Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [45]
Giovanna thought of the story Nunzio had written in his letter about Carmine and the statue of Saint Gennaro. She had laughed when she read it and then said a prayer of forgiveness. She finally spoke. “Where is this Carmine?”
“I don’t know. He never came back to the job. He didn’t even get the money. Someone told me he had joined one of those traveling theater companies.”
Giovanna felt sick and couldn’t bear to hear anymore. She rose from the chair. “Thank you, Signore Idone.”
Lorenzo was embarrassed and quickly asked if Mariano would like a glass of grappa.
Mariano turned to Giovanna. “Signora, when I lie down each night, I hear the sounds and feel the pain all over again. I have no money. I can only offer you the promise that if you ever need me, I will help you.”
In the morning, when Lorenzo woke, Teresa grabbed his arm to keep him from getting out of bed. Whispering emphatically, she said, “Nunzio is dead! What good will all these questions bring? She’ll bring the malocchio to this house! Giovanna should be working. And she needs to take a husband before she is too old and no one wants her. You must help her, Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo considered his wife’s words. Perhaps he wasn’t helping Giovanna as he should. If she was busy, she might forget about searching for answers that didn’t exist or didn’t matter.
That night, after the children had gone to sleep, Lorenzo spoke with Giovanna. “I think now is a good time to get a job, Giovanna. Teresa has had a healthy baby thanks to you.”
“I will do that, Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo was startled. Even if Giovanna agreed with something, she wasn’t so quick to admit it. So he stumbled on his next sentence. “Well, Teresa’s heard of jobs at the shirt factory.”
Giovanna had already decided to work, but she had other plans. “No. Tomorrow I will go see Lucrezia LaManna. The midwife.”
Lorenzo stammered, “Okay then, it’s settled.”
TWELVE
Her decision to deliver babies in New York was a practical one. Initially afraid to deliver Teresa’s baby, she found that she was capable of doing her job without opening her own emotional wounds. She would work as a technician.
Arriving at 247 MacDougal Street, Giovanna noticed it was a nicer building than most on the block. She asked some children on the stoop where to find Lucrezia LaManna. “Signora LaManna is on the top.” Giovanna thanked them and marveled that even after a twenty-minute walk uptown, you still did not need to speak English.
She was taking the stairs in twos when she looked up and saw a woman waiting on the fourth-floor landing.
“Scusi, Signora LaManna?”
“Sì. Avanti.”
Signora LaManna held her door open and Giovanna walked through self-consciously. It was the first apartment that Giovanna had seen in New York that wasn’t crammed with extra beds and cloaked in darkness. It was small and modest, but natural light illuminated the freshly plastered walls. Signora LaManna sat behind her desk and motioned to Giovanna to take a seat.
Giovanna could tell that the signora was taken aback by her size. In Scilla, where everyone knew her, her height was accepted, but since coming to America, even people she passed on the street looked at her like she was a freak. For her part, Giovanna could not help but stare at the woman’s face. The signora’s refined features reminded Giovanna of her mother, Concetta, as did her grace. But Signora LaManna’s worldliness also intrigued Giovanna. The signora’s hair was streaked with gray and pulled near to the top of her head, rather than in the usual bun at the nape of the neck.
“The doctor sent me,” began Giovanna.
Signora LaManna put on spectacles and picked up a pen. “Did he say how many months you were?”
Giovanna answered with both embarrassment and disappointment. “No, no, signora, I am not with child. I am a midwife.”
Signora LaManna put down her pen and removed her glasses. “Una levatrice?”
“Sì.”
“How long have you been in America?”
“Almost six months.”
“Have you performed any deliveries in New York?”
“I delivered my sister-in-law’s baby.”
“Well,” the midwife