The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (191 page)

I
thought
peace had come to my home. I
wanted
to think that—wanted to believe Guglielmo’s blessing had broken the other one’s curse. But underneath the surface, trouble ate away inside my house like termites in the cellar. Quietly, that goddamned termite named Prosperine was practicing her treachery—destroying what little peace we had enjoyed at 66-through-68 Hollyhock Avenue.

17 August 1949

Trouble came back to my house one Sunday after church.

When we got home from Mass that day, Ignazia lit a fire under the macaroni pot and went to change out of her church dress. I was at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. Concettina sat beside me, singing and scribbling little pictures on the funny papers. The Monkey opened the back door and came into the kitchen, pouting as always. That woman never spoke to me unless I spoke to her. And on that day, I wanted to speak to her, all right. That day I had things on my mind.

The afternoon before, when I’d gone to
Signora
Siragusa’s to collect the Monkey’s weekly wages, the old woman had counted four dollars into my hand instead of six. Twice that week, she reported, Prosperine had claimed she was sick and stayed up in the attic. The
signora
was sick, too, she said: sick of doing her own work and Prosperine’s work as well. She complained, furthermore, that none of the boarders liked Prosperine. She never smiled or held up her side of a conversation. Two or three times the old woman had been awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps on the attic stairs. If she found that food or silverware was missing, the
signora
warned me, she would deduct that cost from the woman’s wage as well. And if Prosperine was sneaking down to meet one of the bachelors on the second floor, she would have to leave the boardinghouse. The
signora
wanted no stink of scandal in the place she ran. What if Father Guglielmo found out? What if the police came? Here,
old
Signora
Loose-Tongue pulled me close and spoke her suspicion: maybe Prosperine’s sickness was the beginning of a baby inside of her. She herself had wanted to sleep away the day during four of her seven pregnancies.

The thought of one of
Signora
Siragusa’s bachelors being blind or foolish enough to put his thing inside of that skinny bitch made me laugh. That crazy
mignotta
would probably castrate the poor man! Or poison him the next day! But I did not laugh about the
two dollars missing from the palm of my hand. I told the
signora
I would straighten things out.

“Eh?” I said now, even before Prosperine took off her coat that day in my kitchen. “What’s this I hear about you not doing your work over at the
signora
’s?”

“I do my work,” she said.

“Yesterday, I got four dollars instead of six. She doesn’t pay you to sit up in her attic and sleep.”

“I was sick,” she said. “Sick as a dog.”

“Sick from what?”

She said nothing.

“When I’m sick, I go to work anyway,” I told her. “I work sick.”

“That’s what
you
do. I do something else. I’m lucky I don’t die of pneumonia at that place. The wind whistles through the open spaces in the roof. She won’t let me leave the door open and get a little heat up there. Not even a crack. She’s as stingy with her coal as you are.”

“If it’s so cold up there, then go downstairs and warm yourself by doing honest labor. Then you’ll sleep through the night, all right, no matter what the wind is doing. And stop scowling at the boarders, while you’re at it. You’re ugly enough without making that puss. The
signora
has had several complaints about your bad
disposizione
. And what’s this about you sneaking downstairs in the night like a common burglar.”

“Who sneaks downstairs like a burglar?”

“She says you do. She hears you on the stairs.” I reached over and cupped my hands over Concettina’s ears. “She thinks you’re up to some funny business with the men in her house.”

“Bah!” the Monkey said. “The only funny business I’m up to is using the toilet. Or trying to warm my bones.”

“That had
better
be the reason,” I warned her. “I sent you over there to work, not to play the bachelors’ pipes. I better not come up short next week or I’ll wring your skinny neck for you.” I let go of Concettina’s ears and scooted her out of the room.

“Why should I work like a mule to line
your
pockets?” Prosperine answered back.

“Because I fed you and put up with you in my house for almost two years. Who knows where you would be right now if it wasn’t for my generosity? Probably out on the streets in New York, that’s where.”

“
Generoso? You?
” she laughed. “You’re tighter than the paper on the wall.”

Ignazia came into the room and saw the two of us glaring at each other. She rattled pots and walked between us. “Prosperine, grate this cheese for me,” she ordered. “Domenico, go down to the canning closet and get me a jar of peaches.” I rose slowly, staring all the while at the Monkey to show her I meant business. At the cellar door, I warned her that she and I would finish our little talk after we ate.

“Talk until you lose your voice, then,” she said. “But when I’m sick, I’m sick.”

All during that meal, we said nothing. The only sounds were forks and spoons against dishes. Even Concettina was quiet. Each time I looked up from my plate to glare at Prosperine, I saw her glaring back at me. If that one
had
mastered the dark art of
il mal occhio
from her witch-friend back in Pescara, she might have burst my brain and popped the eyeballs out of my head with the looks she gave me that day.

It was my custom each Sunday morning to take my silver
medaglia
from its red velvet box and wear it to Mass. I would keep it on until after the afternoon meal, at which time I would go upstairs, get out of my good suit, unfasten my garters, and take my Sunday afternoon nap. So the silver
medaglia
was still around my neck that afternoon as we finished our long, silent meal. Ignazia and Prosperine got up and began to clear the dishes. I pointed to the Monkey’s chair and told her to sit back down. “Keep the child in the kitchen with you,” I told Ignazia.

Prosperine sighed and sat. As I began my remarks, she tapped
her fingers restlessly against the table, refusing to look at me; that one always knew how to show flagrant disrespect! I lifted the silver
medaglia
over my head, reached across the table, and swung it in front of her ugly face. “Take a good, long look,” I said. “Do you know why this was presented to me?”

She said nothing.

“It was given in recognition of hard work and superior efforts—for doing more than expected always, for never doing less—for laboring whether I was sick or well.”

Her hands made fists on the table. Deep sigh of
impazienza.
Still, she refused to look me in the eye.

“Why do you think they begged Tempesta to sit on the planning commission for this city? Why do you think the mayor knows my name and telephone number? This
medaglia
is a victory not just for me but for every
Italiano
who has immigrated to
la ‘Merica.
You must take a lesson from my example and begin to do some work over there that will make you proud. And smile at the boarders while you’re doing it, goddamn it!”

She looked from the swaying medal up to my face, back to the medal, back to my face. “Go swallow your fancy
medaglia
and shit it out the other end,” she said. Then her head reared back, snapped forward, and the spittle flew from her mouth onto my
medaglia
.

The filth from her mouth slid from the silver face of my
medaglia
—from the very
crucifisso
of Jesus Christ and the Lamp of Knowledge and plop! onto the tablecloth. I rose and took hold of her scrawny arm, twisting it a little as I pulled her to her feet.

“Now you have gone too far,” I said. “Apologize to me or I’ll twist until I hear the bone snap. Say your apology loud as you can, and then get the hell out of my house and stay out.”

Ignazia rushed back into the room. “Stop it, Domenico!” she said. “Let her go before someone gets hurt. I’ll have none of this manhandling going on in my house.”

“Shut up and stay out of this!” I warned. “This
mona
spat her filth out onto my silver
medaglia
.” Concettina hid behind her mother’s
skirts and began to whimper. I gave the other one’s arm a good jerk to show her I meant business. “Apologize!” I ordered her again. “Do it quickly if you know what’s good for you.”

Ignazia grabbed a table napkin and wiped my medal clean. “Do as he says now,” Ignazia told her. “What difference does it make?”

But that stubborn bitch wouldn’t apologize. Far from it. Instead, she reached down and sank her teeth into the meat of my hand that held her!

Crying out in pain, I let go of her and when I got hold again, it was by the coil of braids at the back of her neck. She tried to run out of there, but I tethered her and yanked her back by those braids of hers. I swatted her a couple of times in the face, to let her know who she had fooled with. That goddamned
mignotta
had broken the skin!

Ignazia’s hands tried to slap and pull me away from the other one. Concettina cried. Her mother cried. But not that crazy bitch that had caused all the trouble in the first place! That one continued to put up a fight. Her hand swung up and banged me on the nose. Her other hand reached for the bread knife on the table. I grabbed hold of her and slammed her face into the wall. Slammed it again. She dropped that knife, all right.

Behind me there was screaming. When I looked back, I saw my wife and child, sunk to the floor and cowering. Mother and daughter, screaming bloody murder.

“
Bruto! Bruto!
” my wife shrieked. “What kind of monster beats poor, defenseless women and terrifies his own child?”

I pointed down at Prosperine. “You want someone to blame? Blame this one down there on the floor who bites and spits like an animal!” Prosperine, on her hands and knees, was coughing and retching, as dazed as a beaten dog.

Ignazia got up and helped her skinny friend to her feet. The Monkey groaned and stumbled, reached out for the chair to steady herself. When she turned and faced me, I saw I had knocked one of her front teeth clear away and loosened the other one. It hung
there, soaked in red, half in her mouth and half outside of it. That monkey’s biting days were over. Her face looked like it had been hit with a ripe tomato.

“
Bruto!
” my wife screamed at me. “Get out! Leave us alone!” She was shaking, shuddering, but would not shut up her mouth.

“Silence yourself!” I ordered her. “Every neighbor on this street will hear you!”

“Let them hear!” Ignazia shouted back. “Let them hear that my
pezzo grosso
of a husband helps the whole world, and then comes home and knocks the teeth out of the heads of innocent women!”

“
Innuccenti?
” I shouted. “
Innuccenti?
Ha! She was going for the knife!” I waved my hand in front of Ignazia’s eyes to show her where the Monkey’s bite had broken the skin, but that hysterical wife of mine thought I moved to strike her, too. She dropped to her knees, flinching, wailing, and covering her head with her hands. “Don’t hit me, please! I beg of you, Domenico! Don’t hit! Don’t hit me!”

“She had it coming!” I shouted. I told Ignazia to get up off the floor—that I would never harm her.

She screamed that I had harmed her the night I married her and brought her to this prison of a house. She sobbed and shouted that she hated me and cursed a million times the day she had become my wife!

I had not struck her once since that first night—had provided nothing but the best for her and for the child, too. But Ignazia appreciated none of it.

I started to leave the room. I meant to get the hell out of there and go upstairs to smoke and calm myself. But I wanted that troublemaking bitch out of my house by the time I came downstairs again. I went back to the dining room and made that clear to them both. And when I left the room the second time, I gave the door a good, hard slam.

But it was a dull sound I heard, not a slam. Something had stopped that. For a second, there was a horrible, terrible silence. And then the shrieking began. The girl’s little hand had been
gripping the door frame. I had slammed the door on Concettina’s five little fingers!

Orribile! Terribile!
But it was too late—could not be undone. It had been
accidente
, but above the child’s screaming and Ignazia’s howls of protest, I could not even speak my regret. Could not get near the child to see what damage the Monkey’s defiance had made come to pass. So I stormed upstairs, slammed my bedroom door, and pulled the bureau in front of it.

All over the house, doors slammed, women and children wailed.

Ten, fifteen minutes later, from the upstairs hallway window, I watched the three of them, hunched forward, escaping down the street. Ignazia led the way. That fancy baby carriage I had let her buy was piled high with their belongings. The girl’s hand was bundled in white bandages. Prosperine held the child’s other hand and held a cloth to her own mouth. They marched away from my house with such determination that their feet were a blur. Those two knew how to run away, all right! They had had plenty of practice in the Old Country. But they would not go far.

I knew where they were headed, if they were not running next door to Tusia’s wife. Where else in town would they go except to
Signora
Siragusa’s? . . . I didn’t chase after my wife. Better to let her go than to make a scene that every last
‘Mericano
on Hollyhock Avenue could watch from the window. Each morning at breakfast, Ignazia told me what household expenses she needed money for that day and I counted out what she needed. Nothing extra. She could not have had more than a few dollars in coin. Let her stay away, I thought. She’ll be back. She’ll be back on her hands and knees as soon as she sees how far she gets without Tempesta.

That night, alone in my house, I tried to scrub away Prosperine’s blood from the dining room. I got most of it out of the rug, but it had dried fast to the wallpaper and the tablecloth—had left brown stains as permanent as the dye we used at the mill. I pulled that cloth from the table and burned it in the ash barrel up in the
backyard. Then I came back inside and moved the sideboard over from the other wall so that it covered the stained wallpaper.