Children of Liberty. Paullina Simons
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