The Saint of Lost Things

by Christopher Castellani

  Mario folds his hands on the table. “So,” he says. “Fratello. What do you think? Where would you rather be in twenty years? Taking orders from me or from that Hannagan?”

  There is already so much pride to swallow. To give Mario an answer right away, to give him that much satisfaction, would make him unbearable. Years of negotiating begins now, Antonio thinks, with how he handles his brother’s proposition. He cannot say what he really feels: that he is grateful, and terrified, and relieved, and that this all comes as close to perfect as he could have imagined. He cannot say he is proud of Mario for the chances he’s taken over the years, for never giving up on all those Grasso businesses, and for the hard work at Mrs. Stella’s that brought him to this table tonight.

  “One thing,” Antonio says. “The day you order me around is a day you’ll regret.”

  “I can say the same to you.”

  “Except,” Antonio says, and sits back in his chair. “Without me, there is no restaurant.”

  Mario smiles. “Again, I can say the same.”

  “A lot would have to change,” says Antonio. “The name, first of all.”

  “You think I want Gino’s name on our family restaurant?”

  But this conversation is already too much too fast. Antonio appears too cooperative. So he stands, his heart pounding, his face as serious as a banker’s. “I can’t tell you anything for sure right now,” he says. “Maybe not even until the weekend. But I will say this: it’s not the worst idea you ever had.”

  “Of course,” Mario says. “I wouldn’t expect . . . ”He looks like a teenager: his tie undone, his hair a mess, that eager smile. “Take your time,” he says, and holds up his hands. “But do me a favor.”

  Antonio clears the coffee cups. He puts them in the sink and runs the water. “What?”

  “Don’t turn your back,” Mario says. His leg is shaking. “Make your brother proud.”

  ANTONIO’S FIRST CALLING is to paint over the murals in the dining room of the old Mrs. Stella’s. He chooses a glossy gold, dark enough to cover in two coats the cartoon renditions of gondoliers and pigeons that Gino loved so much. Across the far wall he and Mario hang a large, beveled mirror, bought wholesale, to hide the cracks in the plaster and open up the room. They fill the other cracks throughout the restaurant, shampoo the worn red carpet, and polish the wood floors in the bar area. In the corner where Giulio used to stand, they install a jukebox. Fifty songs are now at their fingertips, at five cents a song. With pleasure they dismantle the neon sign in the front window and throw it on a pile of trash. In its place they mount a charming green awning, made of quality canvas with scalloped edges. RISTORANTE AL DI LÀ it says, in white block lettering. Below that, in small script you can read only up close: MARIO AND ANTONIO GRASSO, PROPRIETORS.

  When the day of the grand opening finally comes—December 31, 1954—Antonio slicks back his hair, puts on his best suit, and tucks into the vest pocket the speech he’ll make in the minutes before midnight. He arrives at noon, six hours early, though he has no particular job to do, and is greeted with “Good afternoon, sir” by one of the waiters, an older man named Bruno whom he has known since he was a boy. Twice over the course of the day, the new cook asks Antonio to sample the sauce, and adds more salt when he declares it sciapo. As night falls, the candles are lit, and the guests begin to appear, Antonio looks over the reservation book again, though he can recite each name from memory. Thanks to the holdover customers from Mrs. Stella’s, and the signs he put up in Angelo’s Market, every table is reserved. And yet, despite all this respect shown to him, and the hard-earned savings he’s sunk into the renovations and the operating costs, Antonio feels out of place.

  Compared to his brother, he is an amateur. Antonio needs only to watch Mario for one minute to see that he is no longer the frantic baker of the long-bankrupt Pasticceria Grasso, with flour in his hair; or the fumbling waiter of Café Grasso, afraid to carry more than two plates at once. Gone is the arrogance he showed during his brief adventure at Mrs. Stella’s. Look how gracefully he crosses the dining room, straightening silverware and tucking in chairs as he goes, winking at guests as if they’re in on some delicious secret, motioning from a great distance to the bartender—in a sign language Antonio has yet to grasp—for a certain table to get a bottle of spumante on the house. It is beautiful, this choreography.

  Meanwhile, Antonio stands uselessly at the front door, so befuddled by the taking of coats and the showing to seats and the hundred other simultaneous demands of the dinner hour that he’s forced to cede the bulk of his maître d’ responsibilities to Ida. Ida! Even his mezza scema sister-in-law can maintain a confident and professional air amid the chaos. She seems to know each new couple by name and welcomes them with a “Happy New Year,” a bright smile for the gentleman and a different compliment for each lady. Antonio can barely speak to the people he knows—Gianni, the Fiumas, Angelo—let alone these strangers. Ida hands them all noisemakers, promises them the meal of a lifetime and a room of friendly faces. “Start 1955 at the Al Di Là,” she says, “and you’ll have luck the rest of the year.”

  What’s wrong with him? the guests must be wondering, as they pass Antonio on the way to their tables. Surely they ask each other, Why does he stand there, arms across his chest, mute as a mummy?

  It occurs to Antonio that he has worked too long on the assembly line. He is too accustomed to a steady paycheck, the predictable turnover. Every time he has been laid off from a job, he has found one exactly like it in a matter of days. The inside of every automobile plant looks the same; he needs only to take his place, learn one or two relatively simple motions, and repeat them over and over until someone tells him to stop. He has no practice making his own decisions for a living.

  Maddalena comes toward him. She wears one of her fancy dresses for the first time since the spring, when she used to put on her finest clothes just to walk the few blocks to Giulio Fabbri’s house. After tonight, she will have a more exciting trip to make. It will be she, not Ida, who will greet the customers and take the coats on weekends. She, not Signora Stella, will walk among the tables and tell stories from the Old Country. If Antonio does want to show her off in this way, which of course he does, he will have to buy her some new clothes. Jewelry, too. Makeup and shoes. But now that Renato, betrayed by the very existence of the Al Di Là, no longer speaks to him, Antonio has no access to the Insurance Closet. The thought of paying department-store prices makes him wince.

  “Did you eat?” Maddalena asks. She leans against the jukebox, her hands behind her back, swaying to “Sh-Boom.” Life could be a dream, sweetheart. “The sauce has a good taste,” she says. “The veal, too. Like night and day, from before.”

  “You think these people even noticed?”

  “Americans,” she whispers, with a smile. “As long as they keep coming, who cares? We know the difference.”

  “Gino had no respect for the tomato,” Antonio says, and they laugh.

  Maddalena puts her hand on his stomach. “You have to eat.”

  “I will,” he says. “I’m nervous about talking in front of everybody.”

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “They’ll be drunk pretty soon.”

  Antonio folds his arms across his chest. He can’t calm down, not even talking to his wife. The guests continue to push through the doors, someone knocks over the ceramic pot of poinsettias, the kitchen runs out of basil, the bartender—Angelo Montale’s son, Angelo Jr.—spills a bottle of red wine on the counter. How can Antonio eat, with all these unrelenting, unpredictable needs around him?

  “I came to help Ida,” Maddalena says.

  “You’re tired,” Antonio says. “Let her do the work for once.”

  “I heard that,” says Ida, who comes up behind him with an armful of heavy coats. She dumps them in Maddalena’s arms. “If you’re just going to stand here doing nothing, Antonio, you might as well go sit. You’re making me nervous.”

  Maddalena laughs. “We ladies can take ca
re of everything.”

  “Better yet,” says Ida. “Go home and get some basil.”

  “Yes,” says Maddalena. “The fresh air will do you good.” She points him toward the door.

  It is nine-thirty. The city is quiet and cold, the sky thick with stars. Everyone with a place to go tonight has already arrived. Only a few cars speed down Union Street, late for the best part of any New Year’s Eve celebration: these tipsy hours of anticipation and promise, when it feels as though, at the stroke of twelve, your heart will finally lighten and your sins will be washed clean.

  On the windowsill above the sink Antonio finds the basil plant, pale green and struggling to survive the winter. As instructed, he takes from the freezer a jar of chopped leaves the women have saved from the plant’s happier days. He carries one on each arm, breathing in the sweet aroma, glad to be of some use.

  When he gets to the corner of Eighth and Union, it is the first time he sees the Al Di Là at night, busy and open to the public. He stops for a moment, gazing from the far side of the street at the colored lights on the door wreath, the shadows moving across the windows. He sets the basil, which can wait, on the sidewalk. He has never known such joy. It is as fragile as the wineglasses his customers are now lifting to their lips. Make one slip, and the glass crashes to the floor. Can they guess that on this night, the last of a dangerous year, the man on the sidewalk in his black suit—shivering, biting his nails—has everything he wants? He has his family gathered inside, at the round table under the mirror: his wife, their baby daughter in her arms; his mother and father; his nieces. And yet there is no telling what punishments God is devising. How can he relax? How can any man?

  He thinks of his speech. He’s practiced it over and over—the assurance that the cook uses the freshest ingredients and prepares all the food in the authentic Italian way, the pledge to expand the dining room and maybe even install a dance floor by the summer, the wish that 1955 brings peace to the world—but now the words seem all wrong. He considers tearing it up and starting over, but he’s run out of time.

  Inside, all of the guests are seated, including Maddalena and Ida. Mario leans against a booth talking to Giulio and Helen. Antonio manages to eat a chunk of bread with some salt and olive oil, but he’s not sure his stomach can handle much more. Angelo Jr. hands him a glass of wine, and for a while he sits at the table beside his mother. When Prima wakes, Maddalena hands her to him. He holds her for a few minutes before she starts to cry.

  “They don’t love their fathers until they’re five,” says Ida.

  Antonio watches the customers put on their party hats, twirl their noisemakers, and ready their bags of confetti. The jukebox plays “Secret Love” and “Young at Heart,” and a couple he doesn’t recognize slow-dances in the back corner, by the kitchen door. In time the room grows louder, a string of garland is pulled from the wall and wrapped around a woman’s head, and before long most of the guests are on their feet and milling about. The waiters start to hand out the fluted glasses, and moments later reappear to fill them with spumante. Mario keeps close watch on it all, and makes sure the tables are cleared of empty plates and used silverware. At 11:40, he nudges Antonio. “You ready, or do you want me to do it?” he says.

  “You.”

  Maddalena overhears. “But you practiced,” she says. “Don’t let it go to waste.”

  “Mario’s good at speeches,” Ida says. “He’s done them before.”

  Papà shakes his head. “These people need to see both brothers,” he says. “There are two names on that sign.”

  “I’m not a speaker,” Antonio says, but he cannot ignore his father’s advice, and Mario has already grabbed his wrist. He leads him to the other side of the room, pulls out two empty chairs, stands on one, and helps Antonio up onto the other.

  “Attenzione!” says Mario, in his booming voice, and the room immediately falls to a hush. “It’s almost time, and I want to welcome you to the best New Year’s Eve party in Wilmington, and the grand opening of the best Italian restaurant in the United States of America!” Everyone claps, and Mario takes an exaggerated bow. “Did you enjoy the food?” he asks.

  “Yes!” they yell back.

  “Tremendous!” he says. “You can stay a little longer, then. Just be sure to tell your friends and neighbors who fed you so good tonight.”

  They love him, Antonio thinks. Look how they laugh and take each other’s hands, hanging on his words.

  “For the big moment,” Mario continues, “you each should have a glass of spumante on your table. It’s free, so drink it. If you want another, you have to buy it yourself.” He shrugs apologetically. “Now. I’m Mario Grasso. All of you know me, one way or the other, but until tonight maybe you never met my brother, Antonio. He’s the older one, the tall and handsome one—” He holds out his hands, to stop the chorus of boos. “It’s true; I’m not blind. I’m happy to be young and intelligent. But what I want to say is, without this man, there would be no Al Di Là restaurant. My heart would be in pieces on the floor. And worse than that, we’d all have to eat at Trattoria Renato tonight, where I hear the roaches do the cooking.”

  Everyone laughs. A waiter rushes over and hands Antonio and Mario two full glasses.

  “Many people asked me the past month, ‘Why don’t you call this place Ristorante Grasso, if you’re so proud of it?’ And I can say, too, this is because of my brother. If it were up to me only, Grasso would have been in the name for sure. But Antonio reminded me of something. Back in Santa Cecilia, in the Old Country, the only restaurant in our entire village was called the Al Di Là Café, and he said, ‘Mario, maybe the way to change the luck of the Grasso name is to honor the place we came from.’ So that’s what we did.”

  There is applause, and Mario takes another bow. Then, “I’ve already talked too long,” he says. He turns to his brother. “Fratello, you want to say Happy New Year to these people who are paying our bills?”

  “Eight minutes to go,” someone calls out.

  Antonio holds one hand against the wall to keep his balance. Though he has only drunk one glass of wine, he feels dizzy, and the sea of eager faces does not help. Mamma has her hand over her heart, as if to keep it from bursting. Beside her, Papà smokes a cigarette, which he does only when he’s nervous. In the back corner, Signora Fiuma takes the glass from her husband, who has already begun to drink it. Ida’s brother hoists his curly-haired daughter on his shoulders, and, behind him, Giulio Fabbri has one arm around his Irish girlfriend, the other around her daughter. Maddalena, more anxious than Antonio, hides behind Ida. Whoever is not in this room tonight—Renato, Cassie, Buzzy, Mr. Hannagan, Gino Stella—might as well not exist. Lock them in a closet, Antonio thinks, and forget you ever knew them.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he begins, as he takes out the prepared speech from his pocket. The crowd laughs, and the laughter immediately relaxes him, though he did not mean this as a joke. “I did have these words written down, yes, but—” He glances at the paper, then stuffs it back in his pocket. “They’re not so great. I’m not the speaker my brother is. I just want to thank every one of you for coming here. And one thing especially. I was outside a few hours ago, and I was looking at this place from the street, with all of you inside. And I was thinking, how did you get so lucky, Antonio Grasso? You come from a nowhere village. You didn’t have much school. All your life you wanted two things. You wanted to open a restaurant for your father, to honor him. And you wanted your beautiful wife, Maddalena, to have a baby. Now look, here are the two things, right in front of your face. If you work twenty-four hours a day for the next hundred years, still you won’t deserve this luck.”

  People point and wave at the Grasso table. Papà waves back, lifts his glass. But Maddalena, still half-hidden, covers her face. Ida pulls her to her side. If Antonio were braver, or more drunk, he’d tell the crowd the full story: how God had tried to take her, and that, if He’d succeeded, there would be no joy left in the world—no reason to eat or
drink or welcome any new year. No reason to put hope in a restaurant, or any future at all. But he has already said too much, and, in these heady moments before the great promise of midnight, no one wants to hear a sad story, no matter how happy the ending.

  “11:57!” Angelo calls from the bar. He turns up the radio, and they can hear the distant voice of an announcer through the roar of the Times Square crowd.

  Ida grabs Maddalena’s hand and leads her toward the front of the room. Maddalena stops, and goes back for the baby. They stand in front of Antonio and Mario, who remain atop the chairs. Nunzia and Nina appear and grab their father around the knees. The crowd rushes back and forth across the room, talking over each other, calling out names, clamoring to find their husbands and wives, reaching for drinks, stuffing bread and pizza and olives in their mouths, finishing off their wine. Mario raises his arms and waves them around like a conductor. “To me, this is the most beautiful music in the world,” he says to Antonio.

  “Fifty-eight!”