Pete Hamill: North River

“Mamá,” he said, waving a freed hand toward the door. With an accent on the second syllable. “Mamá?”

“We’ll find her, boy. Don’t worry.”

“Mamá?”

The boy was wearing a pale blue snowsuit with a dark blue sweater underneath, and Delaney removed it and then lifted him and placed him standing beside the bed, his feet planted on the threadbare Persian rug. Carlos. His name is Carlos. A good weight. Maybe twenty-nine, thirty pounds. A healthy weight. Clear skin too. Small white teeth. He smelled of milk. The boy stood there, a hand on the mattress, gazing around at the strange high-ceilinged room, with its electric lights rising from the channels of old gas lamps, the dark glazed paintings on the walls, the dresser that held Delaney’s clothes. The boy was looking at the two framed photographs on top of the dresser. Delaney’s wife, Molly, when she was twenty-five. Grace, when she was sixteen, about the time she met Rafael Santos somewhere out in the city. Delaney thought: The boy has intelligent eyes. Yes. His mother’s eyes.

“Mamá!” the boy said, pointing. “Mamá!”

“Yes,” Delaney said, “that’s your mama.”

The coals were ashen gray in the fireplace, and Delaney squatted, crumpled an old newspaper, built a small house of kindling, struck a match. He thought: What the hell is this, anyway? I’ve treated about three thousand kids this size, this age, but I don’t know a goddamned thing about taking care of them. Not even for a day. I didn’t even know how to take care of my own daughter when she was this boy’s age. I went to the war instead. The boy watched him, his dark eyes widening as the flame erupted. He glanced back at the photograph, then looked again at the fire, as Delaney used a shovel to lift a few chunks of coal from the scuttle. Delaney felt his right shoulder begin to ache. Not from the cold. But he would have to do something to keep the boy warm in this large, drafty house. In the good years before the Crash, Delaney had installed a hot-water system in the house, not easy because it was built in 1840. Before he could convert the house to steam heat, the banks had failed, taking his money with them. The heat still belonged to the nineteenth century. Wood and paper and coal in a manteled fireplace. The boy seemed to love it, flexing his small hands for warmth. I’ve got to feed him too. But almost no restaurants would be open on New Year’s Day. Not until tonight. He must need to eat. Christ, I need to eat. Breakfast. Christ, no: lunch.

“How about some food, Carlos?” Delaney said. “I think I’ve got cornflakes and eggs and stuff like that.”

The boy looked at him blankly, and Delaney realized that he didn’t understand the words. For almost three years, they had been in Mexico, where the boy’s father had family and friends. They surely had spoken to him each day in Spanish, even Grace. So had the maids. And the cook. For Santos was not a peasant, according to Grace’s meager letters. He came from money, as so many revolutionists did. Delaney knew a few words in the language, but he wished he and Molly had spent their European time in a land of vowels, instead of among the consonants of Vienna.

“Quiere… comer?” he said, making a spooning motion with his empty hand.

The boy nodded, Delaney took his hand. I’ll have to keep him off these stairs. Have to buy some of those folding gates. I’ll have to do a lot of things.

The boy ate two bowls of cornflakes and kept sipping from a cup of cocoa. He was watching Delaney, as if trying to understand who this strange man was. And where they were now, in this vast house. He started to imitate Delaney too, shifting his spoon awkwardly from hand to hand, the spoon too large, slopping the wet flakes on the table, spilling some milk. His mother must have fed him for too long. Or a maid. Spoiling him rotten. The boy was propped up on a cushion, and his eyes kept glancing from Delaney through the two kitchen windows to the yard. Glancing at the blinding whiteness.

“O,” the boy said, gesturing with the spoon.

Delaney followed his gesture.

“O,” the boy said.

Delaney smiled, suddenly understanding.

“Yes, that’s snow.”

Thinking: At least your mother found time to teach you one word of English. You probably never saw snow before this morning. And your mother waved a hand and said its name. Before abandoning you in a goddamned doorway.

“Want to see the snow?”

Delaney got up and lifted the boy off his cushion.

“Wait,” he said, groping for the words of the Cuban orderlies at the hospital. Wait. What was the word? And said it: “Espérate.”

Delaney climbed the hall stairs two at a time, retrieved the boy’s wool cap and new hooded jacket with mittens attached, and came back down, again wearing his winter clothes. The boy was at a window, squinting at the glaring snow.

“Let’s go,” Delaney said, pulling on the jacket, shoving the boy’s hands into the mittens, tying the hood under his chin. “Vamos, boy. Let’s see the snow.”

He opened the door leading to the outside shed. This was the place of everything that didn’t fit anywhere else: shelves stacked with boxes of detergent; stacks of old magazines and newspapers, tied with twine; unused Christmas decorations; milk bottles; a rake hanging on a nail; a wide-bladed snow shovel; a large red toolbox. Most of the space was taken by Delaney’s Arrow bicycle, its pedals and gears wrapped tightly in oiled cloth. He and the boy eased past the bicycle to a second door, leading to the yard. Delaney had to push hard on the door to move the piled snow.

Then it was before them, and the boy took a deep breath and exhaled. The North River wind was not as strong here, the buildings making a brick-walled fortress of the backyards. But it still had the magical power to whirl snow into small mountains, some of them taller than the boy. The rosebushes were blocky and irregular and white. And the olive tree, a gift from Mr. Nobiletti, the shoemaker, stood in its corner, wrapped for the winter in tar paper, so white it seemed like a giant ice-cream cone. The bases of the three fences had vanished under drifts. Delaney reached down and made a snowball.

“Snowball,” he said, hefting it for the boy to see.

“O-baw,” the boy said.

With his left hand, Delaney lobbed it toward the nearest fence, where it exploded in powder. He said, again, “Snowball!” The boy was awed. Delaney made another and threw it harder against the back fence. A snowy bas-relief fell off the fence. Now Delaney’s lower right arm ached, though he had not used it for throwing. The boy pulled some snow off a small mountain and tried to make it into a ball. The first ball crumbled in his hands. Then he tried another, and this one was packed better, and he threw it about two feet and saw it vanish into another small mountain. He laughed in delight.

“O-baw!”

He made another snowball and threw it, and another and another. Always with the left hand. Delaney understood why he kept shifting spoons over his cornflakes. Looks like we’ve got a southpaw here. Like his grandmother. Like Molly.

“O-baw!” the boy squealed. “O-baw.”

He looked at Delaney, as if trying to decide how far he could go. Delaney smiled. And then the boy dove into one of the snow mountains and rolled and pummeled the snow with his arms and kicked with his small legs.

“O! O! O! O!”

The boy fell asleep in his arms as he carried him up the stairs. Delaney laid him on his own unmade bed and removed the heavy clothes and the shoes. The boy came suddenly awake, his eyes taking in the strange room and Delaney’s face. He didn’t move and looked afraid.

“Mamá? Dónde está Mamá?”

“Don’t worry. She’s coming back.”