Читать книгу The Bandini Quartet - John Fante - Страница 14

Chapter Three

Maria was sick. Federico and August tiptoed into the dark bedroom where she lay, so cold with winter, so warm with the fragrance of things on the dresser, the thin odor of Mamma’s hair coming through, the strong odor of Bandini, of his clothes somewhere in the room. Maria opened her eyes. Federico was about to sob. August looked annoyed.

‘We’re hungry,’ he said. ‘Where does it hurt?’

‘I’ll get up,’ she said.

They heard the crack of her joints, saw the blood seep back into the white side of her face, sensed the staleness of her lips and the misery of her being. August hated it. Suddenly his own breath had that stale taste.

‘Where does it hurt, Mamma?’

Federico said: ‘Why the heck does Grandma Donna have to come to our house?’

She sat up, nausea crawling over her. She clinched her teeth to check a sudden retch. She had always been ill, but hers was ever sickness without symptom, pain without blood or bruise. The room reeled with her dismay. Together the brothers felt a desire to flee into the kitchen, where it was bright and warm. They left guiltily.

Arturo sat with his feet in the oven, supported on blocks of wood. The dead chicken lay in the corner, a trickle of red slipping from her beak. When Maria entered she saw it without surprise. Arturo watched Federico and August, who watched their mother. They were disappointed that the dead chicken had not annoyed her.

‘Everybody has to take a bath right after supper,’ she said. ‘Grandma’s coming tomorrow.’

The brothers set up a groaning and wailing. There was no bathtub. Bathing meant pails of water into a washtub on the kitchen floor, an increasingly hateful task to Arturo, since he was growing now and could no longer sit in the tub with any freedom.

For more than fourteen years Svevo Bandini had reiterated his promise to install a bathtub. Maria could remember the first day she walked into that house with him. When he showed her what he flatteringly termed the bathroom, he had quickly added that next week he would have a bathtub installed. After fourteen years he was still affirming it that way.

‘Next week,’ he would say, ‘I’ll see about that bathtub.’

The promise had become family folklore. The boys enjoyed it. Year after year Federico or Arturo asked, ‘Papa, when we gonna have a bathtub?’ and Bandini would answer in profound determination, ‘Next week,’ or, ‘The first of the week.’

When they laughed to hear him say it over and over again, he glared at them, demanded silence and shouted, ‘What the hell’s so funny?’ Even he, when he bathed, grumbled and cursed the washtub in the kitchen. The boys could hear him deprecating his lot with life, and his violent avowals.

‘Next week, by God, next week!’

While Maria dressed the chicken for dinner, Federico shouted: ‘I get the leg!’ and disappeared behind the stove with a pocket knife. Squatting on the kindling wood box, he carved boats to sail as he took his bath. He carved and stacked them, a dozen boats, big and small, enough wood indeed to fill the tub by half, to say nothing of water displacement by his own body. But the more the better: he could have a sea-battle, even if he did have to sit on some of his craft.

August was hunched in the corner studying the Latin liturgy of the altar boy at Mass. Father Andrew had given him the prayer-book as a reward for outstanding piety during the Holy Sacrifice, such piety being a triumph of sheer physical endurance, for whereas Arturo, who was also an altar boy, was always lifting his weight from one knee to the other as he knelt through the long services of High Mass, or scratching himself, or yawning, or forgetting to respond to the priest’s words, August was never guilty of such impiety. Indeed, August was very proud of a more or less unofficial record he now held in the Altar Boy Society. To wit: He could kneel up straight with his hands reverently folded for a longer period of time than any other acolyte. The other altar boys freely acknowledged August’s supremacy in this field, and not one of the forty members of the organization saw any sense in challenging him. That his talent as an endurance-kneeler went unchallenged often annoyed the champion.

August’s great show of piety, his masterful efficiency as an altar boy, was a matter of everlasting satisfaction to Maria. Whenever the nuns or members of the parish mentioned August’s ritualistic proclivities, it made her glow happily. She never missed a Sunday Mass at which August served. Kneeling in the first pew, at the foot of the main altar, the sight of her second son in his cassock and surplice lifted her to fulfillment. The flow of his robes as he walked, the precision of his service, the silence of his feet on lush red carpet, was reverie and dream, paradise on earth. Some day August would be a priest; all else became meaningless; she could suffer and slave; she could die and die again, but her womb had given God a priest, sanctifying her, a chosen one, mother of a priest, kindred of the Blessed Virgin . . .

With Bandini it was different. August was very pious and desired to become a priest – si. But Chi copro! What the hell, he would get over that. The spectacle of his sons as altar boys gave him more amusement than spiritual satisfaction. The rare times he went to Mass and saw them, usually Christmas morning when the tremendous ceremony of Catholicism reached its most elaborate expression, it was not without chuckling that he watched his three sons in the solemn procession down the center aisle. Then he saw them not as consecrated children cloaked in expensive lace and deeply in communion with the Almighty; rather, such habiliments served to heighten the contrast, and he saw them simply and more vividly, as they really were, not only his sons but also the other boys – savages, irreverent kids uncomfortable and itching in their heavy cassocks. The sight of Arturo, choking with a tight celluloid collar against his ears, his freckled face red and bloated, his withering hatred of the whole ceremony made Bandini titter aloud. As for little Federico, he was the same, a devil for all his trappings. The seraphic sighs of women to the contrary notwithstanding, Bandini knew the embarrassment, the discomfort, the awful annoyance of the boys. August wanted to be a priest; oh, he would get over that. He would grow up and forget all about it. He would grow up and be a man, or he, Svevo Bandini, would knock his goddamn block off.

Maria picked up the dead chicken by the legs. The boys held their noses and fled from the kitchen when she opened and dressed it.

‘I get the leg,’ Federico said.

‘We heard you the first time,’ Arturo said.

He was in a black mood, his conscience shouting questions about the murdered hen. Had he committed a mortal sin, or was the killing of the hen only a venial sin? Lying on the floor in the living room, the heat of the pot-bellied stove scorching one side of his body, he reflected darkly upon the three elements which, according to the catechism, constituted a mortal sin. first, grievous matter; second, sufficient reflection; third, full consent of the will.

His mind spiralled in gloomy productions. He recalled that story of Sister Justinus about the murderer who, all of his waking and sleeping hours, saw before his eyes the contorted face of the man he had murdered; the apparition taunting him, accusing him, until the murderer had gone in terror to confession and poured out his black crime to God.

Was it possible that he too would suffer like that? That happy, unsuspecting chicken. An hour ago the bird was alive, at peace with the earth. Now she was dead, killed in cold blood by his own hand. Would his life be haunted to the end by the face of a chicken? He stared at the wall, blinked his eyes, and gasped. It was there – the dead chicken was staring him in the face, clucking fiendishly! He leaped to his feet, hurried to the bedroom, locked the door:

‘Oh Virgin Mary, give me a break! I didn’t mean it! I swear to God I don’t know why I done it! Oh please, dear chicken! Dear chicken, I’m sorry I killed you!’

He launched into a fusillade of Hail Marys and Our Fathers until his knees ached, until having kept accurate record of each prayer, he concluded that forty-five Hail Marys and nineteen Our Fathers were enough for true contrition. But a superstition about the number nineteen forced him to whisper one more Our Father that it might come out an even twenty. Then, his mind still fretting about possible stinginess he heaped on two more Hail Marys and two more Our Fathers just to prove beyond a doubt that he was not superstitious and had no faith in numbers, for the catechism emphatically denounced any species of superstition whatever.

He might have prayed on, except that his mother called him to dinner. In the center of the kitchen table she had placed a plate piled high with brown fried chicken. Federico squealed and hammered his dish with a fork. The pious August bent his head and whispered grace before meals. Long after he had said the prayer he kept his aching neck bent, wondering why his mother made no comment. Federico nudged Arturo, then thumbed his nose at the devout August. Maria faced the stove. She turned around, the gravy pitcher in her hand, and saw August, his golden head so reverently tipped.

‘Good boy, August,’ she smiled. ‘Good boy. God bless you!’

August raised his head and blessed himself. But by that time Federico had already raided the chicken dish and both legs were gone. One of them Federico gnawed; the other he had hidden between his legs. August’s eyes searched the table in annoyance. He suspected Arturo, who sat with zestless appetite. Then Maria seated herself. In silence she spread margarine over a slice of bread.

Arturo’s lips were locked in a grimace as he stared at the crisp, dismembered chicken. An hour ago that chicken had been happy, unaware of the murder that would befall it. He glanced at Federico, whose mouth dripped as he tore into the luscious flesh. It nauseated Arturo. Maria pushed the plate toward him.

‘Arturo – you’re not eating.’

The tip of his fork searched with insincere perspicacity. He found a lonely piece, a miserable piece that looked even worse when he lifted it to his own plate – the gizzard. God, please don’t let me be unkind to animals anymore. He nibbled cautiously. Not bad. It had a delicious taste. He took another bite. He grinned. He reached for more. He ate with gusto, rummaging for white meat. He remembered where Federico had hidden that other leg. His hand slipped under the table and he filched it without anyone noticing the act, took it from Federico’s lap. When he had finished the leg, he laughed and tossed the bone into his little brother’s plate. Federico stared at it, pawing his lap in alarm:

‘Damn you,’ he said. ‘Damn you, Arturo. You crook.’

August looked at his little brother reproachfully, shaking his yellow head. Damn was a sinful word; possibly not a mortal sin; probably only a venial sin, but a sin for all that. He was very sad about it and was so glad he didn’t use cuss words like his brothers.

It was not a large chicken. They cleaned the plate in the center of the table, and when only bones lay before them Arturo and Federico gnawed them open and sucked the marrow.

‘Good thing Papa ain’t coming home,’ Federico said. ‘We’d have to save some for him.’

Maria smiled at them, gravy plastered over their faces, crumbs of chicken even in Federico’s hair. She brushed them aside and warned about bad manners in front of Grandma Donna.

‘If you eat the way you did tonight, she won’t give you a Christmas present.’

A futile threat. Christmas presents from Grandma Donna! Arturo grunted. ‘All she ever gives us is pajamas. Who the heck wants pajamas?’

‘Betcha Papa’s drunk by now,’ Federico said. ‘Him and Rocco Saccone.’

Maria’s fist went white and tight. ‘That beast,’ she said. ‘Don’t mention him at this table!’

Arturo understood his mother’s hatred for Rocco. Maria was so afraid of him, so revolted when he came near. Her hatred of his lifelong friendship with Bandini was tireless. They had been boys together in Abruzzi. In the early days before her marriage they had known women together, and when Rocco came to the house, he and Svevo had a way of drinking and laughing together without speaking, of muttering provincial Italian dialect and then laughing uproariously, a violent language of grunts and memories, teeming with implication, yet meaningless and always of a world in which she had never belonged and could never belong. What Bandini had done before his marriage she pretended not to care, but this Rocco Saccone with his dirty laughter which Bandini enjoyed and shared was a secret out of the past that she longed to capture, to lay open once and for all, for she seemed to know that, once the secrets of those early days were revealed to her, the private language of Svevo Bandini and Rocco Saccone would become extinct forever.

With Bandini gone, the house was not the same. After supper the boys, stupid with food, lay on the floor in the living room, enjoying the friendly stove in the corner. Arturo fed it coal, and it wheezed and chuckled happily, laughing softly as they sprawled around it, their appetites sodden.

In the kitchen Maria washed the dishes, conscious of one less dish to put away, one less cup. When she returned them to the pantry, Bandini’s heavy battered cup, larger and clumsier than the others, seemed to convey an injured pride that it had remained unused throughout the meal. In the drawer where she kept the cutlery Bandini’s knife, his favorite, the sharpest and most vicious table knife in the set, glistened in the light.

The house lost its identity now. A loose shingle whispered caustically to the wind; the electric light wires rubbed the gabled back porch, sneering. The world of inanimate things found voice, conversed with the old house, and the house chattered with cronish delight of the discontent within its walls. The boards under her feet squealed their miserable pleasure.

Bandini would not be home tonight.

The realization that he would not come home, the knowledge that he was probably drunk somewhere in the town, deliberately staying away, was terrifying. All that was hideous and destructive upon the earth seemed privy to the information. Already she sensed the forces of blackness and terror gathering around her, creeping in macabre formation upon the house.

Once the supper dishes were out of the way, the sink cleaned, the floor swept, her day abruptly died. Now nothing remained to occupy her. She had done so much sewing and patching over fourteen years under yellow light that her eyes resisted violently whenever she attempted it; headaches seized her, and she had to give it up until the daytime.

Sometimes she opened the pages of a woman’s magazine whenever one came her way; those sleek bright magazines that shrieked of an American paradise for women: beautiful furniture, beautiful gowns: of fair women who found romance in yeast: of smart women discussing toilet paper. These magazines, these pictures represented that vague category: ‘American women.’ Always she spoke in awe of what ‘the American women’ were doing.

She believed those pictures. By the hour she could sit in the old rocker beside the window in the living room, ever turning the pages of a woman’s magazine, methodically licking the tip of her finger and turning the page. She came away drugged with the conviction of her separation from that world of ‘American women.’

Here was a side of her Bandini bitterly derided. He, for example, was a pure Italian, of peasant stock that went back deeply into the generations. Yet he, now that he had citizenship papers, never regarded himself as an Italian. No, he was an American; sometimes sentiment buzzed in his head and he liked to yell his pride of heritage; but for all sensible purposes he was an American, and when Maria spoke to him of what ‘the American women’ were doing and wearing, when she mentioned the activity of a neighbor, ‘that American woman down the street,’ it infuriated him. For he was highly sensitive to the distinction of class and race, to the suffering it entailed, and he was bitterly against it.

He was a bricklayer, and to him there was not a more sacred calling upon the face of the earth. You could be a king; you could be a conqueror, but no matter what you were you had to have a house; and if you had any sense at all it would be a brickhouse; and, of course, built by a union man, on the union scale. That was important.

But Maria, lost in the fairyland of a woman’s magazine, gazing with sighs at electric irons and vacuum cleaners and automatic washing machines and electric ranges, had but to close the pages of that land of fantasy and look about her: the hard chairs, the worn carpets, the cold rooms. She had but to turn her hand and examine the palm, calloused from a washboard, to realize that she was not, after all, an American woman. Nothing about her, neither her complexion, nor her hands, nor her feet; neither the food she ate nor the teeth that chewed it – nothing about her, nothing, gave her kinship with ‘the American women.’

She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the melody of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.

Tonight the beaded passage into escape, the sense of joy the rosary brought her, was in her mind long before she turned out the kitchen light and walked into the living room, where her grunting, groggy sons were sprawled over the floor. The meal had been too much for Federico. Already he was heavily asleep. He lay with his face turned aside, his mouth wide open. August, flat on his stomach, stared blankly into Federico’s mouth and reflected that, after he was ordained a priest, he would certainly get a rich parish and have chicken dinner every night.

Maria sank into the rocking chair by the window. The familiar crack of her knees caused Arturo to flinch in annoyance. She drew the beads from the pocket of her apron. Her dark eyes closed and the tired lips moved, a whispering audible and intense.

Arturo rolled over and studied his mother’s face. His mind worked fast. Should he interrupt her and ask her for a dime for the movies, or should he save time and trouble by going into the bedroom and stealing it? There was no danger of being caught. Once his mother began her rosary she never opened her eyes. Federico was asleep, and as for August, he was too dumb and holy to know what was going on in the world anyway. He stood up and stretched himself.

‘Ho hum. Guess I’ll get me a book.’

In the chilling darkness of his mother’s bedroom he lifted the mattress at the foot of the bed. His fingers pawed the meager coins in the ragged purse, pennies and nickels, but so far no dimes. Then they closed around the familiar thin smallness of a ten-cent piece. He returned the purse to its place within the coil spring and listened for suspicious sounds. Then with a flourish of noisy footsteps and loud whistling he walked into his own room and seized the first book his hand touched on the dresser.

He returned to the living room and dropped on the floor beside August and Federico. Disgust pulled at his face when he saw the book. It was the life of St Teresa of the Little Flower of Jesus. He read the first line of the first page. ‘I will spend my heaven doing good on Earth.’ He closed the book and pushed it toward August.

‘Fooey,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel like reading. Guess I’ll go out and see if any of the kids are on the hill coasting.’

Maria’s eyes remained closed, but she turned her lips faintly to denote that she had heard and approved of his plan. Then her head shook slowly from side to side. That was her way of telling him not to stay out late.

‘I won’t,’ he said.

Warm and eager under his tight sweaters, he sometimes ran, sometimes walked down Walnut Street, past the railroad tracks to Twelfth, where he cut through the filling station property on the corner, crossed the bridge, ran at a dead sprint through the park because the dark shadows of cottonwood scared him, and in less than ten minutes he was panting under the marquee of the Isis Theater. As always in front of small town theatres, a crowd of boys his own age loafed about, penniless, meekly waiting the benevolence of the head usher who might, or might not, depending upon his mood, let them in free after the second show of the night was well under way. Often he too had stood out there, but tonight he had a dime, and with a good-natured smile for the hangers-on, he bought a ticket and swaggered inside.

He spurned the military usher who wagged a finger at him, and found his own way through the blackness. First he selected a seat in the very last row. Five minutes later he moved down two rows. A moment later he moved again. Little by little, two and three rows at a time, he edged his way toward the bright screen, until at last he was in the very first row and could go no farther. There he sat, his throat tight, his Adam’s apple protruding as he squinted almost straight into the ceiling as Gloria Borden and Robert Powell performed in Love On The River.

At once he was under the spell of that celluloid drug. He was positive that his own face bore a striking resemblance to that of Robert Powell, and he was equally sure that the face of Gloria Borden bore an amazing resemblance to his wonderful Rosa: thus he found himself perfectly at home, laughing uproariously at Robert Powell’s witty comments, and shuddering with voluptuous delight whenever Gloria Borden looked passionate. Gradually Robert Powell lost his identity and became Arturo Bandini, and gradually Gloria Borden metamorphosed into Rosa Pinelli. After the big airplane crackup, with Rosa lying on the operating table, and none other than Arturo Bandini performing a precarious operation to save her life, the boy in the front seat broke into a sweat. Poor Rosa! The tears streamed down his face and he wiped his drooling nose with an impatient pull of his sweater sleeve across his face.

But he knew, he had a feeling all along, that young Doctor Arturo Bandini would achieve a medical miracle, and sure enough, it happened! Before he knew it, the handsome doctor was kissing Rosa; it was springtime and the world was beautiful. Suddenly, without a word of warning, the picture was over, and Arturo Bandini, sniffling and crying, sat in the front row of the Isis Theater, horribly embarrassed and utterly disgusted with his chicken-hearted sentiment. Everybody in the Isis was staring at him. He was sure of it, since he bore so striking a resemblance to Robert Powell.

The effects of the drugged enchantment left him slowly. Now that the lights were on and reality returned, he looked about. No one sat within ten rows of him. He looked over his shoulder at the mass of pasty, bloodless faces in the center and rear of the theater. He felt a streak of electricity in his stomach. He caught his breath in ecstatic fright. Out of that small sea of drabness, one countenance sparkled diamond-like, the eyes ablaze with beauty. It was the face of Rosa! And only a moment ago he had saved her on the operating table! But it was all such a miserable lie. He was here, the sole occupant of ten rows of seats. Lowering himself until the top of his head almost disappeared, he felt like a thief, a criminal, as he stole one more glance at that dazzling face. Rosa Pinelli! She sat between her mother and father, two extremely fat, double-chinned Italians, far toward the rear of the theater. She could not see him; he was sure she was too far away to recognize him, yet his own eyes leaped the distance between them and he saw her miscroscopically, saw the loose curls peeking from under her bonnet, the dark beads around her neck, the starry sparkle of her teeth. So she had seen the picture too! Those black and laughing eyes of Rosa, they had seen it all. Was it possible that she had noticed the resemblance between himself and Robert Powell?

But no: there really wasn’t any resemblance at all; not really. It was just a movie, and he was down front, and he felt hot and perspiring beneath his sweaters. He was afraid to touch his hair, afraid to lift his hand up there and smooth back his hair. He knew it grew upward and unkempt like weeds. People were always recognizing him because his hair was never combed and he always needed a haircut. Perhaps Rosa had already discovered him. Ah – why hadn’t he combed his hair down? Why was he always forgetting things like that? Deeper and deeper he sank into the seat, his eyes rolling backward to see if his hair showed over the chair-back. Cautiously, inch by inch, he lifted his hand to smooth down his hair. But he couldn’t make it. He was afraid she might see his hand.

When the lights went out again, he was panting with relief. But as the second show began, he realized he would have to leave. A vague shame strangled him, a consciousness of his old sweaters, of his clothes, a memory of Rosa laughing at him, a fear that, unless he slipped away now, he might meet her in the foyer as she left the theater with her parents. He could not bear the thought of confronting them. Their eyes would look upon him; the eyes of Rosa would dance with laughter. Rosa knew all about him; every thought and deed. Rosa knew that he had stolen a dime from his mother, who needed it. She would look at him, and she would know. He had to beat it; or had to get out of there; something might happen; the lights might go on again and she would see him; there might be a fire; anything might happen; he simply had to get up and get out of there. He could be in a classroom with Rosa, or on the school-grounds; but this was the Isis Theater, and he looked like a lousy bum in these lousy clothes, different from everybody else, and he had stolen the money: he had no right to be there. If Rosa saw him she could read in his face that he had stolen the money. Only a dime, only a venial sin, but it was a sin any way you looked at it. He arose and took long, quick, silent steps up the aisle, his face turned aside, his hand shielding his nose and eyes. When he reached the street the huge cold of the night leaped as though with whips upon him, and he started to run, the wind in his face stinging him, flecking him with fresh, new thoughts.

As he turned into the walk that led to the porch of his home, the sight of his mother silhouetted in the window released the tension of his soul; he felt his skin breaking like a wave, and in a rush of feeling he was crying, the guilt pouring from him, inundating him, washing him away. He opened the door and found himself in his home, in the warmth of his home, and it felt deep and wonderful. His brothers had gone to bed, but Maria had not moved, and he knew her eyes had not opened, her fingers ever moving with blind conviction around the endless circle of beads. Oh boy, she looked swell, his mother, she looked keen. Oh kill me God because I’m a dirty dog and she’s a beauty and I ought to die. Oh Mamma, look at me because I stole a dime and you keep on praying. Oh Mamma kill me with your hands.

He fell on his knees and clung to her in fright and joy and guilt. The rocker jerked to his sobs, the beads rattling in her hands. She opened her eyes and smiled down at him, her thin fingers gently raking his hair, telling herself he needed a haircut. His sobs pleased her like caresses, gave her a sense of tenderness toward her beads, a feeling of unity of beads and sobs.

‘Mamma,’ he groped. ‘I did something.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I knew.’

That surprised him. How could she have possibly known? He had swiped that dime with consummate perfection. He had fooled her, and August, and everyone. He had fooled them all.

‘You were saying the rosary, and I didn’t want to bother you,’ he lied. ‘I didn’t want to interrupt you right in the middle of the rosary.’

She smiled. ‘How much did you take?’

‘A dime. I coulda taken all of it, but I only took a dime.’

‘I know.’

That annoyed him. ‘But how do you know? Did you see me take it?’

‘The water’s hot in the tank,’ she said. ‘Go take your bath.’

He arose and began to pull off his sweaters.

‘But how did you know? Did you look? Did you peek? I thought you always closed your eyes when you said the rosary.’

‘Why shouldn’t I know?’ she smiled. ‘You’re always taking dimes out of my pocketbook. You’re the only one who ever does. I know it every time. Why, I can tell by the sound of your feet!’

He untied his shoes and kicked them off. His mother was a pretty darned smart woman after all. But what if next time he should take off his shoes and slip into the bedroom barefoot? He was giving the plan deep consideration as he walked naked into the kitchen for his bath.

He was disgusted to find the kitchen floor soaked and cold. His two brothers had raised havoc with the room. Their clothes were scattered about, and one washtub was full of grayish soapy water and pieces of water-soaked wood: Federico’s battleships.

It was too darn cold for a bath that night. He decided to fake it. Filling a washtub, he locked the kitchen door, produced a copy of Scarlet Crime, and settled down to reading Murder For Nothing as he sat naked upon the warm oven door, his feet and ankles thawing in the washtub. After he had read for what he thought was the normal length of time it took really to have a bath, he hid Scarlet Crime on the back porch, cautiously wet his hair with the palm of one hand, rubbed his dry body with a towel until it glowed a savage pink, and ran shivering to the living room. Maria watched him crouch near the stove as he rubbed the towel into his hair, grumbling all the while of his detestation of taking baths in the dead of winter. As he strode off to bed, he was pleased with himself at such a masterful piece of deception. Maria smiled too. Around his neck as he disappeared for the night, she saw a ring of dirt that stood out like a black collar. But she said nothing. The night was indeed too cold for bathing.

Alone now, she turned out the lights and continued with her prayers. Occasionally through the reverie she listened to the house. The stove sobbed and moaned for fuel. In the street a man smoking a pipe walked by. She watched him, knowing he could not see her in the darkness. She compared him with Bandini; he was taller, but he had none of Svevo’s gusto in his step. From the bedroom came the voice of Federico, talking in his sleep. Then Arturo, mumbling sleepily: ‘Aw, shut up!’ Another man passed in the street. He was fat, the steam pouring from his mouth and into the cold air. Svevo was a much finer-looking man than he; thank God Svevo was not fat. But these were distractions. It was sacrilegious to allow stray thoughts to interfere with prayer. She closed her eyes tightly and made a mental checklist of items for the Blessed Virgin’s consideration.

She prayed for Svevo Bandini, prayed that he would not get too drunk and fall into the hands of the police, as he had done on one occasion before their marriage. She prayed that he would stay away from Rocco Saccone, and that Rocco Saccone would stay away from him. She prayed for the quickening of time, that the snow might melt and spring hurry to Colorado, that Svevo could go back to work again. She prayed for a happy Christmas and for money. She prayed for Arturo, that he would stop stealing dimes, and for August, that he might become a priest, and for Federico, that he might be a good boy. She prayed for clothes for them all, for money for the grocer, for the souls of the dead, for the souls of the living, for the world, for the sick and the dying, for the poor and the rich, for courage, for strength to carry on, for forgiveness in the error of her ways.

She prayed a long, fervent prayer that the visit of Donna Toscana would be a short one, that it would not bring too much misery all around, and that some day Svevo Bandini and her mother might enjoy a peaceful relationship. That last prayer was almost hopeless, and she knew it. How even the mother of Christ could arrange a cessation of hostilities between Svevo Bandini and Donna Toscana was a problem that only Heaven could solve. It always embarrassed her to bring this matter to the Blessed Virgin’s attention. It was like asking for the moon on a silver brooch. After all, the Virgin Mother had already interceded to the extent of a splendid husband, three fine children, a good home, lasting health, and faith in God’s mercy. But peace between Svevo and his mother-in-law, well, there were requests that taxed even the generosity of the Almighty and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Donna Toscana arrived at noon Sunday. Maria and the children were in the kitchen. The agonized moan of the porch beneath her weight told them it was Grandma. An iciness settled in Maria’s throat. Without knocking, Donna opened the door and poked her head inside. She spoke only Italian.

‘Is he here – the Abruzzian dog?’

Maria hurried from the kitchen and threw her arms around her mother. Donna Toscana was now a huge woman, always dressed in black since the death of her husband. Beneath the outer black silk were petticoats, four of them, all brightly colored. Her bloated ankles looked like goiters. Her tiny shoes seemed ready to burst beneath the pressure of her two hundred and fifty pounds. Not two but a dozen breasts seemed crushed into her bosom. She was constructed like a pyramid, without hips. There was so much flesh in her arms that they hung not downward but at an angle, her puffed fingers dangling like sausages. She had virtually no neck at all. When she turned her head the drooping flesh moved with the melancholy of melting wax. A pink scalp showed beneath her thin white hair. Her nose was thin and exquisite, but her eyes were like trampled concord grapes. Whenever she spoke her false teeth chattered obliviously a language all their own.

Maria took her coat and Donna stood in the middle of the room, smelling it, the fat crinkling in her neck as she conveyed to her daughter and grandsons the impression that the odor in her nostrils was definitely a nasty one, a very filthy one. The boys sniffed suspiciously. Suddenly the house did possess an odor they had never noticed before. August thought about his kidney trouble two years before, wondering if, after two years, the odor of it was still in existence.

‘Hi ya, Grandma,’ Federico said.

‘Your teeth look black,’ she said. ‘Did you wash them this morning?’

Federico’s smile vanished and the back of his hand covered his lips as he lowered his eyes. He tightened his mouth and resolved to slip into the bathroom and look in the mirror as soon as he could. Funny how his teeth did taste black.

Grandma kept sniffing.

‘What is this malevolent odor?’ she asked. ‘Surely your father is not at home.’

The boys understood Italian, for Bandini and Maria often used it.

‘No, Grandma,’ Arturo said. ‘He isn’t home.’

Donna Toscana reached into the folds of her breasts and drew out her purse. She opened it and produced a ten-cent piece at the tips of her fingers, holding it out.

‘Now,’ she smiled. ‘Who of my three grandsons is the most honest? To the one who is, I will give this deci soldi. Tell me quickly: is your father drunk?’

‘Ah, Mamma mio,’ Maria said. ‘Why do you ask that?’

Without looking at her, Grandma answered, ‘Be still, woman. This is a game for the children.’

The boys consulted one another with their eyes: they were silent, anxious to betray their father but not anxious enough. Grandma was so stingy, yet they knew her purse was filled with dimes, each coin the reward for a piece of information about Papa. Should they let this question pass and wait for another – one not quite so unfavorable to Papa – or should one of them answer before the other? It was not a question of answering truthfully: even if Papa wasn’t drunk. The only way to get the dime was in answering to suit Grandma.

Maria stood by helplessly. Donna Toscana wielded a tongue like a serpent, ever ready to strike out in the presence of the children: half-forgotten episodes from Maria’s childhood and youth, things Maria preferred that her boys not know lest the information encroach upon her dignity: little things the boys might use against her. Donna Toscana had used them before. The boys knew that their Mamma was stupid in school, for Grandma had told them. They knew that Mamma had played house with nigger children and got a licking for it. That Mamma had vomited in the choir of St Dominic’s at a hot High Mass. That Mamma, like August, had wet the bed, but, unlike August, had been forced to wash out her own nighties. That Mamma had run away from home and the police had brought her back (not really run away, only strayed away, but Grandma insisted she had run away). And they knew other things about Mamma. She refused to work as a little girl and had been locked in the cellar by the hour. She never was and never would be a good cook. She screamed like a hyena when her children were born. She was a fool or she would never have married a scoundrel like Svevo Bandini . . . and she had no self-respect, otherwise why did she always dress in rags? They knew that Mamma was a weakling, dominated by her dog of a husband. That Mamma was a coward who should have sent Svevo Bandini to jail a long time ago. So it was better not to antagonize her mother. Better to remember the Fourth Commandment, to be respectful toward her mother so that her own children by example would be respectful toward her.

‘Well,’ Grandma repeated. ‘Is he drunk?’

A long silence.

Then Federico: ‘Maybe he is, Grandma. We don’t know.’

‘Mamma mio,’ Maria said. ‘Svevo is not drunk. He is away on business. He will be back any minute now.’

‘Listen to your mother,’ Donna said. ‘Even when she was old enough to know better she never flushed the toilet. And now she tries to tell me your vagabond father is not drunk! But he is drunk! Is he not, Arturo? Quick – for deci soldi!’

‘I dunno, Grandma. Honest.’

‘Bah!’ she snorted. ‘Stupid children of a stupid parent!’

She threw a few coins at their feet. They pounced upon them like savages, fighting and tumbling over the floor. Maria watched the squirming mass of arms and legs. Donna Toscana’s head shook miserably.

‘And you smile,’ she said. ‘Like animals they claw themselves to pieces, and their mother smiles her approval. Ah, poor America! Ah, America, thy children shall tear out one another’s throats and die like bloodthirsty beasts!’

‘But Mamma mio, they are boys. They do no harm.’

‘Ah, poor America!’ Donna said. ‘Poor, hopeless America!’

She began her inspection of the house. Maria had prepared for this: carpets and floors swept, furniture dusted, the stoves polished. But a dust rag will not remove stains from a leaking ceiling; a broom will not sweep away the worn places on a carpet; soap and water will not disturb the omnipresence of the marks of children: the dark stains around door knobs, here and there a grease spot that was born suddenly; a child’s name crudely articulate; random designs of tic-tac-toe games that always ended without a winner; toe marks at the bottom of doors, calendar pictures that sprouted mustaches overnight; a shoe that Maria had put away in the closet not ten minutes before; a sock; a towel; a slice of bread and jam in the rocking chair.

For hours Maria had worked and warned – and this was her reward. Donna Toscana walked from room to room, her face a crust of dismay. She saw the boys’ room: the bed carefully made, a blue spread smelling of mothballs neatly completing it; she noticed the freshly ironed curtains, the shining mirror over the dresser, the rag rug at the bedside so precisely in order, everything so monastically impersonal, and under the chair in the corner – a pair of Arturo’s dirty shorts, kicked there, and sprawled out like the section of a boy’s body sawed in half.

The old woman raised her hands and wailed.

‘No hope,’ she said. ‘Ah, woman! Ah, America!’

‘Well, how did that get there?’ Maria said. ‘The boys are always so careful.’

She picked up the garment and hastily shoved it under her apron, Donna Toscana’s cold eyes upon her for a full minute after the pair of shorts had disappeared.

‘Blighted woman. Blighted, defenseless woman.’

All afternoon it was the same, Donna Toscana’s relentless cynicism wearing her down. The boys had fled with their dimes to the candy store. When they did not return after an hour Donna lamented the weakness of Maria’s authority. When they did return, Federico’s face smeared with chocolate, she wailed again. After they had been back an hour, she complained that they were to noisy, so Maria sent them outside. After they were gone she prophesied that they would probably die of influenza out there in the snow. Maria made her tea. Donna clucked her tongue and concluded that it was too weak. Patiently Maria watched the clock on the stove. In two hours, at seven o’clock, her mother would leave. The time halted and limped and crawled in agony.

‘You look bad,’ Donna said. ‘What has happened to the color in your face?’

With one hand Maria smoothed her hair.

‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘All of us are well.’

‘Where is he?’ Donna said. ‘That vagabond.’

‘Svevo is working, Mamma mio. He is figuring a new job.’

‘On Sunday?’ she sneered. ‘How do you know he is not out with some puttana?’

‘Why do you say such things? Svevo is not that kind of a man.’

‘The man you married is a brutal animal. But he married a stupid woman, and so I suppose he will never be exposed. Ah, America! Only in this corrupt land could such things happen.’

While Maria prepared dinner she sat with her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. The fare was to be spaghetti and meatballs. She made Maria scour the spaghetti kettle with soap and water. She ordered the long box of spaghetti brought to her, and she examined it carefully for evidences of mice. There was no icebox in the house, the meat being kept in a cupboard on the back porch. It was round steak, ground for meatballs.

‘Bring it here,’ Donna said.

Maria placed it before her. She tasted it with the tip of her finger. ‘I thought so,’ she frowned. ‘It is spoiled.’

‘But that is impossible!’ Maria said. ‘Only last night I bought it.’

‘A butcher will always cheat a fool,’ she said.

Dinner was delayed a half hour because Donna insisted that Maria wash and dry the already clean plates. The kids came in, ravenously hungry. She ordered them to wash their hands and faces, to put on clean shirts and wear neckties. They growled and Arturo muttered ‘The old bitch,’ as he fastened a hated necktie. By the time all was ready the dinner was cold. The boys ate it anyhow. The old woman ate listlessly, a few strands of spaghetti before her. Even these displeased her, and she pushed her plate away.

‘The dinner is badly prepared,’ she said. ‘This spaghetti tastes like dung.’

Federico laughed.

‘It’s good, though.’

‘Can I get you something else, Mamma mio?’

‘No!’

After dinner she sent Arturo to the filling station to phone for a cab. Then she left, arguing with the cab driver, trying to bargain the fare to the depot from twenty-five to twenty cents. After she was gone Arturo stuffed a pillow into his shirt, wound an apron around it, and waddled around the house, sniffing contemptuously. But no one laughed. No one cared.