The Shoemaker's Wife

by Adriana Trigiani

  “You’re staring at me,” Enza said without looking up.

  “Are you imagining Rudolph Valentino as you’re reading?”

  “No.”

  “John Gilbert?”

  “No.”

  “Who, then?”

  She put down the book. “If you must know, whenever I read a character described as a handsome man, I think of you.”

  “Then why don’t you stop reading and join me in the sleeping car?”

  Ciro closed the door softly and joined Enza in the berth. The reverence of their wedding night was long gone, and had been replaced with the glorious familiarity that came from years of marriage. They knew everything about one another, and each surprise revealed along the way had only served to make them closer.

  Pappina and Luigi had taken Antonio until Enza could return home. This gave her peace of mind, as she knew that her son would be happy with his friends, who were nearly brothers to him.

  As Ciro kissed his wife, he remembered the train ride from New York after they were married, and the memory of it gave him a feeling of peace, the first he’d had since he went to the Mayo Clinic. He was enthralled by Enza all over again when he thought back to the night they first made love. But soon the dull ache in his stomach returned, and the feeling of doom that accompanied the knowledge of his fate. He put those thoughts out of his mind, though, and kissed his wife, and made love to her as he had so many years before, when they were young and everything was new.

  Chapter 26

  A CARRIAGE RIDE

  Un Giro in Carrozza

  Colin Chapin greeted Enza and Ciro on the platform of the train at Grand Central Station. Colin’s hair was completely gray now, and his suits were Savile Row, but his smile was as open as it always had been. He is a solid white brick of a man, Enza thought. Colin was the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, and with the job had come speaking engagements and lucrative coproductions with opera companies around the world. Colin and Laura were in the top tier of high society in New York, but Enza wouldn’t have known it when he threw his arms around them. He acted like he was still the office runner in accounting that he had been when they first met.

  Colin took their bags and led them to his car, a midnight blue and maroon Packard, custom made and the height of chic opulence. As he turned onto Fifth Avenue and Seventy-ninth Street, Enza saw Laura waiting in the lobby of the apartment building. Colin pulled up to the awning and Enza jumped out of the car and into the arms of her best friend.

  “Autumn in New York,” Laura said.

  “Our favorite time of year!” Enza took in her friend, who opened her velvet opera coat to reveal a pregnancy so advanced, it appeared the baby could be born that same evening.

  “You’re having a baby!” Enza threw her arms around Laura. “And soon!”

  “I know. Forgive me, Enza, I wanted to tell you. But it’s been a very difficult pregnancy. The last week things have been so much better, but we’ve been on guard the whole time. The doctor said I would never have a baby, but here we are. It was a shock to Colin, to me, to the doctor, to the entire medical community as it stands in New York City. But it’s true, and we’re thrilled.”

  “I have sons in college, and soon we’ll have a baby in the crib. We don’t know whether to be thrilled or . . . cry,” Colin teased.

  Laura was at the peak of her beauty, the contrast of her pale skin and red hair were now softly dramatic. Her lovely profile had taken on the lines of aristocracy, and the sharp angles of her youth were gone.

  “You should be on bed rest,” Enza told her.

  “How could I rest? My best friend was on her way.”

  Ciro and Colin joined them, and Laura embraced Ciro. “All right, all right, upstairs with you,” Colin said. Ciro reached to help Colin with the luggage, but a bellman whisked it away. Ciro turned to see a valet drive the Chapin Packard to the parking lot. Ciro shook his head. They were a long way from Chisholm.

  The elevator opened into the foyer of the penthouse apartment. Laura had decorated the apartment in soft greens and yellow, obeying the rule Mrs. DeCoursey always proclaimed back at Milbank House: paint your rooms the colors you look best in.

  The spacious rooms were well appointed with polished Chippendale furniture, Aubusson rugs, crystal sconces, milk-glass chandeliers, and oil paintings of pastoral settings, including the farm fields of Ireland, the black rage of the North Sea tossing a boat in its milky foam, and tasteful miniatures of single flowers, a daisy, a hydrangea, and a gardenia.

  “You’re a long way from Hoboken,” Enza said.

  Ciro and Colin had gone out on the terrace. “Back in bed, Mama,” Colin called out.

  “I am!” Laura hollered back. She showed Enza the guest room, a cheery room with a canopied bed covered in chintz. “Come with me.” Enza followed Laura to the master bedroom, a cool blue room with trellis-patterned wallpaper and a satin-covered bed. Laura pulled off her cape, revealing a nightgown underneath. She climbed back into bed.

  “When are you due?” Enza fluffed the pillows.

  “Any minute.”

  “Where’s the nursery?”

  “I haven’t put it together.”

  Enza sat on the bed. “Superstitious?”

  “The doctor is concerned.” Laura wiped tears from her eyes. “And I’m scared.” Laura cried because at long last, in the arms of her longtime and best friend, she could be honest.

  “Before I had Antonio, I had terrible feelings of doom. I’m sure your baby is fine.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I’ve learned one important lesson in my life, and I’m going to share it with you. Don’t worry about bad things that haven’t happened yet. It will save you a lot of anxiety.”

  Colin brought a tray of tea in for the ladies. “You girls catch up, but as soon as you do, it’s bedtime for the little mother here.”

  “He’s so bossy,” Enza teased as Colin went. “So what’s the gossip? You said you had a lot.”

  “Vito Blazek left the Met, and now he works at Radio City Music Hall. He’s on his third divorce. ”

  “Can’t be!”

  Laura nodded solemnly. “The three stages of romantic love for a flack: marry a showgirl, divorce her, marry the daughter of a producer, divorce her, marry a younger showgirl, and divorce her once you’ve come to your senses.”

  “How awful.” Enza sipped her tea.

  “Don’t you want to know how he looks?”

  “Every detail,” Enza said.

  “Gorgeous.”

  Enza laughed. “That figures.”

  “He’s no Ciro Lazzari. Honey, in the sweepstakes of the acquisition of handsome men, you got the golden ticket. The man you married is one in a million. But you know that.”

  “And I’m going to lose him, Laura.”

  “He looks well,” Laura said hopefully.

  “I pray for him. I keep hoping that maybe the whole thing is a mistake. And when I say to that Ciro, he looks at me like I’m crazy. He knows the truth, and he’s accepting it. He’s never been a religious man, but he has an inner strength that defies faith itself.”

  “Maybe the trip will cure him,” Laura said gently.

  “That’s what I tell him. And I’m going to say the same thing to you. Your baby is fine. Believe it, and all will be well.”

  Colin woke early to go to the Met for an early call. New scenery for the production of La Bohème was being delivered. Ciro left Enza and Laura after breakfast and went for a walk. His plan was to walk through Central Park, but he found himself walking south, down Fifth Avenue toward Little Italy. He thought about taking the trolley, but he felt good, and decided to see how the city had changed in the twelve years since he left.

  Broadway widened out in lower Manhattan. The sidewalks were full of fruit vendors, flower carts, and newsstands. When he reached Grand Street and took the turn into Little Italy, he remembered the buildings, and was surprised that while upper Manhattan seemed to change, his old neig
hborhood had stayed the same.

  He found his way easily to 36 Mulberry Street. The Zanetti Shoe Shop sign was gone, as was the Italian flag. The storefront was empty, with a sign that said, “For Rent.” Ciro stood back and took in the place where he’d worked when he first came to America. He moved closer and looked through the window. The same bowed floors and tin ceiling remained, and he could see the place where his cot used to be. The privacy curtain was gone. The door to the back garden was open wide. Ciro peered through. The old elm that he loved had been chopped down. The tree that had given him comfort and hope was gone, and with that, Ciro left the past and returned to the present. He took the tree and its absence as an omen, and with a heavy heart, turned to walk back to the Chapins’.

  Laura was taking a nap. Enza sat and waited for Ciro to return. When he came through the door, her heart leaped in her chest as it always had. Now, though, that joy was soon crushed by a feeling of impending doom. She went to his side and took his hands in hers. “I have a surprise for you,” she said. “Are you tired?”

  “Not at all,” he said.

  Enza grabbed her hat, coat, and gloves and pushed Ciro out the door.

  Many nights when Ciro couldn’t sleep, Enza would tell him stories of her days at the Metropolitan Opera House. He had only been twice; once for a concert when he was young, and the second time when he saw Enza before he left for the Great War. Both visits burned in his memory, and for him, there was no greater thrill than to see those of wealth and privilege stand in awe of the Great Caruso, a poor Italian boy who’d made good.

  Enza took Ciro’s hand as they climbed the steps into the entrance foyer of the Metropolitan Opera. Years later, she remembered in vivid detail what she and Laura had been wearing the day they came for their interviews. She remembered what she’d had for breakfast, and what it had been like when they walked into the theater together for the first time.

  Enza took the same steps on this day with her husband. And when they entered the dark opera house, the lingering scents of expensive perfume, grease paint, lemon oil, and fresh lilies filled the air, just as they had the first time she set foot inside. She led her husband down the aisle and up to the stage, where the ghost lights glowed along the upstage brick wall. The scenery, delivered in bundles, was stacked against it like giant envelopes waiting for the mailman.

  Ciro turned and looked out at the red velvet seats and up into the mezzanine. Enza took him center stage. Ciro stood on the exact spot where the Great Caruso had sung the night before Ciro left for New Haven. He closed his eyes and imagined the send-off all over again.

  Enza led him backstage and down the stairs to the costume shop, which buzzed with activity. No one noticed them as they walked through. Enza stopped to point out the places she remembered. The fitting room where Geraldine Farrar had tried on the first gown Enza ever made, the ironing boards where she and Laura would gossip long into the night, and finally, her sewing machine, the sleek ebony Singer with the silver wheel and the gold trim. A young seamstress was busy sewing a hem at Station 3, Singer machine 17. She might have been twenty years old; watching her, Enza was a girl again. She saw herself on the work stool. When she looked up at Ciro, she was certain he did too.

  After a few days of visiting their old haunts, including having pie and coffee at the Automat, Ciro was packed and ready to depart for Italy. His suitcase rested by Laura’s front door. Ciro was asleep, but Enza could not bear to close her eyes. She felt the great ticking of the clock: every moment that she slept was one less awake with Ciro.

  If she could just delay the worst, if she could savor these moments, when Ciro still felt good enough to walk to Little Italy and back, and enjoy a meal, and smoke a cigarette, she believed it would be all right. She didn’t want to imagine what it would be like when he couldn’t do the things he wanted to do. That was why the trip to Italy was urgent. Enza believed that it would change the course of Ciro’s life, just as it had changed his life to leave it. It might not save his life, but it would shore up his soul.

  Sometimes Enza tried to imagine what life would be without Ciro, believing it would help her accept it when the time came, but she couldn’t. The well of pain was too deep to imagine. There was a rap on the door, an urgent one that woke Ciro. Enza went to the door and opened it.

  “It’s Laura.” Colin entered the bedroom. “She’s in labor.”

  “Call the doctor,” Enza told Colin calmly. “Tell him to come here.”

  “She should go to the hospital,” Colin said in a panic.

  “Send him here.”

  Enza abided with her best friend and gently coached her through the labor pains. Soon the doctor arrived, with a nurse assistant, who took one look at the space and began to transform it into a birthing room.

  The doctor asked Enza to wait outside, but Laura cried out for her to stay. Enza took a seat next to Laura and gripped her hand, just as she had her own mother’s on the night that Stella was born. The memory of her baby sister’s birth came flooding back with every grip, heave, and sigh that Laura endured. Tears began to flow freely down Enza’s face as she stayed in the moment while holding the memory of what she remembered from the mountain.

  Laura’s body soon opened up, and her son slipped into the hands of the doctor, who skillfully cut the umbilical cord, followed by the nurse, who took the baby to clean and swaddle him.

  “You have a son, Laura. A son!” Enza told her joyfully.

  She heard the nurse speaking with the doctor. The nurse left the room with the baby, and Laura cried out to her to bring her son back. The doctor went to Laura’s side. “We’re taking the baby to the hospital.”

  “What’s wrong with the baby?” Laura cried out, and as she did, Colin came into the room.

  “They have to take him, Laura. He’s having trouble breathing.”

  “Go with them, Colin,” Laura cried.

  Enza could see Ciro behind Colin in the hallway. “Go with him, Ciro. I’ll stay with Laura,” Enza said.

  Ciro followed Colin out the door as Laura leaned against Enza and wept, then, depleted from the birth, fell asleep. Enza straightened the room, changed the sheets, bathed Laura, dressed her, and covered her in warm blankets. She lowered the lights, pulled up a chair, and sat by her bed. Enza began to pray the rosary. She held Laura’s hand, and soon she found herself on her knees, begging God again to change the course of events for someone she loved. Every prayer was a plea to bring good news by morning.

  Henry Heery Chapin was placed in an incubator at Lenox Hill Hospital as soon as Colin arrived at the hospital with him. Through the muslin, Colin could touch his son’s pink fingers and brush his cheek. At five pounds, Henry was big enough, but his lungs weren’t clearing as he breathed. The doctor had suctioned his tiny lungs. Soon, they were working on their way to full capacity. It seemed to Colin that the baby was getting better as the hours passed.

  When dawn came, the doctor checked the baby, and told Colin that the worst was over. They would keep the baby for a few days, to make certain that he was well enough to go home. Ciro stayed with the baby so Colin could go home with the news. The hospital was close to their apartment, but he stopped at the nurse’s station and called. Enza woke Laura up to tell her. She shed tears of joy at the news of her baby’s health. Enza tucked her rosary into her suit pocket, a believer once more.

  The ship was leaving the port in lower Manhattan late that afternoon. Ciro thought about canceling his trip, but now that Henry was better, he felt he should go.

  Ciro had watched baby Henry through the night, and as he watched the nurses in the hospital tend to him in his tiny, well-lit tent, and as he observed Colin, a new father again, yet alert to every detail of the infant’s progress, Ciro decided that life would go on. The baby, Henry, had survived. Maybe it was a sign.

  That afternoon, when Ciro said good-bye to Enza on the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue, before going to the pier to board the ocean liner for Italy, they held one another a long time.

&nbs
p; “I want you to sleep on the boat. Take the fresh air and eat. Promise me you’ll eat,” Enza pleaded with him.

  “And I’ll drink whiskey and smoke.” He laughed.

  “You can have anything you want but the dance-hall girls.”

  “But they’re so much fun,” he teased, pulling her close. “And they like me.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.” She laughed. “Now, I want you to memorize every detail of my mother’s house. I want you to visit Stella’s grave and kiss the blue angel for me. Can you do that?”

  “Of course,” Ciro promised.

  “And will you look up at Pizzo Camino? I’ve forgotten it, and I want you to see it for me.”

  “I’ll be your eyes and ears and heart in Schilpario. Take care of Laura, she needs you. Make the nursery. Help her with the baby. And don’t worry. Our mountain is a miracle,” Ciro said as he kissed her good-bye.

  Ciro practically spent the entire voyage on a chaise longue on the second-class deck of the SS Augustus. At any other time, he would consider it lucky that his middle name was the same as the ship’s. But not this time. Whenever he heard the horns blow at sea, he remembered shoveling coal in the belly of the SS Chicago. He remembered meeting Luigi, and how no matter how much he scrubbed, his skin was gray from the coal dust after a week in the pit.

  Now, he was an older man, and he led the life of one who has earned his way out of steerage. Ciro was not in first class, where the passengers were pampered, but his room in second class was comfortable, and the windows were above the waterline. He smiled to himself when he went to sleep the first night. He had never traveled across the ocean above the waterline.

  Every moment of the journey brought back memories. When he heard his native Italian as the ship docked in the port of Naples, he was surprised to find that it moved him so deeply that he wept. When he boarded the train to go north, he couldn’t get enough of the people; he took in every detail of them and remembered when he too was Italian. He realized he had missed them, and his heart ached with the knowledge that he would not die in the country where he was born. Now he was neither Italian nor American; he was a dying man on a mission to make whole what never had been, and to heal a wound for which there was no salve or balm.