Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [37]
The inspectors who asked questions were again in view, and Giovanna tried once more to concentrate, except she wasn’t as successful and kept lapsing into prayers. She could see the paper the inspectors held and realized it was the answers to the questions asked by the ship’s crew before they sailed. Her father had answered the questions for her and explained her silence as modesty. Desperately she tried to recall the queries so she could practice the words in reply. As the questions came to her, she recited the answers in her head. “‘Twenty-nine.’ Please, Madonna, I beseech you. I must feel the dirt between my fingers where Nunzio’s body lies. ‘Twelve dollars.’ Make my voice heard. ‘Widow.’”
A Russian family in front of Giovanna stepped forward. The same inspector, who had just been speaking another tongue, spoke to this family in their language. “How smart these Americans are,” flashed through Giovanna’s mind between prayers. “Please, Madonna, I will light many candles in devotion and thanks. ‘I come from Scilla, Calabria.’” Or was the answer, “Scilla, Italy”? To the last question on the form, “Who paid for your transport?” Giovanna decided to keep it simple and say, “My family paid my fare of twenty-eight dollars,” and not tell of villagers contributing to the cause.
Giovanna jumped when the inspector looked at her and shouted, “Avanti!”
“Italian too!” she managed to marvel, walking forward. “Perhaps this is a dream, and as in a dream, I will speak.”
“Nome?” quizzed the inspector.
Giovanna pushed the air from her stomach and moved her lips forward to form the first sound of her name. It happened so slowly that Giovanna could feel the air travel up her throat and her muscles reshape her lips. Her mind blocked out the noise in the hall, and all she heard was deafening silence before the air escaped her mouth.
“Gi-o-vanna Pontillo.”
Both Giovanna’s and the inspector’s heads jerked back at the force of the sound. It wasn’t loud; it was strong and deep as if it had been buried and gaining strength.
“Your mother’s name?” With this next question, Giovanna was assured that he, too, had heard her voice. The inspector then glanced at Giovanna’s letter from Lorenzo and at her hands. She wondered if her shaking hands would be reason to pull her from the line, but he only asked to see her money. Giovanna took the satin pouch that was tied to her waist and opened it to display her small fortune of twelve dollars in lira.
“You can keep moving.”
Giovanna tucked the precious pouch into the folds of her dress, and when out of sight of the inspector, she grabbed at her throat and massaged her cheeks in wonder and appreciation. As she made the sign of the cross, her prayers of thanks rushed forth.
In her quiet exultation, she could hear the next person being questioned. It was a young man traveling alone who had impatiently shifted from one foot to the other for the past four hours, punctuating his movements with sighs of exasperation and curses of complaint. His behavior stood in stark contrast to the bewildered and compliant demeanor of most of the immigrants.
The inspector had finished the twenty-nine questions from the ship manifest and asked the restless man another: “Would you wash stairs from the top down or the bottom up?”
“I did not come to America to wash stairs!” he answered indignantly.
The inspector tried to hide a smile. “Move on.”
Five hours after she entered the great hall, Giovanna could see what looked to be the last step—a series of desks where inspectors reviewed and stamped the papers. Behind the desks were three staircases, all marked with different words. People were gathered in front of the staircases, many saying good-bye to one another.
After a few minutes of shuffling along in line, Giovanna approached one of the desks. The inspector took Giovanna’s papers from her hand. He looked at them and yelled over to the next desk, “Martin, is Scilla north or south?”
“When in doubt, it’s the