Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [65]
Rocco now understood the local thugs were being warned of the sergeant’s not-so-undercover presence. “But why say parsley?” he asked the man.
“Ah, you Calabresi! Petrosino, in Sicilian, means parsley.”
“Limonata!” shouted Giovanna, knocking on the door of apartment sixteen on the floor above her. Their building had five apartments per floor—two at the front, two at the back, and one small side apartment, which was where Limonata lived.
“Prego?” A young woman holding a nine-month-old—nearly the same age as Giovanna’s daughter, Angelina—opened the door. “Oh, signora!” she said upon seeing Giovanna, sounding both pleased and relieved.
“Limonata, could you please be more careful! Your colored wash on the line drips onto my clean white clothes.”
“Oh, scusi, signora, scusi.”
The poor young woman looked like she was going to cry, and Giovanna at once regretted scolding her new neighbor who was having a difficult time coping. Noticing little spots of blood on Limonata’s apron at her chest, Giovanna asked, “Are you having trouble again?”
“Sì, signora.”
“Let me see.” Giovanna entered the tiny apartment, which was crusted in dirt. The only thing sunny in this woman’s life was her nickname, which she carried from childhood because of her love of lemonade. Her dull brown hair and slight body made her appearance even more nondescript.
“Have you heard from your husband?”
“No, signora. But he’ll be back.” Limonata had unbuttoned her blouse to reveal a cracked and bloodied nipple.
“I’ll give you more aloe. Put it on every few hours. I see your cough is no better either. Did you go to see Signora LaManna like I told you?”
“No, signora, but I’ll go this week.”
Giovanna left saying, “You must go. And please, call me Giovanna.”
When she heard Limonata’s cough, she was grateful Angelina wasn’t in the sling usually strapped to her chest. She reentered her apartment and washed her hands. Lucrezia’s lectures about cleanliness had not been lost on her.
“Come, Frances, Mary, we’ll go to the roof.” They were doing the weekly wash, but the heat had become oppressive. Giovanna hoisted the clothes, washboard, and bucket. Frances picked up Angelina, and Mary carried the soap. They climbed the roof ladder, opened the hatch, and emerged onto the roof. An entire world was there to greet them. Many of their neighbors were already up there, and there were scores of others on the roofs of the adjacent buildings, playing cards, doing laundry, or simply trying to feel a breeze. One of their neighbors was spreading buckets of crushed tomatoes on a sheet stretched across a wooden frame, to dry into tomato paste. Giovanna felt a tinge of guilt for buying her tomato paste ready-made in the store.
“Please, Zia, can we go in?” squealed Frances and Mary upon seeing two children already swimming in the roof’s water tank. Giovanna was tempted to say, “Only after you do your chores,” but easily relented. It was hot. She could use a break herself. Taking Angelina from Frances’s arms, she sat while the girls stripped to their petticoats. In only a handful of trips to a beach, Rocco had taught all his children to swim, proving he really was Scillese. Grateful that she could sit instead of stand guard at the tank, Giovanna relaxed but still kept one eye on the girls, knowing all too well how quickly children could, and did, drown in those tanks.
Unwinding strands of her hair from Angelina’s chubby fist, Giovanna marveled at how dramatically a life could change. She was surrounded by children, sitting on the tar of a New York tenement rooftop, a rusted tank their ocean. Scilla’s sandy beaches, sparkling seas, and dramatic cliffs were far behind her; instead, she faced a vista of crowded streets, pushcarts, and garbage, but it was a world cloaked in promise.
“TERROR IN ITALIAN SECTION. Here it is,” read Giovanna from Il Progresso. “Rocco was lucky he wasn’t hurt in the blast. His cart was right across the street from Paparo’s store in front of the milliner’s shop.”
“Do you think they meant to murder Paparo’s nephew, or was it just unlucky that he