An Italian Wife (9 page)

“Why would I go all the way to Coney Island when any day now, right here, Carla is going to let me put my thing inside her?” Angelo said.

“In Coney Island,” Carmine said, “girls will do that without any promises. They
like
to do it.”

“Those girls,” Angelo said, “are called whores.”

Carmine shook his head. “They're not Catholic,” he explained. “That's all. Girls who aren't Catholic
like
it. They want to do it all the time.” He had no evidence of this, but Carmine believed that Anna's nos and stops came from her fervent belief in Jesus Christ.

“Puttanas.”
Angelo laughed. “You'll see.”

ALL DAY, CARMINE
worked on machines that tore fingers from hands or broke arms or sent fumes into the air that made you cough and turned your eyes red. The noise in the mills was loud enough to get inside your head and stay there even after you had gone home. The mill was dark inside, and damp, and by the end of a shift you felt like your back could break and you might lose your mind if you didn't see sunlight.

Carmine had worked in the mills since he was seven years old. The pinky finger on his left hand was flat above the first knuckle from an accident when he was nine. His ears rang on and off all day, even when he was asleep or out of the mill. From where he stood that summer, seventeen years old, a war about to claim him and all the other boys he knew, his only hope was Coney Island.

THE NIGHT BEFORE
he left, Carmine took Anna for a walk beside the river. It was eight o'clock, but still light, and the river flowed by them fast and murky from a spring heavy with rain. She let him hold her hand as they walked, and he liked the feel of her small smooth one in his big calloused one. They didn't speak, but Carmine kept sneaking looks at her. She was beautiful; that was for certain. Her hair wasn't curly or straight but fell in thick, luxurious ripples all the way past her shoulders and down her back. Most girls tied their hair into braids or buns, but Anna showed hers off, letting it hang loose like that. Her eyes were so dark that when he stared into them, Carmine couldn't distinguish the pupils from the irises. But everything about her was small. Her tiny waist, her almost boyish breasts, her hands. As he held her hand now, Carmine slowly massaged it, as if he could count each thin bone.

“How do I know that you won't meet a girl in Coney Island and fall in love with her and marry her and never come home?” Anna said finally.

“Because I love you!” Carmine said, surprising both of them. Once he said it, he knew it was true. What else could it be when he thought about her constantly? Dreamed about her? Tried to see her every day, at least once?

“If you love me—”

“I do!” Carmine said, feeling giddy with it. “I do love you.”

They had stopped walking and Anna was peering up the length of him, frowning. Shouldn't she be smiling? He loved her. But no, Carmine realized. This was that thing again. Frowning when really she was happy. He bent and lifted her up so that her mouth reached his, and then he kissed her harder than he had ever kissed her before. He kissed her with his mouth open and his tongue finding hers with such delight that he groaned.

Anna pulled away. “Stop!” she said, but Carmine knew that meant go, so he kissed her again, harder still. He knew that the way he held her to him, she could feel his cock straining, and boldly he pressed it against her.

Anna gasped, a small sound of surprise.

For some reason, when she did that, Carmine slowly lowered her to the ground. The river whooshed by them and his ears began to ring with the mechanical sounds of the mill.

“Why would you leave me if you love me?” she said. She had her arms folded across her chest, as if it were cold. But it was a beautiful June night. The moon was yellow and full above them, bright even in the still-light sky.

“In Coney Island,” Carmine said, breathless with possibility, “I'll make a fortune and come back and marry you.” He could suddenly imagine this: marrying Anna. Kissing her until he grew too old to do it any longer.

“You want to marry me?” she said, hugging herself.

“Yes.”

“Are we engaged then?” she asked him. She was fifteen years old and, standing there like that in the dying light, she looked like an absolute child.

“Yes,” Carmine said again, marveling at how simple this all was.

“An engagement is a promise,” she said.

Carmine considered her words. “Of course.”

“So you are promising to come back and marry me?”

He laughed. All he wanted was to kiss her some more. The sky behind her was darkening. Carmine liked dusk, the inky swirls of blue and black that seemed to gobble the sky.

“This is my favorite time of day,” he said softly. Usually he was still in the mill at dusk and missed it. Instead, he walked out the big double doors into night.

They had walked far enough that the mill was not in sight. The river made a gentle bend, and they had walked along that elbow of soft grass to this spot. Everything was in bloom. White blossoms covered trees. Buttercups and black-eyed Susans dotted the grass. The air smelled of the river and fresh grass and flowers.

“What's your favorite time of day?” Carmine whispered. He realized he knew nothing about this girl.

“When the sun comes up,” she said. “I like lying in bed and having the sun come through the window and warm my skin.”

Carmine nodded. He could see her in a bed, with white sheets and a white coverlet, her dark hair spilling everywhere, and warm sunlight touching her.

“I want to make sure you come back,” Anna said.

“But I promised,” he told her, impatient.

Anna slowly sat on the grass and patted beside her. It was damp from being so close to the river, but he sat anyway.

“If I give myself to you and you don't come back, no one else will have me,” she said. “I'll be a
puttana
.”

He tried to think of what to say, but Anna was slowly unbuttoning her dress. It was a navy-blue cotton dress with two big pockets, long and shapeless, not a very pretty dress. She wore it often. Carmine watched as she stood and stepped from it. Beneath it she wore white bloomers and a cotton shirt like children wore and long white stockings that came just above her knee. She took those off first, then the bloomers. While she rolled the stockings together and folded the bloomers, Carmine tried not to stare at the thick patch of hair she had. Somewhere in there was what Angelo called the Garden of Eden. Angelo had not yet been there, but he told Carmine that Carla let him reach under her skirt, into her bloomers, and stick his fingers inside. Carmine wondered if this was what he should do now, pull her down beside him and stick his fingers beneath all that hair.

But now she was lifting off the shirt, pulling it over her head, and folding it neatly too. She had no breasts really. Her chest was almost completely flat, with just two bumps, and hard brown nipples poking out at him. He felt like he was dreaming. The moonlight, this offering, his ringing ears, made Carmine dizzy.

“Now you,” she said.

Carmine nodded, then stood and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it onto the grass. When he pulled off his T-shirt, Anna put her hand to her mouth in something like disgust.

“You have so much hair,” she said. She studied him like she was a scientist instead of his lover. “I had no idea,” she said. Then she looked up at him. “Are all men this way?”

“I think so,” he said, suddenly embarrassed by the curly hair that blanketed his chest and stomach and shoulders. What would she say when she saw the rest of him?

She nodded slowly as if considering this.

Carmine took off his shoes and socks, then his pants, not pausing as she had to fold and place them carefully. He was only thinking of what he was about to have. The Garden of Eden. At last, he took off his own knickers and stood before her. He was proud of his dick, hard and full, ready.

Her mouth opened slightly as she stared openly at it. “It's so ugly,” she said finally. He thought she might cry. Or change her mind. So he quickly took her hands and brought her down to the ground with him.

“You don't have to look at it,” he whispered.

This seemed to make her feel better. Unsure of what to do next, Carmine pinched her nipples the way Angelo told him Anna liked for him to do.

“Ouch!” Anna said. “Don't do that.”

Angelo had described the Garden of Eden as wet, so wet that his fingers moved in and out of it with a great slippery ease. But Carmine was having trouble entering Anna. He poked gently at the dry, tight hole he'd found between her legs.

“I don't like this,” she whispered, and he glanced at her face for the first time and wondered how long she had been crying.

Surely if he didn't get in there fast she was going to change her mind. Anna was whimpering now, murmuring, “This is terrible, I hate this, I hate you,” but Carmine kept pushing until something seemed to let go, and that wonderful wetness that Angelo had promised him was waiting there, flooded over him.

Truly, this was the most wonderful thing Carmine had ever felt. The warmth, the wetness, the flesh beneath him. He could, if he lay right on top of her, feel her hard nipples reaching up toward him. She was sobbing and he wished she would stop, but he didn't say anything. He was too overwhelmed with this feeling. He heard her voice as if from far away telling him to hurry or to stop, please. But she was vanishing. It was just him and this place. Then he heard his own groaning and he pulled himself out of her just in time. The smell of rust and water and dirt filled him, and slowly he remembered she was there. He leaned over and kissed her softly on her mouth, tasting her tears.

“You have to really love someone to do that,” she said, her voice quivering.

“What if I have a baby?” she said. She was shaking now, her voice high and shrill.

“No,” he told her. “That's why I came outside of you. The seeds have to go inside for a baby. After we get married,” he said, his voice proud, “I'll come inside and we'll have babies.”

Still, Anna couldn't stop crying. The sky had turned completely dark, and there were no stars in it tonight.

As they dressed and walked back toward home, both of their legs trembling, Carmine wondered how he could leave now that he had this, and go to Coney Island. If he stayed, he could do this once, twice, even more every day. If he stayed, they could get married soon—next month! Sooner!—and he would be able to sleep with her every night, going to the Garden of Eden over and over. Nothing else mattered when he was in there. The mill, the noise, the darkness. Everything disappeared.

He was surprised to see people moving about in ordinary ways when they reached town. Men sat outside the barber shop, playing cards and drinking wine. On front porches, women fanned themselves, cleaned green beans, shelled peas, drank strong coffee. The sounds of children playing rang through the streets. A dog barked. Carmine saw all of these things, heard these sounds as if for the first time. He had never felt so alive. He squeezed Anna's hand and was pleased when she squeezed his back.

“Let's tell my parents we're engaged,” she said. “Let's tell everyone.”

“Now?” he said, surprised.

She looked at him, her eyes hard. “Now,” she said.

Carmine said, “Of course, of course.” Inside, he could expect hugs and slaps on the back, shots of anisette and the beginnings of plans.

He watched Anna run up the cement stairs to her house. “Come on,” she called to him over her shoulder.

He followed her up the stairs, through the front door. Tomorrow, he would go to Coney Island.

...

IF HE DID
everything just right, then he earned Eva Peretsky.

“I'm here,” he would whisper, and her face would appear in front of him in his small, dark room. He would hold on to his penis firmly but not move yet. First, he would spend the night with Eva.

“I can see that,” she'd say. He loved her voice. It was husky, like Greta Garbo's, and her Russian accent made sharp cuts in the air between them. She said all of her
w
's like
v
's.
You vill like this
, she'd say.
I vant you
, she'd whisper.

“Eva,” he'd whisper into the dark.

Sometimes, he got this far only to lose everything and almost frantically pull at himself until he came. Then he'd have the whole night to wipe Angelo's brains and skull off his face. He'd have the whole night to pick his way out of that trench and step over body parts: arms still in jacket sleeves, boots with jagged legs protruding from them, and the stench of blood and dead people everywhere. His doctor told him to breathe in this particular pattern. To breathe and say, “Hoo, hoo, hoo,” in short hard exhales when his memories got too powerful. But once he stepped out of that trench, he couldn't find his way home, no matter how he breathed or what he did.

That was why he had to keep Eva with him as long as possible.

“Eva,” he'd whisper.

And when he had done everything just right, she climbed into bed beside him, and held him in her arms, and whispered, “I am right here.”

THE AIR ON
CONEY ISLAND
smelled of fried food, salt, summer. When Carmine stepped from the train onto the boardwalk, that smell almost knocked him over. It made him whoop. People stopped to stare at him, a man dressed in black pants, a black shirt, and a black fedora, in this beautiful warm sunshine. A man who gazed at the ocean and whooped, loud. He didn't care if they stared at him. He was there to make his fortune.

By the end of the day, he had met a Greek named Steve, who rented him a cart to set up on the boardwalk, where he could sell hot dogs. These weren't ordinary hot dogs. These were Coney Islanders. Smaller than a regular hot dog, served in a steamed bun, and topped with a sauce made of ground hamburger meat and spices. Everyone who visited Coney Island had to try a Coney Islander.