style="font-size:15px;"> The blood rose to his face, and he sputtered in his coffee. Quickly she apologized. It was the outstanding bad habit of her life – this obsession she had of asking people what size shoe they wore. It was a sort of guessing game she played with herself. Would he forgive her?
The episode shook him deeply. To hide his shame he quickly seated himself at the table, his wet shoes beneath it, out of view. But the Widow smiled and persisted. Had she guessed right? Was size nine correct?
‘Sure is, Mrs Hildegarde.’
Waiting for her to dress, Svevo Bandini felt that he was getting somewhere in the world. From now on Helmer the banker and all his creditors had better be careful. Bandini had powerful friends too.
But what had he to hide of that day? No – he was proud of that day. Beside the Widow, in her car, he rode through the middle of town, down Pearl Street, the Widow at the wheel in a seal-skin coat. Had Maria and his children seen him chatting easily with her, they would have been proud of him. They might have proudly raised their chins and said, there goes our papa! But Maria had torn the flesh from his face.
What happened in the vacant house on Windsor Street? Did he lead the Widow to a vacant room and violate her? Did he kiss her? Then go to that house, Maria. Speak to the cold rooms. Scoop the cobwebs from the corners and ask them questions; ask the naked floors, ask the frosted window panes; ask them if Svevo Bandini had done wrong.
The Widow stood before the fireplace.
‘You see,’ he said. ‘The fire I built is still going. Nothing wrong. It works fine.’
She was not satisfied.
That black stuff, she said. It didn’t look well in a fireplace. She wanted it to look clean and unused; she was expecting a prospective tenant, and everything had to be satisfactory.
But he was an honorable man with no desire to cheat this woman.
‘All fireplaces get black, Mrs Hildegarde. It’s the smoke. They all get that way. You can’t help it.’
No, it didn’t look well.
He told her about muriatic acid. A solution of muriatic acid and water. Apply it with a brush: that would remove the blackness. Not more than two hours’ work –
Two hours? That would never do. No, Mr Bandini. She wanted all the firebrick taken out and new brick put in. He shook his head at the extravagance.
‘That’ll take a day and a half, Mrs Hildegarde. Cost you twenty-five dollars, material included.’
She pulled the coat around her, shivering in the cold room.
‘Never mind the cost, Mr Bandini,’ she said. ‘It has to be done. Nothing is too good for my tenants.’
What could he say to that? Did Maria expect him to stalk off the job, refuse to do it? He acted like a sensible man, glad for this opportunity to make more money. The Widow drove him to the lumber yard.
‘It’s so cold in that house,’ she said. ‘You should have some kind of a heater.’
His answer was an artless confusion out of which he made it clear that if there is work there is warmth, that when a man has freedom of movement it is enough, for then his blood is hot too. But her concern left him hot and choking beside her in the car, her perfumed presence teasing him as his nostrils pulled steadily at the lush fragrance of her skin and garments. Her gloved hands swung the car to the curbing in front of the Gage Lumber Company.
Old Man Gage was standing at the window when Bandini got out and bowed goodbye to the Widow. She crippled him with a relentless smile that shook his knees, but he was strutting like a defiant rooster when he stepped inside the office, slammed the door with an air of bravado, pulled out a cigar, scratched a match across the face of the counter, puffed the weed thoughtfully, blowing a burst of smoke into the face of Old Man Gage, who blinked his eyes and looked away after Bandini’s brutal stare had penetrated his skull. Bandini grunted with satisfaction. Did he owe the Gage Lumber Company money? Then let Old Man Gage take cognizance of the facts. Let him remember that with his own eyes he had seen Bandini among people of power. He gave the order for a hundred face brick, a sack of cement, and a yard of sand, to be delivered at the Windsor Street address.
‘And hurry it up,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I got to have it inside half an hour.’
He swaggered back to the Windsor Street house, his chin in the air, the blue strong smoke from his Toscanelli tumbling over his shoulder. Maria should have seen the whipped-dog expression on Old Man Gage’s face, the obsequious alacrity with which he wrote down Bandini’s order.
The materials were being delivered even as he arrived at the empty house, the Gage Lumber Co. truck backed against the front curb. Peeling off his coat, he plunged to the task. This, he vowed, would be one of the finest little bricklaying jobs in the state of Colorado. Fifty years from now, a hundred years from now, two hundred, the fireplace would still be standing. For when Svevo Bandini did a job, he did it well.
He sang as he worked, a song of spring: ‘Come Back to Sorrento.’ The empty house sighed with echo, the cold rooms filling with the ring of his voice, the crack of his hammer and the plink of his trowel. Gala day: the time passed quickly. The room grew warm with the heat of his energy, the window panes wept for joy as the frost melted and the street became visible.
Now a truck drew up to the curb. Bandini paused in his work to watch the green-mackinawed driver lift a shining object and carry it toward the house. A red truck from the Watson Hardware Company. Bandini put down his trowel. He had made no delivery order with the Watson Hardware Company. No – he would never order anything from the Watson people. They had garnisheed his wages once for a bill he could not pay. He hated the Watson Hardware Company, one of his worst enemies.
‘Your name Bandini?’
‘What do you care?’
‘I don’t. Sign this.’
An oil heater from Mrs Hildegarde to Svevo Bandini. He signed the paper and the driver left. Bandini stood before the heater as though it was the Widow herself. He whistled in astonishment. This was too much for any man – too much.
‘A fine woman,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Very fine woman.’
Suddenly there were tears in his eyes. The trowel fell from his hands as he dropped to his knees to examine the shining, nickel-plated heater. ‘You’re the finest woman in this town, Mrs Hildegarde, and when I get through with this fireplace you’ll be damn proud of it!’
Once more he returned to his work, now and then smiling at the heater over his shoulder, speaking to it as though it were his companion. ‘Hello there, Mrs Hildegarde! You still there? Watching me, eh? Got your eye on Svevo Bandini, have you? Well, you’re looking at the best bricklayer in Colorado, lady.’
The work advanced faster than he imagined. He carried on until it was too dark to see. By noon the next day he would be finished. He gathered his tools, washed his trowel, and prepared to leave. It was not until that late hour, standing in the murky light that came from the street lamp, that he realized he had forgotten to light the heater. His hands shrieked with cold. Setting the heater inside the fireplace, he lighted it and adjusted the flame to a dim glow. It was safe there: it could burn all night and prevent the fresh mortar from freezing.
He
