The Fortunate Pilgrim

  Gino and Vincent saw their father come out of the building with the Coluccis. He was walking them to the trolley car on Ninth Avenue. They watched till he came back. They saw him stand by the bonfire, staring into its flames for a long time. They kept their eyes on him. Finally he walked down the Avenue and into the house.

  Gino and Vincent left their windows. They unfolded their bed and made it. Vinnie put on his pajamas from the country. Watching him, Gino said, “That Job, he’s a nice kid, but he’s sure lucky he don’t live on our block.”

  Mr. Colucci was not just a talker, he was a doer. Frank Corbo was working in Runkel’s chocolate factory the next week, and his homecoming at night was a delight for the children. He returned with his person and clothes scented with cocoa. Always he would have a great jagged boulder of chocolate in his pocket. It was pure chocolate, much more delicious than candy-store chocolate. He would give this to Gino to share among the children. Gino would hack it with a knife, give half to Vinnie and half to himself. Then they would each give a piece to Sal and Baby Lena. Gino always thought of his father as working on a great mountain rock of chocolate with a pickax, breaking it up into little pieces.

  The father was to be baptized in the new faith at Easter time. Every night he went to the Coluccis’ for reading lessons, and then to the chapel for services and more lessons. Sometimes he would make Gino read to him from the Bible, but Gino always protested; he read badly and with obvious distaste, especially his father’s favorite passages, in which man was brought to book by a wrathful and revengeful God. Gino read this in such a voice, so unimpressed and bored, that he only irritated his father. One day Frank Corbo said to him gently and with a smile, “Animale! Don’t you believe in God then? Aren’t you afraid of dying and going to hell?”

  Gino was surprised and confused. “I made my Communion and Confirmation,” he said. The father looked at him, shrugged, and never asked him to read again.

  For the next two months everything went smoothly. There were no quarrels.

  But then Lucia Santa, seeing her husband so well, working, quiet, well-behaved, thought there was no excuse for him not to be better. She complained that he was always out of the house, that his children never saw him, that he did not take her to visit relatives. And it was as if the father had been waiting for such a complaint, as if his new character had not really pleased him. There was a scene; he struck a blow, there were screams and shouts, Octavia threatened her father with a kitchen knife. It was like old times again. The father left the house and did not come back until the next morning.

  He changed gradually. He did not go to chapel so often. Many nights he came straight home and went directly to bed without eating. He would lie in the bed staring up at the ceiling, not sleeping, not speaking. Lucia Santa would bring him a hot dish; sometimes he would eat, sometimes he would strike it out of her hand, soiling the bed covers. Then he would not let her change the bed sheets that night.

  He would fall asleep for a bit; then wake near midnight, moaning and tossing about. He had terrifying headaches and Lucia Santa would bathe his temples with alcohol. Nevertheless, the next morning he would be well enough to go to work. Nothing kept him from his job.

  That winter the nights were like a nightmare. The father’s cries would wake the baby. Gino, Vincent, and Sal would huddle together, Gino and Vincent curious and subdued, but Sal so frightened that he trembled. Octavia would wake and lie in her bed raging over her mother’s patience with the father. Larry missed it all, for he worked at night and stayed out until the early morning hours.

  The father became worse. He would wake in the middle of the night and curse his wife, first in a slow, then a quickening, rhythm—the rhythms of the Bible. Everyone would be asleep, the house would be dark, when suddenly, rising out of the pitch blackness, the father’s voice would fill the apartment, vibrant, alive. “Whore” . . . “Bitch” . . . “Lousy, dir-ty, rot-ten, lying bastard” . . . Then, on a higher note and faster, “Fiend of hell—child of a whore—mother of a whore.” Last came a long stream of filth that ended in a great moan of pain and a terrifying cry for help, “Gesù, Gesù, help me, help me.”

  Everyone awake, frightened, sitting up in bed, would wait, never knowing what he would do next. The mother would soothe him, talking in a low voice, pleading with him to be quiet so that the family could sleep. She would bathe his temples with alcohol until the apartment was filled with its burning smell.

  Octavia and Lucia Santa quarreled about sending him to the hospital. Lucia Santa refused to consider it. Octavia, fatigued from lack of sleep and worry, became hysterical, and her mother had to slap her face. One night when the father began to moan “Gesù, Gesù,” from behind Octavia’s bedroom door came a mocking moan in answer. When the father cursed in Italian, Octavia shrieked back, aping his dialect, the filthy words in the foreign tongue, shrill in the darkness, more shocking than the cursing of the father. Sal and Baby Lena began to cry. Vinnie and Gino sat on the edge of their bed, stunned with sleep and fright. Lucia Santa pounded on her daughter’s bedroom door, pleading with her to stop. But Octavia was beyond control, and it was the father who stopped first.

  Next morning the father did not go to work. Lucia Santa let him rest while she sent the children off to school. Then she brought her husband breakfast.

  He was rigid as wood. His eyes stared emptily at the ceiling. When she shook him, he spoke in hollow tones. “I’m dead, don’t let them bury me without clothes. Put my good shoes on my feet. God has called me. I’m dead.” The mother was so frightened she felt his limbs. They were icy cold and stiff. Then the father began to call out, “Gesù, Gesù. Mercy. Aiuto, aiuto.#8221;

  She tried to hold his hand. “Frank, let me call the doctor,” she said. “You’re sick, Frank.”

  The father became as angry as a dead man could. In hollow menacing tones, he answered. “If the doctor comes, I’ll throw him out the window.” But the threat was reassuring to Lucia Santa, for now the cold blue eyes were alive with rage. Heat flowed into the limbs she touched. Then she heard someone coming up the stairs and into the house. It was Larry home from the night shift.

  She called out, “Lorenzo, come here and see your father.” The tone of her voice brought Larry quickly down the corridor to the bedroom.

  “Look how sick he is, and he won’t see the doctor,” the mother said. “Talk to him.”

  Larry was shocked by his stepfather’s appearance. He had not noticed the change, the thinning of the face into gauntness, the tension in the mouth, the cording of the face into lines of madness. He said gently, “Come on, Pop. We gotta get a doc even if you’re dead. Maybe people will say Ma poisoned you or something. See? We gotta get a certificate.” He smiled at his stepfather.

  But Frank Corbo gave him a look of contempt, as if the son were feeble-minded or insane. “No doctors,” he said. “Let me rest.” He closed his eyes.

  Lucia Santa and Larry went into the kitchen at the other end of the apartment. The mother said, “Lorenzo, go to Runkel’s and get Mr. Colucci. He can talk to Frank. Last night he was so bad again. If this keeps up—no, get Mr. Colucci.”

  Larry was dead tired and wanted to get to bed. But he saw that his mother, always so strong and confident, was near to tears she was too proud to shed. He felt an overwhelming love and pity for her, and yet a curious distaste for being involved in the affair, as if it was a tragedy that did not concern him. He patted his mother’s arm and said, “O.K., Ma,” and left the house in search of Mr. Colucci.

  MR. COLUCCI, DESPITE the fact that he was an office worker, could not get off from work. He came at five o’clock, bringing with him three other men. Their clothes smelled of cocoa. They went in to see Frank Corbo lying lifeless in his bed.

  They ringed themselves around him like disciples. “Frank, Frank,” Mr. Colucci said gently. “What is this? What are you doing? You cannot leave your wife and children. Who will give them bread? God would not call you now; there is too much good for you to do. Frank, co
me now, rise up, listen to a friend who loves you. The time is not yet.” The other men murmured “Amen” as though to a prayer. “We must get you a doctor for your headaches,” Mr. Colucci said.

  The father raised himself up on one elbow. He spoke in a low, angry voice, full of life now. He said, “You told me there was never any need for doctors, that God decides, man believes. Now you are false. You are Judas.” And he pointed, arm extended, forefinger almost in the Colucci eye. He was a picture on the wall.

  Mr. Colucci was stunned. He sat down on the bed and took Frank Corbo’s hand in his. He said, “My brother, listen to me. I believe. But when I see your wife and children to be left so, my faith wavers. Even mine. I cannot make my faith your destruction. You are ill. You have these headaches. You suffer. Dear brother, you do not believe. You say God has called you and you say you are dead. You blaspheme. Live now. Suffer a little longer. God will have mercy on you at Armageddon. Rise now and come to my home for supper. Then we will go to chapel and pray together for your deliverance.” Mr. Colucci was weeping. The other men bowed their heads. The father looked at them wide-eyed, seemingly rational.

  “I will rise,” he said formally and motioned them to leave so that he could dress. Colucci and the other men went into the kitchen and sat at the table to drink the coffee Lucia Santa set before them.

  Mr. Colucci stared silently at the wooden table. He was in terrible distress. What he had seen in that bed was a caricature of Christ and the true believer, the belief carried to its logical conclusion; the lying down to die. He said to Lucia Santa, “Signora Corbo, your husband will be home at nine this evening. Have the doctor come. Have no fear, I will stay with him.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Signora, believe in me. Your husband has true friends. He will have prayers. He will be cured. And his soul will be saved.”

  Lucia Santa became coldly, implacably angry at his touch. Who was this man with his single child, a stranger to her grief and suffering, to presume to comfort her? Callow, criminal in his meddlesome religiosity—he was the cause of her husband’s illness. He and his friends had disordered her husband’s mind with their foolishness, their obscene and obsequious familiarity with God. And beyond that she had a feeling of disgust for Mr. Colucci. In some profound way she felt that he cared nothing for life or for his fellow man; that with a beautiful wife he showed a deep distrust and lack of faith by resting with one child. Remembering his weeping at her husband’s bed, she felt an overpowering contempt for him and all men who sought something beyond life, some grandeur. As if life, life itself, were not enough. What airs they gave themselves. She looked away from Mr. Colucci, his pity, his suffering, so that he could not see her face. She hated him. It was she who would feel the anguish, the rage of the sufferer who must bow to fate; as for Mr. Colucci, his would be the easy tears of compassion.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE DOCTOR WAS a son of the landlord who owned many tenements on Tenth Avenue. That Italian peasant father had not strained and sweated, had not left his homeland, had not squeezed every penny out of his compatriot tenants, had not supped on pasta and fagioli four times a week so that his son could become a Samaritan. Dr. Silvio Barbato was young, but he had no illusions about the Hippocratic oath. He had too much respect for his father, was too intelligent in his own right to be sentimental about these southern Italians who lived like rats along the western wall of the city. But still he was young enough to think of suffering as unnatural. Pity had not been squeezed out of him.

  He knew Lucia Santa. As a boy, before his father had become wealthy, he had lived on Tenth Avenue and shown her the respect due an older woman. He had lived as she did not, with his spaghetti on Thursdays and Sundays; pasta and fagioli on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays; and scarola on Mondays to clean out the bowels. He could not overawe her and act completely professional. But whenever he entered a home like this, he blessed his father.

  His escape was complete. His father had been shrewd to make him a doctor. People always became sick, there were always hospitals, work came. The air was filled with germs, bad times or good. Some escaped for a while but there was always the long process of dying. Everyone alive had money that would find its way into a doctor’s pocket.

  He sat down for his cup of coffee. He must, or they would never call him again. The icebox in the hall was probably full of cockroaches. The daughter—what was her name?—was old enough to work and she was so developed that marriage was imperative or she would get in trouble. There were too many people explaining things about the patient. The family friends and advisers had gathered round—that most irritating thing to doctors. The old women cronies were the worst.

  At last he saw the patient, who was in bed. He seemed calm. Dr. Barbato felt the pulse, took the blood pressure. It was enough. Behind that calm, harsh face there must be an unbearable tension. From other doctors he had heard about cases like this one. It was always the men who crumbled under the glories of the new land, never the women. There were many cases of Italian men who became insane and had to be committed, as if in leaving their homeland they had torn a vital root from their minds.

  Dr. Barbato knew what to do here. Frank Corbo should be hospitalized, given a long period of rest, removed from pressure. But this man had to work, he had children to feed. They would all have to gamble. Dr. Barbato continued his examination. Drawing back the sheet, he was startled to see a pair of hideously deformed feet and felt an almost superstitious fear. “How did this happen?” he asked in Italian. His voice was polite but firm, demanding an answer.

  The father rose on his elbows and drew the sheet back over his legs. “They are not your concern,” he said. “They do not trouble me in any way.” This was an enemy.

  “You have headaches then,” the doctor said.

  “Yes,” the father said.

  “For how long?”

  “Forever,” the father said.

  There was nothing to be done here. Dr. Barbato wrote out a prescription for a heavy sedative. He waited patiently for his fee while the mother scurried into another room to take money out of its hiding place. He felt a little uncomfortable. He always wished that the people who gave him money were a little better dressed, that they had better furniture. Then he noticed the radio and his compunctions vanished. If they could afford such a luxury, they could afford an illness.

  Frank Corbo went back to work the next week. He was a great deal better. Sometimes at night he moaned and cursed aloud, but only for a few minutes, and after midnight he would always remain asleep. But before another week was ended, he came home one day just before lunch. He stood in the doorway and said to his wife, “The padrone sent me home,” he said, “I’m too sick to work.” To Lucia Santa’s horror, he began to weep.

  She sat him at the kitchen table and brought him coffee. His body was very thin. He talked as he had never talked since their marriage year. He asked her in a frightened voice, “Am I that ill? The padrone says I stop work too much and I forget the machine. That I should take a long rest and then come see him. But I’m not that sick, I’m just getting better, I’m controlling myself. I take care of myself now. Isn’t it true?”

  Lucia Santa said, “Don’t worry about work, rest a little. You have to get well. This afternoon go for a walk, bring Lena for some air in the park.” She looked down at his bowed head. Was he better or worse? There was nothing she could do but wait.

  When he left with Baby Lena, the mother gave him a dollar for candy and cigars. She knew he loved having some money in his pocket and that it would cheer him up. He was gone the whole afternoon and came back just in time for supper.

  The whole family was gathered around the table, Octavia, Larry, Vincent, Gino, and Sal. They all knew their father had lost his work and they were subdued. But he was quiet, and so well behaved and helpful to his wife that soon everyone was at ease. It seemed as if the shock of losing his job had knocked all the other nonsense out of his head. Everyone chattered. Larry tricked the boys by saying that the
cockroaches were playing baseball on the wall and when Sal and Gino turned around he stole potatoes from their dishes. Octavia fed Baby Lena and held her on her lap. Vinnie watched everything. Larry couldn’t fool him. He touched his mother’s dress as she went by, serving food, and she stopped and served him first.

  When everyone left the table, Lucia Santa asked her husband if he was going to chapel. He answered that he did not need Mr. Colucci any more. The mother was astonished. Could it be that her husband, who, to his family’s detriment, had never been cunning, had used the Coluccis just to get work? But then why the illness? The contradiction troubled her.

  Later, when bedtime came, Lucia Santa settled in her kitchen chair to sew until midnight. Now she always wanted to be fully dressed and ready when her husband had his attacks. If by midnight nothing had happened, it would be safe to go to bed; the danger would be over.

  Frank Corbo watched her and, with what for him was tenderness, said, “Go. Go get some rest. I’ll stay up a bit and then come to bed.” She knew he meant until after midnight. It was nearly eleven now. Everyone else was asleep and Larry had gone to work. Lucia Santa felt a great surge of relief and pride that her judgment had proven sound. He was better. Men had these spells, but they passed. “I’ll finish this little bit,” she said. As she sewed, he smoked his cigar. He served her a glass of wine and even took one for himself, though it was against the Colucci religion. It was after midnight when they went to bed, with Baby Lena lying between them. It was very dark, the very black heart of night, when Lucia Santa woke to hear her husband repeating in a clear, even tone, “What is this doll doing between us? Quick, before I throw it out the window.” Lucia Santa put one arm over the sleeping baby and said in a low, urgent voice, “Frank, what is it? What’s the matter?” Still stunned with sleep, she could not comprehend.