Elizabeth Street

by Laurie Fabiano

  To keep them nourished, mothers breast-fed their children long after they would normally have been weaned. Giovanna watched as hungry people unconsciously stared at the breasts of nursing mothers, who would tug at their shawls to cover their chests as they walked quickly past.

  “Giovanna, are you listening to me?” Nunzio took her chin in his hands and turned her face toward his own.

  “Sì, sì, scusa, Nunzio, but before anything else, I want to have our children.”

  Nunzio turned, dejected. “I know,” he whispered. This blow of reality changed his mood. They sat in silence for a long time. They could hear the water lapping up against the boats, could see the sea sparkle and smell the lemons in the air. They were being forced from the piece of heaven that their families had inhabited for generations.

  “Giovanna, Scilla will always be our home and our children will marry here. I promise you this. Before we go to the north for your studies, I must get money to feed us and make things good again.”

  Giovanna shivered. She knew where this conversation was going. The stars started to blur. The village where they traded food was totally empty. Immigration had started at the mountaintop and trickled down to the water. The fishermen were the last to go. Sometimes, Giovanna felt Scilla was hemorrhaging and would envision the town as her doomed friend, Francesca Marasculo. The blood had drained from the top to the bottom, and only a few were left behind clinging onto the dying village.

  “It’s the twentieth century now, Giovanna. Things will change. They are changing all over the world; it is just coming more slowly to Scilla.”

  Giovanna didn’t utter a sound.

  “And engineers, the world needs engineers. I’ll come back to Scilla and build us a port.” Nunzio was using his big public voice.

  At the words “come back,” a wail escaped from Giovanna. She pulled her knees to her chest and began to rock.

  “Giovanna, I am sorry.” Tears streamed down Nunzio’s face. He tried to compose himself and reached into his pocket. “Look at this.” He pulled out a tattered piece of paper. It was an advertisement in English. “Lorenzo sent it.”

  Giovanna’s eyes flashed anger at the betrayal. She knew Lorenzo thought he was helping, but how could he have done this?

  Nunzio held the paper before her. He had learned some English in school, and he read it slowly to Giovanna.

  CROTON RESERVOIR DAILY WAGE:

  Common laborer, white $1.30–$1.50

  Common laborer, colored $1.25–$1.40

  Common laborer, Italian $1.15–$1.25

  “Giovanna, more than a dollar a day! That’s a wealth of lire! Lorenzo said he would help me. I’ll be back in no time with all the money we need.”

  “Lorenzo also said he would be back.”

  “Lorenzo’s wife is in l’America. Mine is here.” Nunzio kissed her.

  They cried together for so long they were saturated in each other’s sorrow. When they could cry no longer, they tangled their long legs together and made love, adding sweat to their tears.

  Giovanna prayed that Nunzio would leave her with a child. In the month before Nunzio left, Giovanna ate more than her share and uncharacteristically took all that was offered, hoping to make herself healthy enough to conceive. She focused all her energies on this project, which was a diversion from the constant pain and foreboding she was living with.

  The preparations for Nunzio’s departure were similar to those for Lorenzo, except she was now the one packing the trunk instead of her mother. Giovanna made it a mechanical task. She gathered, sorted, and wrapped items as if she were leading a demonstration on how to pack for the New World. She especially wanted to be sure he had dried fruits and nuts. For years they had heard stories about the horrible passage to l’America. The immigrants considered it the penance they had to pay for leaving their villages. But penance or not, Giovanna was determined that Nunzio would not eat vermin-infested food.

  The only time her emotions revealed themselves was when she was baking mustasole, the hard cookies that would keep for a year or more. She shaped three of the cookies: a swordfish for Scilla, one that resembled a pretzel but was really a G and an N intertwined, and a crucifix. Wrapping the special cookies separately in fabric torn from her wedding dress, she buried them in the bottom of the trunk.

  With every item that Giovanna packed, Nunzio assured her this was a brief chapter in their lives. He would soon return to Scilla with the money they needed to move north and have Giovanna start her studies. Giovanna never laughed at his plan again, but she felt like she was playing along with a child’s fantasy. All she wished for was that Nunzio would return to her and the child she hoped she was carrying. She wondered why Nunzio’s dream had to be bigger than her own and reminded herself that was how it had always been. He was the idealist and she the pragmatist. Yet, like everything in their lives, there were contradictions. He was the idealist with little faith, and she was the pragmatist who believed in miracles. Nunzio dreamt and Giovanna prayed.

  Giovanna insisted on going with Nunzio and her father to Naples. On the night before they were to leave, they both had trouble sleeping. Nunzio awoke at one point to find Giovanna carefully unraveling the Christmas tablecloth and winding the yarn into a ball. He did not question her and instead helped her undo the stitches. When the last of the string was wound on the ball, he simply took her hand and led her back to bed. They found it difficult to speak to each other and spent what little time they had in an entangled embrace.

  It took them a day to walk to Reggio. They avoided the roads, knowing they might be stopped and forced to pay a tax, or jumped by brigands who would assume that if they were traveling on a road they were wealthy. Instead, they took to the hills, and when they did encounter brigands in the mountains, they were given a hot meal and advice for safely navigating the streets of Naples. Sitting by the fire, a man with many slashes on his face, some scarred and others fresh, warned, “If the ship is not ready, go back into the mountains. The port is filled with thieves and hucksters.”

  From Reggio they took a boat to Naples. Emotionally and physically drained, they slept for most of the trip. Giovanna had never been to Naples, or to any city so large, and she was at once repulsed and awed. The smells and voices assaulted her, and the buildings made her jaw gape. With the brigands’ words ringing in their ears, they avoided the peddlers selling “Americani clothes,” the “dentists” who offered to extract troublesome teeth before the voyage, the “monks” who sold blessings for safe passage, and the cures for trachoma, the dreaded eye disease that would prevent an immigrant access to l’America.

  Giovanna was relieved that the Spartan Prince was leaving the next day. She couldn’t imagine being able to act so strong for much longer. Nunzio bought a ticket for steerage and was examined by the ship’s doctor. The shipping companies did not want to run the risk of transporting back a rejected immigrant at their expense. After Nunzio passed the physical, they coached him. The shipping agent asked in Neapolitan dialect, “Do you have a job in America?”

  “Yes,” answered Nunzio, thinking of Lorenzo’s promise to find him a job.

  “No, the answer is no,” reprimanded the agent. “If you say yes, you will be rejected. A yes means that you are contracted labor, and that’s illegal.”

  “No, I have no job,” Nunzio repeated.

  They slept in a pensione near the port and woke to the sounds of a ship’s departure—the vendors’ cries, the clopping of heavy hooves hauling luggage, and men shouting orders. Nearing the ship, they also heard the wails and sobs of the many women who had come to bid their husbands and sons good-bye. Peddlers circled in and out of embracing families in a last-ditch effort to sell their wares. They knew their prey was vulnerable, and a distraught mother might pull out her last coin for a blessing or extra food.

  Domenico cut the awkward silence between Giovanna and Nunzio with the first of many reminders to kiss Lorenzo’s children and to tell his son to write more often. Domenico seemed desperate t
o lessen their pain by ignoring it and pretending all was well.

  “Carry your luggage? I’ll bring it right on the ship.” A young boy pestered them.

  Nunzio ignored the child and knelt on the dock. He reached his cupped hand into the water and poured it on the back of his neck, letting it spill into his shirt. The Italian waters made their way down his back and started to evaporate. When he stood, Domenico reached up to fix Nunzio’s collar and took him by the shoulders, turning his son-in-law’s face toward his own. “Our blood is your blood. No country can separate you from your family.” At the gangplank, Domenico told him, “Go, go, I expect you to be a big man in America. Don’t forget you are a maestro.”

  Giovanna reached in her bag and handed Nunzio the ball of yarn from the tablecloth. All she said to him was, “I’ll be here.”

  Nunzio gripped her so hard that she forever had a scar where his nail had dug into her neck. She called the scar “Nunzio’s good-bye.” Domenico separated them. Nunzio walked up the gangplank and went to the ship’s rail above where Giovanna stood. He held one end of the string and threw the ball down to her.

  The noise around them became deafening; people shouted, horns blew, and donkeys brayed in a whirl of motion. In the midst of this chaos, Giovanna and Nunzio stood perfectly still, staring into each other’s eyes, each holding tight to the string. Another horn blew shriller than the rest. Smoke billowed around them as lines were untied and the ship’s motor roared. Giovanna and Nunzio did not move, only the string began to unwind when the Spartan Prince slowly pulled out of port. The string stretched between them, becoming longer and longer as the ship became smaller. When the ball was at last unwound, the string left Giovanna’s and Nunzio’s hands at the same moment and drifted into the sea.

  Cedar Grove, New Jersey, 1963

  Everyone remembers that day. I just remember it a little differently. I was in the first grade, seated alphabetically, staring at the bulletin board. The second grade teacher walked into the room and whispered into my teacher’s ear. My teacher, who was old and very upright, slumped back onto her desk and covered her gaping mouth. It took a few minutes, but in a shaky voice, she told us to put our heads on our desks because the president had been shot. From our lowered viewpoint, we could catch glimpses of Mrs. Robinson pacing and whimpering. The principal’s voice came over the loudspeaker. It didn’t boom like usual. “Children, President Kennedy was shot and he has died. School is dismissed so that you can all go home and mourn with your families.” We didn’t quite get it. Mrs. Robinson had to tell us to leave.

  My best friend, Thea, and I ran home to tell our mothers. As we ran into the circle at the dead end, there was a big black car, a funeral parlor car, in our driveway. I remember asking Thea if she thought they brought the dead president to my house. My mother was sitting with a strange man. I ignored him to announce the president’s death to my mother. Instead, she told me that my great-grandmother had died. She said my Big Nanny died at the same moment as the president. I spent the remainder of the day trying to figure out if my great-grandmother’s death and the president’s death were connected.

  My mother and grandmother took me to the wake. I overheard them say, “It will be fine; she barely knew her.” They didn’t realize how well I remembered brushing my Big Nanny’s long gray hair, how holding her enormous silky hands always made me feel safe, and how I had memorized her face as she said words to me in Italian that I didn’t understand.

  I studied my great-grandmother, her coffin, and the red roses that spelled M-O-T-H-E-R from the kneeler in front of the casket. She looked like a fairy princess with a rosary knotted in her fist. Her dress sparkled. It was blue, the same color as her eyes, the blue that they painted heaven in church. I absentmindedly played with the sequins on her gown and wondered about heaven. Did you eat in heaven? If so, would Big Nanny make the president gravy and meatballs? My musings were interrupted when my grandmother swatted my shoulder. “Get away from here now.”

  As always, my grandfather came to my rescue and drew me onto his lap.

  “She didn’t have to hit me, Nonno.”

  “She’s upset, Anna. Everybody love your Big Nanny, but most of all your nanny.”

  I watched Nanny take something from her vinyl purse. She unwrapped a small religious medal, kissed it, and placed it under the pillow that held Big Nanny’s head. For the first time ever, I saw my grandmother cry.

  A month later I sat at my alphabetically arranged school desk. Mrs. Robinson handed out the new Weekly Reader. The president’s picture was on the cover and the headline was HERO. I taped the card from the funeral parlor to my Weekly Reader. At the top of the card was the Blessed Virgin Mary with outstretched arms. Underneath Mary’s robes of heavenly blue was printed, GIOVANNA COSTA SIENA 1873–1963.

  PART TWO

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK 1901–1902

  FOUR

  Nunzio stood at the prow of the ferry with the throng of new immigrants released from Ellis Island. The ferry rocked as it approached the dock in Battery Park, where Nunzio could see a huge crowd of people waiting. Moments earlier, he’d overheard one of the ferry operators say, “You can always tell when we’re releasing eye-talians. There’s five of them at the gate for every one off the boat.”

  The boat bumped up against the dock, and both crowds roared. The searching for familiar faces began even before the first person disembarked. The passengers gripped bags and lifted children, nervously inventorying their families and luggage as they jostled forward through the ferry gate as one. Within seconds, people were being hoisted into the air, embraced, and patted on the back. There was uncontrolled weeping and laughing. When all had disembarked, the crowd became a knot of humanity—relatives weaving in and out in search of loved ones, or padrones looking for fresh recruits for the mines and farms. At Ellis Island, Nunzio had been handed a pamphlet warning him of the swindlers that would greet them at the Battery and how much to expect to pay in rent or for a carriage ride. Watching the solicitors swarm the crowd, he wondered what would happen to those who couldn’t read or who hadn’t heard.

  With most of the crowd dispersed, Nunzio continued squinting into the sun, looking for Lorenzo. He was trying hard not to be distracted by the tall buildings in the distance. Finally, one hundred yards away he saw a man running, carrying a child with one arm and holding the hand of a small woman with the other. Another child held onto the mother’s skirt and struggled to keep up. He couldn’t see his face, but he hadn’t forgotten that Lorenzo ran like a goat.

  Lorenzo reached him, breathless, and caught him in an embrace. “The walk was longer than I remembered. I’m sorry, brother.” He kissed Nunzio’s cheeks. Nunzio had not yet heard Lorenzo call him brother. Lorenzo had always called him cousin, but after Nunzio and Giovanna married, Lorenzo’s letters began to refer to him as “mio fratello.” Seeing Lorenzo made Nunzio miss Giovanna even more. He hadn’t counted on Lorenzo being a constant reminder of his wife. Lorenzo too had smooth, clear skin and was tall and straight, but his face didn’t hold the conviction of Giovanna’s—it was more relaxed.

  Lorenzo stepped back. “Teresa, this is my brother, Nunzio Pontillo. Nunzio, this is my wife, Teresa, and my children, Domenico and Concetta.”

  Nunzio bent to kiss Teresa and lifted Concetta from the ground as she wiggled back to her mother. He took off Domenico’s cap and tousled his hair.

  “Thick hair like your father’s. Are you as strong as your father?” Nunzio asked.

  Domenico put up his fists and pummeled Nunzio’s legs. “Ah, stronger! How old are you, big boy?”

  “Seven.” Domenico punctuated his age by making a muscle.

  Laughing, they gathered the bags and turned to begin their trek to Elizabeth Street.

  “It’s not as far as Naples,” teased Lorenzo, who was holding one end of the trunk with Nunzio holding the other. Lorenzo was grateful that Nunzio didn’t question him when he saw other arrivals get into horse-drawn carts with their families. And when Nunzio st
ared at the elevated track, Lorenzo knew that it wasn’t because he wanted to take the train but because he didn’t know what it was. Nunzio’s head was locked in the up position as they walked underneath the El. The track trembled and there was an enormous roar. Nunzio dropped the trunk, grabbed the children, and rushed from beneath the elevated track. Teresa and Lorenzo ran after Nunzio to assure him they were safe, but before they uttered a word, a train thundered on the track above, explaining everything. Nunzio stood in amazement with the children still clutched to his sides.

  “The cars, none fell off! A railroad in the sky! This America of yours, does it always build what you dream?” Nunzio exclaimed.

  Lorenzo dragged the trunk to where his brother-in-law stood and greeted Nunzio’s childlike enthusiasm with a parental answer: “Nunzio, I promise we will take a ride soon.” Lorenzo felt guilty again, especially because their route to Little Italy followed the El. He wished they had the extra money for train fare, but they had moved into a three-room apartment in preparation for Nunzio’s arrival and for the third child that young Teresa was carrying.

  Nunzio didn’t know whether to look down or up, and if Lorenzo hadn’t been attached to the other side of the trunk, leading him out of the way of carriages, he would have been run over. Nunzio stomped his foot on the pavement and looked down.

  “It’s a sidewalk,” said Lorenzo. “They are on some streets.”

  “Where does it lead?” asked Nunzio.