The Shoemaker's Wife

Chapter 10

A GREEN TREE

Un Albero Verde

The morning the SS Chicago pulled into the docks of lower Manhattan, it felt to Ciro as if a champagne cork had been popped over New York City, drenching the harbor in gold confetti as sprays of sea foam showered the decks. Even the tugboats conspired to make a smooth transition as they nudged the ocean liner deftly into position without lurching or grinding against the pilings. The bellows of the horn and the cheers of the passengers lined up on deck seemed to give the ship its last shot of steam as it docked in the harbor.

Ciro and Luigi took in the splendor from the third-tier balcony. The island of Manhattan, shaped like a leaf, was staggered with stone buildings, pink in the morning light. The slate blue waves of the Hudson River rolled up to the shoreline in inky folds. The city skyline seemed to move, shifting and swaying under construction, as cranes and pulleys filled the air like marionette strings. Cables hauled slabs of granite, suspended thick steel beams, and lifted planks. Grand smokestacks chuffed billows of gray into the blue sky, where it dissolved like puffs from a gentleman’s pipe. Windows, too many to count, reflected prisms of light as the tracks of elevated trains circled in and around the buildings like black zippers.

Bergamo, with its bustling train station, did not compare; nor did Venice, with its crowded harbors, or Le Havre, with its frenzied ports. Big American noise surrounded them as crowds gathered on the docks below to cheer the arrival. A drum and bugle corps played, and girls twirled striped parasols like giant wheels. Despite the fanfare, Ciro’s heart was heavy. Eduardo was not there to share any of it. The louder the noise, the more shrill the din, the more lonely Ciro felt.

The metal gangplank of the Chicago hit the ground with a thud. The first-class passengers processed off the ship, moving slowly, preening themselves in their fresh costumes and hats without a thought to the passengers in steerage, who longed to disembark and move out of their cramped quarters into open space. The wealthy never seem to be in a hurry. Shiny black motorcars lined up to take the first-class passengers to their destinations. As the ladies climbed into the open cars in their spring hats decorated with white feathers and crystal sparkles, they resembled a box of French pastries dusted in powdered sugar.

Massimo Zito stood at the bottom of the plank with three attendants. Each émigré was instructed to pin a copy of the ship’s manifest to his chest, standard procedure for all who entered from a foreign country. They were directed to a line for the ferry that would take them to Ellis Island. After a handshake of gratitude for the bursar who had given him his first job, Ciro’s feet touched the ground of New York City at last.

Ciro and Luigi leaned against the railing on the ferry to Ellis Island and took in the fresh breeze as it skimmed across the Hudson, leaving a streamer of white foam on the gray river. Ciro was grateful for the company, as the ferry plowed closer to the shore of Ellis Island. On land, in the middle distance, a long gray line of immigrants filed into an enormous building, which seemed to occupy the entirety of the small island. The Statue of Liberty loomed over them like a schoolmarm herding children at her feet.

Suddenly the ferry lurched into place against the pilings of the docks, throwing the people onboard off their feet. Ciro grabbed the railing, steadied himself, and looped his duffel through his arms. Ciro and Luigi followed signs with red arrows into the reception hall of the main building, weaving in and out of the crowd with nothing to slow them down, as they were not tending to children, or herding grandparents, or keeping a family together.

The guard at the door, a brusque, heavyset woman in a gray uniform with a long plait of white hair down her back, glanced down at their papers. Ciro reached into his duffel and handed her a sealed envelope from Sister Ercolina. She ripped open the envelope, scanned the letter, and snapped it on to her clipboard.

“You”—the guard pointed to Luigi—“go there.” Luigi followed her finger and joined a line. “And you”—she pointed to Ciro—“there.” Ciro got in line next to Luigi. The lines were long and didn’t move.

“Welcome to America,” Luigi said as he surveyed the hundreds on line. “At this rate, I won’t see Mingo Junction till next week.”

A deafening chatter reverberated throughout the massive hall. Ciro was in awe of the building, an architectural wonder. No cathedral ever stood so tall, with vaulted ceilings so high. The arched windows were so close to the sun, they filled the atrium with bright natural light. Ciro looked up at the windows and wondered how they were washed. Under his feet, a polished terra-cotta brick floor glistened, the golden hue of the bricks reminding him of the convent floor he’d polished as a boy.

Ciro observed hundreds of people standing in twelve long single-file lines, separated by waist-high iron bars, their duffels stacked around them like sandbags in a gulley. There were Hungarians, Russians, the French, and many Greeks, all waiting patiently on their best behavior. Mostly he saw Italians, perhaps because he was looking for them.

Ciro couldn’t imagine that there was a single person left in southern Italy. Surely they were all here under this massive roof—Calabrese, Sicilian, Barese, and Neopolitan, old, young, newborn. Beyond the lines, he saw doctors examining one immigrant after another, tapping their backs, checking their tonsils, grazing their fingertips across their necks. A peasant mother cried out when a nurse took her baby, swaddled in flannel. An officer who spoke Italian quickly came to her aid, and allowed the woman off the line to accompany her child.

“There’s a nursery in the back,” Ciro heard a woman explain as she mopped her face with a bandana. “All the babies go there. They have milk.”

Ciro took off his coat and undid his scarf to prepare for his examination. His line had begun to move. He looked back at Luigi, who had barely budged. A nurse motioned Ciro forward.

“Height?” the nurse asked in Italian.

“Six foot two,” Ciro answered.

“Weight?”

“One hundred and ninety pounds,” he said.

“Markings?”

“None.”

“Whooping cough?”

“No.”

“Dysentery?”

“No.”

As the nurse rattled off every illness on her list, Ciro realized he’d never been sick as a child. Sister Teresa had shored him up with egg creams and chestnut paste.

The nurse flipped the page on her clipboard. “Teeth?”

“My own.”

The nurse smiled. Ciro grinned back at her.

“And fine teeth they are,” she said.

The doctor listened to Ciro’s heart with a stethoscope, asking Ciro to move his money pouch to the side to give him access. He asked Ciro to take a deep breath and listened from the back. He checked Ciro’s eyes with a small light, and his neck with his fingers. “Move him through,” the doctor said in English.

Ciro moved through the metal gates to the next line. He heard attending officers asking the immigrants simple questions: Where are you from? How much is six plus six? Where does the sun rise? Where does it set? Some of the immigrants became rattled, afraid to answer incorrectly. Ciro saw that remaining calm was half the battle to earn your papers. He took a deep breath.

The attending officer looked over his paperwork, then up at Ciro. He walked Ciro to a holding pen. Ciro began to sweat, knowing that this was a bad sign. He waved at Luigi, who had progressed only a few feet from where he started. There were at least twenty people in front of Luigi who still needed their medical exam. Luigi waved back, helpless to assist.

What if Don Gregorio had figured out the nuns’ plan and contacted U.S. immigration? Suddenly Ciro felt like the young orphan he was. There was no one to help, nowhere he could turn. If he were banished again, rejected from American soil, there was no telling where he would be sent, and he was certain Eduardo would never find him.

They were advised aboard ship to never leave the line at Ellis Island, and to try to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Never get in an argument. Never push or shove. Keep your head down and your voice low. Agree to all conditions, and accommodate all requests. The goal at Ellis Island was to process through without incident and make it back into Manhattan as quickly as possible. Immigration had a thousand reasons to turn you away, from the rasp of a dry cough to a suspicious answer about your ultimate destination. You didn’t want to make it easy for a coldhearted processing agent in a gray coat to send you right back to Italy.

Ciro’s heart raced as the immigration officer returned with another officer to speak with him.

“Signor Lazzari?” the second officer said, in perfect Italian.

“Yes, sir.”

“Andiamo,” he said sternly.

The officer led Ciro into a small room with a table and two chairs. A poster of the United States flag hung on the windowless wall. The officer indicated that Ciro should take a seat. The officer spoke perfect Italian, though Ciro saw that the name on his jacket was American.

“Signor Lazzari,” he said.

“Signor Anderson.” Ciro nodded. “What have I done?” he said, looking down at his hands.

“I don’t know. What have you done?”

“Nothing, sir,” Ciro replied. Then, noticing the officer’s gaze on his coal-gray hands, he quickly added, “I worked in the pit on the SS Chicago on my way over.”

Signor Anderson pulled Sister Ercolina’s letter from a file folder. As he read over it, Ciro panicked. “So you know the sisters of San Nicola,” the officer said.

The poor sisters had tried to do right by Ciro, but instead, it seemed, they had attracted the attention of this wolf in the gray uniform. “I grew up in their orphanage,” Ciro admitted.

“The diocese here in New York received a telegram. You’re on our list.”

Ciro swallowed, certain the telegram was from Don Gregorio. After this long trip working in the furnace in hellish heat, all was for naught. Ciro would be plucked from the group and deported. He would end up in the work camp after all. “Where am I to be sent?” he asked quietly.

“Sent? You just got here, didn’t you? Those nuns wired the archbishop some kind of character reference. You’re to be processed as quickly as possible.” Signor Anderson made notes inside the file.

In one miraculous moment, Ciro realized that Signor Anderson wasn’t the enemy; he wasn’t going to send him back to Italy to the work camp. “Thank you, Signore,” Ciro said.

“You have to change your name.” He gave Ciro a list and said, “Choose.”

Brown

Miller

Jones

Smith

Collins

Blake

Lewis

“Take Lewis. It’s an L name like yours.”

Ciro glanced over the names and handed the list back to Mr. Anderson. “Will you send me back if I don’t change my name?”

“They won’t be able to pronounce your name here, kid.”

“Sir, if they can say spaghetti, they can pronounce Lazzari.”

Signor Anderson tried not to laugh. “Scoliaferrantella was my name,” he said. “I had no choice.”

“What province are you from, Signore?” Ciro asked.

“Roma.”

“My brother Eduardo just entered the Sant’Agostino Seminary there. He’s going to become a priest. So you see,” Ciro continued, “if I give up my name, it will die. It’s only my brother and me in the world. I don’t want to lose Lazzari.”

Signor Anderson leaned back in his chair. He fixed his eyeglasses on his prominent nose. His thick eyebrows arched as he asked, “Who is your sponsor?”

“Remo Zanetti of Thirty-six Mulberry Street.”

“And your trade?”

“I’m a shoemaker’s apprentice.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

The officer stamped Ciro’s documents for entry into the United States. The name Lazzari remained on Ciro’s paperwork. “You may go. Return to the ferry line on the slip, and it will take you across to Manhattan.”

Ciro held his paperwork in his hand, stamped with fresh midnight blue ink. He had everything he needed to start his new life. Part of gratitude is sharing one’s good fortune, and Ciro felt compelled to do so. “Signor Anderson, I don’t want to be any trouble,” he began.

The officer looked up at Ciro with a look of bemused irritation. Didn’t this young man understand that he was lucky? He had gotten through Ellis Island without a hitch, even his Italian surname was intact.

“Could you help my friend? His name is Luigi Latini. He worked in the furnace room with me. He’s a good man. His parents made a match, and he needs to catch the train to Ohio to meet the girl. He’s afraid if he doesn’t get there in time, she’ll marry someone else.”

Anderson rolled his eyes. “Where is he?”

“Line three. In the back.”

“Wait here,” Anderson said. He took the file and left Ciro alone in the room.

Ciro reached into his pocket and pulled out the medal Sister Teresa had given him as a parting gift. He kissed the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ciro hadn’t found religion, but he knew to be grateful. Ciro sat back and inhaled the sweet scent of the polished oak of the walls. This room was ten times the size of his cell in steerage. Space, square footage, width and height, these were the things Ciro would remember about the passage from Italy to America.

Luigi Latini entered with Officer Anderson, his face the same pale gray hue as their immigration papers.

“Don’t worry, Luigi. Officer Anderson is here to help us,” Ciro said to Luigi as he took a seat next to him.

“Are you a good Catholic too, Signor Latini?” Officer Anderson smiled.

“Si, si,” Luigi said, looking at Ciro.

“I’m glad you didn’t ask me that question, Officer Anderson.” Ciro grinned.

When the officer concluded his line of questions, Ciro said, “Luigi doesn’t want to be a Lewis either.”

“You want to keep your name too?” Signor Anderson asked.

“May I?” Luigi looked at Ciro and then at the officer.

Officer Anderson stamped Luigi’s papers. “You boys behave yourselves,” he said, reaching into his pocket and handing them each a stick of gum.

“What is this, sir?” Ciro asked.

“Chewing gum.”

Luigi and Ciro looked at one another, then down at the small foil-covered rectangles.

“You never had it?”

The boys shook their heads. Ciro remembered Massimo Zito said that redheads chewed gum.

“It’s very American. Like hot dogs and cigarettes. Try it.”

The boys unwrapped the gum, placing the pink slices in their mouths.

“Now chew.”

The boys commenced chewing. Sweet bursts of clove filled their mouths. “Don’t swallow the gum. You’ll get worms. That’s what my wife says, anyhow.” He laughed.

Ciro took one last look at the registry hall as he left with Luigi. For the rest of his life, Ciro would admire the classic lines and grand scale of American architecture. Beyond the buildings, beyond this port city, he imagined there were acres to farm, plenty of coal to mine, steel to weld, tracks to lay, and roads to build. There was a job for every man who wanted to work. Luckily for Ciro, every one of those men would need a pair of shoes. Ciro was beginning to understand the concept of America, and it was changing his view of the world and of himself. A man could think clearly in a place that gave breadth to his dreams.

There were all manners of souvenirs and trinkets for sale when Ciro and Luigi disembarked from the ferry into the port of lower Manhattan. Signs advertising Sherman Turner cigars, Zilita Black tobacco, and Roisin’s Doughnuts graced rolling carts selling Sally Dally Notions and Flowers by Yvonne Benne. The stands competed for the immigrant business. Ciro and Luigi came face to face with the engine of American life: You work, and then you spend.

Luigi purchased a small rhinestone heart brooch for his bride-to-be, while Ciro bought a bouquet of yellow roses for Mrs. Zanetti. Then they were funneled through a walkway and under an arch with a sign that read,

Welcome to New York

Luigi turned to Ciro. “I go to Grand Central Station to take the train to Chicago and then Ohio.”

“I’m going to Mulberry Street,” Ciro said.

“I’m going to learn English on the way to Chicago.”

“And I’m going to learn it when I get to Little Italy. Can you believe it, Luigi? I have to go to a place called Italy to learn English,” Ciro joked as they shook hands.

“You take care of yourself,” Luigi said.

“Good luck with Alberta. I know she will be more beautiful than her photograph.”

Luigi whistled. “Buona fortuna,” he said before he disappeared into the crowd headed for the el train.

Ciro stayed put and looked out over the crowd. The Zanettis were supposed to be there to greet him, holding up a sign with his name on it. He scanned the crowd but did not see his name anywhere. After a few minutes, he began to worry.

From the ship, the welcome on the ground seemed grand, but upon close inspection, the revelers greeting the immigrants were shabby. The band’s red-and-blue uniforms were ill-fitting and missing buttons; their brass horns, an unpolished greenish gold, were dented and scratched. The women’s dresses were dingy, the parasols they twirled, frayed. Ciro realized that the hoopla was manufactured, a theatrical show for naive eyes and nothing more.

A slim young woman in an organza dress and straw hat with silk daisies spilling from the crown approached him.

“Hello, handsome,” she said in English.

“I don’t understand,” Ciro mumbled in Italian, keeping his eyes on the crowd for the Zanettis.

“I said, hello and welcome.” She leaned in and whispered, again in English, grazing his cheek with her lips, “Do you need a place to stay?”

She wore a sweet perfume of gardenias and musk that soothed Ciro, who had been shoveling coal for days in a hot tomb. The machinations of Ellis Island had left him exhausted. She was soft and pretty and seemed taken with him. Her attention reassured him.

“Come with me,” she said.

Ciro didn’t need to understand her words to know he would follow her to the ends of the earth. She was around his age, her long red hair loosely braided, with red satin ribbons woven into the plaits. She had a few freckles on her creamy skin, and dark brown eyes. She wore a bright pink lip rouge, a color unlike any Ciro had ever seen.

“Do you need a job?” she said.

Ciro looked at her blankly.

“Job. Work. Lavoro. Job,” she repeated, then took his hand and led him through the crowd. She pulled a single yellow rose from the bouquet Ciro carried, and touched the petals to her lips.

Suddenly Ciro saw his name on a sign. The man holding it was pushing anxiously through the crowd. Ciro let go of the girl’s hand and waved. “Signor Zanetti!” Ciro shouted.

The girl tugged on his sleeve, motioning him toward a nearby group of men on the dock, but Ciro saw a red parasol moving through the crowd like a periscope.

“No, no, come with me,” the young woman insisted, placing her calfskin-covered hand on Ciro’s forearm. He remembered the soft touch of his mother’s gloved hand.

“Leave him alone!” Signora Zanetti’s voice cut through the din from under her parasol. “Shoo! Shoo! Puttana!” she said to the girl.

Carla Zanetti, stout, gray-haired, five feet tall, and sixty, burst forward from the crowd. She was followed by her husband, Remo, who was only slightly taller than she. He had a thick white mustache and a smooth bald head with a fringe of white hair above his collar.

Ciro turned to apologize to the red-haired girl, but she was gone.

“She almost got you,” Remo said.

“Like a spider in a web,” Carla agreed.

“Who was she?” Ciro asked, still turning his head from side to side, searching for the pretty young woman.

“It’s a racket. You go with her and sign up to work in the quarries in Pennsylvania for low wages,” Carla said. “She gets a cut, and you get a life of misery.”

Reeling at this news, Ciro handed her the flowers. “These are for you.”

Carla Zanetti smiled and took the bouquet. She cradled the flowers appreciatively.

“Well, you’ve won her over already, son,” Remo said. “We’ll take a carriage over to Mulberry Street.”

Carla walked in front of the men, leading them through the crowd. Ciro looked back and caught a glimpse of the girl talking with another passenger from steerage. She leaned in and touched his arm, just as she had Ciro’s. He remembered Iggy warning him about women who were too nice too soon.

The carriage careened through the streets, dodging pedestrians, carts, and motorcars. The streets of Little Italy were as narrow as shoelaces. The modest buildings, mostly three-floor structures made of wood, were potchkied together like a pair of patchwork pants. Open seams in walls were sealed with odd ends of metal, drainpipes trailed down the sides of houses in different widths, welded together with flaps of mismatched tin. Some houses were freshly whitewashed, others showed weathered layers of old paint.

The cobblestone streets were crowded with people, and when Ciro looked up, the windows were also filled with faces. Women leaned out of second-story windows to holler for their children or gossip with the neighbors. Stoops spilled over with southern Italians gathered in small groups. It was as if the belly of the ship had been sliced open and docked on the streets of Little Italy. Curls of black smoke from cheap wood puffed out of the chimneys, and the only green was the occasional tufts of treetops, scattered among the tarpaper roofs like random bouquets.

The sounds of city life were a deafening mix of whistles, horns, arguments, and music. Unaccustomed to the clatter, Ciro wondered if he could get used to it. When they arrived on Mulberry Street, he offered to pay the driver, but Remo wouldn’t allow it. Ciro jumped out of the carriage and held his hand out to help Carla. Signora Zanetti nodded at her husband, impressed with Ciro’s fine manners.

A barefoot boy in ragged shorts and a torn shirt approached Ciro and held out his hand. His black hair was chopped off, leaving uneven layers. His thick black eyebrows were expressive triangles, his brown eyes wide and alert.

“Va, va!” Carla said to the boy. But Ciro reached into his pocket and handed the boy a coin. He held the coin high and twirled down the sidewalk, joining his friends, who charged back toward Ciro. Remo pulled him into the house before Ciro had a chance to empty his pockets.

The poor of Little Italy were different from those Ciro knew. On the mountain, they wore clothes made of sturdy fabric. Boiled wool was their velvet; buttons and trim were extravagant extras added to clothing worn on feast days, at weddings, and for burial. The New York Italians used the same fabrics to make their clothing, but they accessorized with jaunty hats, gold belt buckles, and shiny buttons. The women wore lipstick and rouge, and gold rings on every finger. They spoke loudly and expressed themselves with theatrical gestures.

In the Italian Alps, this particular kind of presentation was considered ill mannered. In Ciro’s village, when the vendors rolled their carts out on to the colonnade to sell their wares, there was modest stock to choose from, and little room for negotiation of the price. Here, the carts were loaded full, and customers haggled. Ciro came from a place where people were grateful to be able to purchase any small thing. Here, everyone acted entitled to a better deal. Ciro had entered the circus; the show was Italian, but the tent was American.

Back on the mountain, Enza siphoned homemade burgundy wine from a barrel into bottles lined up on a bench in the garden. She closed her eyes and held the bottles up to her nose, distinguishing the scent of the woodsy barrel from the potential bitterness of the grapes. She had begun to cork the bottles when she saw her father and Signor Arduini entering the house.

Enza quickly untied her apron, splattered with clouds of purple, and smoothed her hair. She slipped into the house through the back door. As Marco took the landlord’s hat and pulled out his chair, Enza removed two small glasses from the shelf, poured brandy into the glasses, and placed them before the padrone and her father.

“I always say the Ravanelli children have the best manners on the mountain.” Signor Arduini smiled. Enza looked at him, thinking that if she weren’t so scared of him, and so anxious about the power he wielded over her family, she might actually like him.

“Thank you,” said Marco.

Enza opened a tin, placing several sweet anginetti cookies on a plate. She served the men, placing two linen napkins on the table.

“I wish my daughter had Signorina’s grace,” Arduini said.

“Maria is a lovely young woman,” Marco reassured him.

“Lovely and spoiled.” Arduini sighed. “But thank you.”

Enza knew all about the pampered Maria Arduini. She had made her several gowns when she took on odd jobs in the dress shop in town. When Maria couldn’t decide upon a fabric, she would have three gowns made instead of one.

“We’re always happy to see you. What brings you here today?” Marco asked.

“I’ve been meaning to come down the mountain and talk to you about the house.”

“We would like to come to terms on the sale,” Marco began.

“I had hoped to sell it to you,” Signor Arduini said.

Marco continued, “We hope to give you a down payment by the end of summer.”

Enza placed her hand on her father’s arm. “Signor Arduini, you said you had hoped to sell it to us. Is that still your plan?”

“I’m afraid it’s no longer possible.”

There was a long silence. Signor Arduini sipped the brandy.

“Signor Arduini, we had an agreement,” Marco said.

“We would like to make an offer to you for the stable,” Signor Arduini said, placing his glass on the table. “You know that it isn’t worth much, but I’m sure we can negotiate a fair price.”

“Let me understand you, Signore. You have reneged on your offer to sell us the house, but you would like to buy my stable, which has been in my family for a hundred years?” Marco asked softly.

“It’s a small stable.” Arduini shrugged.

Infuriated, Enza blurted, “We will never sell the stable!”

Signore Arduini looked at Marco. “Does your daughter speak for you?”

“My father has worked hard to pay a high rent to you for many years in exchange for the opportunity to buy our house outright. You promised him that you would sell as soon as we had a reasonable down payment.”

“Enza.” Marco put his hand on Enza’s.

“My son wants the house,” Arduini said.

Enza was unable to contain her anger. “Your son squanders every lira you give him. He drinks his allowance at the tavern in Azzone.”

“He can raise his son as he pleases. And this is his house, Enza. He can do with it whatever he wants,” Marco said.

Since Stella died, her father’s ambition had all but left him. This current turn of events didn’t seem to surprise him so much as reinforce his sense of helplessness in the inevitable downward spiral of bad luck.

“Signore, you are backing out of a promise. That makes you a liar.” Enza seethed.

“I have been kind to this family for many years, and this is how you thank me. You allow your daughter to say whatever she likes against me. You have until the end of the month to move out.”

“Just a moment ago I had the best manners on the mountain.” Enza’s voice broke.

Arduini stood and placed his hat on his head, a sign of disrespect while he was still inside their home. He left the house without closing the door behind him.

“We’ll have to find a place to live.” Marco was stunned. He’d had no idea the meeting might end this badly.

“Enough renting! Enough living in fear under the thumb of the padrone. We should buy our own house!” Enza said.

“With what?”

“Papa, I can go to America and sew. I hear the girls in the shop talking about it. They have factories and jobs for everyone. I could go and work and send the money home, and when we have enough, I’ll return to take care of you and Mama.”

“I’m not sending you away.”

“Then come with me. You can get a job too—that’s more money for our house. Battista can run the carriage service while we’re gone. Everyone must work!”

Marco sat down at the table. He put his head in his hands, trying to sort through this dilemma.

“Papa, we have no choice.”

Marco looked up at his daughter, too tired to argue, and too defeated to come up with an alternative.

“Papa, we deserve a home of our own. Please. Let me help you.”

But Marco sipped the brandy and looked out through the open door, hoping for a miracle.

Ciro followed Remo and Carla Zanetti into their shop. He found a tidy operation. There was one serviceable main room, with a wide-plank wood floor and a tin ceiling overhead. The pungent scents of leather, lemon wax, and machine oil filled the room. A large worktable was positioned in the center of the room under a saw for cutting leather, surrounded by a series of bright work lights.

The far wall was lined with a sewing machine and a buffing apparatus for finishing. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked with tools and supplies, and sheets of leather, bolts of fabric, and spools of thread filled the opposite wall. As workspaces went, this one was far more pleasant than the slag pit in the bottom of the SS Chicago. Plus, Signora Zanetti looked to be a good cook.

In the back of the shop, Remo showed Ciro a small alcove with a cot, basin, pitcher, and one straight-backed chair, all of which had been cordoned off behind a thick curtain.

“It’s as nice as the convent,” Ciro said as he placed his duffel on the chair. “And better than the ship.”

Remo laughed. “Yes, our apartments in Little Italy are better than steerage. But just barely. It’s God’s way of keeping us humble.” Remo opened the back door of the shop. “That’s my little piece of heaven. Go ahead.”

Ciro followed Remo through the open door to a small enclosed garden. Terra-cotta pots positioned along the top of the stone wall spilled over with red geraniums and orange impatiens. An elm tree with a wide trunk and deep roots filled the center of the garden. Its green leaves and thick branches reached past the roof of Remo’s building, creating a canopy over the garden. There was a small white marble birdbath, gray with soot, flanked by two deep wicker armchairs.

Remo fished a cigarette out of his pocket, offering another to Ciro as both men took a seat. “This is where I come to think.”

“Va bene,” Ciro said as he looked up into the tree. He remembered the thousands of trees that blanketed the Alps; here on Mulberry Street, one tree with peeling gray bark and holes in its leaves was a cause for celebration.

“Signor Zanetti,” Ciro began, “I’d like to pay you rent.”

“The agreement is that you’ll work for me, and I’ll provide your room and board.”

“I had that same agreement at the convent, and it did not end well for me. If I pay you, then I’m secure.”

“I’m not looking for a boarder to pay me rent; I need an apprentice. The letter from my cousin, the nun, came at the right moment. I need help. I’ve tried to train a couple of boys here in the neighborhood, but they’re not interested. They want the fast money. Our boys rush to line up for day work on the docks. They’re assigned to crews that build bridges and lay tracks for the railroad. They work long hours and make a good wage, but they aren’t learning a craft. A trade will sustain you, while a job will only feed you temporarily. I think it’s important to be able to make something, whether it’s shoes or sausage. Food, clothing, and shelter are the basic needs of all people. If you master a trade that serves one of those needs, you will work for a lifetime.”

Ciro smiled. “I’ll work hard for you, Mr. Zanetti. But to be honest with you, I have no idea if I have any talent for what you do.”

“I will teach you the technique. Some of us make shoes; then there are the men who do more. They take the same skills I use in the shop to make sturdy shoes, and make art. Either way, you’ll eat. The world will never run out of feet in need of a pair of shoes.”

Ciro and Remo leaned back in the wicker chairs and puffed their cigarettes. The smooth tobacco calmed Ciro after his long journey. He closed his eyes and imagined he was home with Iggy, sharing a smoke in the church garden. Perhaps this little garden on Mulberry Street would be a tonic for his homesickness.

“You like girls, Ciro?” Remo cleared his throat.

“Very much,” Ciro answered honestly.

“You want to be careful, Ciro,” Remo said, lowering his voice.

“Oh, I understand about the red-haired girl on the dock now,” Ciro said, embarrassed. “At first, I didn’t. She just seemed pretty and American.”

“She has a job. But I’m talking about the girls on Mulberry Street, on Hester, and on Grand. They’re about your age, and sometimes there are ten children living in the same three rooms. It gets tiresome for them. The girls want to marry, as soon as possible. So they find a hardworking young man who will provide for them and take them away from the situation they come from.” Remo put his cigarette out on a stone at the bottom of the tree.

“And you think the girls on Mulberry are lining up for Ciro Lazzari to take them away from their troubles?” Ciro smiled.

Remo smiled too. “There will be a few.”

“Well, sir, I’m here to work,” Ciro said solemnly. “I want no permanent part of this beautiful country. I want to save my money and go home to Vilminore, find a good wife there, and build a house for her with my own hands. I’d like a garden like this, and one cigarette a night in a deep, comfortable chair where I can sit and think after a hard day’s work. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but that would be the perfect life for me.”

“So you won’t be a Romeo in Little Italy?”

“I didn’t say that. But I won’t get serious, that I promise you.”

Carla pushed through the door with a tray of popovers and three small glasses of red wine. Ciro rose and gave her his chair.

“I thought we needed to toast our new apprentice,” she said.

“The Italian way,” Remo said, winking at Ciro.

Every May, Our Lady of Pompeii Church on Carmine Street held the Feast of Santa Maria, in honor of the Blessed Mother. The church bells chimed the tune of “Hail Holy Queen Enthroned Above” as the vestibule doors were propped open to reveal a church overflowing with baskets of white roses. This was the most important feast day for the girls of the parish who, at sixteen, were at the peak of their adolescent beauty.

The girls wore white silk gowns and tiaras of tiny satin rosebuds woven by the women of the church sodality. Across their gowns, they wore sashes in a demure pink called ashes of roses. The street was cleared as the girls processed single file from the church on Carmine Street to Bleecker Street and back again, following the priest, the altar boys, and the men of the church carrying the statue of the Blessed Lady.

This parade was a celebration of what it meant to be both Italian and American. As Americans, they were free to march through the streets, and as Italians, they could express their devotion to Mary, the mother of all mothers. They hoped the queen of heaven would shower them with health, good fortune, and strong families in exchange for their alms. The religious aspect was only part of the celebration. It was also a chance for the young men of the village to choose the girl of their dreams from the May court.

Ciro stood on the corner in the midst of the crowd as the girls passed. The May Queen was the most beautiful girl in the parade. Felicitá! Felicitá! The crowd chanted her name. She wore a sheath of white silk and, upon her lustrous black curls, a long lace mantilla. Her veil fluttered on her shoulders in the breeze.

Ciro remembered a similar mantilla worn by Concetta Martocci in the church of San Nicola, the afternoon he sat with her. Ciro no longer felt the sting of regret when he thought of Concetta, just the pang of rejection. The wise man leaves the past behind like a pair of boots he has outgrown.

Ciro set his gaze upon Felicitá, as did every young man in the crowd. Ciro watched as Felicitá pulled a white rose from her bouquet and handed it to an old lady in the crowd. This simple gesture was full of grace, and Ciro took it in.

Women move through the world never knowing their power.

The next time I fall in love, Ciro thought to himself, I will choose wisely. I will make sure that the girl loves me more than I love her. It was in that moment, when he made that promise to himself, that he set his cap for Felicitá Cassio, the May Queen.