Arturo didn’t know what he wanted, nor did August. The evil he had done twisted inside Bandini, but he smiled and said they would find something for all. A big Christmas. The biggest of all.
I can see that other woman in his arms, I can smell her in his clothes, her lips have roamed his face, her hands have explored his chest. He disgusts me, and I want him hurt to death.
‘And what’ll we get Mamma?’
He turned around and faced her, his eyes on the money as he unrolled the bills.
‘Look at all the money! Better give it all to Mamma, huh? All the money Papa won playing cards. Pretty good card-player, Papa.’
He raised his eyes and looked at her, she with her hands gripped in the sides of the chair, as though ready to spring at him, and he realized he was afraid of her, and he smiled not in amusement but fear, the evil he had done weakening his courage. Fan-wise he held the money out: there were fives and tens, a hundred even, and like a condemned man going to his punishment he kept the silly smile on his lips as he bent over and made to hand her the bills, trying to think of the old words, their words, his and hers, their language. She clung to the chair in horror forcing herself not to shrink back from the serpent of guilt that wound itself into the ghastly figure of his face. Closer than ever he bent, only inches from her hair, utterly ridiculous in his ameliorations, until she could not bear it, could not refrain from it, and with a suddenness that surprised her too, her ten long fingers were at his eyes, tearing down, a singing strength in her ten long fingers that laid streaks of blood down his face as he screamed and backed away, the front of his shirt, his neck and collar gathering the fast-falling red drops. But it was his eyes, my God my eyes, my eyes! And he backed away and covered them with his cupped hands, standing against the wall, his face reeking with pain, afraid to lift his hands, afraid that he was blind.
‘Maria,’ he sobbed. ‘Oh God, what have you done to me?’
He could see; dimly through a curtain of red he could see, and he staggered around.
‘Ah Maria, what have you done? What have you done?’
Around the room he staggered. He heard the weeping of his children, the words of Arturo: ‘Oh God.’ Around and round he staggered, blood and tears in his eyes.
‘Jesus Christi, what has happened to me?’
At his feet lay the green bills and he staggered through them and upon them in his new shoes, little red drops splattered over the shining black toes, round and round, moaning and groping his way to the door and outside into the cold night, into the snow, deep into the drift in the yard moaning all the time, his big hands scooping snow like water and pressing it to his burning face. Again and again the white snow from his hands fell back to the earth, red and sodden. In the house his sons stood petrified, in their new pajamas, the front door open, the light in the middle of the room blinding their view of Svevo Bandini as he blotted his face with the linen of the sky. In the chair sat Maria. She did not move as she stared at the blood and the money strewn about the room.
Damn her, Arturo thought. Damn her to hell.
He was crying, hurt by the humiliation of his father; his father, that man, always so solid and powerful, and he had seen him floundering and hurt and crying, his father who never cried and never floundered. He wanted to be with his father, and he put on his shoes and hurried outside, where Bandini was bent over, choked and quivering. But it was good to hear something over and above the choking – to hear his anger, his curses. It thrilled him when he heard his father vowing vengeance. I’ll kill her, by God, I’ll kill her. He was gaining control of himself now. The snow had checked the flow of blood. He stood panting, examining his bloody clothes, his hands spattered crimson.
‘Somebody’s got to pay for this,’ he said. ‘Sangue de la Madonna! It shall not be forgotten.’
‘Papa –’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then get in the house. Get in there with that crazy mother of yours.’
That was all. He broke his way through the snow to the sidewalk and strode down the street. The boy watched him go, his face high to the night. It was the way he walked, stumbling despite his determination. But no – after a few feet he turned, ‘You kids have a happy Christmas. Take that money and go down and buy what you want.’
He went on again, his chin out, coasting into the cold air, bearing up under a deep wound that was not bleeding.
The boy went back to the house. The money was not on the floor. One look at Federico, who choked bitterly as he held out a torn section of a five-dollar bill told him what had happened. He opened the stove. The black embers of burnt paper smoked faintly. He closed the stove and examined the floor, bare except for drying blood spots. In hatred he glared at his mother. She did not move or even heed with her eyes, but her lips opened and shut, for she had resumed her rosary.
‘Merry Christmas!’ he sneered.
Federico wailed. August was too shocked to speak.
Yeah: a Merry Chistmas. Ah, give it to her, Papa! Me and you, Papa, because I know how you feel, because it happened to me too, but you should have done what I did, Papa, knocked her down like I did, and you’d feel better. Because you’re killing me, Papa, you with your bloody face walking around all by yourself, you’re killing me.
He went out on the porch and sat down. The night was full of his father. He saw the red spots in the snow where Bandini had floundered and bent to lift it to his face. Papa’s blood, my blood. He stepped off the porch and kicked clean snow over the place until it disappeared. Nobody should see this: nobody. Then he returned to the house.
His mother had not moved. How he hated her! With one grasp he tore the rosary out of her hands and pulled it to pieces. She watched him, martyr-like. She got up and followed him outside, the broken rosary in his fist. He threw it far out into the snow, scattering it like seeds. She walked past him into the snow.
In astonishment he watched her wade knee-deep into the whiteness, gazing around like one dazed. Here and there she found a bead, her hand cupping fistfuls of snow. It disgusted him. She was pawing the very spot where his father’s blood had colored the snow.
Hell with her. He was leaving. He wanted his father. He dressed and walked down the street. Merry Christmas. The town was painted green and white with it. A hundred dollars in the stove – but what about him, his brothers? You could be holy and firm, but why must they all suffer? His mother had too much God in her.
Where now? He didn’t know, but not at home with her. He could understand his father. A man had to do something: never having anything was too monotonous. He had to admit it: if he could choose between Maria and Effie Hildegarde, it would be Effie every time. When Italian women got to a certain age their legs thinned and their bellies widened, their breasts fell and they lost sparkle. He tried to imagine Rosa Pinelli at forty. Her legs would thin like his mother’s; she would be fat in the stomach. But he could not imagine it. That Rosa, so lovely! He wished instead that she would die. He pictured disease wasting her away until there had to be a funeral. It would make him happy. He would go to her death-bed and stand over it. She would weakly take his hand in her hot fingers and tell him she was going to die, and he would answer, too bad Rosa; you had your chance, but I’ll always remember you Rosa. Then the funeral, the weeping, and Rosa lowered into the earth. But he would be cold to it all, stand there and smile a little with
