Unto the Sons (63 page)

Antonio’s many suits and coats filled the armoire that stood at the far end of the apartment, between the two front windows. To the left of the armoire was a bed with a brass headboard that he had bought at a flea market and had transferred from his old apartment in the Latin Quarter. Next to the washstand (the toilet was in the hall) was a five-drawer bureau whose top displayed Antonio’s many brushes and combs, pomades, colognes, mouth rinses, and other bottled toiletries, all lined up as evenly as a row of soldiers awaiting inspection. His extra pairs of shoes were aligned precisely on the floor of his armoire. Antonio carefully made his bed each day instantly upon getting up.

In contrast to Antonio’s orderliness, a spirit of disorder and abstract grotesquerie was expressed on the walls of the apartment, within the frames of oil paintings he had bought cheaply from sidewalk artists along the Seine. Some of these paintings were in the Cubist style that had been fashionable before the war; others showed signs of what in later years would be called Surrealism; still others were nondescript blotches of garish paint that might have been tossed onto the canvas from buckets. There was one painting, however, that was unabstractly erotic. It was a painting of a buxom naked woman standing in a bathtub fondling her breasts.

Joseph could not look at it without feeling embarrassed, although he never commented on it to Antonio. Still, its position above Antonio’s bed made him wonder if his cousin was truly as prudish as he made every effort to appear in the streets when he brusquely rejected the appeals of prostitutes and the male peddlers of risqué French postcards. And the fact that nearly the entire wall was devoted to modern art, with not a holy picture or tiny crucifix in sight, added to Joseph’s wonderment about his cousin. The ungodliness of the war had perhaps induced some skepticism, and its brutality seemed to linger in Antonio’s dreams. Joseph had been privy to some of these nightmares, being awakened by the sounds of Antonio banging a hand against the headboard and screaming what sounded like military commands, or battle orders, or panicked words of warning. Often two particular names were mentioned, and they were the most urgently repeated: “Muffo! Branca!… Muffo! Branca!…” In the middle of one hot night Joseph awoke to find Antonio sleepwalking, moving slowly in circles in his underwear, then heading toward a window that was wide open. Joseph ran and grabbed him by the shoulders. Antonio swung around and swore angrily at Joseph, as he had never done
before. After calming down, Antonio explained that he had not been sleepwalking, but had become agitated in the oppressive heat and was going to the window for cooler air. In the morning, as they dressed quickly for work, neither mentioned the incident.

Later that afternoon, after Antonio had gone off with Monsieur Damien to visit a client in a hotel, Joseph slipped away from the shop and followed the directions he had plotted on his pocket map of Paris to the Italian embassy. He hoped to apply for a visa to America without telling Antonio. Uncertain of Antonio’s reaction, and not even sure whether he could get a visa application, since he was not yet seventeen and also lacked the required documents from an overseas sponsor, he thought it best to inquire in private before risking a family quarrel over a possibility that might not yet be possible. In this reasoning Joseph was guided as well by the example Antonio had set in running away from Maida. Act first, explain later.

Wearing a straw hat and a beige flannel suit from whose jacket Antonio had removed most of the lining to make it lighter and cooler, Joseph proceeded through the late-afternoon heat along a tree-lined boulevard with a novel sense of independence and nervousness. This was his first walk through Paris unaccompanied by Antonio. The avenue was crowded with strolling couples, many of the women smoking cigarettes, their hair cut short like boys’. Their escorts were frequently gray-haired officers with polished boots and rows of chest ribbons, or ministerial-looking men with top hats and walking sticks, who seemed comfortably cool despite their starched collars and weighty dark suits. Joseph heard a variety of languages being spoken around him, and now and then a voice he thought American, although he could not be sure. He had been told that Paris was now filled with American tourists, lured by the dollar’s climb from seven francs a year before to now nearly twenty—attracting bargain hunters from abroad to all areas of French trade except prostitution. That industry had lost a high percentage of its clientele since the repatriation of the millions of soldiers who had frequented the city’s brothels during furloughs from the front and layovers. “These prostitutes are now desperate for money,” Antonio had recently explained to Joseph, justifying the gruff manner in which he had kept his distance from one persistent woman in the street. “If they don’t get their money in one way, they’ll try another—with the help of the knives they carry in their garter belts,” he added, knowingly. “Or with the help of their pimps, who are always close by in the shadows.”

Avoiding the shadows, Joseph continued along the outer edge of the
sidewalks toward the Italian embassy, moving at a brisk pace and veering away from all female standees while trying to remain close to male pedestrians in military uniforms, these being the men he could most safely assume were not pimps. Joseph’s personal safety was of secondary concern to him; more important was the fact that he carried around his waist, inside his trousers, the resources he hoped would buy his passage to America—the money bag containing the five hundred dollars in lire that his Rocchino uncles, now in Ambler, had loaned him. Joseph wore this belt everywhere, even at night in bed. While it added to the sense of confinement that he had felt in so many ways since arriving in Paris, he saw no alternative. The streets were swarming with potential thieves, according to his cousin, and even the superintendent of his residence had a predilection for picking the tenants’ locks.

Seeing the tricolored flag of Italy flying behind the stone-walled embassy building, Joseph hastened toward the plume-hatted Carabiniere who stood guarding the gate. The officer, who wore a silver sword and a black-holstered pistol at the waist of his blue uniform, lifted a white-gloved hand toward his peaked cap in casual salute. After Joseph requested permission to visit the travel consul’s office, and had shown his passport, he was given directions and waved through the gate with a wink from the officer, a wink that the officer repeated to the two pretty young women who had exited the building and were heading toward the street.

After passing through the main foyer, where there was a wall portrait of King Victor Emmanuel III, Joseph climbed two flights of steps and entered a long room with a high, intricately carved ceiling; the room was crowded with people standing in two lines waiting to be interviewed by two dark-suited men, one white-haired, the other balding, who occupied large desks stacked with papers and books. The people in line were very quiet, and throughout the room the questioning by the two men was audible, rising above the less audible replies of the applicants at the desks.

The white-haired man spoke Italian with an accent that was unfamiliar to Joseph, who assumed it was characteristic of some region in northern Italy. The voice of the balding official, however, was intoned with southern traces that Joseph recognized at once; and despite his recent efforts to distance himself from his roots—from his family, from his village, and today also from Antonio—he was immediately drawn back to what was familiar. He joined the line leading to the southerner’s desk, even though this was the longer one. There were about fifty people here, compared with fewer than forty in the other. Nearly everyone in both lines was much older than Joseph, ranging in age from at least forty to seventy,
maybe even beyond, and while they were presentably attired, Joseph knew from his perusal of tailoring magazines and his exposure to style at Damien’s that these people were dressed predominantly in a way that was quite old-fashioned, predating the war by years.

The men’s trousers were narrow and cuffless, tapering at the ankles; their jackets tended to be a bit long, tight-fitting in the waist, and curved out along the sides like riding coats. Many wore spats on their narrow pointed shoes, and collars with bow ties, and had beards with side whiskers. The women favored long full skirts of bright summer shades that in many cases were faded, starched blouses with unusually high collars, brimmed straw hats or felt bonnets; and several women also carried furled parasols underarm. They could have walked out of the large fin-de-siècle poster of a Paris street scene that Joseph had recently paused to look at with Antonio in front of a department store window. But Joseph reminded himself that these people in the embassy were not French but Italians, or relatives of Italians, or possibly Franco-Italian émigrés from rural areas along the border who had moved here during the war to escape the Austrians. They were among the oldest survivors of the Great War, and now they were getting travel information so that they might begin life anew in some faraway place. The gray-haired couple standing in front of Joseph were holding hands. The man’s left hand and the woman’s right were clasped within the folds of her long skirt, causing a slight wavering of the material as they loosened their interlocked wrists and intertwined their fingers.

The woman’s silvery hair, braided back in a bun, was topped by a wide-brimmed straw hat with a rose tucked into the side band. Tall and broad-shouldered, she faced the front without whispering a word to her companion; but occasionally her shoulders rose, crinkling the back of her starched linen blouse. The man was heavyset and had thick gray hair parted in the middle. Sewn across the left sleeve of his black jacket was a thin mourning band of matching color; it blended in so well with the jacket that it was barely noticeable. In his hand not enclasped with the woman’s he held a Panama hat that looked newly bought. The smooth, palmlike texture of the white crown cast a sheen in the window light, and the hat’s wide brim seemed as thin and sharp as a knife. Having never before seen an elderly couple holding hands, Joseph did not know what to make of it; but their warmth for one another was nonetheless comforting, making him feel more hopeful and less estranged than he had felt on entering the room.

The line moved slowly forward, advancing a few paces every five or
ten minutes. Joseph was concerned that Antonio would have by now returned to the shop, and would be alarmed at not finding him there. It was already four in the afternoon. Listening to the people up ahead, Joseph was aware that most of them had requested guidance in getting to South America and Canada. The cities most mentioned were Buenos Aires and Montreal. Ships headed in those directions left twice weekly, and the counselors, for a fee, volunteered to expedite the procurement of visas from the Paris-based representatives of the countries the applicants wished to enter.

Since none of the applicants had so far expressed interest in visiting the United States, Joseph wondered if American ports were still closed to foreigners, as they had been during the war; his Rocchino uncles, after all, had somehow managed to get in recently aboard a ship sailing from Naples. Perhaps only ships sailing from France were limiting civilian travel into the United States. The idea of trying to book passage from Naples was discouraging to Joseph, for if he returned to southern Italy he would feel obligated to visit his mother and the others in Maida, and they would surely try to make him change his mind about America.

By four-thirty, Joseph had almost reached the travel counselor’s desk. The gray-haired couple, who had stopped holding hands when they moved up to be next in line, were now standing at the desk explaining that they wished to embark on a journey to Australia within the next three to five weeks. They said they were Protestant missionaries from Piedmont, and were being reassigned to a mission in Melbourne. Joseph had never known any Protestants before, as they were almost nonexistent in his area of the south, but he was aware that some Italians, including a cousin of his late father’s, had settled in Australia.

The room was now nearly empty. The last of the people in the other line had just left, and the white-haired counselor was counting the money he had collected for promising to expedite the securing of visas and making the passengers’ travel arrangements. The balding counselor at the desk in front of Joseph was thumbing through large books and quoting to a couple the various train and boat schedules that might be used in getting to Australia.

Nearly fifteen minutes passed before they made their decisions, deposited their down payment, and, with prolonged expressions of gratitude, finally turned to leave. The woman almost brushed against Joseph as she whirled around in her long skirt and adjusted her hat, and for a moment he had a view of her face, which was angular and handsome, and
unadorned by rouge. Her companion, an individual of sturdy but refined features, acknowledged Joseph with a nod and a smile before escorting the woman away.

“Passport, please,” the counselor called out.

Joseph stopped watching the couple and quickly stepped forward with his passport. The man examined it for a second, then raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, I see you’re from Maida,” he said, now in an agreeable tone.

“Yes,” Joseph replied.

“Well, I was born near Maida. I’m from Cosenza. You have been to Cosenza?”

“No, but I know where it is,” Joseph said. “It’s a provincial capital.” Joseph was glad that he knew this. It seemed to impress the counselor, who went on to say, “Well, I not only know where Maida is, but I have
been
there. It’s a pretty little town on a hill. There’s a castle in the center. It was many years ago that I was there, but I remember the visit. It was Eastertime. I went with my uncle to a tailor shop in Maida. He was having a suit made for Easter.” He paused before adding: “He had some disagreement with the tailor there.”

Joseph began to tremble. He remembered how he had accidentally cut the trouser knee of the new suit that his uncle Francesco had made for the
mafioso
from Cosenza, Vincenzo Castiglia. Joseph’s heart was pounding heavily, and he felt dizzy. The counselor noticed his unsteadiness.