The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [55]
The mother raised her head and stared at him. She said in rude Italian, “I will never sign.”
The doctor flushed. Then he said gravely, “I see you have a package for your husband. Do you wish to take it to him yourself? You will not be able to stay, but you can speak for a moment.” The mother flushed in her turn at his kindness, and nodded. The doctor picked up the phone on his desk and spoke to someone. Then he rose and said to Lucia Santa, “Come with me.” When Larry rose from his chair the doctor said, “I think you had better wait for your mother here.”
Lucia Santa followed the white jacket through dark, prison-like corridors, up steps and down, until after going a long distance they came to a door which opened into a huge tiled room scattered over with bathtubs, some of which were curtained from view. She followed the doctor across the room toward another door in the far corner. But suddenly the doctor stopped by one of the curtained bathtubs. With his right hand he grasped her firmly by the arm, as if to save her from tripping or falling. With his left hand he pulled back the curtain on its rod of metal.
A naked man, his arms bound to his side, sat in a tub of clear water. The mother cried out, “Frank!” And the narrow skull turned toward her, the face elongated in the bare-toothed grimace of a wild animal trapped in terror. The blue eyes were like glass, glittering in soulless rage. They looked not at her, but at the invisible sky above. It was a face of hopeless satanic madness, and the doctor let the curtain fall as the woman’s long helpless wail of anguish brought attendants running to them. The brown paper fell to the tiled floor, breaking, soiling Lucia Santa’s stockings and shoes.
She was sitting in the office again. Larry was trying to stop her weeping. But she wept for herself who must be a widow again, who must sleep forever in a lonely bed; for her other children, who must be fatherless, too; she wept that she had been conquered, overcome by fate. And she wept because for the first time in many years she had been terrified; she had loved a man, borne his children, and then seen him, not dead, but with his soul torn from his body.
She signed all the papers. She thanked the doctor for his kindness. When they left the hospital, Larry took her home in a taxi. He was worried about her. But when they got out on Tenth Avenue, she was completely recovered; he did not even have to help her up the stairs. They never noticed the children, Gino, Vinnie and Sal, waiting on the corner of the Avenue.
PART TWO
CHAPTER 8
THE FIRST FINE Saturday of spring Octavia decided to give the house a good cleaning. Vinnie and Gino were sent off to janitor the building—to wash the halls and stairs, and clean the backyard of the tenement. Little Sal and Baby Lena were given rags to dust the chairs and the great wooden table; the chairs with their many ringed rungs, the table with its great mysterious arches of wood beneath it, forming caves in which the two little children could sit and hide. With the great greasy bottle of lemon oil, they made everything shiny and green-black and slick so that Octavia had to go over it with a dry rag.
Everything was taken out of all the closets, and the shelves were lined with fresh clean newspaper. All the china was spread over the kitchen table to be washed of its film of dirt.
In an hour Vincent and Gino were back in the apartment with their broom and mop and pail and the kettle for hot soapy water. Gino said, “We’re all finished. I gotta go out and play stickball.”