The Shoemaker's Wife

Chapter 12

A FOUNTAIN PEN

Una Penna da Scrivere

The SS Rochambeau was twelve hours out of the port of Le Havre when Marco was summoned from steerage to the ship’s hospital on the second tier.

The sleek, elegant ship was French built, with a midnight blue hull, whitewashed decks, and brass bindings. It graced the ocean like fine French couture, but below the waterline, it was no different from the worst Greek and Spanish ships. Bunk beds, three to a cell, were made of thick canvas, reeked of vomit, and were stained with the sickness of prior passengers. The accommodations in steerage were primitive, the maintenance minimal: floors swabbed with ammonia and hot water between crossings, and not much more.

There was one large dining room for third class. The rough-hewn tables and benches were nailed to the floor. It had no windows and was lit by the flames of gaslights that spit coils of black soot into the cavernous space. Meals prepared with beans, potatoes, and corn, stretched with boiled barley and served with black bread, were typical. Once, in the nine-day crossing, they were served beef stew with gristle of meat, family style.

Once a day, the passengers in the belly of the ship were encouraged to go up to the deck for fresh air and sun. Many chose to sleep on the deck through the night, to avoid the overcrowded conditions in the accommodations below. The cold night air and ocean storms, it turned out, could be as perilous to their health as the cramped conditions in the cabins below. Many contracted coughs they could not shake, influenza, and fevers, for which there was nothing but mustard plasters and weak tea.

While on the deck below, the passengers in steerage could hear the tinkling of champagne glasses, the strings of the orchestra, and the sandy shuffle of feet as the first-class passengers danced through the night above them. In the morning, they were awakened by the heady scent of fresh coffee and cinnamon rolls drenched in butter baking in the ovens in the upper-class kitchen. When the steerage passengers went below for their own breakfast, there were vats of scorched black coffee, cups of cold milk, and heels of day-old bread with butter.

The elegance and easy living of first class seemed so close. The passengers imagined what it must be like. The young girls dreamed of dancing in chiffon dresses and eating cake in the ballroom. The boys imagined vendor carts serving caramel peanuts while they played shuffleboard on the polished wood floors in the game room.

As the men below gathered on the deck to smoke, they compared plans and schemes, promising themselves that when they returned to Italy, they would return on this boat, traveling in first class as rich Americans. Their wives would have their hair done, wear peacock plumes, and douse themselves in perfume. They would stay in large suites with soft beds, a butler in attendance to steam their suits, press their shirts, and polish their shoes. French maids would turn down their beds at night.

The women, wives, mothers, and grandmothers saved their dreams for their new lives on the other side of the Atlantic. They imagined wide American streets, lush gardens, sumptuous fabrics, and large rooms in clean houses awaiting their touch. They had received the letters, they had been told the stories, and they believed domestic bliss awaited them.

The trick, it seemed, was to make it across the ocean without incident. It was simple: avoid the crooks and stay healthy. Enza Ravanelli was not so lucky.

The hospital aboard the Rochambeau consisted of three small rooms with bright red crosses painted on the doors. They were outfitted with clean beds on stationary lifts and well attended by a nursing staff. The porthole windows made the accommodations seem lavish compared to the dark cells in steerage.

Dr. Pierre Brissot, a lanky Frenchman with blue eyes and a permanent slope in his posture, ducked his head and left Enza in the room, to meet Marco in the hallway.

“Your daughter is very ill,” Dr. Brissot said in halting Italian.

Marco could hear his heart pound in his chest.

Dr. Brissot continued, “She was brought here from her cell. Was she ill before the ship left Le Havre?”

“No, Signore.”

“Has she been ill on a ship before?”

“This is the first time she has been on the sea.”

“Have you traveled by motorcar?”

“Never. She drives our horse carriage. She has always been very strong.” Waves of panic washed over Marco. What if he lost her, as he had lost Stella?

He barely listened to Dr. Brissot when he said, “I cannot order the ship back to Le Havre for one sick passenger in third class. I’m very sorry.”

“May I see her?”

Dr. Brissot opened the door to the hospital room. Enza was curled up in the bed in a fetal position, holding her head. Marco walked over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

Enza tried to look up at her father, but her eyes filled with terror as she was unable to lift her head or focus her gaze.

“Oh, Enza.” Marco tried to soothe her, hoping his voice didn’t give away his fear.

Enza searched for the strength to tell her father she felt like a spoke in the wheel of a runaway carriage. Nausea rolled through her in waves. Sounds were deafening, each wave against the ship’s hull shattering within her ear like explosions of dynamite, rock smashing against rock without reprieve.

Enza opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“I’m here,” Marco said. “Don’t be afraid.”

Night after night, Marco lay on the cold metal floor beside Enza. He slept only briefly, awakened by nurses, the clank of the engines, and Enza’s agonized moans. Utter exhaustion gave way to brief nightmares as the terrible days crept by. Dr. Brissot’s reports offered little encouragement. The medicines he usually prescribed for extreme motion sickness failed to have any effect on Enza. She became weaker and weaker, dangerously dehydrated. Soon her blood pressure began to plummet. Tinctures of codeine, a syrup of black cohosh, seemed to only make Enza worse.

Toward the end of the nine-day journey, Marco finally fell into a deep sleep, where he dreamed he was back in Schilpario, but instead of the green cliffs, the hillsides had been torched by fire, and the gorge was filled with black water. Marco had gathered his family to safety on a precipice, but below he saw Stella drowning in the floodwaters. Enza jumped in to save her, and she too began to flail in the black water. Marco dived into the gorge headfirst, hearing his wife and children on the cliff screaming to stop him, but it was too late.

Marco awoke in the hospital cell, feverish and disheveled. A nurse gently tapped him. “We’re in the harbor, sir.”

Marco could hear the muffled sounds of the cheers from the Rochambeau’s passengers above, gathered on deck as the ship docked in lower Manhattan.

There was no celebration for Marco and Enza, no lingering first gaze at the soft turquoise majesty of the Statue of Liberty or awe expressed at the view of the cityscape of Manhattan. There was only the scratch of Dr. Brissot’s fountain pen against the paperwork to save Enza’s life once the ship was safely in the harbor.

“I’ve made arrangements for signorina to be taken immediately to Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village. They may be able to stabilize her. You have to process through Ellis Island with the others.”

“I must stay with my daughter.”

“You’d be an illegal alien, sir. You don’t want to risk that. They’ll pick you up and send you right back to Italy without your daughter. Follow instructions to Ellis Island, and then join her at Saint Vincent’s. They’ll be doing everything they can for her. We will file her paperwork through the hospital.”

Dr. Brissot bustled off to attend to his other patients, and Marco was asked to leave the room as the nurse and two of the ship staff placed Enza on a gurney to transport her off the ship.

As Enza was carried off on the stretcher through the narrow doorway, Marco reached out to touch her face. Her skin was cold to the touch, just as Stella’s had been the last morning her father ever held her.

The nurse pinned the ship’s manifest to Enza’s sheet, per standard regulations, then handed Marco a slip of paper with the address of the hospital. In the bright sunlight, Enza looked worse, and waves of panic overtook Marco as he watched her go. He turned to the nurse in desperation.

“Is my daughter dying?”

“I don’t speak Italian, sir,” she replied briskly in English, but Marco understood her meaning. The nurse had avoided telling him the terrible truth.

As Marco stood on the interminable line at Ellis Island, he began to shake from exhaustion fueled by anxiety. He knew he must appear in control and composed to meet the immigration officer; any sign of mental illness or physical weakness would be a reason to deny him citizenship. He must act as though he was nothing but an eager laborer who had come to America to join the workforce, although at middle age, he was a less than ideal candidate in the eyes of immigration. But his heart was breaking, and his feelings of inadequacy and failure as a father were on the brink of overwhelming him.

Marco set the cap on his head at an angle, to show confidence. He placed one hand in his jacket pocket, feeling the smooth lining, a patch of rare silk sewn by Enza. His eyes filled with tears when he thought of his daughter and her efforts to improve the lot of the Ravanelli family. There was never a girl so driven to hold her family together.

Enza looked after her brothers and sisters, and she had more responsibility than most girls her age. But did his daughter have the strength to recover? What if there was an underlying cause to Enza’s illness that could not be healed? What would he tell Giacomina if Enza died? The thought panicked him, as the slow pace of the line made every moment he was away from her unbearable.

Marco wished he had never agreed to come. But he knew if he had decided to stay in Schilpario, Enza would have come to America alone.

If something happened to Marco, Enza was to return home immediately, but it had never dawned on them that Enza would be the one to face catastrophe.

The Zanetti Shoe Shop had never enjoyed so much business. The small storefront on Mulberry Street stood out under a brand-new red, white, and green striped awning. The shop percolated with activity as customers stopped in for fittings, drop-offs, pickups, and repairs. Salesmen came through with sumptuous sleeves of leather, boxes of grommets, and bolts of rawhide laces. Signora Zanetti thrived on the haggling that ensued, as she bargained for supplies for the best price.

There was good reason for the boom: work had commenced on the building of the Hell’s Gate Bridge in Queens. Every available man over fourteen and under sixty had signed up for round-the-clock shifts. Each new hire needed a pair of sturdy, well-made work boots that were properly soled, could withstand bad weather, and would provide safe traction on the metal parapets high over the Hudson River. Many came to Zanetti’s for the best deal.

Remo taught Ciro everything he knew in the long hours they kept in the shop. Ciro learned how to sketch the patterns, cut the leather, and construct the work boots. He also became adept at finishing, polishing, and buffing the boots he had made, taking pride in the small details that would become the hallmark of his fine craftsmanship.

Carla handled the books, making sure boots bought on credit were paid off weekly. If money was due her, she made sure to collect it, even if she had to knock on apartment doors or visit a job site to do so. She reconciled the receipts and counted the money. The green cloth bank bag was soon too small for their deposits, and a second was added.

Ciro had been up since dawn, sewing vamps and hammering heels. He had spent the previous day creating small steel cups for the toes of every pair of boots.

“You need to eat,” Carla said as she placed a breakfast tray on the worktable.

“I had coffee,” Ciro said.

“A young man cannot grow on coffee. You need eggs. I made you a frittata. Eat.”

Ciro put down the hammer and sat. Signora Zanetti was a good cook, and he appreciated her hot meals. He placed the cloth napkin on his lap.

“I’m always impressed by your manners,” Carla said.

“You seem surprised I have them.”

“With your background . . . ,” Carla began.

Ciro smiled. He found it funny that Signora Zanetti was a snob. She tried to distance herself from other immigrants despite the fact that they shared similar histories. They had all emigrated because they were poor and had to find work. Now that the shop was successful, Signora had begun the slow, careful climb of reinvention and had even more reason to look down on her struggling fellow Italians. “My background is not so different from yours, Signora,” Ciro reminded her.

Signora ignored the comment. “However you look at it, the nuns did right by you.”

“I had parents too, Signora.” Ciro put down the fork and napkin and placed the tray aside.

“But you were so small when they left you.” Carla poured herself a cup of coffee.

Signora’s comment cut through Ciro’s heart. “Don’t ever assume, Signora, that my brother and I were unloved. We probably got more than our portion.”

“I didn’t mean . . . ,” Carla stammered.

“Of course you didn’t.” Ciro cut her off as Remo joined them in the workroom.

Ciro treated Signora with respect, but he didn’t have affection for her. Her love of money offended him. In Signora’s eyes, those who had money were better than those who didn’t. She treated her husband, Remo, as a servant, barking orders and making decisions without consulting him. Ciro promised himself that he would never fall for a woman with a temperament like Carla Zanetti’s. She was a demanding boss, but as the American saying went, she was also a tough customer.

There were nights when he thought about leaving the Zanetti Shoe Shop and trying his luck working on the road crews in the Midwest, or going south to the coal mines. But he never seriously considered it. Something had happened over the past several months, a turn of events that Ciro had not counted on.

Ciro had fallen in love with the craft of shoemaking. Remo was a fine teacher, and a capable master craftsman. Through his instruction, Ciro discovered that he enjoyed the arithmetic of measurements, the touch of the leather and suede, the feel of the machines, and the delight of the customers when he made a boot that fit, after a lifetime of ones that didn’t. Ciro began to appreciate fine workmanship as an art form unto itself. The painstaking craft of building a proper boot or shoe from simple elements gave Ciro a purpose he had never known before.

Remo saw Ciro’s raw talent blossom under the techniques Remo had learned from an old master in Rome. Ciro was eager to learn everything Remo knew, and built upon that knowledge with his own insights and ideas. There were modern machines being developed, and new techniques that would take shoemaking forward in a progressive, exciting way. Ciro wanted to be a part of that.

But there were two sides to business: the creative side, handled by Remo, and the business side, closely guarded by Carla. Signora Zanetti was far less eager than her husband to share the details, or teach Ciro how to run a business. Was it her inborn sense of competition, Ciro wondered, or her secretive nature? Either way, she withheld all of her practical business knowledge. Nevertheless, Ciro picked up on Signora Zanetti’s techniques of salesmanship, customer payment plans, and dealing with the bank. This Italian woman knew how to make good American money. As Ciro gained confidence in his abilities, he had begun to hunger to take his own green bag to the bank. He was thinking about money, and it was in this moment that he lost focus. The metal lathe sliced into his hand.

“Aah!” he shouted, and looked down at the bloody puncture in his palm. Carla raced for a clean rag.

“What did you do, Ciro?” Remo asked, leaping from his stool to run to Ciro’s side.

Ciro wrapped a clean moppeen around his palm to staunch the bright red blood.

“Let me see the wound!” Carla insisted. She took his hand and unwound the tight cloth. A deep gash in his hand oozed fresh blood, a flap of blue skin dangling over it. “We are going to the hospital.”

“Signora, I have to finish these boots,” Ciro said, but his voice broke in pain.

“The boots can wait! I don’t want you to lose your hand to gangrene. Hurry! Remo! Hitch the cart!”

Enza opened her eyes in a hospital room that had the scent of ammonia. For the first time since she left Le Havre, the room did not spin, and her body did not have the sensation of free-falling. She had awoken to a pounding headache, and her eyes had trouble focusing, but she was no longer in the state of agonizing constant motion. She had no memory of the transport from the ship to Saint Vincent’s Hospital. She didn’t remember her first ride through Greenwich Village in the back of a horse-drawn ambulance. She did not take note of the trees in bloom, or the windowboxes stuffed with yellow marigolds.

As Enza attempted to sit up, a searing pain split her head from top to bottom. “Papa?” she called out fearfully.

A slim young nun in a navy blue habit eased Enza back down onto the pillow. “Your father is not here,” she said in English.

Baffled at the new language, Enza began to cry.

“Wait. Let me get Sister Josephine. She speaks Italian.” The nun turned to leave. “Don’t move!” The nun grabbed Enza’s chart and went.

Leaning back against her pillow, Enza surveyed the room.

Her travel clothes were neatly folded on a chair. She looked down at her white hospital gown. A needle was bound with a bandage into the skin of her hand. She followed the tube to a glass jar filled with liquid. There was a small pulsing pain in her hand where the needle met the vein. She bit her dry lips. She reached for a glass of water on the small table and drank it down in a single gulp. It was not enough.

A second nun pushed the door open. “Ciao, Signorina,” Sister Josephine said, then continued in Italian, “I’m from Avellino on the Mediterranean.” Sister Josephine had a full face, tawny skin, and a straight, prominent nose. She pulled up a chair next to Enza’s bed, filled the empty water glass, and gave it to Enza.

“I’m from Schilpario,” Enza said in a scratchy voice, “on the mountain above Bergamo.”

“I know the place. You’re a long way from home. How did you get here?”

“We were on the Rochambeau from Le Havre, France. Can you help me find my father?”

The nun nodded, clearly relieved to find her patient so lucid. “We were informed that he had to process through Ellis Island.”

“Does he know where I am?”

“Yes, he was told to meet you here at Saint Vincent’s.”

“How will he find me? He doesn’t speak English. We were going to learn some basic phrases on the trip, but then I got sick.”

“There are plenty of people in Manhattan who speak Italian.”

“But what if he doesn’t find someone who can?” Enza was panicked.

Sister Josephine’s face showed her surprise that the daughter was in charge of the father. Yet Enza knew that Marco had not been the same man since Stella died. To be fair, no one in the family had been the same since they lost her. Enza doubted they would have made the decision to come to America if Stella had lived. She couldn’t explain to Sister Josephine how loss had led to a plan, then to action, how precarious everything had seemed after Stella’s sudden death, and how desperate she felt to help the Ravanellis forge a more secure life for themselves.

“Your father will find his way to you,” Sister Josephine reassured her.

“Sister, what’s wrong with me?” Enza asked. “Why have I been so ill?”

“Your heartbeat all but disappeared from low blood pressure in reaction to the motion. You almost died on that ship. You’ll never be able to travel by boat again.”

The nun’s words cut worse than any pain she had endured on the crossing. The thought of never seeing her mother again was too much to bear. “I’ll never be able to go home.” Enza began to cry.

“You mustn’t worry about that yet,” Sister Josephine interjected before Enza’s despair could spiral further out of control. “You just got here. First you must get well. Let me guess, you’re going to Brooklyn.”

“Hoboken.”

“Do you have a sponsor?”

“A distant cousin on Adams Street.”

“And you’re going to work?”

“I sew,” Enza said. “I hope I can get a job quickly.”

“There are factories on every block. Hasn’t anyone told you? Anything is possible in America.”

“So far that hasn’t been true, Sister.” Enza lay back on the pillow.

“A practical girl for a change.” Sister looked around and then back at Enza. “You must know that they don’t give you your papers unless you’re a dreamer.”

“I wrote ‘seamstress’ as my occupation. That’s what’s on the ship’s manifest of the Rochambeau,” Enza said, closing her eyes. “I didn’t think to write ‘dreamer.’ ”

Marco Ravanelli stood at the railway platform in lower Manhattan with a few lire in his pocket, his duffel, Enza’s suitcase, and a small slip of paper with an address upon it. The processing through Ellis Island had taken most of the day, as the Greek and Turkish onboard came with multiple family members, adding to the slow grind of the process.

For all Marco knew, Saint Vincent’s Hospital might be a thousand miles away. He was exhausted from the interminable lines at Ellis Island and terrified at the uncertainty he faced. Marco wondered if the American doctors had saved Enza. His beautiful daughter, whom he had held on the day she was born in the same blanket that had held him, might already have died in the long hours he had been away from her side. He wanted to pray for his daughter’s life, but he couldn’t find the will or the words to do so.

Marco gave in to the emotions of the long day and cried.

The sight of this newly arrived immigrant, obviously a proud man with troubles, standing alone next to his cloth duffels in boiled wool clothing and a dingy shirt, filled a driver on the carriage line with compassion. He jumped off his perch and headed toward the man.

“Hey, Bud, you all right?”

Marco looked up at a burly American man, around his age. He wore a plaid cap, vest, and work pants. He had the flat nose of a prizefighter, and a plain gold tooth in the front of his mouth shimmered like a window. Marco was taken aback by the man’s gregarious manner, but welcomed the sound of his friendly voice. “You look like you lost your best friend. You speak English?”

Marco shook his head.

“I speak a little Italian. Spaghetti. Ravioli. Radio. Bingo.” The stranger threw his head back and laughed. “Where are you going?”

Marco looked at him blankly.

“Do you mind?” The stranger took the piece of paper from Marco. “You have to go to the hospital?”

Marco heard the word hospital and nodded vigorously.

“Joe, this hospital is about two miles from here. If you didn’t have the bags, you could walk. You Catholic?” The stranger made the sign of the cross.

Marco nodded, dug into his shirt, and pulled out a devotional medal on a chain he wore around his neck.

“You’re Catholic, all right. You gonna work for them?” he asked. “They got a lot of jobs at the hospital. And them nuns will find you a place to stay too. They’re good about that. Something about those habits makes ’em want to help people. They wear veils with wings, makes you think they’re fairies, flying around doing good works. Now, just nuns I’m talking about. Not women in general, if you know what I’m saying. They don’t wear the wings, and they don’t fly. They got other pluses. And the first plus: they ain’t nuns.” The driver threw his head back again and laughed.

Marco smiled. He may not have understood the words, but the animated delivery by this stranger was entertaining.

“Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna do a good deed for the hell of it. I’m gonna give you a lift to Saint Vincent’s.” The stranger pointed to his horse and carriage. Marco understood the man and nodded appreciatively.

“My treat.” The driver snapped his fingers. “Regalo.”

Marco formed his hands in the prayer position. “Grazie, grazie.”

“Not that I’m a good Catholic or nothin’,” the man said as he picked up Marco’s bags. Marco followed him to the carriage. “I’m planning on repenting at the very end of my life, when I’m takin’ that last gasp. I’m the kind of guy who eats a rib eye rare on Good Friday. I know, I know, it’s a mortal sin. Or maybe it’s venial. See that? I don’t even know the difference. The point is, I wouldn’t mind seeing the face of God once I’m on the other side, but I got a hard time with rules on this one. Ya know what I mean?”

Marco shrugged.

“Hey, what am I doin’, unloading on you when you got your own problems. Ya look like a sad sack, my friend, like ya just heard the most miserable opera they ever wrote.”

Marco nodded.

“Ya like the opera? All them Italian guys, Puccini, Verdi . . . I know about ’em. How about the Great Caruso? He’s one of youse guys too. I seen him for twenty-five cents at the Met. Standing room. Ya gotta go to the Met sometime.”

As Marco climbed into the carriage, the driver hoisted the bags on to the bench next to him. The driver with the gold tooth climbed up to his perch and took the reins.

For the first time since he’d left Schilpario, Marco had caught a lucky break. He sank into the leather seat and held hope in his heart like a hundred stars.

Ciro practically filled up the tiny examination room on the second floor of Saint Vincent’s Hospital. He was so tall, his head nearly touched the ceiling before he sat down on the table. A young nun in blue, who had introduced herself as Sister Mary Frances, wrapped a clean bandage around the stitches that sealed the wound on his hand.

Remo and Carla stood against the wall and watched her bind Ciro’s hand. In the months since Ciro had arrived and breathed new life and energy into the shop, the childless couple had begun to enjoy a late-in-life experience of parenting. Even their styles in that regard were different. Remo thought of the pain Ciro was in, while Carla thought of the lost hours the accident would cost her.

“I could’ve used you this morning,” Sister Mary Frances said as she wrapped the bright white strips of cloth around Ciro’s hand. “We admitted an Italian girl, and I couldn’t communicate with her.”

“Is she pretty?” Ciro asked. “I’ll be her translator.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Carla said.

“How did you learn English?” Sister asked Ciro.

“The girls on Mulberry Street,” Carla answered for him, and cackled.

“There you have it, Signora,” Ciro said to Carla. “It pays for me to spend time with the girls. I learn English, and I learn about life.”

“You know enough about life,” Carla said drily.

“How bad is the wound, Sister?” Ciro asked.

“It’s quite a gash. I want you to keep the wound covered, and don’t think of pulling out the stitches yourself. You come back, and I’ll take them out. About three weeks?”

“Three weeks in a bandage?” Ciro complained. “I have to make shoes.”

“Do whatever you can one-handed,” Sister told him.

Enza watched the sun as it slipped past the trees over Greenwich Village. From her hospital window on Seventh Avenue, Enza saw rows of connected houses. The colors of New York City were new to her, burnt orange and earthy browns with an apricot glaze so different from the vivid blues and soft greens of her mountain town. If light itself was different in this new country, imagine what else would be.

Sister Josephine wrote, Enza Ravanelli. “Is that your full name?”

“Vincenza Ravanelli.” She corrected the nun without taking her eyes off the streets below. She couldn’t imagine what was taking her father so long.

“Did you know this hospital is called San Vincenzo’s?”

Enza turned to her and smiled.

Sister asked, “Do you believe in signs?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Me too. Well, that’s a good omen.”

“Where is Hoboken from here?” Enza asked.

“Not far at all. Look out the window. It’s across the Hudson River, where the sun sets.”

“What’s it like?”

“Crowded.”

“Is every place in America crowded?”

“No, there are places in America that are just wide open spaces, with nothing but rolling hills and fields. There are lots of farms in places like Indiana and Illinois.”

“I’ll never get that far,” Enza says. “We came to make money to buy our house. As soon as we do, we’ll go home.”

“We all come here thinking that we’ll go home. And then, this becomes home.”

The driver hopped down from his perch and helped Marco with his luggage. Marco looked up at the hospital entrance; the sandstone building took up an entire block. Marco reached in his pocket for his money.

“This is on me, buddy.” The driver smiled.

“Please,” Marco said.

“Nope.” The stranger climbed back on his perch. “Arrivederci, pal.” He drove off into the darkness whistling, with the light heart of a man who’d just done a good deed.

Marco approached a young Irish nun who managed the arrival desk, outfitted with a telephone and a large black leather-bound book with an inkwell. A row of low benches around the outside walls of the room were filled with patients.

“Parla Italiano?” Marco said.

“Who are you looking for?” she replied in English.

Marco did not understand.

“Are you ill?” she asked. “You look all right. Is it a job you’re after?”

Marco indicated that he didn’t understand her. He grabbed a fountain pen off the desk, wrote down his daughter’s name, and frantically waved it at the nun.

She read the name and checked it against her ledger. “Yes, she’s here. I’ll take you up to three.”

Marco bowed and said, “Mille grazie.” He followed the nun up the stairs to the third floor, taking them two at a time. As he passed the second-floor landing, the door opened as Ciro, Remo, and Carla turned to descend the stairs.

“That guy just landed,” Ciro said, watching Marco bound past them.

“Remember your first day?” Remo asked. “We almost lost you to the port hustlers wearing French perfume.”

Ciro and Remo made their way down the stairs.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Carla asked Remo and Ciro as she stood on the landing above them.

“Back to the shop,” Remo said.

“Oh, no. We go to the chapel and give thanks for the speedy recovery of Ciro’s hand.”

“Carla, I have orders to fill,” Remo argued.

Carla gave Remo a withering look.

“Ciro, we go to the chapel,” Remo said. “Follow the padrone.”

As Marco burst through the door to Enza’s hospital room and took his daughter into his arms, his heart filled with a joy he had not known since the day she was born. For the first time since they left the mountain, he felt their luck changing. The registrar on Ellis Island had taken his information without question, the man with the gold tooth had given him a ride, and now, his daughter had recovered.

“What did the doctor say?” Marco asked.

“He wants me to stay in the hospital until my headache is gone.”

“Then we’ll stay.”

“But I have to get to work.”

“You get well, and then we’ll go to Hoboken.”

“The doctor wants me to walk.”

Marco helped Enza into her robe. She was shaky as she stood up, but it helped to lean against her father. With his assistance she walked out into the hallway, feeling grateful to be on her feet again.

The polished aqua and white floor tiles glistened. There wasn’t a corner of the hospital that was not scrubbed clean, not a handprint on the painted wall or a pile of sheets in the hallway. The nuns moved swiftly as they tended to the patients, their veils gently fluttering behind them as they went.

The doctors of Saint Vincent’s were confident, not like the old man who came over the mountain on horseback from Azzone when Stella fell sick. These men were young, robust, and direct. They did their work thoroughly and quickly, weaving in and out of rooms like whip stitches. They wore crisp white lab coats and moved through the sea of nuns dressed in blue like the sails on a ship.

Against the bright walls of the hospital corridor, Marco appeared wizened. Enza felt a wave of remorse for what she had put him through. On the mountain, Marco had been like everyone else’s father, a hard worker, intelligent, and devoted to his family. Here, he was just another man in need of a job. Enza felt responsible for him, and sorry that she had convinced him to come to America.

Marco and Enza reached the end of the hallway, where they found the etched glass doors of the chapel entrance. Beams of streetlight filtered through the stained glass, casting a rosy tint over the pews. A few visitors were scattered throughout the chapel; some knelt before the votive trays, while others sat in the pews and prayed. The altar was golden in the candlelight, like a lost coin on a cobblestone street.

Marco pushed the door open gently. They entered the chapel and walked up the center aisle. Enza made the sign of the cross and slid into a pew as Marco genuflected and followed her.

At last, something familiar, something that was just like home. The scent of beeswax reminded Enza of the chapel of Sant’Antonio. Over the altar, a large stained-glass mural in three parts told the story of the Annunciation in shards of midnight blue, rose red, and forest green. On the ceiling, in a china blue inset framed in gold leaf, were the words:

God is Charity

The familiar comforted them; the altar, the pews, the kneelers, and the Latin in the missals provided them with a deserved peace at the end of their long ordeal. The Blessed Mother’s outstretched arms seemed to welcome them, while Saint Vincent’s black robes and wooden rosary beads gave a sense of abiding serenity to these two lost souls hungry for home.

“I was told I will never see my mountain again,” Enza said quietly.

“What do they know about us?” Marco tried to bolster Enza’s spirits, but when he looked at his daughter, she seemed so small to him now, so vulnerable. Marco wished Giacomina was there to counsel her. He always left the big problems to his wife; she seemed to know just what to say to the children to soothe them. He couldn’t imagine how to solve this new problem. What would they do if Enza couldn’t return home? He sighed deeply, and decided all he could do was encourage Enza to move ahead with their plan. “You have to believe,” Marco said, “that we came this far for a purpose.” When the words came out of his mouth, he realized he meant them as much for himself as he did for his daughter.

Enza rose from the pew and followed her father down the aisle. Marco pushed the door of the chapel open.

“Enza? Enza Ravanelli?”

Enza heard her name said aloud in a familiar accent. She looked up to see Ciro Lazzari, who she had not seen since she left him at the convent entrance months ago. Her heart began to race at the sight. For a moment, she wondered if this meeting was real, when he had only lived in her dreams.

“It is you!” Ciro stood back and took her in. “I don’t believe it. What are you doing here? Are you here to visit? Work? Do you have people here?” As he asked her every question he could think of, Enza closed her eyes, took in the soft tones of her native language, and grew homesick on the spot.

“Who is this?” Carla Zanetti snapped.

“These are my friends from the mountain. This is Signor Ravanelli and his eldest daughter, Enza.”

Carla made fast work of sizing up the Ravanellis. She could see that Enza was not another girl from Mulberry Street looking to trap a husband, have a baby, and secure an apartment. This girl was an old friend from Ciro’s province; she traveled with her father, and was therefore respectable.

Ciro explained how he had met the Ravanelli family to Carla, who softened as she heard the story. Keep talking, Enza thought, drinking this conversation in like the first sips of cold water after the long journey.

“Why are you in the hospital?” Ciro asked her.

“Why are you in a chapel?” Enza countered.

Ciro threw his head back and laughed. “I was forced to give thanks that I didn’t lop off my entire hand.” Ciro showed her the bandage.

“My daughter fell ill on the ship,” Marco explained.

“A little sea sickness,” Enza said.

“She almost died,” Marco corrected her. “She was in the hospital aboard ship the entire time. We were terrified. I thought I would lose her.”

“I’m fine,” she said to Ciro. “There’s nothing to worry about now, Papa.”

Carla and Remo led Marco out of the chapel, leaving Enza and Ciro alone. She took his hand in hers, tucking the loose end of the gauze under the tight bandage. “What happened to you? Are you a butcher?”

“A shoemaker’s apprentice.”

“That’s an excellent trade. A shoemaker’s children never go barefoot. Do you remember that expression from the mountain?” She smiled.

Ciro was more of everything than she remembered; taller for sure, seemingly stronger, and his eyes a more vivid color, reminding her of the cliffs above Schilpario, where the branches of the deep green juniper trees met the bright blue sky. She noticed that Ciro carried himself differently. He possessed a particular swagger, an upright posture and a deliberate carriage, which Enza eventually, when she looked back on this moment, would identify as American. He even wore the uniform of the working class—durable wool work trousers with a thin leather belt, a pressed chambray shirt worn over an undershirt, and on his feet, proper brown leather work boots with rawhide laces.

“I should have written to you,” he said.

Enza took in the phrase should have, which she hoped meant that he wanted to write to her, not that he was obligated to do so. She said, “I went to the convent to see you, and the nun told me you were gone. She wouldn’t say where.”

“There was some trouble,” he explained. “I left in a hurry. There was no time to say good-bye to anyone except the sisters.”

“Well, whatever it was, I’m on your side.” She smiled shyly.

“Grazie.” Ciro blushed. He put his hand to his face and rubbed his cheek, as if to remove the pink flush of embarrassment. Now he remembered why he liked Enza; it wasn’t simply her dark beauty, it was her ability to get to the heart of things. “Are you going to Little Italy? We have a carriage. Most Italians go to Little Italy or Brooklyn.”

“We’re going to Hoboken.”

“That’s across the river,” Ciro said. “It’s not very far.” He seemed to think the distance over. “Can you believe I found you again?”

“I don’t think you were looking very hard,” she teased him.

“How do you know?”

“Intuition. It must have been very hard for you to leave the mountain.”

“It was.” Ciro could admit this to Enza, who came from the same place. He tried not to think about the mountain very much. He threw himself into his work, and when the day was done, he carefully laid out his leather and patterns for the next day. He allowed himself little time for outside amusement. It was as if he knew that the work would sustain him more than other pursuits. “Why did you leave?” Ciro asked her.

“You remember our stone house on Via Scalina? Well, the padrone broke his promise to us. We need a new house.”

Ciro nodded sympathetically.

“And how’s your padrone?” She motioned down the hallways toward Carla Zanetti.

“I didn’t know there were women like her in the world,” Ciro admitted.

“Maybe it’s good you find that out now.” Enza laughed.

“There you are!” Felicitá Cassio whisked down the hallway toward them. She wore a fashionable full skirt in a dusty-purple-and-white-striped silk with a matching shirtwaist in white. The hem of the skirt was hiked an inch to reveal a small fringe of cut lace, and lavender calfskin shoes tied with matching satin bows. She wore a proper straw hat with a white grosgrain ribbon band, and kid gloves upon her hands. Enza couldn’t help but admire the young woman’s dress and accessories.

Felicitá took Ciro’s wounded hand and kissed it. “What did you do?”

Enza’s heart sank as she realized Ciro and Felicitá were sweethearts. Of course he had a girlfriend, why wouldn’t he? And of course she would be beautiful. She was also stylish and bold, seemingly a perfect match for the new Ciro, the American Ciro. Enza’s face burned with embarrassment. While she had been dreaming of the boy from the convent, the last thing on his mind had been the girl from Schilpario.

“I can’t take my eyes off of you for a second!” Felicitá said. “Elizabetta told me you were bleeding all over Mulberry Street.”

“She should sell mozzarella instead of gossiping,” Ciro said, clearly embarrassed by the show of attention.

Ciro looked at Enza, who no longer met his gaze. Felicitá turned to face Enza. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Enza Ravanelli is a friend of mine from home,” Ciro said softly. Enza glanced up at him; she’d heard something in his voice, possibly regret.

“He has such a big heart,” Felicitá said, placing her gloved hand upon Ciro’s chest. Enza noticed how small Felicitá’s hand looked by comparison. “I’m not surprised that he makes a point to visit the sick.”

Ciro was about to correct Felicitá when Marco interrupted them.

“Enza, you should rest now.”

Nodding dutifully, Enza pulled the collar of her robe up around her neck. She wished her robe was made not of thick industrial cotton, but of silk charmeuse that made a soft swishing sound when a girl walked away from a handsome fellow she once had kissed.

“Enza, we’ll walk you back to your room,” Ciro said.

“No, no, the Zanettis are waiting for you. Besides, I know the way,” Enza said as she turned to walk down the hallway. She tried to walk away quickly, but she found that the steps back to her room were painful for an altogether different reason. There was no doubt: Ciro Lazzari had fallen in love with someone else.