New York - The Novel

back.”
    “You do not understand these things, Concetta. Signor Rossi is a man of honor.”
    “Honor? You men are fools. Any woman can see what he is doing.”
    Salvatore had never heard his mother speak to his father with such disrespect. He wondered what would happen. But his father chose to ignore it, the business was too terrible already to worry about anything else.
    “Paolo and Salvatore must go to work now,” their father said quietly. “It is time for them to help us, as Anna does. There is plenty of work. Maria and Angelo will stay in school for the present. In a few years, we shall recover, and there will be better times.”
    For Salvatore, the change of circumstances was a distinct improvement. He didn’t have to go to school, and he was exempt, therefore, from the great Caruso’s instruction that he should study. And he and Paolo were so busy out in the streets that it was easy enough to be nice to little Angelo when he saw him. They found plenty of ways to earn money in the streets, but mostly he and Paolo plied their trade as bootblacks. They would go across to Greenwich Village and shine the shoes of Italian men who were lunching there. They found an Italian enterprise where they were allowed to enter the office and shine the boots of the men who worked there. Working together, they would take turns to put on polish and shine, although even Paolo had to admit that Salvatore could get a better shine on any shoe than he could. “It must be something in your spit that I didn’t inherit,” he would say regretfully.
    For his mother, the loss of their savings meant a change of regime. A sewing machine was installed in the best lit of their three small rooms, close to the window. There, she and Anna would take turns to do piecework by the hour. It paid poorly, but they could remain in the house, look after the smallest children and feed the family while they also worked. After her original outburst over Signor Rossi, Concetta had never said anything more about it, but Salvatore knew she could not be happy. One evening he heard his parents talking quietly up on the roof. His father’s voice was gentle, persuasive, though Salvatore could not hear exactly what he was saying. But he heard his mother’s words.
    “No more children, Giovanni. Not like this. I beg you.”
    He understood what his mother meant.
    It was toward the end of the year, and he was walking down Mulberry Street with his father, when Uncle Luigi suddenly came running out of his restaurant after them. They must come at once, he told them. The great Caruso was eating inside and wanted to speak to them.
    Caruso greeted them warmly, and he asked after all the family. “You’llgive my respects to your wife,” he told Giovanni, who promised he would. Were they doing well? he asked.
    “Assolutamente,”
Giovanni assured him. “Everything goes well.”
    “Bene. Bene,”
said Caruso. “And are you being kind to your brother?” he demanded, turning to Salvatore.
    “Yes,” Salvatore promised, he was.
    “And you are studying hard at school?”
    “He studies as never before,” his father cut in, before Salvatore could reply. Salvatore saw his Uncle Luigi stare in surprise, but Caruso was not looking that way, so he did not observe it. Instead, he drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Giovanni.
    “Two tickets to the opera, for you and your wife.” He beamed. “You will come?”
    “Of course.” Giovanni Caruso stumbled to convey his thanks.
    They had walked a little way down the street after this interview when his father turned to Salvatore.
    “I could not tell him about our misfortune, Toto,” he said awkwardly. “I could not let him know you were no longer in school.”
    “I know, Papa,” said Salvatore.
    “I am a Caruso too. I could not make a
brutta figura.”
A loss of face. Italian pride. Salvatore understood. He even dared to squeeze his father’s hand.
    “You were right, Papa,” he said.
    On the day that she was to go to the opera, however, his mother said she did not feel well.
    “Take one of the children with you,” she told her husband. “Anna can go.” But his father, after thinking for a minute, said that since Salvatore was with him when Caruso gave the tickets, it was he who should go.
    How proudly Salvatore walked beside his father as they approached the opera house on Broadway that evening. The big square-faced building that took up the whole block between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth