The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [47]
Everyone awake, frightened, sitting up in bed, would wait, never knowing what he would do next. The mother would soothe him, talking in a low voice, pleading with him to be quiet so that the family could sleep. She would bathe his temples with alcohol until the apartment was filled with its burning smell.
Octavia and Lucia Santa quarreled about sending him to the hospital. Lucia Santa refused to consider it. Octavia, fatigued from lack of sleep and worry, became hysterical, and her mother had to slap her face. One night when the father began to moan “Gesù, Gesù,” from behind Octavia’s bedroom door came a mocking moan in answer. When the father cursed in Italian, Octavia shrieked back, aping his dialect, the filthy words in the foreign tongue, shrill in the darkness, more shocking than the cursing of the father. Sal and Baby Lena began to cry. Vinnie and Gino sat on the edge of their bed, stunned with sleep and fright. Lucia Santa pounded on her daughter’s bedroom door, pleading with her to stop. But Octavia was beyond control, and it was the father who stopped first.
Next morning the father did not go to work. Lucia Santa let him rest while she sent the children off to school. Then she brought her husband breakfast.
He was rigid as wood. His eyes stared emptily at the ceiling. When she shook him, he spoke in hollow tones. “I’m dead, don’t let them bury me without clothes. Put my good shoes on my feet. God has called me. I’m dead.” The mother was so frightened she felt his limbs. They were icy cold and stiff. Then the father began to call out, “Gesù, Gesù. Mercy. Aiuto, aiuto.#8221;
She tried to hold his hand. “Frank, let me call the doctor,” she said. “You’re sick, Frank.”
The father became as angry as a dead man could. In hollow menacing tones, he answered. “If the doctor comes, I’ll throw him out the window.” But the threat was reassuring to Lucia Santa, for now the cold blue eyes were alive with rage. Heat flowed into the limbs she touched. Then she heard someone coming up the stairs and into the house. It was Larry home from the night shift.
She called out, “Lorenzo, come here and see your father.” The tone of her voice brought Larry quickly down the corridor to the bedroom.
“Look how sick he is, and he won’t see the doctor,” the mother said. “Talk to him.”
Larry was shocked by his stepfather’s appearance. He had not noticed the change, the thinning of the face into gauntness, the tension in the mouth, the cording of the face into lines of madness. He said gently, “Come on, Pop. We gotta get a doc even if you’re dead. Maybe people will say Ma poisoned you or something. See? We gotta get a certificate.” He smiled at his stepfather.
But Frank Corbo gave him a look of contempt, as if the son were feeble-minded or insane. “No doctors,” he said. “Let me rest.” He closed his eyes.
Lucia Santa and Larry went into the kitchen at the other end of the apartment. The mother said, “Lorenzo, go to Runkel’s and get Mr. Colucci. He can talk to Frank. Last night he was so bad again. If this keeps up—no, get Mr. Colucci.”
Larry was dead tired and wanted to get to bed. But he saw that his mother, always so strong and confident, was near to tears she was too proud to shed. He felt an overwhelming love and pity for her, and yet a curious distaste for being involved in the affair, as if it was a tragedy that did not concern him. He patted his mother’s arm and said, “O.K., Ma,” and left the house in search of Mr. Colucci.
MR. COLUCCI, DESPITE the fact that he was an office worker, could not get off from work. He came at five o’clock, bringing with him three other men. Their clothes smelled of cocoa. They went in to see Frank Corbo lying lifeless in his bed.
They ringed themselves around him like disciples. “Frank, Frank,” Mr. Colucci said gently. “What is this? What are you doing? You cannot leave your wife and children.