The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [63]
The mother said gravely to her children, “Yes, your sister could have been a schoolteacher if it had not been for your father.” She saw Gino looking directly into her eyes, intent. “Yes,” she said, speaking to him. “If your father had done his duty, supported his family, Octavia could have stopped work. But he never thought of anyone else, and you, figlio de puttana that you are, take after him. Tonight you jump over the fire. You spoil your good clothes and make your little brother a bad example. Now I have to buy new pants for school. Animale that you are. You never think of anyone. But I warn you—”
Octavia broke in quickly, “All right, Ma, that’s something else. The big thing is that they know how important school is to their life. If you learn something at school you can be somebody. Otherwise you’ll be just a slob down on the docks or in the railroad like Larry.”
When the children were in bed the mother became very busy ironing the wash for the next week, sewing up holes in clothing. She had a basket piled so high that she had only to reach out without stooping. Octavia propped her book against the big sugar bowl. There was absolute quiet, except for the creak of bedsprings from the bedroom whenever one of the children turned over restlessly in sleep. The women were in perfect ease and contentment, chiefs of an obedient tribe. Everything was running smoothly; they were both in rapport—the daughter a faithful but powerful underling; the mother undisputed chief, but showing her respect and admiration for a clever and faithful daughter’s help. It was never said, but the father’s banishment had relieved them of a great deal of tension and worry. They were almost happy he was gone, and their rule now absolute.
The mother rose to put coffee on the fire, for Octavia in her book would forget about everything. The mother wondered, What could be in these books that stunned her daughter into some magic oblivion? It was something she would never know, and if she had been younger she would have felt some envy or regret. But she was a busy woman with important work to be done for many years and could not make herself unhappy over pleasures of which she did not know the taste. She had enough regrets about pleasures whose taste she had known. But there was nothing to be done about that, either. She grimaced from the steam and her thoughts.
She had to go down to the other end of the hall to get the milk from the icebox again, and some good Italian peppered ham to tempt Octavia, who was getting too thin. Lucia Santa heard someone coming slowly up the steps, but whoever it was could only be on the second floor. She left the door of the apartment open, to get a little air from the ironing. Anyway, no one could go past their door to the icebox and bureau and then up the roof and escape. She sat at the table with her daughter, both of them drinking coffee, eating the prosciutto and coarse bread. They could both hear the steps coming up close, and then the shawled head of Zia Louche rose slowly and cautiously over the last step of the stairs and the old lady hobbled into the apartment, cursing terribly in Italian.
They were too intimate with her to give the usual greetings of formal courtesy. Lucia Santa rose to set another cup and slice more bread, though she knew the old dame never ate before other people. Octavia said pleasantly in Italian and with respect, “How are you feeling, Zia Louche?”
The old woman made a gesture of angry impatience, the gesture of a person who waits for a death that is in the present and therefore finds such a question not polite, in poor taste. They sat in silence.
“Work, work,” Lucia Santa said. “This school, what miracles they make over it. The children