Pete Hamill - North River

Through the ceremony, Rose seemed to shrink away from Delaney, slumping in her tight seat while the tones of Latin made Carlito doze. Delaney stared at his hands, as always unable to pray. Carlito’s eyes closed. Delaney squeezed Rose’s arm, cradling the warmth moving into his fingers. She looked at him from under the black brim of her hat, surprised, her eyes wary and glistening. Then, on the altar, the mass was over. Ita missa est. They all stood, Flanagan wheezing, the boy stirring. The oaken kneelers were tight and unforgiving against the arches of their feet, as they inhaled the scented air. The pallbearers again lifted the coffin and slowly carried it down the center aisle, with the McGraw family and his closest friends trailing behind. McCormack. Cohan. Rogers. The organist played a muted farewell. Through the open doors, they could hear bagpipes skirling, voices of vanished Celtic kings. Carlito opened his eyes in a sleepy way. It had been a long morning.

“Let them all go out,” Delaney whispered to Rose. “Then we’ll find a taxi.”

“No. no. It costs too much.”

“We’ll take a cab.”

A woman in the row behind them touched Delaney’s arm. She was about fifty, wearing a suitably discreet hat and a coat with a fur collar.

“You’re Jim Delaney, am I right?”

Delaney smiled thinly. “That’s me.”

“I met you at your father’s club, a long time ago, when we still lived downtown. I’m Janet Bradford. I was a Muldoon then. Before the war.”

“Of course,” Delaney said, not remembering her at all. He offered a hand and she shook it. “Nice to see you again,” he said.

She turned to Rose: “And who is this, may I ask?”

“This is Rose Verga, and that’s my grandson,” he said.

Rose nodded. The woman looked at her with the eyes of a prosecutor.

“Buon giorno,” the woman said.

“Good morning to you too,” Rose said, and turned to look at the empty altar.

Flanagan was pulling on his coat and smiled at Delaney as he edged toward the aisle from the emptying pew. Delaney was relieved to turn his back on Janet Bradford, the former Muldoon.

“Good to see you again,” Flanagan said.

“Good to see you too,” Delaney said. “Thanks for making room for us.”

“Hey, the room was there. We just hadda scrunch up a little. Try to come around the club sometime.”

“I will,” Delaney said. “When I get some time. You know, the patients await me. Right now we’re gonna wait for the crowd to leave.”

“I don’t blame you,” Flanagan said, and shook hands. Carlito began making squirming sounds. Delaney hugged the boy. “We’ll go home soon,” he said.

“Home,” the boy said.

A soft rain was falling as the taxi carried them down Fifth Avenue. It was a spring rain, falling straight from the grayness of sky, with no wind driving it from the North River. Rose had pushed herself against the window, holding the boy’s hand. She did not look at the streets.

“How do they feel?” Delaney said, nodding at her boots.

“Not so bad,” Rose said.

Carlito looked at her, as if trying to unravel the meaning of her tone. She did not move, and the boy watched the unreeling streets: the rain, the trolley cars, the other taxis and cars, the few pedestrians. Delaney realized that this was Carlito’s first ride in a car since coming to New York. Perhaps his first ride ever. Occasionally the boy looked hard at the driver, the graying back of his head, the wheel he held in his hands.

Rose looked at nothing, her jaw slack.

“Is there something bothering you beyond your feet?” Delaney said.

“No.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Ah, you know…”

“No, I don’t.”

She was silent and still for a long moment.

“They look at you,” she said. “Then they look at me. Then they look at you.”

“So?”

“They thinking, What’s he doing with her?… ”

She seemed about to weep. He squeezed her hand, then released it. Just affection here. Nothing else.

Delaney said: “Maybe they’re thinking, What’s she doing with him ? A beautiful young woman with a scrawny old Mick.”

She turned to him, returning his grin. Then wiped at tears with her bare wrist. Carlito looked confused.

Rose said, “I’m sorry.” Then to the boy: “Hey, Carlito, what d’you want for lunch?”

“Bagetti.”

“Always bagetti. Bagetti, bagetti, bagetti.” Then to Delaney: “You sure he’s not half Italian?”

She looked at him, hugging Carlito. Then she gazed out past the taxi window and its little rivers of rain. In this place a long way from Agrigento. There was a faint smile on her face. She had wiped so hard at her tears he could now see the scar.

They came in under the stoop, and Rose was hurting. Delaney sat her on the empty patients’ bench and knelt to unlace her boots, widening the leather tongues, while Carlito watched. Delaney widened the opening still more and tried to ease the right boot off. Rose grimaced, tightening her mouth. When the first boot was off, and on the floor, Rose moaned. Oh, she said. Oh oh oh. They did the same with the left boot. Her thick black stockings were soaked.

“Rose,” Delaney said. “Listen to me. Go upstairs to your room. Slowly. Get undressed and into bed, and peel off the socks. Very gently. As gently as you can. Leave the socks on for now, I don’t want you getting any splinters. Your feet will hurt going up the stairs, but I’ll be up in a few minutes and do something for the pain. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Carlito, you stay here with me.”

Rose stood up, bit her lip against the pain caused by her weight, and without a word started up the stairs, holding the banister. Delaney went to his office, Carlito beside him. He checked the contents of his bag. Then he went out to the mailbox on the gate. A few notes, in childish writing, asking for help. Please come when you can. My mother can’t move her legs. My father’s hand is broke. Patients who had found the door mysteriously locked on Horatio Street and could not read the sign saying the office was closed for the day and had their American children write out their pleas for help. Delaney gazed around him. The street was awash with the rain. He thought: I have to work on the olive tree.

He climbed the stairs, two at a time, with the boy lagging behind him. Delaney walked through the open door of Rose’s room. Her black dress was hung neatly on a hanger, the hat slung over the hook. Rose was on her back in bed, wearing her flowered bathrobe, her feet exposed. She did not look at him.

Her feet were swollen. A yellowing blister the size of a quarter had started forming on the sole of her right foot, and the big and little toes of her left foot were rubbed raw. A crevice of skin had opened on the arch of her right foot. Delaney opened his bag as Carlito reached the open door. The boy paused, eyes wide with concern.

“Oh, oh, oh: Rosa, oh!”

He went directly to her and gently touched her face with his small fingers.

“ Oh, Rosa. Oh, Rosa!”

She started to bawl. Without looking at Delaney, she took the boy’s hands and kissed them and said his name and bawled.

Then: “Don’t worry, Carlito. The doctor, he’s going to fix me. Don’t worry, this is nothing. I love you, boy, don’t you worry… ”

Delaney cleaned the arch with alcohol, massaging the foot with his good hand. Some blood seeped out. He wiped it, then cleaned the wound again. Gently, easily. She winced when he applied iodine with a glass dropper. Her toenails were trim and clean. He could feel the warmth of her body. Then he wrapped gauze around the arch of her foot and made it firm with adhesive tape, and then he was done.