The Shoemaker's Wife

by Adriana Trigiani

  “Your father will find his way to you,” Sister Josephine reassured her.

  “Sister, what’s wrong with me?” Enza asked. “Why have I been so ill?”

  “Your heartbeat all but disappeared from low blood pressure in reaction to the motion. You almost died on that ship. You’ll never be able to travel by boat again.”

  The nun’s words cut worse than any pain she had endured on the crossing. The thought of never seeing her mother again was too much to bear. “I’ll never be able to go home.” Enza began to cry.

  “You mustn’t worry about that yet,” Sister Josephine interjected before Enza’s despair could spiral further out of control. “You just got here. First you must get well. Let me guess, you’re going to Brooklyn.”

  “Hoboken.”

  “Do you have a sponsor?”

  “A distant cousin on Adams Street.”

  “And you’re going to work?”

  “I sew,” Enza said. “I hope I can get a job quickly.”

  “There are factories on every block. Hasn’t anyone told you? Anything is possible in America.”

  “So far that hasn’t been true, Sister.” Enza lay back on the pillow.

  “A practical girl for a change.” Sister looked around and then back at Enza. “You must know that they don’t give you your papers unless you’re a dreamer.”

  “I wrote ‘seamstress’ as my occupation. That’s what’s on the ship’s manifest of the Rochambeau,” Enza said, closing her eyes. “I didn’t think to write ‘dreamer.’ ”

  Marco Ravanelli stood at the railway platform in lower Manhattan with a few lire in his pocket, his duffel, Enza’s suitcase, and a small slip of paper with an address upon it. The processing through Ellis Island had taken most of the day, as the Greek and Turkish onboard came with multiple family members, adding to the slow grind of the process.

  For all Marco knew, Saint Vincent’s Hospital might be a thousand miles away. He was exhausted from the interminable lines at Ellis Island and terrified at the uncertainty he faced. Marco wondered if the American doctors had saved Enza. His beautiful daughter, whom he had held on the day she was born in the same blanket that had held him, might already have died in the long hours he had been away from her side. He wanted to pray for his daughter’s life, but he couldn’t find the will or the words to do so.

  Marco gave in to the emotions of the long day and cried.

  The sight of this newly arrived immigrant, obviously a proud man with troubles, standing alone next to his cloth duffels in boiled wool clothing and a dingy shirt, filled a driver on the carriage line with compassion. He jumped off his perch and headed toward the man.

  “Hey, Bud, you all right?”

  Marco looked up at a burly American man, around his age. He wore a plaid cap, vest, and work pants. He had the flat nose of a prizefighter, and a plain gold tooth in the front of his mouth shimmered like a window. Marco was taken aback by the man’s gregarious manner, but welcomed the sound of his friendly voice. “You look like you lost your best friend. You speak English?”

  Marco shook his head.

  “I speak a little Italian. Spaghetti. Ravioli. Radio. Bingo.” The stranger threw his head back and laughed. “Where are you going?”

  Marco looked at him blankly.

  “Do you mind?” The stranger took the piece of paper from Marco. “You have to go to the hospital?”

  Marco heard the word hospital and nodded vigorously.

  “Joe, this hospital is about two miles from here. If you didn’t have the bags, you could walk. You Catholic?” The stranger made the sign of the cross.

  Marco nodded, dug into his shirt, and pulled out a devotional medal on a chain he wore around his neck.

  “You’re Catholic, all right. You gonna work for them?” he asked. “They got a lot of jobs at the hospital. And them nuns will find you a place to stay too. They’re good about that. Something about those habits makes ’em want to help people. They wear veils with wings, makes you think they’re fairies, flying around doing good works. Now, just nuns I’m talking about. Not women in general, if you know what I’m saying. They don’t wear the wings, and they don’t fly. They got other pluses. And the first plus: they ain’t nuns.” The driver threw his head back again and laughed.

  Marco smiled. He may not have understood the words, but the animated delivery by this stranger was entertaining.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna do a good deed for the hell of it. I’m gonna give you a lift to Saint Vincent’s.” The stranger pointed to his horse and carriage. Marco understood the man and nodded appreciatively.

  “My treat.” The driver snapped his fingers. “Regalo.”

  Marco formed his hands in the prayer position. “Grazie, grazie.”

  “Not that I’m a good Catholic or nothin’,” the man said as he picked up Marco’s bags. Marco followed him to the carriage. “I’m planning on repenting at the very end of my life, when I’m takin’ that last gasp. I’m the kind of guy who eats a rib eye rare on Good Friday. I know, I know, it’s a mortal sin. Or maybe it’s venial. See that? I don’t even know the difference. The point is, I wouldn’t mind seeing the face of God once I’m on the other side, but I got a hard time with rules on this one. Ya know what I mean?”

  Marco shrugged.

  “Hey, what am I doin’, unloading on you when you got your own problems. Ya look like a sad sack, my friend, like ya just heard the most miserable opera they ever wrote.”

  Marco nodded.

  “Ya like the opera? All them Italian guys, Puccini, Verdi . . . I know about ’em. How about the Great Caruso? He’s one of youse guys too. I seen him for twenty-five cents at the Met. Standing room. Ya gotta go to the Met sometime.”

  As Marco climbed into the carriage, the driver hoisted the bags on to the bench next to him. The driver with the gold tooth climbed up to his perch and took the reins.

  For the first time since he’d left Schilpario, Marco had caught a lucky break. He sank into the leather seat and held hope in his heart like a hundred stars.

  Ciro practically filled up the tiny examination room on the second floor of Saint Vincent’s Hospital. He was so tall, his head nearly touched the ceiling before he sat down on the table. A young nun in blue, who had introduced herself as Sister Mary Frances, wrapped a clean bandage around the stitches that sealed the wound on his hand.

  Remo and Carla stood against the wall and watched her bind Ciro’s hand. In the months since Ciro had arrived and breathed new life and energy into the shop, the childless couple had begun to enjoy a late-in-life experience of parenting. Even their styles in that regard were different. Remo thought of the pain Ciro was in, while Carla thought of the lost hours the accident would cost her.

  “I could’ve used you this morning,” Sister Mary Frances said as she wrapped the bright white strips of cloth around Ciro’s hand. “We admitted an Italian girl, and I couldn’t communicate with her.”

  “Is she pretty?” Ciro asked. “I’ll be her translator.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” Carla said.

  “How did you learn English?” Sister asked Ciro.

  “The girls on Mulberry Street,” Carla answered for him, and cackled.

  “There you have it, Signora,” Ciro said to Carla. “It pays for me to spend time with the girls. I learn English, and I learn about life.”

  “You know enough about life,” Carla said drily.

  “How bad is the wound, Sister?” Ciro asked.

  “It’s quite a gash. I want you to keep the wound covered, and don’t think of pulling out the stitches yourself. You come back, and I’ll take them out. About three weeks?”

  “Three weeks in a bandage?” Ciro complained. “I have to make shoes.”

  “Do whatever you can one-handed,” Sister told him.

  Enza watched the sun as it slipped past the trees over Greenwich Village. From her hospital window on Seventh Avenue, Enza saw rows of connected houses. The colors of New York Ci
ty were new to her, burnt orange and earthy browns with an apricot glaze so different from the vivid blues and soft greens of her mountain town. If light itself was different in this new country, imagine what else would be.

  Sister Josephine wrote, Enza Ravanelli. “Is that your full name?”

  “Vincenza Ravanelli.” She corrected the nun without taking her eyes off the streets below. She couldn’t imagine what was taking her father so long.

  “Did you know this hospital is called San Vincenzo’s?”

  Enza turned to her and smiled.

  Sister asked, “Do you believe in signs?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “Me too. Well, that’s a good omen.”

  “Where is Hoboken from here?” Enza asked.

  “Not far at all. Look out the window. It’s across the Hudson River, where the sun sets.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Crowded.”

  “Is every place in America crowded?”

  “No, there are places in America that are just wide open spaces, with nothing but rolling hills and fields. There are lots of farms in places like Indiana and Illinois.”

  “I’ll never get that far,” Enza says. “We came to make money to buy our house. As soon as we do, we’ll go home.”

  “We all come here thinking that we’ll go home. And then, this becomes home.”

  The driver hopped down from his perch and helped Marco with his luggage. Marco looked up at the hospital entrance; the sandstone building took up an entire block. Marco reached in his pocket for his money.

  “This is on me, buddy.” The driver smiled.

  “Please,” Marco said.

  “Nope.” The stranger climbed back on his perch. “Arrivederci, pal.” He drove off into the darkness whistling, with the light heart of a man who’d just done a good deed.

  Marco approached a young Irish nun who managed the arrival desk, outfitted with a telephone and a large black leather-bound book with an inkwell. A row of low benches around the outside walls of the room were filled with patients.

  “Parla Italiano?” Marco said.

  “Who are you looking for?” she replied in English.

  Marco did not understand.

  “Are you ill?” she asked. “You look all right. Is it a job you’re after?”

  Marco indicated that he didn’t understand her. He grabbed a fountain pen off the desk, wrote down his daughter’s name, and frantically waved it at the nun.

  She read the name and checked it against her ledger. “Yes, she’s here. I’ll take you up to three.”

  Marco bowed and said, “Mille grazie.” He followed the nun up the stairs to the third floor, taking them two at a time. As he passed the second-floor landing, the door opened as Ciro, Remo, and Carla turned to descend the stairs.

  “That guy just landed,” Ciro said, watching Marco bound past them.

  “Remember your first day?” Remo asked. “We almost lost you to the port hustlers wearing French perfume.”

  Ciro and Remo made their way down the stairs.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Carla asked Remo and Ciro as she stood on the landing above them.

  “Back to the shop,” Remo said.

  “Oh, no. We go to the chapel and give thanks for the speedy recovery of Ciro’s hand.”

  “Carla, I have orders to fill,” Remo argued.

  Carla gave Remo a withering look.

  “Ciro, we go to the chapel,” Remo said. “Follow the padrone.”

  As Marco burst through the door to Enza’s hospital room and took his daughter into his arms, his heart filled with a joy he had not known since the day she was born. For the first time since they left the mountain, he felt their luck changing. The registrar on Ellis Island had taken his information without question, the man with the gold tooth had given him a ride, and now, his daughter had recovered.

  “What did the doctor say?” Marco asked.

  “He wants me to stay in the hospital until my headache is gone.”

  “Then we’ll stay.”

  “But I have to get to work.”

  “You get well, and then we’ll go to Hoboken.”

  “The doctor wants me to walk.”

  Marco helped Enza into her robe. She was shaky as she stood up, but it helped to lean against her father. With his assistance she walked out into the hallway, feeling grateful to be on her feet again.

  The polished aqua and white floor tiles glistened. There wasn’t a corner of the hospital that was not scrubbed clean, not a handprint on the painted wall or a pile of sheets in the hallway. The nuns moved swiftly as they tended to the patients, their veils gently fluttering behind them as they went.

  The doctors of Saint Vincent’s were confident, not like the old man who came over the mountain on horseback from Azzone when Stella fell sick. These men were young, robust, and direct. They did their work thoroughly and quickly, weaving in and out of rooms like whip stitches. They wore crisp white lab coats and moved through the sea of nuns dressed in blue like the sails on a ship.

  Against the bright walls of the hospital corridor, Marco appeared wizened. Enza felt a wave of remorse for what she had put him through. On the mountain, Marco had been like everyone else’s father, a hard worker, intelligent, and devoted to his family. Here, he was just another man in need of a job. Enza felt responsible for him, and sorry that she had convinced him to come to America.

  Marco and Enza reached the end of the hallway, where they found the etched glass doors of the chapel entrance. Beams of streetlight filtered through the stained glass, casting a rosy tint over the pews. A few visitors were scattered throughout the chapel; some knelt before the votive trays, while others sat in the pews and prayed. The altar was golden in the candlelight, like a lost coin on a cobblestone street.

  Marco pushed the door open gently. They entered the chapel and walked up the center aisle. Enza made the sign of the cross and slid into a pew as Marco genuflected and followed her.

  At last, something familiar, something that was just like home. The scent of beeswax reminded Enza of the chapel of Sant’Antonio. Over the altar, a large stained-glass mural in three parts told the story of the Annunciation in shards of midnight blue, rose red, and forest green. On the ceiling, in a china blue inset framed in gold leaf, were the words:

  God is Charity

  The familiar comforted them; the altar, the pews, the kneelers, and the Latin in the missals provided them with a deserved peace at the end of their long ordeal. The Blessed Mother’s outstretched arms seemed to welcome them, while Saint Vincent’s black robes and wooden rosary beads gave a sense of abiding serenity to these two lost souls hungry for home.

  “I was told I will never see my mountain again,” Enza said quietly.

  “What do they know about us?” Marco tried to bolster Enza’s spirits, but when he looked at his daughter, she seemed so small to him now, so vulnerable. Marco wished Giacomina was there to counsel her. He always left the big problems to his wife; she seemed to know just what to say to the children to soothe them. He couldn’t imagine how to solve this new problem. What would they do if Enza couldn’t return home? He sighed deeply, and decided all he could do was encourage Enza to move ahead with their plan. “You have to believe,” Marco said, “that we came this far for a purpose.” When the words came out of his mouth, he realized he meant them as much for himself as he did for his daughter.

  Enza rose from the pew and followed her father down the aisle. Marco pushed the door of the chapel open.

  “Enza? Enza Ravanelli?”

  Enza heard her name said aloud in a familiar accent. She looked up to see Ciro Lazzari, who she had not seen since she left him at the convent entrance months ago. Her heart began to race at the sight. For a moment, she wondered if this meeting was real, when he had only lived in her dreams.

  “It is you!” Ciro stood back and took her in. “I don’t believe it. What are you doing here? Are you here to visit? Work? Do you have people here?�
�� As he asked her every question he could think of, Enza closed her eyes, took in the soft tones of her native language, and grew homesick on the spot.

  “Who is this?” Carla Zanetti snapped.

  “These are my friends from the mountain. This is Signor Ravanelli and his eldest daughter, Enza.”

  Carla made fast work of sizing up the Ravanellis. She could see that Enza was not another girl from Mulberry Street looking to trap a husband, have a baby, and secure an apartment. This girl was an old friend from Ciro’s province; she traveled with her father, and was therefore respectable.

  Ciro explained how he had met the Ravanelli family to Carla, who softened as she heard the story. Keep talking, Enza thought, drinking this conversation in like the first sips of cold water after the long journey.

  “Why are you in the hospital?” Ciro asked her.

  “Why are you in a chapel?” Enza countered.

  Ciro threw his head back and laughed. “I was forced to give thanks that I didn’t lop off my entire hand.” Ciro showed her the bandage.

  “My daughter fell ill on the ship,” Marco explained.

  “A little sea sickness,” Enza said.

  “She almost died,” Marco corrected her. “She was in the hospital aboard ship the entire time. We were terrified. I thought I would lose her.”

  “I’m fine,” she said to Ciro. “There’s nothing to worry about now, Papa.”

  Carla and Remo led Marco out of the chapel, leaving Enza and Ciro alone. She took his hand in hers, tucking the loose end of the gauze under the tight bandage. “What happened to you? Are you a butcher?”

  “A shoemaker’s apprentice.”

  “That’s an excellent trade. A shoemaker’s children never go barefoot. Do you remember that expression from the mountain?” She smiled.

  Ciro was more of everything than she remembered; taller for sure, seemingly stronger, and his eyes a more vivid color, reminding her of the cliffs above Schilpario, where the branches of the deep green juniper trees met the bright blue sky. She noticed that Ciro carried himself differently. He possessed a particular swagger, an upright posture and a deliberate carriage, which Enza eventually, when she looked back on this moment, would identify as American. He even wore the uniform of the working class—durable wool work trousers with a thin leather belt, a pressed chambray shirt worn over an undershirt, and on his feet, proper brown leather work boots with rawhide laces.