Elizabeth Street - Laurie Fabiano [90]
Battling shifting currents and crashing waves, they inched toward Scilla. Hours later, Antonio’s arms burned from the exertion. But the pain in his muscles wasn’t nearly as excruciating as the sights and noises that were growing more discernable from the coast with each dip of their oars. They could hear before they could see. Cascading stone, crumbling brick, and the crashing of half-collapsed buildings. Exploding gas and water mains. The closer they got, the more horrific the sounds became, and they were no longer anonymous. There were screams, moans, and calls for help. After fighting for their lives, the devastation they were beginning to see through the smoke, the agony they heard, and the smell of ruin signaled that a worse fate awaited them onshore.
PART EIGHT
NEW YORK, NEW YORK DECEMBER 29, 1908–SEPTEMBER 8, 1909
TWENTY-FIVE
DECEMBER 29, 1908
“Terremoto! Terremoto in Sicilia e Calabria!” The Italian newsies ran down Mulberry and Elizabeth Streets, abandoning their usual corners.
“Messina destroyed!”
“No news from Reggio!”
“Earthquake followed by tidal wave!”
“Thousands dead!”
Before the newsies were done trumpeting headlines, church bells began to toll. If the residents of the Italian colony were not awoken by the sound of their neighbors’ footsteps running downstairs to get the paper, the chorus of pealing bells roused them. The newsies’ canvas bags were quickly emptied, and people grouped around the nearest person with a paper. Those who couldn’t read or were too far from the newspaper beseeched the readers, “Tell us! Tell us!” Their pleadings were met with loud admonishments to be quiet as the reader, hands shaking, tried to get through the front page.
Often when they finished or reached a sentence that spelled doom, the reader collapsed, unable to tell their family and neighbors of the catastrophe. Weeping summaries were reduced to “Gone, they are all gone!” Then the others would also collapse, and each doorway was littered with knots of people moaning “No!” and praying aloud to the saints.
Frances had run downstairs for the paper and had scanned it on her way up before handing it to her stepmother. She knew her father no longer had family in Italy, but she had quickly read enough to know that this was horrible news for her stepmother.
Giovanna laid the paper on the kitchen table, spreading it out in full. Unable to sit, she stood over it, gripping the sides of the pages. Her daughter, husband, and stepchildren watched in silence as her chest heaved and her pale skin turned blotchy, but with a steely concentration she continued reading. An emotional earthquake was taking place. The surface of her body showed only the faintest signs, but the pressure building up beneath was visible. Frances was sure her stepmother was going to split in two. Instead, it was the paper that was torn in half from the stress of Giovanna’s grip. Leaving the ripped paper on the table, Giovanna ran to her bedroom.
“Giovanna! What is going on?” asked Rocco.
“Messina is destroyed. Probably Reggio too. An earthquake and a tidal wave. They could all be trapped. I’m going to find them,” she said, throwing things, including the little money they had saved, in a bag.
“Stop this! You can’t go there. Even if it was possible, it would take weeks, and by then…”
Giovanna flashed Rocco a look of determination and grabbed her bag and rushed to the door. When she opened it, Lorenzo was standing there with a look of terror on his face.
DECEMBER 30, 1908
After a day of grieving, Lorenzo knew that the only thing to do was to go with Giovanna to the shipping lines. The ticket office was crowded with hundreds of Italians, each being told the same thing. There were no tickets, and even if they could get to Naples, there was no way to get to the stricken area. Only first-class