Sofia had wanted to get a job, too, maybe even in the place Tina worked so she could be close to her friend. It would have been easy for her father to get her such a job, he met so many people in the restaurant. But he had insisted that she stay in the restaurant and learn how to become his bookkeeper. She wasn’t even a regular waitress, only being called on to serve tables when someone failed to show up for work or if they were very busy. A waitressing job might have been bearable. At least waitresses got a chance to meet and talk to other people. Most of the time, Sofia sat alone in the back room under a dim light, looking at bills and invoices and rows of numbers.
She would never meet anyone.
Tina had tried to help. She talked often of Sofia marrying Tommy, and while that idea did not terribly interest Sofia any longer, she liked being around Tina to hear her talk about weddings and marriage and love. The only problem with Tommy, Tina said, was that he was working all night as a policeman and going to school all day and there wasn’t time for anything else. Tommy was planning to be a rich lawyer someday, and that took a lot of work and did not leave much energy left over.
“Not even for you,” Tina had said. “But I’ll work at him.”
“Don’t even think of it, Tina,” Sofia had responded. “It doesn’t matter. You and I will be friends forever.”
Sofia walked away from the window and climbed into bed, kicking the covers away from her. She hesitated a moment, then said her nightly prayers, adding a quick Act of Contrition and begging Jesus to forgive her for what she had become, and stretched out. But sleep would not come.
Just a few blocks away, over in Greenwich Village, even this late at night, people were laughing, living, loving, she knew, and she was lying here like a bloated dying toad. She had dreamed of a life of freedom, of poetry … but none of the young lady poets of the Village, in all their works she had read, had anything to say that addressed how desolate and unhappy she had become.
She tried desperately to call up a poem, even a single line, that could tell her there was a bright side, but the only verse she heard in her head were lines and rhythms of death and despair.
Tears welled in Sofia’s eyes. She could not think of Tommy Falcone; all that was in her mind was some broad abstract idea of love. She forced herself to picture him and she saw Tommy and Tina and Sofia, all together, as one. Maybe Tommy could still be her way out of this trap. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, then dreamily pulled up her thin nightgown and rested her fingers between her thighs and slowly began to move them. Her breath started to come in little gasps. She could feel the beginning of that special feeling start to take hold. She worked her hand more quickly. Tommy’s face was gone now; all that was left in her mind was Tina. It was happening. She could feel it almost there.
And then the outside door to the apartment slammed open to a loud, rapid-fire burst of cursing and swearing. The feeling ebbed. For a moment, Sofia tried to keep it going, to get it back, but it was no use. She took her hand away and tried to fight back her fears and frustration. Outside her bedroom door, in the parlor beyond, the battle between her parents raged, growing in intensity.
Sofia was surprised. Whatever result taking her father to bed might have on her immortal soul, it had brought a few months of peace in the family, the first that Sofia had ever known. Not that things had greatly improved. Mrs. Mangini had grown even more withdrawn and cold to her husband than she had been before, and sometimes Sofia felt the old woman had guessed what was happening between her father and her.
But still, for a while, there had been no arguments or shouting and, best of all, there were no more beatings. Whatever else she had done, Sofia had brought her mother personal safety.
Now that seemed to be over. Matteo Mangini was cursing his wife with an unending stream of Italian invective. She pressed her fingertips into her ears, but she could still hear them.
“Fatti i cazzi tuoi,” her father shouted.
“Figlio di zoccola,” her mother responded.
Sofia listened, afraid to do anything, afraid not to. Abruptly, the swearing stopped and she could hear her father’s heavy footsteps lumbering across the wooden floor of the apartment toward her door. She heard his hand grab the doorknob.
Please, dear God, may he not come to me tonight. Please, may I not give in to him. Please, God, spare me this.
Then another stream of epithets erupted from her mother.
“Pisciasotto!” Sofia heard her call out. Matteo stopped with Sofia’s door open just a crack. Then he closed the door. She could hear him walking away, heavily, deliberately.
Sofia was frightened. She got out of bed, pulled a robe around her, and tiptoed to the bedroom door. When she opened it a crack, she saw her mother backed against the far wall. Matteo had one hand over her face and was banging her head against the wall. With the other hand, he had a grip around his wife’s neck and was trying to lift her off the floor.
Sofia watched in absolute horror for the space of two or three heartbeats. If she did not do something immediately, her mother would be dead. She threw open the door and ran into the living room, throwing herself on her father’s back and clawing and hammering at him.
“Papa, stop! Papa, stop!”
At first, it did no good. It was as if he were a robot, made of steel, unable to be moved from his path. Then, slowly, he became aware of his daughter’s attack. He dropped his wife into a heap on the floor, reached out and plucked Sofia off his back, and threw her onto the couch.
She started to get up and he slapped her down with a brutal combination of backhand and open-hand slaps. She slumped back, blood seeping from the corner of her mouth where his heavy ring had caught her.
Sofia saw his eyes were glassy from drinking too much. Her mother struggled to raise herself into a sitting position on the floor.
Matteo looked back at her, then at his daughter again. Slowly, elaborately, as if commanding his wife to bear witness, he pulled off his suspenders, opened his trouser fly, and slid his pants down his legs.
“Watch this, you dried-up old crone,” he rasped bitterly.
He moved toward Sofia and extended a hand to touch her cheek. She stiffened. She could not stand it anymore, not anymore, not this way. She wished it had never started, but she vowed it would end here. As Matteo leaned over her, reaching inside his khaki-colored underwear, Sofia stretched backward, grasping for something, anything that would help. Her hand found a table lamp, closed around it, then, with strength she did not know she had, smashed it across the side of her father’s head.
Matteo fell backward, away from his daughter, off the couch. He was down, moaning, but not unconscious. Sofia backed away from him, clambering over the edge of the couch and hurrying toward the apartment door. From the corner of her eye, she could see her mother slowly rising.
Wearing only her robe and nightgown, Sofia opened the door and ran out into the hall and toward the stairs. As she started down, the front door of the building opened and Nilo entered. He saw her above him, saw the blood on her face, and ran up the steps and put his arms around her.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” he asked. His voice was thick and slurred, and Sofia smelled strong wine on his breath. Still, for a moment she thought of telling him, of even asking to spend the night safely in his room. But it would just be too scandalous.
“I’m all right,” she said, and pulled away from him and ran down the steps and out the front door.
As Nilo came down to watch, he saw her clamber up the fire escape across the street and sneak up the two flights until she was outside Tina’s bedroom, tapping on the window. He waited until he saw the window open and Sofia climb through before he went back inside.
He thought for a moment of going to the Manginis’ apartment and seeing if things were all right, but then put the thought aside and stumbled up the steps toward his own furnished room. I have my own problems. Let Sofia deal with hers. I can’t take care of the world.
* * *
&n
bsp; THE NEXT MORNING, Sofia and Tina managed to leave the Falcone apartment without anyone seeing them. Sofia was wearing a dress of Tina’s; she had applied a lot of powder to cover the bruise on her face.
On the street, Tina said, “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do.”
“Then you tell me what is,” Sofia said.
“We could go over to Mount Carmel and talk to Mario,” Tina said. “He’s a priest. He knows how to take care of things. Or you could let my father go talk to your father and get it all straightened out.”
Sofia shook her head. Despite their closeness, she had not told Tina what had actually happened, only that Mr. Mangini had beaten her and her mother up. Sofia decided that the rest of it must remain a secret.
“It’s a family matter,” she said. “I shouldn’t even have come over to you last night. But I didn’t have anyplace else to go.”
“That’s a fine thing to say,” Tina snapped. “I’m your best friend, in case you’ve forgotten.” She already knew there was something Sofia had not told her, and she had guessed what it was.
“Of course you are. But you’re not family, Tina. Having anybody but family deal with this would disgrace my parents. What kind of Sicilian are you, anyway? You should know that.”
“Don’t you ever listen to my papa? This isn’t Sicily and we’re not Sicilians. We’re Americans. You too.”
“Just tell that to the English. Tell that to all those rich pigs who live uptown and look down on us. Or, worse yet, who want to help us with their settlement houses and their little youth programs to teach us to be just like them. But who won’t give us any money, except what we grab from them with our hands and our brains.”
Tina was surprised by her friend’s ferocity. She did not answer and was silent for a long time before she asked, “How do you know he can help us? Or that he will want to?”
Sofia led the way across a busy street.
“Salvatore will help because he is family. My mother’s cousin. And Sicilian too. Not like some Americans I can name.”
“All right,” Tina conceded. “Let’s go and meet this cousin of yours. But I still think you should have talked to Mario first.”
“These kinds of problems Mario can’t help,” Sofia said. “All he can do is pray, and my father needs more than prayers said over him.”
“And Cousin Salvatore will do more than pray?”
“If he wants to,” Sofia said. “Papa listens to him and is afraid of him. He is in the restaurant a lot, and he supplies Papa with all the illegal wine that he keeps for his regular customers.”
“He’s a bootlegger?” Tina asked.
Sofia snorted derisively, as if it were stupid to even ask such a question. “He’s very tough,” she said. “They say he’s already killed two or three men. He works for Joe Masseria.”
“That fat old man with the long mustache who walks around wearing a great big cape, like he’s God or a movie star or something like that?”
“He is Mafia,” Sofia said. At the corner of Kenmare and Mulberry, she pointed to an old two-story garage and warehouse. “That’s where Salvatore works.”
“In a warehouse?” Tina laughed. “I can see he’s really an important man. Maybe he’ll give us a free bottle of olive oil.”
But she was pulled along by Sofia, who grabbed her sleeve and walked up to the door and knocked on it loudly. After a few seconds, it was opened by a good-looking very young man with sharp features and a highly creased suit that Tina thought was more whorehouse than warehouse.
“What do you want?” he asked, boldly appraising the two pretty young women.
“I’m Mr. Lucania’s cousin,” Sofia said. “I’d like to see him.”
“If you were really his cousin, you’d know that his name isn’t Lucania anymore. So why don’t you go away?”
Sofia looked startled by the man’s rudeness, but Tina snapped, “Just tell him that Sofia Mangini wants to see him. Do it quickly and we won’t tell him what a rude baboon he has working for him.”
Anger flashed across the young man’s face. He swallowed hard, then nodded toward two hard chairs. “Sit down and wait,” he said. “Maybe he’ll talk to you. Maybe he won’t.”
He walked back into the dark confines of the warehouse, where Tina could see a half-dozen large trucks parked. They heard his footsteps clacking as he walked up metal steps to the second floor.
“Where’d you learn to talk like that?” Sofia whispered to Tina.
“Grow up in a house with two brothers and you learn fast. Jump on them before they jump on you. Besides, he’s not even a man. He’s a boy. He’s younger than we are.”
After only a few minutes, the handsome young man returned, followed by another man. He too was well dressed. He was stocky and olive-skinned, and his right eyelid drooped slightly so it looked as if he were winking. When he saw Sofia he brushed past the other man and hurried to them. Both girls stood up, and Tina saw that the man was also young, only a few years older than they were. And he was barely as tall as Tina herself
“Sofia,” the man said. “I’m very sorry to keep you waiting. If I had known you were coming…”
“That’s all right, Salvatore,” Sofia said. “This is my friend, Tina Falcone. She lives across the street from me.”
Lucania looked at Tina and smiled. “First of all, everybody calls me Charlie now. Charlie Luciano.” His eyes were coldly appraising as he looked over Tina’s face. “Falcone. You have a father who’s a cop, haven’t you?”
Tina was surprised that he would know that.
“Yes,” she said. “And two brothers. Another policeman and a priest.”
“A busy family,” he said. “It’s good to meet you.” He looked back to Sofia. “Now what can I do for you, little cousin?”
“I … I…” Sofia began, and then tears began to gush from her eyes. Tina put an arm around her and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief she took from her dress pocket.
“She is having family problems,” Tina told Luciano, as Sofia sobbed in her arms. The swarthy young man nodded as if he had heard that story before.
“A lot of people still think they’re in the old country,” he said noncommittally. “Maybe we should go inside the office here.”
He turned to lead them into a small office near the front door. As he did, the other young man who had been waiting about twenty feet away started forward, but Luciano waved him off with his hand.
“It’s all right, Ben,” he said. “A family matter.”
The handsome youngster nodded and walked away.
“I guess Benny was rude to you when you arrived,” Luciano said to the women as he escorted them to a threadbare sofa inside the sparsely furnished office.
“Did he tell you that?” Tina asked.
“No. But Benny is too young to have learned any manners yet, so he is rude to everyone.”
Sofia had stopped crying, and when the man asked her again to explain her problem she told of the beatings and how her mother had once stabbed her father. She told him everything … except the part that she could not even bring herself to tell her friend, Tina.
“I’m scared,” Sofia said. “I ran away last night … just across the street … but I’m afraid to go back. And I’m afraid to stay there. I know it’s just a matter of time before somebody kills somebody else.”
“And he did this to you?”
Luciano reached out and gently touched the girl’s mouth where the small cut from Mangini’s ring had already scabbed over. He let his fingers linger on her face.
Sofia looked up from the sofa and nodded. Tina noticed that Luciano had taken a position in front of them so that his crotch was right in line with their faces. She was sure that was not just an accident and thought to herself that this Charlie Luciano cousin of Sofia’s was just another posing lowlife.
“Oh, Salvatore, I’m so scared.”
She began crying again, and Luciano patted her shoulder but almost absentmindedly. His eyes remained on
Tina.
“It’s Charlie, please. And what would you have me do?” he finally asked, when Sofia’s sobbing stopped.
“She doesn’t need sympathy,” Tina said sharply. “And if she listened to me, her father would be in a jail cell right now for what he’s done.”
“But you don’t want that?” he asked Sofia.
“Maybe if you talk to him. I want you to stop him before he does something terrible. Before … before…”
Luciano helped Sofia raise herself from the couch, then put his arms around her.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.” His words were meant to comfort, but Tina saw his face take on a sour, almost-nasty look. She knew he had figured out what had happened the night before, just as Tina herself had figured it out.
He said again, “I’ll take care of everything,” and Tina asked abruptly, “When?” fully expecting a “these-things-take-time” excuse from the man.
“Tonight,” he said. “This will all be taken care of by tonight.” As Sofia continued to sob in his arms, he looked past her shoulder at Tina. “Will that be quick enough for you?” he asked.
There was a smile on his face—as if the two of them shared a secret—but the smile never reached his intense dark eyes. He knew. Tina was sure. He knew.
* * *
“Sempre libera degg’io
Follegiare di gioia in gioia…”
Tommy laced his fingers behind his head and lay in bed, listening as Tina’s light lyrical voice rang through the apartment. The sun was streaming through the window and made the room seem cheerful, almost gay, despite the nightstick and handcuffs dropped onto the seat of the easy chair in the corner.
He felt good, much better than he had ever hoped. A year ago, he would have thought that every single day would be a battlefield on which he had to fight back his addiction to morphine, but it had not worked that way. There had been no problem at all: no craving, no temptation. It was almost as if he had never been addicted at all. It seemed much too easy.
“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore, non feci mai
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