The Black Madonna (21 page)

She wouldn't ask him about it. Antoinette was too clever to switch the balance of power. This she knew. Let him perspire. Life was long. Anything could happen. And in the meantime, she would do her best to adjust fate.

T
he next day when she heard Nicky's mother, Teresa, climbing the stairs, she called out to her through the open door. Antoinette didn't like Teresa, was afraid of her ever since she blamed Jumbo for Nicky falling the three stories into the yard all those years ago, but everyone knew Teresa had experienced a miracle when Nicky had walked at his father's funeral. And Antoinette believed, like everyone else, that Teresa had the knowledge, that she had tapped into some higher power. White or black, it didn't matter which, as long as you got what you wanted.

Teresa stopped when she heard her name and looked up to where the voice was coming from. She was surprised and waited to hear it again before she climbed the extra flight of stairs and went to Antoinette's door and looked inside down the narrow inner hall that was the entrance to the apartment. “
Chi è?
” she said.

“Teresa, come in, Teresa. It's Antoinette. Come. I've got
crespelle
I just made. Here, with the powdered sugar. Use as much as you like. Everybody waits for Easter but I make them all the time. I just took out the last one. Look, the oil's still hot. Maybe you like them with honey? I got honey, too, but come in. Sit down. How long you're not in my house?”

Teresa entered on the theory that you never show your enemies your true feelings. She accepted Antoinette's invitation to sit at her big kitchen table covered in flowered oilcloth. Antoinette moved the ironing from one of the chairs and wiped down the spot just in front of Teresa. She took a chipped cup from the pile of dishes in the sink, ran it under hot water, and dried the bottom before she poured Teresa's coffee. She offered her the carton of milk and a jelly jar filled with sugar lumps and pushed the tower of fried dough across the table to her. The fluted edges of the delicate pastries caught the powdered sugar, which Teresa insisted she preferred over honey.

“These are good, Antoinette,” Teresa said, taking small bites.

“Ah, not thin like yours, I bet, Teresa. Yours, I hear, are like tissue paper.” Teresa smiled at the compliment. Her
crespelle
were as thin as tissue paper but these weren't bad.

“It's so good to see you,” Antoinette went on. “You know, all these years in the same building and we don't talk, all because of our boys. They're men now and still we don't talk. Silly, no?”

Teresa didn't answer, being a woman of few words and great action, and unlike Antoinette, secretive. Only the saints knew her heart. She sat very still, looking around under her eyelids. It was a very messy house. Teresa had always known this. It was a very messy family. Everyone knew this. But when Antoinette started crying, big fat tears that soaked the front of her apron, Teresa forgot the state of Antoinette's house and listened. They were, after all, both mothers. Weren't all women the same under the flesh?

They had both been blessed with one son, only one. Shouldn't this bring them together? Antoinette told Teresa. And their boys, they had always been close and, thank God, the terrible thing that had happened to Nicky had been fixed. Thank God he had walked.

Teresa nodded. She crossed herself, her right hand going from her forehead to between her breasts, from her right shoulder to her left in the sign of the cross, ending at her lips. She kissed her fingers and opened the thumb and forefinger of her hand to complete the benediction and she leaned back waiting for Antoinette to go on. She knew this was a prelude, that Antoinette had something on her mind.

“How did Nicky walk? How, Teresa? What did you do? The miracle . . . how did it happen?”

“What is it, Antoinette? What do you want?”

Antoinette pulled a handkerchief from her apron pocket and filled it with tears. It was a scrap of cotton in her big red hands. She pulled a second handkerchief out and blew her nose. “I want my son back, Teresa. He's got a girl, a . . .” and here she lowered her voice, “a
mazzucriste!
”

Teresa shook her head. “Antoinette,” she said. “I can't do nothing. My Nicky married an Italian girl and look, she left him with nothing. I don't even have a grandchild and he has to pay her money! Count your blessings. Maybe she's a nice girl. Did you meet her?”

“I don't wanna meet her. I know what happens. I'll never see him no more. The girls pull. Jumbo don't have a chance. My brother-in-law, remember Jerry? He married a girl from down South. After that, who saw him? My mother-in-law got cataracts from crying. This woman, she didn't even want kids. ‘Ugh,' she told my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law was a saint. You knew her, Teresa. She had fifteen kids and Jerry's wife tells her ‘Ugh.'”

Antoinette leaned over and Teresa put her arms around her and forgot for a moment that Antoinette had spawned the
mortodevame
that had crippled her son. Teresa let it go. She patted the hump of Antoinette's back and muttered something about the woman on Bedford Street who was dead now and had left no heirs. “What about Magdalena?” she said into Antoinette's ear. “She comes from the other side and I've heard things, about a Madonna, a Black Madonna, that she brought with her when she came.”

O
n Long Island, Sylvia spoke secretly to Harvey. There were things that could be done, she whispered. Ira Fleishberg's daughter had taken a weekend in Puerto Rico. Maybe Harvey could ask. Didn't he have Puerto Ricans working in the store? Weren't there a lot of them on Grand Street?

Harvey was horrified. “A child, Sylvia, our grandchild.”

“Harvey, please, think of it. Our Judy tied forever to that . . . Oh, please. Meet my son-in-law Dumbo. Oh, Harvey . . .”

“Jumbo, his nickname is Jumbo, Sylvia. Be fair.”

J
udy, too, was getting edgy. She refused to see Jumbo unless he set the date and here she was getting bigger and bigger faster than she had expected. It was three months and then four. She spent weekends at her parents' house in tears. Her mother moaned that she had waited too long. Her father held her in his arms and said she could have whatever she wanted. If Alfonso was the boy for her, then they would embrace him like their own son. Judy cried harder, tearing at her hair. Sylvia would leave to put a cold compress over her eyes and lie down in the darkened bedroom until one weekend when she took Harvey aside and shook his arm until it hurt.

“It's four months, Harvey. Is this putz gonna marry her or what? Enough is enough. Talk to him. Make him do something.”

Harvey and Sylvia went into Judy's room and told her to call the father of her unborn child and have him come out to Long Island. “No swimming,” Sylvia said. “And definitely no lunch. Tell him to eat before he comes. We have to settle this once and for all.”

W
hen Jumbo got the call, he borrowed Nicky's car and drove to Long Island, where the Bernsteins sat him down in the living room and said they were willing to let Judy marry him for the sake of the child.

Jumbo was a little bit stunned at their attitude. Judy was pregnant. If he didn't marry her, who would? Wasn't he holding the cards here? He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out and put it in his mouth. He waited for Sylvia to get him an ashtray. He asked Harvey for a light. Judy sat at the end of the couch near her mother, frowning one minute, sobbing the next.

Jumbo wanted to tell her everything would be okay and that he loved her and of course he would marry her, but he wasn't going to let her parents push him around. If he showed weakness now, they'd crucify him. He was practically on the cross already. He wasn't going to give them the hammer and nails, too.

“What are you doing?” Harvey said to him. “You have a responsibility here. Are you going to be a man about it or what?”

Jumbo blew out the smoke he had inhaled lighting his cigarette. “Harvey . . .” he said, but Sylvia had had enough. She jumped up, threw aside Judy's hand that had crawled into her lap, and pulled the cigarette out of Jumbo's mouth.

“Listen, you fat greaseball,” she said. “You don't deserve our Judy but she wants you so she's going to get you. She's going to get exactly what she wants. A rabbi's doing the ceremony and the baby's going to be Jewish. Understand?”

Jumbo looked at Judy, who turned her face away. “Sure, Sylvia,” he said. “Anything you say.”

“Mrs. Bernstein.”

“You said . . .”

“Never mind. All bets are off. I'm calling our rabbi. Sunday. You be here in a suit and tie. You wanna invite your family, some friends, it's fine by us but you be here on time. And you don't see Judy until then. She's leaving her job and she's staying with us.”

“Okay. I'll be here. Like I said, Sylvia . . . Mrs. Bernstein. I love Judy. I . . .”

“Goodbye, Alfso.”

“Judy . . .”

“Never mind Judy,” Sylvia said. She walked over to the door and held it open. “Three o'clock Sunday, suit and tie. And I don't want to hear your voice or see your face until then.”

J
umbo drove back to the city, one hand on the wheel. He decided to think about what suit he was going to wear. He left the car parked on Grand Street and went up the house. It was too early for dinner so he ate Antoinette's meatballs and sausage right out of the gravy pot. He ate like his old self, which made Antoinette believe he was getting better, that his foolishness with this Jewish girl was a thing of the past.

Even though Antoinette was sure that Magdalena had played dumb when she had gone with Teresa to ask her for help, to ask her to take the love curse off Jumbo, seeing her Jumbo eat like this made her think that maybe Magdalena had taken pity and made the miracle. Carmella Lispinardi had told her years ago about Magdalena in the top of her house, under the eaves. Carmella had seen through her windows, had seen Magdalena pull the shades but not before she had caught a glimpse of a shrine with flowers and candles. She couldn't see much, she had whispered to the women on the stoop, but it had looked like church, except the curtains were black and Magdalena had pulled them across the windows when she came into the room.

M
agdalena had welcomed Antoinette and Teresa. She had been curious to see them together after such a long feud and was amused that the mother love that had torn them apart was bringing them together. She knew they didn't believe her when she said the rumors of her dark powers were false but she told them that she would pray to the Black Madonna for Jumbo's happiness. She promised Antoinette that she would remember him in her prayers.

When they sat down to eat and Antoinette served Jumbo his sixth meatball and poured gravy over his bread she was convinced the prayers had worked. Jumbo was back, the old Jumbo who belonged to her was back in her kitchen filling his belly, filling her soul.

The Sunday of the wedding, Jumbo wore his best suit and a custom shirt and the solid gold watch he had gotten from Maurizio the jeweler on Spring Street who sold swag from the back of his store. Nicky drove with Jumbo out to Long Island. The ceremony was short and he understood none of it and everyone cheered when he broke the glass wrapped in a napkin under his foot. He kissed Judy, whom he hadn't seen all week, and they danced at a party right there in the synagogue and spent the night in a motel near her parents' house and he struggled to carry her over the threshold because she had gained a lot of weight. Nicky decorated the car with tin cans and white crepe paper tied to the bumpers, which mortified Sylvia, but she couldn't complain about everything. Harvey drove Nicky to the train, since Jumbo and Judy had taken his car. Nicky liked the old man a lot, he told Jumbo when he came into Benvenuto's later in the week for a drink.

“So how does it feel to be married?” Nicky asked him.

“Great, just great. My wife's out in Long Island with Harvey and Sylvia and I'm here with Antoinette. And somehow everybody's happy but me.”

“Well, what the hell are you doing?”

“I told them I gotta work double shifts this week. I can't get out there. They're happy. They got their daughter in their clutches and the baby's got a name, even if it's not such a great name, they can cope.”

“Jumbo . . .”

“I know . . . I'm gonna tell her. I swear to God.”

“Good. That's good, Jumbo. I'm proud of you.”

“Yeah . . . you better be ready to come and get me when she stabs me with a bread knife.”

“I'll be there. I'm a homicide detective, remember?”

A
ntoinette did not take the news sitting down. She threw a pot, one of her big macaroni pots, across the room and missed Jumbo's head by inches. She screamed so loud that doors flung open throughout the whole building and all her daughters came running from their apartments at once. The sisters convened. Jumbo had not thought to ask his sisters to be there, to support him. He knew at the first sound of trouble they would come in anyway, and take his mother's part.

Rosina held Antoinette's hands. Albina cleaned up the mess the flying pot had made, breaking the frame of silver dollars, a souvenir from Antoinette's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Filomena wiped her mother's tears. Angelina patted her mother's shoulders. Raffaella yelled at Jumbo after Antoinette had stopped. Then they all yelled while their mother cried.

“How could you do this?” Albina said. “Say nothing and then hit her with this. Who do you think you are? Poor Mama. She works her fingers to the bone for you, you big chooch, and you do this?”

“Knock up some Jew and come home like nothing happened?”

“Married? Just like that?”

Rosina kissed her mother's face. “It's okay, Mama. Look on the bright side. He's not married in church. He's not really married. He can always do it again, the right way, to the right kind of girl.”

Antoinette pushed her away and sobbed into her hands. “A
mazzucriste
. . . a
puttana
yet . . . carrying my grandchild . . .
ahhhhhhhiyeeee.”
She cursed Teresa for taking her to Magdalena and giving her hope. She cursed Magdalena for not making things right. She knew Magdalena had the power, everyone knew it, but she, too, was just another
puttana.
Antoinette raved. Jumbo took his mother's hand and kissed it. He held it until she got quiet. He put her head on his shoulder and scowled at his sisters, who had retreated, disgusted with their brother, with their mother, so weakly cradled in his arms.

“Please, Mama. it's gonna be nice,” he said. “You're gonna love Judy. She's a good girl, smart, quiet.” He spoke softly into Antoinette's ear so that only she heard. “And there's money there. You know how you always say you don't wanna go in the ground. You know how you're afraid of the dirt on top of your head in Calvary?” Antoinette's huge back heaved as she nodded her head, hidden in the crook of Jumbo's arm. “Well, the first thing I'm gonna do is buy you a drawer. I told Judy already and she said okay. I'm gonna buy you one of those drawers in New Jersey. Whatta you think?”

Antoinette lifted her head, her eyes red and swollen. She patted Jumbo's face. “You're a good boy,” she said. “Which way the drawer is gonna go? Longways?”

“Longways. You can sleep on it.”

“And this baby. You're gonna baptize it? It's gonna be Catholic, no, like us?”

“I swear, Mama.”

“You're gonna name it after your father it's a boy? Salvatore?”

“I promise.”

“Antoinette after me it's a girl?”

“Yes.”

“I love you,
figlio mio.
”

E
h,” Antoinette said later on the stoop. “You do the best you can. My Jumbo got married quick,” she told the women, “because the girl didn't want no fuss. You know, these girls with money, it don't matter to them a big wedding. Everything they do is big. They go to big parties all the time. They don't need no
cafone
show, you know what I mean? But we're gonna have a big christening. Jumbo wants to do that. If it's a boy, it's gonna be Salvatore, a girl, whatta you think? Antoinette!”

“Hmmm,” Aggie Mancuso said. “She's pregnant already?”

“Ain't that something? My Jumbo don't fool around. He's a real man, no blanks. On her wedding night it happened.”

“How long they're married?”

“Well, you figure it out. She's due in six months, unless she's early. That happens a lot. So they're married three months. Can't you count?”

“We can count, Antoinette,” Aggie Mancuso said. “We can all count real good.”

“How come they're not living together?”

“Her mother wants her out there until they get settled. They got a big house, a pool. Jumbo don't want to live just anywhere so they're gonna take their time. What's the rush? They got everything.”

“You met the family?”

“Sure. Of course. They're coming Sunday. I'm gonna cook. Their eyes are gonna pop out when they taste my meatballs.”

“Maybe we'll see them then.”

“Could be. You see a big Cadillac on Spring Street, you know my son's in-laws are here.”

T
rue to Antoinette's word, the Bernsteins arrived on Sunday. Harvey pulled up in his white Cadillac and saw that the only parking spot was taken by a white-haired man sitting on a vinyl upholstered kitchen chair in the street. Harvey pulled up beside Dante and Sylvia leaned over and stuck her head out Harvey's window before Harvey could say anything and demanded to know what he was doing blocking the spot. Dante knew immediately his mission was accomplished.

“You the Bernfelds?”

“Yes. Yes,” Harvey said. Sylvia hit him in the shoulder.

“Don't volunteer, Harvey. How many times do I have to tell you? You'd volunteer for the Cossack army if I wasn't here to save you.” She leaned over Harvey and spoke out the window to Dante. “Maybe we're the Bernsteins,” Sylvia said. “Who wants to know?”

Dante got up out of the chair and moved it to the sidewalk. “She's all yours,” he said to Harvey and guided him into the spot, which was tight for a big a car like Harvey's Cadillac. Dante opened the door for Sylvia. He tipped his hat. “I was hoping you was gonna come soon,” he said. “Antonina's got the food waiting for me. I don't usually eat this late but I promised Jumbo I'd wait.”