The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [124]
Octavia had wanted to be a teacher. What had Vinnie wanted? Something she would never know. And Gino—what dreams he must have had, surely the wildest of them all. But even now through the tears, through the anguish, a terrible hatred rose, and she thought, Most of all he wanted his own pleasure. He had wanted to live like a rich man’s son. Then she remembered how she had broken her own father’s heart to win linen for her marriage bed.
With terrible clarity she knew Gino would never come home after the war. That he hated her as she had hated her father. That he would become a pilgrim and search for strange Americas in his dreams. And now for the first time Lucia Santa begged for mercy. Let me hear his footsteps at the door and I will live those forty years again. I will make my father weep and become a pilgrim to sail the fearful ocean. I will let my husband die and stand outside that house in Jersey to scream curses at Filomena with Vincenzo in my arms and then I will weep beside his coffin. And then I will do it once again.
But having said this, it was all too much. Lucia Santa raised her head and saw that Salvatore and Lena were watching her anxiously. Their grave faces made her smile. Strength surged back into her body, and she thought how handsome her last two children were. They looked so American, too, and this amused her for some reason, as if they had escaped her and the rest of the family.
Salvatore held her coat open so that she could rise easily into it. Lena murmured, “I’ll write Gino the new address as soon as we get there.” Lucia Santa glanced at her sharply, sure she herself had said nothing aloud. But the young girl’s face, so like Gino’s, made her want to weep again. She took one last look at the naked walls and then left her home of forty years forever.
Out on Tenth Avenue three women clad in black waited for her with folded arms. She knew them well. One raised her withered hand to salute her, called out, “Lucia Santa, buona fortuna.#8221; Truly meant, without malice, yet on a warning note, as if to say, “Beware, there are years to come, life is not over.” Lucia Santa bowed her head in thanks.
Larry tapped the steering wheel with impatience as they all scrambled into the limousine. Then he moved it forward slowly so that the two moving vans could follow, moving east toward the Queensborough Bridge. At first, because of the mother’s tears, there was a heavy silence, then the three little children squirmed and began fighting. Louisa shouted and slapped them quiet. The tension relaxed and they all talked about the house. Larry said it would take an hour to get there. Every two minutes the children asked, “Are we in Long Island yet?” and Sal or Lena would say, “No, not yet.”
Lucia Santa rolled down the window to enjoy the fresh air. She took one of the little boys on her lap, and Larry smiled at her and said, “It’ll be great living together, huh, Ma?” Lucia Santa caught Lena’s eye, but that innocent was like Gino, too simple to understand her mother’s grin. Octavia smiled. They had always seen through Larry. They both understood. Larry was delighted that Louisa and the children would have company, while he, animal that he was, chased young girls starved by the war.
Then they were ascending the slope of Queensborough Bridge, running through the slanted, flashing shadows of suspended cables. The children stood up to see the slate-gray water below, but in just a few moments they were off the bridge and rolling down a wide, tree-lined boulevard. The children began to shriek, and Lucia Santa told them, yes, now they were on Long Island.
“THE BEST THING PUZO’S
EVER WRITTEN . . .
What sets this book apart is that Puzo wrote it from the heart.”
—The