slowly. Sometimes they had to speak twice before she heard them. Afternoons she sat drinking tea, staring into the cup. She let the dishes go. One afternoon an incredible thing happened: a fly appeared. A fly! And in winter! They watched it soaring near the ceiling. It seemed to move with great difficulty, as though its wings were frozen. Federico climbed a chair and killed the fly with a rolled newspaper. It fell to the floor. They got down on their knees and examined it. Federico held it between his fingers. Maria knocked it from his hand. She ordered him to the sink, and to use soap and water. He refused. She seized him by the hair and dragged him to his feet.
‘You do what I tell you!’
They were astonished: Mamma had never touched them, had never said an unkind thing to them. Now she was listless again, deep in the ennui of a teacup. Federico washed and dried his hands. Then he did a surprising thing. Arturo and August were convinced that something was wrong, for Federico bent over and kissed his mother in the depths of her hair. She hardly noticed it. Absently she smiled. Federico slipped to his knees and put his head in her lap. Her fingers slid over the outlines of his nose and lips. But they knew that she hardly noticed Federico. Without a word she got up, and Federico looked after her in disappointment as she walked to the rocking chair by the window in the front room. There she remained, never moving, her elbow on the window sill, her chin in her hand as she watched the cold deserted street.
Strange times. The dishes remained unwashed. Sometimes they went to bed and the bed wasn’t made. It didn’t matter but they thought about it, of her in the front room by the window. Mornings she lay in bed and did not get up to see them off to school. They dressed in alarm, peeking at her from the bedroom door. She lay like one dead, the rosary in her hand. In the kitchen the dishes had been washed sometime during the night. They were surprised again, and disappointed: for they had awakened to expect a dirty kitchen. It made a difference. They enjoyed the change from a clean to a dirty kitchen. But there it was, clean again, their breakfast in the oven. They looked in before leaving for school. Only her lips moved.
Strange times.
Arturo and August walked to school.
‘Remember, August. Remember your promise.’
‘Huh. I don’t have to tell. She knows it already.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘Then why does she act like that?’
‘Because she thinks it. But she doesn’t really know it.’
‘It’s the same.’
‘No it isn’t.’
Strange times. Christmas coming, the town full of Christmas trees, and the Santa Claus men from the Salvation Army ringing bells. Only three more shopping days before Christmas. They stood with famine-stricken eyes before shop windows. They sighed and walked on. They thought the same: it was going to be a lousy Christmas, and Arturo hated it, because he could forget he was poor if they didn’t remind him of it: every Christmas was the same, always unhappy, always wanting things he never thought about and having them denied. Always lying to the kids: telling them he was going to get things he could never possibly own. The rich kids had their day at Christmas. They could spread it on, and he had to believe them.
Wintertime, the time for standing around radiators in the cloak rooms, just standing there and telling lies. Ah, for spring! Ah, for the crack of the bat, the sting of a ball on soft palms! Wintertime, Christmas time, rich kid time: they had high-top boots and bright mufflers and fur-lined gloves. But it didn’t worry him very much. His time was the springtime. No high-top boots and fancy mufflers on the playing field! Can’t get to first base because you got a classy necktie. But he lied with the rest of them. What was he getting for Christmas? Oh, a new watch, a new suit, a lot of shirts and ties, a new bicycle, and a dozen Spalding Official National League Baseballs.
But what of Rosa?
I love you, Rosa. She had a way about her. She was poor too, a coal miner’s daughter, but they flocked around her and listened to her talk, and it didn’t matter, and he envied her and was proud of her, wondering if those who listened ever considered that he was an Italian too, like Rosa Pinelli.
Speak to me, Rosa. Look this way just once, over here Rosa, where I am watching.
He had to get her a Christmas present, and he walked the streets and peered into windows and bought her jewels and gowns. You’re welcome, Rosa. And here is a ring I bought you. Let me put it on your finger. There. Oh, it’s nothing, Rosa. I was walking along Pearl Street, and I came to Cherry’s Jewelry Shop, and I went in and bought it. Expensive? Naaaw. Three hundred, is all. I got plenty of money, Rosa. Haven’t you heard about my father? We’re rich. My father’s uncle in Italy. He left us everything. We come from fine people back there. We didn’t know about it, but come to find out, we were second cousins of the Duke of Abruzzi. Distantly related to the King of Italy. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve always loved you, Rosa, and just because I come from royal blood never will make any difference.
Strange times. One night he got home earlier than usual. He found the house empty, the back door wide open. He called his mother but got no answer. Then he noticed that both stoves had gone out. He searched every room in the house. His mother’s coat and hat were in the bedroom. Then where could she be?
He walked into the back yard and called her.
‘Ma! Oh, Ma! Where are you?’
He returned to the house and built a fire in the front room. Where could she be without her hat and coat in this weather? God damn his father! He shook his fist at his father’s hat hanging in the kitchen. God damn you, why don’t you come home! Look what you’re doing to Mamma! Darkness came suddenly and he was frightened. Somewhere in that cold house he could smell his mother, in every room, but she was not there. He went to the back door and yelled again.
‘Ma! Oh, Ma! Where are you?’
The fire went out. There was no more coal or wood. He was glad. It gave him an excuse to leave the house and fetch more fuel. He seized a coal bucket and started down the path.
In the coal shed he found her, his mother, seated in the darkness in the corner, seated on a mortar board. He jumped when he saw her, it was so dark and her face so white, numb with cold, seated in her thin dress, staring at his face and not speaking, like a dead woman, his mother frozen in the corner. She sat away from the meager pile of coal in the part of the shed where Bandini kept his mason’s tools, his cement and sacks of lime. He rubbed his eyes to free them from the blinding light of snow, the coal bucket dropped at his side as he squinted and watched her form gradually assume clarity, his mother sitting on a mortar board in the darkness of the coal shed. Was she crazy? And what was that she held in her hand?
‘Mamma!’ he demanded. ‘What’re you doing in here?’
No answer, but her hand opened and he saw what it was: a trowel, a mason’s trowel, his father’s. The clamor and protest of his body and mind took hold of him. His mother in the darkness of the coal shed with his father’s trowel. It was an intrusion upon the intimacy of a scene that belonged to him alone. His mother had no right in this place. It was as though she had discovered him there, committing a boy-sin, that place, identically where he had sat those times; and she was there, angering him with his memories and he hated it, she there, holding his father’s trowel. What good did that do? Why did she have to go around reminding herself of him, fooling with his clothes, touching his chair? Oh, he had seen her plenty of times – looking at his empty place at the table; and now, here she was, holding his trowel in the coal shed, freezing to death and not caring, like a dead woman. In his anger he kicked the coal bucket and began to cry.
‘Mamma!’ he demanded. ‘What’re you doing! Why are you out here? You’ll die out here, Mamma! You’ll freeze!’
She arose and staggered toward the door with white hands stretched ahead of her, the face stamped with cold, the blood gone from it as she walked past him and into the semi-darkness of the evening. How long she had been there he did not know, possibly an hour, possibly more, but he knew she must be half dead with cold. She walked in a daze, staring here and