Pete Hamill - North River

In the morning, Delaney did not want to read the newspapers, but Rose pointed out the photograph on the front page of the Daily News. The gleaming coffin of Frankie Botts was being carried into Our Lady of Pompeii by six burly pallbearers. Behind them were the other mourners, all properly dressed in black, most of them male, except for Frankie’s mother. She was directly behind the coffin. Three rows behind her was Bootsie.

“You see this?” Rose said.

“I see it now.”

“It’s like a, uh, un simbolo?”

“A symbol of what?” Delaney said.

“That it’s over, at least for now. Bootsie, they all know he’s from the Corso gang, and here he is, dressed in black, showing some kind of respect. Right behind the mother. Even the cops know. And those guys beside him? They are Corso guys too.”

“What do you think?”

She placed the newspaper on a chair. “I think, wait and see.”

Delaney laughed and told her what Danny Shapiro had told him, that if the Sicilians and the Neapolitans ever got together, we’d all be in trouble. Rose smiled, but her eyes remained wary. She looked around the kitchen with focused eyes, as if forcing every detail into memory. He touched her arm.

“A day at a time,” he said, ashamed of his own banality. “A day at a time.”

Later, when the hour of house calls arrived, he wheeled the Arrow through the areaway under the hot sun and saw Izzy the Atheist sitting on the stoop. He was wearing a sweat-stained denim shirt, dungarees, and sneakers. He stood up, came to Delaney, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Doc,” he said. “I heard about Molly.”

“Thanks, Iz. At least the mystery is over. Or most of it.”

“There anything I can do?”

“Just stay healthy, Izzy.”

Izzy lit a Camel with a wooden match he scraped into flame on the back of the dungarees.

“You having any kind of ceremony?” Izzy said.

“Something small. Private. No mass.”

“Good. And Grace? She comin’ to it?”

“I’m waiting to hear.”

Izzy exhaled a small cloud of smoke.

“Ah, well,” he said. “You and me, Doc, we come from a long line of dead people.”

“That we do, Iz. That we do.”

Then he was off to the emergency wards of the neighborhood.

There was no word that day from Grace, and that night Rose returned to his bed. In the hot dark, they made love almost desperately. It was as if both knew that time was running out. In bed, after all, they could erupt into the certainties of flesh. Afterward they lay together, holding hands. The room was thick with her various aromas, including sex.

“You know what I feel bad about?” she said quietly. “There were some things I wanted to do.” Her voice had fatalism in it, but no self-pity. “For Carlo. With you.”

“What do you mean?” he said. “What are you driving at, Rose?”

“If your daughter comes back,” she said in a cool way, “it means I have to leave.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Come on, Dottore. How do you say? Face the facts.”

He held her tightly, inhaling her aromas.

“We can work it out,” he said. “I’m sure of that, Rose.”

She turned her head, but he could feel her breathing on his hand. They were quiet a long time.

“These things you wanted to do,” Delaney said. “What are they?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, in a tone that implied: It’s too late.

“Like what, Rose?”

“Like going to Coney Island.” A pause. “The three of us.” Another pause. “Just like the people I see in the Daily News on Mondays. With a blanket, and food, and Carlito with a pail and a shovel.” She exhaled. “The merry-go-round. Steeplechase the Funny Place. I been there before, you know, been to Coney Island. But never on the sand. Never with you and the boy.”

“And never in a bathing suit,” he said. “What else?”

“I want to go to a bookstore on Fourth Avenue and get that boy a book about trains.”

“That’s on my list too.”

“That boy is crazy about trains and boats and fire engines.”

“He sure is.”

They were both quiet for a long while.

“And I want to go dancing with you,” she whispered. “Get dressed up, get Angela to mind the boy, and just go dance.”

“Fred Astaire I’m not.”

“So what? I’m no Dolores Del Rio either.”

She inhaled, held her breath, exhaled.

“I just want to do that,” she whispered. “To remember it. That’s all.”

Delaney felt his own tears welling, then fought them off.

“Let’s try to do them all,” he said.

There was still no word from Grace on Wednesday, and he plodded through the day as if it were any other day in a hot June. Some patients were talking again about the Giants. They were playing good ball. Terry was hitting, and so was Ott, and Hubbell was still the best pitcher in the National League. Delaney started reading the sports pages again and only glanced at the news pages.

“Terrible stuff is coming,” Zimmerman said over a hurried lunch near St. Vincent’s. “Look at Bulgaria: a fascist dictatorship. Look at Lithuania: a coup that failed, but more coming. Look at Austria: Dollfuss is a dictator, a fascist, and they just made a deal giving the Catholic church control of all state education. Fuck the Jews, or the Protestants, or the atheists. Look at Latvia: another fascist dictatorship. Look at Estonia —”

“Look at the Phillies. They keep winning.”

“Come on, Dr. D., this is fucking serious.” His face was tense and grim. “Hitler’s meeting for the first time with Mussolini tomorrow! All the people down the East Side, they read the Forvetz and figure the Nazis are getting ready to land in Staten Island.”

“Forgive me, Jake,” Delaney said. He squeezed Zimmerman’s bony forearm. “I was trying to cheer you up and made things worse.”

Zimmerman looked suddenly alarmed. “Hey, Doctor, please,” he said, his voice rising. “I could never get mad at you. It’s just that — these Nazi fucks are killing Jews because they are Jews! Not because they’re murderers or rapists or perverts, or anything else. Because they’re Jews! ”

Two men at an opposite table looked at Zimmerman and Delaney. One of them seethed with anger. The other sneered. Delaney counted out some change and motioned to the waiter.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Sorry,” Zimmerman said.

“It’s me that’s sorry, Jake.”

They walked to the door. As it closed behind them, they could hear the words “fuckin’ kikes…” Zimmerman stopped and reached for the door handle to go back inside. Delaney locked his left hand on the younger man’s wrist.

“Not now,” he said. “Not yet.”

The telegram arrived Thursday morning, delivered by a Western Union messenger. He handed it to Monique, who gave him a dime tip. Delaney was consoling an agonized woman named Margaret Devlin, who had permanent migraines, when Monique entered.

“Excuse me,” she said. “This is what you’ve been waiting for, Doctor.”

He excused himself to his patient and opened the telegram.

ARRIVING JUNE 23 SS ANDALUSIA SPANISH LINE STOP WAIT FOR ME STOP MUCH LOVE GRACE.

Delaney thought: I’ll tell Rose tonight.

And so he did. First they made love until she covered her face with the pillow and held it with both hands and screamed as if wounded. They were quiet for a long time, except for their breathing. Then he spoke.

“The telegram came today,” he said. “She gets home on the twenty-third.”

Rose was quiet, as if figuring out a calendar. Today was the fourteenth.

Then: “That’s nine days from now.”