She’d finished her cleaning. And some of the cooking. She took another sip of wine as she looked over at her sideboard.
Maccheroni, onions, salame, garlic. And . . . no tomatoes.
“Annamaria? I need some tomatoes.”
The girl jumped up from the bed where she was hemming a pair of trousers, grabbed her basket and her shawl. Mama watched her daughter leave, wondering that she had been blessed with such a magnificent family. And then she crossed herself just in case. Just in case fate was tempted to take away all of the blessings that it had granted her.
Several minutes later, once the onions had been cut and the salame sliced, Mama Rossi went down to the street, carrying a chair with her. She had several moments to spare, and she’d decided she’d rather spend them on the street with the scent of the sea perfuming the air than looking out the window onto the scene below.
The other women greeted her by making room for her chair.
Signora Tubello reached out and jabbed at Mama with an elbow. “Your Annamaria’s a sly one.”
“Annamaria?” Didn’t the woman mean Theresa? That girl had been sneaking about with Giovanni for weeks before they’d become engaged.
“Sì. The one who crosses the street.”
“I know she crosses the street. I asked her to cross the street. That Maglione was selling me rotten tomatoes.” She dabbed at her dripping nose with her sleeve. Muffled a sneeze in her palm. “Do you know what he gave me for tomatoes?”
They knew. They all knew. They’d heard the story a dozen times. Or more. But they were all friends and their work was done for the moment and they had nothing better to do than to sit on the sidewalk and watch the world pass by. “What did he give you?”
“He gave me wormy ones and yellow ones. He gave me squashed ones too. With extra onions on top of them. Just to . . .” Mama Rossi had started on her story and was halfway into it before she realized that Annamaria hadn’t yet returned. Her words tapered off.
“Just to hide the rotten tomatoes, sì?”
“Sì, sì. It’s just . . .”
“You didn’t tell about when you got them home yet. How they weren’t even fit for conserva di pomodori.”
“Or how Signor made that face when he tasted his parmigiana di melanzane.”
“That sour one. Like this.” Signora Tubello pulled a face, and the other women laughed at her. Everyone liked Papa Rossi. And they would have liked him even more if Mama Rossi would have talked a little less.
“Where’s my Annamaria?”
“She crossed the street.”
“Sì. I know it. I sent her.”
Signora Rimaldi shrugged. “She always stays for a while. To talk to the Zanfini boy. Like I already told you.”
Mama Rossi blinked. “To what?”
“She talks to him.”
Talked to him? Her Annamaria? Still? She thought they’d been clear about that, she and Papa. Annamaria wasn’t to speak to them anymore. Mama Rossi left her chair and started off across the street.
38
Indeed, Annamaria was talking to the Zanfini boy. She’d been doing that lately, ever since she’d told him her name. And smiling at him. And once in a while, to Rafaello’s great delight, she laughed as well. Her laugh had the sound of bells in it.
That very afternoon, Mama Zanfini had asked Annamaria to give her pot of soup a stir. A very great honor. Mama didn’t let just anyone fool with her soups. She sold them to the customers. For some extra money on the side.
When Annamaria had done the honors, she stepped out from the curtain and went to join Rafaello, who was standing behind the counter.
He’d been watching her. “You look like a plum.”
You or I might have laughed at the sheer absurdity of the comparison, but Rafaello wasn’t thinking about shape. He was thinking about Annamaria’s sweet, earthy scent. About the sheen in her dark eyes. And the pleasing firmness of her dusky skin. It was clearly a compliment, and Annamaria took it the way it was intended. She blushed.
“The loveliest of plums.” He picked one up and held it to her cheek.
She put a hand up to touch his.
And that’s when Mama Rossi burst into the frutta e verdura with all the righteousness of a saint. She smacked Rafaello’s hand away. The plum tumbled from his grasp, bruised itself on the floor, and rolled away behind the counter. “We told you not to speak to these people!” She grabbed Annamaria by the elbow and spun her from the boy. At least, that’s what she intended to do.
But Annamaria would not be moved. She had blanched at Mama’s appearance, but she made no move away from him.
“Mama, this is Rafaello Zanfini.”
“He could be the angel Gabriel himself, for all that I care!”
“It’s Rafaello, who sells me your tomatoes.” What she really wanted to say was, It’s Rafaello, whom I love.
“I forbid you to speak to him!” She turned her wrath on Rafaello. “And I forbid you to speak to her!”
She grabbed hold of Annamaria’s sleeve and turned toward the door, but her daughter would not have it. She disengaged herself and, after sending Rafaello a look of apology, walked from the store under her own power. Unfortunately, what her mother did next was not under Annamaria’s control.
Mama Rossi turned on her daughter in the middle of the street. “Consorting with Sicilians!” She broke for a cough. “For shame. You of all my daughters! You disgrace me! You must despise me!”
Of course, Annamaria did no such thing. At least she hadn’t until her mother had made their private words so very public. “Let’s go home, Mama.” It was getting dangerous standing there in the middle of the street with carts rattling by.
“I’ll do no such thing! I’ll have no traitor under my roof! Consorting with Sicilians! What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I love him.”
“What do you – what?”
“I love him.” She was sure, certain beyond any doubt, beyond all reason, that she loved Rafaello Zanfini.
And that confession, that declaration of love, is what finally moved Mama Rossi off the street and into the tenement building.
“There will be no talk of love. Not with a Sicilian!” She would have liked to have slammed the entrance door behind her, but it had an annoying way of catching against the threshold.
Annamaria said nothing, not one word during the time it took to climb three flights of stairs. Which took longer than usual, for Mama kept having to stop to catch her breath. But at the top of the stairs, she whirled around and began yelling once more. “I order you not to speak to him!”
Annamaria said nothing – still – as Mama fumbled with the key and door.
Vittorio, hearing them from the other side of the door, opened it for them as Mama kept up her tirade. “I forbid you to cross the street. Never, never again. I promise you!” She shoved Vittorio aside and slammed the door shut behind them for extra emphasis.
“I would as soon stop breathing.”
Mama Rossi stepped forward, yanked Annamaria around with a hand on her forearm, and slapped her across the face. “That I should live to see my daughter shame me! May my name be lost in your home!”
Annamaria gasped. Mama had just disowned her.
“You have – you have – ” Mama clutched at her chest, her lips turning blue.
“Mama?”
She gasped – a long, wheezing gasp that ended in a cough.
“Don’t . . . don’t – ” She crumpled into a heap on the floor.
Annamaria, cheek still tingling from her mother’s palm, dove to the floor and picked up Mama Rossi’s hand; it was cool. She put her hand to Mama’s forehead; it was burning hot.
Over the next three hours, each one of the Rossis collapsed, felled by the Spanish influenza. First Mama, then Stefano. Vittorio and Vito, Theresa and Papa. Annamaria tried to get them all into their beds, but the boys were bigger than she could handle, and they didn’t have energy enough to help her. She finally ripped the
sheets and the pillows from the mattresses and placed them on the floor. By pushing the kitchen table back against the far wall and rolling them to the sheets, she succeeded in making each of them a bed on the floor.
After that, her thoughts had turned to food and water. But she was so very tired. They were sleeping now, all of them. But she didn’t like the blue blotches that rode high on Mama’s cheeks; they looked unnatural.
She decided that she’d sit down for just a minute. A minute wouldn’t hurt anybody. And then she would try to get them to take some water. But as she sat down, she missed the chair entirely and dropped straight to the floor.
The next day, Annamaria didn’t show up for work.
By that time, the city knew they were facing an onslaught of the Spanish influenza. And Julietta, warned by her conversations with Mauro, knew that the sickness was something bad. Something terrible. Something to fear. While Luciana and Madame were hoping that Annamaria would return to work the next day, Julietta was hoping – praying, in fact – that she was still alive.
Midday, Madame came up the stairs to offer them their customary bottle of wine.
“She still hasn’t come?” Madame knew that she hadn’t, but she couldn’t help hoping that she had gone up the back stairs unnoticed.
Luciana shook her head.
Madame scowled at the table where Annamaria had left her work so neatly folded. She didn’t know what to do. The newspapers were warning people against congregating in groups. They were counseling the use of gauze masks and whiskey rinses, the inhalation of turpentine fumes. There had even been a ban placed on sneezing. She wasn’t sure she ought to leave the relative safety of the shop in order to find her missing employee. And even if she did, she wouldn’t have known where to look. “Do either of you know where Annamaria lives?”
Neither of them did.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait.”
By dawn’s meager light on the third day, all seven of the Rossis were stretched out on the hard, worn floor. The influenza had pounced on them, just as it would pounce on tens of thousands of other Bostonians. They had gone from coughing and sneezing to gasping for breath in the space of three hours. From sitting at the table to slumping to the floor.
A knock sounded at the Rossi door that morning. Most of the family was awake by then. Too weak to respond, they turned their eyes toward the sound. Somewhere, beneath the fog of their illness, they knew that they needed help. And somewhere, beneath that heavy malaise, they knew that they ought to answer.
But it seemed such a very great effort.
Much too great an effort. It was easier not to move. And so, soon after their ears had registered the knock and their eyes had focused on the door, they found the sound fading and their vision blurring as they surrendered once more to the illness.
All of them but Annamaria.
Annamaria was the one who rolled over onto her side. And Annamaria was the one who, despite a debilitating headache and a chest that felt like it had been weighted with rocks, crawled to the door. She clutched at the doorknob. Pulled on it with all her feeble might to stand. Leaning against the doorframe, panting and spent, she unlatched it and drew it open.
Rafaello’s eyes widened as he saw her, as he caught her. All the color had gone from her face. Her eyes were nearly hidden by the great dark circles that ringed them. He looked past her, saw the rest of the Rossis lying on the floor. He carried her to one of the chairs at the table. The table that hadn’t seen breakfast or lunch or dinner in over three days. “I hadn’t seen you. I didn’t know . . . if I had only known!” He hadn’t seen her yet that week, and she always came into the store on Tuesday. Always. He’d woken that morning knowing that something was wrong. And hearing reports of the plague that was stalking the North End, he’d known he needed to find her. To see her. To help her, if help was what she needed. He prayed that he wasn’t too late.
Madonna mia! She could hardly hold her head up. He carried her to the bed in the corner, pulled a blanket over her trembling form. “I’ll be back, amore mio, don’t you worry. I’ll come back.”
True to his word, he returned not half an hour later, hefting a pot of some of Mama Zanfini’s stracciatella, with a loaf of bread tucked beneath his arm. Though the Rossis were quite literally starving, they had no strength, no will, to do anything but watch as he set the pot on the cold stove. They could only stare as he scrubbed out a bowl. Only gaze as he ladled some of the soup into it.
Rafaello knelt by Stefano first. Put a hand beneath the boy’s head to raise it. He wanted to cross himself at the sight of his blue lips and raspy breathing, but he decided that physical ministrations should come before spiritual. He worked his way around the room, spooning soup, wiping brows, and straightening blankets. Each one of them would remember, in the coming years, the infinite gentleness of Rafaello Zanfini as he moved around that room.
And finally, he reached Mama Rossi.
She recognized him. She turned her head.
Across the room, from her vantage point on the bed, Annamaria saw the gesture. “Mama. Don’t.”
Rafaello tried again. Again, Mama refused his aid.
Annamaria stretched out an arm, wishing she could turn her mother’s head. “Let him.”
“I am only trying to help you, Signora.”
She tried to shake her head, but it took too much effort.
“Why? Help?”
Why help? He thought that she was questioning his sanity. He thought she was wondering why he would expose himself to the deadly plague of the influenza. His answer was swift. And very simple. He slipped a hand beneath Mama Rossi’s head. “Our blessed Savior once said, ‘If you’ve done it to the least of these, you have done it unto me.’ ”
But Mama Rossi wasn’t inquiring about his theology; she was disparaging his ancestry. “Don’t want . . . the least . . . not to me . . .” She turned her head away.
Rafaello followed her mouth with his spoon.
From somewhere deep inside her scandalized Avellinesi soul, she summoned the strength to knock it to the floor.
39
Annamaria was not the only one who had failed to report to work at Madame’s shop. Half the girls on the second floor had been absent for the greater part of the week. In the North End, it was easy to tell that something was wrong. The wharves were much less busy than usual; there were fewer ships in port and there were far fewer teamsters and longshoremen than there should have been on weekday afternoons. Julietta’s little brother, Matteo, hadn’t gotten up for breakfast that morning. An ominous sign in any ten-year-old. And Salvatore had gone to work with a cough. She herself was beginning to feel a hitch in her chest whenever she breathed, although she’d been able, so far, to keep from coughing.
They’d tried to find Mauro, but the good doctor was nowhere to be found, though he was rumored to be everywhere. Everyone in the North End had seen him, but no one could find him. Julietta had already torn out her work three times from lack of concentration. She had already been tense with worry, and thoughts of Little Matteo only added to her great burden.
Luciana had worries of her own. Much as she tried not to think of it, the date of Billy’s physical was approaching. They’d come to seem so much like a family – she, the contessa, and Billy. He treated her grandmother with such kindness. He took her to museums and out to tea. Over to Boston Common for walks in the public garden. He’d set them up at The Lenox and bought them entirely new wardrobes. She’d even caught the contessa trying to teach him Italian. But it was all just a fantasy.
He hadn’t formally introduced them to his family.
He’d be shipping out soon.
And her father’s murderer was still out there, somewhere, in the city.
He couldn’t understand why she insisted on keeping her job at Madame’s. The reasons were several. There was no one else who could do what she did. Madame needed her. But Luciana also needed Madame. She was afraid to hope. She was afraid to trust in Billy’s bright dream for
their future. She needed to know that she could take care of herself.
Before Julietta and Luciana could leave the shop for the night, Madame paid them a visit. “I don’t want you to come to work next week.”
They both looked at her, alarm in their eyes. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t be paid.
“Don’t worry, you can make up the work some other week, after this plague has passed. I doubt very much whether the Putnams will be holding their party or the Winthrops their dinner when so many people are unlikely to attend. There’s no great hurry anymore for these gowns. And you may be risking more by coming to work than if you stayed at home.”
They couldn’t argue with her. They had both become experts at dodging those who looked ill. And they had both become adept at ignoring the alarming numbers of carts that were wheeling bodies through the city, and the stacks of corpses that were piling up outside doctors’ offices.
“Only – before you go.” Madame pushed a piece of paper toward each of them and followed it with a pencil. “Write your address for me. Just in case . . .”
Julietta used the time off to her advantage. She didn’t tell Mama or Papa about Madame’s decision. Mama was busy enough with Little Matteo, and Papa would only start worrying about the money. Her cough hadn’t seemed to worsen any, so she rose as she always did on Monday morning and left the apartment as if she were going to work. Only when she spied Angelo’s truck in the neighborhood, she went right up to him and tugged on his sleeve.
The courage it had taken!
She was quaking in her shoes and everything within her screamed at her to run away from him. But she couldn’t. He’d taken Madame’s jewels – she was more certain of it now than ever – and Julietta had to get them back. Her honor, and Madame’s business, depended upon it.
Angelo turned around and smiled. Winked at her. “Look what’s fallen from the clouds!” He opened the truck door for her, but she shook her head.
A Heart Most Worthy Page 26
