Carmella Commands/Chapter 4
aria called the family to supper, all but baby Enrico, who had been put to bed. Tommaso and his wife rarely talked at meals. Tonight Carmella also was silent, as she reflected on the glories of being a landowner’s daughter. The other children chattered among themselves in whatever language suited them.
Tommaso drank more of Maria’s good grape wine than usual, but otherwise showed no sign of mental unrest. Suddenly Carmella turned to him and asked:
“Who are the men tomorrow, dad? Who wants to buy your land?”
“Men that I have met,” he answered shortly. Then, turning to Maria, he explained:
“Mr. Hastings and Mr. Richmond, she means. These two want to buy land on which I have an option. Carmella goes with me tomorrow to talk to them.”
“An option you have? Is that land?” asked Maria.
Not often was she thus taken into her lord and master’s confidence, and she was elated.
“An option it is a chance to buy. I have made one down-payment, for the option. Either tomorrow I must pay once more, or sell. Maybe I shall sell.”
To Mrs. Coletta this was so much bewilderment. But she smiled and nodded and poured another glass of wine for Tommaso. For was it not right that a wife should smile and nod and pour wine if her husband deigned to tell her anything of his affairs?
But to Carmella it was specific information. In his confusion over having children who talked what he could not talk, yet who talked with him in his own blessed Neapolitan, he often forgot that when he spoke with Maria they could understand. Carmella best of all, of course, for she was knowing of everything. A wonderful girl, his Carmella!
Giuseppe, too, was able to follow almost any speech. Raffaela and Paola, who were native-born Americans, were a little more difficult to understand, for they seemed to speak the language of the land more naturally than they did his own tongue.
Truly it was comforting to pocket the dollars this America produced, and to feel himself a part of its quick-moving ways by dealing in real estate that others already wanted. But after supper, as he smoked his pipe in the Morris chair, he dreamed dreams of a little home outside of Naples, where his wife sitting beside him and children playing around him should have only one common experience, one common language.
It was perplexing. The dream, he knew, could never become real.
Maria laughed next morning to see Carmella bound out of bed without being called, and called again, and shaken. That was the routine of the girl’s rising. But now she was dressed almost as early as her mother. And helped to get breakfast, a thing she also rarely did without being scolded into it.
Maria watched her deft handling of dishes and food. Particularly when she ground the coffee was her mother amazed. So far as she knew never yet had Carmella ground the coffee. Freshly-ground coffee was one of Tommaso’s breakfast whims. He would have it. He had got the idea from some American acquaintance, had brought home a coffee grinder and taught his wife to use it.
Every morning she ground it fresh for him, complaining that he should be so notional, and secretly proud that he should be.
Carmella had never before shown interest in the making of a breakfast. Yet here was she now catering to her father’s newest whim. To Maria it was as if she suddenly had a new daughter. Her thoughts ran on:
“Surely, after all, the child will be a good wife for some good man. If only she chooses a good man! It seems there are so many who are not good in this new land. If only she would like to wash dishes now, where could one find a better daughter?”
It was true that Carmella never washed dishes except under strict compulsion. This morning, the instant breakfast was finished, she dashed from the house on an errand her mother did not know. But, her father being there and not interfering, what was there for a mother to say?
A few minutes before ten Carmella was back and handed a receipt to Tommaso.
“It is ours! It is ours! It is ours!” she shouted, dashing to the victrola and inserting a record. The strains of “Catch ’Em and Kill ’Em Politely” were unwinding themselves from the disk as a knock on the front door announced visitors. Carmella was there.
“Yes!” she said in response to the caller’s question. “This is Mr. Coletta’s house. He’ll be right out. Just a minute!”
In her excitement she slammed the door in the visitor’s face, and shouted for Tommaso. The latter, looking through the window, saw Mr. Richmond sitting in the machine and Mr. Hastings, meditatively rubbing his nose, on the sidewalk. Carmella was already dancing to the door with her hat on.
“You tell me what they say; you tell them what I say; that is all,” commanded Tommaso as they walked toward the yellow gate.
“Yes, dad. But first you tell them who I am,” said Carmella.
“Buon giorno!” said Tommaso, as they reached the machine. Pointing to Carmella, he tried to introduce her in English. “Thees keed,” he began, and gave up the effort. In his own language he said:
“My little girl, she will do the speaking for me. I will do the talking.”
“Morning!” said Carmella. “Dad says I’ll interpret for him while he does the heavy stuff. All right with you?”
Both men bowed gravely.
“All right with us, Miss⸺”
“Kate,” said Carmella suddenly.
“Miss Kate,” added Mr. Hastings, who proved to be the talking member of the pair.
Carmella climbed into the rear seat with her father. The fact that it was a Packard instead of a flivver had already made her forenoon complete.
With little talk the three men and the girl rolled easily through the suburbs into the region of open spaces and occasional bungalows. Presently Mr. Richmond, at the wheel, steered off the cement to the right and brought the car to a stop.
“This the place, Mr. Coletta?” he asked.
Curiously enough, it was the first time Carmella had ever heard her father called Mr. Coletta to his face. The neighbors called him Tommaso or Tom. She glanced at him with new respect, waiting for something to translate.
But instead of speaking, he nodded and pointed to the open field across the road. The four got out. Tommaso then pointed again and said:
“That is mine.”
“That’s his land,” said Carmella in English.
Silently the four crossed the cement highway, completed and open for traffic within the week.
“You have a quarter acre?” asked Mr. Hastings. Carmella repeated to Tommaso, and translated his reply.
“Two lots. Eighty by one hundred.”
Mr. Hastings began to chuckle.
“But you said four thousand for it,” he said.
Tommaso looked at Carmella, who repeated in Italian.
“Si!” he said, nodding gravely.
“‘Si’ means ‘Yes,’” said Carmella, solemnly.
“But,” said Mr. Hastings, “we can buy better land a mile beyond for half that.”
Carmella translated.
“Do so, then,” said Tommaso.
“What’d he say?” demanded both men, turning to Carmella in their eagerness.
“He said it was a grand little old idea of yours and to skip to it,” said she.
“Oh!”
For a moment the two men consulted, walking slowly away. Carmella heard them use the name Barrington, and listened eagerly.
“He said get it, up to twice its value,” she heard Mr. Richmond say. “It’s his funeral. He overlooked this plot. And he’s sure got to have it before he can sell lots on a restricted basis. Or else he’s got to change his location completely.”
Carmella turned to her father, her mind racing madly through this new idea. She did not understand all the implications of a “restricted basis,” but she realized that for some reason her father’s lots were in a key position.
“Listen, dad!” she exclaimed. “Don’t sell. You deal with Mr. Barrington, the big real estate man. It is he who really wants your lots.”
“How do you know?” asked Tommaso.
“I heard them talking. He is the big man in land downtown. This he owns around here, too. And I know his wife.”
Tommaso hesitated. So often Carmella actually did know more than he. And he had never caught her in a flagrant lie. But this! This was a bigger matter. Evidente, in such an affair as this, he must decide.
“I brought you here to interpret,” he said. “That is all. When it is to decide, I will do it. What do they say?”
The two men walked back to Carmella.
“Tell your father,” said Mr. Hastings, “that we know he is holding us up. But tell him we will stand for it. We will pay the four thousand.”
Carmella turned to her father, half-choking with quick determination. If her father would not win a sure-thing gamble, then she, Kid Kate, would win it for him.
“They say,”—and this is what Carmella told Tommaso—“that four thousand dollars is too much. They will give you three thousand five hundred. It is not enough, padre mio. Tell them five thousand.”
“But why should I say five if four is too much? I will stick to four. Tell them again my price. They pay it or I do not sell.”
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Hastings.
“My dad says you make him sick. You wait and talk instead of say what you will do. While you talk over there, his price goes up. His price it is now five thousand. And if you talk more, it is six thousand.”
The two men glanced at each other, and Mr. Richmond’s eye seemed to droop in a code that his companion seemed to understand. Carmella, instinctively decoding the droop, had new courage.
“Listen, Miss Kate,” said Mr. Hastings. “Tell your father that he can’t rob us. We’ll offer him five thousand and that’s final.”
Carmella turned to her father and talked volubly. She explained that the two were trying to rob him, and that they offered only four thousand, although she had heard them say the land was worth twice that.
Tommaso spoke fervently. He declared that anyone who tried to rob him should be put in jail, and could do no business with him till time should be no more. Carmella turned to the two men:
“My dad he say six thousand now, and you pay his price now or you do not buy. You pay his price or go to hell.”
“Listen, kid,” said Mr. Richmond, taking a roll of bills from his pocket. “You tell your dad five thousand flat. That’s the limit. But here’s a hundred extra dollars, for you yourself, to spend as you like, to bind the bargain.”
He counted out ten tens. Long experience in bargaining had taught him the value of money in sight. Carmella waved her hand, and spoke quickly to Tommaso.
“Now he tries to bribe me to get you to accept his price. Do you see? They want your land because Mr. Barrington must have it for his plans. That’s the only reason they want it. Tell them you will sell to him yourself or not at all.”
Tommaso grew angry at the situation. These two Americans trying to beat him down! And the more angry he grew, the faster he talked. Which suited Carmella well.
“And tell them,” he added, at the end of a long harangue, “that they can pay my price of four thousand or they can vai al diavolo.”
Carmella turned calmly to the two men, though her heart was beating wildly. This was the first time she had ever deceived her father. And it was a gamble beyond her years. But—she had seen Mrs. Barrington, and seen strength turn to weakness. She had learned that the highest are human. The thought gave her courage.
“My dad says you try to rob him. He would rather rob you. And so, he will rob. He will sell for seven thousand, or he will not sell. And Mr. Barrington, he can move down the road a mile and begin all over. Do you wish to buy at seven thousand?”
“Not by a damn sight!” exclaimed Mr. Hastings.
“Very good,” said Carmella. “Then take us home.”
Mr. Hastings demurred at this, but Mr. Richmond overruled.
“We brought ’em out,” he said. “We’re bound to see ’em back.”
“Damn dagoes!” said Mr. Hastings.
In grim silence the four drove back to Doty Street.
Carmella was silent because her conscience troubled her. Never before had she consciously deceived her father. And, without his knowledge, she had gambled for him, lying to do it.
But she knew Mrs. Barrington. And Mrs. Barrington was human. No doubt Mr. Barrington was, too.
Even Carmella realized the wonderful difference which a personal acquaintance made in one’s point of view. She knew that lots in Greendale were worth more today than they were worth yesterday. And that they would be worth more tomorrow.
She would have felt still easier had she known how the cement road had come to be built, and of the bus line projected past her father’s land.