New York - The Novel

But if he had a business of his own to run, he knew very well that he would always have worries. He’d have to sit in an office or a store, instead of working as a real man should, in the open air.
    He thought about this for a week or two. In the end he decided that ifthis was the price of getting Teresa, then it was worth it. Whether he could do anything that would satisfy her family, though, was another matter.
    In late October, Angelo fell sick. Nobody knew what the sickness was. It began like the flu, but although his fever left him after ten days, he remained very weak, and coughed continually. Uncle Luigi nursed him by day, Salvatore in the evenings. By late November, Salvatore sent for their mother, who decided at once that Angelo should come out to Long Island.
    A few days later he telephoned Teresa’s house to tell her what had happened.
    “Maybe I could go and visit him,” she suggested, “if you think he’d like company. It’s not far to bicycle.” She paused. “If you came out at the same time, I could see you too.”
    He grinned. She’d found a perfect excuse to see him. He promised he’d be out there before Christmas.

    It was a cold December evening when the two Irish cops came to the door. There had been snow the night before and it was still lying by the roadways. Uncle Luigi was out at the restaurant. He knew he’d done nothing wrong, so he wasn’t alarmed when they asked for him by name. Then they told him why they’d come.
    The morgue they took him to was up in Harlem. There was a big bare room in the basement. Maybe it was so cold because of the snow outside, or maybe they always kept it cold. There were quite a few pallets in the room, each covered with a sheet. They led him to one near the middle and pulled back the sheet.
    The gray corpse lying there was in evening clothes. His jaw had been bandaged to hold it up, and the face looked quite handsome. The white dress shirt he wore, however, was covered with great blackened bloodstains.
    “Five bullets,” one of the cops said. “Must’ve killed him right away.” He looked questioningly at Salvatore.
    “Yes,” said Salvatore. “That’s my brother Paolo.”

    The family gathered in the city for the funeral. Neighbors and friends came too. The priests tactfully spoke of Paolo as a much loved son andkindly brother, the victim of unknown hoodlums up in Harlem. Everybody knew the truth, but nobody said it.
    At Christmas, the family gathered out on Long Island. Salvatore had spoken to Teresa to tell her about the death, but he didn’t suggest a visit.
    Angelo was looking pale. His mother wouldn’t let him go out of the house during the cold weather, and he spent part of the day resting, but he didn’t seem in bad spirits. “Mostly,” he told Salvatore, “I feel bored.” He had managed to get hold of all kinds of newspapers and journals, some of them a little out of date, but he waved toward a great pile of these and said he’d read them all.
    Uncle Luigi decided that this was a good opportunity to work his financial magic, and had a long talk with Angelo about investing his savings. Rather surprisingly, Angelo said: “Maybe you’re right. I should do that.” And he listened to his uncle most carefully for more than an hour, nodding his head gravely from time to time. “I only have a little to invest,” he said, but when his uncle asked how much, he just smiled gently and answered: “A little.”
    “He is like me,” Uncle Luigi cried delightedly. “Never tell anyone how much you have. Keep them guessing.”
    As for Uncle Luigi’s help in making any transactions, Angelo said that his uncle could put him in touch with a trustworthy person to buy any shares for him, but that he’d make the decisions himself. He said this in such a quiet way that Salvatore was impressed. His little brother seemed to be growing up.
    Giuseppe and his wife had persuaded Angelo to take a small commission. They wanted him to make them a nice sign with the name of her family’s farm on it. Although he disliked working to order, Angelo had agreed, and on Christmas Day he presented it to them. He had taken the piece of wood they had given him, painted it white, and put the name, Clearwater Farm, in blue letters, together with a little picture of a farmstead, floating like Noah’s Ark, on a blue sea. It was so ingenious and memorable that they were quite overjoyed. And Salvatore could see that Angelo was flattered and pleased by the