That was all she would say. Somewhat confused, he returned to New York.
A week passed before he spoke to her again. When he called the house she answered the telephone herself. She sounded very friendly. But when he said he was thinking of going out to Long Island on Sunday, she said her parents required her to be at home that day, so he decided not to go.
It was on the following Thursday that Uncle Luigi came in excitedly. He had received a telephone call at the restaurant from Long Island. The Carusos had received visitors.
“Teresa and her parents,” he told Salvatore. “She brought them over so that Angelo could make a drawing of her father—they paid him for it, too. Her father and mother spent time with your parents, and it seems they got on famously. They are friends already.”
And hearing this, Salvatore was lost in admiration for the girl he loved. Clearly, he’d been right; there had been objections raised about his family. Now, on a simple pretext, she had got her parents to his family’s house, and let them discover that they liked the Carusos. She was paving the way for their marriage.
He waited eagerly for her next move.
The weather grew warmer in April, and Angelo grew stronger. At the end of the second week, he returned to the city and announced he was ready to work. He certainly looked well.
The building site where Salvatore was working stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-fifth. Mr. French was the developer and had decided that the building was to bear his name—with good reason, for it was going to be one of the loveliest skyscrapers ever built.
To prevent New York from becoming a great grid of dark canyons, the city had insisted that skyscrapers could not arise vertically from the boundaries of their sites, but that at specified heights there must be setbacks to let the light in. At its crudest, this sometimes caused builders to raise skyscrapers that looked like upturned telescopes. But architects had soon seen that this was an opportunity to create complex patterns with elegant steps, shelves and cutaways. The French building was nearing completion, and with its carved bronze entrance, inspired by the Ishtar Gate, and its high terraces like hanging gardens, it might have come from ancient Babylon. Passing through its rich art deco lobbies was like entering a temple. But most lovely to Salvatore was the soaring facade of warm orange brick, trimmed with deep red and black at the edges. There was no other brickwork like that in New York.
For the next two weeks, the brothers worked together on the splendid building, and Angelo seemed glad to be there. Then Teresa came into the city.
Had she come to give him her decision? It was hard to tell. She came with her cousin as usual, and suggested that all four of them go to a movie. After the movie, she asked if Uncle Luigi would be at the restaurant, because she had not seen him in a while. Certainly, Salvatore told her.
So they went to the restaurant, and Salvatore treated them to a meal, and Uncle Luigi waited on them. It was a lively meal. Salvatore told some good jokes, and everyone was laughing. Uncle Luigi, who always followed the news avidly, was full of the latest about the daring aviators.
“Any day now,” he told them, “someone’s going to win the big prize.”
Mr. Orteig, the French-born owner of the Lafayette Hotel in the city, had for years been offering a prize of $25,000 to the first aviator to fly non-stop either way between New York and Paris. Just recently, two brave American airmen had been killed in the attempt, taking off from Langley. But Uncle Luigi had heard that two French airmen would shortly take up the challenge from Paris.
“Now you have money,” said Angelo with a smile to Salvatore, “here’s your chance to make even more!”
“The top of a skyscraper is high enough for me,” he said.
It was toward the end of the meal that Teresa asked Uncle Luigi if she could speak with him privately for a few minutes. She did not explain herself further, but the two of them sat together at another table, deep in conversation for nearly a quarter of an hour. At the end of it, she got up and kissed Uncle Luigi.
“It’s nice to have a real talk with your uncle,” she said as she sat down again. “He is very wise.”
After the meal, Teresa said that she must go home. Uncle Luigi wanted Angelo to run an errand for him, so Salvatore escorted the two girls to the station. When he kissed Teresa good-bye, he gave her a little questioning look, but she only returned a gentle smile.
“I’ll be coming back soon,” she promised.
On Wednesday, Uncle Luigi had the evening off, and it was agreed they’d go out to eat together. It was a fine day, and Salvatore was enjoying working up in the clear blue sky. At the top of the building, on the flat roof, a large water tank would be screened by outside walls with gorgeous colored panels. The big tiles arrived that morning, and the foreman obligingly showed the designs to the brothers. Two panels depicted the god Mercury, but the most dramatic was the huge green rectangle, in the center of which a bright red rising sun was flanked by two griffins with golden wings. Angelo was quite enraptured by this.
When they got home, however, Angelo complained of feeling tired. Salvatore looked at him with concern, but his brother assured him he’d be fine.
“We’ll go out,” said Uncle Luigi. “Let him rest. We won’t be late.”
They found a little steakhouse near Greenwich Village. It wasn’t too crowded. They both ordered sirloin and Uncle Luigi chose a red wine. While they ate their steaks, Uncle Luigi discussed the latest news from the aviators.
“The Frenchmen took off from Paris on Sunday. They were seen heading out over the Atlantic from Ireland. Then nothing.”
“They must have gone down over the ocean.”
“Brave men,” said Uncle Luigi, then he glanced at Salvatore thoughtfully. “Are you brave, Salvatore?”
“I don’t know,” said Salvatore.
“I suppose we never know until we are tested.”
They ordered crème caramel. When it had been served, Uncle Luigi looked at Salvatore thoughtfully again.
“Tell me, Salvatore,” he asked, “do you love Teresa?”
“Yes,” said Salvatore.
“And do you think she loves you?”
“I’m not sure. I think so.”
“Well, she does. She loves you, Salvatore. She has told me so.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes. But I have bad news. It may not be possible for her to marry you. That is why she spoke to me. She is very distressed, and she does not know what to do.”
“Is it her parents still?”
“No.”
“Is she sick? I would look after her.”
“No. You must be brave, Salvatore. She has fallen in love.” Uncle Luigi paused. “It is very difficult for her. This was a love she did not seek, and it has taken her by surprise. She has fought against it, but now she believes she cannot marry you with a good heart.” The older man sighed. “She is an honest woman, Salvatore, who does not want to cause you pain. I admire her.”
Salvatore was silent for a while. “That explains everything,” he said quietly. He gazed at the table. “Who is the lucky man?” he asked at last.
“Your brother. Angelo.”
Salvatore was stunned by how quickly everything happened after that. At first, for some hours, he had been stupefied. After that, rage had set in. It wasn’t only that he’d been hurt. It wasn’t only that the woman he loved had preferred his little brother. But his own kid brother, with the connivance of his uncle, had made a fool of him.
For it didn’t take long for the rest of the truth to come out. Uncle Luigi had told Angelo about Teresa’s feelings while Salvatore was taking her to the station. So for three days Angelo had worked beside him and never said a word. He’d been betrayed.
“You must understand,” Uncle Luigi had explained, “that Teresa confessed her feelings to me, but not to Angelo. It was I who had to talk to him, to discover whether her love might be returned. I discovered that it would be. He loved her, absolutely, but in his mind, she belonge
d to you. He was distraught. He was lost. He didn’t know what to do. It was I who told him to say nothing, until I had talked to you.”
Salvatore listened to these explanations, but they did not alter the fact. Angelo had stolen his bride, and he had lied. For days, he could hardly bear the sight of his brother. At work, they joined different gangs so that they could avoid each other. They spent as little time in their lodgings as possible, and when they were both there, Salvatore did not speak to Angelo. After a few days Angelo asked him: “Do you want me to leave?” But Salvatore only shrugged.
“What’s the point? You’ll be going soon.”
The next weekend, Angelo disappeared. It was obvious that he’d gone to Long Island. Salvatore stayed in the city. When Angelo returned, he said nothing, but the next day Uncle Luigi gave Salvatore a letter from Teresa, which Angelo must have brought. The letter was full of expressions of affection. She hoped he could forgive her, that he would understand, that they might remain friends. He almost tore it up, but finally put it in a drawer with feelings of disgust.
“Maybe I’ll go to California,” he told Uncle Luigi, who remarked sadly: “I’ll be lonely.”
His uncle did tell him one other thing, in the hope that it might be of some comfort.
“Understand, Salvatore, that nobody except myself and the parties concerned even know that it was you who were courting Teresa. Nothing was ever said. Nothing happened. All anybody knows is that Teresa became friendly with two brothers and that she is marrying one of them. You haven’t made a brutta figura.”
At the time this seemed small comfort. But as the weeks went by, at least it was something.
What also astonished him was how quickly Teresa’s family seemed to take Angelo over. It was decided that he would move out to Long Island straight away. They would set him up with a little house-painting business. But as well as this, he was to design signs for the local businesses and undertake other decorative work. One thing was certain: with the family’s local connections, there would be plenty of commissions to start him off.
“I thought he didn’t like taking commissions,” he remarked to Uncle Luigi.
“Ah, but now he is to get married,” said his uncle. “He told me that when he was sick, he started to realize that he couldn’t rely on bricklaying to make a living. And he enjoyed those commissions he did more than he thought he would.” Uncle Luigi made a gesture with his hands. “It is necessary to adjust. A man has to accept responsibilities.”
But perhaps the thing that amazed Salvatore the most was the way that Angelo seemed to be taking charge of his bride. He had been living on Long Island only two weeks when he came back to the lodgings to fetch some things. On this occasion, Salvatore brought himself to speak to his brother. But when he remarked that Teresa might want to live in the city one day, Angelo just smiled and shook his head.
“No,” he said calmly, “she deceives herself about that. I’ll make her stay on Long Island.”
Salvatore could hardly believe it was his little brother speaking.
It took more time, but gradually after that he began to realize, even if it was hard to accept, that however humiliating it was, Teresa, her parents and Uncle Luigi had all been right.
It was his brother who had the talent. It was his brother who would be content to work with his head, and not with his hands. It was Angelo who would sit in an office, write letters, look after the accounts, while he, Salvatore, lived in the open air. Despite even the ten thousand dollars he now possessed, it was not he but Angelo who would become the businessman. Fate was cruel, but it was fate.
The wedding took place on the second Sunday in June, on Long Island. Understandably, Salvatore did not want to be best man, so Uncle Luigi had tactfully arranged for Giuseppe to perform that role. It was certainly a big affair. The Carusos had invited a few friends from the city, but Teresa’s family had summoned half the people in the area—an impressive display of their importance in the community.
The ceremony could not be without pain for Salvatore. When he saw Teresa, and how lovely she looked, his heart missed a beat. And as he gazed at her, suddenly smitten by an anguish of love, he asked himself: How could this have happened?
As for his little brother, when he first saw him, just for a moment, he didn’t recognize him. Angelo’s hair had been cut short, and he’d grown a mustache. His face, thinner than those of his brothers, no longer looked delicate but fine, manly and strikingly handsome. When he came to greet Salvatore, he seemed to move with the grace and confidence of a dancer.
And once again, with force, but with awful justice, it struck him that Teresa and her family had shown their wisdom. They had picked the one person in the family who was out of the ordinary, the one who had the capacity to grow. And, in their own humble way, they were going to help him succeed. He felt jealous, but he recognized the truth for what it was.
“I am so proud of you,” he whispered to Angelo as he embraced him. And he meant it.
Following the wedding Mass, they all walked back to Teresa’s family’s house. This being an Italian wedding, the best man was waiting at the door of the house, with a huge tray of drinks, so that everyone could toast the bride and groom. After that, they walked past the table where their mothers were sitting just behind the women helpers who were recording the presents people brought.
Of course, the family had already given gifts to the couple. Teresa’s extended family had showered them with gifts, and although Angelo’s family could not quite keep up with this, their honor was preserved by Uncle Luigi’s fine set of china, and the gift, together with a big signed photograph, sent by the great Caruso himself. These were displayed for all to see. Salvatore had thought long and hard about what present he should give, and a beautiful crystal vase from him stood beside Uncle Luigi’s china.
During the dancing, the bride would also wear a silk purse into which the men would stuff money.
But the table was something different. Here, the guests who had obligations toward the family would present their gifts for all to see, and the helpers would write them down with a note of their value. Woe betide the guest who failed in his obligations. Everyone would know they were cheap—they’d have made a brutta figura indeed.
Since he was one of the family, they were not expecting him to pause at the table. When he reached it, however, he stopped and gave the helpers his name.
“I wish to add a further present to the one I have given,” he said quietly. “This is for my brother Angelo, that I love, on his wedding day.” And drawing from his pocket a slip of paper, he laid it on the table in front of the helpers, who gasped. It was a check, made out for five thousand dollars.
On the second Monday of June 1927, a great event took place in New York City. In the first half of May, searches had been made for the two gallant French aviators who had vanished in their plane after setting out across the Atlantic. No one had seen them again, but rumors that an aircraft engine had been heard over Newfoundland and Maine had raised hopes. Nothing had been found, however, and whatever had become of them, they certainly hadn’t reached New York.
On May 20, however, a young American that few people had ever heard of managed to take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, in a single-seater, single-engine monoplane that he called the Spirit of St. Louis. By the night of the next day, after flying through rain, wind and fog, sometimes above the clouds and sometimes only feet above the Atlantic waves, the young fellow arrived at Paris’s Le Bourget airport, where a night-time crowd of 150,000 had gathered to meet him. From that moment young Charles Lindbergh became an international sensation. Despite losing two of their own national heroes that month, the French took the young American to their hearts. Breaking all protocol, the Foreign Ministry at the Quai d’Orsay flew the Stars and Stripes from its flagpole. The President of France gave Lindbergh the Légion d’honneur.
Now Lindbergh was back in America, and it was not an opportunity that sporting Mayor Walker of New York was going to m
iss. On Monday, June 13, Charles A. Lindbergh was honored with a ticker-tape parade.
Salvatore and Uncle Luigi watched it together, as it passed down Fifth Avenue. As the ticker tape rained down like confetti, the huge crowds roared. Uncle Luigi was especially excited.
“Do you know when the first ticker-tape parade was given?” he shouted to Salvatore.
“No,” said Salvatore, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“In 1886, to celebrate the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. You see? The statue was a gift from France, Lindbergh makes the first flight to Paris, we give him the same honor.”
“I get it. Vive la France.”
“Esattamente.”
As they walked back home together afterward, Salvatore looked at his uncle with affection. Uncle Luigi was in his sixties now, yet he had just the same curiosity and enthusiasm about the world as he had in his thirties. Live forever, Salvatore thought, I should be lonely without you.
“That was a fine thing you did for Angelo,” Uncle Luigi remarked. “I do not think I could have done it.”
“Not really,” said Salvatore. And in truth, it hadn’t been so difficult. Partly, it had to be said, it had raised his own status within his family. It had certainly impressed everyone at the wedding. He was sure, also, that Paolo had intended him to share the money with Angelo. And one other thought had also been in his mind.
“It was what Anna would have wanted,” Salvatore said.
In a way, it made him free.
1929
It was halfway through September when Uncle Luigi went to see his broker. He enjoyed these visits, usually. It was twenty years earlier that he’d overheard someone in the restaurant talking about the firm. He always tried to listen, if Wall Street men came into the restaurant—and as its reputation for first-rate Italian family cooking spread, they sometimes did. By doing so he’d learned a lot of things. The brokerage house in question, he’d heard, was very grand, and patronized by important men on the street, but they took small accounts as well, and treated all their customers with nearly equal courtesy.