The Evening News (21 page)

She could go to the rectory and ask the priests for the keys. But they never give them to me, Nonna tells the doors. The priests tell me to come back for the Mass that evening, and I ask them if they don't think the saints and the Madonna are lonely with no one praying to them in the afternoon, and they say there are people all over the world who are praying, every moment of the day, but I don't believe it. If it was true, it would be a different world, don't you think? She presses her cheek against the wood. Don't you think? she says. Don't you understand me?

Then she hears something behind her and she turns. A dog. Panting before the first of the stone steps. Its ears are cocked. It is listening. Nonna laughs. The dog gives her a bark, and then from the middle of the park across the street comes the sound of a boy calling. He jumps in the sun, waving a dark stick. Nonna points to him. The boy is dark, like the stick. A Mexican. So it is a Mexican dog. And Nonna says, I would tell you that boy wants you, but I don't know Mexican, and if I spoke to you in my tongue from Napoli you would just be confused. The dog turns and runs, as if understanding. Again Nonna laughs. What is she doing at the top of the stairs? She knows the church is kept locked in the afternoon because of the vandals. Haven't the priests often told her that?

Her hand grasps the iron railing. She must be careful because of her legs. They get too tired from all the time holding her up. When she reaches the sidewalk she stops and faces the church and kneels, making the sign of the Cross. Then she walks again down Flournoy Street.

Why was I at the church? she thinks. She makes the sign of the Cross and then smiles as she walks past the rectory, and now she remembers the church-basement meeting she attended because of the paper she signed. It is good to sit with
paesani,
she thinks, and she pictures the faces of the neighborhood people, then the resolute eyes and mouth of the woman who gave the big speech. How much intelligence the woman has! Nonna notices that her hands are moving together, clapping. It is good to clap, good for the blood. She stops. But only in the meetings. The woman had said once and for all that it was the mayor's fault.

Vincenzo, Nonna whispers. She sees his still face sleeping on a soft pillow. His mouth is turned down into a frown. Vincenzo, I tell you, it was not your fault.

Nonna closes her eyes. She feels dizzy. It was the meeting, all the talk, the smoke. Then she realizes that was years ago, but she feels she had just been talking with her Vincenzo. Had he been at the meeting? No. Vincenzo died before the neighborhood changed. Before the students came. The
stranieri.
Before the Mexicans crept into the holes left by the
compari.
Then she must be walking home from Vincenzo's funeral. It was held at Our Lady of Pompeii. No, she had been driven to the cemetery in a long black car. Where is home? she thinks. Where am I walking to? And she pictures the faces of her parents, the rooms in the house in Napoli, the house in New Jersey, Vincenzo's house, the house in Chicago and the dust and the machines. Then—

Two rooms.

Nonna remembers where she lives.

So. She must go there. She worries that she has left something burning on the stove. Was it neckbones? Was that what she had taken out for her supper? Or was it meat in the white cartons? Had she bought brains? She cannot think. Her legs are very tired. She will eat, if it is time, when she gets home.

The color of the sky is changing, and the traffic grows more
heavy in the streets. It must be time, Nonna says to herself. She wishes to hurry so she won't be late. She does not like to eat when it is dark out. When it is dark she prays, then goes to bed. That is why there is the night, so people have a time for that.

Nonna approaches the street corner, and when she sees a woman coming out of a doorway with a bag full of groceries she remembers that she is out shopping. So that is why she has worn her heavy coat! But first she took a walk. The afternoon had been very nice, very pleasant. Did I enjoy myself? she thinks. It is difficult to decide. Finally she says yes, but only if I can remember what I am outside shopping for. What is it? It was on the tip of her tongue. What was it that she needed?

She turns at the door, and as she opens it she realizes that this is no longer the Speranza Bakery. It is now the Mexican food store. She is frightened. Her legs carry her into the store. The dark man behind the counter looks up at her and nods. Now she cannot turn around and leave, she thinks. She hopes the Mexican will not ask her what she wants. What would she say? Her feet move slowly down the first aisle. Her hands draw together the flaps of her coat.

Well, she thinks, I must need something. She does not want a can of vegetables, nor any of the juices in heavy bottles. She sees the butcher's case and tries to remember if she needs meat. Then she pictures neckbones in a pan atop her stove. She must hurry, she thinks, before they burn.

Cereal, vinegar,
biscotti
in paper boxes. Cottage cheese or eggs? Nonna's heart beats loudly when she sees the red apples, but she remembers how difficult apples are to chew, and she is too impatient now to cut them first into tiny pieces. Nonna smiles. Vincenzo had always said she was a patient woman. But not any longer. Not with hard red apples and a sharp knife.

Then she sees the bananas and, excited, she remembers.

What she needs is next to the counter. In plastic bags. Nonna is so happy that tears come to her eyes. So this is why she
was outside, she thinks, why she is now inside this strange store. She had wanted to try the freckled Mexican flat breads. Hadn't someone before been telling her about them? Nonna holds the package in her hands and thinks. She cannot remember, but she is sure it had been someone. The woman with the petition paper, or maybe the girl who prayed for babies in the bookstore. Someone who explained that her punishment was nearly over, that soon she would be with her Vincenzo. That these were the breads that were too simple to have been baked with yeast, that these did not rise, round and golden, like other breads, like women fortunate enough to feel their bellies swell, their breasts grow heavy with the promise of milk, but instead these stayed in one shape, simple, flat.

The dark man behind the counter nods and smiles.

Perhaps, Nonna thinks as her fingers unclasp her purse and search for the coins her eyes no longer clearly see, perhaps bread is just as good this way.

THE FLANNERY O'CONNOR AWARD FOR SHORT FICTION

David Walton,
Evening Out

Leigh Allison Wilson,
From the Bottom Up

Sandra Thompson,
Close-Ups

Susan Neville,
The Invention of Flight

Mary Hood,
How Far She Went

François Camoin,
Why Men Are Afraid of Women

Molly Giles,
Rough Translations

Daniel Curley,
Living with Snakes

Peter Meinke,
The Piano Tuner

Tony Ardizzone,
The Evening News

Salvatore La Puma,
The Boys of Bensonhurst

Melissa Pritchard,
Spirit Seizures

Philip F. Deaver,
Silent Retreats

Gail Galloway Adams,
The Purchase of Order

Carole L. Glickfeld,
Useful Gifts

Antonya Nelson,
The Expendables

Nancy Zafris,
The People I Know

Debra Monroe,
The Source of Trouble

Robert H. Abel,
Ghost Traps

T. M. McNally,
Low Flying Aircraft

Alfred DePew,
The Melancholy of Departure

Dennis Hathaway,
The Consequences of Desire

Rita Ciresi,
Mother Rocket

Dianne Nelson,
A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

Christopher McIlroy,
All My Relations

Alyce Miller,
The Nature of Longing

Carol Lee Lorenzo,
Nervous Dancer

C. M. Mayo,
Sky over El Nido

Wendy Brenner,
Large Animals in Everyday Life

Paul Rawlins,
No Lie Like Love

Harvey Grossinger,
The Quarry

Ha Jin,
Under the Red Flag

Andy Plattner,
Winter Money

Frank Soos,
Unified Field Theory

Mary Clyde,
Survival Rates

Hester Kaplan,
The Edge of Marriage

Darrell Spencer,
CAUTION Men in Trees

Robert Anderson,
Ice Age

Bill Roorbach,
Big Bend

Dana Johnson,
Break Any Woman Down

Gina Ochsner,
The Necessary Grace to Fall

Kellie Wells,
Compression Scars

Eric Shade,
Eyesores

Catherine Brady,
Curled in the Bed of Love

Ed Allen,
Ate It Anyway

Gary Fincke,
Sorry I Worried You

Barbara Sutton,
The Send-Away Girl

David Crouse,
Copy Cats

Randy F. Nelson,
The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men

Greg Downs,
Spit Baths

Peter LaSalle,
Tell Borges If You See Him: Tales of Contemporary Somnambulism

Anne Panning,
Super America

Margot Singer,
The Pale of Settlement

Andrew Porter,
The Theory of Light and Matter

Peter Selgin,
Drowning Lessons

Geoffrey Becker,
Black Elvis

Lori Ostlund,
The Bigness of the World

Linda LeGarde Grover,
The Dance Boots

Jessica Treadway,
Please Come Back To Me

Amina Gautier,
At-Risk

Melinda Moustakis,
Bear Down, Bear North

E. J. Levy,
Love, in Theory

Hugh Sheehy,
The Invisibles