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By Root 722 0

the night and frightened his own children; she remembered his erratic labor, his costly religiosity. But she rejected everything in one despairing inward cry—“Frank, Frank, why didn’t you take care of yourself? Why did you let yourself become so ill?” She remembered his tearing up of his sweat-earned money, the look of hurt pride on his face, and his kindness when she had been a helpless widow. With a great sigh she accepted the truth. She was too weak in resources, too poor, to afford to show mercy to the man she loved. No, no mercy, she thought, no mercy, no mercy. She reached out again to touch the small sleeping body, the new satiny skin of the tiny human being beside her. Then she folded her arms, stared into the darkness, and waited patiently for sleep to come. She had condemned Frank Corbo never to see his children grown, never to share her bed, never to know a grandchild. In Italian, she murmured, “God, God, watch over me, aiuta mi,” as if she herself could never hope for the mercy she had refused.

After supper the next night, Octavia took Sal and Gino into the living room to speak to them. They were both a little apprehensive, because Octavia was so sweet, gentle, and schoolteacherish, but when she spoke Gino realized what was coming. He remembered what he had overheard the night before.

As Octavia explained why their father could not come home, Gino remembered the times his father had taken him for a haircut, and how they had watched each other, the little boy’s eyes straight ahead seeing magically in the mirror before him his father sitting on a wire chair, a mirrored wall behind his head. And his father seeing his son’s face in the mirror; though they were both facing the same way, one behind the other, yet they looked at each other without shyness, shielded by glass.

It had always seemed as if this mirror wall which brought them so magically face-to-face protected them enough so that they could study each other’s eyes, recognize that each was a part of the other.

Between them the white-mustached barber snipped hair on the black-and-white-striped sheet and gossiped in Italian with the father. Gino was mesmerized by the snip of the scissors and the soft falling of hair on his shoulders, by the white tiled floor, the white marble counter with its green bottles of hair lotion, all reflected in the mirrors around them. His father would smile at him through the glass wall and try to make him smile, but, protected by the intervening glass, the child would refuse; his face would remain solemn. It was the only time he could remember his father continually smiling.

When Octavia had finished explaining everything, Gino and Sal were ready to go downstairs to play. Their father was sick, which meant he would come back someday, and time had no meaning at that age. Octavia watched them closely for signs of distress. She asked gently, “Do you want him to come home right now?” And little Sal said almost tearfully, “I don’t want him to come home. He scares me.” Octavia and Gino were surprised because Sal had loved the father more than any of the other children.

Gino was uncomfortable because he felt responsible for his father. How many times had his mother said, “You’re just like your father,” when he had refused to do chores, been disobedient, shirked his responsibilities? So he accepted the fact that the troubles of the family all came from his father and so from himself. He said in a low voice, “Whatever Mom wants to do is O.K.” He paused and added, “I don’t care.”

Octavia let them go. She went to the window and saw them come tumbling out of the door below. She felt an overwhelming sadness—not specific, but general, as if her stepfather had suffered some fate common to humanity and that some judgment waited for her, too.

CHAPTER 14

LARRY ANGELUZZI BEGAN to understand something of life when his second child was born and the railroad gave him only three days’ work a week. He also got a look at himself in a human mirror.

One Sunday, on their way to visit a friend, Larry and Louisa stood at the corner of 34th