The Black Madonna

by Louisa Ermelino

  “Where’s he going?” Antoinette asked.

  Judy looked at her mother, at her father. “Home,” she said to Antoinette.

  “Home?” Antoinette looked at Jumbo. “What’s this? This isn’t home?” She took in a breath. “Whatta you doing?” she said to Jumbo. “I just meet this girl and now you’re going home with her?” Antoinette turned to Sylvia. “I don’t know about you, Sylvia, but I don’t think they should rush things.”

  Judy bit her lip until there was blood. “We’re married,” she said, “and we’re living with my parents until after the baby comes. Jumbo must have told you.”

  Antoinette ignored her and spoke to Jumbo. “After the baby comes, sure. You get your own place. But now? Believe me, it’s not healthy to live with parents. I know. Didn’t I do it for six years? Wait, caro. Stay here until you get set. Let her go with her parents. It’s better for now.”

  Judy dug her fingers into the flesh of Jumbo’s shoulders. “You choose,” she said. “Me or her.”

  Jumbo stood up. “I gotta go, Ma,” he said, and followed the Bernsteins out the door.

  Antoinette put on black. She had lost her son, the only one she had ever had. She sat in the kitchen for three days after meeting the Bernsteins with her arms folded in front of her on the kitchen table and her head buried. The girls came one by one and all together. They shook her forearms, the size of hams, and they talked to her head since her face was hidden.

  “So, Mama,” Rosina said. “It had to happen sometime. She’s a nice girl. They’re gonna have a baby. You should be happy.”

  “I’m not happy, Rosina. I want to kill myself,” Antoinette said, her voice muffled by her arms. “I want to die. You tell me, how’s she gonna take care of him? How’s she gonna feed him? How could she do this to me? I’m a widow. She took him away from me to God knows where . . .”

  “Ma, Long Island is not God knows where. You can get there by train. And he’s still working across the street in Benvenuto’s.”

  “A daughter’s a daughter till the end of your life. A son’s a son till he finds a wife,” Albina said. She had four daughters. She thought she had all the luck.

  That made Antoinette raise her head. “Leave me alone, all of you. If I’m not here in the morning, call Nucciarone. Lay me out in the blue dress. It’s in the back of the closet in Jumbo’s room.” And she put her head back down and sobbed.

  Raffaella made her coffee and patted her her. “Drink something, Mama. It will work out.”

  “Call your brother. Tell him what’s happening. Tell him I’m dying.”

  Jumbo came. Luca Benvenuto let him leave the bar. His mother was calling, after all, and Fat Eddie Fingers was in Miami. Jumbo came into the kitchen with apple crumb cake. He got a dish and put the cake in the middle of the table. He called for his mother but she didn’t answer. He called again and then sat down and cut into the cake with a knife. He heard moaning from his old bedroom, the one off the kitchen. He could see her lying on the bed from where he sat. “Get up, Ma. You wanted to see me, I’m here. I got crumb cake.”

  Antoinette came out of the bedroom. She pulled his hair, then kissed his head. “You’re gonna kill me, Jumbo. How much can I take?”

  “C’mon, Ma, Judy’s a nice girl. I’m married to her, for chrissakes.”

  “Can she cook? Is she gonna let you see your mother? Take care of your sisters? Will she spend all your money?”

  “Ma, whatta you want from me?”

  “I want you to swear this baby’s gonna be ours. You’re gonna baptize it. We’re gonna have a big party. You cheated me out of a wedding. You’re my only son. You disgraced me. You gotta make it up.”

  “Christ, Ma. Didn’t I promise you the drawer?”

  Antoinette folded her arms across her chest. “That’s separate. I’m talking about the baby. The name, if it’s a boy, Salvatore, after your dead father.” She crossed herself and kissed her fingers. “He should be a saint in heaven by now the way I pray. If it’s a girl, you know what to do.”

  Jumbo could feel the sweat under his arms, down his spine. “Ma. I told you yes already. I promised.”

  “Promise again. I want to hear it!”

  “Ma, what is this? Calabria?”

  “Swear to me!”

  Jumbo could feel the crumb cake dry in his throat, caught, like a dead fish. Antoinette unwound her arms. She poked the back of Jumbo’s head. “You swear and you promise. Now!”

  “I swear. I promise.”

  “What? Tell me what you swear and you promise.”

  He went through the litany for her. When he finished, she took his head in both her hands and kissed his cheeks and his mouth. He was soaking wet, as though he had been caught in a summer storm, as though the heavens had opened up and tried to drown him. After Antoinette, Fat Eddie Fingers was the least of his worries.

  Jumbo’s knees buckled on the way out. He held on to the banister to get down the five flights of stairs and when he got out in the street he asked Dante if he could sit in his chair just for a minute while he caught his breath. Dante went and got him a Coke from inside Benvenuto’s. Luca made him pay for it.

  Jumbo shifted between his mother’s house and the house on Long Island where Judy, huge with the baby, sat by the pool in maternity shorts and a white cotton pleated smock. Sylvia said she should stay at home, it was summer and her ankles were swollen, but the truth was Sylvia had always been embarrassed by Judy’s figure or lack of it, and she didn’t want her waddling around the country club with the varicose veins that were starting to climb up her legs like grapevines. Harvey stayed by Judy’s side, doting, carrying trays of fresh-squeezed lemonade in colored glasses and rubbing her ankles. “Her husband should be doing that,” Sylvia said, pouting, but Harvey ignored her.

  “He’s working, Sylvia,” he told her and he was happy Jumbo was working and away from there. He liked taking care of Judy. Jumbo was working every night, and on the weekends when he did double shifts he stayed on Spring Street with his mother.

  Antoinette was happy to have Jumbo back, even if it was just for weekends. It was the least he could do. She had wanted him to marry, she told her daughters, but not like this. She had wanted to dance at his wedding to “Son of Mine.” She had wanted a dress with beads and a matching hat and shoes, an orchid on her shoulder. She had wanted to be the mother of the groom and walk down the aisle of St. Anthony’s on the arms of her sons-in-law and have everyone admire her dress and matching hat and shoes. Jumbo had cheated her.

  So every Friday night he pulled up to Spring Street in Harvey’s Cadillac and got dressed up his mother’s house and went to work across the street in Benvenuto’s. He called Nicky to tell him what was going on and Nicky gave him the news that their mothers had seemed to bury the hatchet, but he didn’t tell Jumbo that Antoinette had asked Teresa if maybe Nicky could do something, like arrest Judy Bernstein, give her parking tickets, anything to maybe make her go away, to open Jumbo’s eyes. And Nicky didn’t tell Jumbo that they had gone together to Magdalena looking for magic spells to get rid of Judy.

  “So now you’re friends?” Nicky had said to his mother. “After all these years, the two of you are looking out for each other?”

  Teresa had ignored this. “So what can you do, Mr. Big-Shot? Can you help?”

  “I’m a homicide detective, Ma, not a traffic cop. If Jumbo’s wife commits murder somewhere between here and Canal Street, I could arrest her for murder.” Teresa sat down and put her head in her hands, her fingers splayed across her temples. “If she committed murder . . . maybe if Magdalena asked her Madonna. If only people would help each other, life on this earth would be easier.”

  “You tell your friend Antoinette she’s gonna love this girl if she gives her half a chance.”

  Teresa puffed her cheeks and blew the air out of her mouth in disgust. “These girls today don’t have no respect,” she said. “Look at you, with that Gina. If I had known . . .”

  “Weren’t we talking abou
t Jumbo?”

  “So now I gotta tell Antoinette. I gotta tell her there’s nothing you can do and she’s gotta live with it.”

  “Right, Ma. She’s gotta live with it.”

  “Her only son. I know how she feels. Even if he is a mortodevame, he’s her son.” She softened. “Like you’re my son.” She raised her hands to hold his head. “Ah, Nicky, I worry about you all alone.”

  “I got you, Ma. You’re all I need.”

  “This year I’ll do Our Lady of Mount Caramel for you to find a girl to take care of you when I’m gone.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Ah, Nicola, nobody lives forever . . . not even your mother.”

  When Judy Bernstein had the baby, Jumbo was uptown at Jilly’s with Nicky and Salvatore. They had picked him up after work and gone to have a few drinks. Judy had been frantic trying to call his mother’s but Antoinette kept hanging up the phone when she heard Judy’s voice. Finally Sylvia tried and then Harvey but by then Antoinette wasn’t picking up the phone at all and Harvey said they might just as well go to the hospital without him. He’d find out sooner or later.

  Jumbo had a big fight with Antoinette when he found out but she denied everything. The phone never rang, Antoinette told him, except for some crank calls. But when Jumbo told her about the baby, a boy, Antoinette’s face changed just a little. She hid the expression that slipped across her eyes and mouth when she heard the word boy.

  “A boy,” she whispered, and clasped her hands together and eyed heaven. Grazie, Madonna, she mouthed, and turned to face her son. “Salvatore, remember? You promised, you swore. Salvatore.” And she cried big fat tears that rolled down her face. Jumbo put his arms around her and they sat together on the couch. “Salvatore, after your father, like he was named after his father, Salvatore.” She kissed Jumbo on both cheeks. “You’ll bring him here. So I can see him, right away, and you don’t wait too long to baptize him. Right away. You never know.”

  And after Jumbo left Spring Street and went to Long Island Jewish Hospital and kissed his wife and faced the puss of his mother-in-law and the scowl of his father-in-law, he held his baby in his arms and was as proud as if he had done this all on his own.

  Harvey put his finger to his lips. “Judy’s happy, Sylvia. We have a grandson here with us. What could be better?”

  Sylvia thought a nice Jewish doctor would be better. She was sure the one who had come in to see Judy after the delivery had noticed Judy’s big brown eyes and sweet nature. If only she had met him before.

  Idon’t know what I’m gonna do now,” Jumbo told Nicky the next night. They were sitting in Benvenuto’s. Jumbo had locked the door and was closing out the register. He had also broken out a bottle of twenty-five-year-old scotch to celebrate.

  “What now?” Nicky said.

  “I promised my mother I’d baptize the baby. I promised her I’d name him Salvatore. I promised Judy’s parents I’d raise the kid Jewish. I promised to name him Sol after some dead guy. The Jews name after the dead, did you know that? What kind of custom is that? How you gonna get money from a dead guy?”

  They hatched the plan the next night, the three of them, and even Salvatore had to admit it was a good one. Of all of them, he was uneasy, because Magdalena had always made him know there was a greater power, an omnipotent one, and though he moved out in the world in custom pin-striped suits and slept with a golden blond woman who could ride a horse with an English saddle, he knew there were lines you didn’t cross, so when Nicky came up with the idea of the bogus priest he had arrested at the San Gennaro feast on Mulberry Street, Salvatore wanted to tell them to leave him out of it. But magic was for women and Salvatore was a man, so he listened while Nicky and Jumbo schemed and when the part about the priest came up he excused himself and went outside into the street to check on his car.

  So we get Father Jerome to baptize the kid,” Nicky said.

  “But where?” Jumbo said, pouring himself a shot of scotch. “Antoinette’s not gonna buy a ceremony in her living room I don’t care what kind of collar this guy is wearing.”

  “Will you relax?” Nicky looked over his shoulder. “Where’s Sally? He was just here.”

  “He wanted to check the car or something. Keep talking. He don’t have to hear this. We can tell him later.”

  “Father Jerome’s a professional. You know how many years it took to nab him? He’s retired now but he’s still got the collar. I think he works a door-to-door scam in Florida in the winter.”

  “Nicky, I don’t need a history. I need a baptism.”

  “Okay, so we get Father Jerome and we do it in St. Pat’s on Mulberry Street. Tell your mother this priest did you a favor. It’s sentimental. You want him to baptize the kid. She’ll like that you got a priest for a personal friend.”

  “I know a priest I never mentioned before?”

  “Jumbo, you tell your mother everything?”

  “Okay, forget it. How do we get into the church?”

  “My ex-wife’s Aunt Geraldine takes care of the altar cloths down there. I still stake her at Christmas. I’ll get the keys. If there’s any surprises, well, I’m a cop, no? We’ll play it by ear. It’s quiet there Sunday night. Tell your mother it’s a private baptism. Make it something special, just the principals.”

  “What principals?”

  “For chrissakes, Jumbo, the main parties: you, your mother, the godparents, and the baby . . . the principals.”

  “Good. Then what?” Jumbo looked around. “Where the hell is Salvatore?” The light from outside cut the darkness of the bar for a second as Salvatore came up alongside them and sat down.

  “The car’s okay?” Nicky asked him.

  “Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I didn’t get a ticket.”

  “Christ, Sally. It’s the neighborhood. You’re parked outside Fat Eddie’s and Nicky’s a cop. You been in Connecticut too long. Lemme feel your head.”

  “Just pour me a drink, will you? And bring me up to date.”

  “The baptism’s set. All I need are godparents. I’ll get one of my sisters to be the godmother.”

  “Which one? How you gonna pick? You got five.”

  “The one with the biggest mouth, the biggest ass, the oldest, the fattest, I don’t know. My mother can take care of that. And I need a godfather.” He looked at them. “You wanna flip a coin?”

  Salvatore stood up. “Choose Nicky,” he said. “You almost killed him. Now he’ll be the godfather to your son. It’s appropriate.”

  “Geez, these words, Salvatore. You’re giving me a headache.”

  “That’s nice, Sally,” Nicky said, “but . . .”

  “No, I think it’s only right. I’ll stand up for him when he gets confirmed. With Jumbo for a father, by the time he’s twelve, he’ll need me.”

  Jumbo put an arm around each of their shoulders and they stood there, the three of them, in a huddle. “We got it,” he said. “All we need is a party. I should have it here, no?”

  “Perfect. Fat Eddie Fingers can take a piece of the kid’s envelopes and make on the party too.”

  “Christ, maybe this kid will get me out of debt finally. So I can get a real job and move out of Harvey and Sylvia’s house.”

  “You gonna come back to the neighborhood?”

  “Well, Antoinette’s been making noises. I hear she’s got two hundred in an envelope for the super when he clears out Big Lucy’s apartment. One more Mangiacarne in that building and we may as well own the rattrap.”

  “What about your wife?” Nicky said.

  “Gita, git, you know what I mean? A little at a time. I think Antoinette and Judy are gonna be crazy for one another. My sisters are gonna forget she’s even Jewish. And hey, double holidays, more parties, more envelopes. Gelt, they call it. I’m in heaven.”

  “It’s okay to name the baby Salvatore?”

  “No, Christ. I promised to name him Sol.”

  “Sol? How’s he gonna live in the neighborhood with a name like Sol
?”

  “When he’s here, he’ll be Sal. Sal, Sol, who can tell the difference? Smart thinking, no?”

  “I think you just got lucky, Jumbo. Suppose you had to name him Irving?”

  “Suppose, suppose. Suppose I drop dead and don’t have to worry about nothing? Hey, things work out. Who used to say that? Who used to tell us that the end it all balances out?”

  “Magdalena,” Salvatore said. “Magdalena used to tell us that.”

  That night Jumbo went out to Long Island early. Luca Benvenuto let him go since he had booked the christening party for the next week. Jumbo held Judy’s hand in the living room after the nurse had put Baby Sol to bed and whispered in Judy’s ear how happy he was. He made love to her on the couch after Sylvia and Harvey went upstairs. Jumbo told Judy to be quiet, to save up all those screams for when they had their own place. If Judy had known how quiet she’d have to be on Spring Street, she would have screamed till her lungs burst.

  On the planned Sunday, Jumbo said that he wanted to take the baby to see his mother and his sisters. Judy said she would come. He took her aside and said if she didn’t mind, he thought it was a good idea for his mother to have some time alone with Baby Sol. He didn’t want Antoinette to feel left out. After all, Sylvia had the baby all the time. Her girlfriends had come bearing gifts, raising their eyebrows in private. Except for Elaine Himmelfarb, whose daughter had run off and become a Hare Krishna, they whispered, no one had done worse with their children than Sylvia Bernstein.

  Judy was nervous. “Could the baby nurse come? Just to make sure,” she said. “Antoinette hasn’t had a baby in years.”

  “Oh, Judy, c’mon. It’s like riding a bicycle. And what about my sisters? C’mon, honey, you gotta give her a chance. She’s the grandmother, too, and she ain’t hardly seen him. He’ll be back tonight safe and sound.”

  So they put Baby Sol in the portable carriage in the back seat of the Cadillac and made Jumbo promise he’d pull over right away if Baby Sol cried. They armed him with bottles and diapers and diaper pins and rattles and dressed him in short knitted baby blue pants with knitted suspenders and a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar with rabbits embroidered along the edges. They needn’t have bothered.