Carmella Commands/Chapter 9
amn it!” exclaimed Carmella at seven-thirty o’clock the following Monday morning.
She rose sleepily to her elbow and glared at the busily ringing alarm clock. This clock was a luxury for which she had teased her father. To her surprise, her mother had approved, feeling that it would save her own time in rousing the family after Tommaso had gone to work. For of all the children, only Giuseppe rose at six, with his parents. The others were sleepy-heads.
It still puzzled Maria to think of living in a land where every home had its own clocks, almost one in every room sometimes, instead of relying on the bell of a nearby church for the time. A clock for Carmella, however, she had favored, specifying that the latter must in turn see that her younger sisters were sufficiently roused to get up, a duty which Carmella performed with punctilious and energetic delight.
Her sisters had quickly learned to dread these abrupt attacks, and usually beat Carmella out of bed when the alarm sounded in her room.
“I’m up!” shouted Raffaela before Carmella was really awake.
“So’m I!” echoed Paola.
And both began racing into their clothes. But this morning Carmella was tired. All night she had dreamed of the day’s negotiations, hoping they could be accomplished without Tommaso’s learning how she had tricked him. She addressed the clock:
“Damn you! Damn a clock that does what you thought you wanted it to the night before!”
Lazily she rolled back to the pillow, and dozed again.
Her sisters, meanwhile, finished their dressing and prepared to go downstairs. Surprised by the silence in Carmella’s room, they looked in, and exchanged glances which suddenly clicked into a common thought. Here, for the first time they could remember, they were in a position to work revenge on their older sister. Silently, but as if by prearranged plan, they moved to opposite sides of her bed, glanced a t each other in a mutual signal, and then suddenly stripped off the bedclothing and began pummelling.
Carmella’s reaction was instantaneous and sure. Leaping to the floor, she flung out her fists with ready force and skill. But her sisters were fully dressed, while she was handicapped by the vulnerability of night clothing. The younger sisters had a temporary advantage, and in the flush of enthusiastic revenge were willing to accept blows that in other battles would have counted them out. They rushed at Carmella, stepping heavily on her bare toes as they struck. Shrill shrieks filled the house, and the battle royal was raging as Maria dashed upstairs and into the room.
“Stop it! Stop it!” she cried in Italian, as she separated the fighters, slapping here and there to enforce her commands.
Carmella sat sullenly on the bed, not deigning to speak.
“It’s what she does to us, mamma!” cried Paola, while Raffaela retired to the corner and laughed hysterically.
Carmella’s shame kept her silent. To talk would be to tell tales on children younger than she. She had been caught fairly enough. She would take what blame was coming. But the humiliation of living in dreams of becoming a real estate factor only to discover herself in the middle of a babyish mêlée was greater than the possible consequences of the battle.
Instead of punishing, however, Maria went downstairs, after telling them all to hurry. She had known something of Carmella’s methods with the younger children, and she had the feeling that a just revenge had been accomplished.
Raffaela and Paola promptly followed her, and demanded breakfast, giggling occasionally in their excitement. Carmella dressed slowly, debating whether to slip out the front door, or to go back to the kitchen and face the covert jibes. Her impulse was to avoid the family, but she realized that this would be a confession of defeat.
The two younger girls taunted her by looks instead of words. Carmella glared at them, but said nothing.
“You are not going to school this morning?” asked Maria.
“No! At eleven-thirty I must be here to talk English for father out in Greendale.”
“Then you can help me with the cooking and the housework,” said Maria.
And here was a second triumph for the sisters. They were chuckling happily as they left for school.
Carmella helped, but at eleven went to her room to change her dress for the day’s real work. She added an ornament or two, having read somewhere that appearance was a factor in business success.
To her surprise, and slightly to her disappointment, Mr. Barrington himself did not appear. Dixon halted the car in front of the gate precisely at eleven-thirty, bringing Mr. Hastings. Tommaso had reached the house from a small job in the city a few minutes before.
Carmella liked the big, jovial Mr. Barrington, in spite of the fact that she felt that he talked down to her. Moreover, in some half-conscious fashion, she felt that she wanted him to know her father. Somehow, in ways she could not foresee, it might help Tommaso to get on.
Mr. Hastings she neither liked nor trusted. Her heart sank at the possibility that he would say something that would indicate to her father, if he understood it, how she had fooled him before. One of her problems was to discover just how much English Tommaso did understand. There were many times when it would be convenient to know.
Should he discover the truth, even though the trick was winning some thousands of dollars for him, Carmella could not guess what would happen. He might buy her a gift, or he might punish her. He might even do both. Of all the human beings she knew, Carmella admired her father the most, and understood him least. He was so silent, so determined, so heavy of hand.
She climbed into the rear seat beside Mr. Hastings and beckoned her father to follow. She would have liked to ride with Dixon, but she knew that she must be between the two men.
Without even a “good morning,” Mr. Hastings turned to Carmella and said:
“Has your father got the deed with him?” The girl translated, and Tommaso tapped his breast pocket.
“Let’s see it,” said Mr. Barrington’s agent. “I don’t want to foozle things out at the recorder’s office, now that we’ve decided to pay your dad’s hold-up.”
Always he talked to Carmella. And she thrilled at being her father’s agent in so vast an enterprise. She was to Tommaso what Hastings was to Barrington. Her anxiety could not entirely kill her sense of glory.
In previous affairs her task as family interpreter had involved finance hardly more than the price of a dress or a suit of clothes. Now she was dealing in thousands. Not merely as agent but, unknown to any but herself, as a decisive factor. At thirteen, one is perhaps entitled to the thrill of dominance. Some, indeed, never pass that stage of youth.
For an instant she hesitated at Mr. Hastings’ demand for the deed. She had seen important papers torn up, to turn the tide of a heroine’s fortunes on the screen. But she remembered Dixon on the front seat. From the angle of his head she knew that he was listening. He would make a witness if any desperate work were tried. And so, constructing a sprightly melodrama as she went along, she told Tommaso to let Mr. Hastings see the deed.
The latter nodded as he examined the paper, and presently handed it back to Carmella, who passed it to her father.
“All right,” he said, speaking to the girl. “We’ve had the title examined in advance, along with our own land. We’ll be through in ten minutes after we get to the town clerk’s office out here.”
“Have you got the money—eight thousand dollars?” asked Carmella, sceptically.
“Certainly! Certified check.”
Mr. Hastings showed it to her. To her inexperienced eyes it looked like a check that had been cancelled.
“What is certified?” she demanded.
Mr. Hastings’ explanation was too technical to satisfy. She couldn’t understand, not even enough to explain to Tommaso. And he, sensing difficulty, was instantly suspicious. He was used to money, and checks, and savings account books. But, since the man had differentiated this check from others, he would have none of it. He spoke a dozen words in Italian to Carmella, who thereupon explained that money or nothing was her father’s motto. As she finished Dixon turned in his seat, slowing down the machine.
“Listen, kid!” he said. “Excuse me for butting in, Mr. Hastings, but she’ll understand me better. A certified check is extra special. Safe as the Bank of Italy. It’s better than money, because it isn’t so easy to lose. Take it from me! Tell your old man to take it, and after we leave the office out here I’ll drive you to his bank, whatever it is, to deposit it.”
“Dixon!” exclaimed Mr. Hastings hotly.
“Yes, sir!”
“I’ll give the orders here.”
“Very well, sir! You will after I’ve followed Mrs. Barrington’s orders, which were to see that Kid Kate and her old man were looked out for in every way. Those are my first orders, sir.”
From Mr. Hastings’ answering silence, as from the words and tones of this brief passage, Carmella instantly knew that Mrs. Barrington and her husband’s agent were not friends.
She knew that Dixon and Hastings were not friends.
She knew that Dixon could be relied on in any emergency. Her voice sang a sudden song of triumph as she cried:
“Go ahead, Mr. Dixon, to the town clerk’s office.” She wondered if she had done it as Norma Talmadge would have done it.
In this particular state the town clerk was also the recorder of deeds. The transfer was made quickly, and the sale recorded, and Mr. Barrington’s check for eight thousand dollars handed to Tommaso. The party returned to the machine.
“I’m driving Mr. Coletta and his daughter to their bank, Mr. Hastings,” said Dixon. “Where shall I drop you?”
Mr. Hastings’ face clouded, and he hesitated a moment. Then he said:
“Drive me into town, and drop me off at the first taxi stand you come to. I’ll mention this thing to Mr. Barrington.”
“Very good, sir!” said Dixon.
Carmella thereupon hopped into the front seat, beside the driver. She knew well enough that there would be no conversation between Mr. Hastings and her father. And—hurrah!—so far as she could see she had escaped discovery as a traitor to an interpreter’s implied oath.
On the drive into town she chatted comfortably with Dixon, about his opinions of real estate, the probable future of the city, the opportunities of the contracting business, and didn’t he simply love the movies?
Halfway from the city limits to the business center they sighted a taxi standing idle.
“Out here, Dixon!” said Mr. Hastings, fiercely.
Dixon drove to the curbing, stepped out and opened the door.
“You’ll hear from this,” Mr. Hastings said, as he stepped out.
“Thank you, sir,” said Dixon, grinning.
Then, with joy in his job, he drove Carmella to the Central Trust Company, where Tommaso had a slender commercial account. There Carmella satisfied herself by seeing that the certified check was accepted as readily as gold certificates.
She noted, also, the quick appraising approval with which the receiving teller had glanced at her father as he saw the amount and signature. Carmella had long suspected that money bought approval in this world of hers.
Dixon drove them back to Doty Street. On the way, Carmella asked Tommaso how much he had paid for the land.
“Five hundred for option and first payment,” he replied.
“Yes, but in all,” she insisted.
“Five hundred more. One thousand in all.”
“Per Dio!” exclaimed Carmella, swearing strongly. “Then you made seven thousand dollars on this deal?”
“Yes!”
They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Carmella asked:
“However did you come to buy there, dad?”
“Mike Laudini told me it was good to buy there.”
“Mike Laudini! The bootlegger!”
“Yes!”
Carmella gasped. She knew that Mike’s customers were many and prominent. It had not occurred to her that he might pick up valuable information from them. That it was sometimes their way of tipping a man who was above other methods. She observed that Dixon was chuckling.
As they left the car, in front of the yellow cottage, Carmella turned to Dixon.
“Thank you, Mr. Dixon, for telling me about the check, and for taking us to the bank, and for bringing us home.”
“Madam’s orders,” he said, grinning.
“And I hope this Hastings man don’t make trouble for you,” she added.
“Don’t worry, kid! He don’t make trouble. He don’t dare. He don’t dare to do anything. He didn’t dare take the tip about Greendale land that your father did. He’s a zero. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye, Mr. Dixon!”
And Carmella turned to run into the house with her father.
She noticed that he said nothing to Maria about the morning’s work. She wondered if he never reported his business successes to her mother.
Just before the family sat down to a late dinner of meat balls with red wine he handed Carmella a ten-dollar bill, without saying why. It was the largest sum he had ever given her, for her own. There was no chance to do more than whisper her “thank you,” but she beamed at him across the table, so that he understood.
After dinner she went to the sitting-room table, which was the family desk, and wrote the following note:
“Miss Kelly, Teacher—
“Please excuse Carmella for not going to school today. I used her for to interpret.”
“Come here and sign this, dad!” she called.
Tommaso looked at the message and asked Carmella to read it in his own tongue.
“It’s just an excuse for not being in school this morning,” she explained, and translated it literally. “You have to sign it, you know.”
Laboriously Tommaso signed his name.
It was natural for Carmella to ask her father to sign the note. He was the one who had kept her out of school. Yet, curiously, this was the first time that she had not had her mother furnish the excuses.
He Handed Carmella a Ten-dollar Bill, Without Saying Why