“Signora.” Monsignor Tulano inclined his head in a stiff nod.
“Oh, Monsignore!” Ottavia stood there, not knowing what to say or do.
“I know it is unusual, but may I come in? I would like to talk with you in private.”
Ottavia stood aside to let him in, her hands shaking. The only possible link between them was Vittorio, and knowledge of their love for one another would only mean tragedy for him.
He sat on the edge of a chair, stiffly regal despite his large size. She sat down slowly across from him, her eyes searching his face.
“I will not stay long; therefore, I will state my business right away. I know of your liaison with Father di Rienzi.”
Her heart raced. She had never heard the word “liaison” before, but she understood its meaning. What would this do to Vittorio?
“As you know, he is being trained for a high place in the Church. I have every reason to believe that he will someday be chosen a cardinal. He is even now being considered for monsignor.”
Ottavia nodded. She had never thought of him in those terms, but she knew he was brilliant, and a nobleman. It would be natural for him to rise in the hierarchy of the Church.
“He has worked in service to the Church and to others, and now he is near to being rewarded.” The monsignor sat up straighter. “The only one who can prevent him from his goal is you, Signora.”
“Oh, I would never do that. I know how good he is, how hard he works.”
“You stand in his way. You may cause him disgrace by being here and tempting him to do foolish things, things he would not otherwise do.”
“I would never hurt him.”
“Then you must leave. Right away.”
She nodded, the tears welling up in her eyes preventing her from speaking. When she finally regained composure, she said, “I will leave for Argiano right away.”
“No. Not Argiano. Wherever you might be in Italy, he can find you. There is no denying the child is his. They are the picture of each other. It would be tragic for him.” The monsignor shook his head, while the bewildered Ottavia sat in silence.
She finally found her voice. “But where can I go?”
“To America.”
Ottavia rocked back. “America!”
“I have money with me, enough for you and the boy to travel first class. There is a steamship leaving from Naples in six days. You can return to Argiano to say goodbye, pack your belongings, and travel to Naples. There is just enough time if you leave today.”
“Today!” she whispered.
“If you love Vittorio, it is your only choice.” He stood up and offered the money.
“I cannot take that,” she said.
“I think you’ll have to. It would take forever to earn that in Argiano.” He placed the money in her lap. “You are doing the right thing for Vittorio,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. Then he was gone, leaving Ottavia still seated and staring ahead, unaware of the tears that cascaded down her cheeks, the word echoing in her head: America.
Chapter 14
Liam and Maeve, holding the baby, stood on the street at the end of the dock, feeling the rhythm of commerce. Men pushed carts of vegetables, bounded by in rented horse-drawn buggies, spread colorful bird wings of cloth on sidewalk tables. Get-rich-quick schemes behind wary eyes disappeared at the sight of the law; rouge and tawdry black satin offered a used trip to paradise.
Swirls of humanity pushed up collars against the bite of the wind. Horses and carts tapped on the cobblestone street. Men unloaded crates of fish, glistening in the cold and the sun. Trunks and bags piled in a tenuous mountain were guarded by a man in a pea jacket and cap, a curl of smoke wafting from his pipe. The smell of roasting chestnuts mingled with oily, salty fishiness. The bass cry of a steamship announced its arrival.
They were rooted to the spot, fearful and fascinated. America was nothing like their beloved Ireland, rural and quiet. Here they felt dropped into the center of a whirlwind. Their cousins, the O’Malleys, were to meet them there. A good thing, because to the eyes of those who looked them over, their expressions, more than their rumpled and homespun clothing, more than the battered bag that sat at their feet, their naïve, dazed, hope-filled expressions shouted, “Greenhorn.” Their cousins, Terrence and Maureen, remembering their own arrival in detail that had not dimmed in five years, were waiting across the street, and with waves and cries of greeting, danced their way through the streaming traffic and embraced them.
“Maeve, let me look at ye. And this is dear Dermot. Looks just like his father.”
“Liam, you old divil. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“How was the trip?” Maureen asked.
“Let’s get them settled at home before we ask them a million questions. They’re likely fagged out from their journey.”
“The excitement has kept us going,” Liam said, “but it will surely be nice to be in a real home again.”
“And sleep in a real bed,” Maeve added.
Terence picked up their bag, and the little group dodged back across the street to a horse and buggy, shiny, black, and new. The men helped the women into the back, and Liam joined his cousin in front. He ran his hand across the soft leather seat trimmed with brass hobnails.
“This is quite a buggy, Terence.”
“Just bought it last month.”
“Ye can’t carry lumber in a carriage,” Liam said.
Terence laughed. “Don’t have to. I have two other wagons to do that.”
“Ye be tellin’ me the God’s honest truth?” Liam looked into his cousin’s eyes to make sure.
Terence raised his hand as if to swear. “With me own labor, and the luck o’ the Irish. Thanks be to the good Lord, too, O’Malley and Taormina Construction is a little gold mine.”
“O’Malley and Taor…Taor…”
“Taormina.”
“I can’t get me tongue around that I-talian name. What ye be doin,’ goin’ into business with a wop?”
“Liam”—Terence laughed—“this is America. You’re gonna meet lots more Italians, and that’s just for starters. We’ve got Germans, lots of them. Even Jews. I’ve met some from Russia.”
“Glory be to God, they’ve traveled half across the world.” Liam fell silent, not able to imagine a trip longer than theirs. They must have been driven by a need at least as desperate as his to make the trip. “But about this Taor…mina. Couldn’t you find another Irishman to go into business with?”
“He’s a good man, and a fine craftsman. He’s in demand to do all the fancy houses on Park Avenue. Five years ago, we worked side by side. You get to know a man when you do that. When we became partners a year later, I still worked with him, but the business grew. Now I do most of the office work.” He looked over at his greenhorn cousin with some amusement. “It’s called division of labor, and it works.”
Liam just shook his head.
“You’d better get used to it,” Terence said. “You and Maeve can settle in tomorrow. Then the next day, you can come work with us.”
Liam grinned. Italian boss or no, he was anxious to get to work. He was in America less than a day, and already he liked what he saw. Give me less than five years, and I’ll be drivin’ Maeve and Dermot in a buggy of our own.
Terence snapped the reins, and the buggy headed north through a congestion of large buildings belching smoke from their stacks. Terence waved his arm. “Factories. They make all kinds of clothing, from waistcoats to petticoats. Down there”—he pointed to a building two blocks long—“they print newspapers.”
They sped along to the meat-packing district. Liam and Maeve gaped at hundreds of sides of beef hanging from an overhead track that carried the slabs from the train to the warehouse.
“The warehouse is where they wait to be shipped throughout the city,” Terence said.
“So much meat,” Liam said, pointing. “Terence, I bet ye eat meat a few times a week.”
“No, Liam, every day.” Terence grinne
d at his cousin’s look of disbelief. “You will too, if you take advantage of what America offers.”
Sure as a shamrock is green, Liam thought, he would have a good life here.
Terence headed the buggy to the Lower East Side. The streets were dense with humanity. Even on a winter’s day, women strolled the sidewalks, looking in shop windows on their way to market, children played on the streets or in empty lots that were block-long squares of dust and scrubby weeds, and peddlers hawked their wares. Some who weren’t on the street looked down from open windows, adding to the din with shouts of their own.
“Ezra, button up your coat!”
“Mrs. Lisanti, come try my zuppa!”
“Saints preserve us, Megan, did you scrape your knee again?”
Buildings were three, four, and five stories high, many over stores, squeezed together from one end of the street to the other. Wash hanging out windows waved like colorful flags in the sun. The air hummed with the din of families going about the business of everyday life, of friends greeting one another in a rapid explosion of their mother tongue or in the halting search for words in the language of their adopted country.
“We rent the third floor and the basement to tenants, but the last family moved to Boston three weeks ago,” said Maureen. “We saved that place for you.”
Maeve gave Maureen a hug. “I’m glad that we can start our life in America among family.”
When they arrived, Liam ran his hand along the beautifully carved banisters as they walked up the two flights to their rooms.
“The work of Mr. Taormina,” Maureen told them. “It was a gift to us when we moved here a year ago. We rented rooms before that, but it was cramped for us and the children.”
“When will they be home from school?” Maeve asked.
“You’ll soon be hearing them. Tim and Eileen are either laughin’ or fightin.’ It seems that way with twins.”
Maureen waved her arm around the kitchen at the head of the stairs. They followed her through the kitchen to the bedrooms, and through those to the parlor; the place was a railroad flat, with windows only in the kitchen and parlor. It was larger than their cottage in Ireland, but so different, and quite sparing of windows. Liam saw Maeve hold Dermot closer to her, and he put his arm around her shoulder.
“It’s so fine,” he said, “and the furniture, too.”
Maureen looked at Maeve, and understanding, said, “It does take a while to get used to new ways of doin’ things. Did ye bring anything from home?”
Maeve bent over the bag, which Liam had put on a chair in the parlor, and carefully went through its contents. She brought out a gold Celtic cross that had been in her family for generations, and laid it on the table between the windows in the parlor, then unwrapped a ball of shirts to reveal a crystal vase which her mother and father had given them for their wedding. Miraculously, it had survived the arduous crossing. With reverence, she placed it next to the cross and stepped back. The day’s last rays of winter sun sent a shaft of light through the facets of the vase, and it glittered in its emptiness. The cross lay on the table, waiting to be hung on the wall, as it had hung over their hearth, a sign of blessing on their simple country way of life. They stared at their possessions, ties to a life now beyond retrieving, and a mist of tears made it hard for them to see their treasures clearly.
The clatter of footsteps on the stairs caught their attention, and Tim and Eileen burst into the room, only to retreat into shy silence at their cousins, whom they had not seen since they were five.
Dermot stirred in Maeve’s arms, and the children were drawn to him. She put him down on the bed, and the children hopped up next to him, taking his tiny hands in theirs, talking and singing to him, delighted when he followed them with his eyes and appeared to smile at them.
At dinner, they talked until late, the Dwyers anxious to learn every scrap of information about their new country. The O’Malleys were even hungrier, asking for news of their relatives, more real in person than in the letters they read over and over until they could recite the sentiments by heart.
They fell into bed exhausted, oblivious to the sounds of a dozing city—men passing by on the street, their conversations punctuated by low laughter, the reassuring percussion of a horse pulling a long wagon through the street, and from a window somewhere nearby, the sweet female voice of a violin.
Liam went to work for O’Malley and Taormina as a laborer, digging foundations, pouring cement, carting two-by-fours, doing whatever work was needed. He was on fire to get ahead and would work any job, any hours. He was able to pay the rent to his cousins, eat better than they had in the old country, and still save money. His cousin showed him how to open an account at the Irish Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. Every Friday, when Liam was paid, he put fifty cents into an account. It was a pleasurable ritual for him to examine the growing columns in his bankbook, relishing the numbers that leaped up by a dollar every two weeks. He would rush home to Maeve, fling his cap on a hook in the kitchen, interrupt her baking or her washing, and insist she sit down and look over the bankbook with him.
“Twenty dollars!” he’d say, waving his hand in the air. “Better be thinkin’ about what kind of carriage ye’ll want to ride in.” Or “Thirty-two dollars!” he’d exult. “We’ll be buyin’ our own furniture next!”
She smiled as he hugged her. “I’m so proud of you, Liam.”
She loved Liam’s exuberance, a respite from the homesickness that plagued her. Where is the man I remember from Munster, she wondered. That man was nothing but a shadowy figure in her waking reveries. She treasured the letters from her parents and her sister, keeping them in a neat row in a box beside the bed, to read and re-read every day, her mind picturing every detail, the velvety green of the hills behind their cottage, so soft and welcoming you wanted to touch them, the way she would wake in the morning to the patter of spring rain upon the roof, the sight of her mother singing a lullaby to Dermot, her white hair touching his soft brown fuzz.
Maureen showed Maeve around the city, and soon she could find her way to the grocer and the butcher, but she could not get used to the crowds. People rushed everywhere, and she was always on her guard, protecting Dermot from thoughtless young men roughhousing in the street, or from things falling from windows—an orange that landed upon an unsuspecting old man’s head, or a flowerpot that crashed at the feet of a young girl as she skipped along. The noise made her long for quiet fields and country lanes.
And there was Dermot. Maeve knew that he was different. Slower. He was more than a year old before he sat up, and he still did not crawl or walk. He seldom cried or laughed. He had a placidness that Maureen knew was unnatural. After long talks with Maureen, she finally spoke to Liam, who at first was unconvinced.
“He’s just a quiet child, don’t be worryin’,” he said, but the more he observed Dermot, the more, in his heart, he knew. “Lord, how could ye do this to Maeve?” he questioned. Then the realization horrified him. The child was born the very night my brothers and I took the life of another. Was God exacting justice? Did my son’s lameness and mine add up to the life of another? If so, the only one to blame is me. He grew morose, drinking himself to sleep every night until Maeve sat at his feet one evening and tore at his heart.
“I left country and family to follow ye here,” she said. “Isn’t that love enough? Now it’s just the three of us. My heart is sore with worry about our child. I can’t bear to have the worry of you, too.”
He reached down and pulled her on his lap, cradling her, rocking her back and forth, feeling her slender frame beneath his strong arms, understanding for the first time what courage she had shown, and what love, to tear herself up at the roots and follow him to an unknown land. He was filled with remorse.
“Maeve, me darlin’,” he said, engulfing her hand in his large, work-worn fingers, “ye have me word. I’ll not be another burden to ye, only support.”
“I’d like to take Dermot to the doctor,” she said, looking a
t him tentatively.
“That’s the very thing. I’ll go with ye.”
Maeve threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, then settled back, her head resting against his neck. He could feel her body relax, and he stroked her hair, her face, her back. She moved closer to him, and they kissed, a kiss of invitation. He picked her up and carried her to the bed.
****
There was so much work for him, it took a month before Liam could get the time to accompany Maeve and Dermot to the doctor. They walked the ten blocks to the office of Dr. Chauncey Pettigrew.
“Chauncey Pettigrew.” Liam sniffed. “Couldn’t we find a doctor with a normal name like Sean or Patrick?”
“A doctor from the old sod is hard to find,” Maeve said. “He has another office uptown, for the wealthy, I heard, and he comes here two days a week.”
“To look down his nose on the poor Irish, no doubt.”
“Give the man a chance. He comes recommended by the neighbors, and Maureen took Tim there when he broke his leg sledding.”
The waiting room was crowded with patients, some coughing so strenuously that Maeve shielded Dermot, keeping him close to her chest. It was useless. When one left, he was replaced by another coughing as fiercely as the first. The crowd was like them, hard-working men and women with clothing neatly patched and hands toughened from toil. After waiting more than an hour, they were summoned into a small examining room with a table covered by a white sheet and a desk and chairs at the opposite end.
Liam immediately felt ill at ease with the man with haughty blue eyes, his mouth without a curve of humanity, drumming his fingers as Maeve explained the slowness she had observed in Dermot.
He checked the child thoroughly, particularly his eyes, ears, and head, and spoke to him, looking for a response, but to no avail.
“It’s hopeless,” he said unceremoniously, handing Dermot back to Maeve.
“Hopeless?” they said in unison.
“But good you came to me.” He stood, gesturing at them with his cigar.
“I know he needs help,” Maeve said, biting her lip.
Choices of the Heart Page 9