I Know This Much Is True (109 page)

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“I don’t know,” he said. “My arm’s numb.”

Then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he dropped dead. Died just like that—answering my question one minute, dead the next.

I had never had much use for Drinkwater. He was lazy, sneaky—his mischief with the bottle had cost my brother Pasquale his job at the mill. But he had worked under me, now, for over ten years.

On the nights when he
felt
like working, that skinny Indian could do his share and more. He was forty-two and I was forty-two. Right to his knees, he had dropped, right in front of my eyes. I caught him before he fell, before his face hit the concrete floor. I did that much for the son of a bitch.

There was just a small turnout for his funeral—half a dozen workers from the mill (none of the bosses) and a couple of men I didn’t know. He had a colored wife and four half-colored children—two sons, two daughters. Drinkwater had never talked much about family. I was pallbearer. The wife had asked the mill agent to ask me. What could I say—no? . . . There was no man of God at the grave, only someone in a shabby suit who did the talking. I didn’t know if Indians could go to Heaven, but if they could, I was pretty sure Drinkwater hadn’t gotten there. For one thing, he broke continually the ninth and tenth commandments (coveting wives and goods). He’d been a drinker, in trouble with the police from time to time. He had known his way to Bickel Road. He had bragged about it sometimes on dinner break—to the other men, never to me. Me, he respected. . . . He’d never been the best worker at the mill, but never the worst, either. One of the owner’s sons or sons-in-law—one of those sons of bitches—could have come to his funeral, shown him a little respect at the end. A little thanks for all those nights that he’d done his work. But as soon as a man keeled over, American Woolen and Textile forgot he had ever lived and breathed.

The next Saturday afternoon, I went back to the church—this time not at the beginning of confession but near the end. I waited I Know[649-748] 7/24/02 1:31 PM Page 728

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until it was just Guglielmo and me. But before I could get myself off the pew, he turned off his little light and came out of the confessional.

“Oh, Domenico,” he whispered. “I thought everyone had gone.

Have you come to make confession?”

“No
confessione,
” I said. “I came to ask two questions.”

“About the school?”

I looked away. “Not the school,” I said. “No.”

He waited but I said no more. “All right, then. Better come in.”

He went back inside the confessional and closed the door. Lit his light again.

Inside the box, I knelt facing his shadow behind the screen. My hands trembled in front of my face. Guglielmo said nothing. I said nothing. Finally, he told me that since we were inside the confessional, maybe I should ask my questions within the context of the traditional confession. That would signal God to listen, he said, and ensure the sanctity of whatever it was that I had to say.

“All right?” he asked me.

“All right,” I said. Then I said nothing.

He began for me. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. . . .”

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I repeated. “But never as much as I have been sinned against!”

The shadow put a finger to its lip. “To prepare yourself for the Eucharist, Domenico—to be truly penitent—you must examine only your own soul. Leave other sinners to examine theirs. You must try to practice humility.”

“Humility?” I said. “Believe me, Father, a man who lives with two murdering women learns to be humble in a thousand different ways.”

“Murdering?” he said. “Why murdering?”

“Never mind that,” I told him. “That’s the business of my home, not the church.”

Silenzia
. And then Guglielmo asked if I understood what he had said about the sanctity of the confessional. “Whatever you say or I Know[649-748] 7/24/02 1:31 PM Page 729

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ask here is between you and the Almighty Father,” he whispered. “I am only acting as His representative.”

“
Scusa,
Father,” I said. “Where do your people come from? In the Old Country?”

“From Tivoli,” he said. “Not far from Rome.”

“Ah,
Roma,
” I said. “I lived in Rome once. I saw how Romans live.

In Rome, people say what’s on their minds—they shout their troubles from the steps of the Colosseum if they like and no one even takes notice. But I am
siciliano
. The code of silence runs through my veins. For your people it is different. Southerners—

siciliani
—honor the word of God and
omertà
equally.”

“Why have you entered the confessional, Domenico, if not to confess?”

“I told you already. I wish to have two questions answered—questions that rob me of my sleep. . . . And maybe I come to bring a little peace to my home—to undo the curse your boss left me.”

“My ‘boss,’ Domenico, is the Lord Almighty.”

“You know who I mean: that old fart of a monsignor.”

Guglielmo began twice to say something and twice changed his mind and stopped. When he spoke the third time, he advised me that to form a covenant with God, I must break my covenant with
omertà
, the code of silence. “God is looking for a sign of your faith in Him above all else, Domenico,” he whispered. “Only after you have given it can you be set free of the shackles that you yourself have forged.”

“That
I
have forged?” I said. I meant to whisper but forgot. “You were there that day he called a curse upon my home. ‘A house where priests are ordered to leave is damned from the peak to the foundation.’ His exact words stay in my ears. You were there—you heard! And fifteen minutes later, my brother fell to his death. A year after that, I marry a wife who whored with other men but with her lawful husband is as chaste as the good Sisters of Humility!

That goddamned Irish priest was the blacksmith who forged my shackles. And if there’s justice, he burns in Hell for it!”

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Father Guglielmo’s shadow made the sign of the cross and asked me to speak more softly. “It does you no good, Domenico, to enter God’s house and malign one of His children,” he told me.

“But for the moment, let us walk another path. You said certain questions keep you from sleeping. What questions? Tell me your doubts and let me try to help you.”

I pushed aside the curtain and looked out into the church to make sure we were still alone. I wanted no big ears to hear my business.

“I wonder . . .” I whispered. “I worry sometimes that I may have damned the souls of my brother . . . and my son.”

“Damned them?” he said. “Damned them how?”

I poked my head again outside the confessional. Still no one there.

“Father, you remember that my brother Pasquale had a certain peculiar weakness.”

“A weakness?” Guglielmo said. “Do you mean a physical weakness or a spiritual one?”

“I mean . . .”

“What is it, Domenico? Tell me.”

“
Padre,
is it a terrible sin for a man to refuse a wife and take his pleasure from a monkey?”

At first there was no response from the priest. And when he did speak again, he brought me back to the subject of damnation.

“Why, exactly, do you worry that you’ve sent your brother’s soul to Hell, Domenico?”

“You were there! I threw the cement! If I had not lost my temper, I would not have angered the old priest and he would not have cursed my house. Then Pasquale would not have fallen.” Here, my voice cracked a little, but I continued. “After my brother Vincenzo was shot by that policeman, you stood by his bed at the boardinghouse and administered the sacraments to that rascal—prepared him for his journey beyond life. But poor Pasquale . . . I
tried
to interest him in a wife,
padre
. Believe me! In that respect, I am I Know[649-748] 7/24/02 1:31 PM Page 731

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clearly blameless. But all Pasquale ever wanted was that hairy creature of his. The devil himself must have sent that monkey up from Hell or Madagascar! To others, I denied there was anything unnatural between them, but privately . . . the way those two would stare at each other . . . Who knows what went on down there in the
signora
’s cellar?
Pompino! Ditalino!
For all I know, that brother of mine got down on his knees and found a way to fit his thing inside her

‘coin of no value’!”

“Shhh,” Guglielmo said. “Shhh. Lower your voice, please, Domenico. And remember as you select your words that we are in God’s house.”

“
Scusa, padre,
” I said. “
Scusa,
please. At the mill, bad words float in the air along with the woolen fibers. Sometimes I forget.
Scusa,
again,
signore
.
Scusa,
to you, too, God. Forgive me.”

“Go on, please, Domenico,” he said. “Unburden yourself.”

“In all other ways, my brother Pasquale was a decent man—nothing at all like that hooligan Vincenzo. Quiet and shy. Eager to help. Oh, he had a stubborn streak, all right; he sometimes drank a little more than he needed to. Even without alcoholic spirits, he was . . . he was never quite right—never all there. Even as a boy. He would laugh at the strangest times. Maybe it was his early work in the sulphur mines, who knows? He was my father’s
caruso
and Papa was all the time hitting him on the head for something. Maybe that’s what shook up his brains. . . . But he was never sneaky or mean-spirited, my brother Pasquale. Never
perverso,
either, until that she-devil of a goddamned monkey got ahold of his balls!”

“Domenico.”

“
Scusa, padre, scusa
. I beg your pardon. There I go again, ha ha.

. . . I tried to stop what was going on—tried to arrange for a wife to distract Pasquale. Really, God cannot fault me on that score.

. . . Oh, to have not one but
two
brothers who bring such shame down on a father’s name! What a heavy cross for an eldest son to bear! But at least Vincenzo did his funny business with humans. To share such a
passione
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absolution. I’m not saying I’m blameless,
padre
. If only I had not thrown the cement. If only . . .”

“Domenico, did you ever witness your brother and the monkey

. . . perform these perverse acts?” Guglielmo whispered. “Did Pasquale ever boast or confide in you about them? Are you speculating about this or was there proof?”

“Pasquale talked about almost nothing,” I said. “You could work with him for a whole day and hear nothing come out of him except a belch after dinner. He was a private man. . . . As for proof, one morning when I went down to the cellar to wake him up—that was my habit when we lived at the boardinghouse: to get him up for work when I came home to go to bed. One time I saw . . . I saw . . .
Scusa,
padre,
but I have never spoken about what I saw that morning.”

“Tell me, Domenico. What you say is between you and God, Who loves all sinners.”

“Pasquale was asleep on his cot and smiling. That monkey was sitting on his belly and playing . . . playing with the buttons on his pants.”

“But Domenico, if that is the only thing—”

“
Scusa, padre,
let me finish.” This next part I whispered, I was so ashamed. “Pasquale had
cazzu duro
. The monkey was . . . exciting him.”

Father Guglielmo cleared his throat. Once, twice. A third time.

Then, for a minute or more, he was as silent as Pasquale himself.

“And that was your only proof?” he asked.

“That, and the whispers of every
Italiano
in Three Rivers, Connecticut. One day in the street, Colosanto the baker asked me if it was true my brother’s little monkey played the pipe for him!”

“Gossip is the devil’s work, Domenico,” the priest said.

“
Si, padre,
but when it came to my brother and that monkey, plenty of my countrymen are ready to help Satan with the job!”

“But surely, Domenico, what you saw in the
signora
’s cellar is by itself no proof of sin. It is a natural thing for a man to become . . .

aroused in his sleep.”

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“Si,
padre,
it is a natural thing.”

“But, of course, less natural if it happens when a monkey plays with his buttons.”

“
Si, padre.
Far less natural when
that
happens.”

He was quiet for several seconds and in the silence, behind the screen that separated us, I could almost hear the moving gears in his brain. “Nevertheless, Domenico,” he sighed, “your brother, most likely, was entirely innocent of the immoral acts you put on his head. He may well have died without a trace of mortal sin on his soul. You yourself have said what a good man Pasquale was—how generous, how giving to a brother trying to reach his dream.”

“
Si, padre,
” I whispered, “but what was he dreaming that morning while the monkey made the pipe in his pants? What was he giving to
that
filthy creature?”

“You must remember, Domenico, that Pasquale was a child of God. Let that comfort you. Perhaps . . . perhaps he merely loved another of God’s creatures in the manner of St. Francis. To suggest otherwise, based only on what you saw, is—”