Pete Hamill - North River

“For sure.”

“They were real good friends, wunt they?”

“They were.”

“Help me on with this, Doc, will ya? I’m hurtin’ too bad to move.”

Delaney called for the ambulance from the corner candy store, where everybody was talking about McGraw. Almost all working men, with nowhere to go, least of all home.

Before dinner that night, he sat by the bedroom fire and read the letter from Grace.

Dear Daddy,

I got your note. It’s hard to believe that you have been visited by the FBI. There is great hope here for Roosevelt, that he will change things in America, that he will recognize how many people have been hurt by the Depression. Not just in America, but in Spain too, and in all of Europe. But how can there be true hope if people with badges come to your office? You, who have never done anything except try to help people?

That’s why there are many Spaniards who believe there is no hope unless the people take up arms. The communists sneer at Roosevelt as a tool of Wall Street, and maybe they’re right. I don’t know. I’m not a true part of it. But do not be surprised if there is a rising. Or a civil war. The fascists have their supporters here too. They love Mussolini. They are happy about Hitler. Who knows what might happen?

I met a man yesterday who saw my husband a few months ago. He said he will try to get a message to him. I will let you know.

I miss Carlito with all my heart. Send me news. Send me photos. I am at the same place. But American Express is best. Use the name Leonora Córdoba. I miss you too, Daddy.

He wrote a brief note and enclosed snapshots of Carlito on the streets of New York, and one with Rose and Monique. He hoped they would fill her with longing, not only for her son, but for Grand Central and the Chrysler Building and the Third Avenue El. Her city. Home. Where she lived with Molly while he was away at the war, where she did not know him when he returned. The place where she made ten thousand drawings on the way to the future. Where she was determined to find her own way in the world even if it meant leaving. Even, indeed, if it meant leaving her son in a vestibule. To pursue a man who blew up buildings in the name of utopia. And maybe blew up people. For a moment, he felt a treasonous flutter around the heart. One part of the truth was that he didn’t want Grace to return. He wanted the boy for himself. And so did Rose. For Rose, it was even worse. She needed him.

He told Rose that he had to go to the Wednesday funeral of John McGraw at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“Why?” Rose said.

“He was a friend of my father’s,” he said in a cool way. “I never made it to my father’s funeral. Or my mother’s.” She looked at him and waited for the reason. “They died in the flu epidemic. I was in a hospital in France.” A pause. “So that’s why I have to go to St. Patrick’s, Rose.”

She touched his shoulder, then quickly removed her hand.

“Do you want to go to the funeral, Rose?” Delaney said.

“Alone?”

“Of course not. With me. With Carlito.”

She furrowed her brow in a thoughtful way.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t believe all this church stuff.”

“Neither do I.”

“So why you want to go?”

“It’s about a man. McGraw. It’s not about God.”

She looked at the boy, then into the yard. The snow was now all gone, and she leaned forward at the window and squinted at the sight of a yellow bird in one of the skeletal trees. Abruptly the hardy scout flew off into the sunny cold.

“The truth?” Rose said. “I want to go, jus’ to see for myself. But I won’t go. First, I don’t have clothes. All the fancy people, the big shots, politicians, and actors and all that? With them, I can’t wear what I got. Not and walk in the door with you.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said.

“Silly to you. Not to me. I don’t want to shame you, Dottore.”

“You couldn’t shame me if you showed up in overalls.”

But he knew what she meant. Even now, even in the Depression, the codes of class prevailed in certain parts of New York. The schools you went to and the accents of speech and the clothes you wore. Delaney was a doctor, with degrees on the wall from fine schools. He was the son of a politician who was a friend of John McGraw’s. He owned a house. He was surviving the worst times. And Rose? She was a housekeeper, a kind of governess, who went to the fourth grade in Sicily. There were women like her still, in Gramercy Park, on Lower Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side. Her clothes were what she could afford. She carried a bloody secret about her husband. She must be certain, Delaney thought, that the observers in the pews of St. Patrick’s would know her. They would sneer, more at Delaney than at her.

He saw that her eyes were moist, and she was gnawing at the inside of her cheek. The same cheek that carried the fine scar.

“Well,” she said, and breathed out. “Maybe.” A pause. “Okay.”

She gazed into the yard. “That’s an olive tree, right?” she said. “All wrapped up.”

“Yes.”

“Soon we gotta take its coat off,” she said. “An olive tree, it needs the sun. Us too.”

When Monique arrived, Delaney gave her fifty dollars to buy a dress and boots for Rose to wear to the McGraw funeral. He asked her to go with Rose and prop up her confidence. Monique gave him an insulted look.

“What am I now?” she said. “A fashion consultant?”

“No, but if we go to the funeral, I don’t want her to feel, you know…”

“Like a maid? A cook? A governess? That’s what she is, Jim.”

“That’s not very kind, Monique,” he said, thinking: She’s jealous, for Christ’s sake. No, she’s also right. She’s saying what everyone at St. Patrick’s might say. Or enough of them who cared to watch closely. And he thought: Maybe I should just tell Rose that I’ve had second thoughts. That I want to relieve her of any feelings of pressure or obligation. I should tell her that, well, anyway, the crowd will be too immense. That I can tell her all about it when I get home. And then he thought: No, I might wound her even more deeply. She might think I’m ashamed of her. That I believe she is just what Monique thinks she is: a servant, and nothing more. And I will inflict another scar.

The phone rang. Monique murmured, took down information, and hung up. Then she sat there, in a sullen little pool.

Delaney went into his office. Through the door, he could hear the voices of Monique and Rose. The door opened, and the boy walked in, smiling.

On Wednesday morning, Delaney placed the milk beside the cornflakes and crisped the Italian bread, and Carlito kept glancing at the door, looking for Rose. So did Delaney. The funeral was at ten, which meant they’d have to leave before nine if they were to have any hopes of getting into the cathedral. It was now after eight. Knocko Carmody had told him the night before: “Keep an eye out for Danny Shapiro. He’s working the funeral. The main door, Fifth Avenue. And look for me too. Don’t worry. We’ll get you in.” A pause, and a chuckle. “I can’t guarantee how good the seats’ll be.”

Carlito suddenly raised his head over his cereal. He could hear sounds upstairs, then harder steps on the stairs, then a pause. The door opened.

Delaney sucked in some breath. Carlito froze, as if he had been expecting someone else, not this stranger.

Rose had pulled a wide-brimmed black hat low over her brow, like Greta Garbo. Her conservative black dress fit loosely, the hem below the knee. The twenties were long gone, and Rose was certainly never a flapper. She wore a black scarf, no lipstick, light rouge. The color in her cheeks deepened as she smiled shyly. The scar was covered with powder.