Carmella Commands
they know him. He does nothing yet, but they watch. I do not like that you should like him.”
“Oh, sul-lush!”
“What is it you say, Carmella mia? ‘Sul-lush!’”
“I mean, dad, that Nick is all right. He’s a good kid. Just lively, that’s all. And since his dad got killed last year his mother is trying to hold him too tight. Nick likes a good time. He built his own radio, you know. And he’s the boy Mr. Carroll, the principal down to the school, got to do everything for him last year.”
“Does this Mr. Carroll know boys?”
“Santo Dio! He ought to. He gets four thousand a year for pretending to, anyway. And I guess that’s that.”
These phrases of American, spoken in Italian, perplexed Tommaso. They said so much and meant so little. When he was a boy, in the outskirts of Naples—ah, children didn’t talk to their parents like that. He decided to pass on to his final theme.
“Is there school tomorrow, Carmella?”
“Sure not! It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”
“I thought so. Then I wish you to talk for me, out a t our land in Greendale.”
“Santo fumo!” exclaimed Carmella, and her father frowned.
Here again was that trick of speech which Carmella had unconsciously formed, turning an American bit of slang or expletive into literal Italian, where it
[37]
