The Shoemaker's Wife

  Angela, now fourteen, had tied a moppeen around her head and wore faded blue jeans and one of Antonio’s old jerseys. “Sorry,” she apologized to Enza. “I didn’t have time to change. And I didn’t want to get tomato sauce on my good blouse.”

  Betsy put her arm around Angela. “I told her she was beautiful just as she is.”

  Antonio kissed Betsy. “And so are you.”

  That night, they feasted on spaghetti pomodoro, fresh salad, and chocolate cake. They told stories of the ice rink, high school basketball games, and the night Betsy fell in the dance competition during Serbian Days. Enza sat back and watched her son, taking in every detail of him, wishing the night would never end and praying he would be very, very lucky and return home safely to her someday.

  Antonio shipped out from New Haven with the navy the following summer. He called his mother the night before. She buckled under the anxiety of his decision, and hers. She fretted so much, and so deeply, that within a year of Antonio’s leaving, her raven hair had turned quickly and completely white.

  Month after month, she waited for Antonio’s letters, opening them as soon as they were placed in her hands. She’d remove a hair clasp from her head, then rip open the envelope with the sharp metal end. After poring over the words a dozen times, she would carry each letter in her apron pocket until the next letter arrived. The most recent letter he sent had given her cause for concern. He spoke of his father in it, which he had never done before.

  February 15, 1943

  My dearest Mama,

  I can’t tell you exactly where I am, but every morning all I see is blue. It’s hard to believe that something so beautiful could hide the enemy with such depth and dexterity.

  I have been thinking of Papa a lot. I miss you terribly, and don’t like that you are alone in Chisholm. Mama, when I come home, let’s go to your mountain. I want to see the fields of Schilpario and see the convent where Papa lived. He wanted us to go, and we should. Please don’t cry yourself to sleep. I am safe and with a good regiment, very smart fellows. There are recruits from the University of Minnesota, a few from Texas, others from Mississippi, and one fellow from North Dakota who we call No Dak. He tells long-winded stories about the history of the moose in middle America. Sometimes we tell him we can’t take it, and other times, we just let him talk. It’s almost like the radio.

  I love you Mama, you have my heart, and I will be home soon,

  Antonio

  P.S. Give Angela a hug for me.

  Enza put aside her alterations, neatly folding a coat from Blomquist’s.

  She checked the mailbox each morning, hoping for word from her son. When no letter came, she pulled on her coat and took the long walk up the street to the post office building to check the rosters of the war dead. She was not alone in this habit; every mother in Chisholm with a son or daughter in the war did the same, though they would pretend to be running an errand, or dropping off a package. But when one mother looked into the eyes of another, she knew.

  In the spring of 1944, Laura Heery Chapin returned to Chisholm, Minnesota. Her son Henry was in boarding school, and Laura was free to accompany Colin around the country, as he was now in charge of production for the Metropolitan Opera’s road companies.

  As soon as Angela was accepted to the Institute of Musical Art, Enza had called her old friend, who was going to be in Chicago for the opening of La Traviata. Laura had agreed to visit and take Angela safely back with her to New York City, because that’s what friends were for.

  Laura was still tall, slim, and grand, though her red hair had faded to a shiny auburn. Her suit was Mainbocher, and even her suitcases had style, French made and Italian trimmed.

  “I wish Colin’s mother could see you now. She would say you were to the manor born.”

  “Probably not. She’d think that I should’ve chosen white gloves instead of blue.”

  “Hasn’t Chisholm grown since your last visit?”

  “I think it’s not Hoboken.”

  Enza and Laura laughed. Through the years, whenever they liked something, they would say, “At least it’s not Hoboken.”

  “But you know, this is where Colin came to claim me. It will always be a special place to me.”

  Enza smiled and remembered the exact place she had stood on Carmine Street when Ciro came for her on the sidewalk in front of Our Lady of Pompeii. It’s funny how a woman remembers exactly where she stood when she was chosen.

  “Miss Homonoff sent quite a letter to the Institute. She believes your goddaughter is a talented soprano.”

  “We brought her down to the Twin Cities, and the professors at the University of Minnesota agreed. Laura, she would never be able to go to New York if you weren’t there.”

  “I’m lonely with Henry away at school. You’re giving me a gift.”

  “Oh, Laura, she’s so shy sometimes. She misses her mother, and there’s nothing I can do to comfort her. It brings up all my feelings about home and how much I miss my family. Her father and brothers are in Italy, and she’s afraid for them. They’re unfounded fears, but they’re real to her.”

  “Angela needs to focus on her work. You and I made it because we stayed busy and we had goals. Look, she can live with me and walk across the park to her classes at the Institute. Colin is close to the dean. We’ll make her feel at home.”

  “Is it all too easy?” Enza said worriedly.

  “You just said the kid has had a terrible childhood. I didn’t say she could come to New York and nap. She’ll have to work hard, but why can’t we give her that little bit of security we know she needs? Didn’t Miss DeCoursey give it to us at the Milbank? How many times did we fret about the rent, and she’d give us a few extra days to go and wash dishes? I won’t pamper Angela, but I can encourage her—and she can learn. I’ll be her Emma Fogarty. I’ll make the connections for her like Emma did for us.”

  Enza took a deep breath. Every fear she had for her ward was now assuaged. The truth was, she trusted Laura with her life, and with anyone that she loved. “What would my life have been, had we never met?”

  “I have a feeling you would have been just fine.” Laura embraced her old friend for a long time. “I, on the other hand, would have been in a suite at Bellevue, eating crushed bananas, singing ‘Tico Tico’ on a loop.”

  Enza and Laura sat on the shore of Longyear Lake, sipping wine in paper cups while they ate figs and cheese Enza had wrapped in a starched moppeen.

  “This is when I miss Ciro. You know, we’re at the stage of life where things get quiet, and when you’re a widow, that silence is painful.”

  “I think of you when I want to push Colin out the window.”

  “Enjoy him.”

  “Come and stay with us!”

  “I do miss New York. I’m sorry so much time has passed without a visit. But now I’m waiting for Antonio to come home, and when he does, I can make some big decisions, and one of them will be to come and see you for a nice long visit. ”

  “I have a bedroom for you. We could go to the opera every night of the week. Colin has a box.”

  “The diamond horseshoe.”

  “Can you imagine? Remember the first time we walked in there? And now I sit up there and I complain if I can’t see the stage-left wings from my seat. And back then, we would have scrubbed floors to be anywhere in the building. And we did! But ultimately we didn’t have to, because you were an artist and could sew better than any machine. And it didn’t hurt that you were Italian. That went so far in the opera house—as it should.”

  “I still play Caruso’s records.”

  “You cooked for Caruso. I washed his dishes! The man would not eat raw tomatoes.” Laura clapped her hands together. “We’ve lived in the days of Caruso at the Met.”

  “I wonder what he’d say if he saw my white hair.”

  “He would have said, ‘Vincenza, you may have white hair, but I will always be older than you.’ ”

  “You know, whenever I pick up a pen, I think of y
ou. You taught me how to read and write English. You never got impatient and snapped at me.”

  “You were so smart, I worried you’d teach me a thing or two about grammar.”

  “No, it was the most generous thing anyone’s ever done for me. You have a way of finding out what people need and giving it to them.”

  “All you needed is what every girl needs, a good friend. Someone to talk to, to share with, to run things by . . . You were always that person for me.”

  “I hope I always will be.”

  “As long as there are telephones.” Laura laughed.

  Angela walked to her classes at the Institute of Musical Art carrying her sheet music in a newspaper boy’s burlap tote which she wore across her body. The sun in late March was hot, but the air was cool. She hummed as she walked, imagining the musical notes of her audition piece in succession, visiualizing them in her mind’s eye, and rehearsing as she went. Whenever she reached a crosswalk and the trolley would speed by, clanking on the tracks, drowning out all sound, Angela would practice her high register and test her vocal power by singing her scales as loudly as she could.

  Heads turned as Angela walked; young men would whistle, but she didn’t hear them. Her long black hair ruffled in the breeze as did her long pleated skirt which she wore with bobby socks and Capezio flats. She didn’t need lipstick, as her lips were deep pink without it. Like her unstudied, effortless beauty, singing came naturally. Angela was a delicate soprano, known in her class for her perfect pitch and crystal tone.

  Angela was a small-town girl. She lacked the sophistication, and therefore the cunning, of her fellow students. She didn’t fight for the best parts, but was happy to be in the chorus. She sang because it was a gift, not because she wanted to gain something more from it. Singing made her feel close to her mother, who had sung to her. Music was a way of holding on to Pappina.

  The Institute was housed in the Vanderbilt family guest house on East 52nd Street. Angela loved the marble entry; shades of deep cherry and pink offset by slashes of black reminded her of the inside of a candy box. The auditorium, where Angela took lessons in Vocal Technique, Dramatic Expression, and Italian for Singers, was stately, but small. It could have fit on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House.

  Angela handed her sheet music to Frances Shapiro, the rehearsal pianist, and her closest friend. Frances was a lean, stylish young woman of twenty-two with light brown hair and a wide grin who played for the voice classes at the Institute. She attended Brooklyn College at night to study secretarial science. Frances laid the sheet music across the piano. As she began to play the introduction to Batti, batti bel Masetto from Don Giovanni, Angela took the stage and stood before her, closed her eyes, opened her hands, stood up straight, and lifted her chin, singing out to the back of the theater. Frances smiled and nodded as Angela hit every note. Angela’s high soprano was like a cool breeze through an open window.

  “How was it?” Angela asked.

  “Professor Kirshenbaum is going to be amazed.”

  “I hope so. I need his recommendation.”

  “Sing like that, and you’ll get it,” Frances assured her.

  Angela Latini left the Institute and went for coffee as she often did at the end of the day. She used the time to study and write letters. Her father and brothers received a long letter every week. She sat in the window of the Automat and opened a notebook. Her long dark hair was tied back with a silk scarf. She tucked her full skirt around her, and buttoned her sweater.

  “You were splendid in there today,” Frances said, dropping her purse on the table as she stood eyeing the pie selection. “I mean, never better.”

  “Thanks. I have to be. I need a letter from Professor Kirshenbaum to get into La Scala.”

  “Have you told your aunt yet?”

  “It would crush her if she thought I wasn’t coming back to Minnesota.”

  “The sooner you tell her, the better.”

  “I want to be near my dad and my brothers. They’re all I have left.” Angela still could not think of Pappina without becoming emotional. She wondered if she would ever be able to move forward, and there were times when she doubted it. Angela’s talent was inborn and natural, and therefore she valued it only as a gift, and not with a sense of purpose. She loved to sing, but she would have gladly traded this ability to have her mother back. Zenza had done her best, but she too had a hard time figuring out how to make this lonely little girl happy, and now that Angela was grown, she felt it was her own responsibility to seek happiness in any way that she could.

  “When are you going to tell her?”

  “Once her son comes home.”

  “She has a son? Is he single?” Frances sat up in her seat like a curious hen.

  “He’s had a girlfriend all of his life. He’s so handsome. And older.”

  “I like older.”

  “Not for anything, Frances, but I think you like all ages.”

  “As long as he’s Jewish.”

  “You’re out of luck—this one’s a Catholic.”

  “I will entertain the idea of bending the rules, even if my parents won’t.” Frances threw her head back and laughed. “Where is he?”

  “He’s fighting in the Pacific theater.”

  Frances’s face clouded over. She knew many boys from her neighborhood in Brooklyn who had been drafted and were in the South Pacific. “Oh, Angela . . . ” Frances said softly.

  “Don’t even say it. I know. He’ll be lucky if he makes it home.” Angela sighed.

  “You can’t live your life to make anyone happy, including your honorary aunt who took you in. You need to be with your family.”

  “I know.” Angela sipped her coffee. “But first I have to decide what a family is.”

  “Or maybe you’ll do what every Shapiro, Nachmanoff, and Pomerance has done since the beginning of time: you’ll invent it.”

  Laura lit the candles in the Tiffany holders on the mantel in the soft green and beige living room of her Park Avenue penthouse. The city lights twinkled below, beyond the black pool of Central Park, like a collection of small stars in the distance. In the years that the Chapins had lived in the apartment, the lights around the park had multiplied. The neighborhood borders of Manhattan had swelled—more people, better business, and more seats sold at the Metropolitan Opera House.

  Angela, wearing a chiffon chemise, her long hair grazing her waist, sat at her vanity table in the guest room where she had lived since she became a student at The Institute of Musical Art.

  She brushed her long hair, leaned forward, and applied a pale pink lipstick to her mouth. Angela was a southern Italian beauty, brown-eyed with waves of dark hair and a trim figure with curves like carved marble.

  Laura swept into Angela’s room and gave her a bracelet to wear. Angela thanked her as she put it on her arm. “It works on you. Keep it.”

  It occurred to Laura as she looked at Angela’s reflection that she possessed the natural elegance that Enza Ravanelli always had, even in the tenements of Hoboken. Angela was graceful, she spoke well, directly and softly; she was helpful when called upon, yet assertive when she needed to be. Her second mother had taught her well.

  Angela had been a delight in every way for Laura. With Henry now in college, Angela had filled the quiet as she rehearsed at the piano, singing scales and mastering phrases for her singing classes at the Institute. In Enza’s absence, Laura went to Angela’s recitals and rehearsals. She consulted with Angela’s professors and made sure she got extra attention when she needed it.

  Colin had made sure Angela had a job in the ticket office and ushered during performances, so she might have exposure to the full menu of what it took to present an opera. Angela would never take the Chapins for granted, or their generosity.

  Laura had exposed Angela to a world she would have never known had she stayed on the Iron Range. She took Angela shopping and to parties for the board of the Met. She introduced Angela to all the star points of a gracious life. Angel
a’s natural talent and regal bearing had only made her more humble and grateful for the opportunities Laura presented. Angela had been a good student.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Angela, will you get that?” Laura called out.

  “Yes, Aunt Laura,” Angela called back. She took one last look in the mirror before she opened the door, smoothing her hair over her ear and adjusting the pearl on the drop necklace she wore with her gown.

  Angela’s heart beat fast when she opened the door to see Antonio Lazzari standing in the doorway in his dress uniform. He pushed his hat off his forehead and then removed it. His dark good looks were dazzling against the bright white of his uniform.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Chapin,” he said, taking in the beautiful girl from the top of her head to the tips of her silk moiré shoes.

  Angela put her hands on her hips. “Antonio,” she chided him. “It’s me.”

  He heard her voice and remembered. He squinted. “Angela?”

  “Who else?” She threw her arms around his neck.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I grew a foot and got into the Institute of Musical Art. And then I learned to sing high notes.” She laughed. “And hold them.”

  “That’s just the beginning of what’s different about you.”

  Laura rushed to the door to greet Antonio.

  “Aunt Laura!” Antonio embraced her.

  “Welcome to New York.”

  “You didn’t tell Mama, did you?” Antonio asked.

  “Not one word. But you have to call her. Right now.”

  Enza went through the apartment, making sure all the skylights were snapped shut. A thunderstorm was raging outside. The lightning streaking through the sky cast an eerie green glow over Chisholm.

  Enza wrapped her robe tightly around her. She’d had a bad feeling all day, convinced that Antonio had come into harm’s way in the Pacific. The more she tried to distract herself, the worse her anxiety became.

  She heated milk on the stove, poured it into a cup, added some brandy and a pat of butter. She said a quick prayer for her mother, who used to make her the drink, then took the mug and went back to her room.