Wait Until Spring, Bandini

by John Fante

  ‘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.

  Chapter Four

  No Bandini, no money, no food. If Bandini were home, he would say, ‘Charge it.’

  Monday afternoon, and still no Bandini, and that grocery bill! She could never forget it. Like a tireless ghost it filled the winter days with dread.

  Next door to the Bandini house was Mr Craik’s grocery store. In the early years of his marriage Bandini had opened a credit business with Mr Craik. At first he managed to keep the bills paid. But as the children grew older and hungrier, as bad year followed bad year, the grocery bill whizzed into crazy figures. Every year since his marriage things got worse for Svevo Bandini. Money! After fifteen years of marriage Bandini had so many bills that even Federico knew he had no intention or opportunity to pay them.

  But the grocery bill harassed him. Owing Mr Craik a hundred dollars, he paid fifty – if he had it. Owing two hundred, he paid seventy-five – if he had it. So it was with all the debts of Svevo Bandini. There was no mystery about them. There were no hidden motives, no desire to cheat in their non-payment. No budget could solve them. No planned economy could alter them. It was very simple: the Bandini family used up more money than he earned. He knew his only escape lay in a streak of good luck. His tireless presumption that such good luck was coming forestalled his complete desertion and kept him from blowing out his brains. He constantly threatened both, but did neither. Maria did not know how to threaten. It was not in her nature.

  But Mr Craik the grocer complained unceasingly. He never quite trusted Bandini. If the Bandini family had not lived next door to his store, where he could keep his eye on it, and if he had not felt that ultimately he would receive at least most of the money owed him, he would not have allowed further credit. He sympathized with Maria and pitied her with that cold pity small businessmen show to the poor as a class, and with that frigid self-defensive apathy toward individual members of it. Christ, he had bills to pay too.

  Now that the Bandini account was so high – and it rose by leaps throughout
each winter – he abused Maria, even insulted her. He knew that she herself was honest to the point of childish innocence, but that did not seem relevant when she came to the store to increase the account. Just like she owned the place! He was there to sell groceries, not give them away. He dealt in merchandise, not feelings. Money was owed him. He was allowing her additional credit. His demands for money were in vain. The only thing to do was keep after her until he got it. Under the circumstances, his attitude was the best he could possibly muster.

  Maria had to coax herself to a pitch of inspired audacity in order to face him each day. Bandini paid no attention to her mortification at the hands of Mr Craik.

  Charge it, Mr Craik. Charge it.

  All afternoon and until an hour before dinner Maria walked the house, waiting for that desperate inspiration so necessary for a trip to the store. She went to the window and sat with hands in her apron pockets, one fist around her rosary – waiting. She had done it before, only two days ago, Saturday, and the day before that, all the days before that, spring, summer, winter, year in, year out. But now her courage slept from overuse and would not rise. She couldn’t go to that store again, face that man.

  From the window, through the pale winter evening, she saw Arturo across the street with a gang of neighborhood kids. They were involved in a snowball fight in the empty lot. She opened the door.

  ‘Arturo!’

  She called him because he was the oldest. He saw her standing in the doorway. It was a white darkness. Deep shadows crept fast across the milky snow. The street lamps burned coldly, a cold glow in a colder haze. An automobile passed, its tire chains clanging dismally.

  ‘Arturo!’

  He knew what she wanted. In disgust he clinched his teeth. He knew she wanted him to go to the store. She was a yellow-belly, just plain yellow, passing the buck to him, afraid of Craik. Her voice had that peculiar tremor that came with grocery-store time. He tried to get out of it by pretending that he hadn’t heard, but she kept calling until he was ready to scream and the rest of the kids, hypnotized by that tremor in her voice, stopped throwing snowballs and looked at him, as though begging him to do something.

  He tossed one more snowball, watched it splatter, and then trudged through the snow and across the icy pavement. Now he could see her plainly. Her jaws quivered from the twilight cold. She stood with arms squeezing her thin body, tapping her toes to keep them warm.

  ‘Whaddya want?’ he said.

  ‘It’s cold,’ she said. ‘Come inside, and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘What is it, Ma? I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘I want you to go to the store.’

  ‘The store? No! I know why you want me to go – because you’re afraid on account of the bill. Well, I ain’t going. Never.’

  ‘Please go,’ she said. ‘You’re big enough to understand. You know how Mr Craik is.’

  Of course he knew. He hated Craik, that skunk, always asking him if his father was drunk or sober, and what did his father do with his money, and how do you wops live without a cent, and how does it happen that your old man never stays home at night, what’s he got – a woman on the side, eating up his money? He knew Mr Craik and he hated him.

  ‘Why can’t August go?’ he said. ‘Heck sakes, I do all the work around here. Who gets the coal and wood? I do. Every time. Make August go.’

  ‘But August won’t go. He’s afraid.’

  ‘Blah. The coward. What’s there to be afraid of? Well, I’m not going.’

  He turned and tramped back to the boys. The snowball fight was resumed. On the opposition side was Bobby Craik, the grocer’s son. I’ll get you, you dog. On the porch Maria called again. Arturo did not answer. He shouted so that her voice might be drowned out. Now it was darkness, and Mr Craik’s windows bloomed in the night. Arturo kicked a stone from the frozen earth and shaped it within a snowball. The Craik boy was fifty feet away, behind a tree. He threw with a frenzy that strained his whole body, but it missed – sailing a foot out of line.

  Mr Craik was whacking a bone with his cleaver on the chopping block when Maria entered. As the door squealed he looked up and saw her – a small insignificant figure in an old black coat with a high fur collar, most of the fur shed so that white hide spots appeared in the dark mass. A weary brown hat covered her forehead – the face of a very old little child hiding beneath it. The faded gloss from her rayon stockings made them a yellowish tan, accentuating the small bones and white skin beneath them, and making her old shoes seem even more damp and ancient. She walked like a child, fearfully, on tiptoe, awed, to that familiar place from which she invariably made her purchases, farthest away from Mr Craik’s chopping block, where the counter met the wall.

  In the earlier years she used to greet him. But now she felt that perhaps he would not relish such familiarity, and she stood quietly in her corner, waiting until he was ready to wait on her.

  Seeing who it was, he paid no attention, and she tried to be an interested and smiling spectator as he swung his cleaver. He was of middle height, partially bald, wearing celluloid glasses – a man of forty-five. A thick pencil rested behind one ear, and a cigarette behind the other. His white apron hung to his shoe tops, a blue butcher string wound many times around his waist. He was hacking a bone inside a red and juicy rump.

  She said: ‘It looks good, doesn’t it?’

  He flipped the steak over and over, swished a square of paper from the roll, spread it over the scales, and tossed the steak upon it. His quick, soft fingers wrapped it expertly. She estimated that it was close to two dollars’ worth, and she wondered who had purchased it – possibly one of Mr Craik’s rich American women customers up on University Hill.

  Mr Craik heaved the rest of the rump upon his shoulder and disappeared inside the icebox, closing the door behind him. It seemed he stayed a long time in that icebox. Then he emerged, acted surprised to see her, cleared his throat, clicked the icebox door shut, padlocked it for the night, and disappeared into the back room.

  She supposed he was going to the washroom to wash his hands, and that made her wonder if she was out of Gold Dust Cleanser, and then, all at once, everything she needed for the house crashed through her memory, and a weakness like fainting overcame her as quantities of soap, margarine, meat, potatoes, and so many other things seemed to bury her in an avalanche.

  Craik reappeared with a broom and began to sweep the sawdust around the chopping block. She lifted her eyes to the clock: ten minutes to six. Poor Mr Craik! He looked tired. He was like all men, probably starved for a hot meal.

  Mr Craik finished his sweeping and paused to light a cigarette. Svevo smoked only cigars, but almost all American men smoked cigarettes. Mr Craik looked at her, exhaled, and went on sweeping.

  She said, ‘It is cold weather we’re having.’

  But he coughed, and she supposed he hadn’t heard, for he disappeared into the back room and returned with a dust pan and a paper box. Sighing as he bent down, he swept the sawdust into the pan and poured it into the paper box.

  ‘I don’t like this cold weather,’ she said. ‘We are waiting for spring, especially Svevo.’

  He coughed again, and before she knew it he was carrying the box back to the rear of the store. She heard the splash of running water. He returned, drying his hands on his apron, that nice white apron. At the cash register, very loudly, he rang up no sale. She changed her position, moving her weight from one foot to the other. The big clock ticked away. One of those electric clocks with the strange ticks. Now it was exactly six o’clock.

  Mr Craik scooped the coins from the cash box and spread them on the counter. He tore a slip of paper from the roll and reached for his pencil. Then he leaned over and counted the day’s receipts. Was it possible that he was not aware of her presence in the store? Surely he had seen her come in and stand there! He wet the pencil on the tip of his pink tongue and began adding up the figures. She raised her eyebrows and strolled to the front window to look at the fruits and vegetables. Oranges si
xty cents a dozen. Asparagus fifteen cents a pound. Oh my, oh my. Apples two pounds for a quarter.

  ‘Strawberries!’ she said. ‘And in winter, too! Are they California strawberries, Mr Craik?’

  He swept the coins into a bank sack and went to the safe, where he squatted and fingered the combination lock. The big clock ticked. It was ten minutes after six when he closed the safe. Immediately he disappeared into the rear of the store again.

  Now she no longer faced him. Shamed, exhausted, her feet had tired, and with hands clasped in her lap she sat on an empty box and stared at the frosted front windows. Mr Craik took off his apron and threw it over the chopping block. He lifted the cigarette from his lips, dropped it to the floor and crushed it deliberately. Then he went to the back room again, returning with his coat. As he straightened his collar, he spoke to her for the first time.

  ‘Come on, Mrs Bandini. My God, I can’t hang around here all night long.’

  At the sound of his voice she lost her balance. She smiled to conceal her embarrassment, but her face was purplish and her eyes lowered. Her hands fluttered at her throat.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I was – waiting for you!’

  ‘What’ll it be, Mrs Bandini – shoulder steak?’

  She stood in the corner and pursed her lips. Her heart beat so fast she could think of nothing at all to say now.

  She said: ‘I think I want –’

  ‘Hurry up, Mrs Bandini. My God, you been here about a half hour now, and you ain’t made up your mind yet.’

  ‘I thought –’

  ‘Do you want shoulder steak?’

  ‘How much is shoulder steak, Mr Craik?’

  ‘Same price. My God, Mrs Bandini. You been buying it for years. Same price. Same price all the time.’