The Shoemaker's Wife

by Adriana Trigiani

  “Height?” the nurse asked in Italian.

  “Six foot two,” Ciro answered.

  “Weight?”

  “One hundred and ninety pounds,” he said.

  “Markings?”

  “None.”

  “Whooping cough?”

  “No.”

  “Dysentery?”

  “No.”

  As the nurse rattled off every illness on her list, Ciro realized he’d never been sick as a child. Sister Teresa had shored him up with egg creams and chestnut paste.

  The nurse flipped the page on her clipboard. “Teeth?”

  “My own.”

  The nurse smiled. Ciro grinned back at her.

  “And fine teeth they are,” she said.

  The doctor listened to Ciro’s heart with a stethoscope, asking Ciro to move his money pouch to the side to give him access. He asked Ciro to take a deep breath and listened from the back. He checked Ciro’s eyes with a small light, and his neck with his fingers. “Move him through,” the doctor said in English.

  Ciro moved through the metal gates to the next line. He heard attending officers asking the immigrants simple questions: Where are you from? How much is six plus six? Where does the sun rise? Where does it set? Some of the immigrants became rattled, afraid to answer incorrectly. Ciro saw that remaining calm was half the battle to earn your papers. He took a deep breath.

  The attending officer looked over his paperwork, then up at Ciro. He walked Ciro to a holding pen. Ciro began to sweat, knowing that this was a bad sign. He waved at Luigi, who had progressed only a few feet from where he started. There were at least twenty people in front of Luigi who still needed their medical exam. Luigi waved back, helpless to assist.

  What if Don Gregorio had figured out the nuns’ plan and contacted U.S. immigration? Suddenly Ciro felt like the young orphan he was. There was no one to help, nowhere he could turn. If he were banished again, rejected from American soil, there was no telling where he would be sent, and he was certain Eduardo would never find him.

  They were advised aboard ship to never leave the line at Ellis Island, and to try to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Never get in an argument. Never push or shove. Keep your head down and your voice low. Agree to all conditions, and accommodate all requests. The goal at Ellis Island was to process through without incident and make it back into Manhattan as quickly as possible. Immigration had a thousand reasons to turn you away, from the rasp of a dry cough to a suspicious answer about your ultimate destination. You didn’t want to make it easy for a coldhearted processing agent in a gray coat to send you right back to Italy.

  Ciro’s heart raced as the immigration officer returned with another officer to speak with him.

  “Signor Lazzari?” the second officer said, in perfect Italian.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Andiamo,” he said sternly.

  The officer led Ciro into a small room with a table and two chairs. A poster of the United States flag hung on the windowless wall. The officer indicated that Ciro should take a seat. The officer spoke perfect Italian, though Ciro saw that the name on his jacket was American.

  “Signor Lazzari,” he said.

  “Signor Anderson.” Ciro nodded. “What have I done?” he said, looking down at his hands.

  “I don’t know. What have you done?”

  “Nothing, sir,” Ciro replied. Then, noticing the officer’s gaze on his coal-gray hands, he quickly added, “I worked in the pit on the SS Chicago on my way over.”

  Signor Anderson pulled Sister Ercolina’s letter from a file folder. As he read over it, Ciro panicked. “So you know the sisters of San Nicola,” the officer said.

  The poor sisters had tried to do right by Ciro, but instead, it seemed, they had attracted the attention of this wolf in the gray uniform. “I grew up in their orphanage,” Ciro admitted.

  “The diocese here in New York received a telegram. You’re on our list.”

  Ciro swallowed, certain the telegram was from Don Gregorio. After this long trip working in the furnace in hellish heat, all was for naught. Ciro would be plucked from the group and deported. He would end up in the work camp after all. “Where am I to be sent?” he asked quietly.

  “Sent? You just got here, didn’t you? Those nuns wired the archbishop some kind of character reference. You’re to be processed as quickly as possible.” Signor Anderson made notes inside the file.

  In one miraculous moment, Ciro realized that Signor Anderson wasn’t the enemy; he wasn’t going to send him back to Italy to the work camp. “Thank you, Signore,” Ciro said.

  “You have to change your name.” He gave Ciro a list and said, “Choose.”

  Brown

  Miller

  Jones

  Smith

  Collins

  Blake

  Lewis

  “Take Lewis. It’s an L name like yours.”

  Ciro glanced over the names and handed the list back to Mr. Anderson. “Will you send me back if I don’t change my name?”

  “They won’t be able to pronounce your name here, kid.”

  “Sir, if they can say spaghetti, they can pronounce Lazzari.”

  Signor Anderson tried not to laugh. “Scoliaferrantella was my name,” he said. “I had no choice.”

  “What province are you from, Signore?” Ciro asked.

  “Roma.”

  “My brother Eduardo just entered the Sant’Agostino Seminary there. He’s going to become a priest. So you see,” Ciro continued, “if I give up my name, it will die. It’s only my brother and me in the world. I don’t want to lose Lazzari.”

  Signor Anderson leaned back in his chair. He fixed his eyeglasses on his prominent nose. His thick eyebrows arched as he asked, “Who is your sponsor?”

  “Remo Zanetti of Thirty-six Mulberry Street.”

  “And your trade?”

  “I’m a shoemaker’s apprentice.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  The officer stamped Ciro’s documents for entry into the United States. The name Lazzari remained on Ciro’s paperwork. “You may go. Return to the ferry line on the slip, and it will take you across to Manhattan.”

  Ciro held his paperwork in his hand, stamped with fresh midnight blue ink. He had everything he needed to start his new life. Part of gratitude is sharing one’s good fortune, and Ciro felt compelled to do so. “Signor Anderson, I don’t want to be any trouble,” he began.

  The officer looked up at Ciro with a look of bemused irritation. Didn’t this young man understand that he was lucky? He had gotten through Ellis Island without a hitch, even his Italian surname was intact.

  “Could you help my friend? His name is Luigi Latini. He worked in the furnace room with me. He’s a good man. His parents made a match, and he needs to catch the train to Ohio to meet the girl. He’s afraid if he doesn’t get there in time, she’ll marry someone else.”

  Anderson rolled his eyes. “Where is he?”

  “Line three. In the back.”

  “Wait here,” Anderson said. He took the file and left Ciro alone in the room.

  Ciro reached into his pocket and pulled out the medal Sister Teresa had given him as a parting gift. He kissed the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ciro hadn’t found religion, but he knew to be grateful. Ciro sat back and inhaled the sweet scent of the polished oak of the walls. This room was ten times the size of his cell in steerage. Space, square footage, width and height, these were the things Ciro would remember about the passage from Italy to America.

  Luigi Latini entered with Officer Anderson, his face the same pale gray hue as their immigration papers.

  “Don’t worry, Luigi. Officer Anderson is here to help us,” Ciro said to Luigi as he took a seat next to him.

  “Are you a good Catholic too, Signor Latini?” Officer Anderson smiled.

  “Si, si,” Luigi said, looking at Ciro.

  “I’m glad you didn’t ask me that question, Officer An
derson.” Ciro grinned.

  When the officer concluded his line of questions, Ciro said, “Luigi doesn’t want to be a Lewis either.”

  “You want to keep your name too?” Signor Anderson asked.

  “May I?” Luigi looked at Ciro and then at the officer.

  Officer Anderson stamped Luigi’s papers. “You boys behave yourselves,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing them each a stick of gum.

  “What is this, sir?” Ciro asked.

  “Chewing gum.”

  Luigi and Ciro looked at one another, then down at the small foil-covered rectangles.

  “You never had it?”

  The boys shook their heads. Ciro remembered Massimo Zito said that redheads chewed gum.

  “It’s very American. Like hot dogs and cigarettes. Try it.”

  The boys unwrapped the gum, placing the pink slices in their mouths.

  “Now chew.”

  The boys commenced chewing. Sweet bursts of clove filled their mouths. “Don’t swallow the gum. You’ll get worms. That’s what my wife says, anyhow.” He laughed.

  Ciro took one last look at the registry hall as he left with Luigi. For the rest of his life, Ciro would admire the classic lines and grand scale of American architecture. Beyond the buildings, beyond this port city, he imagined there were acres to farm, plenty of coal to mine, steel to weld, tracks to lay, and roads to build. There was a job for every man who wanted to work. Luckily for Ciro, every one of those men would need a pair of shoes. Ciro was beginning to understand the concept of America, and it was changing his view of the world and of himself. A man could think clearly in a place that gave breadth to his dreams.

  There were all manners of souvenirs and trinkets for sale when Ciro and Luigi disembarked from the ferry into the port of lower Manhattan. Signs advertising Sherman Turner cigars, Zilita Black tobacco, and Roisin’s Doughnuts graced rolling carts selling Sally Dally Notions and Flowers by Yvonne Benne. The stands competed for the immigrant business. Ciro and Luigi came face to face with the engine of American life: You work, and then you spend.

  Luigi purchased a small rhinestone heart brooch for his bride-to-be, while Ciro bought a bouquet of yellow roses for Mrs. Zanetti. Then they were funneled through a walkway and under an arch with a sign that read,

  Welcome to New York

  Luigi turned to Ciro. “I go to Grand Central Station to take the train to Chicago and then Ohio.”

  “I’m going to Mulberry Street,” Ciro said.

  “I’m going to learn English on the way to Chicago.”

  “And I’m going to learn it when I get to Little Italy. Can you believe it, Luigi? I have to go to a place called Italy to learn English,” Ciro joked as they shook hands.

  “You take care of yourself,” Luigi said.

  “Good luck with Alberta. I know she will be more beautiful than her photograph.”

  Luigi whistled. “Buona fortuna,” he said before he disappeared into the crowd headed for the el train.

  Ciro stayed put and looked out over the crowd. The Zanettis were supposed to be there to greet him, holding up a sign with his name on it. He scanned the crowd but did not see his name anywhere. After a few minutes, he began to worry.

  From the ship, the welcome on the ground seemed grand, but upon close inspection, the revelers greeting the immigrants were shabby. The band’s red-and-blue uniforms were ill-fitting and missing buttons; their brass horns, an unpolished greenish gold, were dented and scratched. The women’s dresses were dingy, the parasols they twirled, frayed. Ciro realized that the hoopla was manufactured, a theatrical show for naive eyes and nothing more.

  A slim young woman in an organza dress and straw hat with silk daisies spilling from the crown approached him.

  “Hello, handsome,” she said in English.

  “I don’t understand,” Ciro mumbled in Italian, keeping his eyes on the crowd for the Zanettis.

  “I said, hello and welcome.” She leaned in and whispered, again in English, grazing his cheek with her lips, “Do you need a place to stay?”

  She wore a sweet perfume of gardenias and musk that soothed Ciro, who had been shoveling coal for days in a hot tomb. The machinations of Ellis Island had left him exhausted. She was soft and pretty and seemed taken with him. Her attention reassured him.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  Ciro didn’t need to understand her words to know he would follow her to the ends of the earth. She was around his age, her long red hair loosely braided, with red satin ribbons woven into the plaits. She had a few freckles on her creamy skin, and dark brown eyes. She wore a bright pink lip rouge, a color unlike any Ciro had ever seen.

  “Do you need a job?” she said.

  Ciro looked at her blankly.

  “Job. Work. Lavoro. Job,” she repeated, then took his hand and led him through the crowd. She pulled a single yellow rose from the bouquet Ciro carried, and touched the petals to her lips.

  Suddenly Ciro saw his name on a sign. The man holding it was pushing anxiously through the crowd. Ciro let go of the girl’s hand and waved. “Signor Zanetti!” Ciro shouted.

  The girl tugged on his sleeve, motioning him toward a nearby group of men on the dock, but Ciro saw a red parasol moving through the crowd like a periscope.

  “No, no, come with me,” the young woman insisted, placing her calfskin-covered hand on Ciro’s forearm. He remembered the soft touch of his mother’s gloved hand.

  “Leave him alone!” Signora Zanetti’s voice cut through the din from under her parasol. “Shoo! Shoo! Puttana!” she said to the girl.

  Carla Zanetti, stout, gray-haired, five feet tall, and sixty, burst forward from the crowd. She was followed by her husband, Remo, who was only slightly taller than she. He had a thick white mustache and a smooth bald head with a fringe of white hair above his collar.

  Ciro turned to apologize to the red-haired girl, but she was gone.

  “She almost got you,” Remo said.

  “Like a spider in a web,” Carla agreed.

  “Who was she?” Ciro asked, still turning his head from side to side, searching for the pretty young woman.

  “It’s a racket. You go with her and sign up to work in the quarries in Pennsylvania for low wages,” Carla said. “She gets a cut, and you get a life of misery.”

  Reeling at this news, Ciro handed her the flowers. “These are for you.”

  Carla Zanetti smiled and took the bouquet. She cradled the flowers appreciatively.

  “Well, you’ve won her over already, son,” Remo said. “We’ll take a carriage over to Mulberry Street.”

  Carla walked in front of the men, leading them through the crowd. Ciro looked back and caught a glimpse of the girl talking with another passenger from steerage. She leaned in and touched his arm, just as she had Ciro’s. He remembered Iggy warning him about women who were too nice too soon.

  The carriage careened through the streets, dodging pedestrians, carts, and motorcars. The streets of Little Italy were as narrow as shoelaces. The modest buildings, mostly three-floor structures made of wood, were potchkied together like a pair of patchwork pants. Open seams in walls were sealed with odd ends of metal, drainpipes trailed down the sides of houses in different widths, welded together with flaps of mismatched tin. Some houses were freshly whitewashed, others showed weathered layers of old paint.

  The cobblestone streets were crowded with people, and when Ciro looked up, the windows were also filled with faces. Women leaned out of second-story windows to holler for their children or gossip with the neighbors. Stoops spilled over with southern Italians gathered in small groups. It was as if the belly of the ship had been sliced open and docked on the streets of Little Italy. Curls of black smoke from cheap wood puffed out of the chimneys, and the only green was the occasional tufts of treetops, scattered among the tarpaper roofs like random bouquets.

  The sounds of city life were a deafening mix of whistles, horns, arguments, and music. Unaccustomed to the clatter, Cir
o wondered if he could get used to it. When they arrived on Mulberry Street, he offered to pay the driver, but Remo wouldn’t allow it. Ciro jumped out of the carriage and held his hand out to help Carla. Signora Zanetti nodded at her husband, impressed with Ciro’s fine manners.

  A barefoot boy in ragged shorts and a torn shirt approached Ciro and held out his hand. His black hair was chopped off, leaving uneven layers. His thick black eyebrows were expressive triangles, his brown eyes wide and alert.

  “Va, va!” Carla said to the boy. But Ciro reached into his pocket and handed the boy a coin. He held the coin high and twirled down the sidewalk, joining his friends, who charged back toward Ciro. Remo pulled him into the house before Ciro had a chance to empty his pockets.

  The poor of Little Italy were different from those Ciro knew. On the mountain, they wore clothes made of sturdy fabric. Boiled wool was their velvet; buttons and trim were extravagant extras added to clothing worn on feast days, at weddings, and for burial. The New York Italians used the same fabrics to make their clothing, but they accessorized with jaunty hats, gold belt buckles, and shiny buttons. The women wore lipstick and rouge, and gold rings on every finger. They spoke loudly and expressed themselves with theatrical gestures.

  In the Italian Alps, this particular kind of presentation was considered ill mannered. In Ciro’s village, when the vendors rolled their carts out on to the colonnade to sell their wares, there was modest stock to choose from, and little room for negotiation of the price. Here, the carts were loaded full, and customers haggled. Ciro came from a place where people were grateful to be able to purchase any small thing. Here, everyone acted entitled to a better deal. Ciro had entered the circus; the show was Italian, but the tent was American.

  Back on the mountain, Enza siphoned homemade burgundy wine from a barrel into bottles lined up on a bench in the garden. She closed her eyes and held the bottles up to her nose, distinguishing the scent of the woodsy barrel from the potential bitterness of the grapes. She had begun to cork the bottles when she saw her father and Signor Arduini entering the house.

  Enza quickly untied her apron, splattered with clouds of purple, and smoothed her hair. She slipped into the house through the back door. As Marco took the landlord’s hat and pulled out his chair, Enza removed two small glasses from the shelf, poured brandy into the glasses, and placed them before the padrone and her father.