The Way of Beauty

by Camille Di Maio

  “Vera,” he said in a muffled tone.

  Her heart beat hard. Harder.

  “Yes?”

  “Miss Pearl is dead.”

  Vera sat next to him, placing her face in her hands.

  She’d known it. She really had, even before he’d said it. Four days ago a dark rain cloud had passed over the sun, erasing the light momentarily, and Vera had thought of Pearl. She’d shuddered, then brushed it off. It didn’t mean anything. Pearl would start eating and return home and all would be well.

  Except that it wouldn’t. The blackest of black colors invaded her vision. A color so dark that she’d never be able to paint it.

  Victor told her the details, but she could have guessed easily enough.

  “She was supposed to be released this week. We got a telegram at the house that we were to send someone up to Albany to get her. There was a terrible argument within the family about it. Pearl’s father, he’d have just written her off. Left her there. Pearl’s mother began crying. Never saw that before. But Lady Pilkington was the one who was most determined. She planned to send a car for Miss Pearl and was going to hire a nurse to restore her to health. I guess the old bird has a heart after all. Or part of one.”

  “Pearl wouldn’t have wanted to go back to that place.” Vera stood up and smoothed her skirt and paced back and forth around the room.

  “You and I both know it, Vera, and I think Lady Pilkington did, too. All the time they spent arguing, there was Pearl, passing on in a jail cell.”

  She wanted to scream, but this was no place for it. But not just for her, for the loss of her friend.

  The world had lost a light like no other.

  Those tyrants couldn’t win.

  Vera wanted to run from the apartment to Penn Station and find the suffragettes who spent every day there and join their ranks in a bigger way, taking up the mantle that Pearl had started.

  But there were more pressing concerns.

  What to tell Angelo?

  What to tell Will?

  She reached out to him and brushed her hand along his leg.

  “Oh, my darling,” she said, pulling him onto her lap. He wrapped his arms around her. His angelic face looked up at her.

  “M-m-m-m-my m-m-m-m-other i-i-i-i-i-s d-d-d-d-ead?”

  Vera tightened her lips and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  It was an offense to all that was good to have to tell a child that his mother was never coming back.

  She pulled him into her arms, and he wrapped his legs around her waist. He hid in her shoulder, and she stroked his hair, speaking to him in soft tones.

  “I can never replace your mother, Will. But I will always be your zia Vera, who loves you so much. And I will take care of you and protect you.”

  His whimpers were muffled in her sweater.

  “And I love you, dearest.” She rubbed her nose with her sleeve as she forced out the words. It should be Pearl here saying these things.

  Oh, mercy, this was difficult.

  Victor stood up and walked over to her. “I’d better go. I slipped out over lunch and wanted to come tell you.”

  “Thank you. I know you came at great personal risk to yourself.” She set Will on the bed.

  “Anything for Miss Pearl, and for you, Vera. Keep the boy safe, okay? And give my regards to your father when you see him. If he’ll remember me.”

  She placed her hand on his arm as he headed for the door. “He remembers little, Victor. But I will never forget you and how good you were to us these past few months.”

  “Goodbye, Vera. If I hear of anything else you should know, I’ll drop by or send a note.”

  “I’d be most grateful.”

  She shut the door behind him and rested her forehead against it. She slid down its side until she sat curled in a ball. Will joined her, and together they huddled in the shadow that the door cast against the moonlight.

  She wasn’t sure that there would ever be light again.

  The owner of the mattress factory where Vera was employed was a Jewish man.

  “No one shall work on their Sabbath,” he was known to say, paraphrasing the commandment in Exodus that was dear to his own faith and that of all his Christian employees.

  So, according to their particular faith, they were encouraged to observe either Saturday or Sunday with their families.

  If pressed, Vera might say that she was Lutheran. Not that she practiced. Her church was the parks around New York, her cathedral the grand concourse of Penn Station. It didn’t cost one cent to smell the flowers or to watch the people. She memorized details so that she could draw them when she came home.

  It was in these moments that she felt uplifted above the difficulty that was life and from the reminders of Pearl that seemed to be everywhere.

  It was on Sundays that she and Will explored the city. If it was too hot or too cold, they would sit inside Penn Station and make a game of guessing where the passengers were going. If they carried a lot of luggage, they might be traveling far across the country to San Francisco. If it was expensive, they were probably going first class.

  “Where would you go if you could?” she’d ask him.

  And he’d always have the same answer: “Over the ocean to see Papa.”

  She’d pat his hand. “Me too, Will. Me too. Did you know that he and I used to play these games together?”

  The memory saddened her, and she rubbed her hand across her chin to stop it from quivering.

  She especially missed Angelo now that she could no longer receive his letters. At first she’d asked for them to be sent to Victor’s sister, but with Lady Pilkington’s investigators looking for them, Vera could not risk being found.

  She worried every day about Angelo’s safety.

  After Victor’s visit, Vera packed up her few possessions and moved with William to a hostel that very night without telling anyone. Maybe it was unnecessarily paranoid to do so, but she was not going to take any chances where Will was concerned.

  Without any way to be comforted by Angelo, Vera would clutch the bedcovers at night and curl up with worry. Was he safe? Was he cold? Was he scared?

  But the headlines offered hope that dispelled fear. Today Vera smiled at the sun and imagined that it was Pearl reading the words alongside her.

  THOUSANDS OF SUFFRAGETTES MARCH DOWN 5TH AVENUE

  TIDES TURNING: WOMEN WINNING

  MILLIONS OF SIGNATURES COLLECTED SUPPORTING VOTES FOR WOMEN

  Vera stood behind William as he placed his hands and face on the picture glass of a trinket store. There was a red caboose on display. Not too expensive. Vera was putting money aside to purchase it for him. Another two weeks should do it.

  They walked along Thirty-Third Street, a route she could never resist. She enjoyed strolling past Angelo’s newsstand, which was currently run by his little brother while he was overseas. She could see it from about a block away. It had a dark-blue awning. Over the years the color had changed—whenever the weather had worn it past the ability to be patched, Angelo had let Kid pick the newest color, knowing how she liked such things. She’d picked red, green, and he’d even indulged her in white. That one quickly turned brown with dirt, and they never went back to it. But for two short weeks it had looked like a cloud of cotton.

  She held Will’s hand as they approached from across the street and saw a small cluster of people surrounding it. She raised herself on tiptoe to see what they might be looking at, but all she could see was Angelo’s brother in the middle, a tweed cap covering his head.

  Vera looked both ways at the traffic and crossed the street when it was clear. As she approached, a couple walked away, and she saw the man who had looked like Angelo’s brother but wasn’t. Instead, a man on crutches stood facing the stand. He picked up a newspaper and turned around to hand it to a customer.

  Vera’s heart raced. It was not a cousin or a nephew or any of the others from his large Italian family who pitched in during his absence.

  It was
Angelo.

  “Papa!” Will called. Angelo’s head shot to the left, and his face reflected how Vera’s felt. His eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and Will’s hand slipped from hers as they both hurried over to him.

  The customers dispersed when they saw the woman and child approaching. Vera stood in front of Angelo, her eyes taking him in. His hair was cropped in a short military cut that was just starting to sprout outgrowth. His jawline held the same dark shadow that she’d always loved.

  Her chest swelled with elation at seeing him. At last! He was safe. He was safe. Nothing else mattered.

  But then she looked down. His legs. One was missing at the kneecap, and she knew without him telling her that some injury—something she didn’t want to even imagine—had sent him home. She blessed and cursed it at the same time.

  Before she could ask him anything, she felt his arms wrap around her waist and his lips plant themselves on hers. They were so warm, and she’d missed them—oh, how she’d missed them.

  “Papa,” Will said, pulling on Angelo’s belt.

  “Un momento,” replied Angelo, breathing his words next to Vera’s ear, as they didn’t dare pull away from each other. His lips moved to her neck, sending flutters throughout her body. He whispered, “I’ve missed you, cara mia.”

  “Angelo. What happened? Why are you back? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You disappeared. I found Victor, but he didn’t know where you were.”

  “Papa,” Will said more urgently. But Angelo spoke to Vera first.

  “There’s enough time for discussing all that. What matters is that I’m here and I’m staying and I’m yours, darling, if you’ll still have me.”

  She placed light kisses all over his face. She never wanted to be separated from him again. “Of course. You are all I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.”

  “Zia Vera,” said Will.

  “A minute, darling,” said Vera.

  “I want to go to the church and light a candle for Pearl,” Angelo said.

  Vera nodded. Pearl was already being called a martyr among the suffragettes. But Vera would cherish a moment when just she, Angelo, and William could sit in a church and remember her together.

  “Papa! Zia Vera!” This time Will’s impatient urgency turned into a wail, and Vera turned her head just in time to see the boy being carried off by two policemen.

  Everything became a tunnel, and Vera heard herself scream.

  “Will!”

  Her throat burned as she called for him again.

  “Zia Vera!”

  She raced after him, watching his little legs get scooped off the sidewalk into a car. Her arms stretched as far as they would go, all the way through her fingertips, reaching for the car whose engine was already running.

  Angelo hobbled behind her on crutches.

  “Will!” he called.

  Vera screamed again and pushed against the gathering crowd until she could no longer see the car. Angelo caught up with her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling them both to the ground. A horse whinnied as it kicked its hooves into the air, tilting the carriage it was bound to.

  She heard the sound of metal crunching against a light post. Angelo pulled her onto the sidewalk just before the horse could come down on her.

  William. Gone. She felt depleted.

  “Shh, shh, darling,” Angelo said, stroking her hair. “He’s gone. But I promise you. We will find him again.”

  He pulled her closer.

  “We’ll find him again.”

  Part Two: Alice

  Chapter Nineteen

  New York City, 1942

  The departure board fluttered its letters in rapid movements that reminded Alice of hummingbird wings. In seconds Baltimore moved up to the top spot, replacing Boston, whose passenger train had left ten minutes ago.

  A couple scrambled to the arch that said Platform 14, from which the Baltimore train would leave any second.

  Alice often wondered how people managed to slide in just in time and why they didn’t plan their day around a comfortable margin of space. Better to arrive early and enjoy a cup of coffee in one of the station cafés and stroll to your platform without the frenzy of arriving just before the train rolled away.

  She took after her mother, Vera, this way. From that German side, Alice inherited a strong sense of timeliness. Five minutes early was too late, according to the Bellavia women.

  Her father was an entirely different story. Angelo lived as if clocks and pocket watches had never been invented. La dolce vita, he’d say if they ever tried to hurry him. To him, there was always one more sip of cappuccino to savor, one more cloud to observe. Magically, he managed to be just on time, often causing Vera and Alice to break into a panic as they were leaving anywhere. When he’d see their nervousness, he’d put on an exaggerated frown and pat the stump that was his left leg and beg pity on a poor crippled man.

  Then the exchange would go like this:

  Her mother would smile. “Sorry, darling. You were like that long before the war. Always five minutes late and always trying to charm me with that handsome grin of yours.”

  “And is it working?” he’d respond, his large Italian eyes staring at hers. This always served to break her resolve.

  “Yes.”

  He’d kiss her cheek, and all would be well until the next time.

  Alice was lucky, she supposed. Not everyone’s parents got along so well after twenty or so years of marriage. More often, she observed demanding husbands and mousy wives, or the reverse. But her parents functioned as equals, though her mother had converted to her father’s Catholic faith in order to marry him.

  They’d endured much together. She’d grown up knowing about Pearl, about William, and the grandmother she’d never known.

  Also different for them was the fact that Alice was their only child in a world where couples seemed to have them by the half dozen. They’d always said that they wanted more. Vera’s heart had the capacity to stretch across countless children. But she’d lost one after another just weeks into her confinements, and they all became resigned to being a family of three. So instead Vera worked at the glove counter at Macy’s and used the bit of money it brought in to buy herself art supplies.

  Their simple apartment on Thirty-Third was adorned with her mother’s pastel scenes of parks and flowers. It was as if they lived outside. The artwork was especially cheering during the winter months when the world outside their window was a frozen one. Alice grew up surrounded by this beauty and had absorbed it into her own soul.

  She looked at her wristwatch and checked it against the station clock in the center of the grand concourse. Hers was one minute off, so she wound the dial slowly until it was precise. Today her father was actually late. A whole seven minutes. And she needed to catch the subway to her class at Barnard.

  “I’ll take a pack of Chesterfields and today’s Times.”

  The man in front of her was young enough to look as if he should be part of the draft but old enough to look as if life had shown him some potholes. He wore a camera around his neck the way a woman might wear a necklace: an accessory that was put on out of habit. It showed a few dents on its metal casing, silver peeking through black. A bit tatty, just like the cuffs of his sleeves. But not so far gone as to be shabby.

  “Lucky Strikes are on special today,” she offered instead.

  “ABC—Always Buy Chesterfield.”

  “You read too many advertisements.”

  He shrugged. “I like what I like.”

  She pulled the Chesterfields off the shelf behind her and wondered again when her father might decide to show up and relieve her at the newspaper stand so that she could get to the subway. But she shouldn’t complain. When he was growing up, his stand was an outside one, open every day despite the weather. Just a few years ago he’d gotten a coveted spot inside the station, and working for him here was a world of difference from how it used to be.

  “I haven’t seen you
here before,” the man continued. Alice was often uneasy with conversations that seemed as if men were creating an opening to ask her out. They sometimes complimented her on her abundant brunette locks—a gift from her Italian side—or her large blue eyes, a gift from her German side. Most nationalities didn’t mix back when her parents had gotten together. But more and more as America became the melting pot that people called it, marriages between the French and the Dutch and the Italians and the Germans and the Spaniards who immigrated were becoming acceptable.

  “I could say the same of you.” He was certainly someone she would have remembered.

  “I don’t usually smoke or read the newspaper,” he answered.

  “So what makes today special?”

  “Would you like for me to say that it’s because I saw you standing behind this counter?”

  “I am hoping you don’t.”

  “Well, good. Because that isn’t why.”

  He’d caught her in his net with a question that begged to be asked.

  “Then why?” Alice played along.

  “Because today is going to be a difficult day, and difficult days should always begin with a smoke to relax you and the newspaper to help you remember your blessings.”

  “But you just said that you don’t smoke or read the paper.”

  “It’s my new philosophy. Untested.”

  She smiled. Yes, she would definitely have remembered if this man had ever visited their newsstand.

  His cryptic statement intrigued her, though. “And why is today going to be difficult?”

  “Because of all the kisses.”

  Not the answer she might have expected. “The kisses?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Today, several trains of soldiers are heading out to basic training before the men get sent overseas. So there will be lots of farewell kisses and goodbye embraces. And tears, of course.”

  “And you are here to say goodbye to someone?” She wondered why, at his age—somewhat around hers—he was not among those shipping out.

  “No, I’m here to take their photographs.”

  “Oh, are you a journalist?”