Elizabeth Street Part 40

Two days of waiting felt like two years. Baby Anthony was held so tightly that he was nearly crushed. Giovanna began to believe that perhaps Saint Anthony did send her this child, because he was the only thing keeping her from shooting Inzerillo.

When another note came, Giovanna's disappointment was crus.h.i.+ng, but at least it had a specific direction.

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1909.

The bell tinkled when she walked into Donatello's store, minutes after it opened.

"May I help you?" asked the woman clerk.

"Yes, I need a coat for a four-year-old girl."

"These here should all be around the right size with plenty of room for growth."

Thinking of the red shawl she wore the first time she delivered ransom money, Giovanna's eyes scanned the little wool coats and seized on a bright red one.

"Can I see that one, please?" she pointed. The color would make it easier to spot Angelina on the street, or to find the little imposter in her daughter's coat.

"Yes, this is the one," she announced to the clerk. "I'll pay for it now, but it's a gift for my cousin's daughter. He'll come get it. His name is Ricco."

"No problem, signora. I'll have it ready for him."

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1909.

All day long Giovanna combed the streets in case the scoundrels simply left Angelina in the neighborhood, and when the children and Rocco returned from work they joined the search.

Much later that night, they had a quiet dinner of broth and bread. There had been no money for meat since Angelina was kidnapped. Her stepchildren were skin and bones.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1909.

"Get the kid," ordered the older brother to his wife. She went into Angelina's cell and pulled her off the straw and out the door.

"Can't you clean her up a little?" asked the older man.

"What do you care?" answered his wife.

"At least wash the blood off her arms and legs."

With a cold cloth, the woman scrubbed Angelina's limbs. "We're getting rid of you today," she said.

Angelina felt relieved. Would they throw her in the trash? In the river by the bridge? It didn't much matter.

"Who's taking her?" asked the woman.

"They are," said Leo, nodding to the brothers, who both now had beards.

Angelina imagined that the droopy-eyed man might hurt her before getting rid of her and wondered if the short men would try to stop him.

"Where's the coat?" asked Leo.

"Here," said the younger brother, tossing him a package. "Look at that color!"

"It's not like the Calabresi. Very flashy," commented the younger woman.

Angelina was happy that she was going to be warm before she died. She hugged the coat around her and played with the black braid at the waist.

"Go," said Leo. "I'll wait for you here."

Angelina turned to wave at the children, who silently waved back.

They walked a long time. Angelina was so weak that she kept trying to sit, but the men with beards would yank her back up. After she fell a few times, the older man picked her up impatiently. Angelina couldn't bear to be so close to his breath, which smelled of wine and cigars.

"I can walk. Put me down," she commanded. She had lost all fear of them. Even the lupo bear didn't provoke her anymore.

"Then stop falling," barked the older man.

At the station, they climbed the stairs and waited on the platform. "They could be taking me to the ocean, not the river," thought Angelina.

Once on the train, she was warm, warm enough to not want to end up in cold water. "I should scream," she thought, "then someone will stop them from taking me to the ocean." But right before yelling, she saw that they were heading over the Brooklyn Bridge to the city, not away from it.

"Where are we going?"

"You're going home," snarled the younger brother.

"He's lying," thought Angelina. "Besides, my parents don't want me." Watching out the window, she recognized the Bowery with the train tracks hugging the sides of the street and darkening the storefronts. They pa.s.sed the big hotel with the name she could never p.r.o.nounce. Gazing down at her new coat, she had another thought. One Sunday dinner she had heard the grown-ups talk about people selling children. They were making her look nice because they were going to sell her, not kill her.

At the next stop, the older brother yanked again at her arm, pulling her out of the train. "Walk fast or I'll carry you."

Angelina tried to keep up with them as they pulled her down the Bowery. Ahead of her she saw the black marble columns of the Germania Bank Building across from the brick building that looked like it was holding an ice cream cone. This was her old neighborhood.

"Where are we going?" Angelina asked again, this time more tentatively.

"I told you. You're going home," muttered the younger brother.

"But my parents gave me up," she practically whispered.

They were on Spring Street, a block from the corner of Elizabeth.

"Do you know how to get home from here?" asked the older man.

Angelina nodded but was confused.

"Go, then, go!" commanded the younger brother.

They had let go of her hand. She could run.

"Go!" they shouted at her.

Angelina ran as fast as she could, which wasn't very fast, down Spring Street. She looked behind her, but they were gone. She could go home! But what if her parents didn't let her in? Where would she go? She turned onto Elizabeth Street, because she figured she would at least ask her mother why she gave her away. At the sight of her building in the distance, she ran faster, grabbed the bra.s.s handle on the door, ran over the little mosaic tiles and up the slate stairs.

The sound of little feet running up the stairs reached Giovanna. She dropped the baby in the bureau drawer that was his ba.s.sinet and lunged toward the door, throwing it open.

"Mamma! Mamma!" Angelina was halfway up the stairs when she saw her. In seconds Giovanna scooped her up and buried her face in Angelina's neck. "Mamma, you're hurting me!" called Angelina.

"Scusa, scusa, let me see your face!" Giovanna cupped her daughter's face in her hands and sobbed.

Angelina was confused and angry. Hitting her mother, she shouted, "Brutta Mamma! Brutta Mamma! Brutta! Brutta! Why didn't you come and get me? Why did you give me away?"

Angelina's confusion was only magnified when she saw her mother, who was crying, start to laugh. "You talk like a little Sicilian!"

Rocco and the girls burst through the door.

"Angelina! My Angelina!" Rocco took her from Giovanna's arms and kissed her face many times over. The child was completely bewildered. Her father never kissed her. And then he kissed her mother.

Mary and Frances pulled at her shouting, "You're back!"

Angelina struck out at her father and sisters too, her little fists raining down on them. "Why didn't you get me! Brutti! Brutti!" Her cries became louder when they, too, laughed with joy.

"My baby, my baby, don't cry. We are so happy to have you back." Giovanna stroked her face. "If we had known where you were we would have come at once to get you."

"You didn't know where I was?"

"No, bambina."

"But you sent me away with Limonata."

"She was a bad woman." Turning to Frances, Giovanna said, "Go to Zio Lorenzo's house and tell them Angelina is back."

Word had already spread that people had seen a little girl in a red coat running through the streets. Teresa and her children arrived before Frances made it down the stairs.

Angelina had a hard time understanding all the crying and the laughing. There wasn't a moment when she wasn't being kissed and thrown in the air. Arms were everywhere, and her head was alternately pressed into someone's body or cupped in someone's hand. The happier they all were, the angrier Angelina got. "If they like me so much, why didn't they find me?" she thought.

Her mother broke away, and Angelina saw her and Zia Teresa heating water and pouring it into a big tub by the stove. Frances, who Angelina hadn't even noticed was missing because of all the commotion, returned from the pharmacist, her arms br.i.m.m.i.n.g with bottles. At one point in the mayhem, her mother brought her into the bedroom and said, "Angelina, this is your baby brother, Anthony."

"I'm glad you didn't give him away."

Giovanna hugged her tighter.

"Let's get these clothes off," ordered Teresa. Teresa cut the clothes from Angelina's body and handed them and the red coat to her oldest daughter, Concetta. "Burn them, they're infested."

Angelina was dipped in the hot tub. It was the first time in three months her body was immersed in water. The heat actually made her s.h.i.+ver; something inside was thawing.

"My baby, my baby," Giovanna was crying, but there was no laughter as she gently washed her daughter's emaciated body, which was covered in open wounds, scabs, and vermin.

"I'll start on her hair," offered Teresa. Taking a thin-toothed comb, she separated each strand, capturing and killing lice and nits. By then all her cousins were in the apartment as well. Everyone was laughing, and her cousins, especially Domenico, kept trying to ask her questions. But her mother would shush them, "Not now, not now."

Concetta, who had left to burn Angelina's clothes, returned an hour later with food. Soon everyone was eating, including Angelina, who ate in the bath while her mother and Teresa continued to minister to her body. Frances had emptied and filled the tub nearly ten times, and Mary was feeding her sips of hot tea and bites of meatb.a.l.l.s.

Hours later, when Angelina was lifted out of the water, her mother wrapped her in a towel and her father poured wine. Someone held a little gla.s.s to Angelina's lips as everyone drank.

On the bed, Giovanna removed Angelina's towel and kissed every square inch of her daughter's body, using the towel to wipe the tears that fell on Angelina's clean skin. Uncapping bottles, she dabbed lotion and salves on the cuts, bites, and wounds, muttering prayers the entire time.

"I bought you a new nightgown," said Giovanna, pulling a soft flannel dress over Angelina's head. She picked Angelina up off the bed and knelt with her before her makes.h.i.+ft altar. "I prayed every minute to Saint Anthony to bring you home, Angelina. He answered my prayers."

Giovanna retrieved a brown paper package from under her pillow that was tied with string. "I have something to open with you. I waited for you," she whispered, crying and gently ripping the paper to reveal a photograph with three views. "Look how beautiful you are!" exclaimed Giovanna, crying even harder. "I want you to forget everything from the day after this picture was taken until this moment," she said, placing the photo on her makes.h.i.+ft altar.

Angelina's eyelids fluttered, and her head swayed groggily. Giovanna lay down on the bed with one arm wrapped tightly around her daughter as if she would never let go. Stroking Angelina's hair, Giovanna whispered, "Sleep, child, you're safe. You're home."

PART TEN.

HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY 1918.

FORTY-THREE.

When they moved to Hoboken, there was no doubt in Giovanna's mind what type of business they would establish. Since that day in Coney Island, she was infatuated with ice cream and ice cream cones. Her pa.s.sion paid off. They had become masters.

Teresa and Giovanna were in the factory behind their ice cream parlor. Sacks of sugar lined the walls, and in the center of the room sat wood barrels. Inside the barrels, a ten-gallon tin can was surrounded by ice, and the top of the barrel was covered with rock salt.

Over the years, despite their p.r.i.c.kly start, Giovanna and Teresa had bonded. Teresa was not someone whom Giovanna would reveal secrets to, but she had come to love her sister-in-law, and they worked well together. Giovanna could read Teresa's moods. Today, making ice cream, she knew there was something on Teresa's mind that she wasn't talking about. Giovanna also knew that Teresa was incapable of holding something in for long, so she waited patiently.

"Teresa, could you bring me another gallon of cream?"