A Heart Most Worthy (5 page)

6

Annamaria had left work in a hurry that evening, riding the electric car back to North Station and then walking to St. Leonard’s Church. She was going to confession so she could be absolved of all her sins.

But what had she ever done? Besides dodge old Giuseppe and walk on by the Sardos’ store? She wished she could do something that really needed confessing.

Annamaria clapped a hand over her mouth as soon as she deciphered the thought. Had she just – had she really . . . ? Where had that come from? She made the sign of the cross, and then clutched at the medal that dangled from her neck.

But as she stood in line at the church behind signora Tubello and signora Rimaldi, feet shuffling against the stone of the floor, she pondered the thought. Most people did things that needed confessing. Her sister Theresa did, nearly every time she opened her mouth or set foot outside the apartment. Mama did. So did Papa. So why shouldn’t she? Why shouldn’t she be allowed the same right to sin as everyone else?

Because it was wicked, that’s why.

But still. Why was so much expected of her when nothing was expected of anyone else?

Did that mean she wanted to be . . . bad? She didn’t think so. At least that wasn’t what she meant to think. But what did it mean? Where had those thoughts come from? And how could she get rid of them?

When her turn came, she stepped into the closet-like space, closing the door behind her. Inside, it was dark, the air close, smelling faintly of the rosemary that tainted signora Tubello’s breath and quite strongly of the peculiar odor of signora Rimaldi’s sweat. I might have fanned my hand in front of my nose, you might have pinched yours shut entirely, but Annamaria found the scents rather comforting.

Annamaria searched for the comforting sight of Father Antonio’s shadow on the other side of the screen that separated them. Having seen it, she closed her eyes. Clasped her hands. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been seven days since my last confession.” She paused. Normally, she would have immediately started confessing sins, but the things she’d done the week before, the thoughts she’d had that evening, refused to be categorized. They had seemed sinful . . . but were they really? What gave old Giuseppe the right to pinch her? And why should she do something for Theresa that Theresa was perfectly capable of doing for herself?

Those weren’t sins.

But . . . maybe her feelings were. Though she’d been exhilarated by her actions at first, they’d left her feeling peevish and foul-tempered. And hadn’t she just thought about doing something wrong? More than that she’d tried to justify the doing of wrong, hadn’t she? And worse, she’d
desired
it.

“I’ve had thoughts, Father.”

“Of what, my child?”

“Of doing . . . wrong.”

Annamaria Rossi? Doing wrong? On his side of the screen, Father Antonio leaned forward. What on earth could the girl be planning? “Have you done something wrong, then?”

“No. I’ve just thought about it.”

“About what?”

“About . . . being bad.”

“Why? In what way?”

Here, then, is where it began to get tricky. Annamaria’s thoughts were subversive in the most dangerous sort of way. They were thoughts meant to entice. Thoughts that could, very possibly, seduce one into sin. But Annamaria hardly had the words to explain it, and Father Antonio could not conceive of it, at least not in conjunction with Annamaria Rossi, and so he remained dismissive and rather bemused when he should have been quite concerned.

“It’s just – I’m not – it’s not fair, Father! It’s not fair that I should be kept from the things that I want. Not when everybody else is allowed to have them.” She despised herself for the tone in which she had spoken the words. Father Antonio must surely think her nothing but a whiny child. She wished she’d said nothing at all. But that was the point of confession, wasn’t it? To say things?

“And what is it that you find yourself wanting?”

“I want . . .” to be free. “I want a family, Father. I’d like to get married. I want to have children. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with that. But your life must be given over to service. You know that this must be.”

“But . . . why? How do I know that this is what God demands?”

“He made you, didn’t He?”

He had.

“And He placed you in your family, didn’t He?”

He had.

“And what is the commandment that He gave to sons and daughters?”

“Honor your father and mother . . . ”

“That your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” How Father Antonio liked Annamaria Rossi! She was one of the only ones who still remembered her catechism.

That my days may be long? Dear God, please, don’t curse me like that! How lonely all those days would be. “It just doesn’t seem fair that those are the things everyone would want for Theresa while they’re all denied to me.”

“Nothing in this life is fair. And remember, our Lord Jesus came to serve, not to be served.”

To serve. Suddenly the weight of the medal that hung around her neck seemed so heavy.

“You know, my child . . . you can’t confess to a sin that you have not committed. I must ask if you have any others.”

Annamaria’s cheeks flushed with shame. Of course she couldn’t. She hurried through the confession of her true sins and finally, she prayed. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. I detest all my sins because of thy just punishments, but most of all because they have offended thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.”

And so Father Antonio granted her absolution when he ought to have warned her to take great care. He prayed for her and assigned her ten Hail Mary’s and three rosaries as penance. “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.”

“For His mercy endures forever.”

Annamaria stepped out of the booth, and Father Antonio remained, hoping for a parishioner just a little more . . . interesting. For someone who really needed his help.

As Annamaria walked down Prince Street, she couldn’t keep herself from wondering if, in fact, she could do something that needed confessing. Something so . . . rebellious, so . . . wicked, that it had to be wrong. Wouldn’t that be something? But doing something, and being
able
to do something, were two very different things. Unfortunately, meek, kind, gentlehearted Annamaria had cultivated the two most lamentable, most damning traits known to womanhood: She was nice. And worse, she was good.

Julietta, on the other hand, could have confessed to any number of sins. But she didn’t. At least not on a weekly basis. She had developed a more efficient method of confession that fit in rather nicely with her personal philosophy of work. Why go to St. Leonard’s for confession every week and admit to sins by ones and twos, when making a confession once a year, at Easter, was so much more convenient? It made her feel more devout in the same way that it made her feel more contrite. She could repent and be sorry in a much more satisfactory way if she had the benefit of having all her sins lined up together in a nice long row.

And that evening, she added one more sin to the pile.

The Settlement House lady visited the Giordanos again. Julietta loved it when she came. The girl could examine her clothing – and her hats! – and then, later, try to imitate the American accent. But to Mama Giordano, the Settlement House lady was the devil incarnate, always telling her the things she shouldn’t do and handing her an ever-growing list of things that she should. She couldn’t understand Americans! Mama had offered the woman a bowl of her spaghetti with tomato gravy and the woman had turned it down. And not just that. She had done it with a sniff.

And a grimace!

Mama took the bowl from the woman and put it down in front of Little Matteo. He knew what was good for him. Then she looked over at Julietta. “What did she say?”

Julietta understood English much better than she could speak it. “She says we need to eat more meat. Every starch needs a meat.” That’s what the lady always said, and Julietta was inclined to agree with her. That’s what all Americans ate. They ate meat. Mounds and mounds of meat.

“More meat? She going to give us some?”

The Settlement House lady was a bit worried. It was always tense in the Giordano apartment and now the mother of the brood was frowning. She turned toward Julietta. “What is your mother saying? She doesn’t look happy.”

“She fine. She fine.” She wasn’t, of course, and that’s where the sinning came in. Julietta had lied.

“She going to give us some? That’s what I want to know.” Mama stepped toward the Settlement House lady, arms lifted as if in supplication to heaven. “When are you going to give us this meat?”

“Ma.”

The Settlement House lady was looking back and forth between Julietta and her mother. “Maybe . . . I know meat is expensive. But so many vegetables – it’s just not healthy for you! I know you people eat noodles . . . maybe you could just eat them with meat. With . . . meatballs!” That would work, wouldn’t it? Meatballs couldn’t be as expensive as a roast or a chicken. And hadn’t she seen Italians making meatballs? Somewhere in that filthy and derelict old building?

“What did she say?”

“She says maybe we can eat our maccheroni with meatballs.”

“What? Like this spaghetti? With meatballs? Who ever heard of such a thing!”

“Ma.”

“She’s crazy. Loony.” She swept her gaze from Julietta to the Settlement House lady. “Get out of my house.” Turned back to Julietta. “Tell her to get out of my house. Got no time for crazy people. Got enough people here as it is.” She shuffled back to the stove, muttering to herself.

“What did your mother say?”

“She say . . . that’s good idea, but . . . she got to think about it.”

“Think about it?”

“She got to think about . . . about . . . what we have for dinner now we can’t have vegetables.”

“It’s not that you can’t have vegetables. It’s just that you shouldn’t have so many of them.”

“
Pazza!
” Mama had brandished her wooden spoon along with her words.

“She say, Thank you for coming.”

“Italian’s a very strange language, isn’t it? It uses so many less words.”

“Crazy!
E’ proprio fuori!
” Mama poked herself above the temple with a finger.

“Please . . . she say, Don’t trip over the door.”

The lady turned and flashed a smile toward Mama Giordano.

“Thank you.”

Mama placed her hand beneath her chin, palm down, and then flicked it away from her face toward the woman.

Julietta blanched at the gesture. Turned to push the lady out the door. “That mean God bless you.”

That was a gesture the Settlement House lady hadn’t seen before. The southern Italians were such a strange race of people. Always using their hands whenever they talked. She sighed and then lifted her shoulders, endeavoring to be as pleasant as she could with these destitute illiterates. She put her own hand beneath her chin, repeating the gesture. “And God bless you too.”

Julietta waited until the door had shut before she turned on her mother. “What are you thinking?”

Mama looked up from her pot. “What was
she
thinking, that’s what I want to know.”

“You can’t treat them that way! I had to tell her you had blessed her.”

“Blessed her?”

“That’s what I told her. That you’d said God bless you.”

“God bless you? To that woman? ‘God curse you,’ more like. God curse these people who think they can come into my house, my own kitchen, and tell me what to do! Did you see her? Did you see that hat she wore? In Chiusano San Domenico only two kinds of women wear hats – ”

“Ma!”

“You should be thanking me I got rid of her.”

“She’s only trying to teach us how to be American.”

“Why do I have to be American? What’s wrong with being Avellinesi?”

“Everything!” Julietta said the word before she could think not to. But once she’d said it, she was glad. “If Avellino was so good, then why did we leave? And if America is so bad, then why do we stay?”

Mama Giordano put her spoon down and turned to face her girl. “Why do we stay? Why did we leave? We left
la miseria
because it offered only one thing: misery. That’s why we came here.”

“But you brought the misery with you!”

“What is this? What’s wrong,
cara mia
?”

“You! You’re what’s – ” This time Julietta had the grace to put a hand over her mouth, but not before she saw hurt color her mother’s eyes. “Look around. Is this why we came? Is this all there is? Two crowded rooms and a pair of raggedy old curtains? Is that all we get for living in a pig’s pen and working like slaves, turning our paychecks over to Papa every week? That might be fine for you, but not for me. I want more. The only thing wrong with this country is people like you!”

7

As Luciana walked up Salem Street that evening, a piece of pink paper, buoyed by a sly and lazy wind, twirled up toward her hand. When she brushed it away, the wind abandoned it and the paper fell to her feet. She began to step over it when a symbol on it caught her eye. She bent over and grabbed it with one hand. Then she spread it flat on her thigh and tried to read it.

She couldn’t understand the words, but she did comprehend the color of the paper. Pink. And though she couldn’t translate the sentences into her language, she did grasp the message of those blaring black phrases. Her hands shook as she stared at them.

Anarchists? Here? A shiver crept up Luciana’s spine.

She’d known that her father’s murderer had followed her to America’s shores, but she’d assumed that here there would be no anarchist political party or organization. And she had hoped – hoped still! – that in this country, she could become one of many. One of a very many immigrants come to America in order to leave the past behind. To begin life anew.

He hadn’t found her yet. She knew that if he had, she would already be dead. And it had been so many weeks since she’d seen him, she had started to hope that he had given up his hunt.

She tore her gaze from the paper, searching the street for anyone looking suspicious. She examined those foreign words too, hoping to discern something that looked familiar. There was no mention of
assassinare
.

But what did it say? She wanted to know what it said!

What it said was:

There will be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder; we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; never hope that your cops, and your hounds will ever succeed in ridding the country of the anarchistic germ that pulses in our veins. . . . Long live social revolution! Down with tyranny!

THE ANARCHIST FIGHTERS

But she had no way of deciphering it. And in any case, she had already divined the general idea. Letting the sheet drop from her hand, she began to run. She flew by the crowds on the North End sidewalks, heedless of protecting her identity. She almost shouted at the greengrocer to hurry when she stopped long enough to buy some fruit.

Finally, she reached the door to their rooms, overwrought and out of breath. Trembling with trepidation. What if . . . what if her father’s murderer had discovered where she lived? What if he’d already been to the apartment? What if he’d taken . . . ? She unlocked the door and pushed it open, then almost melted with relief. The contessa was sitting there, just as she always was, oblivious to person or to place.

Luciana set the fruit on the sideboard and unknotted her scarf with fingers gone stiff from fear. In the bedroom, she slipped out of her gown and then pulled on her worn peasant’s skirt and blouse. Sat on the mattress as she tried to calm her nerves.

This wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. She had to have information. If there were other anarchists in this country, then he was sure to have found them. She had to know what they were planning to do. She was worse than an illiterate in this country. She was deaf and mute too!

Papa. Papa! She pulled the pillow to her face so that her grief could not be heard. She pressed it to her face with her knees as she beat upon the ends of it with her fists.

Why had this happened? Why had she been left all alone?

Why are you doing this to me, God? Sì. You, God! Keeper of widows and orphans. You who don’t see and don’t care and won’t answer. Why have you done this to me?

Of course God had done no such thing, though you can probably see why she might think so. But it’s no good preaching to a grief-stricken soul. And it can actually cause much harm. God is long-suffering in His patience, however, and infinite in His kindness, so we shall leave it to Him to draw Luciana to himself in His own time.

She fell over onto the bed and rolled onto her stomach, letting the pillow absorb both her sobs and her tears. After a while, once her tears had stopped, once perspiration had dampened the hair at the edges of her face, she sat up and wiped the remnants of grief away. And then she stood. Took a deep, stuttering breath.

Grief was too much a luxury to allow herself to indulge in for long. If God wasn’t going to look after them, and clearly He had decided not to, then she had to do it herself. She left the room and went to the old woman’s side. Kneeling beside the contessa, she kissed her hand. “Dinner is ready.” Such as it was.

“Grazie, ragazza.”

“Dinner isn’t ready.” Mama Rossi spoke the words as Papa pulled his chair from the table and moved to sit down.

“What do you mean dinner isn’t ready?” Annamaria’s family held its collective breath as Papa Rossi scowled at his wife.

“It isn’t ready. Maglione the greengrocer gave us bad tomatoes. I can’t make salad with them, so I have to make a gravy instead. It isn’t ready.” What she really wanted to do was to remind him that seventy years ago, back in the old country when Maglione’s was run by the present Maglione’s great-grandfather, that man had overcharged her great-grandmother for a zucchini. And since then, hadn’t the Magliones always given her family the worst of the produce? Hadn’t the Magliones always taken great care to ensure that they received only the most rotten of fruit? And hadn’t they been a curse to her family ever since? They’d been eating terrible food for the past seventy years. And she didn’t see why it had to continue now that they were in America. Enough was enough! But of course, that wasn’t really worth mentioning.

Papa opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but then he gave up and shrugged instead.

The family sighed in relief.

“This is the third time this month that Maglione’s given me bad tomatoes.” Mama spoke over her shoulder as she stirred her gravy.

Papa looked up from his wine to see if Mama was exaggerating. She wasn’t. “Third time.”

Papa shrugged. “So what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want to go to Zanfini’s.”

“Zanfini’s? Who’s Zanfini?” Papa could be forgiven such a question. He worked as a pick and shovel man downtown on a public works project. That meant that he rose when it was still dark and came home late. He trudged, head down to his labors, and then he trudged, head down, all the way home. And who would have blamed him? But the rest of the family knew Zanfini’s. And they all turned to look at Mama as if she had suddenly gone mad.

“Zanfini’s. Across the street.”

“Across the street . . .” Papa’s eyes screwed up as if he couldn’t exactly picture where that might be. “Across the street?”

Mama nodded.

“Across the street. As in the other side of the street?”

Mama nodded once more.

“Where the Sicilians live?!”

Everyone cringed when they heard the
S
word. Sicilians weren’t fit to speak to, let alone buy tomatoes from. Avellinesis bought tomatoes from Maglione, and Sicilians bought tomatoes from Zanfini.
Only
Sicilians bought tomatoes from Zanfini.

“I want to buy tomatoes from Zanfini.”

“Zanfini the Sicilian?” Papa Rossi tugged on an earlobe as if he weren’t quite sure he was hearing right. And then he shook his head. “No one in my house buys tomatoes from Sicilians.” And that was the end of that.

But Mama Rossi was not to be swayed so easily from her course. She was sick to death of mushy tomatoes, and Zanfini’s produce always looked pretty good. At least what he displayed outside on his cart did. And those Sicilians seemed happy enough with it. She wanted nice, firm tomatoes, and she was going to have them. It would just take a bit more time. And a bit more convincing.

But for now, Papa had spoken and there was a semblance of peace. Everyone was glad to be done talking of treason and tomatoes and Sicilians. And besides, when Papa said no, everyone knew what it meant. It meant that he meant no until Mama made him realize that what he really meant was yes.

And so, Mama Rossi finished her gravy, and Papa Rossi ate his dinner in blissful ignorance, happy that for once his wife had listened to good reason. And all the while, his children sent sly glances down the table in their mama’s direction, wondering exactly how, this time, she would manage to get her way.

The next morning, Julietta wondered the very same thing: How would she manage to get her way? That she would, eventually, get her way and wrangle one of Madame’s old gowns away from Luciana was not in question. And she quite intended to be up-front in the doing of it. She could have just as easily filched the thing, that pink and white silk embroidered net over messaline gown. Had she taken it, she was almost, very nearly, certain that no one would have missed it. But it wouldn’t do to have her character placed into question. Not when she was hoping to be taken into Madame’s confidence.

As Madame had said, it was outmoded. Done up in the fussiest of styles. All high-collared propriety, dripping with lace and wrapped up with a ridiculously large-bowed satin sash. It might have turned some heads a few years ago, drawn a few admiring glances. Oh, there was grace and elegance at the core of it, for wasn’t it one of Madame’s own designs? But its lines were stifled. They needed to be liberated.

Just like the Marne needed to be liberated from the Germans.

She’d rip that cage of lace from the neck, narrow the collar, slice the sash by half. Pull out the tucks in the tunic, lift the hem by five inches. No one would ever recognize it.

As she embroidered, she cast a longing glance in the gown’s direction. It was buried beneath gowns made in heavy navy moiré and aubergine wool crepe. All those lovely gowns and the new girl had left them right where Madame had placed them! What was wrong with her? Didn’t she know how it looked to wear the same tired, faded gown, day after day, to the city’s best gown shop? Didn’t she know how it must look to Madame? To see no sign of – no appreciation for – such a generous gift?

Luciana was eyeing that very same pile of gowns, wishing she knew what to do with them. She wasn’t sure, exactly, if she should take them home. If that was what Madame had intended. She could, of course – and with gratitude – but what would she do with them once she got them there? She had no tools and no ability to turn their dated lines into something more pleasing.

Oh, she could see their potential. The pink and white messaline gown with its silk embroidered net, for example. She would feel so much cooler walking through the city in a gown like that. She could picture herself fairly floating. It needed something, of course. It needed to be different. To be simplified. It was too . . . much. At the moment. But how was she supposed to make it something less?

Maybe . . . should she ask? For help? Surely the other girls would know what to do.

Annamaria did gorgeous smocking, but she didn’t seem to see the need for anything fashionable of her own. Julietta was quite the opposite; Julietta was the person she should ask. And she would, if only she didn’t feel such disdain, such judgment, every time the girl looked at her.

Perhaps that evening, after work, she would spend a few moments looking through the pile. She knew how to bead, didn’t she? Sewing couldn’t be that much more difficult, could it?

As Julietta and Annamaria ran down the stairs after work, Luciana lingered in the room, caught between the desire to turn to her advantage Madame’s generous gift, and the knowledge that she was inadequate for the task. Which was better? To take and wear one of the gowns as it was and look like she didn’t know frippery from fashion, or to keep wearing the one gown she owned and look exactly like who she was: a girl, pathetic and pitiable, who had fallen upon hard times.

She passed a hand over those luxurious silks and wools, pausing to admire a dated, though finely worked, lace fichu. Perhaps . . . perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps tomorrow she would ask for help.