The Saint of Lost Things (17 page)

He is dressed for a funeral: black coat, wool pants, gloves and
hat. But he is grinning, the plants like two trophies. He wipes his shoes on the remnant of green carpet used as a mat, lets out a deep breath, and looks proudly around the room. In the commotion of Signora Fiuma’s win, only Maddalena and Ida notice his entrance.

They rush to him, Ida in front, Maddalena close behind. Ida takes the plants in her arms and thanks him for coming. They stand firmly in front of him to block the view of the men at the table.

“What a nice surprise!” says Ida.

“I make the effort to visit all my little ladies at least once a year,” he replies, trying to move deeper into the room. “Also, I like to see the customs up close.” He looks over their shoulders. “You’re playing the game now, the one like bingo?”

“Sì,”
says Ida. “You buy as many cards as you can afford. Right now they cost a penny, but the longer the night goes, the more expensive they get.” She goes on explaining, though Mr. Gold already wrote down this information at work. “We divide the money into four kitties, each one bigger than the one before. If you have a number that’s called, you put a lentil on top of it on your card.” She talks so fast that she’s nearly out of breath. “First person to get three numbers in a row wins the
terno;
four in a row the
quaterna,
five in a row the
cinquina.
The fun part is that each number has a little saying that goes with it. We call forty-seven
il morto chiparla,
the dead man who talks; seventy-seven is ‘an old woman’s legs.’ There are lots more.” With Maddalena at her side, Ida keeps Mr. Gold penned near the door. He cannot step forward without meeting at least one of their elbows. “The first person to get every number on their card wins the
tombola
—the biggest kitty of all.”

“And afterward, you make soup from the lentils,” says Mr. Gold.

“On New Year’s Eve,” Ida confirms. “You have a good memory. The lentils are supposed to bring money.”

“We rinse them first,” Maddalena says. She rubs her arms and glances around the room.

“I’m watching our cards, Zia!” declares Nunzia, but Antonio has stopped calling the numbers. He rises slowly and walks toward the front, still holding the bag of wooden chips, shaking it like an instrument.

“Is that who I think it is?” Maddalena hears him ask.

A hum of anticipation fills the room, as more than a few players realize how close they are to victory. “Call the next number, Antonio!” Signora Fiuma yells. “I feel lucky tonight!”

“You’ve won enough,” says Ida’s brother. “Give us poor men a chance.”

There is nowhere to move without stepping on the children lying on their stomachs in front of their cards. Maddalena takes one of the poinsettias from Ida, thanks Mr. Gold again, and kicks one of Nina’s cards by mistake. Then she hears her name.

“Maddalena,” Antonio says, for what seems like the first time in years. There is no anger or pleasure in his voice. He could be reading from the front of an envelope.

“Mr. Gold, this is my husband,” says Maddalena. “Antonio Grasso.”

“Pya-chaireh,”
Mr. Gold says, a word Maddalena taught him last week, and which he wrote phonetically in his notebook. He sticks his hand through the narrow space between the two women.

Antonio fixes his eyes on Mr. Gold’s face. He does not shake his hand. He sways for a moment, drunkenly. Then he drops the bag of numbers onto Nina’s head. The wooden chips spill down her back and roll in all directions on the floor.

“Ow!” says Nina. “Zio Antonio!”

“Did I use the wrong word?” Mr. Gold says to Ida. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the little notebook. The kids scramble around him on all fours to retrieve the numbers.

Signora Fiuma leaps to her feet. “Make sure thirty-three’s in there,” she says. “That’s my number!
Gli anni di Cristo.”

“No, no,” Ida says to Mr. Gold. “You said it perfect.”

Perry Como sings through the radio, as he has been doing since nine o’clock, but the rest of the room has gone quiet. Mr. Gold shifts his weight from one leg to the other, then ticks his head toward the console. “WAMS,” he says. “I had this on in the car.”

“Perry Como is Italian,” says Ida.

Antonio leans in closer to Mr. Gold. “So, you’re the man my wife works for.”

“Well, it’s my name on the paychecks,” he says, with a laugh. “It’s very good to meet you, by the way. That’s what I was trying to say in Italian. Mrs. Grasso is one of my best seamstresses.”

“That’s good news,” Antonio says, nodding. He pauses a moment. His neck is flushed red. “Let me ask you. Are you a married man?”

“I am.”

“So, where’s your wife now?”

“She’s at home.” Mr. Gold narrows his eyes, gives Antonio a bemused look. “Maybe you don’t realize, but tonight is not our holiday. Otherwise I would not be here. Tonight is like any other Thursday to us.”

“And your wife,” Antonio says, a big grin on his face. “She knows you bring flowers to other women?” He nudges him gently in the ribs.

Gianni walks over and stands behind him. “The game is waiting,
uaglio,”
he says.

“The plants are for all your family,” says Mr. Gold, evenly. “Not just the women.” He turns to Ida. “Maybe I’m not welcome here?”

Everyone at the table stands simultaneously, as if in church. The men start to walk toward Antonio and Mr. Gold. The kids scatter and assemble themselves on the stairs, balancing their cards for when the game resumes.

Whatever happens next, Maddalena will have to suffer the consequences. Better not to watch. Better to take a step backward
against the brass banister, lower her head, and brush her chin against the white petals of the poinsettia. Antonio once insisted these plants could kill a cat or a small child if eaten, but she doubts this. He takes as fact every article in the newspaper, every secondhand story from the men at Ford.

“Why wouldn’t you be welcome?” says Antonio, with a fake confused look. He comes toward him and throws his arms around his shoulder. “It’s your money that keeps the roof over our heads, right? Take your coat off, stay a while. We’re in the middle of a game right now, but the next round you’ll play.” His voice is friendly but unnatural and overloud. “Maddalena, get Mr. Boss Man a glass of wine.”

Maddalena looks up.

“Oh, I can’t stay—” says Mr. Gold.

“Don’t insult us now,” Antonio says. He tightens his grip on Mr. Gold’s shoulder and pulls him close. He leads him past Maddalena, across the crowd of standing men, and installs him in his own seat at the head of the table. “You watch my father’s cards with him. He’ll teach you how it works.” Then he turns to the rest of the table. “Let me introduce you to Maddalena’s boss, Mr.—” He stops. “What’s your first name?”

“Milton.”

“Mr. Milton Gold! Uncle Milty!”

The guests sit, polite smiles on their faces. Mr. Gold raises his right hand in a tentative wave.

“Who’s got the numbers?” Antonio says, brightly. “Maddalena, Ida, we’re waiting for you.”

Maddalena sets a glass of red wine in front of Mr. Gold, then resumes her place at the table with her niece. If Antonio calls forty-two, she doesn’t notice, and Nunzia is too young to recognize the number. Instead she watches her boss look intently over Papà’s shoulder, whisper questions in his ear, and not touch his drink. He
appears comfortable, relaxed even, but surely Antonio is not fooling him. “Ante up, Uncle Milty,” he says when a new game begins, and Maddalena breaks into a sweat. “You’re on your own now.”

Mr. Gold makes a fist whenever he gets a number. Then he loses the
terno
to Ida. “It’s all luck, then?” he asks. “Am I wrong to say there’s no strategy?”

“No, that’s right,” Antonio says. “The only trick is to keep your eye on your cards.”

Mr. Gold plays one complete game. Then he pushes his chair away from the table and declares it time to go. “I have other ladies to see, from here to New Jersey,” he explains, and gives a slight bow to the guests. “They might not all be night owls like you.”

“You’re insulting us,” says Antonio, again in the overloud voice. “You play one little game, then leave without tasting our food or drinking a glass of wine? We’re not good enough for you?”

Mr. Gold smiles politely and rubs the inside of his palm. “Of course you are, Mr. Grasso. But I really do have to go. Business, you know.”

“We understand,” says Ida, from across the room.

“One more game,” says Antonio, his voice more insistent. “That’s all I ask. Then I leave you alone. I’ll loan you the penny for the card, if you need it. You can pay us back, no interest, next paycheck.”

Nobody laughs. Slowly Mr. Gold sits back down and suffers through another set of numbers. He tries to make eye contact with Maddalena between the two red candles of the centerpiece, but immediately she looks away. Under the table her legs are shaking. Ida sits beside her and rests her hand on her knee. The guests whisper and stare and hide their grins in their wineglasses.

It would be much easier if Antonio just threw a punch; at least then someone would know what to do. Gianni would hold Antonio back and give Mr. Gold time to run for the door. He’d pour his
friend another shot, then return to the game as if nothing happened. Instead Antonio has put everyone in this in-between place, just so he can show Mr. Gold who the real boss is and still keep Maddalena’s job.

Though no words of accusation have been spoken, Maddalena feels the eyes of the men and the wives on her in judgment. It takes only one insinuation, false or true, to give people ideas, to turn them against you. On the way home, they’ll giggle over Antonio’s show. They’ll delight in the scandal that would befall the Grasso family if he were right about the handsome Jewish boss. “Poor Antonio,” they’ll say, shaking their heads. “We could have told him from the beginning she’d be trouble.”

Late into the third game, Antonio goes upstairs to the bathroom, and Mr. Gold sees his chance. It is eleven o’clock. He stands, quickly grabs his coat and hat from the rack, and waits at the door for his host to return. Maddalena stands beside him.

“I’m sorry we kept you so long,” she says. “Will you take some food home to your wife?”

“No, thank you,” he says, the irritation obvious in his voice.

“Milty!” says Antonio, rushing down the steps. “You weren’t going to sneak out, were you?”

“I wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye,” Mr. Gold says. “Thank you for the games. And the wine and the delicious pastries.”

“My pleasure,” Antonio says. He slaps him on the back. Then, just before Mr. Gold turns to go, Antonio grabs Maddalena’s hand and brings it to his lips.

“Merry Christmas to you both,” says Mr. Gold.

Antonio glares at him, still kissing Maddalena’s wrist, as the door slams and the man is gone. Behind them, the impatient Signora Fiuma has taken over the game.

“Twenty-two!” she says.

“La carrozzella!
” booms the crowd. “The carriage!”

“Are you happy now?” Maddalena asks. With the women watching from the table, she pulls her hand away and rushes up the stairs.

Alone in her room with the door closed, she waits for Ida and Mamma Nunzia to check on her. She will explain her humiliation, and they will make excuses for Antonio. They’ll beg her to forget about it, to remember her husband could always be worse. “Antonio’s jealousy comes from love,” they’ll say. “You should feel lucky he still thinks another man might want you.”

Through the floorboards Maddalena can hear the call of the numbers, the disappointed groans, the coins jingling in the hands of the winners. But there are no footsteps on the stairs, no shadows outside the door. Eventually, someone approaches. Maddalena lifts her head. But it is just a guest who needs the bathroom. She turns out the light, slips off her shoes, and climbs into bed still wearing her dress.

Under her pillow she finds a small, wrapped box. She draws back for a moment, as if it’s a cockroach or a stain or some other unwelcome thing. But written in marker in the left corner of the striped red paper are the words
Per Maddalena. Con Affetto, Antonio.

She should wait. She listens until the end of the song playing on the downstairs radio, then can wait no longer. She slides her finger under the tape, folds the paper for reuse, and carefully opens the box. Inside is an oval-shaped silver locket on a little cloud of cotton. She unclasps the locket, and a folded-up note falls out. “
I due amori della tua vita”
it reads. The two loves of your life. In the left frame, Antonio has inserted one of the few precious photos of her mother. Its small size can hold only her face—the ringlet of black hair that falls against her cheek, her hopeful eyes, her lips in a thin, cautious smile—but it is enough. The comfort of the face is what Maddalena misses most. In the right frame, Antonio has inserted another folded-up slip of paper. It says, in tiny meticulously scripted
letters,
“nostro bambino.”
Our baby.