“Ma!”
“You should be thanking me I got rid of her.”
“She’s only trying to teach us how to be American.”
“Why do I have to be American? What’s wrong with being Avellinesi?”
“Everything!” Julietta said the word before she could think not to. But once she’d said it, she was glad. “If Avellino was so good, then why did we leave? And if America is so bad, then why do we stay?”
Mama Giordano put her spoon down and turned to face her girl. “Why do we stay? Why did we leave? We left la miseria because it offered only one thing: misery. That’s why we came here.”
“But you brought the misery with you!”
“What is this? What’s wrong, cara mia?”
“You! You’re what’s – ” This time Julietta had the grace to put a hand over her mouth, but not before she saw hurt color her mother’s eyes. “Look around. Is this why we came? Is this all there is? Two crowded rooms and a pair of raggedy old curtains? Is that all we get for living in a pig’s pen and working like slaves, turning our paychecks over to Papa every week? That might be fine for you, but not for me. I want more. The only thing wrong with this country is people like you!”
7
As Luciana walked up Salem Street that evening, a piece of pink paper, buoyed by a sly and lazy wind, twirled up toward her hand. When she brushed it away, the wind abandoned it and the paper fell to her feet. She began to step over it when a symbol on it caught her eye. She bent over and grabbed it with one hand. Then she spread it flat on her thigh and tried to read it.
She couldn’t understand the words, but she did comprehend the color of the paper. Pink. And though she couldn’t translate the sentences into her language, she did grasp the message of those blaring black phrases. Her hands shook as she stared at them.
Anarchists? Here? A shiver crept up Luciana’s spine.
She’d known that her father’s murderer had followed her to America’s shores, but she’d assumed that here there would be no anarchist political party or organization. And she had hoped – hoped still! – that in this country, she could become one of many. One of a very many immigrants come to America in order to leave the past behind. To begin life anew.
He hadn’t found her yet. She knew that if he had, she would already be dead. And it had been so many weeks since she’d seen him, she had started to hope that he had given up his hunt.
She tore her gaze from the paper, searching the street for anyone looking suspicious. She examined those foreign words too, hoping to discern something that looked familiar. There was no mention of assassinare.
But what did it say? She wanted to know what it said!
What it said was:
There will be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder; we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; never hope that your cops, and your hounds will ever succeed in ridding the country of the anarchistic germ that pulses in our veins. . . . Long live social revolution! Down with tyranny!
THE ANARCHIST FIGHTERS
But she had no way of deciphering it. And in any case, she had already divined the general idea. Letting the sheet drop from her hand, she began to run. She flew by the crowds on the North End sidewalks, heedless of protecting her identity. She almost shouted at the greengrocer to hurry when she stopped long enough to buy some fruit.
Finally, she reached the door to their rooms, overwrought and out of breath. Trembling with trepidation. What if . . . what if her father’s murderer had discovered where she lived? What if he’d already been to the apartment? What if he’d taken . . . ? She unlocked the door and pushed it open, then almost melted with relief. The contessa was sitting there, just as she always was, oblivious to person or to place.
Luciana set the fruit on the sideboard and unknotted her scarf with fingers gone stiff from fear. In the bedroom, she slipped out of her gown and then pulled on her worn peasant’s skirt and blouse. Sat on the mattress as she tried to calm her nerves.
This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. She had to have information. If there were other anarchists in this country, then he was sure to have found them. She had to know what they were planning to do. She was worse than an illiterate in this country. She was deaf and mute too!
Papa. Papa! She pulled the pillow to her face so that her grief could not be heard. She pressed it to her face with her knees as she beat upon the ends of it with her fists.
Why had this happened? Why had she been left all alone?
Why are you doing this to me, God? Sì. You, God! Keeper of widows and orphans. You who don’t see and don’t care and won’t answer. Why have you done this to me?
Of course God had done no such thing, though you can probably see why she might think so. But it’s no good preaching to a grief-stricken soul. And it can actually cause much harm. God is long-suffering in His patience, however, and infinite in His kindness, so we shall leave it to Him to draw Luciana to himself in His own time.
She fell over onto the bed and rolled onto her stomach, letting the pillow absorb both her sobs and her tears. After a while, once her tears had stopped, once perspiration had dampened the hair at the edges of her face, she sat up and wiped the remnants of grief away. And then she stood. Took a deep, stuttering breath.
Grief was too much a luxury to allow herself to indulge in for long. If God wasn’t going to look after them, and clearly He had decided not to, then she had to do it herself. She left the room and went to the old woman’s side. Kneeling beside the contessa, she kissed her hand. “Dinner is ready.” Such as it was.
“Grazie, ragazza.”
“Dinner isn’t ready.” Mama Rossi spoke the words as Papa pulled his chair from the table and moved to sit down.
“What do you mean dinner isn’t ready?” Annamaria’s family held its collective breath as Papa Rossi scowled at his wife.
“It isn’t ready. Maglione the greengrocer gave us bad tomatoes. I can’t make salad with them, so I have to make a gravy instead. It isn’t ready.” What she really wanted to do was to remind him that seventy years ago, back in the old country when Maglione’s was run by the present Maglione’s great-grandfather, that man had overcharged her great-grandmother for a zucchini. And since then, hadn’t the Magliones always given her family the worst of the produce? Hadn’t the Magliones always taken great care to ensure that they received only the most rotten of fruit? And hadn’t they been a curse to her family ever since? They’d been eating terrible food for the past seventy years. And she didn’t see why it had to continue now that they were in America. Enough was enough! But of course, that wasn’t really worth mentioning.
Papa opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but then he gave up and shrugged instead.
The family sighed in relief.
“This is the third time this month that Maglione’s given me bad tomatoes.” Mama spoke over her shoulder as she stirred her gravy.
Papa looked up from his wine to see if Mama was exaggerating. She wasn’t. “Third time.”
Papa shrugged. “So what do you want me to do about it?”
“I want to go to Zanfini’s.”
“Zanfini’s? Who’s Zanfini?” Papa could be forgiven such a question. He worked as a pick and shovel man downtown on a public works project. That meant that he rose when it was still dark and came home late. He trudged, head down to his labors, and then he trudged, head down, all the way home. And who would have blamed him? But the rest of the family knew Zanfini’s. And they all turned to look at Mama as if she had suddenly gone mad.
“Zanfini’s. Across the street.”
“Across the street . . .” Papa’s eyes screwed up as if he couldn’t exactly picture where that might be. “Across the street?”
Mama nodded.
“Across the street. As in the other side of the street?”
Mama nodded once more.
“Where the Sicilians live?!”
Everyone cringed when t
hey heard the S word. Sicilians weren’t fit to speak to, let alone buy tomatoes from. Avellinesis bought tomatoes from Maglione, and Sicilians bought tomatoes from Zanfini. Only Sicilians bought tomatoes from Zanfini.
“I want to buy tomatoes from Zanfini.”
“Zanfini the Sicilian?” Papa Rossi tugged on an earlobe as if he weren’t quite sure he was hearing right. And then he shook his head. “No one in my house buys tomatoes from Sicilians.” And that was the end of that.
But Mama Rossi was not to be swayed so easily from her course. She was sick to death of mushy tomatoes, and Zanfini’s produce always looked pretty good. At least what he displayed outside on his cart did. And those Sicilians seemed happy enough with it. She wanted nice, firm tomatoes, and she was going to have them. It would just take a bit more time. And a bit more convincing.
But for now, Papa had spoken and there was a semblance of peace. Everyone was glad to be done talking of treason and tomatoes and Sicilians. And besides, when Papa said no, everyone knew what it meant. It meant that he meant no until Mama made him realize that what he really meant was yes.
And so, Mama Rossi finished her gravy, and Papa Rossi ate his dinner in blissful ignorance, happy that for once his wife had listened to good reason. And all the while, his children sent sly glances down the table in their mama’s direction, wondering exactly how, this time, she would manage to get her way.
The next morning, Julietta wondered the very same thing: How would she manage to get her way? That she would, eventually, get her way and wrangle one of Madame’s old gowns away from Luciana was not in question. And she quite intended to be up-front in the doing of it. She could have just as easily filched the thing, that pink and white silk embroidered net over messaline gown. Had she taken it, she was almost, very nearly, certain that no one would have missed it. But it wouldn’t do to have her character placed into question. Not when she was hoping to be taken into Madame’s confidence.
As Madame had said, it was outmoded. Done up in the fussiest of styles. All high-collared propriety, dripping with lace and wrapped up with a ridiculously large-bowed satin sash. It might have turned some heads a few years ago, drawn a few admiring glances. Oh, there was grace and elegance at the core of it, for wasn’t it one of Madame’s own designs? But its lines were stifled. They needed to be liberated.
Just like the Marne needed to be liberated from the Germans.
She’d rip that cage of lace from the neck, narrow the collar, slice the sash by half. Pull out the tucks in the tunic, lift the hem by five inches. No one would ever recognize it.
As she embroidered, she cast a longing glance in the gown’s direction. It was buried beneath gowns made in heavy navy moiré and aubergine wool crepe. All those lovely gowns and the new girl had left them right where Madame had placed them! What was wrong with her? Didn’t she know how it looked to wear the same tired, faded gown, day after day, to the city’s best gown shop? Didn’t she know how it must look to Madame? To see no sign of – no appreciation for – such a generous gift?
Luciana was eyeing that very same pile of gowns, wishing she knew what to do with them. She wasn’t sure, exactly, if she should take them home. If that was what Madame had intended. She could, of course – and with gratitude – but what would she do with them once she got them there? She had no tools and no ability to turn their dated lines into something more pleasing.
Oh, she could see their potential. The pink and white messaline gown with its silk embroidered net, for example. She would feel so much cooler walking through the city in a gown like that. She could picture herself fairly floating. It needed something, of course. It needed to be different. To be simplified. It was too . . . much. At the moment. But how was she supposed to make it something less?
Maybe . . . should she ask? For help? Surely the other girls would know what to do.
Annamaria did gorgeous smocking, but she didn’t seem to see the need for anything fashionable of her own. Julietta was quite the opposite; Julietta was the person she should ask. And she would, if only she didn’t feel such disdain, such judgment, every time the girl looked at her.
Perhaps that evening, after work, she would spend a few moments looking through the pile. She knew how to bead, didn’t she? Sewing couldn’t be that much more difficult, could it?
As Julietta and Annamaria ran down the stairs after work, Luciana lingered in the room, caught between the desire to turn to her advantage Madame’s generous gift, and the knowledge that she was inadequate for the task. Which was better? To take and wear one of the gowns as it was and look like she didn’t know frippery from fashion, or to keep wearing the one gown she owned and look exactly like who she was: a girl, pathetic and pitiable, who had fallen upon hard times.
She passed a hand over those luxurious silks and wools, pausing to admire a dated, though finely worked, lace fichu. Perhaps . . . perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow she would ask for help.
Mama Rossi had determined that tonight be the night. It was the night that she was going to advance her cause. Little by little. Step by step. Papa still had to be persuaded, but Mama had to have her tomatoes.
She set a plate of food before her husband and then took her seat.
He narrowed his eyes. Lowered his head to sniff at it. “What is it?”
“Parmigiana di melanzane.”
“Parmigiana di melanzane?” He took up a knife and used it to lift the heavy layer of cheese that was draped over his slice of eggplant. “Where’s the gravy?”
Mama pushed from her chair, collected a handful of chopped garlic and oregano from the sideboard, and sprinkled it on top of Papa’s cheese.
“I want the gravy. Parmigiana di melanzane has a gravy.”
Mama shrugged. “I don’t have any tomatoes.”
“And how do you make it without tomatoes?”
“I make it with the garlic and the oregano.” She gestured to the plate.
Papa frowned at her.
“What? I’m not buying tomatoes from Maglione anymore. He’s cheated me for the last time.”
Papa shook his head, put a fork to his plate. What was it to him if his wife didn’t buy tomatoes? He took up a piece of the eggplant. Tasted it. Disaster! That’s what it was. “You can’t make parmigiana di melanzane without tomatoes. There’s got to be someplace that sells good tomatoes. You could go . . . you could go up to Hull.”
Mama Rossi sniffed. Took up her own forkful of parmigiana di melanzane without tomato gravy. “I’m not going to a Hull frutta e verdura when there’s a perfectly good greengrocer across the street.”
“No wife of mine is going to cross the street for tomatoes.”
She looked over at her husband, reproach molding her brow. “I wasn’t going to. I would never do that. You know I would never do that.”
Papa looked up from his plate, suspicion sharpening his gaze. She wouldn’t? And when had she ever done as he had asked?
She smiled at him.
Well. Maybe things had changed. Maybe this time she was actually going to listen to him. “Bene. Fine then. There will be no more talk of tomatoes.”
Mama nodded. “I was going to have Annamaria do it.”
8
Annamaria nearly choked on her food. Mama was going to have her do it? But –
“It wouldn’t do to have Emilio Rossi’s wife buy tomatoes from a Sicilian, but if his daughter did it . . . you know how these young girls are since they’ve been living in America. They’ve gotten bold. They’ve forgotten the old ways.”
Papa was staring at his wife in horror. “You want . . . ?”
“Annamaria can do it.”
Mama was going to make her do it? She was going to make her own daughter cross the street and deal with Sicilians? Annamaria had always done everything and anything that her mother had ever asked, but buying tomatoes from Sicilians? Surely not even Saint Zita, with all her pious ways, would ever have allowed herself to be used so poorly. It was one thing to know that your life was destined f
or servitude, but quite another to be told to grovel in the doing of it. “I don’t – ”
Mama quelled Annamaria’s protest with one black look.
Papa’s fist hit the table. “No one is going to buy tomatoes from that Sicilian. And I will have tomatoes in my parmigiana di melanzane! Am I clear?”
Perfectly. And, surprisingly, Mama didn’t seem too upset by his decree.
Julietta, on the other hand, was extremely put out by what she was observing. She walked into the third floor workroom the next morning, only to see Luciana pulling the pink and white messaline gown from Madame’s pile.
Her messaline gown!
The girl held it up to her shoulders and then stood on her toes, trying to get a look at herself in the mirror.
“It doesn’t suit you.”
Luciana started and spun around, clutching the gown to her waist.
“You’re too pale.”
In fact, Luciana was pale. Paler than Julietta, in any case. She held the gown out away from her and sighed. “I know. I just . . . it seemed . . . I don’t know what to do.”
Julietta raised a brow. “You don’t know what to do? With what?”
“With those.” Luciana swept her hand toward Madame’s pile. “With any of them.”
“You’re to wear them. That’s what Madame said.” Julietta wanted to add, The sooner the better, but she didn’t. What was it to her if the new girl got in bad with Madame?
“But first, don’t you think . . . I’d have to remake them.”
Julietta nodded. Of course she’d have to remake them. Or risk being laughed at as she walked up and down Temple Place.
Luciana raised her chin against Julietta’s impudent gaze. “I don’t know how.” She was not in the habit of asking for help and didn’t quite know how to go about doing it.
“You don’t know how.” What was the girl trying to say? It was difficult enough to understand her uppity northern accent, but the words she was saying had no sense to them. She didn’t know how to do . . . what?
A Heart Most Worthy Page 5