The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [70]
They were all glad to see Larry, especially the young boys. He always made things lively with jokes and stories about the railroad, he knew all the gossip about the families on the Avenue. Octavia and Lucia Santa were always cheerful and animated when he was there and would not scold the children.
Gino noticed that Louisa was getting fat, but her head was getting smaller.
“Yeah,” Larry was saying, “the Panettiere lost ten thousand dollars in the stock market and some more money in the bank, but he doesn’t have to worry with his store. A lot of people on the Avenue lost money. Thank God you’re poor, Mom.”
Octavia and her mother smiled at each other. The money was a secret from everyone, and it was in postal savings besides. Lucia Santa said to Louisa, “Eat more, you have to keep up your strength.” She took a great chunk of beef from Larry’s plate and put it on Louisa’s. She said to Larry, “You animale, you are strong enough. Eat spaghetti, your wife needs meat.”
A strange look of pleasure came over the young girl’s face. She was very quiet, she seldom spoke, but now she said timidly, “Thank you, Mom.” Gino and Vincent looked at each other; something struck them both as not quite right. They knew their mother inside out. She had not been sincere, she did not really like the girl, and the girl had been too woebegone in her thanks.
Larry grinned at the boys and winked. He took up a spoonful of sauce and said in great astonishment, “Look at the cockroaches on the wall.” It was the old, old game he played to steal their roast potatoes on Saturday nights. Vinnie and Gino refused to turn their heads, but Louisa looked around quickly, and in that moment Larry speared the piece of beef on her dish and took a bite out of it before putting it back. The children laughed, but Louisa, realizing she had been tricked, burst into tears. Everybody was astounded.
Larry said, “Ah, come on, that’s an old joke in our family. I was only kidding.” The mother and Octavia made sounds of sympathy, Octavia saying, “Leave her alone when she’s like that, Larry.” The mother said, “Louisa, your animal of a husband plays like the beast he is. Next time—the hot sauce in his face.”
But Louisa rose from the table and ran down the stairs to her apartment on the second floor.
“Lorenzo, go after her, bring her down something to eat,” Lucia Santa said.
Larry had folded his arms. “Like hell I will,” he said. He started to eat his spaghetti again. No one said anything. Finally Gino said, “Joey Bianco lost two hundred and thirteen dollars in the bank and his father lost five thousand dollars.”
He saw his mother’s face take on a grim light of triumph. It was the same look she had when she heard about the Panettiere’s losing money. But when Gino told how Zi’ Pasquale had got drunk, his mother’s face changed and she said wearily, “Even clever people aren’t safe in this world, that’s how it is.” She and Octavia exchanged another glance of satisfaction. It had been the merest chance, pure luck, that they had put their money in postal savings. When they had opened the account they had been too shy to go through the white-pillared entrance and the great marble lobby of the bank with their little money.
The mother said, with impersonal sadness, as if her malicious triumph made her feel guilty, “Poor man, he loved money so much, he married a miser out of true affection. They were happy. A perfect marriage. But then nothing goes right, no matter what you do.”
No one paid attention to Lucia Santa. They knew her. In her speech and in her thinking she was pessimistic about life. Yet she lived like a true believer in good fortune. She rose in the morning with gladness, she bit into bread knowing it would be sweet. Her hope was a physical energy, replenished by her love for her children and the necessity to do battle for them. They all believed that she could never be afraid. So her words meant little, they were merely superstition. They ate in peace. When they finished, Larry lolled back with a cigarette and Octavia and the mother talked