"That's right, son. Everybody in town come to see you and say, 'Hello! Welcome to Barre in Vermont.'"
"To see us?" His voice was so shrill, it pierced Jake's skull like a mill whistle.
"Just you, nobody else."
They were bumping along on what must be the main street, if a town this size had such a thing. Anyhow, there were stores on either side and people lined up in front of them, waving Italian and American flags and yelling and clapping as they went by. There were bands playing as well. Jake didn't know the tunes, but the music was not too bad, and as it got louder, nobody tried to talk, which was a relief.
They followed the livery in front of them around a tiny common, which was nearly surrounded by churches. There were people standing in the snow even on the common, waving signs and yelling. Then their little parade headed back down the street the same way it had come.
"Ouch! Would you get off my foot?" The kid was not only standing on Jake's foot, he was jumping up and down on it in his excitement, but the boy either didn't hear Jake or just chose to ignore him. Jake picked him up and plopped him down on the seat next to Rosa. "He was killing me," he explained, but Rosa didn't indicate that she had heard. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes wide with fright. "I didn't hurt him. See? He's all right." The little boy had jumped right up and now was crowding the little girl who was standing at the opening on the other side.
They passed the street leading back to the station and turned into a narrower one a little way farther on. By the time the driver stopped the auto, it was truly night. Night came early up here, it seemed.
"Okay," the driver said. "Here we are. The feast is waiting."
The three smaller passengers leaped out of the auto and joined the crowd of children hurrying up the stone steps that led to the brick building, which must be the Labor Hall the driver had mentioned earlier. Rosa was still sitting there on the seat, as though frozen in place. Jake punched her elbow. "We're here now. Get out."
She stumbled toward the open door, onto the running board, and then down to the street. He followed her, and the two of them walked up the steps into the hall.
The smell of food was what hit Jake first. The glorious smell of meat and garlic and hot, fresh-baked bread. He'd thought, on the train, that he'd never have any appetite again, just thinking of pa's dead body and what might become of it—as well as what might become of him when it was found. But he was hungry, hungry enough to eat an automobile if it was covered with enough meatballs and tomato sauce.
There were people at the door greeting everyone, both in Italian and in English. Jake almost burst out for one of the long tables, but he was stopped and sent to one end of the hall. Rosa was sent to the other end. Hell's bells, hadn't a doctor just cluck-clucked over him a few hours ago? But there was nothing to do but to wait his turn while a local doctor listened through his little rubber thing and thumped his back and looked down his throat and into his ears.
A young man was standing by the doctor, checking names off the list. What was Jake to do? His name wasn't going to be on any list.
"What's your name, son?" the young man asked.
"Oh," Jake said, "I ain't on no list. My sister—see, that girl over there with the—Wait, I'll get her. She can explain."
The man looked puzzled, but he didn't try to stop Jake from running across the hall and grabbing Rosa by the arm. "You gotta come," he said. "I ain't on the list."
He was glad to see that she seemed to have recovered from the terror of the auto ride. "Oh, honestly," she said, but she came with him to speak to the man holding the fateful list.
"I—I wouldn't leave unless my brother came with me this morning, so he snuck on board. Mamma will know where he is. She wanted him to come to look after me."
The man raised his eyebrows. "And your name, young fellow?"
"Uh—Sal—"
"Salvatore. He hates it. He wants everyone just to call him 'Sal.'"
"All right, Sal, but we need to have your whole name."
"Serutti." Rosa jumped in quickly. "Same as me."
"Salvatore Serutti," he said and then smiled. "Just for the list, all right? Otherwise, we call you Sal." He wrote something down on the board. "Have you had your examination, Miss Serutti?"
"Rosa," she said, smiling prettily, like a picture. "Yes. I have." What a faker!
"Then you're all set. Go find yourselves seats at the tables. The food is coming as soon as we finish the examinations and check everyone in."
"Well, you could at least thank me," she muttered as they headed for the nearest open seats.
"Okay," he said. "Thank you. Now are you satisfied?"
She just sighed. "Just behave yourself, all right? I can't help you if you don't try to behave."
But Jake was paying no attention. His eyes were following the line of women emerging from a room at the end of the hall. Each was carrying either a pot or a huge platter, which she then set down on one of the tables. There were round tubelike noodles big as his finger covered with tomato sauce. There was a platter with hunks of sausage swimming in tomato sauce. There were huge plates of juicy pieces of chicken so tender they were falling off the bone. There wasn't the spaghetti that he thought Italians ate with every meal, but a dish of something that wasn't potato but not pasta, either.
"What's this stuff?" he asked Rosa.
"Polenta," Rosa whispered. "Taste it. It's good."
Good? Jake bet the angels in heaven didn't have anything that tasted half this good.
There were baskets of bread—thick, crusty slices of it—and smaller platters with cheese and salami and olives and all sorts of strange things. Jake didn't pay much attention to these—he was loading his plate with chicken and polenta and meat sauce, none of that other foreign stuff he didn't recognize. A meal like this ought to last him a few days. Now all he needed was enough money to get himself out of here.
The bands had followed them right into the hall, and while they ate, the musicians played cheerful tunes. Every now and then, between the food and the music, Jake would forget all about the troubles he was running from.
The feast ended with cakes and sweets. Jake stuffed some of the candies into his pocket when Rosa wasn't looking. He knew she'd object if she saw him do it.
"Now, boys and girls," the big man who had been on the train was saying in a booming voice. "Let me ask you. Have you had enough to eat?" A few scattered yeses and thank-yous were heard. The man cupped his hand against one ear. "I can't hear you.... Have you had enough to eat?"
"YES!" the children thundered back.
"Good," he said. "We don't want no child hungry tonight. Now you will meet your hosts for your visit in Barre. Is everyone excited?"
"YES!"
"Good. I can promise you all the people in Barre are excited, too. I bring here only thirty-five children, and many, many more families want to be hosts." He shook his head. "So now, Mr. Marchesi, please to call out names from the list, and the family that has this name, come meet your guest, all right?"
"Gladly, Mr. Broggi." The same young man who had checked names off the list earlier stepped up and began reading the names of the children. Not all the names were Italian, Jake realized. He could have kept his own name, except that he couldn't be Rosa's brother with a name like Jake Beale. His heart thumped as each name was called. What was the man going to do when he got to Rosa's name? But he needn't have worried. "Rosa and Salvatore Serutti," the man called out, just as though his peculiar name had always belonged on the list.
"Stand up!" Rosa commanded. He got to his feet, looking around for the people that would come forward to claim them. At first, no one seemed to move.
"Rosa and Salvatore Serutti?" Mr. Marchesi repeated, looking around as well.
A woman was moving toward them. She looked ancient to Jake, all white hair and wrinkles, a shawl wrapped around her body. Several steps behind her was a tiny man. He was no taller than a child, but not a child at all, for he had a head of snow-white hair and a gr
eat white mustache sprouting from his upper lip like a snow-covered bush.
They came slowly from the far corner of the hall to where Mr. Marchesi stood holding the list. The woman turned and waited for the old man to catch up with her, and when he did, he muttered something in Italian to Mr. Marchesi.
"What did he say?"
"He said he didn't ask for any boy," Rosa whispered back.
The Gerbatis
Jake almost panicked. If the old man didn't take him, what would happen? He'd be separated from Rosa and stuck with some family that probably didn't even speak English.
"Mr. Gerbati," Mr. Marchesi began, but Rosa interrupted whatever he was about to say.
"Scusami, Signor—" She was putting on her saddest, prettiest little face. He'd probably never know whatever it was she said to the old man, but he could see the old lady's face soften.
"Oh," she murmured, "povera bambina," and she put her arm around Rosa's shoulders.
"There are many families who would be glad—" said Mr. Broggi, but the woman interrupted him.
"We fine, Signor Broggi. Is okay."
The old man was defeated. Jake could see that. Without speaking another word, he started for the door. There was a coat rack beside it from which he took an overcoat and a fedora. Then he led them outside and down the stone steps. Mrs. Gerbati followed, her arm still around Rosa's shoulders, with Jake trailing behind. Mrs. Gerbati stopped on the top step, took the shawl off her own shoulders, and wrapped it around Rosa. She turned and smiled at Jake, as if to apologize for not having another to give him. The old man never glanced around. He was down the steps already and, shoulders straight as a sergeant major, was marching up the middle of the street where most of the snow had been cleared away from the cobblestones.
It was obvious that Mr. Gerbati didn't own an automobile or even have access to a livery. Why couldn't they have gone home with their parade driver? Not this glum old man. The walk to the Gerbati house took only a few minutes, but Jake truly thought he might be frozen to the stone street before they got there. His shoes had never been much protection, but they were of no use at all here, and the wind went straight through the shirt and trousers the priest had given him.
Mr. Gerbati reached the house before the others, and he stood, waiting on the porch, stiff as a telegraph pole. The house was hard to make out in the dark, but it loomed large. They went inside, and Mr. Gerbati closed the door, took off his fedora, and hung it on a huge piece of furniture in the front hall. They followed him into a room off the hall to the right, where there were chairs, a couch, and a squat iron stove.
Mrs. Gerbati murmured something to her husband. He nodded curtly, thrust a heaping shovelful of coal into the stove, and stirred the fire, making the flame blaze up. The children looked at each other, their eyes wide in amazement. An entire shovelful of coal! And nearly bedtime, at that.
"Come, come close." Mrs. Gerbati motioned Jake toward the stove. She turned and said something in Italian to Rosa, which must have meant, Doesn't your brother speak Italian? because Rosa was smiling apologetically. "He wants to be only American," she said in English. "So he's forgotten all his Italian."
"Forgot?" Mrs. Gerbati shook her head sadly. "Must not forget, Salvatore, must not." It didn't seem the time to tell Mrs. Gerbati that he wanted to be called "Sal."
The old man hadn't said a word yet. He sat down in a large chair, lit a pipe, and watched as though he were at a performance of some sort as his wife bustled about. Rosa and Jake stood awkwardly, not speaking, not daring to look at the old man as their hostess disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later she reappeared with a tray of steaming cups. "Just a little vino, warm against the cold, si?"
"Grazie," Rosa said.
"Grazie," Jake echoed, making the old woman beam with pleasure. He took the cup and held it, trying to steal some of its heat for his frozen fingers.
When Mrs. Gerbati took Rosa upstairs to go to bed, Jake had another moment of panic. They hadn't been expecting a boy, just a girl. Where would they put him? But he needn't have worried. There was a tiny room with a narrow bed off the kitchen. Mrs. Gerbati gave him a flannel shirt that must belong to her husband and told him to put it on. She left while he changed, and then came in and made up the bed with gleaming white sheets, quilts, even a pillow. He started to get under the covers. "No, no, aspetta. Wait!" She hurried into the kitchen and brought back some kind of long-handled contraption, which she rubbed up and down between the sheets. "Now," she said. "Is nice for you."
He sank into the comfort of the warm bed. Auto or no auto, the Gerbatis must be rich. This big house, a mattress beneath him, and soft, fat quilts on top of him. Soon, even his frozen feet began to tingle, and before he could worry about what might happen the next day or the next, he was fast asleep.
"Sal ... Sal, wake up."
His eyelids felt glued together. It took him a moment to remember where he was—floating, as he seemed to be, upon a heated cloud. He grunted and turned his back on the intrusion, but Rosa, curse her, persisted.
"It's Sunday."
"Go away."
"Mrs. Gerbati wants to take us to Mass. She says she owes it to Mamma to see we go."
"I ain't Catholic."
"You are as far as they know."
"Tell her I'm tired and I got to rest today."
"Yes, maybe that's better. I don't want you to pretend to be Catholic. You got too much sin on your soul to add that."
He sat up now. How would she know about Pa? "What do you mean?"
"Oh, Sal, you know perfectly well. You lie, you cheat, you steal. I don't know how many mortal sins—"
She was just guessing. She didn't know anything about that body in the shack. He shivered and slid back under the covers.
"You really don't look well. If you need anything, Mr. Gerbati has just gone to fetch his newspaper. He'll be right back."
Hell's bells. He was hoping to have the house to himself. The rich old buzzard probably had a load of cash stashed under some mattress. That's what everyone said foreign-borns did, believing as they did that banks would steal their money. "I won't bother him none."
"We'll have breakfast when we get back—if you're up to eating."
He'd be up to eating, all right, just not up to trying to talk to the old man.
Rosa hadn't gone to confession, so she sat in the pew when Mrs. Gerbati went forward to receive the host. She should have been saying her Our Fathers, but instead she was trying to figure out what she could do about the boy ... Sal. The name didn't fit him in the least. He looked no more like a Salvatore than a pigeon. He didn't look Italian at all. He looked like an orphaned mill boy, probably not Irish, since he had no respect for Father O'Reilly, but native-born, with no religion at all, judging by his language. And why had he suddenly turned all funny? Yesterday on the train he'd acted as though he thought somebody was after him. The police? Had he done something so bad that the law was after him? If so, he wasn't the only one in trouble. Hadn't she helped him get away? That was as bad as doing the crime yourself, wasn't it? To help a criminal escape arrest? Her heart was thumping madly now. And Mamma had sent her up here so she would be safe. Oh, Mamma, if you only knew.
How was she going to make him behave? He'd said he'd disappear as soon as they got off the train. He'd practically promised that she wouldn't have to put up with him any longer than the ride itself. And yet here they were, brother and sister in the Gerbatis' house. Mrs. Gerbati was so kind, but Mr. Gerbati ... It was obvious that he wanted little to do with her and even less to do with the boy.
Maybe she should have disowned him last night, refused to help when the man was checking the list. That's what, she now realized, she should have done. Then it would be someone else's problem—what to do with him. She wouldn't be caught in a web of lies and pretense and who knew what else.
What should she do? She was so mixed up. And here came sweet old Mrs. Gerbati down the aisle, smiling at her so kindly, so lovingly, so trustingly.
<
br /> On the walk back to the house, Mrs. Gerbati explained apologetically that her husband didn't attend Mass. "Socialisto," she said. "In Carrara the priest say he cannot be Catholic and socialist, too. So he choose. No more church. But good man, you see. Even is artist."
Rosa had thought all the men in Barre were granite workers. How could you be an artist, digging stone out of the ground? Maybe she'd misunderstood. She felt shy about asking. She didn't want Mrs. Gerbati to think she was doubting the woman's word about her husband.
After breakfast, which Sal, miraculously cured, was able to put away at an almost alarming rate, Mr. Gerbati went to the sitting room to read his morning paper. Once her husband was settled in his chair, Mrs. Gerbati took Jake by the arm. "Come, come," she said. "You, too, Rosa."
Through the open door, Mr. Gerbati looked up briefly from his paper but didn't speak, though Rosa thought for a minute he might.
"Scusami, per favore," Rosa murmured. She followed Mrs. Gerbati out of the kitchen into the hall and up the wide flight of stairs and another narrower flight into what must be the attic. She'd read about attics in books, but she'd never actually been in one. It was amazing to see the size of this house in which only two elderly people lived.
The space was under the eaves of the house, lit poorly by a small window at one end. It was empty, except for a couple of trunks and a few wooden crates. Mrs. Gerbati went to one of the trunks and opened it. A strong woody smell filled the musty air. Kneeling beside the trunk, the woman felt about in the depths. She pulled out several garments, studying each, glancing at Sal, and then putting some back, some into a pile on the open trunk lid. Finally, she gathered up the pile in one arm and turned, still kneeling, toward the children. Rosa stared. There were tears on the old woman's face. Mrs. Gerbati wiped her face hastily with the tail of her apron. Then she gave a laugh and reached out her free hand toward Sal. "Aiutami, per favore," she said.