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Children of Liberty
Paullina Simons
From Paullina Simons who brought you the unforgettable The Bronze Horseman comes the much-anticipated Children of Liberty.“Never forget where you came from.”At the turn of the century and the dawning of the modern world, Gina sails from Sicily to Boston’s Freedom Docks to find a new and better life, and meets Harry Barrington, who is searching for his own place in the old world of New England.She is a penniless unrefined immigrant, he a first family Boston Blue-blood, yet they are hopelessly drawn to one another. Over their denials, their separations, and over time, Gina and Harry long to be together. Yet their union would leave a path of destruction in its wake that will swallow two families.



Children of Liberty
Paullina Simons



Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2012
Copyright © Paullina Simons 2012
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2012
Cover photograph © Aria Baro/Trevillion Images
Paullina Simons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007241569
Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007484034
Version: 2015-03-31
To my good friend Nick,
without whom this book, and many things,
might never have been
The world was all before them, where to choose
John Milton
Each of us Inevitable;
Each of us Limitless—
Walt Whitman
Contents
Cover (#u4de7b314-cd7a-5eed-ae80-ac9bb2db2306)
Title Page (#u4f4edbce-fa6c-5a12-bd90-9816d67b68c7)
Copyright (#ucd63d463-b3cf-58db-a962-f713a7cfc2a4)
Dedication (#u15a00b1d-8fbd-5ca2-96d2-838f5ea17cce)
Epigraph (#u4eb917d9-2756-5bfa-8d9d-27ea45f4f855)
Maps (#udaba21d1-5446-53fa-bf28-4295208cdd43)
Part One: The Barber’s Daughter (#uee0198ce-87f3-555c-abda-90aa01aa125e)
Chapter One: Daughter of the Revolution (#uefa4027d-ee66-5608-9f0c-6b9e81e27a86)
Chapter Two: Sons of Liberty (#ubaadcc82-a9a3-55e9-ace1-82b97f7c07da)
Chapter Three: North End (#udc53af12-ebd1-5696-b607-53a4f40dab8c)
Chapter Four: Great Expectations (#u4e45bf5e-4847-5c54-8f31-ffc3f5f3fd07)
Chapter Five: Summer Street (#u2799517f-065a-51c6-a845-0ca5a7176ca5)
Chapter Six: A Sunday in a Small Town (#ufe51deea-74de-5292-aa68-b577b0ea6e1a)
Chapter Seven: Immigrants, Debutantes, Students (#u3a8d8e4a-6fb2-58d1-a480-2b801a100fa8)
Chapter Eight: The Rewards of Mission Work (#u6c88da11-efd3-5e70-b050-bdf62247a807)
Part Two: The Objection Maker (#u8b091f35-4c33-534f-a770-bcd82f023d04)
Chapter Nine: The Natives and the Pilgrims (#u500635f6-68fd-56a0-abbd-dff6f0df3405)
Chapter Ten: In the Boston Winter (#u41453c63-7ecb-54f1-b25a-8c1ef91f67fd)
Chapter Eleven: The Quarry (#ua4168341-eff8-5f63-8f26-6c0c55ad6600)
Chapter Twelve: Tulips (#ub613fa61-5ff7-570a-8b1d-566f56c3ad28)
Part Three: Earth’s Holocaust (#u613676eb-b64c-5627-a604-7482a8de5101)
Chapter Thirteen: Minstrel Songs (#u17c06e54-f144-5773-8e7f-798a129fbce1)
Chapter Fourteen: The High Priestess of Anarchy (#u4aba1375-c009-5593-bb62-ef0c2ee760c6)
Chapter Fifteen: On their Knees by the Sea (#uc1961337-ff45-5d3e-bc2a-ca3fefc52aa1)
Chapter Sixteen: Violet Catastrophe (#u3dbb16e2-5066-5f7a-9dfa-90cff43abfd7)
Chapter Seventeen: The Marble Faun (#ub7d7e3bf-9af7-5d8b-96d4-a57407b76346)
Chapter Eighteen: Earth’s Holocaust (#u3a346a72-bd41-5876-802d-f7420d8342f5)
About the Author (#ud5dc4026-3f06-5395-ac07-ecd08dd17a80)
By the same author (#uba4b0faa-fa04-5aa1-bf3b-841cd934d541)
About the Publisher (#u8f5aae03-910f-5cad-9217-bf236d109ad2)






Part One



THE BARBER’S DAUGHTER
Love—what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair
Robert Louis Stevenson

Chapter One
DAUGHTER OF THE REVOLUTION
THERE had been a fire at Ellis Island the year before Gina came to America with her mother and brother in 1899, and so instead of arriving at the Port of New York, they had set sail into the Port of Boston.
Salvo had been in a bad mood since the day they left Napoli. He had left his sweetheart behind—the girl wouldn’t part with her family. This, among other things, soured him on his. He refused to stay with the girl he loved, but resented his family for his own choice. “As if Mimoo and Gina could go to America by themselves,” he scoffed.
“We don’t have to go, Salvo,” his mother said, and meant it.
“Mimoo!” cried Gina. “What would Papa say?”
“Papa, Papa. Well, where is he, if he is so clever?”
It was summer and Gina wished for a cloudless day. She stood at port on tiptoe and gaped at the sky, wishing for a view of what they had been sailing to for weeks: a city line across the wide open bay to show them the glimpse of a life that was just around the corner. Stretching up she squinted straight into the July fog, her palm in salute to focus her sights on what she had imagined was urban beauty: sprawling metropolis bustling, smokestacks billowing, ships to and fro, civilization. But she could see nothing beyond the thick slate mist and oppressive melancholy. “Ahoy, Salvo!” she called, despite the lack of sight. “Come see!”
Salvo did not come see. Like a sack he sat behind her on the main deck and smoked, his arm around his black-clad mother. They had just lost their father. Five of them had been planning to go to America for seven years, but Gina’s oldest brother had been killed in a knife fight six months ago. A drunken mob had run amok, Antonio had got caught in the middle, there was a struggle with the police, people trampled by horses. It wasn’t a military knife that had taken him, but a hunting knife. Like it mattered—Antonio was still dead.
And less than three months later Papa’s heart stopped.
Papa had wanted to go when the children were still small, but Mimoo refused. She wouldn’t go without money. Imagine! Going to America, starting a new life with nothing. Assurdo! She wasn’t going to come to America a village pauper. But we are village paupers, Mimoo, the great Alessandro had said. He didn’t argue further, there was no point. Gina’s mother declared that when she came to America, she would walk in on her own two feet, not crawl in with her hand outstretched. Papa agreed with that, but then he died.
Some of the money the Attavianos had saved went for Alessandro’s funeral. But Mimoo had promised her husband she would go to America no matter what, and so, a month after he was buried, they borrowed just enough for three steerage beds. When Gina said borrowed, she meant stole: her mother’s older sister took the money from the kitchen lock box of their blind father, putting a note inside which he couldn’t read, saying that the “debt” would be repaid when Mimoo and her children got on their feet in the new land.
Salvo, the middle child, had told Gina, the baby, that Massachusetts Bay, emptying into Boston Harbor, was almost as wide as the ocean that fed it. A vast expanse of water flowed in from three corners of the globe, peppered with flat, green, rocky islands. Lighthouses stretched up from the rocks. Gina was eager to see these lighthouses, these islands. “That’s the problem, Gina,” Salvo said. “You can’t. Lighthouses are supposed to be beacons to guide your way? You can’t see them either in this fog. That’s how it always is. Can’t see nothing until the rocks you’re about to crash into are already upon you. Much like life.”
Frowning, Gina stepped away from her brother and he looked self-satisfied, as if that was exactly what he wanted. She watched the water, wondering what instruments you needed to navigate waters you couldn’t see ten feet in front of, if instruments like that even existed. Please don’t let us crash against the rocks when we are so close. Was that likely?
“If you can’t see where you’re going? I’d say more than likely.” Salvo smirked. He was a maestro smirker. He had an elastic face, ideal for grimaces and sneers. His condescension was so irksome.
She walked from the stern to the bridge to talk to the second in command who was standing like a monument at the bow, peering through a telescope. What impressive concentration. She told him what her brother had said, and asked him to deny it.
“He is right.”
“So how does the ship not crash?”
The adjutant showed her. On the map in the blue, black oval marks were circled in red. “We try to avoid those.”
“How?”
“By navigating away from danger. We have a map.” He tapped on it impatiently.
She left. “What if you don’t know where the danger is?” she called to him. “What if you don’t have a map?”
“Well, you wouldn’t set out on a voyage without knowing where you’re going, would you?” he called back to her, young and smart-alecky.
The ship seemed to stay on course due straight, though it was hard to tell. The bay below looked the same as the sky above, like granite. There was a whipping wind, and the waters were choppy.
Gina’s mother started throwing up again. The journey had been relatively uneventful except for the vomiting. Mimoo’s stomach couldn’t endure what Salvo and Gina bore with no problem. It’s hard to be old, Gina thought, bringing her mother a fresh towel, a new paper bag. Yet Mimoo was so brave, at nearly forty-five heading west into the possibilities no one could see.
“It’s unseemly for you to be this excited,” Salvo said to Gina, watching her skip across the gun deck, inhaling the ocean air.
“It’s unseemly for you not to be excited,” she replied. “The sails are set and filled with wind, Salvo! Why did we even set off with your attitude?”
“Why indeed,” Salvo muttered.
“It’s what Papa wanted. You want to go against the will of your father?”
“It isn’t what we planned,” her brother said.
Gina didn’t want to admit to grumpy Salvo that her own excitement waned when she couldn’t see where she was going. She had imagined it differently—there was going to be abundant sun, twinkling lights, perhaps a sunset over the skyline, tall buildings to welcome her, a dramatic invitation into the new life, an arduous voyage that ended with a landscape full of color. She hadn’t expected gray fog.
She remained on deck at the railing, looking for a sign, hoping for a sign.
Just like Papa had dreamed, his remaining children would build a different life in the awe-inspiring vast land. While Mimoo pinched pennies, Papa taught his children to read so they wouldn’t be illiterates. And then he taught his children English. If only Papa hadn’t gone and died. Never mind. Gina could read, and she could speak a little English. Her wavy hair was getting tangled standing on the windward side of the open waters. Mimoo had ordered her to tie it back up, but there was something undeniably appealing in the image of herself in a light blue dress, standing like a reed with her long, tanned arms like stalks on the rails, her espresso hair flying in the drizzle and mist, all against the backdrop of steel gray. If only someone could paint a picture of her searching for America while the wind was wild in her hair. It pleased her to draw this picture in her mind. Sure, we might crash against the rocks like Salvo predicted, but this is how I’m going to stand in my last minutes, proud and unafraid.
Gina didn’t really believe they would crash. She believed she was immortal, like all the young.
Eventually she got cold and went back to sit with her family. Like three sacks they sat huddled, their hands folded on their knees, her mother holding the rosary beads, worrying them between her fingers, her mouth mutely moving over the words of “Ave Maria” and the invocations of God. Mary, pierced with the sword of sorrow … Maria, trafitto dalla spada del dolore. Her mother said that loudly enough for Gina to hear, so she could respond with pregate per noi. But Gina was not in a praying mood. So she tutted under her breath, saying nothing, and her mother tutted, not under her breath, and moved closer to Salvo who took his mother’s hand and echoed, pray for us.
“Do you think she is grieving, Salvo?” Mimoo asked about Gina, though Gina was sitting right there and could hear.
“Of course, Mimoo. She just hides it. She grieves where we can’t see.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mimoo. “When you mourn, everyone knows. You can’t keep such secrets.”
After a short glare across their mother at Gina, Salvo kept pointedly quiet. Gina knew that Salvo knew his sister could indeed keep secrets. She hid her first crush (no easy feat in a town where everyone knew everyone else). Hid her tasting too much wine at the Feast of the Holy Theotokos. Hid not going to confession every week. Made a big show of pretending to go, then didn’t. Was that in itself a sin? Hid her terrible grades. Even hid not knowing English as well as her father believed she did. Pretended she knew it better!
All the things Gina had to keep to herself, she kept to herself. Like her anxiety now. She was worried about the stark contrast between the anticipation of their sun-filled arrival and the ocean of blindness the ship was actually navigating through. She went to find the co-captain again.
“How far do you think we are?” she asked.
He pointed. It was like pointing at the wheel he was holding. “The docks are less than a kilometer away. What, you can’t see?”
When she ran to tell her brother and mother they were almost at land, they didn’t believe her. They were right not to, for the ship took another two hours to reach the shore. She could have swum faster! She was going out of her mind with impatience and boredom.
“Where’s the fire?” Salvo demanded. “Where are you planning to rush off to? What do you think will happen when you walk ashore? What, you think your whole life is going to change the minute you step off this boat?”
Gina had thought so a week earlier, somewhere near Iceland. But into his imperious expression, she said, “Don’t be so negative, Salvo. No nice American girl is going to want you when you get like this.”
“Who said I want an American girl?” He swore, then quickly apologized to Mimoo. He was usually such a good sport about things. Nothing could get Salvo down for long. His good looks and cheerful disposition assured him of finding comfort when he needed it. This late afternoon, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the masthead, watching the dockhands tie up the boat. Though she was four years younger and a girl, they were nearly the same height, Gina and Salvo. Gina was actually taller. No one could figure out where she got the height; her parents and brothers were not tall. Look, the villagers would say. Two piccolo brothers and a di altezza sister. Oh, that’s because we have different fathers, Gina would reply dryly. Salvo would smack her upside the head when he heard her say this. Think what you’re saying about our mother, he would scold, crossing himself and her at her impudence.

Chapter Two
SONS OF LIBERTY
MIMOO disembarked on Gina’s arm. Salvo pushed their three trunks on a dolly, bobbing down the plank. Gina was wobbly herself from being so long at sea.
They passed through the health control tent before they were allowed to step foot onto solid ground. No leaky eyes, no unexplained rashes, no single women traveling alone, all papers in order. Slowly they dragged their steamer trunks behind them.
“I don’t feel so good,” Mimoo said. “Where are we?”
Gina looked around for a sign. “Some place called the Long Wharf. Or Freedom Docks,” she said pointing. Her hair was hidden in a respectable bun as Mimoo had ordered.
“You’re just excited, Mimoo,” Salvo said. “Sit. Get your bearings.”
“You are a fool, Salvatore,” his mother said.
“I am not!”
Mimoo was a stout, solid woman dressed from her gray head to flat toe in widow’s black. “I haven’t kept anything down for six weeks. I am not remotely excited.”
They all sat down for a rest on a low wall near the water. So many people had left the boat before them that all the benches by the waterside had been taken by other families. The mother prayed, the brother and sister wiped their brows, glanced at each other. Where to now? Where to get some water? It was loud and chaotic; a swarm of seagulls flapped overhead, anticipating food.
“Señora! Señor! Señorita!” A sturdy male voice sounded to the right of them. Turning toward the tenor they were confronted with two young men, beaming and American, the taller one carrying a jug of water and bread, the other one a wicker basket with shiny red apples and half-moon oddities with thick yellow skin.
“Señora!” the shorter, friendlier of the two exclaimed again. He took off his skimmer hat and bowed to them, turning to face Gina. When he straightened out, he smiled widely at her, his brown eyes locked in. He seemed like the most genial of young men. He was open of face, effusive, extroverted. “You look tired and thirsty, please, let us help you, we have water.” Putting down his basket, he deftly grabbed the jug from his mate and poured water into a small metal cup, handing it to the sitting Mimoo. “Here, drink, señora. We have a little bread. Harry, offer them some. Would you like to try a banana?” He lifted his basket to show Gina. “They’re an extraordinary delicacy from the southern Americas, soon to be available all over the world.” Gina wanted the apple, but it would have been messy to eat. She didn’t want juice running down her chin as she was trying to look lady-like. Salvo, not caring about his chin juices, grabbed the apple. No one eyed the bananas with anything but rank distrust.
“I’m Ben Shaw,” the amiable man said to her. “Absolutely delighted to make your acquaintance.” He smiled.
The quiet taller boy stepped forward. “Would you like some bread? Or just the water?” He was rumple-haired and wiry, but wore a smart suit with a vest and tie, though the starched white shirt was coming loose from the trousers and the silk tie was askew. One of his gold cufflinks was about to fall off. Gina’s father would’ve liked him—he wasn’t boisterous. He had clever, serious eyes. Gina decided he was shy, which she found instantly appealing. He watched her calmly, not friendly, but not unfriendly either. She smiled at him—nothing timid about her—showing him her white Italian teeth, her gleaming unsubdued eyes, her flushed face. “I’ll take some bread, please,” she said in English. “Hello.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Gina.”
“I’m Harold,” he said, leaning forward, extending his. “Harry. Pleased to meet—”
But before he could finish, or touch her, Salvo stepped between them, his back to his sister. “I’m Salvatore Attaviano,” he said, shaking Harry’s hand. “Gina’s older brother.” She had no choice but to retreat, tutting with frustration, and pinching her ridicolo brother hard between his shoulder blades.
“I’d like some bread, Salvo,” she said with irritation. “Would that be all right?”
Salvo broke off a piece from Harry’s loaf and handed it to her. She grabbed it from him. “This is our mother, Maria,” he told the two men. “But everyone calls her Mimoo.”
“Even her children?” Ben smiled.
“Especially her children,” Gina said, moving this way and that.
Ben brought some bread to Mimoo. “Where are you headed?” he asked. “Can Harry and I help you, take you somewhere? We have a carriage waiting.”
Mimoo nodded vigorously from her sitting position on the wall. “I can’t walk, my ankles are swollen. Salvo, tell him a ride would be most welcome.”
“We need to get to a train station,” Salvo said. “We are going to Lawrence.”
“Lawrence!” Ben exclaimed. “Whatever for?”
Gina began to speak, to explain the significance of Lawrence, but Salvo cut her off. “That is where we are going. What is it to you?”
Ben shrugged, unprovoked. “It’s nothing to me,” he said. “E niente. Just trying to, um, aiutare.” They bickered in two broken languages.
“Help me by pointing out the train station,” retorted Salvo.
“All right. But you’ll have to sleep at the station. Last train was at four.” Harry nudged him in the back with his fist and rolled his eyes. Ben didn’t glance back. Everyone looked up at the clock tower downtown. Four fifteen, the clock read. Salvo swore not so quietly under his breath.
“How about this,” Ben said in an animated voice. “Go tomorrow. Tonight you stay at one of our apartments.” He shook his head when he saw Salvo’s face. “No charge. As our guests.”
“Why would you do that?” Salvo asked with suspicion. “What do you get?”
Harry kept knocking into Ben’s shoulder as if to stop him from talking. Ben stepped away. “Harry, it’s fine. It’s just one night.” He smiled at Gina, still half hidden behind Salvo. “My friend and I manage several apartment buildings near here in an up-and-coming area, full of Italians like yourselves. We rent apartments, and then help you find jobs, loan you a few dollars.”
If Salvo’s eyes had been any narrower, they’d be slit shut. “Why do you do it? You do it like … caritá?”
“A little bit, yes, indeed!”
“We don’t need your caritá,” Salvo said. “We are not povera.”
“Then it’s not charity,” Ben said, just as firmly. “No, sir. It’s a loan is what it is. We lend you the money, and you pay us back when you find work.”
“We don’t borrow money,” Salvo said. “And never from strangers.”
Ben looked like he’d been outplayed. Gina shook Salvo’s sleeve. It had become muggy, and everyone was wet with perspiration. The sun wasn’t shining, yet it was stifling hot, and the air wasn’t moving. At sea it had been cool, with a breeze. Now it felt like the coal kilns were on all at once. Gina would not acknowledge the oppressive standstill air, the drops of sweat trickling from her forehead. One drifted into her mouth. She licked it surreptitiously, trying to act cooler. She caught Harry’s amused yet distant eye. Both men wore suits and the suits seemed to be of the same good quality. But for some reason, disheveled Harry looked like he was born in a suit, while tidy Ben looked like his had been given to him.
“Leave them alone, Benji,” Harry said, motioning away his friend. “They’ll be all right.” He pointed to another nearby family of five or six resting with their belongings. “Let’s try them.”
“No!” Gina whirled to her mother beseechingly and to her brother accusingly, yanking on him, stepping in front of him. “It’s just for one night, Salvo,” she whispered vehemently. “Don’t be such a ninny.” She wasn’t above bullying him with her height if the situation called for it. And clearly the situation was screaming for it now. If Salvo had his way, these two nice well-dressed gentlemen would be helping some other family.
Salvo shook his head. “No, Gia. It’s one night too long. We can’t repay them.”
“You don’t have to repay us,” Ben interjected, overhearing. “Really. The apartment is furnished and vacant. Use it like a hotel room. If you like, you can pay for dinner. That should cover the cost of the room. Dinner and wine. And tomorrow morning you can go to Lawrence.” Ben’s expression read, though why you would want to is beyond me. And Salvo’s expression read, I would rather sleep on the street like a drunk than take one of your empty rooms.
It was Mimoo who ended the impasse. “Salvo, your mother is exhausted. Say thank you to these two men. We accept.”
Gina nearly clapped. Thank God for her practical-minded mother. She knew Salvo would never relent; his pride was too great. She never understood that. Did that mean she had no pride? She didn’t think so. It just meant she wouldn’t let foolish pride stand in the way of what she really wanted. And what she really wanted was to see what the two young men were offering her family. “Pride is a peccato capitale, Salvo,” she whispered into his ear as they hurried to help their mother.
“Lust and sloth also, sister,” he retorted.
“Our carriage is waiting for you just there,” Ben said to Mimoo, solicitously taking her elbow and pointing to the far end of Freedom Docks, toward the city, where a number of other carriages stood arrayed, waiting for fares. “Will you be all right walking?”
Mimoo smiled at Ben. Salvo, who saw everything, muttered a bad word to the heavens. “Young man, I just traveled six thousand kilometers. Will I be all right walking a hundred meters? Let’s go. Let me take your arm.”
Gina walked behind Ben and Mimoo, pulling her own trunk, exorbitantly pleased. Salvo dragged the rest of the baggage. “Where did you learn to speak Italian, young man?” Mimoo asked Ben.
“Oh, just a word here and there to help us with our business. Most of the immigrants we greet are Italians.”
She appraised him approvingly. “Are you a good son to your mother?” she asked.
“I am a son,” Ben allowed.
“She must be proud of you.” She glanced back at Gina, walking next to Harry, and frowned. “You two are brothers?”
“In spirit,” Ben said, “In spirito santo.”
Salvo managed not only to drag the two largest trunks, but also to walk ahead of everyone else, as if he knew where he was going.
“Your brother is leading the way?” Harry quietly asked Gina with a shrug. “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
Gina didn’t quite understand, but she couldn’t speak even teasingly against her brother to a stranger. Before she could think of something witty to say, Mimoo disengaged from Ben and motioned her to come. “Gia, come here. Walk with me. Let the men carry the heavy things.”
Gina hurried ahead, taking Mimoo’s elbow, freeing Ben to direct Salvo to the appropriate horse and carriage.
“Your mother is a wonderful woman,” Ben said to Salvo, stopping at a sickly gray mare.
Salvo eyed him with disdain. In Italian he said, “What you’re trying to get next to my mother too?”
Ben didn’t understand the words, but got the gist. With a tip of his hat, he stopped making nice to Salvo and untied the straps of the open wagon. The mare didn’t look like it would live through the ride with the trunks. It didn’t look like it would live through the heat of the evening.
After the baggage was loaded, Mimoo and Gina climbed up and sat in the open carriage facing the road, while Ben and Salvo perched on the bench opposite and Harry climbed into the driver’s seat, grabbing the reins. The pale horse lurched forward, its jerking motion nearly dislodging the carefully arranged and roped trunks on the rear rack. Ben admonished his friend to be more careful.
“I’ll try,” Harry said, “but you know it’s my first time at the reins.”
Ben calmed Mimoo down. “He is only joking. Harry, stop it, you are frightening our lovely passengers.” Even Mimoo smiled benevolently at being called bellissima. Salvo looked ready to punch him.
“Will this take long?”
“Not too long. But it’s dinner hour. The traffic will be heavy. We’re about a mile away. We’re headed to an area of Boston called the North End. Have you heard of it?”
“I haven’t, no,” Gina said. “Is it nice?”
“You’ll see.” Ben smiled at her. She smiled back. Salvo glared at her. She stopped smiling and stuck out her tongue at her brother.
“So what’s in Lawrence?”
“Our cousin Angela lives in Lawrence,” Salvo said, directing Ben’s attention to himself. “She is waiting for us. She thinks we are arriving today. We are going to live with her.”
“Is this Angela going to get you a job?” Ben asked.
“Are you?”
“Of course.” Ben looked across at Gina. “What do you like to do, Miss Attaviano?”
“Please call me Gina.” She smiled. “I like to swim.”
“Hmm. I don’t know if I can get you a job swimming,” he said. “Harry, what do you think?”
Harry said nothing, and Mimoo sat with her hat down over her heavy-lidded eyes, as if seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Suddenly she said to Gina in Italian, “Gia, think how wonderful—soon we will celebrate your birthday in our new country.”
“Yes, it’s good,” echoed Gina, puzzled at the sudden change of topic, and opened her mouth to continue talking to Ben about her other interests and hobbies, like running, planting flowers, making tomato paste, delicious crusty bread, occasionally singing.
Mimoo’s eyes opened slightly, to take in Ben across from them, to make sure he was listening. “We should do something special for your fifteenth birthday, no?” she said to her daughter. “Salvo, what do you think?”
“Do I look at this moment like I care, Mimoo?” said an exhausted yet watchful Salvo.
But you know who did look at that moment like he cared? Ben. For all his declarations about barely speaking Italian, he managed to understand the only important thing in Mimoo’s statement: the tender age of her only daughter. Gina was only quattordici!
His crestfallen face said everything. Above Ben’s head, Harry’s slim shoulders bobbed up and down as if he was laughing.
“Well, then, yes—um—excuse me for a moment,” Ben said, getting up suddenly. “My friend doesn’t know where he is headed. I must direct him.” He climbed up to sit next to Harry, grabbing the reins out of his mirthful hands.
Gina pulled the bonnet over her own eyes, to hide from the disappointment on the American’s downcast face. Mimoo was such a troublemaker. What was the harm anyway?
“I’ll tell you what the harm is,” Mimoo whispered semi-privately. “You’re too young for their attention. Do you hear me? This isn’t Belpasso, you running around barefoot in the dusty gulleys with children. These are American men. They’re probably older than your only living brother. You think this is what your father wanted for you, to get yourself in the family way at fourteen with men in their twenties? Troppo giovane!”
“Mimoo! Family way? We were just talking.”
“How do you think it all starts, o naive child? You think it goes straight to baby-making?”
“Mimoo!” hissed a mortified Gina. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
“Correct, this is not open for discussion. Stay far away.”
Pulling away from her mother, Gina leaned forward, to hear better what Ben and Harry were whispering about. But the city was too loud, the hooves on the stones were too tap-tappy, and Mimoo pulled her back, keeping her daughter close.
“I told you,” Harry was saying to Ben. “I warned you. As soon as I saw her from a distance, do you remember what I said to you?”
“Yes, yes. You said she was trouble. You were wrong then, and you’re wrong now.”
“Benjamin, I know about these things. She is trouble.”
“You know nothing except the idiocy you glean from your insipid books that tell you nothing about life. You don’t know how to live.”
“And you do?”
“Yes, I do. She is not trouble. She is Life!”
Harry rolled his eyes to the heavens. “More fool you. How else do you define trouble?”
“Like a femme fatale,” Ben said.
“Give her time, Benjamin. She is a fille fatale. Quattordici indeed!”
Ben moved away from a mocking Harry, his shoulders dropping.

Chapter Three
NORTH END
NORTH End was across a horsemeadow from Boston proper, rising out of the soot and the afternoon coal heat. It seemed slightly detached, as if separated from the rest of Boston by this natural boundary. You had to cross a manure-covered field before you entered Salem Street that stretched and wound past a tall church, past merchants on the streets hawking their wares, past the shops and the stalls. A trumpet band played loudly on another block; there was yelling from the children and shouting from the mothers. Men stood around in circles and smoked; the smell of the city was strong, the traffic—human, horse and tram—hectic, almost deranged. Everyone was moving one or another part of their bodies, their lips going a mile a minute, their legs carrying them who knew where, with their bags, their prams, their dreams and umbrellas.
It was love at first sight for Gina. Her mouth open, she gaped, forgetting the mother, the brother, even the sand-haired silent boy who eyed her at the Freedom Docks. She sat near Salvo, who for some unfathomable reason looked less enraptured. “Santa Madre di Dio,” he said. “This is awful.”
Gina blinked. “What? No—just the opposite, Salvo. Look at it!”
“Papa told me about Milan. He said it was like this.”
“Well, if Papa wanted us to go to Milan, that’s where we would’ve gone,” snapped Gina. “He wanted us to come to America, so here we are. Oh, it’s wonderful!”
“You’re crazy.” He got up to get away from her, to take his place by his mother’s side. “Mimoo, she likes this!”
“Leave her be, Salvo,” Mimoo said. “Your father would be happy to know she likes it.”
Reproved by his mother, Salvo scowled at Gina even more resentfully.
Gina didn’t care. Her gaze was turned to the city.
The hurdy-gurdy man with the barrel organ played “Santa Lucia” from Gina’s native land. She was surprised she could hear it over the clomping and braying of the horses, the screeching from the electric trolleys she’d heard her father talk about, but never seen, the rush-hour swarms of people, the vendors yelling in Italian selling garlic and tobacco, the ringing of the church bells on the corner of Salem and Prince, perhaps announcing it was six o’clock and time for Mass. The trolleys didn’t move, the horses barely—the congestion was intense, and Gina feared any moment a fight would break out because people stood so close to each other, while the horses did their business right on the cobbled street which businessmen in shined shoes crossed to get home. Italian signs over the shops were everywhere, the boy on the corner proclaiming that he had the Evening Post, and the paper was Italian also. Everything smelled not just of manure and garlic but also of sour fermented wine.
It was the greatest place Gina had ever seen. She was smitten with it, bowled over. With her mouth open in happiness, she gulped the air as their dying steed moved forward a foot a minute. She had time to dream about the goat cheese and the sausages swinging from the hooks outside the storefronts. Another boy with a cart was selling raw clams with lemon juice, but shouted in English.
“What is this thing, clams?” she called to Ben and Harry.
Mimoo slapped her arm. “You are not having raw anything from a filthy street corner. Not even a carrot.”
“I’m just asking, Mimoo. I’m not eating.”
“Don’t even ask. And stop speaking first to men you don’t know. It’s neither polite nor proper.”
Tutting, Gina turned away and saw why the church bells had been ringing. It was a wedding. Six white doves were tied to two waiting horses and a white carriage.
“June is a very popular month to be married,” said Ben from the driver’s seat.
Harry scoffed. “Then how do you explain that it’s July?”
“Why else would you get married on a Thursday evening in July? Churches are booked. They’re fitting in the weddings when they can.” Ben gazed benignly at the bride and groom coming out of the church doors. The man with the harmonica was playing and singing “My Wild Irish Rose.” Gina and Ben had nearly the same expression on their faces as they watched the procession, the white doves being released, flying away. Mimoo and Harry carried entirely different expressions—hers sorrow, his stress. And Salvo wasn’t even looking.
“Is this horse going to move?” Salvo asked Ben. “Ever?”
“We picked a bad time to travel.”
“Maybe we should get out and walk.”
“But Salvo,” said Gina, “you don’t know where you’re going.”
“Better to move than sit here.”
“We’re almost there,” Ben said. “Just one more block, one right turn, and we’ll be on Lime Alley.”
“There’s got to be a better way to ride across town,” said Salvo.
“Across town?” Ben said. “Did you say across town?”
“Oh, no, mon dieu!” Harry exclaimed to the sooty heavens.
“Listen my children and you shall hear,” Ben recited loudly to no one in particular, “Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere/ On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five/Hardly a man is now alive/Who remembers that famous day and year.”
Gina listened intently. “What is this poem?”
“No, no,” Harry said to her over his shoulder. “Don’t interrupt him. Or he’ll just start from the beginning.”
Ben did start again from the beginning. It passed the time, though Gina faded in and out of listening. She kept hearing Italian being shouted down the streets, kept breathing in the smells of tomato sauce, watching women fishing with their hands for wet balls of fresh mozzarella, it was so familiar and reminiscent of the things she knew, and yet so strange. Though she was tired and hungry, she didn’t want any of it to end. Papa would’ve liked it, she whispered to herself under the strains of Ben’s, “A cry of defiance, and not of fear/A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,/And a word that shall echo for evermore!”

Chapter Four
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
1
IN a narrow alley, away from the bustle of Salem Street, the main artery of North End, they pulled up to a three-story building and Ben and Harry jumped down. Ben tied up the horse, while Harry helped Mimoo down from the carriage. He was going to help Gina down too, and she wanted him to, extending her hand to him, but Salvo intervened before Harry even came close to touching her. Salvo helped her down, too roughly for her liking.
“Thank you, young man,” Mimoo said in the meantime to Harry. “I hope we are on the first floor. I am very tired.”
“Unfortunately we are on the third.”
“Ah, but from the third floor,” Ben said, “you can see Boston Harbor if you lean out the window and look to the left.”
“Boston Harbor?” Salvo repeated contemptuously. “I lived a road away from the Adriatic sea. I was born and raised on the Mediterranean.”
“I’m sure it’s very nice,” said Ben. “But we don’t have the Mediterranean here. Just the harbor.”
Mimoo turned to Harry. “Forgive Salvo for squabbling. It’s been a long journey.”
“Nothing to forgive. He is in better spirits than most people we meet.”
Mimoo smiled. “You do this often?”
“Every week when the ships come in. If we have the space.”
Mimoo looked inside the front doors. A dark wide staircase ran up the center of the building like a spine. “How are we going to get our heavy trunks up three flights of stairs? We are such a burden. You shouldn’t have bothered with us.”
“It’s no bother,” Harry said. “None at all. This is what we do. We’ll get you upstairs, don’t worry.”
Mimoo appraised him, her face softening.
“Believe me, you won’t mind being on the third floor,” said Harry, helping her to the landing. “On the first floor you hear the sailors outside your windows all night in the summers. They tend to get rowdy by the docks.”
“You are so well mannered. How did you get into this line of work?”
“I’m not in this line of work,” Harry corrected her. “My father owns some apartment buildings. In the summers when we’re on a lighter load at university, we help him manage them. Ben and I see to the three he has here on Lime Alley.”
“He’s got more?”
“A few more.”
“Isn’t that the understatement of the decade,” Ben said, propping open the front door with a piece of driftwood. Harry glanced down the pavement at Gina, who in her blue dress and faded hat stood entranced by the little boys playing ball on the street. He watched her for a moment. Maybe two.
“She won’t like Lawrence,” Harry said to Mimoo, nodding to Gina. “It’s too sleepy. You’re sure you don’t want to stay? We can help you. We’ll find you work.”
Mimoo shook her head. “Too sleepy for her maybe, but ideal for her mother, who worries too much. I don’t need excitement in my life. I’ve had enough of it, thank you.” She shrugged. “Gia will be fine. She’ll be fine anywhere.”
“Gia?”
“It’s Gia when I love her,” said Mimoo. “My husband never called her anything but that. Me, I love her, but she drives me crazy. So headstrong. To call her stubborn like a mule is an injustice to mules. The mules are St. Francis compared to her.”
Harry laughed.
“It’s my husband’s fault, bless his soul,” Mimoo went on. “Now he was a saint. Adored her. And she took every advantage. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. You know what my husband used to say, may he rest in peace?” She crossed herself. “He said many wise things. Like your father, I imagine?”
“My father is mostly silent,” said Harry. “But if he did speak, perhaps he would say wise things.”
“Well, my dearest departed Alessandro, the second greatest man ever to walk this earth, and the greatest man to stand before the gates of St. Peter, said about his children, they find a life everywhere they look.”
Mimoo held on to Harry’s arm. He nodded politely, listening as if deep in thought. The day was waning and the shadows were long.
“But if that is true, señora,” Harry said, as they began slowly to walk up the stairs, with Ben carrying one of the trunks behind them, “why did you leave your homeland? You must have thought you could find a better life here, no?”
“No,” replied Mimoo. “That is not why we left.”
“Why then?”
The weary Italian woman nodded at her children behind her. “Where we come from, everybody lives only one kind of life. Alessandro said he wanted his children to choose the life, not the life to choose the children. And also,” she added, panting, slowing down and wiping her brow, “he said America is the only place in the world where even the poor can be smart.”
“Well, Harry wouldn’t know anything about that,” Ben cheerfully chimed in, hurling one of the trunks onto the landing. “Because he, unfortunately, is neither.”

2
Harry and Ben and a reluctant Salvo left to go get some dinner, while Gina and her mother nested in the two small rooms by putting fresh linen on the dining table. Mimoo ordered Gina not to take too many things out, since they would have to repack them before they left the following morning. Gina unpacked too much anyway. She was hoping her mother might change her mind and let them stay. “I’m not a child, Mimoo,” she said quietly, while fixing her hair, hoping her mother wouldn’t hear, but wanting her mother to hear.
“You are still a child,” said Mimoo, who heard everything. “And I want to keep you that way—for your father—as long as possible.”
“Papa would want me to be happy, no?”
“No, be a child first. Happy much, much later. If ever. Put on a cardigan this instant. Don’t let the men see you at night with bare shoulders.”
“But it’s hot, Mimoo.”
“What did I say?”
“It’s stupid! I’m hot.”
“Gina!”
How Gina wished her papa were here.
Ben was right: the third-floor rooms did allow Gina a glimpse of the waters just beyond Lime Alley. After Mimoo lay down, a perspiring Gina in an itchy cardigan went to sit by the window, waiting for the men to come back. She stuck her head out, to better inhale the scent of the sea, to see more clearly the sight of the water, to catch the breeze that might cool her. She didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to even blink for fear she’d miss something. When she was sure Mimoo was asleep, she threw the cardigan off.
The two rooms were clean and comfortable. They had two beds and one sofa. While hauling trunks up the stairs and showing them the apartment, Ben had said proudly that Harry’s father’s renovated houses were the first residences in the North End to have standardized iron pipes for running water that was pumped in from the streets. The toilet and bathtub were just down the hall, Ben told them. “You don’t have to go downstairs and outside to use the privy.”
Gina realized she was hungry. It was after seven, and the smell of food permeated the stairwell. Lard grease, onions, the smells of fried tomatoes, garlic, basil, all of it was comforting to Gina, yet novel and desirable.
“Did you remember the wine?” was the first thing Mimoo asked from the sofa when the three men returned with dinner.
“I took care of it, Mimoo,” said Salvo, showing her the two bottles of red he carried.
“Did you buy one for Pippa?” Pippa was Angela’s aunt, and Mimoo’s cousin. Pippa liked her wine.
“No, I forgot.”
“He forgot.”
“We’ll buy another one tomorrow.”
“Where are we going to get one tomorrow? Do they sell it at the train station? Now we will arrive empty-handed.”
They brought back pasta, sauce and Italian bread. Harry wouldn’t hear of Mimoo offering him money. He turned away from her purse. “It’s not necessary,” he said.
“Harry is right,” Ben said, “it isn’t, but perhaps next week we can come to Lawrence to visit and have dinner in your new home?”
“Oh yes, please!” Gina beamed.
Harry cleared his throat, Salvo glared and Mimoo pretended she had gone suddenly deaf.
“Take the money, Harry,” Mimoo said. “Take it.” He still refused.
It got stifling in the apartment with four adult bodies and young Gina (in her cardigan, which Mimoo glared her into putting back on) crowding around one old table. They lit just two candles, to make it no hotter, and fitted around as best they could in the parlor room. The men took off their hats and jackets, Gina opened all the windows, but it didn’t matter; she rolled up her sleeves to the elbows, and her bare forearms glistened from perspiration; she fanned herself with a newspaper and Atlantic Monthly magazine as she ate, sitting flanked by her mother and brother.
Mimoo was too tired for conversation, Salvo too cranky for it, and Harry too reticent. Only Gina and Ben chatted agreeably, though he was more reserved than before. She spoke to him mostly in Italian, and he answered her mostly in English. Soon Mimoo left the table to go lie down in the next room, and Gina breathed out, relaxing a little. They spread out at the wooden table. Now that Mimoo had gone, Harry was next to her and Ben across from her. She wasn’t afraid of Salvo. Annoyed by him, yes, but not frightened. She threw off her white cardigan and took a long drink of water, ignoring Salvo’s malevolent glares.
“So what’s wrong with Lawrence?” she asked Harry, turning to him, trying to get him to talk, to glance up. But he didn’t raise his eyes from his plate, not when he was sitting so close to her. Salvo was eyeballing all three of them like a hawk. He was so exhausting, her brother.
Harry shrugged. “I said nothing about Lawrence.”
“There is no work,” Ben interjected.
“We will do something,” Salvo said. “Don’t worry about us.”
“Who is worried? I’m just saying.”
“Leave them be, Benji,” Harry said. “Everybody finds something to do.”
Ben poured everyone more wine. Salvo intervened. He said it was too late for Gina to have even a little bit of wine. Keenly Gina felt her age. Perhaps Ben could offer her a milk bottle and send her to bed, would Salvo prefer that?
“Do you live here in the North End?” Gina asked Harry.
It was Ben who answered. “No, we’re from Barrington. Just a small town in the hills about ten miles northeast of here.” He smiled. “Not too far from the ocean.”
“Ah, Mr. Shaw,” said Harry, turning to his friend, “so now you’re from Barrington?”
Ben punctuated his blink with a swig of wine. “Oh, that’s right. My friend forgot to tell you his full name. Gina, Salvo, he is Harry Barrington.”
Gina and Salvo sat, taking this in.
“Barrington like the town?” Gina said finally.
“Exactly like it. Full relation.”
Gina gaped at Harry, but stopped when she glimpsed from the periphery of her vision Salvo’s sour face. “You have a whole town named after you?”
“Oh, not after him, miss,” Ben said. “After his productive and illustrious family. They built that town, you see. All Harry does is use the town library.”
“That is not true,” Harry said. “I also eat at the restaurants.”
Gina was impressed and slightly surprised. Harry in his dapper suit and fancy hat and slightly indolent air didn’t look to be the kind of young man who worked with his hands. “You’re from a family of builders?” she asked, trying not to sound incredulous.
“My father isn’t there with a hammer and nails, if that’s what you mean,” Harry replied. “He’s a merchant. He makes sure other people do the work.”
Ben laughed. “I can’t wait to hear you tell your father this. That seven generations of Barringtons, who built not only Boston but funded the expansion of the very university you get all your snooty notions from, got their solid reputation from nothing more than making sure other people did the work. I can’t wait.”
Harry waved him off. “Ben, you forgot to tell our new friends who you are.”
“I told them. Ben Shaw.”
“Yes, but who is Ben Shaw?”
“Humble engineering student?”
“Son of Ellen Shaw,” said Harry. “Who just happens to be the youngest sister of Robert Gould Shaw, the man who commanded the only all-black regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War.”
If Gina didn’t know any better, she might have thought they were trying to impress her, or perhaps in a game of one-upmanship emerge victorious in their teasing of each other in front of her. Salvo did know better, and it was certainly what he thought, because all he said by way of comment was a gruff, “Your uncle is black?”
“No, quite white,” said Harry. “And a colonel. He just happened to be the white colonel who took the job no one else wanted, or would take.”
“I keep telling you,” Ben said. “No one’s heard of him.”
“Well, someone must have heard of him, Benjamin,” Harry said pleasantly. “Because an architect named Stanford White spent fourteen years sculpting your uncle’s memorial.” He leaned back with self-satisfaction. “Ben comes from a very illustrious family,” Harry continued. “Aside from his martyred uncle, he is also the nephew of Josephine Shaw Lowell, who is a living legend in New York, advocating for peace, for women’s rights, active in politics, and she happened to co-found an organization with Erving Winslow called the Anti-Imperialist League right here in Boston.”
“In a tiny airless room in a walk-up on Kilby Street,” Ben said. “Not exactly remodeling Harvard Hall.”
Gina had never heard of the people they were talking about. She felt young and stupid. “Anti-Imperialist?” was what she echoed.
“I assume anti-American-imperialist,” said Harry. “Right, Benji?”
“Since my mother will be running it, can there be any other kind?” Ben turned to Gina. “But this has nothing to do with me.”
“What does my grandfather,” Harry interrupted, “or my father for that matter, have to do with me?”
“Oh, come on! It’s a direct relation.” Ben rubbed his hands together.
“And your mother is not?”
“Am I a descendant of Robert Treat Paine?”
Harry groaned.
“Aha!” Ben was triumphant. “Robert Treat Paine was one of Harry’s ancestors on his mother’s side.”
“Who is Robert Treat Paine?” It pained Gina to ask; she feared she should have just known.
Ben smiled benevolently. “He was one of the founding fathers of the United States.”
She knew she shouldn’t have asked.
“He had quite a reputation, didn’t he, Harry?”
“I don’t know what you mean. A reputation as a ladies man? As an intellectual?”
Ben leaned across to Gina. “Robert Treat Paine was known as the man who proposed nothing, but opposed everything proposed by others. He was called the objection maker.”
“How is this relevant?” Harry demanded. “Why would this young lady and her brother care? Look how bored they are.”
Ben laughed.
They continued to talk and joke and drink while Gina faded into the stiff wooden chair, trying to sit like a lady, to keep her elbows off the table, her bare damp arms straight. But her back hurt, her neck hurt, her legs hurt from being up so long—on the boat, on the docks, walking through North End, and now sitting here with these smart men. Salvo was smoking, trying to stay vigilant and awake. Mimoo was soundly sleeping. Salvo needn’t have worried. Gina policed herself. With a slight tremor she realized how infantile she was to think even for a moment that she could hold a conversation with actual men. That’s how she knew she was infantile. Because she thought she could. To think that a curl of her brown hair or a sway of her long girlish skirt, or the sheen of her tanned Sicilian soft skin could make up for the fact that when she opened her mouth she was nothing more than a contadina from the rural outskirts of a Sicilian town, where they milked the cows and took the olives off the trees in season. They fished all summer and hoped the volcano wouldn’t erupt, again. Oh, the fallacy of herself!
Reluctantly she withdrew from the conversation, hoping they would interpret her intimidation as exhaustion. One side of her hair bun had come loose and was dangling a long wavy strand down the side of her neck. Her brother kicked her chair. She ignored him. He kicked the chair again, harder. She looked over at him. What, she mouthed with irritation. He gestured to her hair with his eyes.
You want me to tie up my hair, she rhetorically mutely asked him. Fine, here you go. Raising her hands to her head, she pulled out all the pins and laid them on the table, in front of her plate. Her hair was now out of the bun and fell down her back and over her shoulders, chocolate, wavy, ungainly. Completely ignoring what she knew with delight was her brother’s appalled expression, she lifted her hands to her head and section by section proceeded to pin the hair back in a high chignon. The three men watched her; no one moved; only her bare arms moved.
Salvo croaked, “It’s getting late …”
Harry and Ben ignored him.
“What does your friend Angela do in Lawrence?” Ben asked, gaping at Gina in the near dark from across the table as the candlelight flickered out.
She wouldn’t allow herself a glimpse at Harry. “She works in a textile factory.”
“Is that where you want to work?” Ben smiled. “On the looms?”
“No,” she replied. “Too hot on the looms. I want to work in the mending room. It’s more refined.”
“No,” Salvo cut in. “Gina and I are going to open our own business like true Americans.”
“Salvo, be quiet,” Gina snapped. “Who has money to open their own business? We don’t have money to pay these kind gentlemen for staying here. We have to find work first, save a little money. Then maybe we can boast about what we plan to do.”
“That is what I’m going to do, sister. No use arguing me out of it.”
Harry and Ben appraised the sister and brother.
“A business is a good idea,” Ben said.
Harry said nothing.
Sticking his fingers in Harry’s ribs, Ben tried to explain his friend’s silence. “My friend is conflicted about business.”
“Not at all,” said Harry. “I know exactly how I feel about it.”
“Yes—conflicted.” Ben chuckled. “Harry is burdened by his father’s expectations. Now some might argue it’s better to have a father, even a demanding one, but Harry disagrees.”
“It’s better to have a father,” Gina said quietly, “even a demanding one.”
“Oh, I agree with you, Gina,” said Ben. “But Harry struggles every day against unfulfillable projections, while I run scattershot from hobby to hobby, having no burdens placed on me whatsoever.”
“Except by your radical mother,” said Harry.
“Where is your father?” Gina asked Ben.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met him.”
Gina pondered that—not to know your father. It was inconceivable. In Sicily, every child knew who his father was.
“I, on the other hand,” said Harry, “have met my father, but I know him even less than Ben knows his.”
Gina wasn’t sure how to respond. “Doesn’t your mother want you to become someone, Ben?”
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “She doesn’t say to me, son, you must follow in my footsteps.”
“Yes, she does,” said Harry. “And my father doesn’t say this either. He says, whatever you do is fine with me. Which is even worse. Aside from being wholly untrue.”
Gina really pondered that one. “That’s worse?” she said at last. Was it the language barrier that made comprehension of this insurmountable? What were they actuallysaying?
“Yes, it’s worse,” Harry said. “Because action on my part is implied and required. Do what you like, he says, but do something.”
“Ah.” There was a significant pause—it was late at night, after a long day. “But you do want to do something, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure.” Harry half-smiled at her. “What if I don’t?”
“Harry is joking,” Ben said.
“A man has to do something,” said Gina.
“What about a woman?” Harry’s fog-colored eyes twinkled a little.
“A woman’s role is clear. She must keep house, raise children.”
“What if she wants to work?”
“She is working.”
“Work outside the home.”
“In Italy, there is no such thing,” Gina said. “If she sells fruit at the market or sews for other people or cleans big homes, she must do it between hours. First her own house, her own children. Then everything else.”
Ben gazed at her in appreciation.
Pensively Gina stared at Harry. “Are you an only child?”
“I am an only son,” he replied, not looking directly at her. “I have a sister.”
Ben made a dismissive sound. “Esther is invisible to your father.”
“Just to my father?”
“What?” When Harry didn’t elaborate, Ben shrugged with a dismissive chuckle. “It’s like royalty at Harry’s house. Only the male offspring can inherit the throne.”
They were joking! Except that really was how it was. Gina’s father was an anomaly among Sicilian men. He adored his sons, but believed his only daughter too could become anything. Gina wanted to tell these two boys about her remarkable father, but decided not to. She was losing the power to make sense in her new alien language. Silently she thanked her father for being a relentless taskmaster, for teaching her English for so many years even when she had seen no sense in it.
“Our father believed,” she said cautiously, unsure of her English words, “that those who lived without expectations were not blessed but cursed.” She looked across the table. “Right, Salvo?”
“I know nothing,” Salvo said in Italian, “except that it’s late and I’m tired.”
“Your father wasn’t the only one who believed this,” said Harry, in reply to Gina, not Salvo. “My father, too. And Alexander Pope.”
“Who?”
“The poet.”
“No, Harry,” said Ben. “Pope thought a life lived without expectations was the ninth beatitude. Blessed are they who expect nothing, was what Pope wrote.”
“You completely misunderstand Pope,” Harry said, yanking up Ben by the arm, and glancing around for his jacket and hat. “As if you have any idea what a beatitude even is.”
“As if you do.”
“At least I’m not quoting him incorrectly! We must go.”
“Actually you did quote him incorrectly,” said Ben, as they bade their goodbyes to a battle-fatigued Gina.
“I didn’t quote him,” Harry said. “I was merely being polite in a conversation with our new friends. Goodnight. We will see you tomorrow. Please give our regards to your mother.”
“Pope ended it with ‘for they shall never be disappointed.’”
“Let’s go!”
They tipped their hats before they put them on and bowed politely.
Gina could see Salvo would have loved to have refused their help, but he didn’t know where the train station was and couldn’t get the three trunks downstairs without them. To pay her back he stood between her and the young men so they couldn’t take her hand, couldn’t treat her like a lady when they wished her goodnight.
After Ben and Harry left, Gina and Salvo retreated to separate windows from which they both looked longingly at the sea beyond, but for different reasons: Salvo because he yearned to be back home; Gina because she wanted never to leave the big city. She hoped Lawrence would turn out to be a little bit like a big city, only smaller. But no matter what it turned out like, it wouldn’t have Ben and Harry in it.
“A fine pair they are,” Salvo said to her at last.
“Aren’t they just,” echoed Gina. Especially the sand-haired, laconic one.
He sighed with exasperated disdain. “Sometimes,” he said, “I think you forget what Papa said to you.”
She bristled. “I don’t forget anything.”
“Then why do you act like you do?”
Gina turned away. She didn’t want to hear it. Leaving the room where her brother was making her defensive, Gina went into the room where Mimoo was snoring and sat in a wooden chair by the open window. She still heard horses clomping outside, a distant bell of a trolley car, noises from sailors, laughter, a city alive, pulsing and thumping into the night. Never forget where you came from, Gina Attaviano, Alessandro said to her before he died. Then it will always be easy.
I think it will be easy, Papa, she whispered, gulping the night air. In thrall to the new city, the old life for Gina had vanished with the tide.

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