“Good work, boys,” Rocco marveled.
“Sometimes you got to roll up your sleeves.” Funzi stood back and surveyed the road, which hugged the hillsides and laced through the curves and corners of the terrain like corset strings.
“You homesick?”
“I guess I am,” Funzi admitted.
“But this is home, you know. This is where it all started,” Rocco reminded him.
“It did, for my mother and father. And I imagine wherever they were when I was a boy was home to me, too. But give me Roseto, Pennsylvania, and my front porch on Chestnut Street. I miss my card game at the Marconi Social Club on Saturday nights. I like knowing my kids are in school getting smacked by the nuns and can walk home for lunch. I like Harry Truman and the Dodgers. We got the Jersey shore in the summers and the Poconos in the winter. What more can a man ask for?”
Italy, the motherland, was now a dreamscape for the men. Home was America now, but it was unlikely that the Rosetanis would forget the dream.
Nicky and Carlo joined them at the base of the mountain. They turned and looked up in awe, surveying the magnificence of the new road, a purple carpet of native stone that curved from the base of the mountain to the top like the royal sash of a king.
Instinctively Nicky removed his hat, and the ambassador removed his too, as though they were in church, as reverence was required.
The Americans had done everything they promised, making the road wider at the curves, leveling the base with alternating layers of gravel and sand so water might flow through when it rained, and capping the edges with modern gutters so the new road would not wash away should the Fortore River ever rage again.
But for Carlo, it was the artful diagonal pattern of the purple stones that thrilled him. What an entrance to the piazza! The beauty was Italian, the craftsmanship was American, and the combination would last until the end of time.
“What’s the date today?” Nicky asked.
“October twenty-ninth.”
“My wedding day.”
“Congratulations,” the men mumbled.
“Dove è la tua bella sposa?” Carlo asked.
“In Philly,” Nicky told him.
“Why don’t you go home and make nice. Beg her forgiveness,” Rocco suggested.
“Or stay in Italy, remain a bachelor, and add twenty years to your life,” Funzi cracked.
“It’s going to be neither, boys,” Nicky promised them.
Carlo’s houseman drove a rustic flatbed truck down the new road.
“Climb aboard. We’re going to eat and drink and celebrate,” Nicky told the crew as they hoisted themselves onto the flatbed. “And then we’re going home.”
Carlo took a seat in the front cab with the driver. The Americans sat behind them, their legs dangling over the lip of the back of the flatbed, as the houseman made the turn to drive the truck up the mountain.
“Smooth ride,” Funzi commented.
Nicky leaned back on his hands as the road under them became a long ribbon as they drove higher up the mountain. Every stone in the road, placed with the labor of their hands, had brought Nicky closer to his truth. He didn’t belong in Italy, though he had an affinity for the people and the countryside. He didn’t belong in Roseto, Pennsylvania, where he would be reminded of his folly, contrition, and penance, though without them, he would not be present in this moment. He couldn’t return to the streets of South Philly, driving Car No. 4 and living on Montrose Street in the basement, as though all of this hadn’t happened. He’d outgrown his boots. His old life belonged to the guy who wore Florsheims.
Nicky had decided that he was going to New York City to fulfill his dream of being an actor. He would live there and act on the stage, the only thing he had ever done that filled him up, thrilled him, challenged him, and scared him, which made him feel alive. Nicky had left all his regrets in the road to Roseto Valfortore; he had paid for his sins, as he hauled the sand, raked the gravel, and set the stone. Now he was ready to build a new road, the one that would lead to his new life.
* * *
Nicky stood in the basement kitchen of 810 Montrose Street, inhaling the scent of the fresh strands of vermicelli that hung like ropes as they dried on the wooden dowels. He would miss listening to the women of the house as they made the macaroni, and gossiped and laughed as they worked.
He would miss Aunt Jo as she sang along to the music on the Philly in the Air radio show. He hoped he would never forget the worktable where the fresh macaroni was made, and how Aunt Jo knew exactly how many handfuls of flour it took to make a small volcano, which Nicky would topple with a spoon. Once there was a well in the center of the flour, Aunt Jo would crack eggs into it and allow Nicky to mix the yolks and flour together until it created the paste that would become the dough that she would knead with her hands.
Under the window his mother remained in the past, in the light. There would be an aspect of her that glittered, a gold hoop earring, a pin on her dress, the shiny side of a barrette or a dime she gave him to put in his piggy bank. Nicky would be sad to leave this room behind because it was a sanctuary of memories. He closed the wooden door between the kitchen and his bedroom.
Nicky placed the last of his clothes in the suitcase. He hung his Western Union uniform and cap in the closet, in case his replacement needed it.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Elsa asked.
“I got a place,” Nicky lied.
“You’re really going to leave us?” She sighed and sat on the edge of his bed.
Nicky would miss Elsa’s soft voice and graceful movements. He had a favorite cousin-in-law. He knew it, and so did she.
“Elsa, I think it’s time. The family needs the space, and I need to move on.”
Mabel and Lena entered the room together.
“What’s this about you moving out?” Lena asked.
“I was just teasing you about the room,” Mabel said. “We have plenty of space upstairs.”
“It’s time for me to grow up and find my way on my own. I want to be an actor and audition for all kinds of plays, so I have to go to New York.”
“You never have to leave this house.” Aunt Jo brought Nicky a stack of pressed handkerchiefs and put them in his suitcase.
“I know, Aunt Jo, and I appreciate that. If I could pack you all up and take you with me, I would.”
“My brother lived with my mother until the day he died,” Aunt Jo said, twisting the hem of her apron.
“Ma, that’s a bad example.” Dominic came in the room carrying his son, who he handed to Elsa. He took a seat in the rocking chair. “Uncle Jimmy fell off the roof and landed on his head when he was fifteen. He was never right after that. He couldn’t leave the house. You can’t compare him and Nicky.”
“It was an example of someone who never left, that’s all I was saying,” Aunt Jo retorted.
“No offense taken,” Nicky assured her. “To me or Uncle Jimmy.”
Gio edged into the crowded room. “When you come back to us, and you will, don’t bring home a fancy New York girl.”
“Please don’t!” Mabel pined. “They’re fast.”
“Why would I do that? Only Philly girls, Jersey girls, or Polish girls,” Nicky promised. “Let us not forget the Irish. Nothing like an Irish lass.”
“Nothing wrong with a New York girl. I have cousins in Brooklyn,” Lena said defensively.
“Don’t get your feelings hurt—they don’t mean your particular cousins.” Nino sat next to his wife on the bed. “Your family is a gallery of saints.”
“I couldn’t figure out where the hell everybody went,” Uncle Dom said, ambling into Nicky’s room, his bad knee crackling softly. Dominic Jr. got up from the rocking chair and offered it to his father, who took a seat.
“That’s because you never come down to the basement. This is where we make the homemades, Pop. And can the tomatoes. And ferment the peaches in wine.” Mabel sniffed.
“I know where the work is done in this house.
”
“Do you know who does it?” Aunt Jo joked.
“Yes, Joanna, as matter of fact, I do.”
“You could show your appreciation once in a while.”
“What do you want? I bust my coolie for you.”
“Here we go,” Gio said under his breath.
“You have the best equipment. The best appliances.” Dom flailed his arms.
“They don’t do the work, Dominic.”
“I run a good business to keep your sons and their families close.”
“True.”
“I put the Western Union in for you.”
“What kind of a present is that?”
“I’d rather have jewelry,” Mabel barked. The girls laughed.
“No, it was the best gift my husband ever gave me. I never wanted that man to walk up to the front door and tell me I had lost a son in the war. Western Union went in, and it was good luck. You all came home.” Jo kissed Dom on his head.
“We did.” Gio thought about the odds.
“I live for you, Jo. Look at me. A prize. A joy to live with. I make love to you like we’re on our honeymoon.”
Their sons moaned in disgust. Mabel looked off into the distance, repulsed; Lena looked at her nails, while Elsa shook her head.
“That, too, is true,” Aunt Jo admitted.
“I’m happy for you, Uncle Dom, and Aunt Jo, my deepest sympathy.” Nicky placed his wallet in his pocket.
“But with all you’ve done for me, you couldn’t keep Nicky here.”
“I tried,” Dom said.
“He did. Offered me all the airport runs I could do. Very tempting.” Nicky snapped his suitcase shut.
“How can you leave us, Nick?” Nino said. “We have such a good time.”
“I’ll visit. New York is close. When I get my first play, I hope you’ll come and see it.”
“You let me know date, time, place, I’ll alert the AFL-CIO in the city, and we’ll pack the house.”
“Thanks, Uncle Dom.”
“If there’s ever anything we can do for you, will you let us know?” Elsa’s voice broke. From the moment she arrived at 810 Montrose, Nicky had made her feel a part of things. Elsa would miss him most of all.
“There is something you can do for me.”
“Of course,” Elsa agreed.
“You’re such a good sport. You go to mass every Sunday, and you hand out the doughnuts afterward. You press the altar linens for the church and the vestments for the priest and make the crowns for the May Day celebration.”
“She does a lovely job with the altar flowers,” Aunt Jo said appreciatively.
“People probably think you’re Catholic,” Nicky said.
Elsa blushed.
“But what about you and your traditions and the things you did growing up?”
“Elsa enjoys our holidays. Don’t you?” Mabel asked.
Elsa nodded.
“What’s your point, Nick?” Dominic asked impatiently.
“Elsa, I guess what I’m saying is, everything you are, and everything that you come from, is just as important as who we are and what we come from. It matters just as much. I lost my parents, and Uncle Dom and Aunt Jo took me in. My cousins are like brothers. And whatever I wanted to do, I didn’t do because I wanted to do it, but because I needed to fit in and please the good people who were kind enough to let me stay. I was so grateful to them for taking me in that I didn’t think about what I wanted. And I was so in awe of Dominic and Gio and Nino that I wanted to be just like them, so I buried my true heart. But it turns out that even when you try to hide what you are, it finds a way out. And that gets tricky, because when you’ve buried the truth, when it’s revealed it can hurt some people you care about. So forgive me for that. But not for admitting it. I’ve realized there’s no reason to hide; it makes you what you are, and that’s what we love about you. You can be yourself here. That’s what it means to be in a family. You’re safe. So before I go, I just want to say, let everyone know who you are. You deserve that. Be a Jew.”
“Elsa is a Jew. Dominic brought her from the camp,” Aunt Jo said softly.
“Don’t say camp, Aunt Jo,” Nicky corrected her. “Can’t you see it hurts her?”
Aunt Jo turned to Elsa. “It hurts you?”
“When you say it as though it is the place that I come from, yes, it hurts me. I am not from the camp. I am from Lanckorona in the south of Poland, south of Kraków.”
“The big city,” Mabel commented.
“Our town was small. My father was a teacher. His name was Ben. We lived at Fifteen Gris Street in a house the color of gingerbread, with pale green trim. We had a stream in our front yard and four pear trees.”
“It sounds like a picture in a book,” Lena said.
“It was. I had two sisters, Ada and Edith. Ada was the beauty, and Edith was funny. My mother’s name was Anna. She taught violin. I never tried it because a poor student will make you hate the sound of it. I had a life of privilege, and it changed over time, slowly, like a leak in the roof that goes unattended—soon it destroys one room, and in time, the entire house. Small changes, little shifts, so insignificant as not to cause alarm, happen, and you ignore them because they don’t seem important. There were very few of us in Lanckorona—we went to Brody for holy days, because the synagogue was there. At home, we kept Shabbat and our prayers and our traditions. My father would receive letters from the state, and he would abide by whatever he was asked to do—again, no urgency. He continued to teach, and he didn’t notice anything odd at the school until one day he was dismissed from his position of twenty-seven years without any cause. Suddenly we didn’t receive our mail, we had to go to the post to collect it. My mother had ordered certain foods for our holiday table, and one day the butcher wouldn’t sell her the meat and the baker refused to make our bread. We believed we had done something wrong, or offended our friends. We didn’t know it was happening everywhere. Or maybe we suspected it, but we couldn’t believe it.”
Mabel reached out to her. “What happened to your family?”
“We were separated in Dachau. My only prayer was that they stay together. Dominic found out what happened to them.”
“They were together,” Dominic said quietly.
“Dominic found me in the work camp.”
“Elsa was the only person in her family that was spared.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Elsa said to her husband.
“Why?”
“You should have married a nice American girl. A nice Philly girl. You found a hopeless girl when you deserve a happy one.”
“I didn’t want a girl from the neighborhood. I wanted you. What difference would it have made if we met in Atlantic City on the boardwalk or if I found you holding a dance card wearing a flower in your hair at the Knights of Columbus dance?”
“Highly unlikely. No Jewish girls go to that dance,” Uncle Dom said.
“Okay, wherever it would have been, under whatever circumstances, I would have fallen in love with you. You’re my wife. You’re the mother of my son.”
“I want to go to temple,” Elsa said quietly.
The room was quiet, and now it was also hot. Nino reached up to open the levered windows.
“All right. I’ll go with you. And we’ll bring the baby,” Dominic promised.
The room was silent except for the sound of the creak of the rocking chair as Uncle Dom rocked to and fro. After a while Aunt Jo spoke.
“What about Christmas?”
“What about it, Ma?”
“It means family.”
“So do Elsa’s holidays, Aunt Jo.”
“You can’t be both things. You can’t be a Catholic and a Jew. You have to pick, and you can’t confuse the boy.” Uncle Dom hit the arm of the rocker for emphasis.
“Aunt Jo is devout. Uncle Dom, you never go to church. Your boys didn’t have to pick between being Catholic and whatever it is you are. Why should your grandson?” Nicky asked.
“Why can’t he be both?” Lena proposed.
“When Catholics marry outside the church, they are banished. I have a cousin in Rochester who married a divorced Presbyterian, and she might as well be on a chain gang,” Mabel said, worried.
“After what Elsa has been through, I think she has a choice,” Nicky said.
“It’ll be a year-long extravaganza of holidays over here,” Uncle Dom groused.
“So what? Now you have the extra room to roll the kreplach.” Nicky smiled. “This one.”
“What will Father Mariani say?” Mabel wondered. “He can be a stickler and a pill. He wouldn’t let my cousin Noogie Finelli get married in a sheer sleeve, said it was too revealing. Said it would offend Jesus. What’s he going to say about two religions in one house?”
“Dom and I will pay him a visit with the grappa. And we’ll explain the situation. He’ll agree to our . . . situation—”
“New tradition,” Nicky interjected.
“And if he doesn’t, Daddy will build him a new rectory. Right, Dom?”
“It all comes down to the plate. Never forget it. It all comes down to the plate. You give to Mother Rome, and she sticks it to you,” Uncle Dom assured them.
“Now that you’ve made it clear how we earn our eternal salvation, I think I’ll sign up for novena,” Mabel said.
“You do that. And pray for me. Because I pray for you. I may not go to church, but it’s in here.” Dom thumped his chest.
“I should get going, so you can fight over who gets my room. And besides, if I don’t get out of here, somebody will have another baby, and there will be no end to the good-byes.” Nicky embraced each of his cousins. Mabel, who everyone believed was made of something stronger than Bethlehem steel, found herself weeping uncontrollably. Gio held his wife.
“Thank you,” Elsa whispered in Nicky’s ear.
“They took it well.”
“How did you know?”
“You had the key all along.”
“I did?” Elsa’s eyes widened.
Nicky looked at his Uncle Dom, holding his first grandson, baby Dom, as Dominic fussed over him. “A little Italian tip for the Polish girl. The mother of the prince is always a queen.”