The old woman raised her hands and wailed.
‘No hope,’ she said. ‘Ah, woman! Ah, America!’
‘Well, how did that get there?’ Maria said. ‘The boys are always so careful.’
She picked up the garment and hastily shoved it under her apron, Donna Toscana’s cold eyes upon her for a full minute after the pair of shorts had disappeared.
‘Blighted woman. Blighted, defenseless woman.’
All afternoon it was the same, Donna Toscana’s relentless cynicism wearing her down. The boys had fled with their dimes to the candy store. When they did not return after an hour Donna lamented the weakness of Maria’s authority. When they did return, Federico’s face smeared with chocolate, she wailed again. After they had been back an hour, she complained that they were to noisy, so Maria sent them outside. After they were gone she prophesied that they would probably die of influenza out there in the snow. Maria made her tea. Donna clucked her tongue and concluded that it was too weak. Patiently Maria watched the clock on the stove. In two hours, at seven o’clock, her mother would leave. The time halted and limped and crawled in agony.
‘You look bad,’ Donna said. ‘What has happened to the color in your face?’
With one hand Maria smoothed her hair.
‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘All of us are well.’
‘Where is he?’ Donna said. ‘That vagabond.’
‘Svevo is working, Mamma mio. He is figuring a new job.’
‘On Sunday?’ she sneered. ‘How do you know he is not out with some puttana?’
‘Why do you say such things? Svevo is not that kind of a man.’
‘The man you married is a brutal animal. But he married a stupid woman, and so I suppose he will never be exposed. Ah, America! Only in this corrupt land could such things happen.’
While Maria prepared dinner she sat with her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. The fare was to be spaghetti and meatballs. She made Maria scour the spaghetti kettle with soap and water. She ordered the long box of spaghetti brought to her, and she examined it carefully for evidences of mice. There was no icebox in the house, the meat being kept in a cupboard on the back porch. It was round steak, ground for meatballs.
‘Bring it here,’ Donna said.
Maria placed it before her. She tasted it with the tip of her finger. ‘I thought so,’ she frowned. ‘It is spoiled.’
‘But that is impossible!’ Maria said. ‘Only last night I bought it.’
‘A butcher will always cheat a fool,’ she said.
Dinner was delayed a half hour because Donna insisted that Maria wash and dry the already clean plates. The kids came in, ravenously hungry. She ordered them to wash their hands and faces, to put on clean shirts and wear neckties. They growled and Arturo muttered ‘The old bitch,’ as he fastened a hated necktie. By the time all was ready the dinner was cold. The boys ate it anyhow. The old woman ate listlessly, a few strands of spaghetti before her. Even these displeased her, and she pushed her plate away.
‘The dinner is badly prepared,’ she said. ‘This spaghetti tastes like dung.’
Federico laughed.
‘It’s good, though.’
‘Can I get you something else, Mamma mio?’
‘No!’
After dinner she sent Arturo to the filling station to phone for a cab. Then she left, arguing with the cab driver, trying to bargain the fare to the depot from twenty-five to twenty cents. After she was gone Arturo stuffed a pillow into his shirt, wound an apron around it, and waddled around the house, sniffing contemptuously. But no one laughed. No one cared.
Chapter Four
No Bandini, no money, no food. If Bandini were home, he would say, ‘Charge it.’
Monday afternoon, and still no Bandini, and that grocery bill! She could never forget it. Like a tireless ghost it filled the winter days with dread.
Next door to the Bandini house was Mr Craik’s grocery store. In the early years of his marriage Bandini had opened a credit business with Mr Craik. At first he managed to keep the bills paid. But as the children grew older and hungrier, as bad year followed bad year, the grocery bill whizzed into crazy figures. Every year since his marriage things got worse for Svevo Bandini. Money! After fifteen years of marriage Bandini had so many bills that even Federico knew he had no intention or opportunity to pay them.
But the grocery bill harassed him. Owing Mr Craik a hundred dollars, he paid fifty – if he had it. Owing two hundred, he paid seventy-five – if he had it. So it was with all the debts of Svevo Bandini. There was no mystery about them. There were no hidden motives, no desire to cheat in their non-payment. No budget could solve them. No planned economy could alter them. It was very simple: the Bandini family used up more money than he earned. He knew his only escape lay in a streak of good luck. His tireless presumption that such good luck was coming forestalled his complete desertion and kept him from blowing out his brains. He constantly threatened both, but did neither. Maria did not know how to threaten. It was not in her nature.
But Mr Craik the grocer complained unceasingly. He never quite trusted Bandini. If the Bandini family had not lived next door to his store, where he could keep his eye on it, and if he had not felt that ultimately he would receive at least most of the money owed him, he would not have allowed further credit. He sympathized with Maria and pitied her with that cold pity small businessmen show to the poor as a class, and with that frigid self-defensive apathy toward individual members of it. Christ, he had bills to pay too.
Now that the Bandini account was so high – and it rose by leaps throughout each winter – he abused Maria, even insulted her. He knew that she herself was honest to the point of childish innocence, but that did not seem relevant when she came to the store to increase the account. Just like she owned the place! He was there to sell groceries, not give them away. He dealt in merchandise, not feelings. Money was owed him. He was allowing her additional credit. His demands for money were in vain. The only thing to do was keep after her until he got it. Under the circumstances, his attitude was the best he could possibly muster.
Maria had to coax herself to a pitch of inspired audacity in order to face him each day. Bandini paid no attention to her mortification at the hands of Mr Craik.
Charge it, Mr Craik. Charge it.
All afternoon and until an hour before dinner Maria walked the house, waiting for that desperate inspiration so necessary for a trip to the store. She went to the window and sat with hands in her apron pockets, one fist around her rosary – waiting. She had done it before, only two days ago, Saturday, and the day before that, all the days before that, spring, summer, winter, year in, year out. But now her courage slept from overuse and would not rise. She couldn’t go to that store again, face that man.
From the window, through the pale winter evening, she saw Arturo across the street with a gang of neighborhood kids. They were involved in a snowball fight in the empty lot. She opened the door.
‘Arturo!’
