Requiem for the Bone Man (3 page)

Tell Papa that I love him and meant him no disrespect, but Grandpapa is right. The old country is not for us anymore. How is Grandpapa?

Please tell Father Infante that his English lessons have served us well. Anna and I are studying for our citizenship and we both read the questions and recite the answers in English.

I will write again soon.

Your loving son,

Antonio

There was more, much more he wanted to write, but this was his first letter home and he wasn’t sure if it would even reach the little village. It was August 1914, and the war his grandfather had feared was beginning. Besides, he needed to check on Anna. She hadn’t been feeling well the past few mornings and could not keep down the food she ate. He did not know why. He wished he understood women better.

The postman left letters on a table in the boardinghouse foyer for the residents to sort out for themselves.

She felt a stirring within her as she descended the five flights of stairs and saw the envelope Antonio had sent away several months before sitting on the table. At first she couldn’t understand the words stamped on it: LETTER REFUSED.

Then she realized. Pietro must have seen the return address and handed the letter back to
il postino
, rejecting it as he had his son.

She did not carry it back up the stairs. Instead, she asked the housemistress for an envelope and piece of paper. She stuffed the first letter inside. Carefully she addressed it to Father Infante at Saint Paolo’s Church and enclosed a note asking him to give it personally to Maria Gallini.

Quickly, while her Antonio was still at work, she walked to the post office and paid the twelve cents to the man behind the window. She used the pennies she had saved from the laundry and sewing work she did for the housemistress and other boarders. She added a silent prayer to go with the letter. She wanted to hurry back. Antonio did not like her being out at all, now that he knew she was carrying their child.

When she turned to leave the building, the pain hit her and she collapsed to the floor.

“Mr. Galen, your wife is very sick. I’m afraid the baby came too soon.”

He stammered the question he wanted to scream out: “My wife, Anna, will she…?”

“No, she’ll be all right; she’s a strong woman.”

A little while later he walked out of the charity hospital that cared for the poor and the immigrants of the city.

God is punishing us
.
We should not have gone to City Hall for a marriage license. We should have gotten a priest’s blessing—and I should have made things right with Papa.

Why hasn’t Mama written?

She sat in the rocking chair on loan from the housemistress. It now had been several months since she had lost the baby. She continued to sew for the lady, and for other boarders who had helped out when she returned home from the hospital. She heard the knock on their door, and then the mistress called out.

“Anna, it’s me, Mrs. Flaherty. I have a letter for you.”

Her heart jumped.

“Come in,
Signora
Flaherty, come in.”

“Looks important. Got foreign stamps on it, like what my late husband Sean would send me when he went back to Ireland for The Cause. He never returned. Aye, but I’ve told ye that before, haven’t I? Ah me, that man.”

Tears filled the woman’s eyes, but she shrugged, the universal language of women, and wiped them away.

“Maybe it’s from your folks back home?”

She leaned forward to peek at the envelope as she handed it to Anna, who smiled as she took it and saw the name on the upper left corner: Maria Gallini. She opened it quickly and the older lady held her breath as Anna read to herself.

Dearest Anna,

It has been hard here. Your father and my Pietro joined the army four years ago. We have not heard from them. There is a strange sickness, some call it the Spanish flu, and some call it the Hun’s Curse. Please tell Antonio that his grandfather Pasquale caught the sickness. He passed away very quickly. I am not well either. Father Infante is helping me with this.

Go with God, my child.

Another’s handwriting was below.

Maria passed away shortly after this was written.

Pray for us all.

Giuseppe Infante

“Bad news, dear?”

“
Si, Signora
. Antonio’s mother and grandfather have passed.”

“Oh no! Not after all what’s happened to ye both. I’ll fix something special for when he comes home tonight.”

“Thank you,
Signora
.”

“Eh, do ye have the sewing ready yet?”

“
Si, Signora
.”

The Armistice arrived and none too soon. America started drafting eighteen-year-olds less than two months before the war ended, and by then Antonio had come of age. Military service would have moved up his citizenship, but it would have left Anna alone. As it was, though, the foundry was considered an essential industry, and so he managed to avoid the war from which his grandfather had done so much to protect him.

They had moved nearer to his work after Mrs. Flaherty died from the flu that was now raging throughout their adopted country. So far he and Anna had been lucky. Maybe the fumes from the furnaces kept the devils away.

“It is our curse, Antonio.”

His head lay against her chest, his left hand holding hers. Their fourth miscarriage. The loss seared his soul far more than any foundry furnace. Always the bitter taste when you had been so near.

The Roaring Twenties had brought them the hope of minor prosperity. Anna’s scrimping and seamstress work had added enough pennies to their little bit of savings that they had done what their American-born friends had advised them to do: They opened a savings account at the local bank.

Then October 1929 arrived and their meager nest egg vanished when the bank failed.

Now, for the fourth time, she lay on the hard bed in the hospital charity ward run by an order of nuns. The sisters were thorough but compassion was a scarce commodity and she heard them whispering about God’s punishment for living in sin.

“Antonio, I spoke with the priest. He is willing to do the Wedding Mass for us. Please, do this for me.”

His heart had toughened from the hard times and endless workdays. Fortunately, the foundry had stayed open during the years of the Great Depression, and he had risen to senior foundryman. His identification, stamped into each of the tools he made, was Number 3. He was one of the lucky ones because he had a job—though the work was killing him, slowly sucking the very air out of his lungs.

He wanted to pound the walls; he wanted to shout at her, even while she lay there under time-yellowed hospital sheets. His mind screamed as he shook his head. How could his wife still believe in the goodness of God? What kind of God would take children—four angels—from a father and mother?

He buried his face in Anna’s chest. He could not let her see the tears.

Then he felt the touch of her calloused hands on the roughness of his furnace-burnt face and his bitterness dissolved. He could refuse her nothing.

“
Si
, if it is your wish,
cara mia
.”

Once more the drums of war resonated across Europe

A voice on the radio announced the news from the Old World that Hitler had annexed the Sudetenland. Austria fell to the charismatic beast without a shot. Soon the world would learn the meaning of the word
Blitzkrieg
.

She could hardly believe it, but she felt it again, that familiar stirring. She went to the free clinic run by Dr. Agnelli.

“Yes, Anna, you are right, but you are thirty-nine years old. We must watch you very carefully.”

She nodded, dressed, and walked out of the clinic.

A newsboy in knickers shouted, “Peace in our time, Chamberlain says. Peace in our time!”

“Big breaths,
Signora
Galen. Steady, steady. Nurse, low forceps. Ah, good, the baby’s verted.”

He spoke the magic doctor words to the nurse. The baby had shifted position inside the womb. It would enter the world headfirst.

“Anna, I need one big breath and push—PUSH!”

He didn’t need the forceps. The baby’s head was presenting, now the left shoulder, then the right shoulder. He eased the newborn from the womb and the nurse quickly clamped the umbilical cord in two places and cut it.

This one didn’t need to be whacked on the bottom to breathe. The red-faced baby boy let out a tremendous howl, and the nurse and doctor laughed.

“Anna, you have a beautiful big baby boy, and from the sound of him he’s going to be quite a talker. Nurse, call the father in to the side room.”

Antonio had heard the cry, not in his ears, but in his mind and heart.

He knew!

He had beaten the nurse to the door, and she was startled to see him already standing there waiting.

“Come in, Mr. Galen. Dr. Agnelli is with your wife ... and your new son!”

When he was let in to the birthing room, he stood for a moment looking at his wife lying there, weary.

“Antonio, we will call him Roberto, after my father, and Antonio, after you. Here is your son. Roberto Antonio Galen.”

With his fire-scarred hands he held the son he had always wanted. He whispered gently to the new life in his hands.

“You will be strong and smart,
figlio mio
, and I will teach you to be tough against the world.”

Their eyes met and forever bonded.

...

Now fifteen, Berto Galen had come to understand he could realize his dreams only through his own hard work. His father had instilled in him the need to drive himself to be the best, and consequently he had made only one friend in high school—and even that one purely by chance.

The school’s public address system vibrated and hummed as the afternoon announcements began.

“The following after-school activities will be offered this year…”

Saved by the PA!

He started to sink back into boredom as he listened to the familiar list of athletic and social activity clubs.

Then he heard it:

“The Radio Club will have its first meeting today in room 215 at 3 p.m.”

Something different! Give it a try, at least once.

The 2:50 bell rang.

He grabbed his book bag and headed for the west staircase, the nearest to 215, which as an upper classman he was permitted to use.

He lumbered down the hallway, watching his classmates putting the new freshmen through their ritual hazing: Coats reversed, walking backwards, books balanced on heads, and worse—all to “welcome” the “little brothers and sisters” to the school.

No one had attempted anything like that with him the previous year. His stony stare had seemed to intimidate even the older kids.

He pushed open the fire door and started up the steps when he saw Thornton about to slam a smaller kid against the wall.

His classmate, Greg Thornton, wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, but he was the meanest. Freshman Hazing Day was like a high holy day for him. The unofficial rules didn’t permit physical abuse, but that never stopped him.

“Cut it out, Thornton!” he shouted, surprising even himself.

“Back off, lard face! I was just explaining to this lowly frosh why this stairway is off limits to him.”

Thornton raised his arm to strike the younger boy, who was trying to protect himself with his book bag, but then Thornton felt such a tight grip on his arm that he couldn’t move. The pain intensified and he fell to his knees.

“For future reference, Greg, leave the freshmen alone. Oh, and by the way, did you know that lard used to be the major ingredient in soap? It’s very useful for cleaning up bad situations.”

Thornton felt the pressure release on his arm and he was able to stand again. He glanced at his classmate, glowered at the younger boy, and then walked away.

Galen examined the scrawny younger boy, with his crew cut, somewhat cross-eyed, looking like a deformed, de-furred rabbit.

“What’s your name, little brother?”

“Robert Edison,” the boy replied, then like a machine gun, he rattled off “and I know who you are, you’re George Orwell!”

Dear God,
he thought, not another jokester.

“Okay, I’ll take the bait. Why is my name George Orwell?”

“Because you’re my big brother! Get it?”

Maybe he should call Thornton back and let him torture the kid, but in a silly way it was funny.

“Okay, I asked for it. Where are you headed?”

“Radio Club meeting and we’d better hurry.”

The boy was a quick thinker to assume Galen was going there, too.

“Lead on, Edison.”

“Uh, George, what’s your real name?”

“Galen, Robert Galen.”

They had begun calling each other by their last names, because it became too confusing for both to use Bob.

Appropriately enough, Edison was a whiz at electronics, albeit a bit spastic in his movements. They had agreed they would try for their amateur radio licenses together, so they quizzed each other on theory and practiced Morse code by speaking out the dashes and dots in what sounded like demented baby talk.

They each took their licensing exams and easily passed. They became hams, able to use communication equipment, to understand its theory, and to be able to build and repair it.

Both felt immensely proud, although unlike most of the mid-teenagers of the day, they couched their enthusiasm in subdued tones to conceal the emotion.

“Good job, Edison.”

“Likewise, Galen.”

Their shared interest made high school much more tolerable for them. Each knew he was a misfit, not the outgoing sociable type, but each had special knowledge and abilities the kings and queens of the prom lacked.

...

It is said that time is a turtle when you wish it to race and a rabbit when you wish it would dawdle. In some ways school couldn’t finish fast enough for Berto, and in other ways he never wanted it to end. Soon graduation approached. He had grown to love electronics, but he held tightly to an even greater love. When he wasn’t tinkering with Edison or hanging around Dr. Agnelli in his free time he would visit the town clinics and ask to follow the doctors on their rounds. He knew deep down that being a doctor was a siren call to him. The name
Dottore
Berto still echoed in his mind.