Linda Cardillo - Dancing On Sunday Afternoons by Linda Cardillo Page A
Authors: Linda Cardillo
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his wrath.
"There will come a time he won't come back," warned my mother, mopping up spil ed wine.
"Then good riddance. Let him go." And by the middle of June go he did, driven by his own dreams, my Papa's stubbornness, my mother's pride. It was my mother who paid for his passage, sel ing some of her jewelry to finance his journey.
On the day he left, my mother dressed in her most elegant gown, put on her ruby earrings and stood on the balcony over the front door of her house—the balcony that looks out on the main street of our vil age and beyond, to the entire val ey below. The balcony from which anyone can see and be seen.
She stood there without tears while everyone else wailed and sobbed, her face shielded from the scorching sun by her wide- brimmed silk hat with the blue feathers, as Claudio walked out of the vil age and down into the val ey on his way to America. She stayed there hours after he was no longer visible to us, but I think she saw him in a way no one else could—his safe journey, his arrival, his triumph. I remember the look on her face, her belief in the Tightness of what Claudio was doing.
For Papa, however, Claudio's leaving was a defeat. Claudio walked away because Papa refused to take him in his own carriage. Papa spent the day in a darkened corner of Auteri's tavern and spit on what he cal ed Claudio's worthless dreams. Claudio had wanted nothing that Papa could give him.
My parents' house was very quiet in the days after Claudio went.
But his going left a hole in our lives. My family had been in Venticano for nearly five hundred years. How many times had I heard Giuseppina recite the litany that began with Alessandro Fioril o, the crossbowman who'd sailed from Barcelona to invade Napoli under Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon? He never returned to Spain. Instead, he fel in love with the beautiful Maria and remained to cultivate a patch of earth and father her babies.
Giuseppina could not comprehend Claudio's leaving Italy. When he set off from Venticano, Giuseppina had taken a lock of his dark hair, his fingernail clippings and a milk tooth she'd saved since his babyhood. She kept them in a pouch, blessing them every year on the anniversary of his departure.
For us children, the pain of Claudio's departure had been much simpler. We could not understand, could not forgive his leaving us. The only people before Claudio who'd left Venticano, never to return, were the dead.
What was this place America—farther than Avel ino in the val ey, farther than Napoli on the sea—that had swal owed up our brother?
In America, Claudio was successful right away. The money began arriving that August. I think my mother knew how well it would go for Claudio—how well it would go for al of us. When Claudio started sending us money, he also sent us letters fil ed with stories. He recreated for us the streets of New York, teeming with people and commerce. It was the commerce, especial y, that fascinated Claudio and presented him with opportunity.
In Little Italy, he saw the pushcarts laden with vegetables and fish and shoes and pots that provided the daily necessities to the tenements. Uptown, he saw the glass-fronted shops, their shelves fil ed with goods—goods he knew had to come from somewhere outside the city. Goods that had to be hauled from where they were made to where they were sold. And so, after a few months of laboring for someone else, Claudio turned in his shovel, and with the money he'd saved, together with what remained of the money my mother had given him, he bought a horse and wagon and began hauling everything the city needed. He had found a place that, unlike Venticano, was not shriveling in the sun but was expanding, exploding.
What we gleaned from Claudio's letters was the sheer immensity of America. So many people, so many streets, long vistas that stretched as far as the eye could see or dream. And one by one, my brothers—first Aldo, and then Frankie and Sandro, who are even
"There will come a time he won't come back," warned my mother, mopping up spil ed wine.
"Then good riddance. Let him go." And by the middle of June go he did, driven by his own dreams, my Papa's stubbornness, my mother's pride. It was my mother who paid for his passage, sel ing some of her jewelry to finance his journey.
On the day he left, my mother dressed in her most elegant gown, put on her ruby earrings and stood on the balcony over the front door of her house—the balcony that looks out on the main street of our vil age and beyond, to the entire val ey below. The balcony from which anyone can see and be seen.
She stood there without tears while everyone else wailed and sobbed, her face shielded from the scorching sun by her wide- brimmed silk hat with the blue feathers, as Claudio walked out of the vil age and down into the val ey on his way to America. She stayed there hours after he was no longer visible to us, but I think she saw him in a way no one else could—his safe journey, his arrival, his triumph. I remember the look on her face, her belief in the Tightness of what Claudio was doing.
For Papa, however, Claudio's leaving was a defeat. Claudio walked away because Papa refused to take him in his own carriage. Papa spent the day in a darkened corner of Auteri's tavern and spit on what he cal ed Claudio's worthless dreams. Claudio had wanted nothing that Papa could give him.
My parents' house was very quiet in the days after Claudio went.
But his going left a hole in our lives. My family had been in Venticano for nearly five hundred years. How many times had I heard Giuseppina recite the litany that began with Alessandro Fioril o, the crossbowman who'd sailed from Barcelona to invade Napoli under Alfonso the Magnanimous of Aragon? He never returned to Spain. Instead, he fel in love with the beautiful Maria and remained to cultivate a patch of earth and father her babies.
Giuseppina could not comprehend Claudio's leaving Italy. When he set off from Venticano, Giuseppina had taken a lock of his dark hair, his fingernail clippings and a milk tooth she'd saved since his babyhood. She kept them in a pouch, blessing them every year on the anniversary of his departure.
For us children, the pain of Claudio's departure had been much simpler. We could not understand, could not forgive his leaving us. The only people before Claudio who'd left Venticano, never to return, were the dead.
What was this place America—farther than Avel ino in the val ey, farther than Napoli on the sea—that had swal owed up our brother?
In America, Claudio was successful right away. The money began arriving that August. I think my mother knew how well it would go for Claudio—how well it would go for al of us. When Claudio started sending us money, he also sent us letters fil ed with stories. He recreated for us the streets of New York, teeming with people and commerce. It was the commerce, especial y, that fascinated Claudio and presented him with opportunity.
In Little Italy, he saw the pushcarts laden with vegetables and fish and shoes and pots that provided the daily necessities to the tenements. Uptown, he saw the glass-fronted shops, their shelves fil ed with goods—goods he knew had to come from somewhere outside the city. Goods that had to be hauled from where they were made to where they were sold. And so, after a few months of laboring for someone else, Claudio turned in his shovel, and with the money he'd saved, together with what remained of the money my mother had given him, he bought a horse and wagon and began hauling everything the city needed. He had found a place that, unlike Venticano, was not shriveling in the sun but was expanding, exploding.
What we gleaned from Claudio's letters was the sheer immensity of America. So many people, so many streets, long vistas that stretched as far as the eye could see or dream. And one by one, my brothers—first Aldo, and then Frankie and Sandro, who are even
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