The Black Madonna

by Louisa Ermelino

  “I told you to come with me.”

  Jumbo waved the comment away. “Forget about it. I could never be a cop,” Jumbo said. “I don’t like running. I don’t like guns. You gotta worry about being on the take. What’s the point? I didn’t expect to end up in Benvenuto’s Bar and Restaurant, but listen, I’m not complaining. I got no carfare. I walk across the street to work. The only thing is Eddie takes my paycheck for the next forty years. I’m a fucking serf.”

  Nicky laughed and finished his drink and put a twenty on the bar but Jumbo gave it back and poured him another. Nicky put the bill in the tip cup. Jumbo leaned over on both his elbows. “You know, Nicky. I’m real glad you came by because you’re just the guy I want to see.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “I got a situation. It’s personal and I don’t know how to handle it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t wanna talk here. It’s a matter of the heart. It deserves some respect.”

  “You tell me where and when, Jumbo, and I’ll be there.”

  “It’s really important to me. The most important thing ever happened to me. I still can’t believe it.” Jumbo closed his eyes and screwed up his face. “I met a girl, a good girl, a nice one.”

  “I thought you always liked the bad ones.”

  Jumbo hit Nicky in the shoulder. “Shit, you remember all that stuff we did?”

  “When I wasn’t passed out, yeah. But this is great news. So what’s the problem?”

  “Ha, it’s one problem after the other. But like I said, I wanna tell you in private. It’s a very complicated thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you think we could get together? Me, you, Salvatore? Like old times? Bat a few around?”

  “Sure, no problem.” Nicky gave Jumbo his card. There was a pair of golden handcuffs embossed under his name. He had paid for the cards himself. He thought it added a touch of class to a dirty job. “I’ll talk to Salvatore and we’ll set it up.”

  When Nicky left, Jumbo looked around the room, squinting into the dark. Then he took the twenty out of the tip cup and put it in his back pocket.

  After the Savannah Club, Nicky had joined the army and then the police force. Jumbo had gone from one job to another, all of them on the fringes of legality, and Salvatore had left for college and then law school. He had married one of those long blond girls with a mouthful of long white teeth. One of those girls who looked like they rode horses. He lived in Connecticut in one of those towns on the train line. He told Nicky that his wife hated the city. She’d meet him midtown to go for dinner and a Broadway show but that was it. She described the neighborhood and Magdalena with the same word: interesting. And she avoided both like the plague.

  Nicky felt like that was fine with Salvatore. He had always been possessive about Magdalena. It wasn’t just a mother-son thing. After all, Magdalena wasn’t really Salvatore’s mother. It was as if she held him hostage, as though Salvatore was bound to her in some other way that Nicky didn’t like to think about.

  He walked up Sixth Avenue to Pavese’s and stood in front of the half-block of plate-glass windows filled with cakes and breads and wheels of cheese, the store that Magdalena had put together after Amadeo died. Amadeo would have been crazy to see his store like this, Nicky thought, to see what his wife had done, the girl he had brought back from the mountains of southern Italy.

  Salvatore had always said that the old man didn’t know what he had, not really. He was blind to what was under his nose. “He never saw how smart Magdalena was, how she maneuvered our lives, her and that Black Madonna she keeps in the top of the house.”

  “Black Madonna? What are you talking about?” Nicky had said. They had been breaking up the apartment and Salvatore had looked away, down at the suitcase he was packing. He closed it, concentrating on lining up the top to the bottom, fastening the clips.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Something she brought from the old country, a stone with an image glued to it, a Madonna with a black face.” He wouldn’t say anything else and Nicky had let it drop.

  Pavese’s was beautiful inside. In the center were piles of fruits and vegetables. Against the walls were counters of cheese, meats, fish on mountains of ice.

  Nicky knew her immediately. It was her eyes, points of gold in them, he had heard the women say, strange eyes, bright, as though a lamp were held behind them. Magdalena was still a beautiful woman, and there was still something odd about her, exotic, ethereal.

  Nicky had always been secretly in love with her. They all had been, he was sure. He remembered how Jumbo’s hands would shake when she touched him, but they had never confided in each other. It was too much to think about. She was Salvatore’s mother, but when she came onto the stoop in her thin cotton dresses with the sleeves rolled up on her arms, Nicky had almost felt pain. He remembered her in summer when she would sit on the stoop with her knees apart and open the top buttons of her dress and wipe the sweat from her neck and the cleft of her breasts with a man’s white handkerchief. She would go under the open fire hydrant in the street holding her dress high up on her legs.

  She was standing now toward the back of the store talking with a vendor. She was smiling, handing him something, a paper, a check. Nicky watched her. She had never married again, never been seen with a man. That wasn’t unusual. His mother had been young enough when his father died and no one thought about her remarrying, but Magdalena they had suspected, watched her closely, waited for her true nature to reveal itself, the truth of her heart to surface, because she wasn’t like any other woman. She wasn’t like them.

  She worked in the store after Amadeo died, and she was there, always, for Salvatore. When Salvatore asked her how she did it, she would lift her chin and mock him. “Luck,” she said, “and magic.”

  Nicky waited until she was alone. “Magdalena,” he said. He stood in front of her, took off his hat. She looked up at him, her eyes narrowed, the brows together, but just for a minute.

  “Nicola . . .” She reached out to him, palms up, and he put his hands in hers. Come inside,” she said, motioning to him, clearing a path with her hands.

  She led him into a room behind the store. It was a kitchen. A table in the center was piled high with papers.

  “My office.” She cleared the papers from the table and put down a bowl of fruit. “Sit down,” she told Nicky. “I make you coffee.” She brought out a tray of pastries, put it down and frowned. “Maybe you want to eat something,” she said. “Tell me, what do you want?” She petted his shoulder. He was ten years old again. He was eighteen. She poured his coffee and sat down in the chair across from him. She bit into a cannoli. “Tell me. What are you doing? How are you?”

  Nicky told her he was a homicide detective in the First Precinct.

  “You married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Stupid woman,” she said, and stirred sugar into his coffee without asking.

  “How’s Salvatore?”

  “Un’ uomo importante,” she said. “The lawyer, I call him. His father should be here to see.”

  Nicky finished his coffee. Magdalena peeled a mangosteen. The thick purple skin stained her hands. She handed him a section. It was white, slippery. The juice ran down her fingers. There was a naturalness to her. There always had been. She caught him watching her and he was embarrassed.

  “I need to get ahold of him,” he said.

  “Nothing’s wrong?”

  “No, I just want to see him. It’s been too long. I was down on Spring Street with Jumbo and we thought it was time to get together.”

  “The world turns upside down,” she said, “and nothing changes.” She put her fingers to her throat. There was an amulet, he saw, black, polished, an uneven shape. It was on a velvet ribbon around her neck and she stroked it absentmindedly as she talked. He thought to ask her about it but he didn’t. There were so many questions around Magdalena.

  She got up, went to a bulletin board that was over her desk. “H
e’s just moved. I have the number up here somewhere . . . Ah . . .” She pulled down a slip of lined white paper. “Here,” she said. “Let me copy it for you.”

  Nicky bent down and kissed her hand when she gave him the paper. “Ciao, Nicola,” she said before he closed the door.

  Nicky met Salvatore in the Munsen diner because it was one of their old haunts. “Oh, my God, it’s good to see you,” Salvatore said. He took Nicky’s head in his hands and kissed him on both sides of his face. He slid into the booth and leaned over the table. “So how the hell are you?” He reached out, touched Nicky’s cheek. “What’s going on? Things are good?”

  “Yeah, pretty good.”

  “How’s Gina?”

  “Gone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I told you not to marry an Italian girl. The rest of the women in the world think we’re great.”

  “I should have done like you but where was I gonna find her? What’s her name? Susan?”

  “Lindsey.”

  “Mercy, Salvatore. That don’t even sound like a girl’s name.”

  “I think she was named after her father. You’d like her. And you know what? Three kids and she looks the same as when I met her.”

  “Magdalena looks the same as when we were kids.”

  “Magdalena . . .” Salvatore stopped smiling and took a drag on his cigarette. “Magdalena’s got some kind of deal going. I don’t know if it’s with God or the Devil or . . .” He reached over, covered Nicky’s fist with his hand. “Forget that. What’s going on?”

  “I saw Jumbo last week. He’s working in Benvenuto’s paying off a debt to Fat Eddie Fingers.”

  Salvatore shook his head. “Nicky, I love you. I love Jumbo. We go back a long time, but you know, things change. I have a whole other life. Jumbo’s got to understand I can’t get involved with penny-ante wise guys who shoot you in the leg if they don’t get their money. When I left the Savannah Club I made up my mind that I was going to follow the rules and stay away from the local lords of Thompson Street.”

  “Sally, c’mon. Jumbo’s not looking for anybody to bail him out. His mother and the Five Furies took care of that just fine. It has to do with his heart. It’s personal. He was wondering out loud if the three of us could get together. Hey, we’re brothers, you forgot?”

  Salvatore laughed. “St. Joseph’s Day. My father thought I was in a knife fight. Only Magdalena knew what happened. She’s the one put me up to it.”

  “Funny, she never had any kids. She was so young.”

  “My father didn’t want it. He lost my mother in childbirth. He didn’t want to lose Magdalena. But you know what, if she had wanted a baby, she would have had one. Magdalena always got just what she wanted.”

  “You can’t get away, Salvatore. You gotta take the good with the bad.”

  “You mean I have no choice?”

  “You coming or what?”

  “You tell me when . . .”

  Nicky stopped back down the neighborhood to see Jumbo before he went to work in the First Precinct. His eyes adjusted to the dark of the barroom and he saw Jumbo, his bulk bent over the bar sink rinsing glasses. He looked up when Nicky came in. “Hey, Nicky, feast or famine.”

  “I came in to let you know I met Salvatore. He says anytime you want.”

  “Really. I’m impressed. Was he worried I wanted something?”

  “Nah, Salvatore’s not like that.”

  “You know, Nicky, I don’t want to blow this all outta proportion, keeping you in suspense.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I met a girl.”

  “For chrissakes, Jumbo. You told me that already. Whatta you getting senile?”

  “But this ain’t no ordinary broad. She’s very classy . . . from Long Island. She’s got a college degree. Can you believe it? A girl with a college degree interested in me? I can’t hardly read the newspaper.”

  Nicky squinted. He had been the route with college girls. They liked tough guys, or what they imagined to be tough guys. Just being a cop had gotten him plenty of action, one of the reasons his marriage broke up. He could see where Jumbo would be appealing, the opposites-attract thing, and who knows, maybe this girl had a thing for oversize guys, although as he remembered, Jumbo was no swordsman. He sat down on the bar stool and reached for the dish of peanuts but it was empty. Jumbo came over and stood in front of him. He leaned over on the bar, his fingers laced, his beefy forearms almost touching.

  “You wanna drink?”

  “I’m actually on duty.”

  “C’mon, Nicky. There ain’t been an unexplained homicide in this area since Tommy Rye disappeared. Does that count? When there’s no corpi delectable?”

  Nicky smiled. “I’m not organized crime, Jumbo. I’m homicide. So tell me about this girl.”

  “She’s perfect, Nicky. A little fat, but hey, I’m no Cary Grant. She teaches school in the Bronx. Third grade. The kids love her. They make her birthday cards every day.”

  “So where’d you meet her?”

  “She used to come in Jilly’s with her girlfriends. You know how these career girls hang out together. They don’t need no men. They got their own money. They got their own apartments. I seen a million of them, but Judy stayed late one night and we started talking. I bought her a drink. And then she started coming in without the girlfriends. You know how it is. . . . And I’m crazy about her. I feel like God’s giving me a chance to make something outta my life. I feel like I got a purpose.”

  “But what’s the problem? It sounds normal to me.”

  Jumbo sighed. He reached under the bar to fill the dish of peanuts. Luca Benvenuto complained to Fat Eddie Fingers that his peanut bill was cutting into the profits. How were the peanuts supposed to make the customers thirsty if the bartender ate them all? Jumbo dipped his fingers into the peanut dish and lowered his voice. “Nicky, she’s a mazzucriste.”

  “C’mon, Jumbo . . . this is 1968. . . .”

  “I wanna marry this girl. I love this girl.”

  “Jumbo, it’s no big deal. Wake up, you’re not the first one. Joe Tucillo married a Jewish girl.”

  “Yeah, and where is he? He ain’t here, is he? He moved to Timbuktu.”

  “Well, face it, you gotta be sick in the head if you think you’re gonna marry any educated girl and move her down here in one of these tenements with your mother. Christ, my ex-wife came from Mulberry Street and I had to buy her a house in Queens.”

  “That’s too bad she left you, Nicky. Maybe you’re not the one I should be talking to about marriage. If she left you, you can’t know much.”

  “Maybe my mistake was marrying an Italian girl. You think they’re gonna understand and they don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Gina couldn’t stand my mother. I told her, ‘My mother’s a widow, she’s been on her own since I was twelve. What does what I do for my mother have to do with you?’”

  “That’s the other thing, Nicky. My mother . . . she’s convinced I’m hers forever now. I hear her all the time with my sisters. Promise me, she tells them. When I go, you take care of him. And she thinks nobody’s good enough. Now I’m gonna come home with Judy Bernstein?” Jumbo was sweating. It was too dark for Nicky to see, but he could smell him. When Nicky arrested people, they’d smell like that. It was fear. And Nicky understood why. Antoinette Mangiacarne had Jumbo tied tight. And the apron strings were around his neck.

  Some guys came in and sat at the other end of the bar. They called out for a drink. “Hold your horses. Can’t you see I’m busy over here,” Jumbo yelled down the bar. “Goddamn ballbusters,” he said to Nicky.

  “Jumbo, you’re the bartender. They’re customers. Go take care of them. What the hell are you doing?”

  “Well, I’m not used to this, Nicky. You know you had time to get used to it. You went in the army. Now you’re a cop. You’re used to people telling you what to do. Me, I been an independent all my life. This shit
is hard for me.”

  “Hey.” Again from the end of the bar.

  Nicky patted Jumbo’s forearm. It reminded Nicky of a pork roast. He thought about getting a sandwich in the grocery store next door. Jumbo was always an inspiration. “Go take care of your customers. If you’re gonna get married, you’re gonna need a job.”

  “My mother’s right,” Jumbo said, picking himself off the bar. “I’m cursed.”

  Judy Bernstein was the apple of her father’s eye. Her mother would have wished for a daughter a little slimmer, with a better nose and a finer set of teeth. Braces took care of the teeth, but the nose, which Sylvia knew could be fixed just as easily, Judy refused to alter, and Harvey Bernstein agreed. He spent part of every day of Judy’s life telling her that she was the most beautiful creature who walked the earth and smart, too. When she was born, Harvey told Sylvia he didn’t want any more children. This one was perfect and all he would ever want, so why should they have another?

  Sylvia was content. She hadn’t liked being pregnant, she hadn’t liked giving birth. She didn’t particularly like little children. She didn’t even like what you had to do to get one, and with this most of her girlfriends agreed, except for Ann Hirshfeld, who would deal the cards for their weekly bridge game and tell them they didn’t know what they were missing.

  Sylvia was content. God had sent her Harvey, who provided a good living and never complained. Sylvia didn’t have to cook much or clean at all and Harvey was happy when she spent his money. She did hope for more for her daughter: a professional man, a real professional—a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant. Sylvia had been on the right track herself. Harvey had been in podiatry school when she married him, but bad times hit and he left to go into the family bra and girdle business.

  The store was on Grand Street and the business was cash. Harvey expanded to include sleepwear and hosiery and took over three other stores on the block. The Bernsteins moved from a tenement apartment in the Bronx to a house on Long Island. It was a commute but Harvey liked the quiet of the train and then the buzz of Grand Street, familiar and comfortable. He would talk with the other shopkeepers selling lingerie and fabric and bedspreads and custom curtains and eiderdown quilts. The customers were attractive and well dressed, wearing hats with feathers and three-quarter-length gloves that they would take off to finger the lace on a strapless bra or stretch a corset with long elastic garters for stockings.