by Gay Talese
32.
IT was after seven p.m. as the train headed across the swamplands of northern New Jersey toward the Pennsylvania border, and Joseph saw nothing through the window except his own reflection and that of an elderly fur-coated woman who sat next to him on the aisle reading a book. Several people were standing, a few carrying brightly wrapped packages. The railcar was not so well appointed and clean as the one he had ridden several months earlier through Italy and France, but he was more excited now than he had been when en route to Paris; Philadelphia had been his father’s favorite city, and Joseph sensed within himself for the first time some of his father’s spirit of adventure and independence.
After several stops, the train moved through a tunnel, then slowed down as it rolled into a steel-girdered enclosure, yellowishly lit by hanging lamps; then it came to a halt. The passengers stood and gathered their belongings from the overhead racks, and Joseph followed the others out of the car and up a long ramp that led to the marble floor of a huge hall that seemed to be larger, and certainly more festive, than the one on Ellis Island. A chorus of women dressed in blue capes and bonnets sang Christmas carols near the information booth, accompanied by uniformed men playing trumpets and trombones. Someone dressed as Santa Claus was ringing a bell and soliciting donations next to a thirty-foot-high Christmas tree in the center of the rotunda, and everywhere Joseph looked he saw people greeting each other with embraces and handshakes. Behind him he heard a voice asking somewhat tentatively, in Italian, “You are Gaetano’s son?” Turning, Joseph saw a tall gray-haired man examining him with much curiosity. He wore a black homburg and a black overcoat with a white carnation in the lapel. Before Joseph could reply, the man said: “But of course you are.” He stepped forward, introduced himself as Carlo Donato, and kissed Joseph on both cheeks.
“I’m sorry there was no one to meet you at Ellis Island,” Mr. Donato said. “Your letter arrived only a few days ago, and your uncles could not get away from their jobs in Ambler today. Tomorrow the plant is closed, and they’ll come and bring you back with them. But tonight you are my guest.” He took the suitcase out of Joseph’s hand. “And many people are waiting to greet you. Come, we must get a taxi while we can.”
He escorted Joseph outside toward a taxi stand under the porte cochère of the building. A driver waved to them and opened a door, but just as Joseph was about to step in he was delayed momentarily by Donato’s hand on his shoulder. Donato then unpinned the number 6 tag from Joseph’s cap, crumpled it, and tossed it into a curbside trashcan. “Now nobody will notice that you’re not an American,” he announced, smiling as he waved Joseph into the backseat of the vehicle.
It was a thirty-minute ride through the traffic downtown to the Italian area of South Philadelphia. Along the way, in addition to pointing out a few unlit landmarks and statues that Joseph had difficulty seeing through the smudgy side windows of the cab, Donato spoke about his old-time friendship with Joseph’s father.
“We shared a little apartment before your father got married,” he said. “He didn’t want to live among the Italians, he wanted to live close to the train station we just left, because he was always on the go. He made many trips back and forth to Italy, as you know, and before one of these trips I sent along a letter that arranged for him to meet a cousin of mine, Marian Rocchino. That’s how she became your mother.” Joseph thought that Donato would probably inquire about his mother’s health and welfare, or about Sebastian’s condition, but he did not, and Joseph was relieved and pleased as Mr. Donato went on about his father. “We’d first met as stonemasons on a big job in Ambler, and we lived in a boardinghouse there for a while. When the job ended we moved here to an apartment I’ll show you someday. I know the old couple who now live in it. Your father liked working with stone, but I hated it. He liked moving from job to job, and not staying very long in one place. I liked regularity. He traveled all the time, as I said, and once, I remember, he went out to California or Mexico. I don’t know what for. Me, I’ve never been farther away from Philadelphia than Delaware since I came here off the boat, back in 1888. I was a foreman on a job in Delaware when your father got married in Maida, and then he came back alone to Philadelphia, and stayed in the apartment by himself …” Donato paused. Something seemed to be troubling him, and he remained silent for a few moments, squinting as he tried to see through the rain-streaked windows. Then he said something in English to the driver.
With the windshield wipers on, Joseph had a clearer view of the street. The driver had just circled around a tall granite building that had flags in front, and across the street he saw a large store whose display windows blazed with light, and a theater marquee nearby with an illustration of a woman painted on the signboard. It was after eleven p.m.; motor vehicles and horse carriages were moving everywhere, and the sidewalks were filled with pedestrians. This was obviously an important avenue—not wide and elegant like most boulevards in Paris, but zestful in the way of the streets in the center of Naples.
“Finally I quit working outdoors and found something easier to do,” Donato went on in Italian, as the cabbie took a right turn and soon entered a narrow street that was lined on both sides by brick houses with white stone steps, all looking exactly the same. “I became an embalmer’s assistant. I started this about twenty years ago, a few blocks from here. We’re in the Italian area now, and these people never move. They live here and die here. They are thrifty all their lives and then spend fortunes on funerals. I should know. I have my own funeral business now. I also have relatives in the business.”
The taxi stopped in front of the white steps of one of the row houses. It had a Christmas wreath on the door, a bit larger than the wreaths on the houses flanking it. The driver placed the suitcase on the sidewalk, and as Donato was paying the fare Joseph became aware that people were looking in his direction from behind the drawn draperies of the upper- and parlor-floor windows on both sides of the street. As the cab pulled away, the door of the house nearest to him opened and a group of men and women came rushing down the steps toward him, all speaking at once as they took turns kissing him on both cheeks and welcoming him to America. Donato introduced them. Everyone was surnamed Donato.
Other people awaited Joseph inside, relatives and friends of the Donatos and also natives of Maida. As they embraced him, a few claimed distant kinships with both sides of his family in Italy. The parlor seemed too small to contain everyone. Some people were backed into one corner against the branches of the Christmas tree. Others stood perilously close to the mantel, on which were spread ceramic figurines and a gold-trimmed glazed white vase filled with ceramic roses. The blue velvet sofa and matching chairs, in which no one was sitting, had white linen doilies on the backs and armrests. The only person in the room who was close to Joseph’s age was a niece of Carlo Donato’s named Carmela, a friendly, somewhat plump young woman with braided dark hair and large sparkling eyes. Carmela’s kiss of salutation had lasted a bit longer than customary and was planted rather close to Joseph’s lips—prompting a frown and shake of the head from the dignified-looking man standing behind her. Joseph assumed he was her father.
Behind the parlor, and separated from it by sliding doors, was the dining room. The doors were partly open and Joseph noticed an oak table with chairs around it and a crystal bowl in the center. There were no place settings, however, for dinner would be served in the more spacious quarters downstairs, where Joseph was soon led by Mr. Donato—after he had been taken to the top floor to put away his things and see the bathroom, of which his host was unreservedly proud. He heralded it as the first indoor bathroom on the block.
Three tables of slightly varying heights were pushed together and covered with tablecloths, and thus fifteen people were accommodated for dinner in the converted basement, although not everyone ate. A white-haired man from across the street, complaining of dyspepsia, limited himself to drinking anisette. Two other neighbors, a white-haired couple who had introduced themselves as distant cousins of Jo
seph’s grandfather Domenico, explained politely that they had already eaten (it was now past midnight), but they helped themselves freely to the sugary fried zeppole and other dulcified holiday specialties. What they did not finish they handed to the two toddlers in high chairs, who either finished it or dropped it on the floor.
“How’s your grandmother Ippolita getting along?” asked one middle-aged woman who wore a black dress and tiny gold earrings, as she placed a carafe of red wine on the table.
“She’s very well,” Joseph replied.
“But she’s had problems with bursitis all year,” added another woman, who explained that she had spoken to someone who had arrived recently from Maida. “She’s had to see Dr. Mancini in Jacurso.”
“Domenico is not much better,” Carlo Donato said from one end of the table. “I hear he can’t get out of the house.”
Joseph had known none of this. Nor was he sure he wanted to. Fortunately, the food began to arrive, and the conversation lightened with celebrations of the aroma.
The cooking was done on a large coal-burning stove, and before the food was served, the plates were kept warm atop a stone ledge in front of the fireplace. Hanging above the mantel, in addition to the crucifix and picture of Saint Francis, were framed photographs of Carlo and his late wife. Joseph had not realized until midway through dinner that Carlo was a widower, and that the jovial gray-haired woman wearing a maroon silk dress and circular earrings, who was acting as hostess, was Carlo’s spinster sister. The other women helping out were younger and dark-haired, perhaps in their mid-thirties or early forties, but very matronly in manner and solemnly attired in dark brown or black dresses, with their hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of the neck. Two of them were married to younger cousins of Carlo’s, who wore carnations on the lapels of their gray suits; like Carlo, they were undertakers. There was also a tailor at the table named Raphael Donato, who wore a handsome light brown worsted suit and a red cravat with a stickpin below the rounded collar of his white shirt. Carlo had explained privately to Joseph upstairs that Raphael was a ladies’ tailor with the large local firm of Strawbridge & Clothier, and that perhaps he would help Joseph find a job. Joseph hoped this would happen, but during dinner he found Raphael very aloof and uncommunicative. Joseph sat directly across from him, on Carlo’s right, but Raphael avoided making eye contact. It was Raphael who had frowned earlier on witnessing Carmela’s warm greeting; Joseph by this time was sure Raphael was her father.
Carmela had been too preoccupied during dinner to pay further attention to Joseph; she carried dishes back and forth, stoked the fire, and tended to the toddlers—the children of her oldest sister, who was elsewhere this evening with her husband. At one-thirty, when her sister and brother-in-law had still not returned, Carmela took the sleeping children upstairs. Joseph himself was exhausted, having been up since dawn; but he knew he could not politely leave the table. Presumably he was the reason everyone was here, although the conversation now largely excluded him, and was centered around people and matters that he could not readily follow. The man on Joseph’s right, a chef in a neighborhood restaurant, was complaining about the inability of Italian-born waiters to get jobs in the restaurants of the city’s leading hotels. One of the younger morticians blamed the waiters themselves for this, saying that they spoke broken English and shunned the union organizers. Carlo denounced the union as anti-Italian, but his cousin reminded him of the role many Italians had played as strikebreakers since coming to America. Joseph wished he could find a way to ingratiate himself with Raphael and perhaps receive an offer of help toward his own employment; but Raphael remained as before, listening with detachment, saying very little, and ignoring Joseph.
The last of the fettuccine, the sole, and most of the vegetables had now been consumed; and the women were removing the plates and bringing to the table bowls of fruit, trays of pastry, and more wine. Carmela had returned from upstairs and was now carrying a bowl filled with several pieces of finocchio, fennel, to the table. She placed it in front of her father Raphael, ignoring the stern look he was giving her. Her long shiny hair, which had been pulled back in a braid, was now hanging loosely around her shoulders and down the back of her white blouse. Her tan wool skirt fit snugly around her hips, and she moved with a hint of boldness that was uncommon in young Italian women. Joseph guessed that she had been born and brought up in the United States.
After pouring herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the table, Carmela took a seat by herself at the far end, where before she had sat next to the children’s high chairs. The women who had been seated near her were now toweling dishes and scrubbing pots in the kitchen, which was separated by a screen from the dining area. Joseph had smelled Carmela’s fragrance as she passed behind him; and after keeping his attention on the men momentarily, he slowly turned toward her. She was lifting the cup to her lips, and her lively eyes above the rim seemed to be searching him out. They looked at one another for only a second, but in that second she smiled lightly and winked.
Joseph turned immediately back to the men gathered on his side of the table, relieved that none of them had seemed to notice. Carlo and one of the other morticians were arguing, cracking open two chestnuts simultaneously in their palms as they talked, while the other men drank wine and interrupted frequently. Except for Raphael, all the men had loosened their neckties and had their jackets hanging on the back of their chairs. Raphael sipped his wine and reached for a knob of fennel; he peeled away a stalk and bit into it daintily as he nodded in agreement with something Carlo had said.
Joseph again shifted his attention back to Carmela. She placed the coffee cup back on the saucer and returned his glance. Once more, she winked. Pleased, he did not look away; and he was about to smile at her, when suddenly he noticed her expression turn fearful and saw her raising her hands as if to protect her face. Something flew through the air and hit Carmela squarely on the forehead, driving her backward. It was a knob of fennel, shaped like a hand grenade, and after it hit her it landed on the coffee cup, breaking it, and rolled to the floor. There was absolute silence. The women appeared from behind the screen. The men who had been arguing sat rigidly with their hands in the air, their mouths open. Raphael sat behind the bowl of fennel, his face red, his temples throbbing, his eyes looking at the floor. Carmela, touching her forehead, glared across the table at him.
“Oh, my poor child,” Carlo’s sister cried out, heading in from the kitchen, but Carmela waved her back.
“Let me be,” she insisted, and the older woman stepped back. Carlo, forcing a smile, tried to make light of the incident, but the others remained silent. Hardly anyone knew what had happened; they sensed only that it was a private matter between Raphael and Carmela, one in which they should not intrude. Soon Carlo and the man with whom he had been arguing continued their discussion in a softer tone. Another man filled up Raphael’s empty wineglass. The women resumed their activities in the kitchen. Joseph left the table and approached Carmela.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, but there were tears in her eyes.
Joseph picked up the piece of fennel and placed it on the table. With his napkin, he gathered the broken pieces of the cup and placed them in the saucer. The cup had been practically empty and there were only a few coffee stains on the tablecloth.
Joseph turned when he heard footsteps behind him. A young couple entered the room, apologizing for being so late—they had remained long at a party—and begging forgiveness from everyone in the room. Carlo and his sister came forward to greet them, other people waved and stood up, and Carmela also rose and soon introduced Joseph to her sister and brother-in-law. The latter wore a tuxedo, and Carmela’s sister, who wore a long dress with sequins and had her hair bobbed in the style of the American women Joseph had seen on the boat, explained that they had been to a wedding in New Jersey. Carmela’s sister was skinny, mousy-haired; as far as Joseph could see, she bore absolutely no resemblance to Carmela.
&nbs
p; Joseph remained for a few minutes, but could barely keep his eyes open. He offered a word of explanation to Carlo, who summoned everyone’s attention in a final toast to the young Talese’s arrival in America; to which Joseph expressed his thanks before waving good night and going upstairs to bed.
——
Joseph slept soundly on the cot that had been placed in the small room in the rear of the third floor; and he might have slept through the day had not Carlo, fully dressed and smelling of cologne, awakened him with word that his uncles were waiting for him downstairs. The Rocchino brothers had been there for more than an hour, Carlo explained, and were eager to catch the noon train back to Ambler.
Joseph dressed hurriedly, strapped up his suitcase, and drank the coffee that Carlo had brought up to him. No one except Carlo was in the living room when Joseph came down—the others were asleep—and his uncles were waiting for him out on the sidewalk, next to the open door of a cab. He remembered seeing them off at the Maida train station earlier in the year, when they were leaving for America. Like most of the Rocchinos, they were not tall, and Joseph straightened with pride as he recalled he had always been told he physically resembled his father’s side of the family. He was not sure which uncle was Anthony and which was Gregory, for on those infrequent occasions when he had seen them, he had never seen them separately. He still considered it remarkable that his mother’s brothers, to whom he had never been close, had become his benefactors with their five-hundred-dollar loan and were now escorting him toward his first American home.
Embracing him, they seemed genuinely glad to see him, although he immediately saw them as changed somewhat from the blithesome travelers he had watched leaving Maida; in less than a year, they had become noticeably older, and slower in the way they moved. Although they were presentable enough in appearance, there was a dustiness about their dark eyebrows and rather delicate pastel features—they were fair-complected, unlike his mother—and the overcoat worn by one of them was threadbare around the elbows and cuffs. They certainly were no match for the cologne-scented, precisely pressed mortician who had just wished him well at the curb; but as the cab headed toward the rail terminal, Joseph sat contentedly between his uncles, eagerly anticipating the start of his new life in America.