I Contadini (The Peasants) Read online

  “The telegraph man said it was urgent, so she says,” said the guard.

  Dominic stood up. He was the short one of the DiStephanos, standing only five feet eleven, but where the others were long and lean, he was big boned and husky. And where the others were black, he was brown. And while the others had the long, thin DiStephano nose, his was like a crag that jutted out of a rocklike face. His jaw was square, and so were his large, white teeth which came into view each time he flashed his frequent smile.

  When he was born thirty-six years ago, his father, Ettore, had shaken his head in wonder. “The splitting image of Uncle Pietro,” he had muttered darkly. “Women’s man, gambler, drinker.” Then he remembered that Uncle Pietro had died while winning the highest award Italy could give for valor, so he had picked up the child tenderly and said, “Go, little one, climb your mountain.”

  “You cannot leave, Señor,” said the guard as Dominic started towards the door. “The Sergeant says you must pay four hundred pesos first.”

  “I will ask the woman, Carmen,” said Dominic.

  “The Sergeant asked her when she came this morning, and she said she did not have any money, Señor.”

  Dominic sat down. “Then I cannot get the telegram.”

  Jaime and the guard nodded at this outstanding piece of logic, for they had heard that this Americano was a famous engineer who designed and built a bridge in South America which carried people and cars, and even trains, over a wide river in the back country. Truly, here was an intelligent man. The guard joined his comrade in squatting on the floor to consider all of this more carefully.

  Jaime thought of a possible solution. He pursed his lips for several minutes while he scrutinized it from all directions. “We could,” he finally remarked, “ask the Sergeant for permission to take Señor Dominic to the telegraph man, then bring him back immediately after he has obtained the telegram.”

  His comrade nodded. “That is a very good idea. But the Sergeant has gone and will not return for an hour or two.”

  The news threw them all into a profound silence. After a few minutes, Jaime got up and left the cell, returning shortly with a bottle of wine. He filled Dominic’s cup, then squatted and drank from the bottle, passing it to the other guard, who also drank from the bottle.

  When the wine was half gone, Jaime thought of another solution. “We will ask the telegraph man to bring the telegram here to Señor Dominic.”

  The eyes of his comrade lit up. He climbed to his feet. “I will go for him.”

  Ten minutes later, the guard escorted in a slim man wearing a threadbare uniform. With great politeness, he asked Dominic to identify himself. Dominic searched through the pockets of his blue jeans and torn sports shirt. He found nothing.

  “Everything from your pockets has been placed in an envelope and locked in the Sergeant’s desk,” said the guard.

  “You know me,” said Dominic to the telegraph man. “I have shown you my identification once or twice already.”

  “That is true, Señor,” explained the telegraph man. “But this is another time and place.”

  They all fell silent at this impeachable reasoning. Soon the telegraph man squatted alongside the guards and accepted a sip of wine and a cigarette. After a few minutes, the telegraph man said, “There is money also with the message.”

  “How much?” asked Dominic.

  The telegraph man remained silent while he considered the propriety of an answer to the question. “Were I speaking to Señor Dominic DiStephano,” he said, deciding to side-step the decision, “I would be compelled to tell him that a thousand American dollars are waiting for him.”

  “If Señor Dominic had the money,” observed Jaime, “he could pay his fine and leave the jail to get the telegram.”

  “That is so,” said the telegraph man.

  A thought came to Jaime and he stood up. “But of course!” he said, excitedly. “I have the solution. I will vouch for his identity.”

  The troubled face of the telegraph man cleared. Without a word he reached into his pocket and handed over a telegram to Dominic.

  The eyes of the three Mexicans fastened on Dominic as he tore open the message and read it. They drew back at the sudden look of horror and pain that came into his face.

  Then from his mouth issued short, harsh-spoken orders. “Find your Sergeant. I must leave here instantly.”

  And obediently, the men sprang to their feet and trotted out of the cell.

  CHAPTER 2

  Rose Donini and her husband, Vito, were the first to reach Chicago. The moment their eight-seat, executive jet plane landed at the private airport, two long cars drew up and three unobtrusive, well-dressed men got out to supervise the movement of Rose, Vito and their luggage into a gleaming limousine and to send it swiftly off towards the DiStephano house. When it stopped there, Rose stepped out and stood for a moment looking at the huge, stone building where she had spent three quarters of her life.

  She had heard the story a hundred times or more of how her father, Ettore, had bought the small plot of land along the lake over half a century ago on the very day his future bride stepped on the boat at Naples to come to him, and how he told her a year later when Vincent, who was to be a judge, was born, that he was going to work an extra hour a day at his job as a stone mason to buy a little more land so the family would have room to grow. And he had done so, raising it to two hours extra a day when Michael, who was to be a surgeon, was born, and to three hours extra a day when Anthony, who was to be a priest, came along. And how her mother had finally put down her foot when Rose was born by saying that if he increased the number of his work hours any further there would be no time left for them to conceive any more children, and that she would rather have a live husband with no land than be a widow with a thousand miles of lonely beach.

  And somehow during this time, Ettore had built the house, stone by stone, with its five bedrooms on the second floor and three bedrooms on the third floor so his children and his future grandchildren would have space to sleep, then enlarged his plot of land to two acres for them to play in, had planted apple trees, peach trees, and cherry trees to bear fruit for the children to steal and their mother to make preserves, and had fenced off a long garden to raise tomatoes, peppers, onions and other vegetables to feed the booming family.

  And how when Paul, who was to be a soldier, was born, they suddenly found themselves rich from people searching out Papa to bid higher and higher for the land bordering the lake that nobody seemed to want only ten years before, which Ettore had been buying in small parcels each time he could squeeze out enough money from his fourteen hour work schedule each day, six days a week, for on Sunday everyone must be scrubbed to within an inch of his life and dressed in neat, clean clothes to go to early mass.

  But the children would grin among themselves at how impatient Papa obviously was to get back to the house and muster them to help add on another room or plant another tree or dig up the dandelions to make wine.

  And how when someone asked Papa what all the rush was for, he had merely held out his rough, callused hands before turning back to his work, which explained quite clearly that the calluses were good enough for Papa but not for his children.

  And Papa had gotten richer and richer by plowing the money back into additional land, then putting it aside until other people came along to press more money on him to sell it, until it seemed as though Papa would buy land one day and have offers the next.

  Then, when the depression came, he found himself in the odd position, as were so many others, of owning all the land a person could hope for, but being unable to raise the funds to pay the taxes to keep it from going under the hammer of an auctioneer. So Papa prepared himself for a siege, to fight back step by step to salvage whatever he could by searching every place for a penny. But there was so very little cash about that the steps back became a veritable retreat, for there was no way to dispose of part of the land to obtain enough money to hold on to the rest. Everything was
up for grabs, everything but the fine workmanship of a master stone mason who could barely earn enough to feed his family, let alone throw good money after bad to pay taxes on land which would be taken away and sold a few months hence.

  But Papa kept fighting. He gathered the family in the large kitchen, opened an inexpensive notebook in which he recorded everything of importance, then wrote down a list of the items the family required and ways to obtain them without using hard money. Most of the food needs were disposed of quite easily, since there was the garden for vegetables and the orchard for fruit. Mama estimated that there might even be a surplus to barter. Milk, flour and meat were the critical items, so Papa wrote down the name of a farmer who wanted some work done and a baker who needed a new oven, then he crossed off milk and flour. Mama said two dollars a week would take care of the meat needs, so Papa reluctantly put it down as a hard money requirement.

  They spent much more time on clothing, for there were already five children, Vincent at eleven, Michael at nine, Anthony at seven, Rose at four, and Paul at two. Vincent and Rose would be the problems, since the younger boys could wear hand-me-downs, for Vincent was growing by leaps and bounds and Rose was the only girl. Mama said she could get secondhand clothes by trading preserves with the neighbors, and Papa wrote down the name of a shoemaker whom he could approach, for the family wore out shoes in no time at all.

  When all the necessities were listed and the methods devised to get them, Papa started on the hard money column. Vincent and Michael were tasked to sell newspapers after school hours, and Papa took great pains to explain that they cost one penny a copy, sold for two pennies, and that the boys should work opposite sides of the street, but near enough to each other to pass over newspapers in the event one had greater fortune than the other.

  Anthony was assigned to the lake, and Papa did not have to give him any advice, since all the boys were expert fishermen. Even Paul already pretended he was fishing by throwing a string into the water and pulling it out as if he had a great weight on its end. Papa decided that half of the fish Anthony caught would be eaten by the family and the other half sold for hard cash. Mama was given the task of determining whether more money would be obtained by selling them to fish stores and street peddlers or dealing directly with housewives.

  And so cardboard was inserted into shoes to cover holes which growing children pounded into them until they must be repaired or thrown away, at which time Papa used up some of his credit with the shoemaker that he earned by doing work there, and grade B milk replaced grade A until Papa worked out the deal with the farmer, for the difference in grade saved two cents a quart, and the entire yard was dug up to plant more vegetables, and haircuts were a bowl on the head with Papa laboriously snipping away at the hair below it, and irrespective of the efforts everyone made, conditions just seemed to get worse and worse until Papa reached the point of being forced to let the rest of the land go and concentrate on saving just the house - when suddenly, the miracle happened.

  It was Anthony who figured it out years later, for Mama and Papa would change the subject the instant it was brought up and tighten their eyes in that special way which portended a swift clout on the cheek or the sudden whack with a broom handle across the backside if anyone persisted in asking.

  “Name one way to earn big money in those days?” Anthony had asked, after having made sure that twelve-year-old Paul and seven-year-old Dominic were out of the room.

  “You mean the rackets?” asked nineteen-year-old Michael, already starting his pre-med schooling.

  “There’s no doubt of it,” said Anthony firmly.

  Twenty-one-year-old Vincent, needing three more years before taking the state bar examinations, sat quietly, thinking it over.

  And Rose, fourteen years old, found her heart pumping with excitement. “Papa in the rackets,” she cried. “How wonderful!”

  Michael held up his hand. “There are robbery,” he said, turning down one finger, “murder,” down with the second finger, “dope,” down with the third, “prostitution,” down with the fourth, “and gambling.” His hand went down.

  “If Tony is right,” said Vincent slowly, “it would be none of them.”

  Anthony smiled at his favorite brother. “You’ve guessed, haven’t you? “

  “Tell me!” shouted Rose, tugging at Anthony and Vincent. “Tell me!”

  Her three tall brothers grinned at her with the absolute affection one girl would have in a family of five lusty boys.

  “Rumrunning,” said Anthony.

  “No!” said Rose with awe.

  Michael chewed on a thumbnail. “It makes sense,” he finally said. “I remember now that Papa had a small outboard motor boat when he stopped working as a stone mason. Then things got better when he had that larger one. That was the Christmas he bought the chemistry set for me.”

  Vincent nodded. “And the Encyclopedia Britannica for me, and the Book of Saints and a number of Christmas records for Tony -“

  “I got skates,” interrupted Rose.

  “I’ve been trying to remember what Papa bought for Paul that year,” said Anthony.

  “I remember,” said Michael. “A set of toy soldiers.”

  And as Anthony said, Papa suddenly began to earn big money, and immediately started buying up land again. In time, though, there was no more cheap land available, so he went smack into the center of Chicago and bought the highest priced buildings he could afford, until......

  Rose tried not to think of Mama, for it made her think of Maria, too, since Mama had died bringing Maria into the world. Papa had kissed Mama’s cold lips and walked out to the small church near the hospital and sat inside on a hard bench for twenty-four hours, and would have kept sitting there without eating or drinking or sleeping if Anthony, who was then a soldier, had not come in and led him out by his hand, like you would lead a lost child.

  And when they came home from the funeral, Papa finally saw what Mama had died for, so he picked up Maria in his big hands, leaning over her and crying out all his heartbreak, and for weeks afterwards would not let anyone feed her or change her diapers or wash her but himself.

  Then one night, while he was feeding Maria, Papa said that Mama knew she would have to leave him and that’s why she had Maria, so he would remember her clearly as the years went by.

  Rose fought desperately not to think of Maria, for she felt sure she would lose her mind if she did, but her thoughts were irresistibly drawn to those days, twenty-four years ago, when she was nineteen and had taken over the care of her infant sister, and how the little fingers closing around her forefinger had suddenly opened her heart. She had fallen so overwhelmingly in love with the child that only Papa could understand it, for his love was actually as great. And Papa was hard put to not interfering four years later when Vito asked her to marry him and she said she would do so only if he moved into the house with Papa and Dominic and Maria, for all the others were away building their own worlds, Vincent as an assistant district attorney in New York, Michael doing all kinds of surgery at a local hospital, Anthony ministering to his parish in West Virginia, and Paul a Second Lieutenant with the army in Germany.

  And poor, dear Vito, whose family owned half of the state of Massachusetts, had leaped at the ultimatum and moved in, and Rose felt that her heart would burst at the massive amount of love which filled her. It had been touch and go between Papa and Vito the first few months, as Papa’s hackles had risen when Vito fell under Maria’s spell and began to act like a father, but all had resolved itself when Bob was born the following year, and to Vito’s consternation Papa started to make sounds like a grandfather.

  Ten years had passed so swiftly that Rose was dumfounded when Vito told her it was time to take her, Bob, and Bert, who had come along four years later, to Boston, for his father had died and Vito had been called upon to take over the family business. Rose had rebelled until Vito gave her an inkling of just what he did own and how many people depended on him to keep the far-flung family
empire operating. So, tearfully, she had kissed fourteen-year-old Maria goodbye and moved east, and Vito had felt so guilty that he purchased a speedy plane and hardly a month passed that Maria wasn’t brought to Boston or Rose didn’t come home for a day or two.

  And now, Rose looked again at the house, and suddenly it struck her so hard and violently that she felt the ground give way from under her feet. Vito caught her as she started down and held her upright until she regained control of herself.

  “Okay, Rose?” he asked, and she saw the tears in his eyes.

  “Okay,” she whispered, and placing her lip between her teeth, as her father had done, she began walking up the path towards the door which bore the wreath of flowers to one side - and the black ribbon of death.

  Ettore himself opened the door for Rose and Vito. He took Rose in his arms and kissed her, then held out his hand to Vito, but suddenly he remembered that Vito loved Maria as much as any of them did, so he reached out his arms instead and they embraced as men of their blood will do with full kisses on each cheek.

  “She’s at the funeral parlor,” said Ettore.

  “Not now, Papa,” said Rose. “We’ll do it together.”

  He nodded and led them into the sitting room, where Clara and Mario, the servants who had been with the family for thirty years, came in to bid them welcome and obtain consoling.

  Rose wiped her eyes and took over. She got rid of Clara and Mario by having them take the suitcases upstairs, then turned to Ettore.

  “When did you last eat, Papa?”

  Ettore shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  Rose looked at her watch; it was six p.m. She opened a cabinet and took out glasses and a bottle of brandy. “Vito,” she said, motioning towards them, then went into the kitchen to see what Clara had prepared for supper. To one side of the massive kitchen table, once the center of family life, were three card tables loaded with platters of cold cuts and chicken, pickles, vegetables and fruits. Beneath them were bottles of wine and beer chilling in buckets of ice. On the stove was a large frying pan, readied to take thick steaks lying on waxed paper beside the refrigerator.