“Shalom.” The lady watched after Elsa curiously.
By the time Elsa reached the car, Dominic Palazzini III had jumped out and opened the bright yellow taxi door for her. He was tall, like his wife, and matinee-idol handsome, with dark hair and eyes, a patrician nose like the movie star Robert Taylor, and expressive dark eyebrows. Elsa kissed him on the cheek. “Did they have what you needed?”
“Exactly what I needed.”
Dominic helped her into the front seat of the cab. “You only get what you want if you get here early,” he said as he closed the door behind her.
Dominic climbed into the driver’s seat. Elsa scooted next to her husband. She laced her arm through his. “Let’s take a drive on the river,” he said. “We’ll have the road to ourselves.”
Elsa checked her wristwatch. “The baby is getting up soon.”
“Ma’s there.”
“I don’t like to miss the morning.”
“You don’t like to miss anything, Elsa.”
Elsa smiled and placed her head on her husband’s shoulder as they headed toward home.
*
A few blocks away, a low fog the color of pink champagne floated over Montrose Street.
The south side of Philadelphia glistened. The dingy row houses had the patina of seashells, as the blouse factory’s gray entrance turned to polished silver in the morning light. The open trenches that scarred the street where the city had recently dug deep to install pipes weren’t gulleys of mud but moats, ancient rivers to protect the kingdom the city planners had named Bella Vista.
Nicky Castone tucked his lunch bag under his arm as he stood on the steps of 810 Montrose Street, where he had lived with his uncle Dom and aunt Jo and their sons since he was five years old. His first cigarette of the day dangling from his mouth, he closed the brass buttons on his uniform jacket with his free hand. The fresh menthol in the Lucky Strike stung his throat, filled his lungs, and woke him up. A storage tube hung from his shoulder on a wide leather strap. He adjusted it to tilt to the side, like a rifle.
Nicky not only noticed the sun as it rose over the neighborhood but reveled in its serene splendor. He saw beauty in the world, even when there wasn’t any. A certain kind of light, he figured, was like a veil on a bride at the altar of an arranged marriage: it obscured any defect while presenting mystery as potential. There was nothing wrong with that.
The air filled with the sweet scents of basil, lemon, and fresh earth. The Spatuzza boys, Nicky’s farmer cousins on his mother’s side from across the river in Jersey, had made their annual delivery during the night, dropping off the essentials for spring planting. The bounty was displayed on the porch steps like statues in a Roman atrium. There were pots filled with tomato plants, and urns holding fig trees, lemon trees, and boxwood topiaries. Crates of budding vegetable plants were arranged around wooden flats spiked with shoots of green herbs. It looked like Aunt Jo had ordered a sample of every plant that grew on the Eastern Seaboard. Their tags fluttered in the breeze like petals. Their official names written in Latin conjured memories of serving high mass as an altar boy: Nasturtium Gloria. Aster laevis. Specularia perfoliata.
As Nicky navigated his way through the dense foliage, he marveled at the Spatuzzas’ aesthetics. Italians make anything artful, including the delivery of manure.
Soon, under Aunt Jo’s supervision, the backyard, the rooftop, and the patches of earth that anchored the front porch would be planted. In a few weeks there would be mille fiori, explosions of color as flowers bloomed along the walkway. Come August the harvest from the garden would fill their al fresco table with Italian peppers, arugula, fennel, and cucumbers. Nicky could taste the zucchini blossoms already.
The tomato, the essential ingredient of any Palazzini dish, would multiply by the bushel on the roof garden. Close to the sun, they would grow red, plump, and sweet as they ripened. Eventually the women would pick them and place them in wooden baskets, which the men would haul down to the basement kitchen. There, the entire family was put to work as the tomatoes were cleaned, crushed, and canned, preserving enough jars of sauce to last through the long, gray Pennsylvania winter.
Nicky crossed the street to the garage, unlocked the rolling gate beneath the red tin sign: The Palazzini Cab Company and Western Union Telegraph Office, and pushed it off to the side. He lifted the iron staff from its hiding place over the door, hooked the loop, and unfurled the awning out over the sidewalk. Nicky reached up and gently smoothed the fabric, which had been patched in places, worn thin where the rain had beaten the supports and the elements had faded the stripes, once military bright.
He remembered when the canopy was new. Eight years later, the war was won, and everything had changed. There was the big stuff: families reconfigured, men lost forever, others’ futures uncertain. There were the small things, too, such as the welcome return of silk stockings and sugar. Some aspects of life on the home front had ended, including the government bond drives that brought beloved entertainers like Jimmy Durante to places like Palumbo’s in Philly to raise money for the cause. There would be no more sacrifice in victory, no need to collect scraps of metal to drop off at Army Surplus to make wheel spokes and bombs. It was all over.
When the boys had left for the war, Montrose Street had exhibited patriotic polish and pride. Flags were displayed on every building, and storefront windows were dressed with photographs of the soldiers whose families lived in the neighborhood. The Palazzinis’ awning, a blaze of red, with bold stripes of blue on a field of spotless white, looked like the flag. By the time Nicky returned, those hues had faded to gray and mauve and beige, the colors of the old men and the women who stood by them. Nicky talked to Uncle Dom about replacing the canopy, but he had gotten nowhere. “Does it keep you dry when it rains?” Dom had barked. “Canvas is expensive.” Uncle Dom put a price on beauty, and no matter the cost, it was always too high.
Nicky wished that Dom were more like his estranged uncle Mike, who did care about appearances. The awning on Pronto Taxi was replaced every year, whether it needed it or not. The red, white, and green stripes remained pristine, in snow, rain, and sun. There were extras, too: the flap that faced the street was embroidered with a cursive P in snazzy gold thread, and the poles that anchored the canopy to the sidewalk were made of polished brass.