Carmella Commands/Chapter 6
mong those of Doty Street who had gazed and marveled at the glories of Carmella’s recent arrivals was. Nicolo Pieri, Carmella’s radio friend, who lived in the sixfamily house across the street. He sauntered out as the Barrington car drove away, smoking a cigarette.
“Hello, kid!” he said. “Who’s your high-hat friend?”
“She ain’t high hat,” declared Carmella, with a vehemence that would have astonished Mrs. Barrington, after the interview of a few moments earlier.
“Oh, she ain’t, ain’t she? She’s got some high-hat buggy, I’ll say.”
“Sure she has. She’s rich. Her husband is Barrington, the real estate man.
Nicolo whistled softly.
“Sure, I know who he is,” he admitted. “Mike’s his bootlegger.”
“Mike Laudini, down the street?”
“Sure! I’ve pasted the labels on his gin bottles many a time.”
“Then Mike’s got a good customer, I bet,” laughed Carmella. “They say he has money to throw away.”
“Yeh, only he don’t throw it. Mike says he’s as tight as a new tire. But Mike says he won’t have anything but the real goods—as real as there is. And he’ll pay a fair price when he’s sure.”
“You bet he will,” said Carmella, thinking of Greendale real estate.
“What’s that, kid?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking.”
“Say, kid! You’re getting kind of funny. Flossy autos bringing you home, and having women like her for friends, and you ain’t acting so terrible chummy with me, either. What is it, kid?”
For answer Carmella snatched the cigarette from his lips, threw it on the ground, leaned over and kissed him, and dashed into her house.
“That kid’s getting too deep for me,” Nicolo mused to himself. “I gotta make some money. I absolutely have.”
He sauntered back across the street, lighting a fresh cigarette.
As casually as she could, Carmella announced to her mother that Mrs. Barrington was to send a machine for her on Saturday. Maria was excited. Much as she hated the head of the sewing class, she could not resist the thrilling sense of importance when her daughter was asked as a guest to the home of one so mighty. That evening she did not insist that Carmella help her with the dishes.
And Carmella, curiously enough, said nothing of it to Tommaso.
The next morning Baby Enrico had a pain. With all the power of his young lungs he protested. Maria knew very well that it could not be a serious pain, or there would be less lung-power. Nevertheless, it would be as well to call the district nurse on her morning rounds.
Miss Young, who brought healing and friendship to that section of Little Italy, usually passed the corner of Doty Street about ten o’clock. Maria sent Carmella down to the corner to notify the gray-clad visitor that there was need of her in the Coletta household.
“Stay from school till you meet the nurse,” said Maria, “and after you have sent her here, go to your teacher and tell her why you are late.”
Miss Kelly was used to such excuses. At least a third of her pupils were oldest children, and therefore the interpreters for their families. It was no uncommon thing to excuse a child for half a day for a shopping excursion downtown with her mother, in order to do the talking.
Routine purchases, of course, were made in the shops of Little Italy, the signs of which were sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, and sometimes mixed. The druggist on the corner, for example, had on his swinging sign the word “Farmacia,” while on his window, in gold letters, were the words “Drug Store.” All the storekeepers of Little Italy spoke two languages. Or, if they spoke only one, it was their native tongue.
But at least twice a year each Little Italy mother prided herself on going downtown to the big stores, at least to look at the piled wonders of merchandise, and always to stop in the five-and-ten for household necessities. On these trips their oldest boy or girl always attended them.
What puzzled Miss Kelly was how Carmella could be spared from the interview between her mother and the district nurse.
“Does the nurse speak Italian?” she asked.
“Oh, no! A few words. But not to talk.”
“And your mother doesn’t speak English, you’ve told me.”
“She understands some. But not to speak. Only with the nurse she say a little in English. The nurse, she is the only one.”
“If she can talk English with the nurse she can with others,” said Miss Kelly logically.
Carmella laughed.
“She don’t dare.”
“And why not?”
“She’s afraid of making mistakes. We laugh at her when she talk English so silly.”
“Who laughs at her?”
“All us kids,” said Carmella, chuckling.
Miss Kelly was properly stern in rebuking this habit.
Carmella said “Yes, Miss Kelly,” at appropriate intervals, and thought of other things—mostly real estate.
That evening she decided, on sudden impulse, to tell her father that Mrs. Barrington had asked her to luncheon. To her surprise, he made little comment. If her mother had said she could go, very well! Would she please start the victrola? Of the failure of his real estate negotiations he had not spoken since they had said good-bye to Mr. Barrington’s agents.
Carmella was disappointed at his lack of interest. She wondered if by any chance her mother had talked with her father about it. Hitherto, it had been safe to talk to either without fear of parental breach of confidence.
It proved that nothing serious had been the matter with Baby Enrico. A tiny dose of castor oil was all he needed. But the district nurse’s visit gave Mrs. Coletta the chance she very much wanted to ask Miss Young, not as a nurse but as a friend, what a mother could do with a daughter who was steadily acquiring outside interests and who was inclined to talk back.
Many, many times in her three years of work in Little Italy Miss Young had heard this question, in one form or another. In more than one group of mothers that she encountered it was the chief, almost the only, subject of discussion. But experience had taught her that there was little she could do.
“Love her. Sympathize. Praise her for helping you with the housework. Get her to tell you what she does, if you can without nagging. Don’t nag. Have Father Carbone see that she goes to church and confession regularly. But oh, Mrs. Coletta, if only you would learn to talk English with her!”
This was the substance of Miss Young’s advice. A part of it Maria understood, and shook her head, and sighed.
So easy to say; so hard to do. Especially that “speak English” part of it. Carmella was a wonderful girl, but she was not sympathetic, like Miss Young. Maria thought back to far-away days in a far-away land. She had not grown away from her own mother like this. Of course, she had had an occasional escapade. Like all young folk. And been punished for it. It was but natural.
And Tommaso, he had been a radical young man when she began timidly to go about with him. Her mother had scolded her for choosing so impetuous a mate. Of course! But, ah! Never had there been this horrible curtain of strange speech between them. Like a black barrier. Like steel netting behind which prisoners stood when friends visited them. One could see—ah, yes!—one could see. The outside. But that was all.
Through the week Maria sighed and thought of
“I Shall Wear My School Dress. It Is More Proper—in America”
those Italian days, and wished Enrico would be sick again—not too sick—so that she could once more talk with Miss Young. On Saturday morning she woke Carmella half an hour early.
“We have much to do,” she said.
“Why?” asked Carmella sleepily.
“Because this day is the day you go to lunch with Mrs. Barrington, and you must be dressed for it.”
“Dressed how?” demanded Carmella, waking suddenly and sitting up.
“In your best, of course. In your white dress, made over from first communion. Of course!”
“But no, mother! That would not do. My school dress I shall wear. It is new and it is clean. It is what I met Mrs. Barrington in. It is what I shall wear.”
“Carmella!” said her mother, horrified. “It is not proper. For going to lunch with Mrs. Barrington—I like her not, but she is a great lady. You shall wear your best.”
“I shall wear my school dress, but with the gray stockings instead of the brown, and with my Sunday shoes,” said Carmella. “It is more proper—in America,” she added.
Maria recoiled, physically staggering.
Here, a t last, was the retort she had unconsciously been dreading all these last few years. “In America.” Her child, born near the dear beautiful Naples, was taunting her mother with different ways and manners, because this was America—the America of the young.
In one blinding instant she thought to ask Tommaso—but no!—Tommaso had never beaten her—he was a good husband, whom she loved—he would rage if she should ask him to give up all he had won here of money and of business, and go back—back to the land of their own language.
Here, finally, had come the crisis of authority. It was not proper that Carmella should wear her school dress. Yet Carmella demanded.
Maria knew it as a crisis, clean and clear, like a vision.
Carmella sensed it doubtfully, half wonderingly. She sensed that between herself and whatever America might mean to her, there was now only her father as a barrier.
“I shall wear the school dress or I shall not go,” she said calmly. “I shall not be made silly. It is proper, in America.”
That phrase again! Maria felt herself beaten by a phrase. Her mind turned to little Enrico. Aha! Enrico, the dear baby boy. Such a willful baby, he! But he was born in America. She had heard them say that he could become President of the United States, because he was born in this country. What magic was there in this country, anyway? Magic that somehow she had missed. Was not a President something like the King? What a country! If only people here spoke a real language! Like Italian, for example.
“Very well!” she said. “Va bene! You shall wear what you choose. Qualche giorno you shall know that your mother was right.”
As in a daze she helped Carmella dress in her school frock, with her Sunday shoes and stockings. She was beaten. But she believed that Carmella’s adventures of the day would vindicate her.
In the light of the forenoon’s program, it seemed foolish to have awakened Carmella early. There was nothing to do, after the dishes were washed and wiped, and the beds made. Carmella wandered outside, only to find Nicolo waiting for her.
“Say, kid! he said. “Let’s get going somewhere! What do you say to a movie?”
“What’s on?” asked Carmella.
“There’s a feature film at the Gaiety. We’ll catch the eleven o’clock show.”
“Nothing doing!” said Carmella. “I got to be back here by half-past twelve. Got a date.”
“A date! Who’s it with?” asked Nicolo, aggressively suspicious.
“Only just one of my high-hat friends,” said Carmella demurely.
“This Mrs. Real Estate?” demanded Nicolo.
“Maybe no and maybe yes, you can use your head and guess,” answered Carmella, using one of the formulas popular in her school just then.
“She ain’t such-a-much,” said Nicolo. “I been finding out about her. She’s a flop, and you know it.”
“She’s a lady you don’t talk about like that,” said Carmella, and swung a heavy hand across Nicolo’s mouth.
“Dannato!” he exclaimed, holding his hand over his jaw. “Where do you get that stuff, kid?”
“Never mind where I get it. You watch it.”
Carmella turned and walked into her home, reading last evening’s paper through twice while she waited.
Promptly at twelve-thirty the Barrington sedan, with Dixon at the wheel, drove up to the yellow gateway. If Dixon had a vice, it was that of punctuality. Sometimes he waited around the corner for a full quarter-hour, in order to drive up on the instant of the appointed time. It was as much a matter of principle with him not to appear early as not to appear late. Her friends often complimented Mrs. Barrington on the possession of Dixon.
This was a real compliment, for when she had first engaged him, Dixon had not been such a paragon of promptness. Mrs. Barrington had trained him, since her husband would not. But Dixon now believed that he had always been as punctual. And, having been trained, he liked it.
Prompt as was the chauffeur, Carmella was waiting for him. She had been at the front window for about the same period that he had been parked around the corner.
Carmella rushed for the door, but turned as Maria came after her, calling an awed “good-bye!”
Carmella threw her arms around her mother’s neck, and said in Neapolitan:
“Good-bye, mother of mine! You are good. You are kind. Thank you for letting me wear this dress. You are, oh, so good!”
So quickly had Carmella sensed the responsibilities of dominance.
Maria wiped her eyes and went back to her kitchen, praising God for such a daughter as Carmella who, although American, was so kind to her old Italian mother.
Maria was thirty-four years of age.