The Creeds that Move Men's Hearts

by Melody Veltri

  It is hard to concentrate on Sister’s lesson today. I guess I’m not much interested in grammar and punctuation. Dangling modifiers, parallel structure, subjunctive mood—who can keep it all straight? It takes all of the joy out of writing.

  Since about Ninth Street, I’ve been kicking a nice-sized rock home. I’m not in any hurry. What’s the sense? Eat dinner, clean the dishes, sew until bed time. It isn’t worth rushing home.

  I give my rock a bad kick, and it shoots into the road. While I’m picking it up, I take a glance down Thirteenth Street. There’s a man walking toward me. I can’t quite make him out, but the walk looks familiar. I know that swagger. For a moment, I stand in the middle of the road and study the figure, twisting my rock in my hand. I would swear, if it weren’t a sin to swear, that the man is Mr. Marchetti.

  I’m sure that it can’t be him because he is still in jail. No one has been told when he will be released. Still, I can’t stop watching this person and hoping against hope. I’m setting myself up for disappointment, but I can’t help myself.

  Two more blocks, and I find myself running at full speed toward him, dropping the rock as I go. “Mr. Marchetti! Mr. Marchetti! Is it really you?”

  “Carolina!” His smile is broad, and he has tears in his eyes. “Buona sera, signorina,” he says and makes a little bow. He gives me a hug, then takes my books, and we walk home together.

  It doesn’t seem appropriate to ask him about jail—what it was like or how he managed to be released. Most of the way home, we talk little, and he just whistles. At about Thirteenth Street, Mr. Marchetti breaks our joyous silence.

  “It-sa nice-a day today.” He smiles. “The sky, she-sa so big.”

  “It is a beautiful day.” I have to agree with him. If there have been other beautiful days recently, I haven’t noticed them.

  “Today, I-ma free. I notice everything.” Mr. Marchetti is speaking to me, but his eyes are wandering far beyond me. “Everything, she looks different today—like maybe I see it for the first-a time.”

  As we approach our houses, I can see Rose on the porch, sitting on the wing wall. She is looking down and doesn’t see us.

  Mr. Marchetti clears his throat. I think he is trying not to get teary-eyed again. “Rosie!” he hollers.

  Rose looks up in disbelief, and then she runs to meet us. Mr. Marchetti swings her off her feet, and they embrace and cry for a long time. I don’t want to intrude on their reunion, so I walk over to our house.

  No one is in the living room or kitchen. I look out back, and Papa is in the garden.

  “Hey, Papa!”

  “Good things come to those who wait,” he says, and he proudly shows me a red calmyrna fig from our little tree. “You get the first one,” he says and hands it to me.

  “Good things do come to those who wait, Papa. I just walked home with Mr. Marchetti.”

  We both break into smile, and Papa just nods his head. I think he even has a tear. “Let’s go tell Mama,” he says.

  Dear Diary, September 20, 1926

  We are all very happy that Mr. Marchetti is home. We were worried for him and worried for Nana and Rose. What a relief to see him walk up that street today. I can’t help but wonder, though. Was he freed because the justice system worked, like Papa said it does? Or was he freed because he killed another Italian immigrant? Would he be out if Vassari’s name had been Edwards or Miller? Maybe Vassari’s life is not important to the court. Or maybe Marchetti’s life is. I am not sure what to believe.

  * * *

  Mr. Marchetti walked home from the Blawnox workhouse jail—about ten miles upriver—on Friday. He spent several months there after being transferred from the constable’s cell here in town. On Saturday, he was back at the barber shop, same as usual.

  “Lena, I’m going down to Angelo’s. I’ll be back in an hour.” Papa and all of the other men will be congregating there to celebrate. It’s been a while since they had the luxury of socializing in the barber shop. I know they want to show Mr. Marchetti their support.

  “Pietro, wait. I need some things. Pick me up some green embroidery thread, like this. And I need a wide needle. Better make it two.”

  Papa groans. “I don’t know what to buy, Lena. Let Carolina come with me, and she can get it.”

  “Can I go, Mama? My work is almost done, and you’re going to confession soon anyway.”

  “I don’t think your work is close to being done, but run along. It will be here when you get back.”

  I’d much rather go with Pa to the barber shop than stay home and wash down windows. When we get to Main Street, we separate. It won’t take long to get the sewing items, and then I’ll meet Papa back at the barber shop.

  Mama hates to go to the five and dime store by herself because the owner is a nasty woman. She thinks we don’t notice the way she watches us. If we touch something, she is quick to wipe it off or straighten the area up. There is no one who is cleaner and tidier than Mama, but Mrs. Verplatse thinks we are trash. She doesn’t have to open her mouth to show it.

  I hand her Pa’s money and say nothing. While she’s giving me back my change, she also says nothing, but her lips are pursed together tightly, and she throws the coins on the counter as if she is irritated. Mama is always flustered around Mrs. Verplatse and looks down on the ground when she pays. Mama never has trouble sticking up for herself with other Italian women, but with this German, she’s different. It makes me angry, the way she treats us. Mrs. Verplatse’s hair is braided and crisscrossed over the top of her head. She has icy blue eyes, and there’s a wart between them that I never noticed because I have never had the nerve to look her in the face before.

  I notice it today when she throws my change on the counter. Unlike Mama, I pick up each of these coins individually and count them while I do it.

  “This isn’t the correct change.” Now I am feeling even angrier toward her for her dishonesty. “You owe me five more cents.”

  Mrs. Verplatse grits her teeth together and, without recounting the change, retrieves a nickel from her cash register. How I wish she didn’t have the only dry goods store in town.

  “Thank you,” I say in spite of myself and pocket the change.

  Mrs. Verplatse opens her mouth and nothing comes out. She’s red—from anger or embarrassment I don’t know. Before I can find out, I’m through the door and headed to Marchetti’s.

  By the time I meet up with Papa, the barber shop is packed. Everyone is happy to see Mr. Marchetti. Even Father Vecchio is getting a haircut, but since Angelo doesn’t charge him, he’s there more for moral than financial support. Papa understands the need for both and jumps into the barber chair even though Mama gave him a haircut a week ago. They are both worried that the Marchettis could lose their house since there was no way to make the rent payments while he was in jail.

  “Buon giorno, Signorina Costandini!” says Mr. Marchetti. He’s thinner, but today he at least sounds like his old self.

  “Buon giorno, signore.”

  “Sit here, honey,” says a man in suspenders. “I’m just leaving anyway. So long, Ange—I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Arrivederci, Enzo.”

  Two other men are playing checkers and cursing each other.

  “You’re cheating.”

  “I’m not cheating, you liar.”

  “If you’re not cheating, I’m the devil himself.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Devil.”

  “Nunzio, you have to let Tony win once in a while,” says Papa.

  “Let him win! He robs me blind.”

  “You watch,” says Tony to me. “You let me know if he tries to hide some of the checkers or moves when I’m not looking. Nunzio, take your turn.”

  “I’m thinking, stugots! Don’t rush me.”

  “Hey, speaking of being robbed blind,” says Nunzio, “I’m not buying anymore liquor from Bernardo. “

  Bernardo, we all know, makes moonshine out of his home and has a pretty good business going since Prohibitio
n started. Papa buys a bottle or two on occasion.

  “Why is that?” asks Angelo.

  “I heard that Armand Tedesco lost his sight from the liquor he got from Bernardo.”

  “Lost his sight? What are you talking about?” asks Tony. “You don’t go blind from drinking moonshine.”

  “Like hell you don’t,” says Nunzio. If they use the wrong stuff, you can go blind. Armand is proof.”

  “He’s right,” says Pa. “You can go blind from wood alcohol.”

  “My bottle,” says Angelo. “It-sa going right down the drain.”

  Pa shakes his head. “I won’t be buying anymore. We have my wine—I don’t need to be buying that. What a price to pay. My God—I’ve even given it to the children before—just a little sip for a cough.”

  “And I give to Rosie!” says Angelo and for a brief moment covers his eyes with his hand and sighs.

  “You still didn’t take your turn, Nunzio,” says Tony.

  “What’s your hurry, cipollo? (onion head — Southern Italian dialect is cipud) You have a train to catch?”

  While Tony is waiting for Nunzio to move, he asks Papa if he’s seen the morning paper.

  “Not yet,” answers Pa.

  “Then you haven’t heard about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.”

  “Heard-a what?” asks Mr. Marchetti.

  “No new trial. The judge won’t consider the Madeiros confession.”

  Papa looks like a man who has been slapped in the face. “Are you sure that you read that right?” he asks. “If there’s a confession by someone else, they have to give them a new trial.”

  “They don’t have to, my friend. They don’t have to do anything for Italians. It’s that same judge who heard the case the first time. Thayer.”

  “He doesn’t care what happens to them,” says Nunzio. “He doesn’t care if they are innocent.”

  “It-sa no good to sit in jail,” adds Mr. Marchetti, “You think-a and you think-a until you are crazy. They have-a no bizaneesa to keep them there.”

  “They let Tresca out of jail, and now the fascists have tried to kill him,” says Tony.

  “It’s not safe in this country to be an anarchist,” says Nunzio, “You can’t be one in Italy, but you don’t dare be one here, either. Tony, it’s your turn.”

  I don’t know what it means to be an anarchist, only that it makes Pa angry when Giova talks about it.

  “There must be another way for them,” says Papa. “I can’t believe they will kill innocent men without giving them another trial. There has to be another way to appeal.”

  “I don’t know about appeals,” says Tony. “I know the governor can give clemency, but Pietro, that’s not going to happen.”

  “Only God, He knows,” says Mr. Marchetti. “Maybe this governor, he-sa good man. Maybe they still gonna have a new trial.”

  “I hope you are right,” says Tony, “but I don’t believe you are.”

  Papa isn’t saying anything. In another five minutes, his haircut is finished.

  “Looks good, Papa.”

  “I make him look like a movie star,” says Mr. Marchetti.

  I should laugh, but that comment took me off guard. I am reminded of Valentino, and there is a shooting pain in my heart.

  Most of the way home, Papa and I don’t say a word. He is lost in thought. I am sad because the world seems to have been stripped of beauty and justice these last months.

  Dear Diary, October 27, 1926

  How is it possible that a judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti case—the very judge who first tried them—doesn’t want to consider new evidence. I cannot believe that Nunzio is right—that Thayer wouldn’t care if they are innocent. No man would sentence another man to death knowing full well that his guilt is questionable. Would he? Not a judge, of all people. I want to believe that Nunzio is wrong about that, but I cannot understand why this man has so much power over this case. Why doesn’t someone else hear the case? Two lives are in the hands of Judge Thayer. Surely he would have wanted to hear that confession. I am beginning to wonder if Giova and Giuseppe are right. These men are being punished for something else, and it has nothing to do with the murder of the guard in Massachusetts.

  7

  I can hardly believe that it has been a year since Christmas. This time, Mama and I are back to baking night and day. You would think we run a bakery. Yesterday, we made gianetti. Those aren’t so bad because we just boil them a little and then bake them, but today we’re making scalidis, and that involves frying hundreds of cookies in hot oil.

  The first step is to beat a dozen room temperature eggs. Zia Izzy has come over to help, really to direct, and it’s just as well because Mama doesn’t like her near the cookies. Since we give so many away to family and friends, Mama wants them to be perfect. She doesn’t think that Zia should handle the dough. I can’t blame her.

  While Mama and I frantically beat the eggs, Zia has a cup of coffee.

  “Lena, you’re not beating those hard enough,” she says. “They need to be frothy.”

  “Izzy, you drink your coffee and don’t tell me how to cook. I think I should know how to beat eggs after all of these years.”

  “I think you should, too, but for some reason you don’t!”

  This is typical Christmas cookie banter that will go on all day. When the eggs are finally ready, Mama adds a half shot of whiskey to them. Then we add about six cups of flour and create a stiff dough that needs to be worked almost like bread. Mama and I each take half of the dough and knead it for a good long while. This makes us a captive audience for Izzy.

  “Where is Sara today? Doesn’t she bake with you for Christmas?”

  “Not today,” answers Mama. “Angelo’s mother isn’t feeling well these days. Sara tries to go over there while he is at work. I don’t know if Nana is long for this world.”

  “Winter is brutal on us all. I feel it in my bones now,” says Izzy. “Maybe I’ll have a little of that whiskey myself. That always warms me up a little.”

  Mama snatches the bottle before Izzy can drink from it and pours her a little shot glass. I know that when Mama turns her back, Izzy will pour a few more shots. I know because it’s one of the Christmas traditions around here.

  Next, Mama pinches off pieces of dough, rolling them into twelve inch strings that are a quarter of an inch thick. After she does that, I take a stick, dip it in flour, and wrap a string of dough around it three times.

  We need to cover the rest of the dough with inverted bowls in the meantime so that it doesn’t dry out. Izzy is pouring half a gallon of oil into the big pot to get it ready.

  From behind, she looks like a mad scientist, with her hair sticking out all over. Both she and Mama are very short and very stout. They’re like little trolls or dwarves or elves. I wonder when I look at them if this is my future. Granted, I am a little taller and a lot thinner, but so was Mama twenty-five years ago.

  When the oil is bubbly, Zia is given the job of overseeing the frying so that Mama and I can keep making and wrapping the strings. We have quite an assembly line going, and I have to admit that it is useful to have Zia’s help.

  Once the cookies have been fried, Zia takes them out to drain. Mama then heats honey and a little water together and stirs the cookies into the pan. Then, while I start to wash the dishes, she puts the cookies on wax paper, piling them on top of each other so that the honey will run down onto the other layers.

  “Let me try one of those,” says Izzy. “Mmm. Delicious. I need a little drink to wash it down.” She grabs the whiskey bottle before Mama can beat her to it.

  Later in the week, while everyone else is at work or school, Mama and I make diples, almond slices, raisin cookies, nut cookies, pizelles, mustazola, and anise cookies. Mama wraps them up and hides them before Lindo gets home because she wants to save them all for the Christmas Eve feast.

  Last year at this time, Sara was just getting over the accident, and Luca was still alive. It seems that every Christmas marks
another year of tragedy in her life. It would be a lie to say that her life was better with Luca in it, but I know that she is sorry for the part that Mr. Marchetti played in his death. I believe that he has nightmares about that day as well. Good people cannot take the lives of other people—even bad people—without being tormented. Mama says that Sara can’t survive much longer in that house. She just can’t make ends meet.

  On Christmas Eve, Zia Giulia and her family arrive as usual. I haven’t seen the girls in six months, and they are all so changed, especially the baby. Francesca’s hair is almost to her waist, and her skinny little legs are longer. If it’s possible, her eyes seem even larger. Margharita looks like a little girl now. She has lost some of her baby fat, and her baby curls have been cut off. She talks with such a large vocabulary—English and Italian—for a three-and-a-half-year-old. Annamaria is most changed. She is walking everywhere and at one and a half, she looks like a perfect baby doll. She has dark curls all over her head now and still has those rough, rosy cheeks.

  Apparently, I have changed, too, because Zia Giulia keeps telling me so. “Look at you! All grown up now and so beautiful. You have become a young lady, and I remember when you looked just like Francesca.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Mama starts chanting “benedice” at me and spitting in my hair. Zia Giulia should know better than to compliment me—you never know when the Devil is listening.

  Some things haven’t changed, though. As soon as Zia Izzy steps into the living room, both of the older girls start to cry and point at “La Befana.”

  Nana has come this evening in spite of her recent illness, but she looks especially frail tonight. Mr. Marchetti still has not gained back the weight that he lost in jail, and he looks tired and worn down to me as well. Only Izzy seems the same. She’s puffing away at a cigarillo and threatening Marcello and Lindo with her curses. It never gets old to tell little boys that they can be turned into girls.

  Giova said that he had an errand to run, and Mama was much too busy to question him. Now the door opens, and in walks in Giova with a young woman. She’s blonde with big blue eyes, and her hair is curled like the women in my movie magazine. She’s wearing a long black dress that has a satin sash at the hips. I can hardly believe my eyes. None of us can. With the exception of the little girls, we’re all staring at this woman and Giova, and no one is saying a word.