Elizabeth Street

by Laurie Fabiano

  Giovanna was amused at Domenico’s tone of camaraderie and chose to play along. “The children should be in school. And you need not fault the little one. She never had a mother, and people try and make up for that.”

  “Are you going to marry him?”

  “No, Domenico. I am going for a walk.”

  Giovanna asked Signore Siena if they could walk to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was her way of bringing Nunzio along. She made no attempt to shorten her strides as she often did when walking with other people and was impressed that the signore kept pace. Giovanna asked Rocco what he missed about Scilla. He replied, “L’America is my home.” Rocco was in the “love it” group and, having pledged his loyalty to America, he did not allow himself sentimental thoughts of the home he left behind.

  With Giovanna’s occasional question and Signore Siena’s one-word answers, Giovanna had plenty of time to assess the signore’s appearance. His clothes were clean, without holes, and made of good cloth. He was dark, and even the graying of his thick black hair did not soften his rough appearance. While there was no grace to him, he was respectful and politely nodded to people he knew along the way.

  When they reached the Brooklyn Bridge, they rested on a bench. Giovanna asked him what he thought.

  “What do I think of what?”

  “The bridge.”

  “It’s a bridge. It’s a big bridge.”

  Perversely, Giovanna was pleased. There could be no mistaking this man for Nunzio.

  Rocco seemed to be trying to say something, because he had taken off his cap and was twisting it in his hands as she had seen him do when they first met. He bit his lip, which caused his sizable mustache to move up and down.

  “Signora. I don’t ask you to love me. But I will be a good partner if you marry me.”

  They both stared out at Brooklyn. Giovanna marveled at the irony. Had Rocco Siena proposed by saying that he loved her, saying that he wanted her to love him, she would have dismissed the offer instantly. But this simple man had said exactly the right thing. She watched a tugboat pushing a tanker down the river and felt the breeze on her cheeks.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Ten weeks later, Giovanna had grown marginally fond of Signore Siena, but she was falling in love with the children, particularly Mary. Giovanna had also begun to face up to the truth that in all likelihood she could not have her own children. After all, she was thirty-one, and she and Nunzio had tried to conceive without success. If she married this man, at least she would have a family.

  Lorenzo and Teresa had not said a word on the topic, making it easier for her to consider the option. Lorenzo had written of the possibility to their parents, and yesterday she had received a letter, written by her mentor, Signora Scalici, on behalf of her family, assuring her that they would bless whatever decision Giovanna made. Signora Scalici couldn’t help but add her two cents at the end of the letter, obliquely endorsing the marriage by writing, “I am told you are working with a woman doctor. A possibility like that would never exist here.”

  Giovanna didn’t need to decide whether to marry Nunzio. It was a given. This, however, was a practical decision—to live her life alone or to create a family with a man she did not love but was beginning to respect. She thought of the lawyer, Signore DeCegli. Even if Signore DeCegli hadn’t just got married, she would never have allowed herself to love him. A smart, handsome man threatened Nunzio’s place in her heart.

  Giovanna told Rocco on their next Sunday excursion that she would marry him. She reminded him of his promise that she did not have to love him. In return for this consideration, she said she would care for his children and treat them as her own. Rocco simply said, “Thank you.” The only thing indicating his pleasure was the suggestion that they cut their walk short and go to Lorenzo’s apartment, where his family was also gathered, to deliver the news.

  Everyone, even the children, seemed to respect the difficulty of the decision and did not make a fuss. Instead they offered quiet congratulations and best wishes with polite kisses. The exception was Mary, who flung herself into Giovanna’s arms and nuzzled her head into her neck.

  Teresa insisted that everyone stay for supper. Giovanna sat opposite Rocco, taking a hard look at the whole of his face for what seemed like the first time. Panic rose in her chest with the realization that she had promised herself to this stranger. She said fervent, silent prayers that she had not made the wrong decision.

  Giovanna and Rocco were married in City Hall. Alderman Reichter presided. Rocco had said, “We live in America; we will marry the American way.” Giovanna wasn’t sure there was an “American way” of doing anything but agreed, reasoning that a civil ceremony would further distance this marriage from her wedding to Nunzio.

  Following the ceremony on the walk home, they stopped at the bench where Rocco had proposed twelve weeks before.

  “So, the widow and the widower got married.” Rocco put extra emphasis on “widow.”

  Giovanna had had to be coaxed out of her black dress that morning by Teresa, who had bought her a new one. “I’m sorry, but I will never forget him.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. I know this. And I have decided that if we won’t forget, then we should honor the memory of your husband and my wife,” Rocco stammered.

  Giovanna looked quizzically at Rocco, who stared at the bridge when he said, “If we have children, the girl will be called Angelina, and the boy will be Nunzio.”

  Rocco didn’t see her smile because she, too, looked straight ahead and wondered what it was about this view that made this illiterate man say the right things. Covering his large, gnarled hand with her own, Giovanna touched him for the first time.

  Cedar Grove, New Jersey, 1966

  When my parents moved to the suburbs, my grandfather Nonno planted a gigantic garden and surrounded it with a six-foot fence. Every day, he would drive from Hoboken to garden with me at lunchtime. I was happiest within the big green fence with my grandfather. The neighbors complained because they thought it was going to be a chicken coop, but Nonno painted it green so it wouldn’t be so noticeable among the manicured shrubs and sloping lawns.

  “Nonno, she did it again,” I complained, throwing a weed over the fence.

  “Shake the dirt off the weeds before you throw them. Itsa good dirt.”

  “One of my friends came over to play, and she started screaming, ‘She’s not blood. Get her out of here! Tell her to go home.’ No one wants to come to my house. They’re afraid. Why can’t Nanny be like you, or Thea’s Yia-Yia?”

  Nonno realized that he couldn’t change the subject. He walked over to the two peach trees in the garden. “See this,” he said, pointing to a gnarled spot on the trunk of one tree. “This is from the early frost a few years ago. It made the tree grow different. There are reasons for the way we are. Have patience with your grandmother. And remember, itsa been hard for her since your Big Nanny died.”

  “I don’t like her, Nonno, she’s mean.”

  “Anna, thatsa bad to say.”

  “You don’t like her either. You fight all the time.”

  “Shesa tough, but I love your grandmother.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  Nonno put the small white Formica table in the middle of the garden and unwrapped two sandwiches. We sat in the dirt. I always tried to be quiet because Nonno didn’t say much, but invariably I failed. I would chatter about the families who lived around our dead-end circle. Three Greek, two Italian, one Hungarian, one Polish, and one not anything. I always felt sorry for the kids who weren’t anything. When people asked, “What are you?” they had to say, “Not anything” or, “I don’t know.” My grandmother had taught me how to figure out what people were by their last names. Nanny was real concerned with what people were.

  The sandwich looked small in Nonno’s hands, which were big and attached to even bigger forearms, one with a tattoo of a mermaid, the other with an anchor. The rest of Nonno wasn’t so big. But he was tall enough, with bro
wn eyes that sparkled.

  “Nonno, tell me about the mermaids,” I said.

  “Again? Only if you promise no more questions.”

  “Deal.”

  “Okay, in the firsta World War I was in the blu marinos—you say ‘navy’ in English. The mermaids, they saved my life. After the torpedo hit, I wasa hanging onto a piece of wood. I think it wasa door from the submarine. I had no water, no food, so my head wasa no good. So I keep slipping off the wood, and every time that I sink into the sea, the mermaids push me back on the wood.”

  “How did you know it was mermaids?”

  “Who else could ita be out there in the ocean?”

  “Maybe Scylla.”

  “Scylla ate the sailors, no saved them.”

  “But maybe she saved you because you were from her town. It makes sense because the other men died. Maybe she wanted you to come back to Scilla.”

  “Ah, then I did a bad thing, because thatsa when I went to America to visit my aunt.”

  “Big Nanny?”

  “Yes, Big Nanny.”

  “I still don’t get how your mother-in-law is your aunt.”

  “For such a smarta girl I have to explain this again! My Uncle Nunzio wasa married to your great-grandmother.”

  “But how are you and Nanny cousins?”

  “Because Nunzio and your great-grandmother wasa cousins.”

  I couldn’t understand the family stuff no matter how hard I tried. So I went back to a topic I could understand. “Nonno, what are we going to plant there?”

  “Strawberries. But we going to mix the sand ina the dirt.”

  Nonno nodded to the gate. “The basanogol needs caviar.” Caviar is what Nonno called cow manure.

  I unwrapped the dried figs Nonno had packed for dessert. In November, we would wrap the huge fig tree in Nonno’s yard. I would stand at the base, squinting into the light, and hand Nonno the cloth and stuffing up through the labyrinthine branches. With one foot on the ladder and another on the tree, Nonno would rhythmically wind the cloth around each limb to protect it from the northeastern winter. He had named the broad, dignified tree Kate, for Kate Smith. He told me that sometimes at night he heard the fig tree singing “God Bless America.”

  Weeks later, I sat perfectly still on a wrought-iron kitchen chair cushioned in pink vinyl as Nonno cut my hair in the backyard. Minutes before, I’d been standing on the same chair to strain the tomatoes at the stove. Clippings of wavy dark brown hair fell in the dishcloth on my lap.

  The kitchen window was open. My mother and grandmother were bickering so loudly as they prepared the Sunday meal that I didn’t even try to talk to Nonno. My five-year-old sister, Marie, was on the patio, lost in her pretend world, puffing on a pencil. I wondered if my sister would get lead poisoning smoking those make-believe cigarettes and when she would have to strain the tomatoes. But my musings about Marie’s health and the inequities of chores were interrupted by something I heard my mother say.

  “Ma, come on. You can’t still be getting nightmares. I mean, enough is enough. That was sixty years ago!”

  My grandmother getting nightmares? She was the toughest person I knew. I noticed that my grandfather was paying attention as well.

  “Be quiet! Forget I said it. Just give me the spatula,” Nanny blurted.

  Nonno finished cutting, and I got up, careful not to let any of the hair fall from the dishcloth. I went to the towering ash tree, the one that no one, including my big, towering father, could get his arms around, and scattered my hair all along the base. My grandfather had taught me that birds would use the hair in their nests. The first time I found a nest with my hair in it, I didn’t miss my long hair anymore.

  At dinner, we made it through a couple of courses to the fruit without a blowup, but there was tension in the air. My mother and grandmother were still aggravated with each other.

  “Looka,” said Nonno, picking up a discarded tangerine peel. “You want perfume?” He held the peel close to my neck and squeezed it between his finger, letting loose a spray of tangerine essence.

  “Neat!” I was so excited I picked up a peel and squirted my mother.

  “Stop that. Go get the milk and sugar.”

  “No fair. I got the fruit.” I pointed to my older brother. “Make Michael get dessert.”

  My brother gave me a Three Stooges noogie on the head.

  “Mom! He’s teasing me!”

  When I calmed down, my grandfather pointed to the sugar bowl, holding a cookie out of my reach. “Zucchero.”

  “Zucchero,” I proudly pronounced.

  “Bene.” Nonno handed me the cookie.

  “Occhi.”

  “Occhi,” I said, pulling my eyes sideways, cracking up my little sister.

  “Stop that. Your eyes will stay that way!” reprimanded Nanny sharply. It was clear that whatever my grandmother was holding in was about to come out.

  “And you!” she shouted, pointing at my grandfather. “Anna doesn’t need to learn Italian. She needs to learn her times tables!” Nanny turned to my brother, sister, and me. “You think you’d have a meal like this in Italy? You’d eat misery, that’s what you would eat! My father and mother suffered so we could live well here. It was all worth it. All of it!”

  As soon as my grandmother’s back was turned, Nonno poured a little wine into Michael’s and my Howdy Doody cups.

  “Come on, do your homework and maybe we’ll play Pokerino later.” My mother sounded both exasperated and tired.

  For my part, I wondered if I would ever understand—or like—my grandmother.

  PART FIVE

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK 1905–1907

  SIXTEEN

  Giovanna’s laughter was so loud and hard, the baby kicked her in protest. Rubbing her hand over her growing belly, she laughed and whispered, “Scusi.” When she had realized five months ago that she was pregnant, it was the first time since Nunzio’s death that she truly felt happiness.

  Giovanna and Rocco were two of hundreds of people packed onto benches in the Teatro Villa Giulia on Grand Street to watch the star of satire and macchiette, Eduardo Migliaccio. Known as “Farfariello”—“The Little Butterfly”—Migliaccio had finished his opening song, and already Giovanna was laughing so hard, tears rolled from her eyes. The Little Butterfly pranced across the stage in a spangled skirt, shaking his ample bosom and buttocks. Since arriving in New York, Giovanna had taken advantage of all the theater opportunities, but the opera buffa was her favorite.

  Rocco didn’t really like satire, nor did he understand much of it, but he accompanied his wife because he was content to be with her. In the year since their marriage, he had grown fond of Giovanna. When Teresa and Pasqualina suggested he marry Giovanna, he readily agreed because he had already noticed her in the neighborhood and thought she was certain to be a good mother to his children. Little else entered into the decision. He was pleasantly surprised that, in addition to being all those things, she was a good companion and a good card player.

  For Giovanna, the first few months were extremely difficult. She was uncomfortable around Rocco. Unlike Nunzio, he spoke rarely, and unlike her father, who also used words sparingly, you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But he had not interfered in her decisions about how to run her life and home. He only grumbled when she sent Frances back to school and said nothing when she brought Mary with her to visit patients.

  Once she conceived, her feelings for Rocco changed. His status rose from “partner” to the more permanent “father of her child.” They now had a bond beyond their marriage license. But sex with Rocco was perfunctory. It was quick, and Giovanna was grateful. And although she enjoyed the warmth that followed intercourse, she looked forward to the final months of her pregnancy when she could abstain and not be questioned.

  Farfariello was marching across the stage with an enormous pasted-on mustache, a sash across his chest, and a saber over his shoulder, purloining Italian patriots. Next he became the “Iceman,” “Issaman” to Itali
an-Americans, singing bawdy Italian folk songs. The audience knew this routine signaled the end of the show and were already on their feet, clapping and cheering. Farfariello’s baritone stretched uncomfortably into a high note, and he exited stage right with a flourish. The crowd erupted into shouts and whistles.

  Rocco protectively motioned his pregnant wife to sit for a few moments to avoid getting caught in the crush of the crowd, and they sat watching the stagehands while the audience filed out. Even before the applause ended, the stagehands had begun preparing for the next show.

  A heavyset bald man struggled up a rope ladder to untie a drape from a truss. His younger counterpart called, “One more cannolo and we won’t be able to hoist you up there!”

  The man ignored him, but another stagehand joked, “Leave Saint Carmine alone. All he has is the cream in his cannolo and his ammoratas on Mulberry Street!”

  Without saying a word, Giovanna rose and, stepping over benches, made her way directly to the stage. Rocco, concerned and confused, caught up with her.

  “It’s him!” she whispered to Rocco.

  “Who?”

  “Carmine. Nunzio’s friend.”

  With her hands leaning on the stage, Giovanna called to the man on the rope ladder, “Prego, signore, are you Carmine?”

  Without looking down, the man answered, “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I am—I was—the wife of Nunzio Pontillo.”

  Carmine stopped untying a knot and looked down. He didn’t move.

  “Saint Carmine, che cosa fa? What are you doing up there?” yelled one of the others.

  Carmine climbed down the rope, slid off the stage, and turned to look at Giovanna, studying her face and scrutinizing her eyes. “Yes, yes, surely it is you.”