by John Fante
Abruzzi! The Widow knew everything. Then surely he had read the works of D’Annunzio – he, too, was an Abruzzian.
No, he had not read D’Annunzio. He had heard of him, but he had never read him. Yes, he knew the great man was from his own province. It pleased him. It made him grateful to D’Annunzio. Now they had something in common, but to his dismay he found himself unable to say more on the subject. For a full minute the Widow watched him, her blue eyes expressionless as they centered on his lips. He turned his head in confusion, his gaze following the heavy beams across the room, the frilled curtains, the nicknacks spread in careful profusion everywhere.
A kind woman, Maria: a good woman who came to his rescue and made conversation easy. Did he like to lay brick? Did he have a family? Three children? Wonderful. She, too, had wanted children. Was his wife an Italian, too? Had he lived in Rocklin long?
The weather. She spoke of the weather. Ah. He spoke then tumbling out his torment at the weather. Almost whining he lamented his stagnation, his fierce hatred of cold sunless days. Until, frightened by his bitter torrent, she glanced at her watch and told him to come back tomorrow morning to begin work on the fireplace. At the door, hat in hand, he stood waiting for her parting words.
‘Put on your hat, Mr Bandini,’ she smiled. ‘You’ll catch cold.’ Grinning, his armpits and neck flooded with nervous sweat, he pulled his hat down, confused and at a loss for words.
He stayed with Rocco that night. With Rocco, Maria, not with the Widow. The next day, after ordering firebrick at the lumber yard, he went back to the Widow’s cottage to repair the fireplace. Spreading a canvas over the carpet, he mixed his mortar in a bucket, tore out the loose brick in the flue-lining, and laid new brick in their place. Determined that the job should last a full day, he pulled out all the firebrick. He might have finished in an hour, might have pulled out only two or three, but at noon he was only half through. Then the Widow appeared, coming quietly from one of the sweet-scented rooms. Again the flutter in his throat. Again he could do no more than smile. How was he getting along with the work? He had done a careful job: not a speck of mortar smeared the faces of the brick he had laid. Even the canvas was clean, the old brick piled neatly at the side. She noticed this, and it pleased him. No passion lured him as she stooped to examine the new brick inside the fireplace, her sleek girdled bottom so rounded as she sank to her haunches. No Maria, not even her high heels, her thin blouse, the fragrance of the perfume in her dark hair, moved him to a stray thought of infidelity. As before he watched her in wonder and curiosity: this woman with a hundred, maybe two hundred thousand in the bank.
His plan to go downtown for lunch was unthinkable. As soon as she heard it she insisted that he remain as her guest. His eyes could not meet the cold blue of hers. He bowed his head, pawed the canvas with one toe, and begged to be excused. Eat lunch with the Widow Hildegarde? Sit across the table from her and put food in his mouth while this woman sat opposite him? He could scarcely breathe his refusal.
‘No, no. Please, Mrs Hildegarde, thank you. Thank you so much. Please, no. Thank you.’
But he stayed, not daring to offend her. Smiling as he held out his mortar-caked hands, he asked her if he might wash them, and she led him through the white, spotless hall to the bathroom. The room was like a jewel box: shining yellow tile, the yellow washbowl, lavender organdie curtains over the tall window, a bowl of purple flowers on the mirrored dressing table, yellow-handled perfume bottles, yellow comb-and-brush set. He turned quickly and all but bolted away. He could not have been more shocked had she stood naked before him. Those grimy hands of his were unworthy of this. He preferred the kitchen sink, just as he did at home. But her ease reassured him, and he entered fearfully, on the balls of his feet, and stood before the washbowl with tortured indecision. With his elbow he turned the water spout, afraid to mark it with his fingers. The scented green soap was out of the question: he did the best he could with water alone. When he finished, he dried his hands on the tail of his shirt, ignoring the soft green towels that hung from the wall. The experience left him fearful of what might take place at lunch. Before leaving the bathroom, he got down on his knees and blotted up a spot or two of splashed water with his shirt sleeve …
A lunch of lettuce leaves, pineapple and cottage cheese. Seated in the breakfast nook, a pink napkin across his knees, he ate with a suspicion that it was a joke, that the Widow was making fun of him. But she ate it too, and with such gusto that it might have been palatable. If Maria had served him such food, he would have thrown it out the window. Then the Widow brought tea in a thin china cup. There were two white cookies in the saucer, no larger than the end of his thumb. Tea and cookies. Diavolo! He had always identified tea with effeminacy and weakness, and he had no liking for sweets. But the Widow, munching a cookie between two fingers, smiled graciously as he tossed the cakes in his mouth like one putting away unpleasant pills.
Long before she finished her second cookie he was done, had drained the teacup, and leaned back on the two rear legs of his chair, his stomach mewing and crowing its protest at such strange visitors. They had not spoken throughout the lunch, not a word. It made him conscious that there was nothing to say between them. Now and then she smiled, once over the rim of her teacup. It left him embarrassed and sad: the life of the rich, he concluded, was not for him. At home he would have eaten fried eggs, a chunk of bread, and washed it down with a glass of wine.
When she finished, touching the corners of her carmine lips with the tip of her napkin, she asked if there was anything else he would like. His impulse was to answer, ‘What else you got?’ but he patted his stomach instead, puffing it out and caressing it.
‘No, thank you, Mrs Hildegarde. I’m full – full clean up to the ears.’
It made her smile. With red knotted fists at his belt, he remained leaning backward in his chair, sucking his teeth and craving a cigar.
A fine woman, Maria. One who sensed his every desire.
‘Do you smoke?’ she asked, producing a pack of cigarettes from the table drawer. From his shirt pocket he pulled the butt of a twisted Toscanelli cigar, bit off the end and spat it across the floor, lighted a match and puffed away. She insisted that he remain where he was, comfortable and at ease, while she gathered the dishes, the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. The cigar eased his tension. Crossing his arms, he watched her more frankly, studying the sleek hips, the soft white arms. Even then his thought was clean, no vagabond sensuality clouding his mind. She was a rich woman and he was near her, seated in her kitchen; he was grateful for the proximity: for that and for nothing more, as God was his judge.
Finishing his cigar, he went back to his work. By four thirty he was finished. Gathering his tools, he waited for her to come into the room again. All afternoon he had heard her in another part of the house. For some time he waited, clearing his throat loudly, dropping his trowel, singing a tune with the words, ‘It’s finished, oh it’s all done, all finished, all finished.’ The commotion at last brought her to the room. She came with a book in her hand, wearing reading glasses. He expected to be paid immediately. Instead he was surprised when she asked him to sit down for a moment. She did not even glance at the work he had done.
‘You’re a splendid worker, Mr Bandini. Splendid. I’m very pleased.’
Maria might sneer, but those words almost pinched a tear from his eyes. ‘I do my best, Mrs Hildegarde. I do the best I can.’
But she showed no desire to pay him. Once more the whitish-blue eyes. Their clear appraisal caused him to shift his glance to the fireplace. The eyes remained upon him, studying him vaguely, trance-like, as if she had lapsed into a reverie of other things. He walked to the fireplace and put his eye along the mantelpiece, as if to gauge its angle, pursing his lips with that look of mathematical computation. When he had done this until it could no longer seem sensible, he returned to the deep chair and seated himself once more. The Widow’s gaze followed him mechanically. He wanted to speak, bu
t what was there to say?
At last she broke the silence: she had other work for him. There was a house of hers in town, on Windsor Street. There, too, the fireplace was not functioning. Would he go there tomorrow and examine it? She arose, crossed the room to the writing desk by the window, and wrote down the address. Her back was to him, her body bent at the waist, her round hips blooming sensuously, and though Maria might tear out his very eyes and spit into their empty sockets, he could swear that no evil had darkened his glance, no lust had lurked in his heart.
That night, lying in the darkness beside Rocco Saccone, the wailing snores of his friend keeping him awake, there was yet another reason why Svevo Bandini did not sleep, and that was the promise of tomorrow. He lay grunting contentedly in the darkness. Mannaggia, he was no fool; he was wise enough to realize he had made his mark with the Widow Hildegarde. She might pity him, she might have given him this new job only because she felt that he needed it, but whatever it was, there was no question of his ability; she had called him a splendid worker, and rewarded him with more work.
Let the winter blow! Let the temperature drop to freezing. Let the snow pile up and bury the town! He didn’t care: tomorrow there was work. And after that, there would always be work. The Widow Hildegarde liked him; she respected his ability. With her money and his ability there would always be work enough to laugh at the winter.
At seven the next morning he entered the house on Windsor Street. No one lived in the house; the front door was open when he tried it. No furniture: only bare rooms. Nor could he find anything wrong with the fireplace. It was not so elaborate as the one at the Widow’s but it was well made. The mortar had not cracked, and the brick responded solidly to the tapping of his hammer. Then what was it? He found wood in the shed in the rear and built a fire. The flue sucked the flame voraciously. Heat filled the room. Nothing wrong.
Eight o’clock, and he was at the Widow’s again. In a blue dressing gown he found her, fresh and smiling her good morning. Mr Bandini! But you mustn’t stand out there in the cold. Come inside and have a cup of coffee! The protests died on his lips. He kicked the snow from his wet shoes and followed the flowing blue gown to the kitchen. Standing against the sink, he drank the coffee, pouring it into a saucer and then blowing on it to cool it. He did not look at her below the shoulders. He dared not. Maria would never believe that. Nervous and without speech, he behaved like a man.
He told her that he could find no trouble with the Windsor Street fireplace. His honesty pleased him, coming as it did after the exaggerated work of the day before. The Widow seemed surprised. She was certain there was something wrong with the Windsor Street fireplace. She asked him to wait while she dressed. She would drive him back to Windsor Street and show him the trouble. Now she was staring at his wet feet.
‘Mr Bandini, don’t you wear a size nine shoe?’
The blood rose to his face, and he sputtered in his coffee. Quickly she apologized. It was the outstanding bad habit of her life – this obsession she had of asking people what size shoe they wore. It was a sort of guessing game she played with herself. Would he forgive her?
The episode shook him deeply. To hide his shame he quickly seated himself at the table, his wet shoes beneath it, out of view. But the Widow smiled and persisted. Had she guessed right? Was size nine correct?
‘Sure is, Mrs Hildegarde.’
Waiting for her to dress, Svevo Bandini felt that he was getting somewhere in the world. From now on Helmer the banker and all his creditors had better be careful. Bandini had powerful friends too.
But what had he to hide of that day? No – he was proud of that day. Beside the Widow, in her car, he rode through the middle of town, down Pearl Street, the Widow at the wheel in a seal-skin coat. Had Maria and his children seen him chatting easily with her, they would have been proud of him. They might have proudly raised their chins and said, there goes our papa! But Maria had torn the flesh from his face.
What happened in the vacant house on Windsor Street? Did he lead the Widow to a vacant room and violate her? Did he kiss her? Then go to that house, Maria. Speak to the cold rooms. Scoop the cobwebs from the corners and ask them questions; ask the naked floors, ask the frosted window panes; ask them if Svevo Bandini had done wrong.
The Widow stood before the fireplace.
‘You see,’ he said. ‘The fire I built is still going. Nothing wrong. It works fine.’
She was not satisfied.
That black stuff, she said. It didn’t look well in a fireplace. She wanted it to look clean and unused; she was expecting a prospective tenant, and everything had to be satisfactory.
But he was an honorable man with no desire to cheat this woman.
‘All fireplaces get black, Mrs Hildegarde. It’s the smoke. They all get that way. You can’t help it.’
No, it didn’t look well.
He told her about muriatic acid. A solution of muriatic acid and water. Apply it with a brush: that would remove the blackness. Not more than two hours’ work –
Two hours? That would never do. No, Mr Bandini. She wanted all the firebrick taken out and new brick put in. He shook his head at the extravagance.
‘That’ll take a day and a half, Mrs Hildegarde. Cost you twenty-five dollars, material included.’
She pulled the coat around her, shivering in the cold room.
‘Never mind the cost, Mr Bandini,’ she said. ‘It has to be done. Nothing is too good for my tenants.’
What could he say to that? Did Maria expect him to stalk off the job, refuse to do it? He acted like a sensible man, glad for this opportunity to make more money. The Widow drove him to the lumber yard.
‘It’s so cold in that house,’ she said. ‘You should have some kind of a heater.’
His answer was an artless confusion out of which he made it clear that if there is work there is warmth, that when a man has freedom of movement it is enough, for then his blood is hot too. But her concern left him hot and choking beside her in the car, her perfumed presence teasing him as his nostrils pulled steadily at the lush fragrance of her skin and garments. Her gloved hands swung the car to the curbing in front of the Gage Lumber Company.
Old Man Gage was standing at the window when Bandini got out and bowed goodbye to the Widow. She crippled him with a relentless smile that shook his knees, but he was strutting like a defiant rooster when he stepped inside the office, slammed the door with an air of bravado, pulled out a cigar, scratched a match across the face of the counter, puffed the weed thoughtfully, blowing a burst of smoke into the face of Old Man Gage, who blinked his eyes and looked away after Bandini’s brutal stare had penetrated his skull. Bandini grunted with satisfaction. Did he owe the Gage Lumber Company money? Then let Old Man Gage take cognizance of the facts. Let him remember that with his own eyes he had seen Bandini among people of power. He gave the order for a hundred face brick, a sack of cement, and a yard of sand, to be delivered at the Windsor Street address.
‘And hurry it up,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I got to have it inside half an hour.’
He swaggered back to the Windsor Street house, his chin in the air, the blue strong smoke from his Toscanelli tumbling over his shoulder. Maria should have seen the whipped-dog expression on Old Man Gage’s face, the obsequious alacrity with which he wrote down Bandini’s order.
The materials were being delivered even as he arrived at the empty house, the Gage Lumber Co. truck backed against the front curb. Peeling off his coat, he plunged to the task. This, he vowed, would be one of the finest little bricklaying jobs in the state of Colorado. Fifty years from now, a hundred years from now, two hundred, the fireplace would still be standing. For when Svevo Bandini did a job, he did it well.
He sang as he worked, a song of spring: ‘Come Back to Sorrento.’ The empty house sighed with echo, the cold rooms filling with the ring of his voice, the crack of his hammer and the plink of his trowel. Gala day: the time passed quickly. The room grew warm with the heat of his energy,
the window panes wept for joy as the frost melted and the street became visible.
Now a truck drew up to the curb. Bandini paused in his work to watch the green-mackinawed driver lift a shining object and carry it toward the house. A red truck from the Watson Hardware Company. Bandini put down his trowel. He had made no delivery order with the Watson Hardware Company. No – he would never order anything from the Watson people. They had garnisheed his wages once for a bill he could not pay. He hated the Watson Hardware Company, one of his worst enemies.
‘Your name Bandini?’
‘What do you care?’
‘I don’t. Sign this.’
An oil heater from Mrs Hildegarde to Svevo Bandini. He signed the paper and the driver left. Bandini stood before the heater as though it was the Widow herself. He whistled in astonishment. This was too much for any man – too much.
‘A fine woman,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Very fine woman.’
Suddenly there were tears in his eyes. The trowel fell from his hands as he dropped to his knees to examine the shining, nickel-plated heater. ‘You’re the finest woman in this town, Mrs Hildegarde, and when I get through with this fireplace you’ll be damn proud of it!’
Once more he returned to his work, now and then smiling at the heater over his shoulder, speaking to it as though it were his companion. ‘Hello there, Mrs Hildegarde! You still there? Watching me, eh? Got your eye on Svevo Bandini, have you? Well, you’re looking at the best bricklayer in Colorado, lady.’
The work advanced faster than he imagined. He carried on until it was too dark to see. By noon the next day he would be finished. He gathered his tools, washed his trowel, and prepared to leave. It was not until that late hour, standing in the murky light that came from the street lamp, that he realized he had forgotten to light the heater. His hands shrieked with cold. Setting the heater inside the fireplace, he lighted it and adjusted the flame to a dim glow. It was safe there: it could burn all night and prevent the fresh mortar from freezing.
