“Mama, what do you need?” Once again, I have the uneasy feeling of being the parent to my mother, and I don’t feel up to the task. I wish Papa could have stayed home today.
“Figlia, I need you to bring me some water and an extra blanket. Do you think you can make me a mustard plaster for my chest?”
I nod my head and quickly obtain the water and blanket. I’ve seen Mama make poultices for the boys, so I actually can do that as well, and I take it upstairs to Mama as soon as it’s mixed.
“Here you go, Mama.” I help her apply the poultice under her gown. She’s shivering now, just like I was, so I prop up her pillows and cover her well. I even warm a brick, cover it with towels, and slide it under her feet. That always makes me feel more comfortable when Mama does that for me.
“Anything else, Mama?”
“There is one more thing, and I need you to be strong. I need to have some soup, and I can’t make it myself. Do you understand?”
Oh, I understand all too well.
“Mama, please, I have never killed a chicken before, and I don’t think that I can do it.”
“You can do it, Carolina. You’ve seen me do it many times. I would never ask you if Papa or Giova were home, but they will be at work all day. It’s not hard. Just give it a fast chop across the neck. The chicken won’t feel a thing,” Mama said as she shivered, “but don’t be afraid if she dances a little without her head.”
“Please, Blessed Mother, help me,” I pray. My hands are against my face, and I am walking out the door with a horrible knot in my stomach.
At first, the chicken and I just look at each other. This might be a mistake because now I feel like I am about to betray her confidence in me. Her clear, black eyes seem to see right through my intentions. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and once again implore heaven for help. Then I grab for the chicken.
I guess I don’t grab quickly enough. Or maybe my eyes aren’t fully open. The chicken darts away from me, and I am grasping at air. It occurs to me that I had better have the axe ready for when I do get the chicken, so I take a short break to prepare the chopping block.
Perhaps if I feed the chicken a little corn, I can sneak up behind her. It seems to be working until I lunge. At the exact moment that I reach for her, she turns around and pecks my hand. She actually draws blood, and the shock of it brings the sting of tears to my eyes.
“D— you, chicken!” I have never used that word before. Thanks to the chicken, I now have to go to confession.
I chase her around the yard three times until I’m out of breath. Then she chases me around the yard until she no longer finds sport in it. The chicken goes back to eating her corn, and I sit on the back steps and cry. About the time I am feeling most sorry for myself, I hear someone hollering inside.
“Magdalena! Carolina!”
“I’m outside Zia. Mama is upstairs with the flu.”
“Now she has it! Always something. I came by to get my cigarillos. I left them on the table last week, and I hope that Giova hasn’t smoked them all. You look like you’ve been crying. What is it?”
“Mama wants soup, Zia, and I have been trying to kill this chicken for half an hour. I can’t do it.” Now I have no control over my tears.
Zia Izzy looks at the chopping block and scoffs. “Hmph. That’s no way to kill a bird.”
In the blink of an eye, she swoops up the bird with her left hand, grabs the neck with her right hand, and gives the bird a spin. I jump when I hear the neck snap.
“All in the wrist, Carolina. Let’s pluck this creature and get the soup going.”
I know that Zia Izzy smells, that she is an embarrassment to the family, and that she is eccentric, but right now, she is the answer to my prayers—literally.
For the rest of the afternoon, we pluck the chicken, boil it, clarify the broth, and make the soup. While we do that, I am given a brief lesson on the lettature—the actual book of spells.
“To take off the mal occh’, Carolina, you must dip a gold ring in salt water. Hold the ring over each eye, and as you do, you have to say a Hail Mary.”
Then you take the water and throw it into the street. If someone walks in that puddle, the mal occh’ is now on them. You know that part already.”
What I really want to ask is whether she has directed any mischief in Vassari’s direction, but I don’t have the nerve. Before I can muster it, Zia wraps a babushka around her head, collects her cigarillos, and pats my head in goodbye.
I bring the soup to Mama on a tray and watch for her reaction.
“This is the best chicken soup I have ever had,” says Mama, though she’s too weak to eat much. “Maybe I’ll let you make it every time.”
“Mama, I didn’t kill the chicken. Zia did.”
“I know—you think I can’t hear her big mouth from up here? But you helped make the soup. You’re my good daughter. Sons are a joy, but they marry and start new lives. Daughters are for life, and I have just one.”
Dear Diary, June 7, 1925
If I never see a chicken again, it will be too soon. I learned today that there are some things I am not ever going to be able to do. Killing a chicken is one of them. God willing, Mama will never be sick again—not unless Papa is home. I know that Mama will be sick for a few more days, but at least there is now plenty of soup to last through the week.
* * *
A couple of weeks later, there is a knock at the door. When I open it, I am face to face with a very skinny little man with wild frizzy hair, a preposterous nose, and an almost idiotic smile. His pants are patched, he is wearing a worn brown jacket, and over his shoulder he carries a duffle bag. There is a brief awkwardness because I am waiting for him to say something, and he is waiting for me to say something.
“Can I help you?”
“Sono Giuseppe!”
Giuseppe is here two days earlier than the telegram said he would be here.
“Giuseppe!” I had not expected my cousin to be so funny-looking. “Come in, come in. Mama! Pa!” It’s a Saturday, so fortunately everyone is home.
Pa and Mama throw their arms around him and start speaking in rapid Italian. “Lei e due giorni prima!” (You’re two days early!)
Giuseppe fires back in even more rapid Italian. “Ho pensato che lei ha saputo quando arrivavo.” (I thought you knew I was coming.)
Papa is amazed at that he was able to find us from the train station, especially since it meant that Giuseppe had to take the streetcar after his train ride.
“Entrare,” says Mama in Italian. “Lei hanno fame. Lei ha bisogno di mangiare.” (Come in. You’re hungry. You need to eat).
Giuseppe doesn’t speak more than a few words of English, but the boys and I all know enough Italian to understand most of what he says. Mama has already taken to him, I can tell, because he has eaten three plates of spaghetti and keeps telling her what a good cook she is. I never saw such a skinny person eat so much. And the whole time, he still manages to keep smiling.
I can see that Giova is studying Giuseppe and doesn’t know what to make of him. Since Giuseppe will be sharing the attic bedroom with Giova, and since they are close in age, Giuseppe will be Giova’s responsibility for a while. I can see that he is worrying about this. I guess none of us expected Giuseppe to be so animated and outgoing. He’s telling a story of the boat ride over and of the whales that he thinks he saw. I suppose he probably saw porpoises. His arms and hands are showing us the size of the boat, the size of the whales, the size of his own surprise when he saw them.
Giuseppe sees a banana in the fruit bowl on the table, and he looks at it with a puzzled face. “Che cosa?” he asks.
“It’s a banana,” chime the boys.
Giuseppe takes the banana, puts it in his mouth without peeling it, and bites down. His eyes blink in confusion when the peel doesn’t break, and he looks at the banana, now bent in half and limp, and turns it over.
Marcello and Lindo are laughing so hard they are falling off their chairs. Giova is
smiling, too, but it doesn’t hide what he is doing. He is trying to size up Giuseppe. Giuseppe, in the meantime, is laughing hardest of all at his own story and has tears in his eyes. It’s a contagious laugh, and none of us can keep from laughing with him, not even Giova. Mama grabs the banana, shakes her head at us for not helping him, and shows Giuseppe how to peel the skin. Giuseppe nods in approval and makes an exaggerated “mmm” sound when he actually tastes the fruit. It’s hard for us all not to laugh again—and we do.
Not long afterward, Giuseppe is very tired from his travels—and probably from the experience of meeting all of us. Mama shows him to his bed and gives him a pair of Giova’s pajamas. He has one change of clothes to his name. Tomorrow, she will make him take a bath, but that requires heating the water on the stove and filling a big metal tub in the kitchen—a full morning’s job. Marcello and Lindo are jumping on the bed and pestering Giuseppe until Mama forces them to go to bed as well.
Dear Diary, June 19, 1925
Giuseppe arrived today. He is quite a character. I wanted him to be a girl, but maybe I was wrong. He’s very funny, and his eyes snap and sparkle when he tells stories. I can’t say he’s attractive, really the opposite, but there is something about his personality that is just like a magnet and drew us all to him. He doesn’t seem at all like a stranger, even though I’ve only known him for a few hours. We haven’t had company stay with us since Mama’s Uncle Tomasso came two years ago. Tomasso was a pain—always wanting Mama to cook special food for his digestion problems, always having to have a special kind of cigarette. We were glad to see him go. Actually, I think Zia Izzy took care of that—she gave him chocolate laxatives in a candy box. He began to think we were poisoning him, and he finally went home.
* * *
In the middle of the night, I am awakened to the sound of someone vomiting, and I think it’s Giova. I can hear Papa saying something, but my head aches, and my body is feeling sore. I can’t have the flu again.
“Carolina, up. Come on. Let’s get up.”
I hear the boys crying, and Mama is trying to rouse them as well.
“Papa, no. I’m tired. I want to sleep. I don’t feel well.”
“Let’s go!” He is yelling at me firmly. He puts his arms under me and swoops me up out of bed before I can protest again. I see Mama carrying Lindo and trying to drag Marcello down the stairs. It isn’t going well because he is half asleep and feeling dizzy.
For reasons that I cannot understand, Mama and Papa deposit all of us on the front porch. Then Mama returns with blankets and throws them on us. The boys and I are shivering, and Lindo is now crying.
Both Mama and Papa go back inside and return in a few moments with Giova and Giuseppe. Neither of them look well.
“Papa, what’s going on? What’s happening?”
“We have a gas leak in the house. I can smell it. Lena, we have to go back in there and open windows. Do you think you can help me?”
“I’m all right, Pietro. I’ll take the downstairs, and you go upstairs.”
“Don’t breathe in there, Lena. Only breathe at the open windows. Check the lamps, too.”
In 1917, gas light came to Sharpsburg. Few families could afford it, but Pa bought some pipe and laid his own gas line that the gas company then checked for leaks. The pipe comes up the wall and out onto extensions with hurricane globes covering the flames. The flame can be turned on and off by a valve at the base of the lamp.
Mama was especially proud of Papa when he put in those lamps. Because of them, we can now stay up later, and Mama and I can see our needlework better at night. The gas light gives the whole room a warm, shadowy glow.
We can all hear Mama and Papa running through the house. Click-SLAM. Click-SLAM. They are unlocking and slamming open the windows as if they are in a race.
In a matter of time, Papa has discovered the problem. There is a lamp in Giova’s attic bedroom that smells of gas. Someone blew out the flame instead of turning off the gas at the valve.
“Giova, did you forget to turn the valve on the lamp up there?”
“Papa, I didn’t even turn off the light tonight. Giuseppe did while I was brushing my teeth.”
The little boys are crying and cold. Mama wraps them in more blankets and holds them against herself. I’m holding my head in my hands, slumped over from being tired, and still not feeling well.
In Italian, Pa asks Giuseppe if he blew out the flame in the attic lamp.
“Si, Zio Pietro, si.” He looks bewildered. Pa nods his head in realization of what has happened.
A short while later, with everyone cold and tired, Pa goes back in to check the house and decides that we can risk re-entering.
“Lena, let’s get the children back to their rooms. Keep the windows cracked. Ven aca, Giuseppe.”
Pa puts his arm around Giuseppe’s shoulders and leads him into the living room for a little talk about the nature of natural gas. I understand now what has happened.
Dear Diary,
I have something more to add tonight. Giuseppe left the gas on, and now we are all sick with carbon monoxide poisoning. When Giova woke up sick, Papa heard him throwing up and went to check on him. It was then that he smelled the gas. I suppose if he hadn’t, we would have all died in our sleep tonight. Mama will be praying at her makeshift altar all morning tomorrow. Poor Giuseppe—he was trying to make such a good impression on us!
* * *
At my next lesson, Sr. Norbert and I are discussing Saint Thomas More. I read about him in my book last night, and my heart is broken.
“Carolina, many of the saints were martyrs. Why is this story troubling you more than the others?”
“I don’t know, Sister. Maybe because he tried so hard to get out of his death. He didn’t want to be a martyr. He even left his job as Chancellor of England so that he wouldn’t be in a position to have to sign anything that made Henry VIII the head of the Church in England.”
“We don’t always get to choose whether we are martyred. Our conscience decides for us, right? His conscience wouldn’t let him disobey God. Not everyone has a conscience that refined. I even think that some of those people who signed the Act of Succession did so without compromising their own consciences. But More was better than that—‘If I know, from God’s voice telling me, that a thing is wrong, it is not right because the King commands it.’”
“So you believe that Henry VIII, if he had a clear conscience, is not in trouble with God?”
“I can’t ever tell you what is in the heart of another human being. I can tell you that Henry VIII knew the faith and defended it. He even wrote a book against heresies. I believe that he knew what he did was wrong, and he chose to do it anyway. But that’s for God to judge because he knows the inside of a person, and we only see the outside.”
“Well, I don’t see how Henry VIII is anything but an animal. He knew Thomas More, and he knew his children. He knew how much More loved them, especially his daughter Margaret. When he died, they put his head on the post of the bridge, and she bribed a guard to throw it down to her one night while she waited in a boat below. When I think of what sorrow that had to be for her—how I would feel about my own father . . .”
“You have compassion, Carolina. And I think you have a love of justice. Those are good qualities. You never want to lose those. There will always be times in this world when the justice of men isn’t justice at all. Men miss the mark. God never does, and his justice prevails beyond this world.”
“But in the meantime,” I argue, “innocent people die.”
“Yes—and when innocent people like Thomas More die for the faith, they are martyrs. God has a special place for them. How can anyone be neutral when it comes to doing the right thing? In my life, in your life, there will come a time when we have to take a stand about something. It’s unavoidable. For most of us, the consequences are not life and death. But perhaps they do involve moral life or death.”
I can’t say that I feel better after talking to Sister.
In some ways, I feel worse. Should your conscience let you off with God? Should it convict you? I don’t know, but it gives me a lot to think about on my way home.
I am nearly two blocks from home and lost in thought when I realize that I am being followed by someone. In hopes that it is Nicoletta, I turn my head and start to smile—only to find that I am alone on the street with Luca Vassari and that he is staring at me intently, a terrible look on his face.
What makes a man look evil? He isn’t ugly. He doesn’t have a disfiguring scar. I don’t know if it’s the deadness in his stare or the hard pounding of his boots as he walks, but I am instantly uneasy. If there is a man on this earth who has no semblance of a conscience, it’s Luca.
Immediately, I quicken my steps. It isn’t far now. I should just run, but I don’t. Luca hastens his own steps, but he lingers behind me enough to torment me. I know that if he wants to, he can overtake me in no time. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that I can hardly contain it.
Up ahead, on the other side of the street, is McGuire’s Bar. I have no need to cross, but if I do, maybe Luca will go on ahead. Perhaps he is walking home, and I am making too much of nothing.
My foot stumbles on the cobblestones. It isn’t yet dark—thank heavens—but the street is deserted. Halfway across, I can hear Vassari step off the curb. He is tracing my path.
I’ve never been in McGuires’s before, but I don’t know what else to do. I hope to God that the door is open and that someone is there this time of day. I hope I will know what to say—how can I explain that I am afraid of Luca’s walking? What if he follows me into the bar, and I am cornered?
Before my hand can touch the door handle, I hear someone call my name. Fitz is across the street and is running toward me. He is acting as if he doesn’t even see Luca as he passes him.
“Hold on there, darlin.’ Have you taken to drink at your age already?” Fitz is gasping for breath.
“Fitz, could you walk me home?” I whisper. I’m trembling with fear, and I believe Fitz can see that. He takes my arm in his and with his other hand, he encloses my own.
The Creeds that Move Men's Hearts Page 7