The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [53]
But beyond love there was honor, there was duty, there was a union against the world. Frank Corbo had never betrayed that honor; he had only not been able to fulfill it. And he was the father of three of these children. There was blood there. In the future years she must look these children in the eye. She would have to account to them, for he had given them life, they were in his debt. Lurking behind this was the primitive dread that parents have of their own fate when they are old and helpless and become their children’s children, and in their turn seek mercy.
Gino, who all this time had been twisting and turning and quarreling with Sal and Vinnie, and seemingly inattentive to the conversation, suddenly said to his mother, “Poppa winked at me that night.”
The mother, bewildered, did not understand the word “wink.” Octavia explained.
Lucia Santa became excited. “See?” she said. “He was putting it on. He knew what he was doing but he was weakheaded, he couldn’t help himself.”
“You know,” Larry said. “He saw Gino looking so scared, that’s why. I told you it wasn’t anything serious. He’s a little sick, that’s all. Let’s get him home.”
The mother said to Octavia, “Eh, well?” She had already made up her mind but wanted her daughter’s consent. Octavia looked at Gino, who turned his head away.
“Let’s try it,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”
They all helped the mother get ready. The packing of the food, spaghetti in a small bowl, fruit, half a loaf of real bread. Just in case he could not come home this very day. They even made jokes. Lucia Santa said, “Ah, that night when he called Vincenzo an angel, then I knew he was crazy.” It was a bitter joke that would last through the years.
At last she was ready to leave. Gino asked her, “Is Pop really coming home today?”
The mother looked down at him. There was some sort of fear on his face she could not understand. She said, “If not today, then tomorrow, don’t worry.” She saw the anxiety vanish from his eyes, and his absolute trust gave her that familiar warm sense of power and love.
Vinnie, hearing his mother’s words to Gino, shouted with loyal happiness, “Hurrah! Hurrah!” Octavia said to her mother, “I’ll clean up the kids and have them dressed up in front of the house.”
Larry was going with her. Before they left, he told the children, “Now if we bring Pop home today, nobody bother him, let him rest. Just do everything he asks you to do.” Listening, the mother felt a great buoyancy of spirit; she believed that everything would end well, that the terrible night was not so significant as it had appeared. The strain had grown too great, everyone had been carried away by emotion. Really, there had been no need to call the police or the ambulance or have him taken to the hospital. But maybe it was for the best. Now the air was clear and they would all be the better for it.
Stout in black, and carrying the bundle of food herself, Lucia Santa walked to 23rd Street for the crosstown trolley car to Bellevue, her eldest son on her arm like a good, dutiful child.
Lucia Santa and her son went to a crowded reception desk and waited. After a long time they were told they must see the doctor, and they followed directions to his office.
It has been said of this great hospital that its professional staff is the finest in the world, that its nurses are more efficient and hard-working than any other nurses and that its medical care for the indigent is as good as can be had. But for Lucia Santa these things mattered little on this Sunday afternoon. To her, it seemed, Bellevue was the terror of the poor, the last painful and shameful indignity they suffered from life before they went to their death. It was filled with the dregs, the helpless of humanity, the poverty-stricken.