BEING ALONE.”

“But you’re the one who chooses to be alone.”

NO I DON’T. YOU FORCE IT ON ME WHEN YOU LEAVE.”

“Don’t you see you do the same thing to me? Except you don’t ask me to share your family with you. I ask you to share my family with me.”

“THAT’S DIFFERENT!

“And just how is it different?”

“IT JUST IS! I SUFFER! YOU NEVER REMEMBER THAT! I SUFFER MORE THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You’re pretty good at constantly bringing this up, how much you suffer. I’m rather unlikely to ignore it.”

“I’M LEAVING YOU!”

“Okay, that will entail walking out of my apartment.”

“YOU DON’T WANT ME!”

“That’s not true. You’re the one who wants to leave. I’ve never left you.”

“YOU LEAVE ME ALL THE TIME! YOU’RE UGLY! YOU’RE MEAN! YOU’RE BAD.”

And on and on it went, every other day or every other week. Roberta knew what Klara was going to say, when Klara was going to say it. Roberta knew what Klara felt. Roberta knew what Klara was thinking. Roberta knew what Klara would do! It was all useless!

Roberta looked out the window at the Christmas lights in the house across the street. She felt even worse. She had put out two plastic poinsettias on an end table, the extent of her Christmas decorations. She was alone, so alone! She flicked the remote on again. Happy people in some dumb old black and white movie were singing White Christmas in English. God, this was more than she could bear! Roberta turned off the set and all the lights and went to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and what did she see? An unhappy lesbian with a bad haircut. She inspected her hairline –the grey was starting to peek through again; she would have to daub some color on that tomorrow, at least in front, where it was visible. Roberta looked at her eyes, punchy bags rimmed in brown. She brushed her teeth and crawled into the sack. But first, she turned the cd player on to listen to Mia Martini singing while she fell asleep.

* * * * *

Klara looked across the dinner table glittering with plates and glasses, at her nephews, wearing green velvet jackets for the Christmas Eve dinner that she, her mother, and her sister had spent the last two days preparing. After dessert, everyone would put on their hats and coats and gloves and boots and walk out to see the skiers descend the mountain with flares. Then they would pleasureably hike to the mountain chapel for their final devotion. The little skiing village they were staying at was too small to have a Protestant and a Catholic Church, but they did have a “Christian” Chapel where anyone who wanted to, could go and sit and pray. The children from the local elementary school set up a crèche scene with mismatched plastic and plaster figures that had been amassed over the decades, and they had placed their toy animals around the crèche scene, to keep vigil. At midnight, a little girl dressed head to toe in white with real candles sticking out from the evergreen wreath on her head, would walk into the chapel, bearing a sparkling clean tiny baby Jesus on a red velveteen cushion. As she walked down the aisle, everyone would drop to their knees. Klara always teared up at this.

Klara was deeply touched that people actually still thought there could be a Jesus; that there could be someone who would offer his own life to everyone, to change things, change them for the better. Klara was moved that people had believed it for almost 2,000 years.  

Just as the bell tolled midnight, the little girl would gracefully kneel down and slowly place the baby Jesus on his bed of hay and tuck him into in his manger. As the last bell struck midnight, the chords of a guitar would issue behind the elegantly gilded baroque altar. Everyone in the stone and timber chapel illuminated by the dozens and dozens of brightly burning candles they were holding and shining from sconces on the walls would softly intone Heilige Nacht. Klara fought harder and harder each year to beat back the tears and the clutching at her throat. People were such chumps, foolishly duped by hope and expectation, when expecting the worst would never disappoint you. Jesus’s wager for a better world, of happiness, of salvation: people still believed in it, but over the centuries they had turned it to their personal and political advantages. Then you saw the little girl in white with four candles on her head, who really believed in the plastic baby she was solemnly carrying, like little girls had carried before her, century after century in the tiny village. They still believed there was a brighter future.

But for the time being, her family members were still seated around the dinner table. Klara was rosy from the wine, and pleasantly stuffed after eating three plates of Christmas Eve tortelloni and several delicious slices of crisp goose. She had brought a Pandoro cake from Italy for dessert and she asked her little nephew Matthias to help her with the powdered sugar. She retrieved the box sitting on the radiator with the Magi’s hat of a cake inside it, and pulled the plastic bag containing the cake out of the box. There was a small white paper packet attached to the plastic bag at the top and she handed it to Matthias. After she opened up the bag with the fragrant warm cake inside, he gleefully poured the powered confectioner’s sugar on top of the cake in the bag and then shook it, laughing the whole time.

Klara no longer even regretted admitting it; this was so much more fun than spending Christmas Eve in Imola with Roberta. Alone. Unhappy with everything. Unwilling to do anything about it. How much longer would Roberta put up with Klara? Klara had lost just about all her friends in Imola after taking up with Roberta who wanted Klara full time. Klara knew that letting people drop out of her social circle wasn’t a great idea, but she was deeply in love with Roberta and strongly attracted to her. Klara had put up with lies and atrocious behavior from Roberta, behavior that Klara had thought she would never accept from anyone. Roberta did try to behave, but she was not accustomed to behaving out of consideration to others. Roberta only behaved when it made her look good. Klara was above that.

Some people considered Klara a haughty snob, but she never thought of herself as superior. Her dark spiky hair and kohl-rimmed eyes gave her an air of hauteur, but it was all in play, like the faux nose rings and henna tattoos she only put on when she was play-acting her rock fantasies. She did that to spark the frisson of intrigue in a young woman’s eyes, a spark that Klara lived for when she went to her pubs and concerts and raves. When she wanted to, Klara wiped everything off, pulled everything out, and tamped everything down; she slipped into a white silk blouse and tailored slacks and called on her clients in their offices. Even the receptionists commented that she seemed aristocratic. Klara always thanked them and stated that there was no aristocracy in her family, but she did imagine they thought it was a compliment and thanked them. Just about everyone who managed to see past her Goth costuming and businesslike façade, thought Klara was a real lady, a compliment she always deferred to her upbringing. “You’re such a gracious lady” was what she liked to hear most. Klara knew that birth, money, beauty, or intelligence had no influence whatsoever on being considered a lady. What made a lady was how she treated the people around her: respect for what she saw in them as people, courtesy in response to their immediate needs, and consideration in telling them the truth – at the right time. Most Romagnols had atrocious manners, not because they were coarse or did not know how to behave. So many Italians knew how to behave perfectly well, and they did - when it suited their needs or turned to their advantage. Kindness to strangers was an alien concept to Romagnols in general, a fact Klara had painfully discovered shopping for Christmas presents in Imola just this year.

It had gotten dark early and Klara was out pedaling on her bicycle among the throngs of Christmas shoppers. She was quite overloaded with gifts and very poorly balanced. She was puttering along slowly enough and as she turned the corner, her bike hit a sausage that had fallen out of a piadina and her entire center of gravity slipped. She tumbled onto the pavement, and her packages ended up in a small puddle. She hit her elbow, and her first thought was that she hoped it hadn‘t been chipped.

The people shopping stopped for a second and looked at her. Indeed they stared, and Klara unfortunately knew exactly what they were thinking as they clucked their tongues: “Poor thing! She should know better than to overload her bike like that. Maybe she’ll learn from this experience, but probably not. She’s just some silly woman, and from the looks of her, she’s not Romagnol, much less Italian. And she’s gotten all muddy too. How embarrassing! She’s bound to be ashamed of herself.” Then they moved on. Not a single person stopped to see if she was hurt or if she needed some help getting up. They didn’t know her personally though she recognized at least four of them. She was none of their business.

That was the Romagnol Christmas spirit: tortelloni for yourself and your family and maybe a friend. No one else counted, except perhaps the plaster Jesus in the crèche scene at San Lorenzo. All you had to do was light a candle to him, and the spiritual part of Christmas was finished for all but the most fervent of Romagnols.

Roberta was no different from her fellow countrywomen. She thought of herself first. She would never stop and help a stranger, especially if it were someone whose face was familiar but whose name she did not know.

Klara’s mother cut the cake and passed it around while Klara’s brother-in-law opened a bottle of sekt and poured the sparkling liquid into long-stemmed flutes.

“Merry Christmas!”

The glasses clinked as everyone looked into everyone else’s eyes, smiling. Klara took a sip and realized Roberta would be leaving her in the year to come.

But now it was Christmas Eve and Klara would enjoy her holiday. There was no use in both Klara and Roberta suffering. Klara knew it was wrong to spoil her family’s Christmas because Klara was forlorn at not having Roberta there with her. Belonging to a family meant such different things here in Klara’s mountains and on Roberta’s Romagnol plain.  

However, the realities were more kaleidoscopic than that for Klara. She thought of everyone she consciously and purposefully gathered around her as her family across Europe. They were not part of her family, they were not other families, they were her family. This is what suited Klara.

Roberta instead, wanted Klara all just to herself, each of them playing the clean-cut roles of Dyke and Femme, Azdor and Azdora, but only when it suited Roberta. Roberta was only ever flexible when it turned to her immediate advantage.

Klara could never live that way.

Klara could never be the Femme.

Or the Dyke.

Or a Romagnola.

These roles could never be more of her personality than a light dusting of the local culture. She sighed as she realized that her destiny with Roberta was short lived. Their relationship might last until Valentine’s Day, but it probably wouldn’t.  

“Auntie! Let’s go! It’s time to get dressed! Baby Jesus is waiting!”

“Let me get the candles; I’ll be right with you.” Klara knocked back her sekt as she strode to the kitchen, smiling at everyone. This evening was really going to be fun.