Elizabeth Street (14 page)

“But your husband is an important man. He should do something about this!” was Giovanna’s reaction.

“I’m afraid for him it is an issue of race,” Lucrezia explained with embarrassment. Realizing that Giovanna didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, she explained, “When you came into Ellis Island, did they ask you where in Italy you came from?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it starts there. Actually, that is not true. It started before you got on the boat, but that’s Italy’s history.”

“Lucrezia, please,” intoned Giovanna, thinking that Lucrezia’s tendency to digress was one of her few weaknesses.

“Italians entering Ellis Island are considered to be of two races. A race from the north and a race from the south. The northerners are classified ‘white’ and the southerners ‘in-betweeners.’ Of course, in Italy, the northerners simply call you peasants or Africans. My husband comfortably distances himself from the slurs, the accidents, the inequities, because he sees himself as a different race.”

The image of Nunzio serving drinks at the Roman party flashed through Giovanna’s mind. Shocked at Lucrezia’s honesty, it confirmed her feeling that Lucrezia felt no allegiance to her husband if she was willing to share such embarrassing information. Everyone was worthy of contempt at the moment—the Americans, the northern Italians, and her fellow southern Italians—for accepting the injustice.

The new mother’s husband arrived home to meet his infant son, his fourth. Lucrezia and Giovanna stepped into the hall to allow them a few moments of privacy. They leaned against the wall and continued their conversation. “Why have you stopped asking questions about Nunzio’s accident?” asked Lucrezia.

“I don’t know what or who to ask in the absence of this Carmine.”

“Did you check the newspapers?”

“
Aspetta
, we have to turn right on Lafayette Street!” called Giovanna to Domenico, who was steps ahead of her on Grand Street. Domenico would no longer hold her hand and had a tendency to outdistance even Giovanna’s long strides.

She was incredibly nervous. Nunzio had mentioned going to a library at school, but she had never been to one. She was filled with questions, not the least of which was what do you do when you get there? With her ten-year-old nephew as a guide, she tried to think of it as an adventure. And then came the more difficult part—she had to try to convince herself that she liked adventures.

As she stopped in the middle of the block, Giovanna’s head pivoted from one side of the street to the other as she surveyed a large redbrick building on one side and a white columned row of buildings on the other. She looked at numbers, and Domenico looked at signs before they walked through the brick arched doors of the Astor Library on Lafayette Street.

Giovanna controlled her impulse to genuflect upon entering the building. She hadn’t seen this much real marble and ornate carving since visiting the church in Naples where she prayed after Nunzio’s departure. Domenico and Giovanna gazed in circles, taking it all in and looking for clues about what to do next. Carved wood balustrades surrounded bookcases on the right and desks on the left. A severe and squeaky-clean-looking woman sat at an imposing desk situated in the middle of the room. She didn’t look approachable, but everyone else was engaged.

Giovanna nudged Domenico forward. It was one of the first times she had seen her intrepid nephew unsure of himself. On the streets of their neighborhood, he was king. Here, among the pages of history and leather-bound dictionaries, he was a street urchin. Giovanna poked his shoulder again, encouraging him to speak.

“Ma’am, we need newspapers.”

“I believe you’ll find those sold on the street, by boys looking like yourself.” Before Domenico could protest, or, more likely, turn away, she added, “What kind of newspapers are you looking for?”

“One from September 1902.”

“That would be an archival newspaper.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

“What paper were you interested in?”

Domenico scratched his head.

“What do you want to find?” the librarian persisted.

“My uncle, her husband, was killed on a job. A lady said to look in the newspaper at the library.”

The librarian, who appeared as if she wanted to ask a few more questions, simply said, “Follow me.”

They walked for what seemed like blocks and then entered a room with shelves housing tall volumes. The librarian instructed them to sit at a desk that was so highly polished they could see their reflections in its surface.

“Do you know the date of your uncle’s accident?”

Domenico looked up from the table. “September 2.”

“Try this.”

She heaved a huge book off the shelf. On the cover it read in gold letters,
THE NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER
1902. Opening and leafing through the book filled with newspapers, she said, “It would be here in the beginning, September 3. If he perished on the second, you would look on the third.” Her finger scanned the index, looking for obituaries, but before she got to
O,
her eye caught a headline on page one:
FIVE MEN KILLED IN GAS TANK COLLAPSE
.

“Young man, where was your uncle killed?”

“In Brooklyn.”

Brooklyn Union Gas Company was cited in the first line. “And what was his name?”

“Nunzio Pontillo.”

For the first time the woman paid attention to Giovanna. “Why don’t you and your aunt come sit over here.”

They followed her to a desk in the corner by a window.

She put the book down. “Do you read well, young man?”

“My teacher says I do.”

“Well, it appears that the article about your uncle is right here. Are you going to copy it?”

“Yes.” He took out a thick pencil and a scrap of paper that had wrapped yesterday’s chestnuts.

“You’ll need more paper than that.” She left and returned with a few clean white sheets.

Domenico took his first look at the article, and his eyes widened.

“I will be back at my desk. But if you need something, you could ask that gentleman right there.” She pointed to an old man hunched over papers and squinting through his glasses. “He’s the archivist.”

Giovanna, assuming they had moved for better light, didn’t yet realize something had been found, and she had been amusing herself by running her hands over the gleaming wood and inhaling the smell of leather, ink, and paper in the lofty room.

“Zia, there is something here.”

Giovanna looked at him distractedly.

FIVE MEN KILLED IN GAS TANK COLLAPSE
. Domenico read the headline first in English and then translated it into Italian.

Giovanna snapped to attention, and her heart raced.

He read the subheadline:
CRUSHED BETWEEN STEEL BOTTOM AND CONCRETE FLOOR
. Domenico continued, “Then it says, ‘
THREE HOURS’ WORK BEFORE THE LAST BODY WAS REACHED
—1,764
RIVETS HAD TO BE CUT—SUPERINTENDENT MULLIGAN ARRESTED.
’”

From the corner of his eye, Domenico saw his aunt begin to tremble.

Not far into the article was the list of the five men, their names, ages, and addresses. Nunzio’s was the fourth name.

“Show me, show me,” said Giovanna, who then ran her finger across Nunzio’s name in the paper. Now she not only trembled but swallowed repeatedly while stretching her neck.

Painstakingly, Domenico translated each sentence. There were many words he didn’t know, and whole sentences that he couldn’t understand, but Giovanna kept motioning him on, saying, “Don’t worry; write it down.”

At one point, when Domenico was having a particularly difficult time reading, Giovanna’s mind wandered to Scilla’s chiazza. In her mind, she and Nunzio were under the juniper bush listening to Vittorio read the story of Nunzio’s death.

It was nearly one hour before Domenico reached the part describing the accident.

“All went well until about 3 o’clock when Superintendent Mulligan, who was in sole charge of the operation, went to the telephone in the office of Taylor, Wood & Co. to send a private message. The bottom of the tank had been lowered six inches to twenty-six inches above the concrete floor. Eight men were in the space between the tank bottom and the concrete floor engaging in oiling the cups in which the pins of the jacks played.

“Suddenly, there was a creaking noise, and as three of the eight men darted from under the bottom of the tank, all slightly injured…”

“Mariano,” thought Giovanna.

“…the bottom gave a lurch westward, carrying away all the screw logs and laying all the jacks in that direction, and fell with a crash on the concrete bed just two feet and a half west from where it would have laid had the lowering been carried on as intended.”

Giovanna could hear no more of her husband’s death in this foreign place. She had already dug her nails into the polished wood of the table.

“Enough, Domenico. Just copy the sentences.” Giovanna got up and paced the perimeter of the room. Her pacing made Domenico nervous. Once, his father had taken Concetta and him to the menagerie in the big park past the Columbus statue and he had watched in fear as a huge striped cat circled his cage without stopping. He looked up and saw the same dazed look in his aunt’s eyes as she moved around the room. He copied the rest of the article as quickly as he could.

When at last he finished, Domenico couldn’t keep up with his aunt as they made their way through the stacks of books; she was practically running. They sped past the woman at the desk, who tried not to show her interest. When they hit the sidewalk, Giovanna seemed to go even faster. Within minutes they were at Elizabeth Street.

“You go up, Domenico. I must see Signora LaManna.” Before Domenico could say good-bye, his aunt was gone.

The moment Giovanna saw Lucrezia, all the bottled-up emotion spilled out into torrents of tears and sobs. When her tears were spent, Giovanna produced Domenico’s thick lead scrawl and made espresso while Lucrezia sat at her desk and read.

A few espressos later, Lucrezia removed her glasses and looked up. “Giovanna, I think you should go to a lawyer.”

Giovanna waited for an explanation.

“Did Domenico read this to you?”

“As best he could.”

“Well, I will read it to you.”

The reading and translation went much more quickly with Lucrezia, but it still took a long time. In the comfort of Lucrezia’s home, Giovanna cried softly throughout.

“Giovanna, it reports that the superintendent was arrested. That act alone points to the fact that something was terribly wrong. It even quotes an engineer saying the jacks did not afford the necessary protection! They talk about an investigation. Are you sure there weren’t any further articles about the accident?”

“Yes, the anarchist helped.”

Lucrezia ignored the mistake and continued. “Giovanna, Brooklyn Union Gas is a big, important American company. I asked my husband to check, which he did reluctantly. It is run by James Jourdan, a Civil War general, and William Rockefeller is on the board of directors. It would be in Italy like having Garibaldi and King Umberto running the company.”

Giovanna said nothing. Lucrezia went on, “Did they give you any money when Nunzio died?”

“Yes, a little. Lorenzo used it for his burial.”

“Did he sign anything?”

“No. But I still don’t understand why you say I should go to a lawyer.”

“Because I think this company, or the construction company, made mistakes that led to your husband’s death. They’re responsible, but because they are so powerful, there has been no further investigation.”

“But what can I do? I speak no English!”

“These companies count on you doing nothing! Without a family crying injustice, it’s easy to divert a reporter.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Get a lawyer and sue them for the death of your husband.”

Giovanna was silent.

“They are using Italians like donkeys to build New York. If they lose a few it doesn’t matter. They can always get a new ass.”

The harshness of Lucrezia’s words set her pacing—stress and New York City’s confined spaces had turned Giovanna’s pacing into a habit. It was hard enough when Lucrezia spoke of Nunzio’s accident in personal terms; making it political overwhelmed her completely. But what was she hoping to accomplish with all her questions anyway? She wanted justice. But what would justice be?

Her thoughts did not go much further. A woman was at the door announcing that her sister had gone into labor.

Lucrezia gathered up her things. “Come with me, Giovanna.”

Giovanna was happy to go along because she didn’t want to be alone. However, when they arrived at the woman’s apartment she could tell something was not right. The laboring woman was moaning that the baby shouldn’t be born. Seeing Giovanna’s concern, the woman’s sister explained that her brother-in-law had been killed building the Manhattan Bridge two months after his wife conceived their sixth child. Giovanna’s head snapped up and looked at Lucrezia, who looked away, unable to feign innocence.

When the baby was delivered, there were no tears of joy from the mother, only laments and sobs as the mother wailed to her newborn, “How will I feed you?” Looking at the midwives she cried, “His poor brother, only eleven, works the job and returns home, his little body broken, and there is no food on the table.”

Lucrezia and Giovanna said nothing to each other for the rest of the evening.

“Signore DeCegli, this is Giovanna Pontillo,” Lucrezia said as they both sat down. They had walked up five flights in a Mott Street tenement to Signore DeCegli’s office. They took their seats amid the piles of papers threatening to submerge his desk and file cabinets. A telephone sat on his desk. Giovanna hoped it would ring; she was fascinated by telephones and hadn’t used one yet.

“Signora Pontillo, I reviewed the newspaper articles and death certificate that Signora LaManna brought to me.”

The lawyer’s Italian was perfect. So perfect that Giovanna sat up straighter and took her mind off the telephone. He was looking right at her, and she realized that this man was handsome. It was something she hadn’t noticed about a man in a long while.

“I think there is no doubt that you have a case against the construction company. And although I am quite sure we could not win a case against Brooklyn Union Gas, it would be to our advantage to sue them as well.”

Giovanna looked at Lucrezia, who motioned with her eyes to ask.

“What do you mean, signore?”

“What I mean, signora, is that I believe in all probability that negligence led to your husband’s death, meaning that we can sue the company that is responsible.”

“Signore, I have little to pay you.”

“You do not have to pay me anything before the case is settled. I believe you will win your case and you will be compensated. My fee will come from your settlement.”

Seeing Giovanna’s puzzled look, Lucrezia stepped in. “Signore, we need to start from the beginning.”

More than an hour later, when Signore DeCegli finished explaining the American legal system and Giovanna’s options, he began asking questions of his own. Changing his tone, he said, “Tell me about Nunzio.”

“He was my husband,” murmured Giovanna, voice cracking, as if that said it all.

“Well, did he read and write?”

“Yes,” answered Giovanna, indignant. “He was a maestro. An engineer.”

“That will help. My guess is that if your husband had questions about the safety of this project, others did too. After we file, I intend to subpoena the supervisor and other workers.”

“But they will say what the company wants them to say.”

“Possibly, but generally I’ve found that Americans take truth in the courts seriously.”