Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [18]
“Lorenzo, is every day like this?” shouted Nunzio.
“It’s quiet today because it is Sunday.”
For the first time, Nunzio felt exhausted.
“Ah, we are on Elizabeth Street,” exclaimed Lorenzo.
The Chinese characters changed to Italian words. Even from the signs, he could tell that much of the dialect was Sicilian.
This street was not paved with stones. Dust and dried manure swirled through the air with each breeze. Some pushcarts, stripped of their inventory, lined the road.
Responding to Nunzio’s glances, Lorenzo said, “On weekdays, there are so many sellers it’s difficult to walk. It can be a good living. This block here”—Lorenzo nodded—“is where all the fish peddlers live. Elizabeth Street is mainly Sicilians. There are more Calabrians on Mulberry Street, but we found a better apartment here.” Since marrying a girl from Puglia, Lorenzo crossed lines more easily.
“Here we are. Home. Elizabeth Street, 176.”
They entered a narrow, dark hall and climbed three flights. The children ran up the stairs ahead. If it weren’t for the strong and familiar smells on each landing, and the laughing and arguing that characterized Sunday dinner echoing in the halls, Nunzio would have thought they had entered a cave. Lorenzo pushed open one of two doors on the third floor. They entered an apartment with not much more light than the hallway.
“We moved in last week,” said Lorenzo nervously. By the expression on Nunzio’s face, Lorenzo knew that Nunzio’s reaction was similar to his own when he first saw the houses of l’America.
Nunzio walked between the three small rooms thinking, “How do you get outside? Is the only way out really down those narrow stairs?” Looking for an escape, he ducked his head under the fabric hanging on a string in front of the window. Raising the curtain, he leaned his body on the sill and was startled by all the people looking back at him. Hundreds of people were leaning out their windows above and beneath him, across the street, and up the block. The tenement dwellers stared at the newcomer, and Nunzio nodded awkwardly. A man smoked a cigar; a woman called to her children; but mostly, they leaned forward, watching the seething street with their elbows resting on pillows or burlap sacks. “So, this is how you go outside in l’America,” thought Nunzio. He had heard descriptions of New York apartments, but like everything thus far about l’America, until you saw it, you wouldn’t believe it, and even then it was hard to comprehend.
Upon arriving, Teresa immediately set about preparing a meal in the cramped kitchen. “I was only a child, but I remember the food on that ship.”
Teresa had done most of the cooking before going to meet Nunzio at the Battery. Sunday dinner was always extravagant—they had meat and salad—but today she had prepared all of her specialties with Lorenzo’s blessing. The children lifted the cloth to pick at the pasticcini, but Teresa slapped their hands and shooed them into the hall to play. Lorenzo poured Nunzio a glass of wine and explained that he had traded a few things for a soft mattress to put in the kitchen for Nunzio’s bed.
“The kitchen is not so bad, Nunzio. In fact, in the winter, you may find your niece and nephew joining you,” Lorenzo warned. “Later tonight, Luigi and Pasqualina DiFranco will come by to pay their respects…”
Lorenzo kept talking, but Nunzio wasn’t listening. He was looking at Teresa’s table with as much reverence as he had the Brooklyn Bridge. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen so much food. He was ravenous.
Domenico watched his uncle’s eyes follow his mother’s every move. He snatched a meatball and secretly handed it to Nunzio. Nunzio took a breath to protest, but then winked at Domenico and took the meatball.
Lorenzo was chatting nervously, and Nunzio surmised it was because he was avoiding asking a question. Correctly guessing the cause of Lorenzo’s angst, Nunzio said, “Lorenzo, your parents are well.” He continued, and Lorenzo’s shoulders