“Up the street.” A voice came from . . . someplace. Then, “I’ll bring him,” came from somebody else.
“Show me. I’ll take Etti.” Carlo headed after the person.
The crowd parted. Fipo and I followed, then miracle of miracles, the doctor pushed through. He checked Etti’s breathing, his pulse. He flicked the ends of Etti’s fingertips, and pulled the skin down under Etti’s eyes. He wrapped his stethoscope around his neck, adjusted the earpieces, and listened to Etti’s heart.
Etti stirred. The doctor patted his cheeks.
Etti pushed him away. “My head hurts.” He vomited into the street. The crowd moved back.
The doctor put a hand to Etti’s forehead. “That feels better, I’ll bet.”
Better? His lips were blue. “Is it the influenza?”
The doctor eyed me. “No. He’s been into the don’s pills.” He returned his attention to Etti. “How many did you take, young man?”
Etti settled against Carlo’s shoulder. “One. My heart was sad.”
His statement swept me up and out of my hole and put me back on steady footing. “Oh, Etti.”
The doctor clapped his hands at the crowd. “Why is everybody staring? Don’t any of you have something to do? The boy will be fine.”
People dispersed, and the mumbling began.
“One after the other.”
“The house is unlucky.”
“And after all the Lattanzis did for her.”
The doctor turned his back on all of it. “Keep an eye on him. Take him home and give him something to eat. He should stay quiet for a while.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “He’s young. He’s resilient. He’s also very lucky. Make sure the don keeps his pills where the boys can’t find them.” He returned his attention to Etti. “And you, young man, stay out of business that isn’t yours.”
He put his stethoscope into his bag.
And was gone.
Carlo carried Etti back. “We will work together. I’ll tend to the street. You stay with the boys. Keep an eye on the don. Cook. Bake bread. Be like Benedetta.”
Then he was gone.
Everything collapses. Every fabric wears thin. Every intention can be ground into dust. Especially those which are good.
I did as Carlo suggested, obeyed what the doctor directed. I kept Etti quiet, made sure the old man kept his pills where the boys wouldn’t find them. Found chores for Fipo to do. I cooked and cleaned and scrubbed and chattered, in all things doing my best to be like Benedetta.
Somebody rang the bell. The higher-pitched bell, for the top apartment. The bell came again, the deeper bell for the Lattanzis’. Followed by a knock.
“Enough, Carlo.” The old man’s voice, deep and a little thready, came up the stairs. “Did you forget your key?”
Something tick-tocked between my ears, like I’d wound a Big Ben and set it on my head. There was a spare key under the flowerpot. Surely Carlo already knew. I turned off the burner, meaning to tell the old man, prevent him from answering, but—
“Can I help you?” The old man. Pleasant, and perplexed.
The response was muffled, and familiar, remembered from the time after the Lattanzis died. I peeked around Benedetta’s jamb.
The Children’s Bureau ladies.
I grabbed hold of Etti, already pushing past me to see who it was, and put my finger to my lips. I hoped Fipo would have the sense to stay in his room.
The tall, thin lady checked her clipboard. “Boys are a lot of work. We understand the older one was burned, and the younger got into your medicine.”
The old man talked a while, offering explanations, assurances of our more careful care. He put a hand to the door’s edge and leaned against it, running out of steam along with his arguments.
I shrank back into Benedetta’s kitchen, and found her illustration where I’d saved it, under the Brownie camera. Then I checked the mirror, pinched up my cheeks, tied my apron properly, wanting to appear mature, capable, qualified.
Etti tugged on my skirt. “Signorina?”
“Stay here. Be quiet.”
I descended the stairs, swallowing and swallowing again. I used my best English, in a tone both serious and serene. I went through the illustrations as Benedetta once had, reiterating the promise Benedetta meant to keep, a modern woman, able to accept the responsibilities the boys presented, and willing to do what was necessary to nurture them in their time of sorrow. “The boys were in Coatesville. Her aunt returned with them when she collected Signora Bruni’s baby. We have had trying times. Many losses in the past weeks. We hope you will understand it takes a little time to adjust.”
To me, my words felt right, even the part where I lied, but the expression on the ladies’ faces told me they were not satisfied, did not think it enough, were not convinced in my ability. I’d been doing the work of a woman before I’d had the chance to be a girl. Yet my efforts were ignored, my motivations judged, my neighbors unable to accept my intentions were good, my actions meant to help, my only desire, hard-learned, but real, to live my life as I thought best, without hurt, nor harm. “Up and down this street children are running wild, their parents sick and no adult to care for them. Yet here you smell dinner cooking, see that our clothes are pressed, and the table set for civilized people. Why do you listen to the complaints of a few? Why do you not believe the evidence before your eyes?”
I stepped toward the short, thick lady. Stepped toward them both.
The old man stepped beside me. “Fiora. Get the boys.”
Impossible. No. I must have heard wrong. “But—”
I can help. I can fix this. I can make it all go away. I can keep the boys safe, the old man comfortable, the neighbor kids under control. Give me time. A week, a day, an hour, a moment. To get settled, get organized, figure out how to go on.
The old man put a hand on my hair. “Fiora. Please.”
Everything collapses. Everybody leaves. Every good thought can be turned bad.
Without careful and constant attention.
Twenty-Six
The Children’s Bureau ladies took the boys. Etti was silent, thumb in mouth, Signora Bruni’s Emerald City book under his arm. Fipo went out fighting. “This is my house. Mine and Etti’s. Mamma wants us to stay. Poppa.” He threw his satchel to the ground and pointed to me. “Make her leave.”
The old man went down on one knee, spoke to Fipo on his level. “For now. Only for now. Behave well.” Then he spoke in Fipo’s ear, his voice low, rapid, intense.
Whatever he said, Fipo calmed. His shoulders relaxed, the anger fell out of his face. He nodded to the old man, picked up his bundle, took Etti’s hand, and headed down the stoop. I watched them go, watched while they waited for the trolley, neighbors watching with me. I wondered which one had notified the Bureau, which ones were feeling sad with me, and which worried what would happen to their own children should they fall sick.
Etti looked back once. I waved. The trolley arrived, they got on, and were gone.
The old man closed the door, then sagged against it.
I planted myself in front of him. “Why didn’t you talk to them longer? How could you let the boys go?”
“Inside, we are caged. Outside is safer. If I had the strength, I would take them myself.”
“Benedetta died outside.”
“The Lattanzis passed inside. We will retrieve the boys when the time is right.”
“You mean when the bubble collapses.”
“I mean when the time is right.”
Fine. I could make the time right right then. Without a moment’s delay. The curtain made the bubble and the curtain could unmake it. I ran upstairs, to do the one thing I hadn’t yet tried. Ask the curtain nicely.
“The bubble was a mistake. I was nervous, uncertain. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
I stopped talking.
The curtain hung much as it had when I entered the room, five minutes earlier. The market moved as it typically did, five minutes ahead.
<
br /> I started in again. “None of this is your fault. You were reacting to my nerves, trying to help, but all I wanted to do was keep the old man safe, keep bad things from happening. It isn’t working, so . . . you can let the bubble go now.”
The curtain kept hanging. The market kept flickering.
And I was talking to a piece of fabric. A fabric stitched to my past, that had changed my future, imprisoned my present, and scattered all I’d come to embrace as important. A piece of fabric which thus far had not served me, one I could not destroy, could not get rid of, could not let go. A piece of fabric that had headed me down a path I had not intended, a path which appeared fruitless, unless . . .
A spark, a flare, a flame ignited a corner of my mind.
. . . unless the path I’d been following were not my own. Maybe the path I followed belonged to the curtain.
A grommet unfolded, then another. The upside-down market disappeared, replaced by the fairy lights.
The landlord had tossed me out without warning. I’d left the curtain without thinking. Maybe not by accident, maybe by design. Because the curtain didn’t want to be taken. Because it had some task unfinished, some purpose not yet fulfilled.
Unrelated to me. Unrelated to anything that had happened.
Another grommet unfolded. Another fairy light appeared.
All this time I thought the curtain was holding me hostage. Maybe I’d been holding the curtain. Maybe the curtain chose the window in the old man’s attic because I’d set it on a path it hadn’t intended. Maybe it cast the bubble to keep me from taking it farther, then stayed firmly five minutes forward to leave me a trail, like the yarn I used at the guaritrice’s, a path back on which we could both return. Not in time, like I’d already tried. In place. And once there, maybe the curtain would show me the best way forward.
The curtain fluttered. The grommets unfolded, one after the other in quick succession, the fairy lights cascading across the opposite wall. Then the curtain slid from its iron rod. It folded itself as I’d folded it when I tried to take it to the guaritrice, tucked in and tidy.
I picked up the bundle. It curled neatly into my arm, like a cat finding its place. I ran a finger along the velvet, feeling ridiculous. “Do you want to go home?”
Home looked dejected. The windows unwashed, the stoop unscrubbed, the potted evergreen beside the door unwatered, its needles dry and falling. I climbed the steps, and examined the sign beside the buzzer: two long rings for upstairs, three short for ground floor.
My old home, the landlord. I hovered a finger, undecided.
The curtain slipped from my grasp, fell in its neat little bundle to the mat.
I retrieved it. It fell again. I retrieved it a third time and it leaped from my fingers, landing in the plant pot. I picked up the curtain. It caught on the evergreen’s brittle branches, and held on.
I looked around. “What is it?” Something about the buzzer. The stoop.
Or maybe the pot.
I’d forgotten about the key. Buried in the dirt like Signora Lattanzi hid hers. A last link. A last connection. A last remembrance of the life I’d lived here. And a way to get into the house without buzzing.
I slipped the key in the lock, and entered.
Dust piled into the corners, newspapers by the door. The air was still and stale, like everywhere in the bubble, but the conditions here spoke of neglect, of decay, of the bubble’s infinite time dedicated to other matters.
Even the street was deserted.
The curtain weighed heavy in my hands, brooding and dreadful. It dragged me across the vestibule and past the landlord’s door. I went by on tiptoe, then climbed the steps, one at a time, as I never had, imagining the replacement signora in Mamma’s kitchen, busy with dinner, her table set with no plate at its head. The curtain grew more ponderous with each tread.
I didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to know where my quest would lead. The curtain didn’t want me to go, didn’t want me to leave until it showed me what I needed to see. I stood on the landing, outside the door, afraid to knock, afraid not to, and wishing I didn’t have to keep making decisions.
Somebody rang the buzzer. Two long rings. Impatient, imperative, and for this apartment.
The door opened, cautiously. I stepped back, aware I had no idea what I should say. A little girl peeked around the edge, clean and pressed and looking confused. “Are you here for the landlord?”
The girl was older than the children I’d seen when I first visited. She opened the door wider. I looked past her into an orderly space like Mamma used to keep. The two younger children sat at the table before a plate of sliced apples, a baby slept on a pallet beside. I returned my attention to the girl. “I’m not here for the landlord. I . . . I wanted to leave something for your mother.”
The buzzer rang a second time. Three short. The landlord’s door opened. The landlord didn’t exit. The signora did. The signora from whom I’d collected my mother’s curtain and whom I’d expected to answer her own door.
The little girl went to the top of the stairs. “Mamma?”
I shrank into the corner of the landing, still and silent, reminded of my time in the curtain world, there, but invisible, able to observe, but not partake.
The signora unlocked the street door, spoke to whomever was there, then stood aside. She glanced upstairs, her expression distracted and distressed. “I told you to be quiet, be respectful.”
“I know, Mamma. Somebody’s here.”
Men shuffled behind the signora. Men in work clothes and caps and carrying things I couldn’t identify from my vantage.
“Of course somebody’s here. Go. See to your sisters. Close the door.”
“But Mamma—”
But Mamma was busy. Directing the men into the landlord’s apartment and speaking to them from the entrance. “I tried to clean up. They have relatives in New Jersey. I didn’t want to upset them, didn’t want them to see.” She hesitated. “It’s just, they suffered so. First the children, then the parents. I nursed them but there was nothing, no medicine. Tea and hopeful words were all we had to offer. And prayer. Plenty of prayer.”
Children. Parents. Tea. Nursed. My ears buzzed, my heart skipped across my chest. I knew who those men were. I’d seen men like them before. Men in work clothes and caps who came to collect my mamma and poppa, came for the Lattanzis. One of them probably carried a clipboard.
The curtain grew leaden. It dropped to the floor, landing solid enough to leave indents.
The signora stopped her patter. She looked to her entryway. “What’s going on up there?” Her voice was mamma-stern and directed at her daughter, hands planted firmly on hips.
The little girl cupped her hands around her mouth. “Mamma. Someone wants to see you.”
I didn’t want to see her mamma. Wasn’t in the least certain why I’d come. I’d leave the curtain. Let the signora have it. Tell her I’d teased her. It wasn’t magical, wasn’t magical at all. It really did go with the apartment, and my taking it was the same as stealing and I was sorry. I was so, so sorry.
About everything. About it all. How I’d worried her unnecessarily about her husband. How I’d threatened the landlord. My glee to see his humiliation with the guaritrice. Explain I hadn’t meant to hurt anybody, never meant to cause harm. I’d only acted that way because my grief had been fresh. I was angry. I was resentful. Because the signora had what I’d lost, a family, a home, the right to remain in the place where all my memories were housed.
I didn’t get a chance. The signora dashed up the stairs. She scooped her daughter into her arms, shielded her eyes from mine, then cowered in her doorway. “Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my children. I prayed for you. Prayed for your parents. Please. Don’t hurt my husband.”
Everything collapses. Not every broken thing can be fixed.
I held my tongue. What I said wouldn’t matter. I picked up the curtain, now light and easy to handle. I’d seen what it wanted me to see. The result of my anger, the res
ult of my resentment, the result of my mistaken assumption that because I hurt, everybody else should hurt, also.
Something invisible laughed between us. Jarring, jangling, screechy with scorn.
The guaritrice.
I didn’t know if the signora heard her, didn’t wait to find out. I backed down the stairs, backed out the door to the street, gaze averted from the men in the work clothes and caps, with their stretchers and clipboards and instructions as to where they were taking the landlord and his family. I asked God to have mercy on the landlord’s soul. Then I begged Him to have mercy on mine.
The guaritrice’s laughter followed me into the succeeding minutes. Those minutes stretched into hours, folding over and doubling on themselves, then doubling again. All I wanted to do was curl on my bed, hands over my ears. The second hand on the Big Ben refused to sweep, moving along at a pace so lifeless, it seemed my own heart would stop.
The curtain found its own way back to the window in the old man’s attic, untucking and unfolding, gliding up and over the rod in a way I’d have found wondrous the day before, or the day before that, or the day before that. But wonder had ceased in the unceasing drumbeat pounding between my temples.
It’s my fault, my fault, my fault.
I’d cursed the landlord, drawn delight in his distress. His family passed, one after the other, wife, then children. I knew without knowing, the landlord went last.
But I had no time for mourning, nor the luxury of recrimination. There was bread to be baked, beans to be boiled, floors to scrub, laundry to soak, the cycle of service and solicitude that became my bulwark against the silent accusation of my thoughts.
Along with Carlo, sitting at the old man’s table, replacing soles on the street children’s shoes while the old man napped downstairs at the Lattanzis’. “The landlord and his family got sick. They died. Many families are sick. Will you also take responsibility for what time the sun rises, or the moon sets?”
Five minutes forward on a magical curtain is easy enough to prove. Wait five minutes. But to convince somebody I’d stagnated time in an entire neighborhood . . .
The Infinite Now Page 22