Street of Riches

by Gabrielle Roy

  He roared with laughter; his belly—broad and full—shook. Whereupon, in the grass, he drew me into his arms—Papa was right in saying tjbat Italians have a sentimental nature—and he told me that his poor, tiny wife, always ailing, could not have

  children, that perhaps he would never have a little daughter

  And with this he began to kiss me.

  I did not know exactly how to confess to the theft of the three strawberries; I returned home rather sheepish and began by admitting, "The Italian kissed me."

  Papa and Maman exchanged one of those looks; I mean by "one of those looks" the sort that seem to be signals between grownups. Papa got up, slightly clenching his fists. "What's that you say?" Maman asked me.

  Papa grumbled, "One's always in a hurry to make friends with foreigners!"

  Then Maman spoke to me briefly about men: she told me that little girls should not let themselves be kissed by them, except on very special occasions—some extraordinary joy or emotion.

  I told her that that was exactly what it had been—a fit of emotion.

  All the same, they repeated that I must watch my step. I asked myself what step. The next day, though, the Italian told Papa the tale of the three strawberries; Papa in his turn told my mother, who repeated it to the neighbors ... and steps no longer needed watching, which suited me. I have always liked to be close to someone who is at work; even as a very small child I preferred to watch someone working rather than play myself, and how fast and well the Italian worked. In short order the frame of the little bungalow was up. But we still chatted on, the Italian and I, he from above, his legs hanging down, nails clamped in the corner of his mouth; I from below, my head lifted toward the sun, and shading my eyes with my hand. And sometimes up there the Italian would commence a great 114 Street of Riches

  "a-a-a-a" of song—the beginning of one of his opera arias. Ma-man would come out on our porch the better to hear the singing. She said of the Italian. "His heart is on his sleeve." She would make a trumpet of her hands, so that her voice might carry to our neighbor, and she would ask through this trumpet, "Have you any more news of Madame Sarteno?" The Italian would tumble down, search his pockets, extract, all rumpled up, the last letter from Italy. He would read it to Maman: "I shall soon take to the seas, once more to meet my Giuseppe; I count the days, the hours. . . . Give my greetings to those good Canadian neighbors of whom you speak in your last letter . . . to the little Strawberry. . . ."

  Having read the letter, Giuseppe would clamber back again to his hammering, making up for lost time.

  "Have you ever seen a happier man!" Maman would exclaim.

  She said it with a noble envy, neither sad nor malicious, the sort of envy you never feel for wealth or prestige—with an envy springing from the heart.

  The bungalow was finished; now the Italian was furnishing it, and regarding every detail he would come ask Maman's advice. Where was it best to place the stove? Maman urged him, since his wife was small, to remember to keep the cupboards within her reach. And, indeed, had it not been for Maman, Giuseppe would have put them far too high.

  At last the Italian woman must have arrived and been installed in their bungalow, but there was naught to be seen of either of them; it was as though no one dwelt in their direction, and Maman forbade me to go there, saying that both of them certainly were eager to be left to themselves for some time. But the Italian could not have been of this opinion; the next morning he came very early, calling out to us, "Are you all dead?" It was to introduce us to Lisa, hidden behind the breadth of her husband's back, whom he was gently leading by the hand.

  II

  She was even thinner and smaller-boned than we had thought from the photographs Giuseppe had shown us. She spoke in a soft, very weak voice; it was like a murmur. And Maman explained, "It's because of her Italian accent. The Italian tongue is extremely musical."

  But, although embarrassed, she had her manners, and you became aware of it once she had a trifle conquered her timidity

  and also, of course, the amazement she felt at suddenly finding herself on Rue Deschambault.

  Giuseppe had daily to travel considerable distances to build houses; but before he began, he came to ask Maman whether she would try to distract Lisa a trifle. He pointed out what had already occurred to us: how far it was from Milan to the brand-new bungalow; so could Maman help Lisa to overcome her loneliness ? Maman promised to do her best.

  Every morning from then on Giuseppe left our street at an early hour. He would emerge accompanied by Lisa. She walked a little way with him; then he kissed her, strode on a bit, turned around again to look at her. Then he would almost always have to run to catch the tram, which was waiting, its step lowered and ready. . . . True enough, the conductor never hurried these final farewells by clanging his bell.

  At evening it was even more affecting. A streetcar would halt. We saw the Italian getting off, covered with sawdust and bits of wood. His pace was that of a tired man. His body leaned forward; his toolbox looked heavy to carry. Yet soon, when he beheld the windows of his bungalow, he began to straighten up; he smoothed his mustache. Then Lisa came out and started off to meet him. Giuseppe also quickened his pace. He dropped his toolbox and lifted his wife off the ground; he would hoist her up, taking all of her in his great arms. And while he held her thus, you could see Lisa's feet, free of the ground, kicking the empty air.

  Maman would be standing behind a curtain, which she raised cautiously the better to see them embrace. Then she let the curtain fall back and said, with joy, with envy, "How much he loves her!"

  And sometimes she would add, "A woman's finest crown is to be loved. There is nothing—no topaz, nor diamond, nor amethyst, nor emerald, nor ruby that can better bring out a woman's beauty!"

  Yet Giuseppe's little Italian wife seemed to me awfully frail and skinny! For my own part, I often went to call upon her. These were real visits, for the Italian woman received me exactly as one grownup receives another. She made me sit down in her living room, and she sat facing me. Nor did her feet quite reach the floor. She would ask me, "How is Madame your mother? Monsieur your father?" I would politely reply, "Very well, thank you." Then I, in my turn, would ask, "How is Monsieur your husband ? ..." I was delighted with these conversa-

  116 Street of Riches

  tions patterned on those I had with other little girls when we played at being grown ladies.

  Later I learned that, to please her husband, Lisa was learning French from a book replete with exactly the sort of phrases she addressed to me. No matter! She uttered them with all the requisite feeling. But I did not yet understand how she was better adorned than with rubies, emeralds, and topazes. Moreover, not one of us, not even Maman, who so frequently alluded to them, had ever seen any such stones. What on earth was love, to be better still? "Your father," Maman would say, "also loves you; see all the sacrifices he makes for you!" Yes, surely Papa was filled with love, and to the point that it constantly made him suffer, was an almost eternal torment The Italian carried his love upon his countenance, like a sun. But this was past our envy; it was doubtless unattainable, presumably a product of Italy, as Maman herself granted. "Such a love, I can tell you, is not to seen every day. Is there anything rarer ?"

  Yet we only loved the Italian woman the better for her being so cherished by her Giuseppe. Is that just? Is it just to love someone already so richly loved? I should have thought it more charitable to save our love for those who, having had none from the outset, would perhaps by the same token never know any.

  "However, that's the way it is," Maman would say, "and we can't change it; does not all the world love a lover ?"

  Meanwhile, Lisa was none the better for it. Our Italian, his face now clouded, seemingly full of wrath, talked to Maman about her. "She's going; I shall lose her," he would say; "she

  has no more strength than a bird And loneliness is finishing

  her off. I thought a change of air . . . But no!" he would exclaim, thumping his sturd
y chest. "I have torn her from her country... and it's killing her "

  "Oh, not a bit of it!" Maman would console him. "She'll get over it. Don't be so hard on yourself, Giuseppe Sariano; there's no happier woman in the world than yours! ..."

  Ill

  Nevertheless, it was he who died, suddenly, in the full light of the sun, upon the ridgepole of a house he was building, and of an apoplectic stroke. People said that it was not surprising when you thought it over, for he was a heavy eater, a wine drinker, a man of fiery temperament, his blood too rich, too

  thick. . . . Such was what they said about our Italian when he was dead.

  And so there remained nothing—did there?—to keep the Italian woman in our parts. She seemed smaller, more lost in Manitoba than a twelve-year-old, and she was to return to Italy, carrying with her in a casket the embalmed body of Giuseppe Sariano.

  We went to pay her a visit of condolence, Maman and I. Out of respect Maman wore her heavy coat, which was black; I possessed only one dark piece of clothing, my navy-blue dress. The Italian woman seated us in her little parlor, as of old when I went there by myself in quest of news of her husband.

  She stretched wide her arms to us, saying, "Dear Lady, dear Child, you were so kind to Giuseppe! . . . You whom Giuseppe loved so dearly! ..."

  Giuseppe had been noisy, demonstrative, even in sorrow; she was calm; you might have likened her to a sad, tiny brook, which wept softly as it ran. And this was good of her: gently she sought to console us for our loss of Giuseppe Sariano.

  "So, then," said Maman, wiping her eyes, "it's true; we're going to lose you, too. You're returning to Italy ?"

  Lisa politely excused herself. "I'd like to bury Giuseppe Sariano over there ... in the sun ..." said she.

  'Tes," said Maman, "the sun! We imagine that we know it here!"

  And although it was scarcely the time to talk of it, Maman asked: "Tell me a bit more about Italy. . . . You will see it again ... but I, shall I ever behold it?"

  For this is what had happened: Maman in trying to take the Italian woman's mind off Italy had herself acquired a homesickness for that land. Still, it had been good for Lisa to watch Maman fall in love with Italy. She had shown her post cards with many Italian sights: Saint Peter's in Rome; a ceiling covered with paintings, which must be hard to look at up there above your head; a tower which leaned askew; Pompeii, where people dead for centuries had not budged an inch—there was even a chained dog amidst the ruins—and a dreadful volcano that every twenty years spewed forth lava. Maman had become interested in all these things, and especially in a wretched picture of the Milan cathedral, all pink and pale blue. Maman likewise was crazy about a kind of blue jug which the Italian woman told her she had bought from an almost blind potter on the streets of Milan. On the same occasion, Lisa had re-118 Street of Riches

  counted how the potters worked in the streets and sang over their tasks; that, wretched and poor, they were, none the less, often happier than the rich. . . . Was it because of this that Maman loved Italy? And did she love the crock for Italy's sake?

  The time came for us to part. Maman, standing up, scarcely knew what to do. But the Italian woman, diminutive though she might be, knew how people say farewell.

  'Take," said she to Maman, "some object here in my house, which will speak to you of myself, of my late husband. I have nothing of great value; so do take, I beg you, something which may tempt you a little "

  Then I saw Maman, despite herself, glance at the jug. I longed to call her attention to a lovely sea shell, in which you could hear the roar of the ocean. But, while protesting that she couldn't make up her mind to take any of the so very pretty things there were in the parlor, Maman kept her eyes fixed on the jug.

  The Italian woman took the vase, which stood on a bracket, dusted it a bit, and held it out to her.

  "Oh, that's much too much!" said Maman. "I couldn't ... I shouldn't deprive you of anything so handsome!"

  "Come, now!" said the Italian woman. "I'll find a thousand like it in Milan. Please take it; you'll give me such great pleasure."

  So Maman yielded to her joy; supporting the crock in her hands, she held it off a little, the better to admire it, and then clasped it to her heart like a thing of price one has lost and then found again.

  We went back with our jug. So real and strong was her happiness in bringing it home that Maman seemed for a few moments forgetful of the Italian woman's impending departure.

  However, on the day when the taxi came to fetch Lisa, Maman, standing on our porch, watched her go; and when, at the end of our street, the dust had settled, when there remained of it no more than a powdering, such as might have been stirred up by footsteps long since passed, Maman raised her hand toward this nebulous golden spoor and said to us, "The sun of Italy ... today ... leaves our street!"

  Wilhelm

  Ml

  - y first suitor came from Holland. He was called Wilhelm and his teeth were too regular; he was Lmuch older than I; he had a long, sad face ... at least thus it was that others made me see him when they had taught me to consider his defects. As for me, at first I found his face thoughtful rather than long and peaked. I did not yet know that his teeth—so straight and even—were false. I thought I loved Wilhelm. Here was the first man who, through me, could be made happy or unhappy; here was a very serious matter.

  I had met him at our friends the O'Neills', who still lived not far from us in their large gabled house on Rue Desmeurons. Wilhelm was their boarder; for life is full of strange things: thus this big, sad man was a chemist in the employ of a small paint factory then operating in our city, and—as I have said -lodged with equally uprooted people, the O'Neills, formerly of County Cork in Ireland. A far journey to have come merely to behave, in the end, like everyone else—earn your living, try to make friends, learn our language, and then, in Wilhelms case, love someone who was not for him. Do adventures often turn out so tritely? Obviously enough, though, in those days I did not think so.

  Evenings at the O'Neills' were musical. Kathleen played "Mother Machree," while her mother, seated on a sofa, wiped her eyes, trying the while to avert our attention, to direct it away from herself, for she did not like people to believe her so deeply stirred by Irish songs. Despite the music, Elizabeth kept right on digging away at her arithmetic; she still was utterly indifferent to men. But Kathleen and I cared a great deal. We feared dreadfully to be left on the shelf; we feared we should fail to be loved and to love with a great and absolutely unique passion.

  When Mrs. O'Neill requested it of me—"to relieve the atmosphere," as she put it—I played Paderewski's "Minuet"; then Wilhelm would have us listen to Massenet on a violin of choice quality. Afterward he would show me in an album scenes of his country, as well as his father's house and the home of his uncle, his father's partner. I think he was anxious to convey to

  me that his family was better off than you might think if you judged by him—I mean by his having had to quit his native land and come live in our small city. Yet he need have had no fear that I should form an opinion on the basis of silly social appearances; I wanted to judge people in strict accordance with their noble personal qualities. Wilhelm would explain to me how Ruisdael had really most faithfully rendered the full, sad sky of the Low Countries; and he asked me whether I thought I should like Holland enough one day to visit it. Yes, I replied; I should much like to see the canals and the tulip fields.

  Then he had had sent to me from Holland a box of chocolates, each one of which was a small vial containing a liqueur.

  But one evening he had the ill-starred notion of accompanying me back home, as far as our front door, though it was only two steps away and darkness had not wholly fallen. He was chivalrous: he insisted that a man should not let a woman go home all alone, even if that woman only yesterday had still been playing with hoops or walking on stilts.

  Alasi The moment his back was turned, Maman asked me about my young man. "Who is that great beanstalk?"

  I t
old her it was Wilhelm of Holland, and all the rest of it: the box of chocolates, the tulip fields, the stirring sky of Wil-helm's country, the windmills. . . . Now all that was fine and honorable! But why, despite what I thought of appearances, did I believe myself obliged also to speak of the uncle and the father, partners in a small business which ... which ... made a lot of money?

  My mother at once forbade me to return to the O'Neills, so long, said she, as I had not got over the idea of Wilhelm.

  But Wilhelm was clever. One or two days each week he finished work early; on those days he waited for me at the convent door. He took over my great bundle of books—Lord, what homework the Sisters piled on us in those days!—my music sheets, my metronome, and he carried all these burdens to the corner of our street. There he would lower upon me his large and sad blue eyes and say to me, "When you are bigger, I'll take you to the opera, to the theater "

  I still had two years of the convent ahead of me; the opera, the theater seemed desperately far away. Wilhelm would tell me that he longed to see me in an evening gown; tlat then he would at last remove from its moth-proof bag his dress clothes and that we should go in style to hear symphonic music.

  My mother ultimately learned that Wilhelm had the effron-

  tery to carry my books, and it annoyed her very much. She forbade me to see him.

  "Still," said I to Maman, "I can hardly prevent his walking next to me along the pavement."

  My mother cut through that problem. "If he takes the same sidewalk as you, mind you, cross right over to the other."

  Now she must have sent a message of rebuke to Wilhelm and told him, as she had me, precisely which sidewalk he should take, for I began seeing him only on the opposite side of the street, where he would stolidly await my passage. All the while I was going by, he held his hat in his hand. The other young girls must have been horribly envious of me; they laughed at Wilhelm's baring his head while I was passing. Yet I felt death in my soul at seeing Wilhelm so alone and exposed to ridicule. He was an immigrant, and Papa had told me a hundred times that you could not have too much sympathy, too much consideration for the uprooted, who have surely suffered long enough from their expatriation without adding to it, through scorn or disdain. Why then had Papa so completely changed his views, and why was he more set even than Maman against Wilhelm of Holland? True enough, no one at home, since Georgianna's marriage, looked favorably upon love. Perhaps because as a whole we had already had too much to suffer from it. But I—presumably—I had not yet suffered enough at its hands....