My God, I can’t hang around here all night long.’
At the sound of his voice she lost her balance. She smiled to conceal her embarrassment, but her face was purplish and her eyes lowered. Her hands fluttered at her throat.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I was – waiting for you!’
‘What’ll it be, Mrs Bandini – shoulder steak?’
She stood in the corner and pursed her lips. Her heart beat so fast she could think of nothing at all to say now.
She said: ‘I think I want –’
‘Hurry up, Mrs Bandini. My God, you been here about a half hour now, and you ain’t made up your mind yet.’
‘I thought –’
‘Do you want shoulder steak?’
‘How much is shoulder steak, Mr Craik?’
‘Same price. My God, Mrs Bandini. You been buying it for years. Same price. Same price all the time.’
‘I’ll take fifty cents’ worth.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ he said. ‘Here I went and put all that meat in the icebox.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Craik.’
‘I’ll get it this time. But after this, Mrs Bandini, if you want my business, come early. My God, I got to get home sometime tonight.’
He brought out a cut of shoulder and stood sharpening his knife.
‘Say,’ he said. ‘What’s Svevo doing these days?’
In the fifteen-odd years that Bandini and Mr Craik knew one another, the grocer always referred to him by his first name. Maria always felt that Craik was afraid of her husband. It was a belief that secretly made her very proud. Now they talked of Bandini, and she told him again the monotonous tale of a bricklayer’s misfortunes in the Colorado winters.
‘I seen Svevo last night,’ Craik said. ‘Seen him up around Effie Hildegarde’s house. Know her?’
No – she didn’t know her.
‘Better watch that Svevo,’ he said with insinuating humor. ‘Better keep your eye on him. Effie Hildegarde’s got lots of money.’
‘She’s a widow too,’ Craik said, studying the meat scale. ‘Own’s the street car company.’
Maria watched his face closely. He wrapped and tied the meat, slapped it before her on the counter. ‘Owns lots of real estate in this town too. Fine-looking woman, Mrs Bandini.’
Real estate? Maria sighed with relief.
‘Oh, Svevo knows lots of real estate people. He’s probably figuring some job for her.’
She was biting her thumbnail when Craik spoke again.
‘What else, Mrs Bandini?’
She ordered the rest: flour, potatoes, soap, margarine, sugar. ‘I almost forgot!’ she said. ‘I want some fruit too, a half dozen of those apples. The children like fruit.’
Mr Craik swore under his breath as he whipped a sack open and dropped apples into it. He did not approve of fruit for the Bandini account: he could see no reason for poor people indulging in luxury. Meat and flour – yes. But why should they eat fruit when they owed him so much money?
‘Good God,’ he said. ‘This charging business has got to stop, Mrs Bandini! I tell you it can’t go on like this. I ain’t had a penny on that bill since September.’
‘I’ll tell him!’ she said, retreating. ‘I’ll tell him, Mr Craik.’
‘Ack! A lot of good that does!’
She gathered her packages.
‘I’ll tell him, Mr Craik! I’ll tell him tonight.’
Such a relief to step into the street! How tired she was. Her body ached. Yet she smiled as she breathed the cold night air, hugging her packages lovingly, as though they were life itself.
Mr Craik was mistaken. Svevo Bandini was a family man. And why shouldn’t he talk to a woman who owned real estate?
Chapter Five
Arturo Bandini was pretty sure that he wouldn’t go to hell when he died. The way to hell was the committing of mortal sin. He had committed many, he believed, but the confessional had saved him. He always got to confession on time – that is, before he died. And he knocked on wood whenever he thought of it – he always would get there on time – before he died. So Arturo was pretty sure he wouldn’t go to hell when he died. For two reasons. The confessional, and the fact that he was a fast runner.
But purgatory, that midway place between hell and heaven, disturbed him. In explicit terms the catechism stated the requirements for heaven: a soul had to be absolutely clean, without the slightest blemish of sin. If the soul at death was not clean enough for heaven, and not befouled enough for hell, there remained that middle region, that purgatory where the soul burned and burned until it was purged of its blemishes.
In purgatory there was one consolation: soon or late you were a cinch for heaven. But when Arturo realized that his stay in purgatory might be seventy million trillion billion years, burning and burning and burning, there was little consolation in ultimate heaven. After all, a hundred years was a long time. And a hundred and fifty million years was incredible.
No: Arturo was sure he would never go straight to heaven. Much as he dreaded the prospect, he knew that he was in for a long session in purgatory. But wasn’t there something a man could do to lessen the purgatory ordeal of fire? In his catechism he found the answer to this problem.
The way to shorten the awful period in purgatory, the catechism stated, was by good works, by prayer, by fasting and abstinence, and by piling up indulgences. Good works were out, as far as he was concerned. He had never visited the sick, because he knew no such people. He had never clothed the naked because he had never seen any naked people. He had never buried the dead because they had undertakers for that. He had never given alms to the poor because he had none to give; besides, ‘alms’ always sounded to him like a loaf of bread, and where could he get loaves of bread? He had never harbored the injured because – well, he didn’t know – it sounded like something people did on seacoast towns, going out and rescuing sailors injured in shipwrecks. He had never instructed the ignorant because after all, he was ignorant himself, otherwise he wouldn’t be forced to go to this lousy school. He had never enlightened the darkness because that was a tough one he never did understand. He had never comforted the afflicted because it sounded dangerous and he knew none of them anyway: most cases of measles and smallpox had quarantine signs on the doors.
As for the Ten Commandments he broke practically all of them, and yet he was sure that not all of these infringements were mortal sins. Sometimes he carried a rabbit’s foot, which was superstition, and therefore a sin against the First Commandment. But was it a mortal sin? That always bothered him. A mortal sin was a serious offense. A venial sin was a slight offense. Sometimes, playing baseball, he crossed bats with a fellow player: this was supposed to be a sure way to get a two-base
