The Fortunate Pilgrim (19 page)

CHAPTER
11

L
UCIA SANTA ANGELUZZI
-Corbo, a beleaguered general, pondered the fate and travails of her family, planned tactics, mulled strategy, counted resources, measured the loyalties of her allies. Octavia would be away at a rest home for six months. She would not be able to work for possibly a year. A year’s wages lost.

Lorenzo gave five dollars a week, sometimes two or three dollars more. Vincenzo would work in the bakery—another five dollars a week and money saved on bread. Gino was worthless, Sal and Aileen too young.

And Lorenzo’s wife was pregnant, another chink in the armor. Perhaps better not count on the money from Lorenzo, either.

No, think another way. Vincenzo had three years to go to finish high school. Was it necessary for him to graduate? Gino was headstrong, he must be tamed, he must help, she was too lenient with him.

The mother realized more than ever how important Octavia was to the family in things besides money. It was Octavia who made the children get good marks in school, brought them to the free dental clinic in the Hudson Guild. It was Octavia who planned how to save money and hide it in the post office, no matter how much they needed it for food and clothing. It was Octavia who gave her strength, on whom she leaned, who supported her in moments of weakness.

And now, Lucia Santa thought, she was alone again. The terrible battles were to be fought again. But older, tougher, experienced, she did not feel the helpless despair and terror she had known as a young widow. She was a hardened veteran to disaster and her spirit was not weakened by young and foolish dreams. She fought now as one desperately fights merely to remain alive.

Lucia Santa came to the decision she had to come to. There was nothing for it but to apply for welfare, to go on the home relief. And the struggle to come to this decision involved many things.

In no way did it involve conscience, or a concern for giving the authorities fair play. She had been born in a land where the people and the state were implacable enemies. No, there was a better reason.

Charity is salt in the wound. It is painful. The state gives charity with the bitter hatred of a victim to his blackmailer. The receiver of free money is subjected to harassment, insult, and profound humiliation. Newspapers are enlisted to heap scorn on the arrogant bastards who choose to beg instead of starve or let their children starve. It is made clear that the poor seek charity as a great and sordid chicanery in which they delight. And there are some who do. As there are some people who delight in sticking hot needles deep into their abdomens, swallow pieces of broken bottles. A special taste. Speaking for humanity in general, the poor accept charity with a shame and loss of self-respect that is truly pitiful.

Larry arranged for the investigator to come to the house, but he would not stay for the interview. His male pride was affronted. He would not be a party to it, he disassociated himself from the whole thing. Lucia Santa found a hiding place for the imported Italian olive oil she did not dream of doing without; it would be a telling blow against her.

THE INVESTIGATOR CAME
late in the afternoon. He was a solemn, comical-looking young man with great round black eyes. Those eyes had thick round eyebrows above them and dark circles beneath them so that he looked like an olive owl. But he was polite. He knocked at the door politely. He inspected the apartment with apologies, opening cupboard doors and closets and wandering through the apartment more like a prospective tenant than a home relief investigator. He addressed Lucia Santa as “Signora,” and his own name had a touch of elegance; he was called La Fortezza.

He listened to Lucia Santa’s story and wrote down all the particulars in his notebook, nodding and murmuring expressions of regret in Italian when she told about a particular misfortune. He spoke college Italian, but he could be understood.

Forms were spread out, questions asked. No, no; she had no money in the bank, nor did her children; she owned nothing, no insurance; nothing. She had no jewelry to sell except her wedding ring but he assured her that that was exempt. When they were finished, Mr. La Fortezza sat on his chair and leaned his body forward, his hands clasping the edge of the table like talons, his black-circled round eyes reproachful.

“Signora Corbo,” he said, “it displeases me greatly to inform you there will be difficulties. Each of your three eldest children has money in trust from the unfortunate accident to their father. Strictly speaking, that money must vanish before you can get welfare. That is the law. And if I do not report this money you have, I will be in trouble.” He looked at her gravely.

Lucia Santa was taken completely by surprise. That this polite young man, an Italian boy, had acted the spy, had gone to neighbors for information, then set a trap—this enraged her. She said bitterly, “Good. I’ll throw the money in the streets.”

He smiled at her joke and waited. She sensed all was not lost. “Isn’t there something you can do for me?” she asked.

Mr. La Fortezza had a slightly uncomfortable look, an owl swallowing a particularly vigorous mouse. “Ah, Signora,” he said, “one hand does not wash itself alone.” Then, still a little embarrassed (he was still too young to be comfortable in dishonesty), he explained that he would risk his job to get her sixteen dollars every two weeks, but that when he brought the check she would have to give him three dollars. After all, it was money she should not receive, he was breaking the law, and so on. The bargain was struck. Lucia Santa was so grateful that she served coffee with cake, though coffee alone was enough for the laws of hospitality. And over the coffee Mr. La Fortezza told his woes. How he had taken his degree in law after many sacrifices by his parents, people like herself; now there was no work, and he had to take this lowly job with the city. How could he ever repay his father on his salary? It pained him to work in such a fashion, but how could he ever hope to have his own practice unless he made a little extra money? And after all, they both profited, since the signora was not really entitled to an allowance from the welfare. And so on. They parted friends.

Mr. La Fortezza came every two weeks with the check. There would be a ceremony. Gino would be sent down to the grocery to pay the outstanding bill and get the check cashed. He would also buy a quarter-pound of American ham, picture pink in its rectangular border of white, creamy, sweet fat; some soft, sliced, American bread; and yellow American cheese. For Mr. La Fortezza had a weak stomach and turned up his nose at honest Italian salami and pepperoni, the tingling sharp provolone, the crusty gum-cutting Italian bread.

Gino would watch wide-eyed at the little scene to be played. The thin pink and yellow slices laid out on a long cere-monial platter, the large mug of coffee, and Mr. La Fortezza at his ease, resting his swollen feet on another chair as he talked to Lucia Santa of his trials and tribulations, the mother shaking her head in sympathy. For the poor man climbed countless flights of stairs, quarreled with those low-class Italians who tried to conceal their sons’ working and cursed because he would not approve their applications for relief, saying that he was a Jew and not an Italian, for no Italian would serve this government against his own kinfolk. “Ah,” Mr. La Fortezza said always, “was it for this my poor parents pinched each penny? Ate
scarola
and
pasta
and beans every day of the week? For their son to earn his bread at the cost of his health?” Lucia Santa would cluck with pity.

The owl eyes were sad. Mr. La Fortezza was out in all kinds of weather. He was not well. Four years at the university studying hard. “Signora,” he said, “I am not one of the clever ones; after all, my people were illiterate peasants for a thousand years, and even now it is enough for them that I do not have to work with my hands.”

The ham and cheese eaten, he would stand, ready to take his leave. Lucia Santa would give him the three dollars with an exquisite tactfulness, picking up his hand and thrusting the money into it as if he would absolutely refuse if she did not press him. Mr. La Fortezza would make a gesture of reluctance, pushing back the money; then he would sigh and raise an eyebrow and say “Eh” in a hopeless voice to show that his circumstances were so desperate that refusal was impossible.

It was true, they were fond of each other. He liked the older woman for her courtesy, her regard for his feelings, her little thoughtful snack with the coffee. She on her part felt a real sympathy for the sad-looking boy, thanking God that none of her sons showed so little joy in life. She felt no resentment that she must pay tribute.

In a few weeks Mr. La Fortezza got Lucia Santa a fifteen-dollar-a-month rental allowance. Without being asked, Lucia Santa put a five-dollar bill in his hand instead of three dollars. It was an understanding with a foundation like a rock.

It grew. He got her another four dollars a week. Lucia Santa made it a point to have a little parcel of groceries for him to take home, a pound of the pink sweet ham, a bottle of homemade fiery anisette to help his digestion. Now that Larry had a ramshackle tin lizzie that he tinkered with when he was not working, the mother had her son drive Mr. La Fortezza home all the way to the Bronx on Arthur Avenue.

The three of them, Larry, Mr. La Fortezza, and Gino, would ride in the bouncing rattling car, darting between horses and wagons and trolleys and automobiles. Gino noticed that Larry was always polite, but had a contempt for the young lawyer that came out in little kidding remarks. Mr. La Fortezza obviously did not dream that he was being kidded. He would earnestly tell his misfortunes like beads. How little the welfare paid its investigators, the payments that must be made on the house in the Bronx, how his parents were now getting so old they could not work, and he would have to support them and discharge the mortgage. There was real fear, almost terror, in his voice when he spoke of his desperate need for money, and this puzzled Gino. For Mr. La Fortezza was rich. He had been to college, he owned a two-family house, his family went away in the summer for vacation. What people on Tenth Avenue dreamed of achieving after forty years of heavy toil, this young man already had; he lived the dream and he was more terrified than the meanest laborer in Gino’s tenements.

When Mr. La Fortezza got out of the car, his little brown bag of groceries under his arm, Larry lit a cigarette and winked at his kid brother. Gino winked back. They drove home to Tenth Avenue in some way cheered and confident, as if the world was theirs to conquer.

DR. BARBATO, CLIMBING
the four flights to the Angeluzzi-Corbo apartment, was a man grimly determined that by Jesus Christ this time this family would pay his due. Try to help them and someone else made the money. Why should he lose money to the French Hospital?

So Bellevue Hospital was too good for these poor ignorant guinea bastards? They wanted the best of medical care, did they? Who the hell did they think they were, these
miserabili,
these beggars without a pot to piss in, on home relief and the daughter in the sanitarium at Raybrook.

The door was open as the doctor came over the top stair. Sentineled there was little Sal, looking very solemn. In the kitchen the supper dishes were scattered all over the table, the yellow oilcloth dotted with scraps of French-fried potatoes and eggs. Gino and Vincent were playing a game of cards on this table. A fine pair of bandits, the doctor thought angrily, but he was softened when Vincent left the table to lead him through the string of rooms, doing so with a natural, shy courtesy, and saying in a gentle voice, “My mother is sick.”

In the dark, windowless bedroom lay the heavy figure Lucia Santa. Standing beside her was the small girl Aileen, letting her face and hands be washed by the cloth the mother took from a water basin beside her bed. The scene reminded the doctor of some of the religious pictures he had seen in Italy, not for any sentimentality, but because of the composition of the reposing mother tending the child and the lighting of the room, with the dim yellow of the electric bulb casting a beatific glow on the dark-colored walls.

He tried to isolate the resemblance. Then he realized from his reading that it was simply a peasant upbringing, the child’s complete reliance on its mother. These were the people that famous painters had used.

Dr. Barbato stood at the foot of the bed and said gravely, “Ah, Signora Corbo, you’re having bad luck this winter.” It was an expression of sympathy and a reminder of how badly she had behaved with Octavia.

Even lying flat on her back, Lucia Santa could become so violently angry that her cheeks flushed and her great black eyes flashed. But the reverence of the poor for so exalted a personage as the doctor made her hold her tongue, though she could have reminded him that he too had eaten from her hand a slice of coarse bread soaked in wine vinegar and olive oil. She said meekly, “Ah, Doctor, my back, my legs, I can’t walk or work.”

The doctor said, “First send the child to the kitchen.” The little girl stood closer to the bed and put one arm out to her mother’s head. The mother said gently, “Go, Lena, go in the kitchen and help your brothers with the dishes.” The doctor smiled and Lucia Santa, seeing the smile, called out in Italian, “Vincenzo, Gino,
mascalzoni
that you are, have you started the dishes? Have you left the kitchen a mess for the doctor to see? Wait—I’ll cripple both of you. Lena, go, and tell me if they don’t work.”