Carmella Commands/Chapter 11
ow Carmella looked forward to a happy summer of movies and dances with Nicolo.
She had “passed” the seventh grade tests and said good-bye to Miss Kelly. For nearly three months there lay ahead of her nothing but play, much of which she was decided should be at the jobs where her father was at work. In the fall she would be a senior in grammar school, which was a pleasant thing to look forward to. A sense of command went with it. But for the present, vacation.
She had intended to sleep late next morning, and browse in the kitchen for breakfast. But that night she forgot to change the schedule of her alarm clock, so that on vacation’s first day it rang at the usual hour. Carmella was up before she realized the mistake, and although the notion of going back to bed occurred to her, she heard Raffaela and Paola dressing frantically. She remembered their recent combined attack on her, and decided to begin the day.
Tommaso had left when the trio came down to breakfast. As they finished their meal, Maria said:
“Now that you have no school, you shall wash the dishes, Carmella, and you, Raffaela, shall dry them, and Paola shall help put them away.”
The younger children promptly began to complain, more or less inarticulately. Carmella glared at her mother for a moment. Then she said:
“If I must work, I’m going to help father.”
For an instant Maria hesitated, half afraid to join the issue. Then she reflected that if Tommaso had talked with Carmella about vacation work, the girl would have quoted him, instead of using an “if.”
“We shall see,” she said, and went about other matters.
Nothing more was said about dishes, but Carmella, pretending to read, noticed with growing inquietude that they were left untouched on the table. She started to play the phonograph, but remembered that Enrico was taking his morning nap. Her two sisters went out- doors to play, but some vague fear of inviting a crisis kept Carmella from joining them.
Several times Maria passed through the room, but said nothing. She had recalled that Tommaso was working on a nearby job, so that he would be at home for dinner soon after noon. This was an item that Carmella had forgotten.
But as dinner time approached, and Maria began the cooking, still without touching the breakfast dishes on the table, the girl grew more and more restless. She was debating surrender when the door opened and her father entered. Carmella stopped breathing. She
To the Vast Delight of Her Younger Sisters, Carmella Toiled at the Breakfast Dishes
watched him go through to the kitchen, and glance in surprise at the table. Maria turned to him.
“Do you need Carmella’s help today in your work?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he answered. “Why?”
“It is la vacanza.”
Tommaso waited.
“She is thirteen years old,” Maria went on. “It is time she learned really to help, and in vacation I have told her to wash the dishes. She replies to me that she will work with you instead of with me.”
Maria pointed to the unwashed dishes with a gesture to indicate that she had left the matter to her lord and master to judge. Tommaso turned to his daughter.
“It is vacation?” he asked.
“Si, padre.”
“You have not helped your mother so much because you go to school. When I was thirteen I worked all day. This vacation you shall wash dishes when your mother says so.”
“But, padre caro⸺”
“You shall wash dishes. These dishes here you shall wash before you eat dinner.”
T o the vast delight of her younger sisters, Carmella toiled at the breakfast dishes, washing and wiping them, while they enjoyed dinner with Tommaso and Maria.
At last, to Maria, this new world was proving to have a few old world customs.
Carmella finished her work as the family dinner ended, and sat down to eat, though so consumed with anger and mortification that she had appetite for little. As she finished, Maria said:
“Now you shall wash dishes, Carmella, and Raffaela shall wipe, and Paola shall help to put them away.”
The three children set to work without reply, the two younger girls awed by the event of the morning. Not before had they seen Carmella so humbled. Once, when Maria was out of the room, she cuffed them both.
“You do that again and I’ll tell dad when he comes home tonight,” threatened Raffaela.
And thus a new restraint was thrown on Carmella. Hitherto both of them had endured her dominance.
Not until late in the afternoon did her wrath cool sufficiently to allow her to consider anew her vacation plans, and to consider Nicolo’s new phase. As an assistant to Mike Laudini he should have money—much money. Hitherto he had been able to ask her to the movies only infrequently. Sometimes, when she happened to have money and he did not, she had cheerfully paid the bills. But now, she felt, this would no longer be proper.
Nicolo Pieri, assistant to Mike Laudini, was a figure.
Carmella, looking swiftly ahead, saw him destined to be a social as well as a financial person of eminence. Mike conducted an intricate and highly confidential business, and it was a matter of common knowledge in Doty Street that he had as customers some of the city’s leading citizens.
It was rumored that the president of the powerful trust company where Mike did his banking was a regular buyer of several cases a month of varied liquors, being a lavish entertainer. In this same trust company Mr. Barrington was a director.
It was obvious that a notable man like Mike would pick for assistant a boy whose abilities he rated high.
Carmella strolled to the street, still occupied with these thoughts. Nicolo presently swaggered out of his house.
“How come, kid?” he asked.
“Right as oh-so,” said Carmella. And after a moment she added:
“Like to ask me to a movie again?”
“Yeh!” he admitted.
“If you’re broke, I’ll ask you.”
“Broke be damned! You don’t get it, kid, that I gotta job now, and I’m hipped for time. I gotta work.”
“Then we’ve got to plan,” said Carmella. “I have to wash dishes this vake. Dad said so. You got to make booze and all that. When do we get together?”
“Tonight, if you’re game,” said Nicolo.
“Sure thing!” said Carmella. “I’ll go with you tonight. Dad won’t kick on one night.”
That evening, after supper, she asked him if she might go to the movies. To her delight, he assented. But he added:
“I will take you. You shall read to me the titles, because they are hard for me in English.”
“But, father!” she protested. “You never took me in your life before. I asked because Nicolo asked me. Let me go with him tonight, and you take me some other night.”
“Nicolo Pieri, across the street?”
“Sure! Nick!”
“I have told you once that I did not wish you to go anywhere with that boy.”
“But, father, he’s all right. Mike Laudini has engaged him as regular assistant. Mike wouldn’t engage anybody that wasn’t all right. Please, just this one evening, anyway.”
“I myself will go with you.”
“But, noioso, dad⸺”
“You shall not go to the theater with Nicolo,” Tommaso interrupted. “He is not fit for you.”
“But, padre mio, he’s taken me lots of times, afternoons. And you say it is all right for me to go tonight, because you’d take me. Why can’t Nicolo?”
“Listen, Carmella mia. I see much of men. I hear much of men. I hear of Nicolo. You are to go to the pictures with others, if you wish, but not with Nicolo. I will take you tonight, and you shall read the titles to me. Will you go with me?”
It was the first time Tommaso had ever invited, instead of commanded, his daughter. For a moment she eyed him, undecided. Then suddenly the defeats and disappointments of the whole day swept over her, and she stormed. Stormed and raged, stamping her feet and screaming.
“No!” she shouted. “No, no, no! I will not go with you. I will go with Nick or I will not go at all. I am old enough to decide. I am old enough. Me, Carmella Kate, to be told like a baby. And you—you to talk so to me. You—a foreigner! You old—you—you wop!”
Carmella turned and rushed upstairs to her room.
Tommaso, making no reply, sat silent, smoking.
Saying nothing, though his eyes twitched queerly, as he saw his daughter turn up the stairs instead of dashing outdoors.
Saying nothing when Maria told him to come to bed.
Late into the night he sat, silently smoking.
Gradually his lips tightened on the amber stem of his pipe. Carmella, his chief pride in life, his hope for all the future, his link between old tongues and new ways—Carmella—she—Madre di Dio!—this idol of his heart had scorned him.
Suddenly he laughed aloud. The girl had not rushed from the house, as for an instant he had thought she would. She had not defied him by going out with Nicolo. Aha—ah-h-h! But the more he meditated the more he wished she had done it. He could have punished her for that. He was still father of the family. By God, yes!
But this—this insult—the venom of her voice as she called him a “wop”—this new world venom that he did not understand—was ever there before an Italian child who had called a parent by that hated name?—he could not punish for that. To punish would admit his own defeat. Dimly he felt that the father should be bigger than the child in heart and mind, as well as in strength.
No punishment for the child. But punishment still came surely. Punishment came to those who were of the old régime.
The clock on the mantel struck twelve. Tommaso rose heavily, looked toward his bedroom, shook his head, and walked toward the victrola. Through the records he looked, until he finally found a song from Il Trovatore. He put it in the machine, and found a new needle for the arm. Heavily he wound the machine, and put the needle a third of the way into the record. The beginning of the song he did not like. Then he moved the regulator to “loud” and started the mechanism.
He sat in his Morris chair and smoked and listened, fiercely.
Presently Maria came to the door of their bedroom, off the sitting room.
“Turn off the machine, for God’s sake, and for the children’s,” she pleaded.
“What th’ hell!” said Tommaso, speaking the phrase in English. “Here in America. I do what I damn like when I damn like.”
“Carmella, she bothers you?” asked Maria, coming to him in her night robe.
“No!” he shouted, above the music
Maria sat in his lap.
“You wish Carmella to grow up a fine girl?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“You wish her to mind me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I wish. Go to bed!”
Tommaso’s voice showed the strain of his thoughts. Maria slipped from his knees and went back to bed. Only when the song was ended and the needle had screeched over half an inch of disc did he shut off the machine.
Then Tommaso emptied his pipe and went to bed. Through the night Maria heard him mutter in his sleep.