Evan Hunter: Streets of Gold

In any event, my grandfather eventually became Frank, and this curious metamorphosis is best revealed in the various documents my mother turned over to me when he died. A copy of his birth certificate had been requested for naturalization purposes in the early part of 1945, when the Germans were still clinging tenaciously to the northernmost portions of Italy. A duplicate certificate arrived from the south, mimeographed on a torn scrap of paper, the reverse side of which was a printed sheet of ration coupons for October of 1944 — pane, pasta, olio, zucchero, and generi vari, the staples of the Italian diet, and most certainly much better fare than my grandfather had enjoyed back in 1900. Comune di Fiormonte, it read, Provincia di Potenza. And on the reverse, the requested information, listing the birth date of Francesco Luigi Di Lorenzo as the seventh day of July, in the year 1880. In New York City, in the year 1901, a marriage certificate was issued to one Teresa Giamboglio (try that on your harmonica, Mr. Trzebiatowski) and the aforementioned gentleman of Potenza, except that this time his name was shortened to Francesco Di Lorenzo. His naturalization papers, dated the 27th day of April, 1945, state in ornate script lettering: Be it remembered that Franco Di Lorenzo then residing at 2335 First Avenue in the City of New York, State of New York, who previous to his naturalization was a subject of Italy, having applied to be admitted a citizen of the United States, and so on. Franco Di Lorenzo. And his death certificate (I can never think of that goddamn day last June without tears coming to my eyes) records that he died at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in the intensive care unit after being there for less than nineteen hours. The time of his death was 11:50 A.M. on the morning of June 17, 1973. His age was recorded as 92 years, 11 months, and 10 days. His occupation was given as tailor. His name was recorded as Frank Di Lorenzo. Good old Grandpa. Yankee Doodle Dandy at last.

But Francesco he was in 1900, and it was he who shared the second bedroom with his sisters, Emilia and Maria, respectively fourteen and ten. Emilia snored, but he never told her this, lest it spoil the hours of pleasure her own reflection in the glass brought her. Her light snore filled the small room now. He put on his eyeglasses. It was shortly before dawn, and the paneless window high on the wall over Emilia’s bed, covered with a stretch of goathide rubbed to translucent thinness, admitted enough early light so that he could see the beds of both his sisters, and the carved wooden chest on the wall opposite, and the wooden chair beside his own bed, and beyond that the open door of the archway leading into the kitchen, brighter than the bedroom now because its larger windows faced east, toward Bari and the Adriatic. He was twenty years old, but he leaped out of bed with all the excitement of a five-year-old, and went immediately to the arch and looked into the kitchen. The presepio stood in one corner of the room. He went to it slowly, as though uncertain he had seen correctly (or, more properly, uncertain that what he had not seen was truly and validly not there to see), and then turned away in disappointment. Shivering, he went to the woodbox in the opposite corner and took from it the brush he had scavenged the night before. He lay this upon the grate in the old stone fireplace painted white and streaked with soot, and twisted under it a yellowed copy of the Corriere della Sera which his father had brought back from Naples two months ago, when he’d gone there looking for work.

Wood was scarce; well, everything was scarce. He carried three huge and treasured pine logs (but this was Christmas) to the grate and carefully placed them on the tinder to form a distantly related cousin to the presepio standing in the corner of the room, a skeletal isosceles pyramid with four shelves. The bottom shelf contained tiny wooden figures representing the Holy Family, which his cousin Renato had carved himself and brought as a gift three Christmases before, when times were better: Joseph and Mary and the infant Jesus, the Three Kings standing in the manger in adoration of the newborn Christ, shepherds and sheep and angels and a camel, all meticulously carved by Renato, who was excellent with his hands and could do such things. The three top shelves, reserved for gifts, were empty.

Francesco struck sparks from his flint into the nest of tinder, and then stood up and watched the spreading stain of fire on newsprint, heard the sharp crackling of the dried twigs, folded his arms across his narrow chest and stared at the flames as they grew like malevolent weeds around the pyramid of logs. His hair was black and curly, he had thick black eyebrows, and he wore rimless spectacles he had bought in the open market from the stall of Luisa Maggiore, about whom many rumors were spoken in the village — none of which he believed or repeated. He had picked and searched through the mountain of eyeglasses on her stand, until he had found a pair which he felt added a touch of distinction to his face without robbing it of its handsomeness. He had worn glasses since he was four years old, but his eyesight stubbornly refused to improve; even the glasses he had bought from Signora Maggiore two years ago were now too weak for his faltering vision. He could not see five feet ahead of him in the morning unless he fumbled first for his glasses on the wooden chair beside his bed, and put them on before throwing back the coverlet and setting his feet on the cold stone floor.

The room was warming.

No longer chilled, he gave recognition to the hunger that had been gnawing at his belly long before he woke. It was still barely light outside, the sun was just rising, he supposed it was close to five in the morning. December in southern Italy, from what my grandfather told me, is normally a dismal time of the year, rain drenching the roads and turning the tiniest patches of soil into quagmires. The sky was clear that Christmas Day, the sun came blushing through the mountaintops as though embarrassed by its absence of the past few weeks. He had been hungry when he’d gone to bed the night before, had tossed hungrily in fitful sleep, had awakened hungry, and was still hungry. But he knew that all the food in the house had been jealously hoarded for this day of days, and he did not know whether he was supposed to touch even a crust of hidden bread. He trembled again, not from the cold this time, but instead from a feeling of helpless anger and frustration — why la fillossera ? If there was truly a God, why ? Hugging his slender arms across his chest, he stood trembling in his flannel nightshirt before the blazing fire, and wondered if his father would shout at him for having used the wood so early in the morning, before anyone else was awake.

His mother had been saving a handful of chestnuts for roasting with the Christmas meal. They were in an earthenware jar outside the largest of the kitchen windows, eleven of them; he had longingly counted them. If he ate one of them with his early-morning porridge, would his mother realize there were only ten remaining when it came time to roast them?

Silently, thoughtfully, he went back into the bedroom to dress. Maria, the ten-year-old, was awake. “Francesco?” she said, and blinked at him.

“Yes,” he answered. “Turn your back.”

“Did he come?” She was referring to Father Baba, the Italian bearer of Christmas gifts, an old old man with long flowing robes and a white beard and a pack on his back, not unlike our own Santa Claus though rather scarecrowish in appearance, and certainly not rosy-cheeked or potbellied or jolly ho-ho-ho.

“Did he?” she asked, when Francesco did not answer.