The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  I pointed down at Prosperine. “You want someone to blame? Blame this one down there on the floor who bites and spits like an animal!” Prosperine, on her hands and knees, was coughing and retching, as dazed as a beaten dog.

  Ignazia got up and helped her skinny friend to her feet. The Monkey groaned and stumbled, reached out for the chair to steady herself. When she turned and faced me, I saw I had knocked one of her front teeth clear away and loosened the other one. It hung there, soaked in red, half in her mouth and half outside of it. That monkey’s biting days were over. Her face looked like it had been hit with a ripe tomato.

  “Bruto!” my wife screamed at me. “Get out! Leave us alone!” She was shaking, shuddering, but would not shut up her mouth.

  “Silence yourself!” I ordered her. “Every neighbor on this street will hear you!”

  “Let them hear!” Ignazia shouted back. “Let them hear that my pezzo grosso of a husband helps the whole world, and then comes home and knocks the teeth out of the heads of innocent women!”

  “Innuccenti?” I shouted. “Innuccenti? Ha! She was going for the knife!” I waved my hand in front of Ignazia’s eyes to show her where the Monkey’s bite had broken the skin, but that hysterical wife of mine thought I moved to strike her, too. She dropped to her knees, flinching, wailing, and covering her head with her hands. “Don’t hit me, please! I beg of you, Domenico! Don’t hit! Don’t hit me!”

  “She had it coming!” I shouted. I told Ignazia to get up off the floor—that I would never harm her.

  She screamed that I had harmed her the night I married her and brought her to this prison of a house. She sobbed and shouted that she hated me and cursed a million times the day she had become my wife!

  I had not struck her once since that first night—had provided nothing but the best for her and for the child, too. But Ignazia appreciated none of it.

  I started to leave the room. I meant to get the hell out of there and go upstairs to smoke and calm myself. But I wanted that troublemaking bitch out of my house by the time I came downstairs again. I went back to the dining room and made that clear to them both. And when I left the room the second time, I gave the door a good, hard slam.

  But it was a dull sound I heard, not a slam. Something had stopped that. For a second, there was a horrible, terrible silence. And then the shrieking began. The girl’s little hand had been gripping the door frame. I had slammed the door on Concettina’s five little fingers!

  Orribile! Terribile! But it was too late—could not be undone. It had been accidente, but above the child’s screaming and Ignazia’s howls of protest, I could not even speak my regret. Could not get near the child to see what damage the Monkey’s defiance had made come to pass. So I stormed upstairs, slammed my bedroom door, and pulled the bureau in front of it.

  All over the house, doors slammed, women and children wailed.

  Ten, fifteen minutes later, from the upstairs hallway window, I watched the three of them, hunched forward, escaping down the street. Ignazia led the way. That fancy baby carriage I had let her buy was piled high with their belongings. The girl’s hand was bundled in white bandages. Prosperine held the child’s other hand and held a cloth to her own mouth. They marched away from my house with such determination that their feet were a blur. Those two knew how to run away, all right! They had had plenty of practice in the Old Country. But they would not go far.

  I knew where they were headed, if they were not running next door to Tusia’s wife. Where else in town would they go except to Signora Siragusa’s? . . . I didn’t chase after my wife. Better to let her go than to make a scene that every last ‘Mericano on Hollyhock Avenue could watch from the window. Each morning at breakfast, Ignazia told me what household expenses she needed money for that day and I counted out what she needed. Nothing extra. She could not have had more than a few dollars in coin. Let her stay away, I thought. She’ll be back. She’ll be back on her hands and knees as soon as she sees how far she gets without Tempesta.

  That night, alone in my house, I tried to scrub away Prosperine’s blood from the dining room. I got most of it out of the rug, but it had dried fast to the wallpaper and the tablecloth—had left brown stains as permanent as the dye we used at the mill. I pulled that cloth from the table and burned it in the ash barrel up in the backyard. Then I came back inside and moved the sideboard over from the other wall so that it covered the stained wallpaper.

  I rang and rang my friend Josephine’s telephone number but there was no answer. No one to comfort a poor man who only wanted a little peace and quiet in his own home on Sunday after church—a man who was no brute but had a monkey on his back.

  All night long, I lay in my bed, unable to sleep, though I needed my rest for the next night’s work. Had the child’s fingers been broken, or only bruised? Had Ignazia meant what she said—that she had cursed a million times the day she had married me? If I went to see Father Guglielmo, I knew what he would say. He would tell me to forgive Prosperine for nearly biting off my hand—for reaching for a knife she was probably getting ready to stick through my heart. Forgive them both, he would say, and beg their forgiveness! Humble yourself, Domenico! Write it all down for penance!

  I got out of bed, took the strongbox out of the upstairs closet, and brought it down to the kitchen table. I took out the pages I had written already, read them over, and tried to continue my reflection. But it was no use. I was shaken, still, by the remembered sound of Concettina’s screaming. I saw that other one’s teeth marks on the hand that held the pen. Saw her filthy mucus sliding down the face of my silver medaglia. . . . I was not finished with that one yet. Once and for all, I would rid myself of that murdering mingia that had stolen the name of a dead girl and come to America to ruin my life!

  By midweek, I was fed up with my wife’s little game of hide-and-seek. After work that morning, I walked over to Signora Siragusa’s to reclaim my famiglia.

  The old signora tried to scold me for what I had done to Prosperine and her teeth, but I pushed away the knotty finger that the old nonna shook in front of my face. “Better keep still, old woman,” I warned her. “Your complaining was the thing that started the trouble in my house. Go upstairs and tell my wife to gather her things. I order her to come home now.”

  Signora Siragusa sighed and made the sign of the cross, then hobbled up the staircase. A few minutes later, she came back down again. “She told you to go away,” the signora reported. “She said she’d rather rip out her heart than look at you again.”

  The workday had begun; the boardinghouse tenants had all gone off to their jobs. There was no one around to hear Tempesta business. I walked past the signora and called up the stairwell to my wife.

  “Better come down now, Violetta! . . . Before there is trouble, Violetta!”

  Violetta? The signora stared at me with a puzzled look and I stared back at her until she shook her head and went off to her kitchen. My wife appeared at the top of the stairs. Came down five, six steps and stopped. The girl came, too—hiding behind her mother’s skirts.

  Ignazia’s face was pale, her eyes as big as a deer’s eyes. Her hand reached behind her, holding on to the girl as if she would protect her from me.

  “Fingers broken?” I asked.

  Ignazia shook her head. “No thanks to you!” she said.

  “You are my wife,” I reminded Ignazia. “Get your things and come home where you belong. I am tired of this foolishness.”

  She shook her head once more, held the child closer still.

  I told her I tolerated no defiance from my workers at the woolen plant and I would tolerate no more from her, either. Ignazia said I could drop to my knees and beg, but she would never go back to a home where women and children were not safe from monsters.

  “The girl’s hand was hurt accidentally,” I reminded her. “And as for that skinny friend of yours, it is she who is the monster in my house. That crazy bitch has always been between us—has always made trouble for you and me. But now tha
t’s finished. I forbid her from entering my home ever again. And tell her for me that I mean business when I say it. Now, go get your things. If I have to, I’ll take hold of your ear and pull you all the way up Hollyhock Avenue.”

  Trembling, she told me I would not touch her ear or any other part of her. She and Prosperine had talked through the night, she said. They were leaving town.

  “And going where?” I laughed. “Back to New York with two ‘brothers’ who couldn’t wait to sell you off? Back with that penniless mama’s boy of a redhead who still drinks from his mother’s tit?”

  I needn’t worry about her, she said. She had found her way in the world before and she could do it again.

  “You’ll come back in a week with your tail between your legs,” I said. “Until then, tell me what I am supposed to do for meals and clean clothes?”

  “What do I care what you do? Have that puttana ‘Mericana from downtown do your dirty work for all I care—that segretaria with the blond hair and the fat cula!” Ignazia’s knowledge of my little private business with Josephine Reynolds shocked me. And yet, as that defiant wife of mine threw my friendship with the secretary into my face, I softened to her. I thought I saw in her eyes the indignation of a jealous wife—a wife who wanted her husband to herself.

  “It is you I love,” I said. “You I have always wanted. But when a wife denies her husband what he needs, he has to go somewhere else. That secretary means nothing. Come back to our bed again and I’ll tell her to go to hell.”

  Fat tears fell from her eyes. Concettina stared, wide-eyed. “You go to hell, you brute!” Ignazia said. “You’d put me in a coffin to satisfy your own dirty pleasure! Fill me up with your pig snot so that I might bear you another child and die!” With that, she turned, picked up the girl, and pounded back up the stairs. Concettina peeked down at me from over her mother’s shoulder.

  Next afternoon, I was awakened from my daytime sleep by the ringing of the front bell. I put on my pants and went down the stairs, and when I opened the front door, Signora Siragusa was on the other side. She looked ancient and shrunken—a little afraid. She had some news, she said. Like beggars, Ignazia and Prosperine had been pestering her boarders and had finally managed to borrow money from one of them. (The signora herself had refused them, she said; she told Ignazia that wives should stay at home and put up with their husbands.) Now the two women were inquiring about trolley rides to the railroad station in New London. They were planning to take the Saturday evening train bound for New York.

  I myself took the trolley to New London on Saturday—the early one, not the one that would carry the two fugitives later that evening. Lucky for me, they had planned their escape on a day when I would miss no work at the mill.

  I got to the train station three hours early. The wait gave me more than enough time to buy a steak dinner and to walk around and think and finally to chat with the young policeman on duty at the station. I told him I was there to pick up my cousins who were visiting from Providence. They were arriving on the train headed for New York, I said, but I had mixed up the arrival time, ha ha. I learned all about his family and his police work and even had time to treat Officer Stupido to two cups of coffee and a plate of pork chops. By the time I looked up and saw Ignazia, Prosperine, and the girl coming through the front door of the station, that agente di polizia and I were the best of friends.

  “Scusa,” I told him. “I see the wife of a friend of mine across the floor. She looks troubled about something. Would you wait here, please, while I see if there’s a little problem? I don’t want to alarm her if it’s nothing.”

  He shrugged and said he was going nowhere until ten o’clock. “Just wave me over if you need me,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  I approached them as they crossed the crowded lobby, heading with their bags toward the outside platform. “Better come home now, Ignazia!” I called out.

  They pivoted toward the sound of my voice. Prosperine muttered a curse.

  “My friend, the police officer over there by the ticket window, is waiting for a sign from me,” I said. Their frightened eyes followed my finger to the policeman, who tipped his cap and waited. “Come with me or you’ll give me no choice. I’ll have to call him over here.”

  “Call him over then,” Ignazia said. “Call him over and tell him what you do to women and children.” But the trembling in her voice gave her away. The child shook in her arms. “Papa?”

  Waiting for their arrival, I had filled my pockets with sweets. I walked closer to the girl and spoke softly to her, handing her chocolates and peppermints. I whispered next to the girl’s mother. “Maybe I’ll tell that police officer instead about life in the Old Country—about a dead artiste and a fishmonger’s daughter named Violetta.”

  Outside on the track, a whistle blew. The train rumbled in from Rhode Island. All around us, travelers picked up bags and packages, hugged loved ones, and headed for the back door of the station.

  Prosperine snatched my wife’s hand and pulled her toward the others. “Fretta!” she commanded. “Fretta, before it’s too late! If we don’t get on now, we’ll never be rid of him.”

  Ignazia let the other one lead her for a few steps, then stopped and looked over her shoulder at the policeman. Her face was pale, twisted with fear.

  “My friend the policeman and I have a little arrangement,” I said. “The minute I give him the signal, he comes over to see what the trouble is. Come home with me, Ignazia, and there is no trouble. Get on that train and you’ll end up in a jail cell back in Pescara. You will never see the child again if I speak up. I promise you that. Better make your decision now.”

  “Don’t listen to his bluffing!” Prosperine barked at her. She grabbed Concettina’s hand and pulled her toward the train. “New York is a big place! Fretta!”

  Ignazia moved to follow the Monkey and the child, then stopped to watch my waving arm, the policeman’s nod on the opposite side of the station floor. She dropped the packages she was holding and clasped her head with both hands. “Fishmongers? Dead men? I don’t even know what that crazy talk means!” she cried.

  The Monkey locked her jaw, pulled at her arm. Concettina cried for her mother.

  “It means,” I said, “that a painter died before his time from swallowing glass and lead.”

  “No! Stop it, now!” Ignazia begged me. “Stop it!”

  Outside, a whistle screamed. The Monkey got out the door, still holding on to the child, running now toward the train. Ignazia grabbed the bags and ran after them.

  I signaled to that policeman to hurry. In a loud voice, I called to them as they pushed past others to board the train. “I’m talking about two murdering women who escaped from their sin and ran to America with false passports!”

  Travelers clogging the steps up to the train turned back to stare and whisper.

  “Look, Violetta!” I called. “Here comes the policeman! He’s coming to get you.”

  Ignazia’s head snapped back. She gave a little gasp. “Don’t listen!” Prosperine shouted. “Fretta!”

  “Yes, hurry, Violetta!” I called to my wife. “Hurry and get on that train. By the time you arrive in New York, I promise you, the authorities will be waiting for you at Grand Central Station. I swear it. Easier to deport you from New York—to take the child away and ship you back to Pescara where they hunger to punish a murderous wife!”

  The train’s wheels began slowly to roll. Prosperine, clutching child and baggage, stepped up onto the train. The whistle blew again. Ignazia was sobbing, running alongside. “Fretta!” Prosperine screamed. “Step up! Step up!”

  The conductor warned Ignazia either to climb aboard that second or get away from the train. Prosperine reached out her hand. Ignazia took the Monkey’s hand and climbed up. Then she snatched the child back in her arms and jumped down again.

  “I cannot! I cannot!” Ignazia screamed to the other one, backing away. “He will take away my daughter! I cannot!”

  Prosperine
shook her fist at me, shouted filth.

  “Better shut up and escape while you can, you toothless bitch!” I shouted back to her, running alongside the train to make sure she heard. “Better disappear from my sight or I will make sure you spend your days and nights in prison while you wait to die and go to Hell where you belong!”

  Ignazia stood on the platform, rocking the child in her arms and sobbing, moaning as the other one rode away. “I cannot! I cannot! I cannot!”

  I held up my hand and stopped the approaching policeman.

  My wife, the girl, and I went back home.

  44

  I spent the next several weeks tying up loose ends on Thomas’s stuff, checking in with Doc Patel, and watching too much baseball. The Red Sox, mostly: bunch of bigger hopeless cases than I was. In between innings, I was trying to figure out my future.

  Wake up, Birdsey, I kept telling myself. It’s May. Every other painter in town’s already out there. Then I’d reach for the remote and locate a game, list my excuses. It was like those grief books said: you didn’t get over a brother’s death right away—an identical twin’s, especially. . . . Going up and down on ladders all day was going to put a lot of stress on my foot and ankle again. I’d paid good money for workmen’s comp insurance; might as well use it until it ran out.

  Truth was, I’d never loved housepainting. I’d fallen into it running away from teaching. Guys who’d started after me, younger painters, were contracting a lot of their jobs now. Danny Jankowski employed four guys, two of them full-time. He’d called me a while back, said he heard I might be bailing and wondered if I wanted to sell my power-washing equipment. The vultures were already swarming.

  But painting houses wasn’t unsatisfying work. You had your good karma jobs, your decent clients. It felt pretty good when you drove away on that last day, paid in full, having restored a little color to someone’s shit-brown life.

  But this was part of the trouble: I still saw Henry Rood’s face up there in that window. Still felt myself falling. Jankowski had said he’d need an answer about the power washer by the end of the week. That’d been two weeks ago.