I Contadini (The Peasants) Page 5

  Maria saved the marriage, albeit unknowingly, but as effectively as if by magic. It was during the period that he and Carol decided to call it quits when Rose phoned to tell him that Maria was angry at everyone in the house and wanted to spend a day or two with Michael and that ice cube he married. Michael chuckled and said she would be more than welcome, then drove over from his apartment in center Chicago to pick her up. At the end of the second day, Carol emerged from her frosty cocoon far enough to tell Michael that she wouldn’t mind Maria staying another day or two, and a week later Michael explained things to Rose in enough detail for her to understand, and to convince Ettore, that Maria should remain with Carol a little longer.

  It was two weeks to the day since Maria came that Carol told Michael she had taken no precautions that night, and they had been caught up in the same breathtaking desire for each other which they had at the beginning of their marriage and which they thought was lost. Michael, Junior had been conceived that night, and there was not a day in the twenty years which followed that Michael did not thank his lucky stars. If anyone not of the blood truly adored Maria, it was Carol, for not only had Maria shown Carol what happiness a child could give, but she had returned the affection offered by Carol as eagerly as only Maria could. She had changed Carol, as if her hand held a magic wand, and since that time even Ettore begrudgingly confessed that Mama would have loved Carol as a daughter.

  Michael was dismayed to remember that he had neglected to warn Carol to break the news gently to their seventeen-year-old daughter, Eleanor. Maria and Eleanor were the closest of the young members of the family, since they were actually the only girls, if one discounted the illegitimate daughter of Paul, whom none of the family had ever seen anyhow. Eleanor thought the sun rose and set in her Aunt Maria, and it was a struggle to think of reasons to keep her from running up to Chicago each month. Maria felt the same way, visiting them every chance she had.

  When the taxi drew up in front of the house, Ettore, Rose, Vito and Vincent came out to greet him. They all embraced as men of the blood will do, with full kisses on each cheek.

  And when they had gone inside, Ettore poured five small glasses of the red table wine, passed them around, and held up his glass to Michael. “It’s good to have you home, Mike,” he said. They all drank.

  Anthony DiStephano closed his bible and looked out of the window of the airplane as it began to touch down at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. How many times he had experienced the same sensation, he thought, at the sudden pounding of his heart with apprehension at the thought of an accidental death.

  He was a man of fear, and it often amused him to ponder how he could reconcile this nigh constant dread with his belief in God. He was fully aware that it was not a singular reaction for a man of the cloth to feel fear, for many of his fellow priests had spoken quite frankly of the apprehensions, and even trepidations, they had experienced when faced with the prospect of pain or death or, as many were reluctant to admit straight out, the temptations which led to mortal sin. But Anthony feared only one thing - a qualified death. He was for all practical purposes immune to pain, because pain could be detached from his mind in its physical sense, be scrutinized from all angles, analyzed, and kept in its place by his iron will. Temptations were not even worth considering by a man who could concentrate on a point with an almost fixed, hypnotic intensity to the utter exclusion of all else until he rationally, in full agreement with all his senses, decided flatly and logically to permit his concentration to be turned elsewhere.

  It was death in a cold, clinical, irresponsible meaning which occupied his thoughts so strongly that he had to force himself to sit in a car which was to be driven on a highway or step inside an airplane that would soon leave the safety of earth.

  Anthony knew exactly when this fixation entered him. It was during his tenure as a parish priest in Virginia while he was driving along a mountain road and saw a load of logs piled high on a truck roll off and crush a workman to death. He leaped to action with an almost demented strength, lifting off logs and casting them aside with a power that awed the other workmen. When they finally uncovered what lay beneath, Anthony fell to his knees and fervently performed the last rites with an intensity so meaningful and personal, with such belief in God, that at the end he wept as if he had prayed for his own brother. Then, when he looked once more at the corpse and saw the terrible carnage the logs had wrought, he staggered away, shocked to the core, unable to breathe.

  “God!” he whispered to himself, “must we come before You like this! Is there no beauty in the flesh that holds the spirit which is Thine own sweet breath? Is this the dignity of man!”

  And when Anthony had taken out all the pieces from inside himself, examined them, classified them, compared them in texture, weight and structure, and held them alongside the cross that was his life, he had risen from his knees determined to seek another form of devotion to God. And so he became a teacher of men.

  He was destined to be a priest from the moment he looked into the tranquil eyes of Father Graziano when he was but eleven years old. It was during the first day of school of the new term, and Anthony had walked confidently into his sixth grade homeroom at Saint Paul’s, aware that he had taken almost all the honors the previous year and would repeat his performance this coming year. He was not a vain person. Just the contrary. Actually, he was fond of everyone he met and would go far out of his way to give a willing hand when asked to do so. And when he saw someone unable to ask or who needed help immediately, he would not wait to be called upon but would jump right in. His confidence stemmed from the realization that he could solve a problem while others still groped among the facts, that he could read a page of a book and know exactly what it meant without having to deliberate, and that he could remember what he had been told or what he had read from one year to the next.

  But when he looked into the eyes of Father Graziano, something seemed to well up inside him with an awesome sound of thunder and proclaim his need to share the peace he saw there. At that moment Anthony DiStephano became a man of God, although it took six more years before he knew it himself. Mama, though, saw it that very evening while they were seated at the massive kitchen table having supper, and she stared at Anthony with such wonder written over her face that Ettore asked whether anything was wrong with her. She had shaken her head and filled Anthony’s plate with great care.

  So Anthony grew to manhood and gave himself to God, but his growing was a thing apart from the family, for he was so perfectly attuned to the others that he was not a member in the sense that Vincent was the slow, deliberate one, or that Michael could be trusted with anything that had to be cared for with his hands, or that Paul would set fire to whatever he touched, or that Dominic would take it apart to see what made it tick, then walk off to look for something else to disassemble, or that Rose would make everything right. Anthony coated everything and blended and soothed and permeated into every pore so thoroughly that he seemed a conglomerate of all that is good and wholesome.

  That is not to infer that Anthony was a model of meekness and lacked spunk. Just the opposite. A few years after Dominic graduated from The Sacred Heart High School, where all the boys had gone after completing the courses at Saint Paul’s, the priests discussed the five brothers, and it was agreed upon unanimously that Vincent was by far the strongest, that when he hit someone, once his slow-to-ignite temper was aroused, that someone went down and stayed down; that Michael was the weakest in fighting ability, but would keep getting up so consistently after being knocked down that his opponent would give up in despair; that Paul was far away the most deadly efficient and would ruthlessly rip to pieces anyone who annoyed him; that Dominic would fight solely for the love of combat, but that Anthony was actually the most violent, combining a strength only slightly less than Vincent’s with a persistency more stubborn than Michael’s and a ruthlessness more icily truculent than Paul’s and a love of combat greater than Dominic’s. The priests were surprised to d
iscover during their analysis of the brothers that Anthony had been in more scrapes than any of the others, for the school bullies just couldn’t believe that a boy with his attributes was capable of standing up under sustained pressure. Anthony would take only a little of their harassment before seeking them out and punishing each one so thoroughly that only those bullies who hadn’t seen the fights, or their results, and therefore felt that Anthony’s reputation had been deliberately built up beyond his true capabilities, would dare to step out of line. Anthony punished them all, even though some of them had never caused him trouble, beating each to the degree he felt was deserved. One priest nicknamed him “Little Torquemada” in jest, but in a sense it fitted him aptly.

  Anthony left the plane, walked through the terminal, and entered a taxi. He disliked coming back to Chicago since Mama died, as everything of sorrow seemed to begin or end here. First there was Mama, and him getting out of a hospital bed on Saipan, where he was recovering from wounds suffered on Okinawa, to try desperately to reach home before she died. Like Vincent, he had gotten back too late to see her alive. Then Vincent’s wife and sons, brought home from their accident to be buried in the family plot which Papa had established some years before. Then the time he was called to Chicago to help Ettore settle that business with Paul over the woman in Germany. And now.....Maria.

  Anthony had been far too oriented towards his ministry to come under her spell, for directly after her birth and his recovery from the shrapnel wounds incurred as a medical corpsman in the infantry, he had returned to the seminary to complete his courses for the priesthood. When Maria was old enough to walk and talk, his long black cassock had estranged her because of its identification with the priest of the neighborhood church, who must be regarded with dignity and a touch of awe. So Anthony felt towards her the deep compassion he held for all of the blood, that his heart was heavy from the thought that she was dead, that a part of him had died with her. He could not suffer the same loss at the death of a priest with whom he had worked a lifetime, for the blood was something special, something that transcended comradeship or years of close association or having given a life for the religion.

  Anthony also disliked coming home because of his relationship with Ettore since Mama died. Ettore continued to treat him exactly as he had ever since he could remember, and, he had to admit, the same as he treated the other boys. But Ettore did not realize that Anthony was no longer really his son, for Anthony now had a Father who demanded an absolute subservience that was holier even than the blood. Ettore would say, “Hello, Tony,” and Anthony would be made to feel that Ettore considered his cloth to be the same as any other black material. But it would not be fitting for Ettore to kneel or to call him Father. He was placed in an unpleasant position and it made him uncomfortable.

  He wondered whether Maria had died without sin. He would say masses for her each day along with those for Mama, and he prayed with all his heart that she came to the Lord clean and pure.

  They were all waiting when the taxi drew up in front of the house. Mario bowed as he took Anthony’s bag from the driver. Anthony blessed them all swiftly, then clasped Ettore in his arms and kissed him on each cheek, and after Ettore he kissed Rose, then Vincent, then Michael, and finally shook hands with Vito.

  When they were inside the house, Ettore filled six small glasses with the red table wine, passed them around, and held up his glass to Anthony. “It’s good to have you home, Tony.” They drank.

  Dominic DiStephano paid off the pilot of the dilapidated, four-seater airplane, lifted out his worn suitcase from the baggage compartment, and trudged towards the airport office. He saw a light glowing inside and banged on the door, but when no one came, he hoisted the suitcase onto his shoulder and started walking down the deserted road in the direction of Chicago, twenty miles away.

  The lights of a car gleamed from behind him. Dominic turned and gestured vigorously for a lift, but the driver took one look at his battered appearance and pressed down on the accelerator. A mile or two further on, another car passed, also not at all inclined to stop for him.

  His watch showed it to be almost two in the morning when a vehicle drew alongside. The rays of a powerful flashlight came on, blinding him. Dominic shielded his eyes with his free hand and made out the figures of two police officers seated inside.

  “Cut that damned thing off!” he snapped.

  “Just stay put, fellow,” growled an officer as he climbed out of the patrol car. He lowered the light only enough to clearly see Dominic’s hands. “Who are you and where are you going?”

  Dominic was sorely tempted to answer with a wisecrack, such as him being Little Bo Peep out looking for her sheep, but then he remembered what he looked like. “If you promise not to blow off my head,” he said to the officer, “I will lower this suitcase very slowly to the ground, reach very slowly into my pocket, and show you proof that my name is Dominic DiStephano and that I live in Chicago.”

  “Do it, then,” said the police officer. “Exactly as you said,” he added.

  Dominic set down his suitcase and offered his wallet, keeping his hands in plain view.

  “You open it and show me,” said the officer.

  Dominic took out his driver’s license, a number of credit cards, and two hundred and eighteen dollars.

  The officer lowered the light a little further. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. I just came in by private plane and am trying to find a taxi.”

  The driver leaned over to the window. “Are you any relation of that girl who was found yesterday?”

  “I’m her brother.”

  The flashlight was switched off. “Jump in back,” said the officer who had gotten out. “We’ll run you to town.”

  They let him off at a taxi stand on the outskirts of Chicago. Once inside a taxi, Dominic settled back with a great sigh. He was bushed, for since receiving the telegram, he had rented a car in Monterey, driven like a wild man to El Paso, and made the deal with the kid who owned that hiccupping plane which had delivered him to the private airport. It was fortunate that Ettore had sent money, as he had given Carmen his last twenty dollars to pay the rent for the fleabag she lived in and to buy some grub. She had cried like a crazy woman when he said he was leaving, but what the hell, she should have known better. Anyway, with her looks, she wouldn’t be lonely for long.

  Dominic didn’t want to think too much of Carmen. He wanted to think about killing a man. He planned to kill him as slowly as a man could be killed, not with gas or electric or at the end of a rope, but with his bare hands. Somebody had murdered his Maria, and that somebody was not going to sit out his life in a warm prison cell or eat broiled steaks in a nuthouse or walk the streets a free man. Oh, no, he was going to be executed as painfully as a person could die, and Dominic decided he would spend a lot of time considering the ways before selecting one.

  Dominic had to think of killing the murderer to take his mind from the mental picture of Maria’s cold body, for he became ill each time he thought of her being dead. She was his Maria, and someone had taken her away. He could see her in his mind’s eye, crawling into his bed on Sunday mornings to have him read the funnies to her, bugging him nearly to distraction to repeat over and over again with whom he had gone out the night before, what had he done, why is a shortstop called a shortstop, and when can he fix her doll, Susie, who has a leg broken off. Maria allowed only Dominic to repair her dolls and toys, since that was his department, like Michael’s job was treating her cuts and bruises. And Dominic never experimented with her dolls and toys, but used extreme care to fix them to a condition as perfect as new, for Maria was a hard taskmaster who brooked no foolishness. And when he had completed his chore, Maria would wrap her arms around his neck, kiss him on the cheek, then lay her face against his and hug him so tightly that he would have trouble breathing.

  There was absolutely nothing that Dominic could do which would not find favor with Maria, and in a sense she adopted him, making certain t
hat his room was properly cleaned by Clara or Mario, sitting next to him at mealtimes, running errands whenever he seemed to want something. Her heart almost broke when Dominic came home one afternoon after completing high school to tell Rose and Ettore that he had enlisted for three years in the infantry and to explain to Maria that he would have to go away for a while. She was only six years old then, but seemed to possess a maturity which made her realize that his leaving was more than just visiting Vincent or Michael or going away to college. She had cried in her quiet manner in a corner of her bedroom, and Dominic was hard put to start off for his training camp.

  When it was time, a few months later, for him to leave for Korea, Maria told him she would not miss a mass to pray for him, no matter whether it rained or snowed or if she was sick, and she hadn’t missed one even though it had rained and snowed and she had been sick.

  Dominic came back from Korea a Technical Sergeant, with a row of decorations for bravery and a purple heart and cluster for his wounds, and that was a great deal for a boy who was still half a year from being twenty. He did not come back hard or bitter or with a blood thirst; he returned almost exactly as he had left - a young man in perfect physical condition who enjoyed a scrap whether it was with fists or with weapons. He was not surprised to learn that killing people did not affect him, for he expected as much, since to him battle was more or less a ball game. He was not afraid during combat, although he admitted to himself a few times that he would rather be somewhere else when one of his superiors placed him in a position not to his liking. And when he began leading men as a Platoon Sergeant commanding as many as forty American and Korean soldiers during periods when his Lieutenants were disabled or being rotated, he tried to remember how he had felt when placed in an unhappy situation and thought often of keeping his men out of danger. But that was somewhat rare, as Dominic usually went out looking for trouble and, due to the nature of infantry, those who sought trouble always found it.