Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [53]
Giovanna thought Teresa was acting strange but decided to ignore it. “I will be here. Do you need help?”
“No, no. Concetta will help me. Don’t you have to visit Signora Russo? She told me you were visiting her today.”
“I do.” It amazed Giovanna how her sister-in-law seemed to know all the business of the neighborhood. Teresa’s body, even in the rare months that she was not pregnant, had become rotund. It was easy to envision Teresa as a bumblebee flitting in and out of the chambers of the hive that was Little Italy.
“Be back by three.”
Usually when Teresa was out of sorts, Giovanna looked to Lorenzo for guidance, but Lorenzo had already left to paint bits of Italy in tenement foyers. Teresa busied herself with making the children’s breakfast. After espresso, bread, and cheese, Giovanna left to escape the frenzy and tension.
Her quick exit brought her to an earlier mass than usual. Only old women, all widows, knelt in the pews. Giovanna wondered if they waited for the sun to rise and then hurried to mass because they had nothing else to anchor their lives. Even though she, too, was alone and dressed in black, she felt like an interloper and was threatened by the women. Nervous, she went to the altar to light a candle, but for the first time she didn’t know for what she prayed.
It was too early to call on Signora Russo, and she avoided Lucrezia’s house on weekends, when she was more likely to run into her husband, so she walked. Giovanna had grown accustomed to New York, but this morning the streets seemed extremely foreign and uninviting. She yearned for the narrow alleys of the Chianalea and her terrace, where she could sip her espresso and listen to the church bells before going to mass. Having walked all the way to Chinatown, she ended up on the herbalist’s street. Giovanna thought she saw the proprietor inside and took a closer look through the locked door. The door swung open.
“Quick, quick,” the proprietor motioned.
Giovanna understood that he didn’t want to get caught selling on a Sunday. “No, no, I go,” she answered.
“No, no, show you,” replied the proprietor, waving her to the back of the store.
A wooden crate covered in Chinese characters was half unpacked.
“Good!” he exclaimed, taking a paper package from the crate. He carefully unfolded the paper to reveal what looked like a sea urchin.
He gripped one of the urchin’s spines. “Good,” he said, and then mimed pain.
Giovanna tried not to laugh when he contorted his face and moaned. He was very dramatic. Swallowing her smile, she shrugged her shoulders to indicate “How?” She half expected him to puncture her skin with it; she had learned about how the Chinese stuck needles into people. Instead, he went to the counter and ground the spine into a rough powder, and then added glycerin. Taking a small spoon, he showed her the proper amount and pointed to his mouth. Giovanna put a tiny bit on her finger and touched it to her tongue. At once she could tell that it had the power and qualities of an opiate.
“Good? Good?” the proprietor asked.
“Sì. Yes.”
Giovanna doubted she would use it without knowing more, but in return for the kindness, she opened her purse to get a coin to purchase one of the exotic crustaceans.
“No. No. Sunday.” Smiling, he waved her money away and rewrapped the urchin, putting it in her hand.
With her purse back in her bodice, and a strange Chinese sea urchin in her skirt pocket, Giovanna walked back up Mott Street, this time feeling more at home.
Her visit took longer than expected. Signora Russo was in her eighth month, and Giovanna was worried that this big baby, who was breech, was not going to turn. She decided to try performing a version—an external method to turn the baby. Taking out her stethoscope, a gift from Lucrezia, she had Signora Russo lie on her back and bend her knees. The hardest part of this procedure for Giovanna was being chatty, keeping the mother relaxed and distracted. With one hand on the baby’s head and another on its culo, Giovanna gently turned the baby to the right. When there was no