New York - The Novel

mainly, though Lamb had also been to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. But they really came from New York’s Carrère & Hastings stable, and were dedicated to the French art deco style.
    The spandrels were a perfect example of this elegance. Repeated hundreds of times on the building’s facade, each panel carried the same simple design—stylized, art deco lightning bolts to left and right, a gap in the center between them. Like electric ice tracks on the metal they soared, vertically, into the blue.
    Angelo stared at the design intently, and began to draw it.
    As his brother drew, Salvatore noticed that, just for a moment, as he started, Angelo’s face took on the same dreamy look it so often had when he was a child, but that as he became engrossed in his drawing, there was an intense, purposeful concentration in his eyes that was even a little frightening.
    Uncle Luigi had been right. Angelo was an artist. He belonged in the company of the men who had designed this building, not among the bricklayers.
    And so they continued, Angelo sketching all kinds of things that caught his eye, Salvatore laying bricks with his gang, until the noontime whistle blew for the lunch break.
    Salvatore had brought enough food for both of them. He gave bread to his brother and cut the salami. When they had eaten, Angelo said that what he’d really like would be to go up to the top of the building and look out from there.
    The riveters had stopped for the time being. A strange, unwonted peace pervaded the huge terrace of open girders, where the only sound was the small hiss of the wind that rose, now and then, to a little moan in the branches of the narrow cranes.
    High across the sky stretched a veil of gray and silver cloud through which, like a voice offstage, the sun sent an echo of light. Ahead, beyondthe cluster of pinnacles on Manhattan’s tip, the wide waters of New York harbor wore a dull gleam.
    As he looked around, however, Salvatore noticed something else. Smaller clouds, closer to the skyscraper tops, were moving in contrary directions. To the right, across the Hudson, they seemed to be hesitating over New Jersey before turning north; to the left, over Queens, they were already scurrying south. Was the breeze changing? Or had the wind decided to circle the city, with the great tower at the center of its turning world?
    A sudden gust of wind slapped his cheek, reminding him that up here on these high places one could never predict the air’s sudden eddies and flows.
    Meanwhile, Angelo had gone over to the southern edge of the platform, the Thirty-fourth Street side. Over there, Salvatore knew, it was a sheer drop for nine stories to the stonemasons’ duckwalk, then another seventy-five down to the street below. A couple of the Mohawk Indians were sitting quietly on a girder which made a temporary parapet there. They glanced at Angelo briefly, but seemed to take no further interest. Angelo sat down a few feet to their right, and he took out his sketch pad. He was leaning over the edge, looking down; something there had caught his attention. Perhaps it was the duckwalk. After a few moments, he started to draw. Salvatore moved over to one of the upright girders a few yards away and leaned against it, protected from the breeze.
    There was certainly a wonderful view. It was as if, from that high place, all the riches of the world were laid out below them: the teeming city, the distant suburbs, busy Wall Street, the mighty harbor, the vast ocean beyond. If anywhere on earth could make the claim, the Empire State Building, surely, was the center of the universe today. This was it, the pinnacle of the temple of Man. And he, Salvatore Caruso, was here as a witness, and his brother was recording it in a drawing which—who knew—might be looked at for generations to come. He saw the paper on his brother’s sketchbook flutter.
    Angelo seemed to have forgotten him, but from where he was resting, Salvatore could observe his brother’s face—keenly observant, intense and fine.
    And quite suddenly at that moment, taking him entirely by surprise, the terrible pain, the sense of betrayal and jealousy he’d felt when he’d firstdiscovered about his brother and Teresa, burst upon him. It hit him like a wave. Coming from nowhere, it seized him, possessed him, filled him with a cold horror and rage. Why had Angelo married the woman that he himself loved? Why had he given Angelo half his money? Why had Angelo accepted it? Why