Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [33]
It was too cold to take their evening meal above on deck, although a few souls did brave the night winds rather than eat in the stench of the steerage quarters. At mealtime, even the most private passengers became sometime conversationalists. Giovanna found that she noticed and heard so much more since she had ceased to speak and vowed that if her voice returned, she would remember this lesson. The primary mealtime topic was news and gossip relating to their voyage and new life in l’America.
“You must all be prepared for when we arrive at the dock in l’America,” pronounced Luigi, who had been designated the authority on America.
“If we get into l’America,” shot back a man whose dress and demeanor indicated he was from the mountains. “My brother-in-law, he got to America and it was all filled up. They made him go home.”
“Stupido! That’s impossible. They send you home, but only if you have a disease of the eyes,” countered Luigi. “They lift your eyelid, and if they see the disease—bam—you are back on the boat.”
Another man, having finished his meager meal, took out his mandolin and was playing softly. This prompted another announcement from “Mayor Luigi.”
“Tomorrow is the night of the New Year. We must have a festa!”
Just then, as if to counter the suggestion, the ship rolled over a huge wave, and people and baggage went sliding and falling to one side of the boat. When the screams stopped, the prayers started. Someone yelled, “God is punishing us for leaving!” Giovanna, exhausted from the hopelessness, went to her bunk looking for solace in scripture.
The next day on deck, Giovanna studied the crew, who were working furiously. Crates of fruits and vegetables were being stacked and candelabras polished in record time. She guessed they were preparing for a party.
Nunzio once described a fabulous party that his professore hosted for the New Year in a villa in Rome. The professore had offered Nunzio a few extra lire to help, and Nunzio was thrilled to be holding the silver trays and sparkling glasses until he realized that his fellow students were also present, only they were guests. But even in his humiliation, he had remembered almost every detail and told Giovanna of inlaid marble floors on which the women’s heels made wonderful clicking sounds, and of an entire orchestra all dressed finer than any southern bridegroom.
Giovanna tried to envision tonight’s party and the ship’s grand staircases and sparkling chandeliers that she would never see, even though they were no more than one hundred feet from where she sat. She imagined the first-class passengers moving among the splendor, the women draped in fine fabrics accented by jewels. The party continued to swirl in her thoughts, and Giovanna decided the guests would laugh with delight if the ship suddenly careened, secure in their knowledge that they were safe, as opposed to the steerage passengers, who would scream and shake with fear. The cold, wet air got to her, and Giovanna climbed down the many metal stairs that brought her back to her reality.
Shortly after the evening meal, the music in steerage began. Within an hour it became a cacophony of sound. The orchestra above deck was drowned out by the rhythms of Sicilian dances, Calabrian folk songs, and Neapolitan love songs emanating from each steerage compartment. People from one town or region tended to travel in the same compartment, so were the setting different, it would have been an impressive revue of southern Italian music.
Giovanna watched the festivities from her bunk. She was becoming accustomed to her role as an observer of life. Successful at blocking out all thoughts of what the new year and new country would bring, she