A Heart Most Worthy (18 page)

25

Luciana swept her scarf back over her head, rushed down the stairs and into the street. “Have you seen my nonna?” She asked the question of everyone she met, the number of which were rapidly declining as the reach of the shadows was lengthening. People were going home for the night. Merchants were closing up their shops.

“Have you seen my grandmother?”

Answers to that question soon led her to the western end of North Bennet Street. And from there, up Salem Street, then to Charter Street. Apparently, an old woman had wandered that far. And no, she had not seemed to be in the company of anyone in particular.

The contessa had stopped, for a time, to watch a group of children jumping rope.

She had paused at a fish seller’s and asked him about his eels. Tried to buy a bun from the baker, telling him to send the bill to her son, the Count of Roma. The shopkeeper had laughed as he told her that.

But once Luciana had reached the corner at Commercial Street, her grandmother might as well have vanished. No one else had reported seeing her. And, truthfully, there was nowhere else for her to have gone. In front of Luciana ran an expanse of railroad tracks, and across the tracks several trolley sheds. To her right was a slaughterhouse, the stench of which pierced her nose and roiled her stomach. Had the contessa come this far, and she undoubtedly had, Luciana ought to have seen her. There was nowhere for her to hide.

Where had her grandmother gone?

The sun had already begun to disappear behind the roofs of distant buildings. The remaining rays of light were retreating from the scene before her. A train rumbled by above her, sending a shower of soot cascading down upon her.

There were so few places to look and even those few places were quickly being consumed by shadows.

O Signore, aiutaci a
. . . O God, help us to . . .

She paused, raised her eyes toward heaven.

Help me to . . . please. Help me to find my nonna.

It was the first time in a long time that she had prayed to God. And it was the first time she had ever prayed for something for herself. The very first time she had ever deviated from the Church’s standard, scripted incantations, and she didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what words to use. She only knew that among the tens of thousands of people in the North End that evening, the search for just one could not be very important and very likely not worth Signore’s time. But didn’t He know all? Didn’t He see all? And even if He hadn’t concerned himself with Luciana before, couldn’t He, even now, direct her steps to the place where her grandmother had gone? Didn’t He owe her at least that?

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Then opened them.

Luciana stepped into the street and crossed the road. Started across the railroad tracks. She still didn’t know where to look, and she was more than a little bit frightened by the idea of whom she might encounter in her search, but she knew she had to find her grandmother. And she had just prayed for help.

But could she trust God?

She had to. There was no one else to help her.

She peered into the trolley sheds. Walked the fence line of a massive storage tank. Picked her way across the city’s paving yard.

Stopped in at the fire station.

“Have you seen my – ”

And there was the contessa, sitting at a table, firemen standing in a half circle behind her. “
Suppli! Abbacchio alla scottadito!
” She had raised a hand, gesturing as if to a servant. Nonna wanted supper. Rice croquettes and lamb chops, to be specific. Apparently, she had been asking for them for quite some time; her voice was sharp with annoyance.

“
Mi scusino
. . .” Luciana stepped over the threshold and into the room.

All eyes turned in her direction.

“Ah! Ragazza. I don’t like this place. They won’t serve me any food. I keep asking and asking for supper, and they won’t bring me anything. Take me somewhere else.” She stood with great dignity. And then she glowered at the men. “
Imbecilli!
”

Luciana extended a hand.

The contessa slapped it away. She lifted her chin, collected her skirts, and walked out the door. Luciana tipped her head toward the men, then hurried to follow her around the building and over the railroad tracks as the woman retraced the elaborate series of twists and turns that she must have taken to arrive at the station.

They stopped in front of the now-shuttered bakery. Paused in the doorway of the fish seller. Peered down a darkened alley where, two hours before, a group of girls had played at jumping rope.

Once home, the contessa sat in her chair in front of the window. “I’ll have the suppli and the abbacchio alla scottadito.”

What she got was some less-than-tender maccheroni, some zucchini, and a plate of greens. But she ate it all without a disparaging word, then meekly went to bed.

It was only later that evening, once the contessa had fallen into a deep sleep, that Luciana remembered her prayer. She had prayed, straight to Signore, by herself. And He had responded, not to some lofty-sounding petition from one of his priests, but to a plea that Luciana had uttered on her own.

Maybe He did care after all.

Grazie, Signore.

But though the contessa lay beside her, blessedly given to sleep, Luciana’s problems had not been resolved. Not all of them. What about tomorrow? What if the contessa found her way outside once more? And what if she left the North End this time? What if she wandered out into the city at large? A world that would not understand an old woman’s Italian mutterings? To people that would not know what to make of her words?

Luciana rolled from the bed and went to sit in the contessa’s chair. She stared out the window, seeing nothing at all in that thick, hot, inky darkness.

She would have to find someone to watch her grandmother. Perhaps . . . weren’t there dozens of young mothers in the building? But who among them had the time or inclination to keep an eye on her wandering nonna when they had their own children to mind?

It would be different if her grandmother, or Luciana, had some skill that could be exchanged for the favor. An extra enticement that she could offer for the trouble. But what skills did the contessa have that would lessen the responsibilities of some young mother? The contessa had never changed a diaper or cleaned a child’s dirty face in her life.

Their situation would not have been so dire in Roma, with servants and diversions without number. Back there she might have devoted a servant or two to the contessa’s care. Or even cared for her grandmother herself. In Roma, Luciana had nothing but time. And she had been able to give, to dispense it, as she’d pleased.

Her time now had to be used to earn money.

Why hadn’t she given more serious thought to learning English back then? She used to laugh, she and her friends, at the hundreds of Englishmen and Americans who had trooped through Roma on their way to the ruins at Pompeii. They had watched them – those uncivilized, restive Americans – as they were dragged by local
terroni
all over the city. Over here: The Forum. And over there: The Coliseum. And right here, in front of you, all of the local beauties who are laughing at your uncivilized behavior. Why should she have had to learn the language of such a brash and uncouth people? That’s what she had told her father, the count.

He had laughed and nodded. “Why, indeed? Our people were educating barbarians and conquering continents before their own was even discovered.” Why, indeed?

Oh, the bitterness of hindsight! Oh, the irony of fate!

Maybe . . . should she go to the police? Tell them what happened in Roma? And that the man who had done it was here? She didn’t know enough English yet, not enough to be able to explain all of that. But even when she did, if the American police were anything like the Carabinieri in Roma – and she had no reason to think that they wouldn’t be – the voice of one lone woman would mean very little. Not if it weren’t backed by power. Or money.

Once both had flowed from her hands the way the strega’s jewels had poured from that pouch. But now she had neither.

She bowed her head, wishing she would never have to lift it again. That daylight would never come, that she would never again have to shoulder the burden of their survival.

But it was no use regretting lost opportunities. No use in wishing for the past. There was only here and now. There was a job in a gown shop and a package of maccheroni on the sideboard. A bed to sleep in and a chair to sit on.

One young ragazza and one old contessa.

She returned to the bed, closed her eyes, and prayed once more.

God had listened the first time. Perhaps He would listen again.

Please, Signore
.
If I had money, I would know what to do with it, but I have none. I need help. If not your own, then someone else’s. I don’t know what to do.

26

The next day, a Tuesday, Madame signed for a box, instructed the deliveryman to place it in the back room, then gave him a tip. Once he had gone, she opened it up and peeled back layers of tissue.

Bene
.

The fabric for Mrs. Quinn’s gown. She would have one of the girls on the second floor cut it and then she could give the collar to Luciana for beading. She placed a hand atop the gray-colored material, stroked its lustrous length. It was perfect. Perfect for the season, perfect for the style, perfect for the strega. The woman could be nothing but pleased.

Lifting the length from the box, she took it up to the second floor, asking that the pieces be returned to her immediately upon their cutting. Several hours later, one of the girls appeared at the edge of the shop floor. Madame waited until she had finished with her client to address the girl. And even then, she didn’t take the material from her. She cleared her desk of papers and ordered the pieces set down on top of it.

There was always something a little bit daunting about a stack of pieces. Something that felt a bit like trepidation . . . and excitement. Shot through with anxiety. Would they all come together the way they had been meant to? Would the gown actually fit the person it was intended for? And would the client like the result? Madame always enjoyed sitting, for just a moment, in front of the pieces and imagining herself a great, magical sorceress, breathing the gown into being. She didn’t do the sewing anymore. But it was still her hands, her genius, that produced the gowns made in the shop.

As Madame sat, feeling the promise before her, the girl disappeared around the corner, feet hitting the stairs as she scurried up to the familiar environs and relative safety of the second floor. None of them liked to venture down into the shop. Though filled with fancies and stocked with all the delights that money could buy, their world was lived abovestairs. And there they preferred to remain.

Madame smoothed the top piece on the pile. Such a fine luster. And a beautiful color. One of her favorites. She left her desk to open the safe and take out the pouch of jewels. Only –
che cosa?
– what?

They were gone!

Alternate waves of fear and rage swept Madame, first draining her cheeks of color and then marking them with a red, blotchy stain.

She bent her head to see inside the safe. Pushed a hand into its cool depths.

Nothing. Not one bag. Not one jewel.

The witch!

Hadn’t Madame maintained that she didn’t want them? And hadn’t Mrs. Quinn insisted all the same? Hadn’t the woman always spoken of taking her business elsewhere? Well, now she could.
Buona notte al secchio
. Soon, there would be no Madame Fortier to assist her.

No Madame Fortier at all.

They had been stolen? She felt around the safe one more time before concluding that, sì, indeed they had been. And what was there to do about it? She stood there in front of the safe like a supplicant before an altar.

Please, Signore
.

And what did she expect Him to do about it? When she hadn’t even darkened the door of a church in the past ten years? When she hadn’t ever gotten insured in the first place.

Sono una donna stupida!
Stupid woman! Couldn’t she have at least done that one thing?

There was a fortune in those jewels. And now she’d have to pay for them herself. Unless she found them. She’d have to find them. There was no other option. She had to recover the jewels. And in order to do that, she’d have to discover who had taken them.

Who had known of them? She’d start there. Who had known of them? The girls on the third floor.

Julietta, Annamaria, and Luciana.

She knew her girls. All of them. Knew there was no communication between the second and third floors. Luciana, in any case, didn’t know any of the girls on the second floor. She hadn’t come up from there. Annamaria knew them, of course, but she so rarely spoke to anyone. And with her work requiring such attention to detail, she had no time. And Julietta? That girl had enough pride about her that she wouldn’t deign to speak to anyone she thought inferior.

The thief was on the third floor. The thief had to be on the third floor.

But which girl was it?

Eyes flashing, chest heaving from the exertion of having pounded up two flights of stairs, Madame threw the door to the third-story workshop open. All three girls jumped at the sound. And then they quailed under Madame’s dark look.

Madame had rarely ever lost her temper. The first time was back in the beginning, before she’d hired anyone. She had – just once – yelled at a client. Not spoken pointedly. Not even talked distinctly. Madame had yelled. Loudly. The foolish woman had insisted on ordering a gown in dotted white voile, even though she was nearing sixty years of age, and then had the impudence to insist that she’d never ordered it at all once the gown had been made. The woman had never ventured inside the door of Madame Fortier’s again. The second time was . . . well, right at that instant. And in both cases, the fear of her audience had stemmed from the same root.

It stemmed from the nature of Madame.

Back in the beginning, that foolish client had hoped against hope that Madame wouldn’t act like an American. That she wouldn’t shriek and scream and rage, but instead react with the remote detachment and cool reserve that the woman was certain was European. And now, the girls on the third floor were terribly frightened that Madame was going to act like an Italian. That she would shriek and scream and rage, instead of reacting with the remote detachment and cool reserve that they had long ago decided was American.

In truth, Madame was neither American nor Italian. She had not yet, and never would, obtain so lofty a goal as to be mistaken for an American, but she had tried so hard to bury her ancestry that she was certainly not then, nor would she ever again be, Italian. It was to her credit in that endeavor that the girls on the third floor could not have said from which region in the old country that she had come. Indeed, could not say for certain that she had come from anywhere at all.

“The jewels have been stolen.”

Julietta’s face went white as she remembered a conversation she’d had about the jewels several days before. Luciana bit her lip as she thought about how she’d dreamed of the help those jewels could buy. And Annamaria’s gaze shot toward her lap as she remembered thinking how that fortune in jewels could buy freedom.

An astute observer such as you or I would have seen a stealthy look of guilt cross the face of each one of the girls. Madame, no less astute and no less observant, saw those looks as well. Saw each glance slide to the table and then to the floor. Saw hands clutch at themselves in each girl’s lap.

What did it mean? What did all of those gestures signify? “You are the only three among all of my girls who knew about the presence of those jewels.”

Still, no gaze rose to meet her own.

“Mrs. Quinn is to have her gown delivered on October twenty-first. The final fitting will be one week earlier. I expect to find the jewels in my safe by October seventh, in time for Luciana to work them onto the gown.” She didn’t. Not really. But she hoped with a fervency that would have rivaled Petrarch’s for Laura. “If they are not recovered by then, all of us will be out our jobs.” As she left the room, she was unable to stop herself from slamming the door.

Madonna mia. What was she going to do?

An uneasy silence reigned in the third-floor workroom the next day. The three girls had all had an evening to consider the theft of Mrs. Quinn’s jewels and the import of what Madame had implied. It was clear that one of them had stolen the jewels.

Julietta, though she knew who had done it, was trying desperately to convince herself that she didn’t.

Luciana, reliant on the shop’s continued viability, badly needed for the jewels to be found. She knew what rich people did when they thought they had been cheated. They exacted revenge in very costly ways. She knew it because she used to be one of them. And so she had worked long and hard trying to figure out who had done it.

It didn’t take long, that morning, for them to share what they knew. It was Annamaria who started it. She had been working on a slippery silk, smocking an intricate pattern of diamonds and double waves onto the tops of the pockets.

Pockets in a gown?
you might ask. Pockets in a gown of sorts. For do not forget: Madame’s was a shop that fulfilled all of her clients’ needs, from the ballroom to the bedroom. And so, as often as not, Annamaria performed her handiwork on nightgowns as well as ball gowns.

“You’d think this would be just what the Germans want.”

Both Julietta and Luciana looked up at her words, not quite believing that she had spoken. And not quite understanding what it was that she had meant. “What’s that?” Julietta finally asked her.

“You’d think this would be just what the Germans want: for America to use up all its money on fancy gowns and fancy underthings. Can you believe that some people spend fortunes on things like this?” She lifted up the fabric and gave it a bit of a shake. “For something that only gets worn at night?” She was irritated and peckish because she had spent too much time thinking about the coming wedding of her sister and Giovanni. And too little time in Zanfini’s store.

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly, Annamaria.”

The girl looked up at Julietta’s admonition.

“Some people can’t be trusted.” Julietta looked not at Annamaria but at Luciana as she said it. Because if the thief wasn’t the person she was hoping it wasn’t – and how she hoped it wasn’t! – then it had to be someone there in the room.

Luciana refused to allow her reputation to be tarnished. “I don’t know, Annamaria. Greed seems to me to be part of the soul of America. Observe: Julietta just got a new hat.”

She had indeed. She’d been eyeing it every day on the way to work for over a month. It was a smart, stylish little thing. She had some money, and she didn’t see why she shouldn’t spend it the way she wanted to.

“How much did it cost, Julietta?” Luciana spoke to her beads as she said the words, because she couldn’t bear to look upon the girl’s smug, haughty face. Hadn’t they just come to be friends? Of sorts? So why did she feel like Julietta’s words had been thrown toward her like spears?

“Do you want one like it?”

Luciana shrugged. At other times, in other places, she might have.

“You won’t be able to find it. Mine is the only one there is.” Julietta had made sure of it by fixing a wide ribbon around the crown, trimming the bow with a discarded belt buckle, and then adorning the ribbon with silk flowers. She’d stayed after several nights that week in order to do it. And missed out on attending a meeting with Angelo in the process. But the result had been worth it.

“I’m just wondering where you found the money to buy it.”

Thief.

“I’d think you’d have enough money now to buy something of your own.”

Luciana dared to look up. “You know that I don’t.”

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about you, would I?”

“And I wouldn’t sit here day after day, listening to the both of you, if it weren’t absolutely necessary!” Annamaria’s words echoed in the sudden and complete stillness.