Children of Liberty

by Paullina Simons

  “Help me by pointing out the train station,” retorted Salvo.

  “All right. But you’ll have to sleep at the station. Last train was at four.” Harry nudged him in the back with his fist and rolled his eyes. Ben didn’t glance back. Everyone looked up at the clock tower downtown. Four fifteen, the clock read. Salvo swore not so quietly under his breath.

  “How about this,” Ben said in an animated voice. “Go tomorrow. Tonight you stay at one of our apartments.” He shook his head when he saw Salvo’s face. “No charge. As our guests.”

  “Why would you do that?” Salvo asked with suspicion. “What do you get?”

  Harry kept knocking into Ben’s shoulder as if to stop him from talking. Ben stepped away. “Harry, it’s fine. It’s just one night.” He smiled at Gina, still half hidden behind Salvo. “My friend and I manage several apartment buildings near here in an up-and-coming area, full of Italians like yourselves. We rent apartments, and then help you find jobs, loan you a few dollars.”

  If Salvo’s eyes had been any narrower, they’d be slit shut. “Why do you do it? You do it like … caritá?”

  “A little bit, yes, indeed!”

  “We don’t need your caritá,” Salvo said. “We are not povera.”

  “Then it’s not charity,” Ben said, just as firmly. “No, sir. It’s a loan is what it is. We lend you the money, and you pay us back when you find work.”

  “We don’t borrow money,” Salvo said. “And never from strangers.”

  Ben looked like he’d been outplayed. Gina shook Salvo’s sleeve. It had become muggy, and everyone was wet with perspiration. The sun wasn’t shining, yet it was stifling hot, and the air wasn’t moving. At sea it had been cool, with a breeze. Now it felt like the coal kilns were on all at once. Gina would not acknowledge the oppressive standstill air, the drops of sweat trickling from her forehead. One drifted into her mouth. She licked it surreptitiously, trying to act cooler. She caught Harry’s amused yet distant eye. Both men wore suits and the suits seemed to be of the same good quality. But for some reason, disheveled Harry looked like he was born in a suit, while tidy Ben looked like his had been given to him.

  “Leave them alone, Benji,” Harry said, motioning away his friend. “They’ll be all right.” He pointed to another nearby family of five or six resting with their belongings. “Let’s try them.”

  “No!” Gina whirled to her mother beseechingly and to her brother accusingly, yanking on him, stepping in front of him. “It’s just for one night, Salvo,” she whispered vehemently. “Don’t be such a ninny.” She wasn’t above bullying him with her height if the situation called for it. And clearly the situation was screaming for it now. If Salvo had his way, these two nice well-dressed gentlemen would be helping some other family.

  Salvo shook his head. “No, Gia. It’s one night too long. We can’t repay them.”

  “You don’t have to repay us,” Ben interjected, overhearing. “Really. The apartment is furnished and vacant. Use it like a hotel room. If you like, you can pay for dinner. That should cover the cost of the room. Dinner and wine. And tomorrow morning you can go to Lawrence.” Ben’s expression read, though why you would want to is beyond me. And Salvo’s expression read, I would rather sleep on the street like a drunk than take one of your empty rooms.

  It was Mimoo who ended the impasse. “Salvo, your mother is exhausted. Say thank you to these two men. We accept.”

  Gina nearly clapped. Thank God for her practical-minded mother. She knew Salvo would never relent; his pride was too great. She never understood that. Did that mean she had no pride? She didn’t think so. It just meant she wouldn’t let foolish pride stand in the way of what she really wanted. And what she really wanted was to see what the two young men were offering her family. “Pride is a peccato capitale, Salvo,” she whispered into his ear as they hurried to help their mother.

  “Lust and sloth also, sister,” he retorted.

  “Our carriage is waiting for you just there,” Ben said to Mimoo, solicitously taking her elbow and pointing to the far end of Freedom Docks, toward the city, where a number of other carriages stood arrayed, waiting for fares. “Will you be all right walking?”

  Mimoo smiled at Ben. Salvo, who saw everything, muttered a bad word to the heavens. “Young man, I just traveled six thousand kilometers. Will I be all right walking a hundred meters? Let’s go. Let me take your arm.”

  Gina walked behind Ben and Mimoo, pulling her own trunk, exorbitantly pleased. Salvo dragged the rest of the baggage. “Where did you learn to speak Italian, young man?” Mimoo asked Ben.

  “Oh, just a word here and there to help us with our business. Most of the immigrants we greet are Italians.”

  She appraised him approvingly. “Are you a good son to your mother?” she asked.

  “I am a son,” Ben allowed.

  “She must be proud of you.” She glanced back at Gina, walking next to Harry, and frowned. “You two are brothers?”

  “In spirit,” Ben said, “In spirito santo.”

  Salvo managed not only to drag the two largest trunks, but also to walk ahead of everyone else, as if he knew where he was going.

  “Your brother is leading the way?” Harry quietly asked Gina with a shrug. “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

  Gina didn’t quite understand, but she couldn’t speak even teasingly against her brother to a stranger. Before she could think of something witty to say, Mimoo disengaged from Ben and motioned her to come. “Gia, come here. Walk with me. Let the men carry the heavy things.”

  Gina hurried ahead, taking Mimoo’s elbow, freeing Ben to direct Salvo to the appropriate horse and carriage.

  “Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Ben said to Salvo, stopping at a sickly gray mare.

  Salvo eyed him with disdain. In Italian he said, “What you’re trying to get next to my mother too?”

  Ben didn’t understand the words, but got the gist. With a tip of his hat, he stopped making nice to Salvo and untied the straps of the open wagon. The mare didn’t look like it would live through the ride with the trunks. It didn’t look like it would live through the heat of the evening.

  After the baggage was loaded, Mimoo and Gina climbed up and sat in the open carriage facing the road, while Ben and Salvo perched on the bench opposite and Harry climbed into the driver’s seat, grabbing the reins. The pale horse lurched forward, its jerking motion nearly dislodging the carefully arranged and roped trunks on the rear rack. Ben admonished his friend to be more careful.

  “I’ll try,” Harry said, “but you know it’s my first time at the reins.”

  Ben calmed Mimoo down. “He is only joking. Harry, stop it, you are frightening our lovely passengers.” Even Mimoo smiled benevolently at being called bellissima. Salvo looked ready to punch him.

  “Will this take long?”

  “Not too long. But it’s dinner hour. The traffic will be heavy. We’re about a mile away. We’re headed to an area of Boston called the North End. Have you heard of it?”

  “I haven’t, no,” Gina said. “Is it nice?”

  “You’ll see.” Ben smiled at her. She smiled back. Salvo glared at her. She stopped smiling and stuck out her tongue at her brother.

  “So what’s in Lawrence?”

  “Our cousin Angela lives in Lawrence,” Salvo said, directing Ben’s attention to himself. “She is waiting for us. She thinks we are arriving today. We are going to live with her.”

  “Is this Angela going to get you a job?” Ben asked.

  “Are you?”

  “Of course.” Ben looked across at Gina. “What do you like to do, Miss Attaviano?”

  “Please call me Gina.” She smiled. “I like to swim.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know if I can get you a job swimming,” he said. “Harry, what do you think?”

  Harry said nothing, and Mimoo sat with her hat down over her heavy-lidded eyes, as if seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Suddenly she said to Gina in Italian, “G
ia, think how wonderful—soon we will celebrate your birthday in our new country.”

  “Yes, it’s good,” echoed Gina, puzzled at the sudden change of topic, and opened her mouth to continue talking to Ben about her other interests and hobbies, like running, planting flowers, making tomato paste, delicious crusty bread, occasionally singing.

  Mimoo’s eyes opened slightly, to take in Ben across from them, to make sure he was listening. “We should do something special for your fifteenth birthday, no?” she said to her daughter. “Salvo, what do you think?”

  “Do I look at this moment like I care, Mimoo?” said an exhausted yet watchful Salvo.

  But you know who did look at that moment like he cared? Ben. For all his declarations about barely speaking Italian, he managed to understand the only important thing in Mimoo’s statement: the tender age of her only daughter. Gina was only quattordici!

  His crestfallen face said everything. Above Ben’s head, Harry’s slim shoulders bobbed up and down as if he was laughing.

  “Well, then, yes—um—excuse me for a moment,” Ben said, getting up suddenly. “My friend doesn’t know where he is headed. I must direct him.” He climbed up to sit next to Harry, grabbing the reins out of his mirthful hands.

  Gina pulled the bonnet over her own eyes, to hide from the disappointment on the American’s downcast face. Mimoo was such a troublemaker. What was the harm anyway?

  “I’ll tell you what the harm is,” Mimoo whispered semi-privately. “You’re too young for their attention. Do you hear me? This isn’t Belpasso, you running around barefoot in the dusty gulleys with children. These are American men. They’re probably older than your only living brother. You think this is what your father wanted for you, to get yourself in the family way at fourteen with men in their twenties? Troppo giovane!”

  “Mimoo! Family way? We were just talking.”

  “How do you think it all starts, o naive child? You think it goes straight to baby-making?”

  “Mimoo!” hissed a mortified Gina. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  “Correct, this is not open for discussion. Stay far away.”

  Pulling away from her mother, Gina leaned forward, to hear better what Ben and Harry were whispering about. But the city was too loud, the hooves on the stones were too tap-tappy, and Mimoo pulled her back, keeping her daughter close.

  “I told you,” Harry was saying to Ben. “I warned you. As soon as I saw her from a distance, do you remember what I said to you?”

  “Yes, yes. You said she was trouble. You were wrong then, and you’re wrong now.”

  “Benjamin, I know about these things. She is trouble.”

  “You know nothing except the idiocy you glean from your insipid books that tell you nothing about life. You don’t know how to live.”

  “And you do?”

  “Yes, I do. She is not trouble. She is Life!”

  Harry rolled his eyes to the heavens. “More fool you. How else do you define trouble?”

  “Like a femme fatale,” Ben said.

  “Give her time, Benjamin. She is a fille fatale. Quattordici indeed!”

  Ben moved away from a mocking Harry, his shoulders dropping.

  Chapter Three

  NORTH END

  NORTH End was across a horsemeadow from Boston proper, rising out of the soot and the afternoon coal heat. It seemed slightly detached, as if separated from the rest of Boston by this natural boundary. You had to cross a manure-covered field before you entered Salem Street that stretched and wound past a tall church, past merchants on the streets hawking their wares, past the shops and the stalls. A trumpet band played loudly on another block; there was yelling from the children and shouting from the mothers. Men stood around in circles and smoked; the smell of the city was strong, the traffic—human, horse and tram—hectic, almost deranged. Everyone was moving one or another part of their bodies, their lips going a mile a minute, their legs carrying them who knew where, with their bags, their prams, their dreams and umbrellas.

  It was love at first sight for Gina. Her mouth open, she gaped, forgetting the mother, the brother, even the sand-haired silent boy who eyed her at the Freedom Docks. She sat near Salvo, who for some unfathomable reason looked less enraptured. “Santa Madre di Dio,” he said. “This is awful.”

  Gina blinked. “What? No—just the opposite, Salvo. Look at it!”

  “Papa told me about Milan. He said it was like this.”

  “Well, if Papa wanted us to go to Milan, that’s where we would’ve gone,” snapped Gina. “He wanted us to come to America, so here we are. Oh, it’s wonderful!”

  “You’re crazy.” He got up to get away from her, to take his place by his mother’s side. “Mimoo, she likes this!”

  “Leave her be, Salvo,” Mimoo said. “Your father would be happy to know she likes it.”

  Reproved by his mother, Salvo scowled at Gina even more resentfully.

  Gina didn’t care. Her gaze was turned to the city.

  The hurdy-gurdy man with the barrel organ played “Santa Lucia” from Gina’s native land. She was surprised she could hear it over the clomping and braying of the horses, the screeching from the electric trolleys she’d heard her father talk about, but never seen, the rush-hour swarms of people, the vendors yelling in Italian selling garlic and tobacco, the ringing of the church bells on the corner of Salem and Prince, perhaps announcing it was six o’clock and time for Mass. The trolleys didn’t move, the horses barely—the congestion was intense, and Gina feared any moment a fight would break out because people stood so close to each other, while the horses did their business right on the cobbled street which businessmen in shined shoes crossed to get home. Italian signs over the shops were everywhere, the boy on the corner proclaiming that he had the Evening Post, and the paper was Italian also. Everything smelled not just of manure and garlic but also of sour fermented wine.

  It was the greatest place Gina had ever seen. She was smitten with it, bowled over. With her mouth open in happiness, she gulped the air as their dying steed moved forward a foot a minute. She had time to dream about the goat cheese and the sausages swinging from the hooks outside the storefronts. Another boy with a cart was selling raw clams with lemon juice, but shouted in English.

  “What is this thing, clams?” she called to Ben and Harry.

  Mimoo slapped her arm. “You are not having raw anything from a filthy street corner. Not even a carrot.”

  “I’m just asking, Mimoo. I’m not eating.”

  “Don’t even ask. And stop speaking first to men you don’t know. It’s neither polite nor proper.”

  Tutting, Gina turned away and saw why the church bells had been ringing. It was a wedding. Six white doves were tied to two waiting horses and a white carriage.

  “June is a very popular month to be married,” said Ben from the driver’s seat.

  Harry scoffed. “Then how do you explain that it’s July?”

  “Why else would you get married on a Thursday evening in July? Churches are booked. They’re fitting in the weddings when they can.” Ben gazed benignly at the bride and groom coming out of the church doors. The man with the harmonica was playing and singing “My Wild Irish Rose.” Gina and Ben had nearly the same expression on their faces as they watched the procession, the white doves being released, flying away. Mimoo and Harry carried entirely different expressions—hers sorrow, his stress. And Salvo wasn’t even looking.

  “Is this horse going to move?” Salvo asked Ben. “Ever?”

  “We picked a bad time to travel.”

  “Maybe we should get out and walk.”

  “But Salvo,” said Gina, “you don’t know where you’re going.”

  “Better to move than sit here.”

  “We’re almost there,” Ben said. “Just one more block, one right turn, and we’ll be on Lime Alley.”

  “There’s got to be a better way to ride across town,” said Salvo.

  “Across town?” Ben said. “Did you
say across town?”

  “Oh, no, mon dieu!” Harry exclaimed to the sooty heavens.

  “Listen my children and you shall hear,” Ben recited loudly to no one in particular, “Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere/ On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five/Hardly a man is now alive/Who remembers that famous day and year.”

  Gina listened intently. “What is this poem?”

  “No, no,” Harry said to her over his shoulder. “Don’t interrupt him. Or he’ll just start from the beginning.”

  Ben did start again from the beginning. It passed the time, though Gina faded in and out of listening. She kept hearing Italian being shouted down the streets, kept breathing in the smells of tomato sauce, watching women fishing with their hands for wet balls of fresh mozzarella, it was so familiar and reminiscent of the things she knew, and yet so strange. Though she was tired and hungry, she didn’t want any of it to end. Papa would’ve liked it, she whispered to herself under the strains of Ben’s, “A cry of defiance, and not of fear/A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,/And a word that shall echo for evermore!”

  Chapter Four

  GREAT EXPECTATIONS

  1

  IN a narrow alley, away from the bustle of Salem Street, the main artery of North End, they pulled up to a three-story building and Ben and Harry jumped down. Ben tied up the horse, while Harry helped Mimoo down from the carriage. He was going to help Gina down too, and she wanted him to, extending her hand to him, but Salvo intervened before Harry even came close to touching her. Salvo helped her down, too roughly for her liking.

  “Thank you, young man,” Mimoo said in the meantime to Harry. “I hope we are on the first floor. I am very tired.”

  “Unfortunately we are on the third.”

  “Ah, but from the third floor,” Ben said, “you can see Boston Harbor if you lean out the window and look to the left.”

  “Boston Harbor?” Salvo repeated contemptuously. “I lived a road away from the Adriatic sea. I was born and raised on the Mediterranean.”