The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [104]
Octavia teased, “Who’s the girl, Vinnie? Why don’t you bring her home?” And the mother said, not sternly, American enough to make a joke, “I hope you picked a good Italian girl, not an Irish tramp from Ninth Avenue.”
Vinnie found himself smiling a pompous, satisfied smile, as if he had a dozen girls at his feet. But, knotting his tie and seeing his face and his phony smile in the mirror, he became depressed and scowled.
He was used to family flattery, to remarks like “Ah, he is the quiet one, the one you never know anything about; that’s the one you have to watch out for; God knows how many girls he has hidden away in another neighborhood.” He couldn’t help looking fatuous under their praise, but how the hell could they believe such things?
For Chrissakes, he worked from four in the afternoon until midnight, Tuesdays through Sundays. Where the hell was he supposed to meet girls? He didn’t even know any guys his own age, only the men he had worked with the last four years at the freight office. Quickly and gruffly he took his leave.
Lucia Santa sighed heavily. “Where does he go late at night?” she asked. “What kind of people go with him? What do they do? They will take advantage of him, he’s so innocent.”
Octavia settled comfortably in her chair. She longed for a book in front of her and wished that her bed waited just down the hall. But far away, in the quiet, antiseptic apartment in the Bronx, her husband would not sleep until she returned. He would read and write in the draped and lamp-shaded living room with its carpeted floor, and he would welcome her with the fond yet pitying smile and say, “Did you have a good time with your family?” And then he would kiss her with a gentle sadness that made them alien to each other.
Lucia Santa said, “Don’t stay too late. I don’t want you on the subway when all the murderers ride up and down.”
“I have time,” Octavia said. “I’m worried about you. Maybe I should stay a couple of nights and give you a rest, take care of the kids.”
Lucia Santa shrugged. “Take care of your husband, or you will be a widow and know what your mother has suffered.”
Octavia said gaily, “Then I’ll just move right back in with you.” But, to her surprise, Lucia Santa looked at her grimly, searchingly, as if it were not a joke. She flushed.
The mother saw that her daughter’s feelings were hurt and said, “You woke me at a bad time. In my dream I was about to curse my devil of a son as I should curse him awake.”
Octavia said quietly, “Ma, just forget it.”
“No, I will never forget it.” Lucia Santa put her hand to her eyes. “And if there is a God, he will suffer for it.” She bowed her head and the look of utter weariness spread over her face and body. “His father was covered with earth and there were no tears from his oldest son.” Her voice was truly anguished. “Then Frank Corbo was nothing on this earth, he suffered for nothing and he burns in hell. And you made me let Gino back into the house without a beating, without a word. He never cared what we felt. I thought some terrible thing had happened to him, that he had gone mad like his father. And then he calmly returns, refuses to speak. I swallowed my bile, I choked on it, and it chokes me now. What kind of beast, what kind of monster? He brings the contempt of the world on his dead father and on himself, and then returns and eats and drinks and sleeps without shame. He is my son, but in my dreams I curse him and see him dead in his father’s coffin.”
Octavia yelled at her mother, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Her face was contorted with anger. “I went to his funeral and I hated him. So what? You went to his funeral and you didn’t let go one goddamn tear. You didn’t visit him once in the asylum the year before he died.”
That quieted both women. They sipped their coffee. Octavia said, “Gino will be all right, he has a good brain. Maybe he’ll be something.”
Lucia Santa laughed with contempt. “Oh, yes, a bum, a criminal, a murderer. But one thing he will never be. A man who brings home his pay envelope by honest labor.”
“See, that’s why you’re mad, really—because