Elizabeth Street

by Laurie Fabiano

  “No! You stay in school. At least for a few more years.”

  As soon as Giovanna entered the apartment, Domenico tried to enlist her support. “Zia, tell Papa I should be a newsie like the other boys!”

  “Domenico, I agree with your father. You’re a smart boy who could one day write the papers, not sell them. But Lorenzo, what do you think, maybe he could work at Vito’s Grocery in the afternoons?”

  Domenico turned to his father. “Can I, Papa? I know Vito would give me a job.”

  “Fine. It’s settled. But only after school and weekends.”

  Teresa was making sauce at the stove with the newborn slung against her chest. With every word of the conversation, Teresa’s actions became louder and louder until her furious stirring and pot slamming woke the infant. Teresa’s bitterness toward Giovanna had only grown after the birth of her daughter—she deeply resented feeling indebted to her capable sister-in-law.

  Giovanna ignored Teresa, not knowing what else to do, and told Domenico about her visit to the construction site.

  “Zia, you should hire a detective! They’re not policemen. I read about them in comic books. They’re called ‘sleuths.’”

  “Slu-eths?”

  Giovanna tried over and over again to say the word, and each time her pronunciation was met with peals of laughter from Domenico and Concetta. This was not an easy word for an Italian tongue—she even let out a big, throaty laugh herself. It was an entertaining notion, but there would be no detectives. If there was something to find, Giovanna, with the blessing of Saint Joseph, would find it herself.

  A few nights later, there was a light knock at the door. Family and friends didn’t knock; they just announced themselves as they walked in. Hoping it was Nospeakada, she jumped up and opened the door without asking who was there. A stranger with dark eyes and thick lashes stood before her. She quickly closed the door to a wary crack.

  Lorenzo moved behind Giovanna and asked, “Who are you?”

  “I am Mariano Idone. Nunzio knew me as Pretty Boy.”

  They opened the door cautiously, and Mariano limped into their kitchen.

  “Sit, Signore Idone,” invited Lorenzo, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table.

  “Nospeakada found me and gave me your address.” Mariano quickly continued to fill the awkward silence. “I have a pushcart now. I can’t do construction because of my leg.”

  Giovanna could see why he was called Pretty Boy, but the sparkle had been stolen from his eyes. Giovanna got the impression that if you rubbed him hard enough, you would find Pretty Boy underneath.

  Mariano then told Giovanna, Lorenzo, and Domenico his version of the accident as Concetta helped her mother with the two youngest children. He began by recounting the supervisor’s reluctance to follow instructions and oil the couplings from underneath. He described how when the disc didn’t lower quickly enough, everyone was anxious, and then the supervisor was summoned to a phone call. He told them how after the call, the supervisor brought all the foremen and lead men together and of the decision among the lead men to be the ones to go under the disc. He began to cry when he recounted how a foreman had assigned the eight men to the interior and perimeter. And his tears became sobs as he described how Nunzio had saved his life, switching places with him and warning him and the others seconds before the collapse.

  Everyone in the room was crying.

  “You see, signora, I will forever be indebted to you and your family.”

  This was much more than Giovanna wanted to hear. Why couldn’t this be Nunzio telling this man’s wife the same story? She didn’t need to know her husband was a hero. He always was a hero; he didn’t need to die being one. In fact, for the first time, she was angry with Nunzio. Why had he done that? He knew she was waiting! She tried to calm down, but anger and sorrow boiled and exploded on Mariano.

  “Why did you let him switch with you? You knew he was married! Why didn’t you save him?” Her voice was so loud and hard that the children clung to Teresa.

  “Giovanna, please, Signore Idone is our guest!” pleaded Lorenzo.

  Mariano sobbed. “I was frightened, signora. I was frightened.”

  His honesty took the words from Giovanna’s mouth. A heavy silence with muffled cries hung in the room. Mariano grabbed his hat and rose. Lorenzo put his hand on his arm. “Please, don’t go. It is the shock of your story. There is more we need to know.” Mariano looked at Giovanna, who looked away but motioned him back into his chair.

  Lorenzo continued, “Signore, Giovanna said people seemed afraid to talk to her at the job site.”

  Mariano composed himself, grateful to talk about something that took the focus off his cowardice. “At roll call the day after the accident, the men were told that nosy reporters were asking questions that could stop the job. Everyone had to sign a paper saying they wouldn’t talk about the accident. And they all were given a ‘bonus’ for their rescue efforts. I wasn’t there. I was in the hospital, but two foremen came to my room.”

  Lorenzo was puzzled and asked, “Why did they care if anyone spoke of the accident? Accidents happen at construction sites all the time.”

  “I don’t know. But Nunzio thought the way they were bringing the bottom down was crazy. Carmine Martello would know better. Nunzio and I spoke at lunch, but not much about the job. I think he spoke of these things with Carmine when they walked home.”

  Lorenzo remembered Nunzio mentioning a Carmine and thought that he had probably even seen him on occasion with Nunzio on Mulberry Street.

  “Did they call him Saint Carmine?” Lorenzo asked.

  “Yes, that’s him,” answered Mariano.

  Giovanna thought of the story Nunzio had written in his letter about Carmine and the statue of Saint Gennaro. She had laughed when she read it and then said a prayer of forgiveness. She finally spoke. “Where is this Carmine?”

  “I don’t know. He never came back to the job. He didn’t even get the money. Someone told me he had joined one of those traveling theater companies.”

  Giovanna felt sick and couldn’t bear to hear anymore. She rose from the chair. “Thank you, Signore Idone.”

  Lorenzo was embarrassed and quickly asked if Mariano would like a glass of grappa.

  Mariano turned to Giovanna. “Signora, when I lie down each night, I hear the sounds and feel the pain all over again. I have no money. I can only offer you the promise that if you ever need me, I will help you.”

  In the morning, when Lorenzo woke, Teresa grabbed his arm to keep him from getting out of bed. Whispering emphatically, she said, “Nunzio is dead! What good will all these questions bring? She’ll bring the malocchio to this house! Giovanna should be working. And she needs to take a husband before she is too old and no one wants her. You must help her, Lorenzo.”

  Lorenzo considered his wife’s words. Perhaps he wasn’t helping Giovanna as he should. If she was busy, she might forget about searching for answers that didn’t exist or didn’t matter.

  That night, after the children had gone to sleep, Lorenzo spoke with Giovanna. “I think now is a good time to get a job, Giovanna. Teresa has had a healthy baby thanks to you.”

  “I will do that, Lorenzo.”

  Lorenzo was startled. Even if Giovanna agreed with something, she wasn’t so quick to admit it. So he stumbled on his next sentence. “Well, Teresa’s heard of jobs at the shirt factory.”

  Giovanna had already decided to work, but she had other plans. “No. Tomorrow I will go see Lucrezia LaManna. The midwife.”

  Lorenzo stammered, “Okay then, it’s settled.”

  TWELVE

  Her decision to deliver babies in New York was a practical one. Initially afraid to deliver Teresa’s baby, she found that she was capable of doing her job without opening her own emotional wounds. She would work as a technician.

  Arriving at 247 MacDougal Street, Giovanna noticed it was a nicer building than most on the block. She asked some children on the stoop where to find Lucrezia LaManna. “Si
gnora LaManna is on the top.” Giovanna thanked them and marveled that even after a twenty-minute walk uptown, you still did not need to speak English.

  She was taking the stairs in twos when she looked up and saw a woman waiting on the fourth-floor landing.

  “Scusi, Signora LaManna?”

  “Sì. Avanti.”

  Signora LaManna held her door open and Giovanna walked through self-consciously. It was the first apartment that Giovanna had seen in New York that wasn’t crammed with extra beds and cloaked in darkness. It was small and modest, but natural light illuminated the freshly plastered walls. Signora LaManna sat behind her desk and motioned to Giovanna to take a seat.

  Giovanna could tell that the signora was taken aback by her size. In Scilla, where everyone knew her, her height was accepted, but since coming to America, even people she passed on the street looked at her like she was a freak. For her part, Giovanna could not help but stare at the woman’s face. The signora’s refined features reminded Giovanna of her mother, Concetta, as did her grace. But Signora LaManna’s worldliness also intrigued Giovanna. The signora’s hair was streaked with gray and pulled near to the top of her head, rather than in the usual bun at the nape of the neck.

  “The doctor sent me,” began Giovanna.

  Signora LaManna put on spectacles and picked up a pen. “Did he say how many months you were?”

  Giovanna answered with both embarrassment and disappointment. “No, no, signora, I am not with child. I am a midwife.”

  Signora LaManna put down her pen and removed her glasses. “Una levatrice?”

  “Sì.”

  “How long have you been in America?”

  “Almost six months.”

  “Have you performed any deliveries in New York?”

  “I delivered my sister-in-law’s baby.”

  “Well,” the midwife got up from her desk and moved to the kitchen, grabbing the espresso pot, “I don’t know your name, signora.”

  “Giovanna Costa Pontillo. I am from Scilla, Calabria.”

  “Ah, so your family was starving, your husband came to work, and you followed him,” stated the signora matter-of-factly.

  Giovanna was taken, rather than taken aback, by her manner. “Not exactly.”

  The two women sat down at Signora LaManna’s kitchen table and exchanged stories. Signora LaManna had been a doctor in Italy. She explained that when she came to America, she could no longer practice medicine, but of course she could serve as a midwife. She had accurately surmised that if she settled in the Italian community, she could use her medical skills in the tenements. There was no medical establishment there to care if she treated the sick children in the homes of her expectant mothers. Signora said it took her husband a while to agree to live near the Italian ghetto, but she prevailed by reminding him how easy it would be to get to the university by Washington Square, where he was a professor.

  Hours later, when Signora LaManna was preparing lunch, Giovanna marveled at the circumstance. Here she was in New York and for the first time meeting a woman from northern Italy. Her mind swept back to being with Nunzio on the cliff and his dream for her to be a doctor.

  When Signora LaManna returned to the table with food, both she and Giovanna were filled once again with questions. Giovanna found out the signora had a daughter, Claudia, who was studying art history in college, and Signora LaManna asked for details about Giovanna’s search for information concerning Nunzio’s death.

  Soon after they got into their second round of discussion, a young girl appeared at the door, summoning Signora LaManna. The doctor turned to Giovanna. “We haven’t yet spoken of delivering babies, but would you like to come along on this one?”

  “Of course, Dottore…signora…”

  “Please, I will call you Giovanna, and you will call me Lucrezia.”

  Giovanna was “interviewed” on their brisk walk to Hester Street. “Do you read and write, Giovanna?”

  “Yes, fairly well.”

  “Good. I like to take notes on my patients.”

  Giovanna had never written a thing about a pregnancy. It seemed strangely academic to write about birth.

  They reached the woman’s tenement. “We’ll have plenty of time to continue talking. This signora labors long and calls for me early,” Lucrezia commented, starting up the stairs.

  Three hours later, Giovanna sent the young girl, who turned out to be the woman’s niece, to Lorenzo’s home with a message explaining her absence.

  “Giovanna, I think it best for you to work with me a while. I will introduce you around after I have confidence in your skills.”

  “Grazie, signora.”

  “Lucrezia.”

  “Lucrezia.”

  “As for money, I’ll share with you what I get, but it is difficult to say what that will be. If they can pay, they pay. If you consider having little girls named after you payment, you will be wealthy indeed. Even though it is a northern name, there are many Lucrezias in Little Italy. Usually it is the fourth or fifth child, when they have run out of the names of grandparents.”

  “I see that a midwife’s pay does not change when you cross the ocean,” remarked Giovanna. Lucrezia laughed, “Yes, some traditions remain.”

  The woman was showing signs of needing to push. Lucrezia examined her and spoke to Giovanna. “She’s ready. Why don’t you do the delivery?” Lucrezia had been careful not to let the woman think a stranger was going to deliver the baby and risk losing her confidence for the birth, but the woman was at a stage in labor where her only thought would be pushing her baby out. Lucrezia continued to coach the woman but let Giovanna deliver the baby.

  Lucrezia was impressed not only with how Giovanna birthed the child but also with the way she directed the action in the apartment. She gently shooed children from the room and suggested to the woman’s mother that she prepare dinner and boil water to clean up. Lucrezia had learned much in medical school, but household management when delivering a child was not a subject they covered.

  She also noticed that she would need to teach Giovanna more about rules of sterility and how to inspect the placenta for clues to the baby’s health. But in their brief time together, she sensed that Giovanna would not scoff at new information. For all her confidence, she appeared to be an eager student.

  Lucrezia planned to stay with the mother, but she suggested that Giovanna go home. “I’m sure your family is concerned. Tomorrow, come to my house at eight a.m., and we will make visits together. It is a busy time; I have seven women in their ninth month. You’re skilled, Giovanna.”

  “I had a good teacher,” replied Giovanna, thinking warmly of Signora Scalici.

  “But more than skills, you have a healing touch. It’s a gift.”

  Giovanna blushed. She said good-bye to the family and turned to Lucrezia. She tried to think of something to say that would convey her happiness at meeting her, but as was often the case, these types of words failed her, and she simply kissed Lucrezia’s hand and left.

  Giovanna felt triumphant entering her brother’s apartment.

  “Tell us, tell us everything!” Lorenzo exclaimed. “Have you eaten? Teresa, get Giovanna her dinner. Sit, Giovanna. Tell me everything,” implored Lorenzo, peeling a pear for the children.

  Giovanna began to chronicle her day, but soon she dropped her reporter’s tone and her excitement shone through.

  “Working with a dottore! How wonderful!” Lorenzo practically shouted.

  “Signora LaManna is not a doctor here in America.”

  “That’s a technicality. Italy thought she was good enough to be a doctor, and she chose to work with you.”

  “I asked her for work.”

  “Another technicality.”

  Giovanna smiled at her brother’s pride.

  That night, Giovanna couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard Teresa crying in bed.

  Opening what Lucrezia called her “little bag of tricks,” Giovanna searched for honey. The bag had grown since she ha
d discovered the herb shops in Chinatown. One day, in an exhausted stupor after a long delivery, she walked in the wrong direction and found herself standing in front of the most magnificent store with barrels of herbs of every scent and color. She walked up and down the rows; the herbs she didn’t recognize on sight she rubbed between her fingers to smell. The proprietor watched her with interest; few non-Chinese came into his store. Seeing that Giovanna understood the herbs, he tried to explain those unfamiliar to her with pantomime and the three words of English they shared, good being one of them. After a few visits they had developed their own sign language. Giovanna became so accustomed to the signs that whenever she said “echinacea,” her hand would instinctively circle her head, meaning for everything, and when she said “ginger root,” she would gnarl her knuckles.

  Taking the honey from her bag, Giovanna rubbed it on the stump of the baby’s umbilical cord. Lucrezia did not scoff at her herbal remedies. In fact, she was interested and asked to be taught. Lucrezia had cut the mother an inch to allow the baby’s head to be born. Giovanna whipped up a poultice of comfrey leaf for the mother’s perineum and handed it to Lucrezia, who applied it to the perfectly sutured area.

  Giovanna shared her homeopathic expertise with Lucrezia, and Lucrezia taught Giovanna about obstetrics and the illnesses that plagued the tenements, such as whooping cough, chicken pox, and dysentery. Because the need for medical care was so great and respect for Lucrezia so high, Lucrezia had no problem getting the prescriptions she needed, and she began to teach Giovanna much of what she knew about modern pharmacology.

  With her new knowledge, Giovanna reflected back on her more difficult births in Scilla. If she knew then what she knew now, could things have turned out differently? Francesca Marasculo was foremost in her mind. Lucrezia had taught her to be wary of quick births and showed her the signs that signaled possible hemorrhaging and how to massage a uterus to help it to contract instead of allowing it to be an open door for the blood in a woman’s body.