The Saint of Lost Things (8 page)

At the Offering, in his litany of private remembrances, Julian prays for the soul of his mother, his father, baby Caterina, the grandparents he never met, and his cousins back in Italy who died
in the war. He prays for President Eisenhower, the rebels in East Berlin, the soldiers returning from Korea. Lastly, he prays to St. Anthony to find little Abraham Waters. He has no face to put with the boy’s name, so he calls to mind the glowing eyes in the dark sliver of doorway, the skinny arm that reached for the letter.

He has always loved hymns. He sings each more loudly than the one before it, caring less and less that people can hear him. The words come easily from memory, like the stanzas of his favorite poems and lines from Emerson. By the recessional—“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” one of the most beautiful songs he knows—his voice is booming, carried high over the heads of the droning congregation, up to the ears of the Son of God Himself. Ten rows up, an old lady with sparkling eyes turns to smile at him, wondering—probably—why that silver-throated gentleman in the bright scarf has not joined the choir.

J
ULIAN’S FATHER USED
to say that dreams should never be discussed, not even among family. They were a kind of pillow talk between God and man, spoken in a language that only God understood fully. Whenever he heard someone begin to recount a dream, he’d cover his ears, say, “Keep it to yourself!” and warn the person not to give away his secrets and humiliations. It was like kissing and telling; the story went on too long, and the details were interesting only to the person who’d done the kissing. He claimed to dream once a year, on average, and always the same vivid, illogical set of scenes, like a film spooling backward. He believed that, in heaven, he’d see the film from the beginning, and he’d get to ask God what He’d been trying to tell him.

Julian and his mother knew each other’s dream lives as well as they knew their own. As soon as Ernesto left for work in the morning, she’d sit for a moment in the kitchen, fold her hands on the table, and report all that happened to her in the night. From an
early age until the day she died, Julian heard over and over the dream where her teeth grew too large to fit her mouth, or she fell down a flight of stairs and landed safely in a lemon tree. She heard his tales of speaking perfect German to Hitler and eating a cheesecake filled with gold coins. Sometimes he made up the dreams just to give her a laugh, and maybe, he thinks now, so did she. These days, he has taken to writing his dreams in a notebook beside his bed. Every once in a while, he tells the best ones to her in the living room photograph, though his father is standing right there beside her, and Julian can almost see him scowl and bring his hands to his ears.

It does not take long for little Abraham Waters to appear in Julian’s dreams, but of this he does not speak, not even to his mother. The boy floats facedown and naked in the Delaware River, bobbing on the waves. Julian watches him from the top of the Memorial Bridge, which is cut off, for some reason, midway to New Jersey. The steel beams are jagged where the bridge stops, as if a giant saw has zigzagged through them. Beside Julian stands a fat construction worker in a hard hat. He wears a shiny gold necklace around his neck. The construction worker dives into the water, straps Abraham to his back, and drags him to shore. He lies on the sand, his face smooth, his eyes open and bloodshot. There is not a scratch on him. Then suddenly Julian and the other construction workers are standing in a circle around him on the bank. They see Waters jump out of his taxi and run toward them. His eyes are fixed on his son, but he charges at Julian. Before he can reach him, Julian wakes.

T
WICE THAT WEEK
, Julian lingers on the opposite side of Union, watching the customers go in and out of Mrs. Stella’s Ristorante Italiano. They arrive in a rush, but leave more leisurely, clutching leftovers wrapped in brown paper bags. Up and down the sidewalk Julian goes, hands in his pockets, telling himself things
like
When the man with the blue tie comes out, you will go in.
But when the man with the blue tie comes out, Julian loses his nerve and heads home.

Then, that Friday, late in November, more than a month ahead of schedule, he finds himself awake and fully alert at eight o’clock. It is a sign. He puts on his good suit and carries his accordion, in its heavy brown case, down the block to Union Street. He makes it to the door of the restaurant, then turns around, comes home, and sits on the edge of his bed. The accordion stares at him from the other side of the room.

By the time he finally steps into Mrs. Stella’s, it is the dead hour of the afternoon between lunch and dinner, and the restaurant is dark. He asks for Gino, and a boy in a white apron greets him and tells him in Italian that Mario Grasso will be with him instead. “Sit,” says the boy, pointing to the bar, and offers a glass of wine that Julian accepts.

He sets the accordion on the floor. He thumbs the waist of his pants and breathes more deeply. He has been inside Mrs. Stella’s only once, for a small gathering after the funeral of his great-aunt. Since then, he has pictured himself many times among the crowds who gather here for dinner. In his mind, he sits elbow to elbow for hours in the bar area with patrons waiting for a table; the waiters in tuxedos rush past him carrying plates covered with stainless steel lids. Julian has heard a rumor that some people eat at home and come to Mrs. Stella’s just to drink cocktails. They spend their Saturday nights on these stools talking to strangers, making friends.

Mario walks through one of the swinging kitchen doors, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. Julian has met him once or twice at Renato’s, before he grew the thin mustache just above his upper lip. He looks young, thirty at most, and carries himself like he has something to prove: shoulders square, arms stiff, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Or maybe Julian just imagines this. When Mario notices
the accordion, then offers his hand, he does it with a pleasant—almost eager—smile.

“Julian Fabbri,” he says, rising, with a smile equally broad.

“Of course,” Mario says. “Giulio. Your father worked with my father at Bancroft Mill.” He bows slightly. “
Condoglianze.”

“Grazie.”

“What can I do for you?” He walks behind the bar and pours himself a glass of red wine. “If you’ll forgive me, I don’t have a tremendous amount of time. Friday night, you know. Busy busy.” He sits beside him on one of the stools.

“I understand,” Julian says. He asks about his family, his two little girls in particular, and tells him to please send his regards to his father. Then he runs out of small talk, and Mario glances at his watch. “What I want to bring up with you is—I have heard so many wonderful stories about your restaurant. All the life here and the food and the happy customers.” He waves his arm around. “I came here only once, I’m sorry to say, but I have wanted to come back, and then my father—I play the accordion sometimes, at home; I practice Italian songs, the ones you hear on the radio and ones from the Old Country too—‘Santa Lucia,’ ‘O Sole Mio,’ songs like that—and I sing a little, not great but not terrible—this is what they tell me, at least, and so I was thinking—” His throat catches; he swallows, breathes; Mario squints at him. “I was thinking Mrs. Stella’s might like someone to play—not sing if you don’t want me to, just play a little, very soft, in the background—while the customers wait for their tables—maybe starting in January after the New Year, or on Saturdays, or once a month, or one night in the summer when you’re not too busy—” He reaches down and touches the handle of the accordion case, as if it might run off. The wine makes red streaks in Mario’s empty glass. “Or maybe it’s not best for the restaurant for a musician to take up space.”

Mario looks around, twirling his wedding ring around his finger.
He walks to the narrow corner by the back of the bar. He stretches out his arms, then pretends to play an accordion. “Is this a big enough space?” he asks. “Would you need a stool to sit on? Or could you stand?”

“Stand, sit, whatever you want,” says Julian. “Usually I sit—but whatever you want.”

Mario scratches his upper lip. “I have to hear you first. Can you play me something now, very quick? Live music is a tremendous idea, something I’ve thought about many times. We have a record player and a few albums, but that’s it, and the same opera songs over and over get under my skin. I can’t pay you, though, not right away. Maybe later, if the customers like it—”

“I don’t care about money,” Julian says, already squatting on the floor in front of the open case. “I just want a change.” He pulls the straps around him and with his sleeve wipes the sweat from his forehead. He takes Mario’s place in the corner. He tests the keys.

“How about this: the nights you play, we give you dinner and lunch on the house,” says Mario. He moves to the end of the bar and refills his glass. “Of course, I’ll have to talk it over with Gino before anything is decided. He’s not an easy man to convince, so—”

“I understand.”

“Do you know ‘Serenata Celeste’? I love ‘Serenata Celeste.’”

Julian nods. He plants his left leg firmly in front of his right, lifts his head, and begins.

5
The Dream of the Princess

A
T WORK
, M
R. GOLD
lingers at Maddalena and Ida’s station. He sits at the edge of the table and taps his yardstick on the warped linoleum floor. He asks them about their family traditions and records the details in the little notebook he keeps at all times in his shirt pocket. “I am a student of the world,” he tells them. “Everything interests me. I want to understand all the many cultures in my shop. For example, you say you will serve seven types of fish on Christmas Eve, but why seven? Why not three or six? And is there any significance to the types?”

Maddalena waits for Ida; Ida waits for Maddalena. Neither of them knows. All Maddalena can say is that the seven fishes have been prepared for generations in Italy, since long before their grandmothers were born, and that it probably has something to do with Jesus. Still Mr. Gold nods and scribbles in his notebook.

With Gloria gone, Stavroula has an entire table to herself. Queen Stavroula, Ida calls her. She mutters in Greek as she stretches and rests her foot on Gloria’s old chair; she spreads the stockings she’s sewed across the length of her station as if to air them out. She removes her earplugs to eavesdrop on Mr. Gold and the Italians, and every once in a while interrupts them with a snort or a sigh. Today
she says, “In my country, we take a sprig of basil and tie it above the fireplace, to keep away the hooved ones, the Kallikantzari—”

“Is that so,” says Mr. Gold, blandly.

Maddalena has been taught that Greeks are good people, like Italians when it came to keeping their families close, but that you’d never want them to cook for you. According to Antonio and Papà Franco, they care more about dancing and poetry than cleaning their kitchens. But there is no dirt under Stavroula’s fingernails, Maddalena has noticed, and more than once she has witnessed her vigorously washing her hands in the bathroom. Still, made with dirty hands or clean, the contents of Stavroula’s lunches turn her stomach: yogurt oozing through a cakelike ball of ground beef, chunks of soggy eggplant on which she squeezes a browning lemon.

“I should write a book,” says Mr. Gold, over the whirr of the machines. “In Poland, I would have been a professor of literature, like my father and uncle.”

“A professor!” says Ida. Since the competition, she has taken every opportunity to fawn over her boss.

“My problem is I’ve seen too much,” Mr. Gold continues. “Too many horrible things. No one would want to read about them. Compared to where I’ve been, this shop is paradise.”

“Ask me how many books I’ve read in my lifetime,” says Ida.

Mr. Gold raises his eyebrows.

“None.” She beams at him. “On sewing I have focus, but I can’t concentrate on words for more than five seconds. Even when I was a girl. My sisters and brothers were all the same. Maddalena is the professor in the family. She likes her romances.” She reaches under the desk, pulls out
Il Sogno della Principessa
from Maddalena’s purse, and hands it to Mr. Gold.

“Ida!” Maddalena reaches for the book, but it’s already in Mr.
Gold’s hands. On the cover is a watercolor drawing of a castle and moat, with a man crossing the drawbridge on a white horse.

“How does the title translate?” he asks, as he thumbs through it.

“The Dream of the Princess,”
says Ida.

Maddalena blushes. “It’s about a princess,” she says. Mr. Gold hands it back to her and winks.

“Reading is very important, Ida,” he says. “The secret to a long life is to escape it as often as you can.” He thinks a moment, then takes out his notebook and scribbles. “My heart is with poets and historians. Not dressmakers. Not accountants and shopkeepers.”

“My heart is still in Kavala,” says Stavroula, tossing a handful of stockings onto the far side of her table.

“My heart is with my babies,” says Ida. “May they outlive me!”

They look to Maddalena, but she offers no report on the location of her heart. It lives in many places, she could tell them, if she wanted them to know. It beats with the child’s inside her; it tumbles down the hills of Santa Cecilia; it quickens when Antonio lays his hand on her hip. To try and catch up with it leaves her breathless. When she first arrived in this country, she thought her heart had broken, but no broken thing can propel itself so forcefully in so many directions. At work the demands of the machines and the endless yards of fabric numb her; for hours she forgets she has a heart at all. Then, without warning, it leaps inside her, and a daydream begins: Antonio kneels on the thick living-room carpet in their new house, his arms outstretched to welcome the child as he wobbles toward him; she turns on the record player, and the three of them join hands and dance in a circle around the coffee table. If Ida has this much, why can’t she?