“It sounds like a picture in a book,” Lena said.
“It was. I had two sisters, Ada and Edith. Ada was the beauty, and Edith was funny. My mother’s name was Anna. She taught violin. I never tried it because a poor student will make you hate the sound of it. I had a life of privilege, and it changed over time, slowly, like a leak in the roof that goes unattended—soon it destroys one room, and in time, the entire house. Small changes, little shifts, so insignificant as not to cause alarm, happen, and you ignore them because they don’t seem important. There were very few of us in Lanckorona—we went to Brody for holy days, because the synagogue was there. At home, we kept Shabbat and our prayers and our traditions. My father would receive letters from the state, and he would abide by whatever he was asked to do—again, no urgency. He continued to teach, and he didn’t notice anything odd at the school until one day he was dismissed from his position of twenty-seven years without any cause. Suddenly we didn’t receive our mail, we had to go to the post to collect it. My mother had ordered certain foods for our holiday table, and one day the butcher wouldn’t sell her the meat and the baker refused to make our bread. We believed we had done something wrong, or offended our friends. We didn’t know it was happening everywhere. Or maybe we suspected it, but we couldn’t believe it.”
Mabel reached out to her. “What happened to your family?”
“We were separated in Dachau. My only prayer was that they stay together. Dominic found out what happened to them.”
“They were together,” Dominic said quietly.
“Dominic found me in the work camp.”
“Elsa was the only person in her family that was spared.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Elsa said to her husband.
“Why?”
“You should have married a nice American girl. A nice Philly girl. You found a hopeless girl when you deserve a happy one.”
“I didn’t want a girl from the neighborhood. I wanted you. What difference would it have made if we met in Atlantic City on the boardwalk or if I found you holding a dance card wearing a flower in your hair at the Knights of Columbus dance?”
“Highly unlikely. No Jewish girls go to that dance,” Uncle Dom said.
“Okay, wherever it would have been, under whatever circumstances, I would have fallen in love with you. You’re my wife. You’re the mother of my son.”
“I want to go to temple,” Elsa said quietly.
The room was quiet, and now it was also hot. Nino reached up to open the levered windows.
“All right. I’ll go with you. And we’ll bring the baby,” Dominic promised.
The room was silent except for the sound of the creak of the rocking chair as Uncle Dom rocked to and fro. After a while Aunt Jo spoke.
“What about Christmas?”
“What about it, Ma?”
“It means family.”
“So do Elsa’s holidays, Aunt Jo.”
“You can’t be both things. You can’t be a Catholic and a Jew. You have to pick, and you can’t confuse the boy.” Uncle Dom hit the arm of the rocker for emphasis.
“Aunt Jo is devout. Uncle Dom, you never go to church. Your boys didn’t have to pick between being Catholic and whatever it is you are. Why should your grandson?” Nicky asked.
“Why can’t he be both?” Lena proposed.
“When Catholics marry outside the church, they are banished. I have a cousin in Rochester who married a divorced Presbyterian, and she might as well be on a chain gang,” Mabel said, worried.
“After what Elsa has been through, I think she has a choice,” Nicky said.
“It’ll be a year-long extravaganza of holidays over here,” Uncle Dom groused.
“So what? Now you have the extra room to roll the kreplach.” Nicky smiled. “This one.”
“What will Father Mariani say?” Mabel wondered. “He can be a stickler and a pill. He wouldn’t let my cousin Noogie Finelli get married in a sheer sleeve, said it was too revealing. Said it would offend Jesus. What’s he going to say about two religions in one house?”
“Dom and I will pay him a visit with the grappa. And we’ll explain the situation. He’ll agree to our . . . situation—”
“New tradition,” Nicky interjected.
“And if he doesn’t, Daddy will build him a new rectory. Right, Dom?”
“It all comes down to the plate. Never forget it. It all comes down to the plate. You give to Mother Rome, and she sticks it to you,” Uncle Dom assured them.
“Now that you’ve made it clear how we earn our eternal salvation, I think I’ll sign up for novena,” Mabel said.
“You do that. And pray for me. Because I pray for you. I may not go to church, but it’s in here.” Dom thumped his chest.
“I should get going, so you can fight over who gets my room. And besides, if I don’t get out of here, somebody will have another baby, and there will be no end to the good-byes.” Nicky embraced each of his cousins. Mabel, who everyone believed was made of something stronger than Bethlehem steel, found herself weeping uncontrollably. Gio held his wife.
“Thank you,” Elsa whispered in Nicky’s ear.
“They took it well.”
“How did you know?”
“You had the key all along.”
“I did?” Elsa’s eyes widened.
Nicky looked at his Uncle Dom, holding his first grandson, baby Dom, as Dominic fussed over him. “A little Italian tip for the Polish girl. The mother of the prince is always a queen.”
Nicky embraced Elsa. He picked up his suitcase.
Aunt Jo called out, “Wait. We have a present for you.”
Gio emerged from the basement kitchen, holding a large box with a bow on it. Nicky’s cousins burst into applause as he opened the gift. Nicky lifted the lid off a box of a full set of dishes, service for twelve, white ceramic with a daisy-chain pattern on the edge.
“You were supposed to get them at your wedding shower,” Mabel blurted. “But that went south.”
“Thank you, Aunt Jo.”
“Don’t thank her. Thank the First National Bank of Philadelphia.”
Nicky climbed the stairs with his dishes and his suitcase. The cousins followed behind him, single file, until they made it upstairs to the kitchen and into the light.
“You know? His room ain’t half bad,” Uncle Dom said to Aunt Jo on the stairs. “We could rent it out.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“It could be a honeymoon suite.” Dom pinched his wife’s behind.
“On the other hand, we could rent it out,” Jo decided.
The family followed Nicky through the dining room on his way to the front door. Nicky knelt next to Nonna’s chair in the dining room. She was napping under the afghan. “Nonna? It’s Nicky.”
Nonna opened her eyes.
“I’m moving out. I’m going to start a new life. I’m going to New York City to be an actor.”
“Be good and don’t take any shit off of anybody,” Nonna said, then went back to sleep.
“The wisdom of the ages,” Uncle Dom said, “that goes for all of you.”
*
Nicky carried the box of dishes on his right shoulder and the suitcase on his left, balancing the load, as he descended the porch steps onto Montrose Street, where Hortense was waiting for him on the sidewalk.
“I see. You were going to sneak off.”