by Mario Puzo
The next morning Lucia Santa committed an act so monstrous that it lost her the sympathy of the whole of Tenth Ave-nue, of everyone who would have commisserated with her in this new misfortune. It made Dr. Barbato so angry that he cursed in Italian for the first time since entering medical school. Even Zia Louche scolded Lucia Santa. It was a foolish act, immoral, shocking; and yet it was merely an act of love. Lucia Santa did not take her daughter to Bellevue’s charity hospital; instead she had Larry drive them to the French Hospital on 30th Street between Ninth and Eighth Avenues, a little more than a block away. It was a cheerful, clean, and expensive hospital. The nurses there would be polite, the doctors charming, the clerical workers subservient. There would be no waiting for hours in dim halls for admittance. Lucia Santa’s daughter would be treated like a human being, that is, as a solvent member of society.
No one was more surprised than Lucia Santa herself. It was a fantastically foolish step that would wipe out the savings of years just at the time when they were most desperately needed. There would be no breadwinner in the home. It was an act of pure arrogance.
But there were reasons. Lucia Santa had lain awake all that night and, without sleeping, had suffered nightmares. She saw her beautiful young daughter imprisoned in the towers of Bellevue, lost in the dismal corridors, spat upon like an animal. And then there was superstition. Her husband had entered Bellevue and never returned. It was a charnel house; her daughter would die and they would cut her into little pieces and put her flesh in bottles.
So in the early morning hours Lucia Santa made her decision, and felt such a tremendous relief that she cared nothing of what the world would think—her friends, her relatives or her neighbors. In the darkness of her bed she had wept, the solitary terrible weeping that must be done alone with no one to see; not a show of grief, but a release of anguish that takes the place of consolation from a friend or loved one. Lucia Santa wept for strength because there was no one in the world to draw strength from. Hers was the terrible act of those who cannot show their need for pity. In daylight she composed herself, and when she rose from her bed, her face was strong and confident.
After the kids had been sent to school, Larry came up and they wrapped Octavia, already warmly dressed, in blankets. They helped her down the stairs and into Larry’s car. When Lucia Santa got into the car she said to her son, “Drive to the French Hospital.” Octavia started to protest, but the mother shouted with rage, “Quiet. Don’t say a word.”
The formalities were over quickly. Octavia was put in a quiet, clean, lovely room with another young girl. There were pictures on the wall. On the way home Larry told his mother, feeling the jealousy he always felt for his sister, that he would give five dollars a week for the family until Octavia was working again. His mother reached out and touched him for a moment, and said in Italian, “Ah, you’re a good boy, Lorenzo.” But in her tone Larry recognized his dismissal; she did not count him, did not trust him, she had no respect for him in this crisis. But if he had been in Octavia’s place he would never have broken down, if she had picked him instead of her.
CHAPTER 11
LUCIA SANTA ANGELUZZI-Corbo, a beleaguered general, pondered the fate and travails of her family, planned tactics, mulled strategy, counted resources, measured the loyalties of her allies. Octavia would be away at a rest home for six months. She would not be able to work for possibly a year. A year’s wages lost.
Lorenzo gave five dollars a week, sometimes two or three dollars more. Vincenzo would work in the bakery—another five dollars a week and money saved on bread. Gino was worthless, Sal and Aileen too young.
And Lorenzo’s wife was pregnant, another chink in the armor. Perhaps better not count on the money from Lorenzo, either.
No, think another way. Vincenzo had three years to go to finish high school. Was it necessary for him to graduate? Gino was headstrong, he must be tamed, he must help, she was too lenient with him.
The mother realized more than ever how important Octavia was to the family in things besides money. It was Octavia who made the children get good marks in school, brought them to the free dental clinic in the Hudson Guild. It was Octavia who planned how to save money and hide it in the post office, no matter how much they needed it for food and clothing. It was Octavia who gave her strength, on whom she leaned, who supported her in moments of weakness.
And now, Lucia Santa thought, she was alone again. The terrible battles were to be fought again. But older, tougher, experienced, she did not feel the helpless despair and terror she had known as a young widow. She was a hardened veteran to disaster and her spirit was not weakened by young and foolish dreams. She fought now as one desperately fights merely to remain alive.
Lucia Santa came to the decision she had to come to. There was nothing for it but to apply for welfare, to go on the home relief. And the struggle to come to this decision involved many things.
In no way did it involve conscience, or a concern for giving the authorities fair play. She had been born in a land where the people and the state were implacable enemies. No, there was a better reason.
Charity is salt in the wound. It is painful. The state gives charity with the bitter hatred of a victim to his blackmailer. The receiver of free money is subjected to harassment, insult, and profound humiliation. Newspapers are enlisted to heap scorn on the arrogant bastards who choose to beg instead of starve or let their children starve. It is made clear that the poor seek charity as a great and sordid chicanery in which they delight. And there are some who do. As there are some people who delight in sticking hot needles deep into their abdomens, swallow pieces of broken bottles. A special taste. Speaking for humanity in general, the poor accept charity with a shame and loss of self-respect that is truly pitiful.
Larry arranged for the investigator to come to the house, but he would not stay for the interview. His male pride was affronted. He would not be a party to it, he disassociated himself from the whole thing. Lucia Santa found a hiding place for the imported Italian olive oil she did not dream of doing without; it would be a telling blow against her.
THE INVESTIGATOR CAME late in the afternoon. He was a solemn, comical-looking young man with great round black eyes. Those eyes had thick round eyebrows above them and dark circles beneath them so that he looked like an olive owl. But he was polite. He knocked at the door politely. He inspected the apartment with apologies, opening cupboard doors and closets and wandering through the apartment more like a prospective tenant than a home relief investigator. He addressed Lucia Santa as “Signora,” and his own name had a touch of elegance; he was called La Fortezza.
He listened to Lucia Santa’s story and wrote down all the particulars in his notebook, nodding and murmuring expressions of regret in Italian when she told about a particular misfortune. He spoke college Italian, but he could be understood.
Forms were spread out, questions asked. No, no; she had no money in the bank, nor did her children; she owned nothing, no insurance; nothing. She had no jewelry to sell except her wedding ring but he assured her that that was exempt. When they were finished, Mr. La Fortezza sat on his chair and leaned his body forward, his hands clasping the edge of the table like talons, his black-circled round eyes reproachful.
“Signora Corbo,” he said, “it displeases me greatly to inform you there will be difficulties. Each of your three eldest children has money in trust from the unfortunate accident to their father. Strictly speaking, that money must vanish before you can get welfare. That is the law. And if I do not report this money you have, I will be in trouble.” He looked at her gravely.
Lucia Santa was taken completely by surprise. That this polite young man, an Italian boy, had acted the spy, had gone to neighbors for information, then set a trap—this enraged her. She said bitterly, “Good. I’ll throw the money in the streets.”
He smiled at her joke and waited. She sensed all was not lost. “Isn’t there something you can do for me?” she asked.
Mr. La Fortezza had a sli
ghtly uncomfortable look, an owl swallowing a particularly vigorous mouse. “Ah, Signora,” he said, “one hand does not wash itself alone.” Then, still a little embarrassed (he was still too young to be comfortable in dishonesty), he explained that he would risk his job to get her sixteen dollars every two weeks, but that when he brought the check she would have to give him three dollars. After all, it was money she should not receive, he was breaking the law, and so on. The bargain was struck. Lucia Santa was so grateful that she served coffee with cake, though coffee alone was enough for the laws of hospitality. And over the coffee Mr. La Fortezza told his woes. How he had taken his degree in law after many sacrifices by his parents, people like herself; now there was no work, and he had to take this lowly job with the city. How could he ever repay his father on his salary? It pained him to work in such a fashion, but how could he ever hope to have his own practice unless he made a little extra money? And after all, they both profited, since the signora was not really entitled to an allowance from the welfare. And so on. They parted friends.
Mr. La Fortezza came every two weeks with the check. There would be a ceremony. Gino would be sent down to the grocery to pay the outstanding bill and get the check cashed. He would also buy a quarter-pound of American ham, picture pink in its rectangular border of white, creamy, sweet fat; some soft, sliced, American bread; and yellow American cheese. For Mr. La Fortezza had a weak stomach and turned up his nose at honest Italian salami and pepperoni, the tingling sharp provolone, the crusty gum-cutting Italian bread.
Gino would watch wide-eyed at the little scene to be played. The thin pink and yellow slices laid out on a long cere-monial platter, the large mug of coffee, and Mr. La Fortezza at his ease, resting his swollen feet on another chair as he talked to Lucia Santa of his trials and tribulations, the mother shaking her head in sympathy. For the poor man climbed countless flights of stairs, quarreled with those low-class Italians who tried to conceal their sons’ working and cursed because he would not approve their applications for relief, saying that he was a Jew and not an Italian, for no Italian would serve this government against his own kinfolk. “Ah,” Mr. La Fortezza said always, “was it for this my poor parents pinched each penny? Ate scarola and pasta and beans every day of the week? For their son to earn his bread at the cost of his health?” Lucia Santa would cluck with pity.
The owl eyes were sad. Mr. La Fortezza was out in all kinds of weather. He was not well. Four years at the university studying hard. “Signora,” he said, “I am not one of the clever ones; after all, my people were illiterate peasants for a thousand years, and even now it is enough for them that I do not have to work with my hands.”
The ham and cheese eaten, he would stand, ready to take his leave. Lucia Santa would give him the three dollars with an exquisite tactfulness, picking up his hand and thrusting the money into it as if he would absolutely refuse if she did not press him. Mr. La Fortezza would make a gesture of reluctance, pushing back the money; then he would sigh and raise an eyebrow and say “Eh” in a hopeless voice to show that his circumstances were so desperate that refusal was impossible.
It was true, they were fond of each other. He liked the older woman for her courtesy, her regard for his feelings, her little thoughtful snack with the coffee. She on her part felt a real sympathy for the sad-looking boy, thanking God that none of her sons showed so little joy in life. She felt no resentment that she must pay tribute.
In a few weeks Mr. La Fortezza got Lucia Santa a fifteen-dollar-a-month rental allowance. Without being asked, Lucia Santa put a five-dollar bill in his hand instead of three dollars. It was an understanding with a foundation like a rock.
It grew. He got her another four dollars a week. Lucia Santa made it a point to have a little parcel of groceries for him to take home, a pound of the pink sweet ham, a bottle of homemade fiery anisette to help his digestion. Now that Larry had a ramshackle tin lizzie that he tinkered with when he was not working, the mother had her son drive Mr. La Fortezza home all the way to the Bronx on Arthur Avenue.
The three of them, Larry, Mr. La Fortezza, and Gino, would ride in the bouncing rattling car, darting between horses and wagons and trolleys and automobiles. Gino noticed that Larry was always polite, but had a contempt for the young lawyer that came out in little kidding remarks. Mr. La Fortezza obviously did not dream that he was being kidded. He would earnestly tell his misfortunes like beads. How little the welfare paid its investigators, the payments that must be made on the house in the Bronx, how his parents were now getting so old they could not work, and he would have to support them and discharge the mortgage. There was real fear, almost terror, in his voice when he spoke of his desperate need for money, and this puzzled Gino. For Mr. La Fortezza was rich. He had been to college, he owned a two-family house, his family went away in the summer for vacation. What people on Tenth Avenue dreamed of achieving after forty years of heavy toil, this young man already had; he lived the dream and he was more terrified than the meanest laborer in Gino’s tenements.
When Mr. La Fortezza got out of the car, his little brown bag of groceries under his arm, Larry lit a cigarette and winked at his kid brother. Gino winked back. They drove home to Tenth Avenue in some way cheered and confident, as if the world was theirs to conquer.
DR. BARBATO, CLIMBING the four flights to the Angeluzzi-Corbo apartment, was a man grimly determined that by Jesus Christ this time this family would pay his due. Try to help them and someone else made the money. Why should he lose money to the French Hospital?
So Bellevue Hospital was too good for these poor ignorant guinea bastards? They wanted the best of medical care, did they? Who the hell did they think they were, these miserabili, these beggars without a pot to piss in, on home relief and the daughter in the sanitarium at Raybrook.
The door was open as the doctor came over the top stair. Sentineled there was little Sal, looking very solemn. In the kitchen the supper dishes were scattered all over the table, the yellow oilcloth dotted with scraps of French-fried potatoes and eggs. Gino and Vincent were playing a game of cards on this table. A fine pair of bandits, the doctor thought angrily, but he was softened when Vincent left the table to lead him through the string of rooms, doing so with a natural, shy courtesy, and saying in a gentle voice, “My mother is sick.”
In the dark, windowless bedroom lay the heavy figure Lucia Santa. Standing beside her was the small girl Aileen, letting her face and hands be washed by the cloth the mother took from a water basin beside her bed. The scene reminded the doctor of some of the religious pictures he had seen in Italy, not for any sentimentality, but because of the composition of the reposing mother tending the child and the lighting of the room, with the dim yellow of the electric bulb casting a beatific glow on the dark-colored walls.
He tried to isolate the resemblance. Then he realized from his reading that it was simply a peasant upbringing, the child’s complete reliance on its mother. These were the people that famous painters had used.
Dr. Barbato stood at the foot of the bed and said gravely, “Ah, Signora Corbo, you’re having bad luck this winter.” It was an expression of sympathy and a reminder of how badly she had behaved with Octavia.
Even lying flat on her back, Lucia Santa could become so violently angry that her cheeks flushed and her great black eyes flashed. But the reverence of the poor for so exalted a personage as the doctor made her hold her tongue, though she could have reminded him that he too had eaten from her hand a slice of coarse bread soaked in wine vinegar and olive oil. She said meekly, “Ah, Doctor, my back, my legs, I can’t walk or work.”
The doctor said, “First send the child to the kitchen.” The little girl stood closer to the bed and put one arm out to her mother’s head. The mother said gently, “Go, Lena, go in the kitchen and help your brothers with the dishes.” The doctor smiled and Lucia Santa, seeing the smile, called out in Italian, “Vincenzo, Gino, mascalzoni that you are, have you started the dishes? Have you left the kitchen a mess for the doctor to se
e? Wait—I’ll cripple both of you. Lena, go, and tell me if they don’t work.”
The little girl, delighted with her role of spy, ran to the kitchen.
Dr. Barbato walked around the bed and sat on it. He pulled down the blanket and put his stethoscope to her chest, first on top of the nightgown. As he was about to tell her to raise her nightgown the little girl was beside him, dark brown eyes curious. She said to her mother, “Gino and Vincent are washing the dishes and Sal is cleaning the table.”
The mother saw the doctor’s annoyance. “Good, good, Lena, and now you go help them and watch them. No one is to come in here until I call. Tell them that.” The little girl scampered away.
Lucia Santa had put out her hand to touch her daughter’s head, and the doctor, seeing the swollen wrists, knew what he could expect. When they were alone he told her to turn over on her stomach, and then he rolled up the plain woolen nightgown. He saw the knobby bumps at the base of the spine and said with a reassuring laugh, “Ah, Signora, you have arthritis. A month in Florida would make you a new woman. You need sunlight, heat, rest.” He examined her thoroughly and firmly, pressing parts of her body to see where she felt pain. He was conscious of the swelling buttocks of this peasant woman in her forties. Like her daughter’s they were the buttocks of the sensual Italian nudes hung in Florence, great, rounded, as deep as they were wide, but they aroused no desire in him. None of these women could. In his mind they were unclean, unclean with poverty. He pulled down the nightgown.
The woman turned around. The doctor looked at her gravely and said sternly, “What is this, Signora, you can’t walk, you can’t work in the house? It is not that serious. True, you need rest, but you should be able to walk. Your joints are swollen on the wrists and legs and your back, but it is not that serious.”