The Shoemaker's Wife(67)

Enza longed for satin shoes and elegant hats, like all young women, but when she thought of her mother, she put her desires aside for the family’s dream. She sent her father a letter each week, after she received his pay, in which she only wrote good news. She told humorous stories about the girls in the factory where she worked and the church she attended.

Enza said little about the Buffa family, because life with them was barely tolerable. She was mistreated, overworked, forced to do the cleaning, cooking, and laundry for Anna Buffa and her three daughters-in-law, who lived in the apartments above her own. While the Buffas were blood relatives of Giacomina’s, they were distant third cousins, only discovered when Enza and Marco looked for connections to help them make the move to America. Anna did not consider Enza family, and she let her know it.

Enza was given a small room in the basement, a cot, and a lamp. It was indentured servitude, and the only happy moments she knew came from the friendships she made at the factory. Enza promised herself each night before sleep that once the house money had been secured, she and Marco would return to Schilpario, and life would be as it once had been. Papa would manage the carriage, and Enza would set up her own dressmaking shop. She put aside thoughts of her illness on the voyage over, vowing that she could survive a return trip. Enza’s dreams of the mountain, her determination to return to the security of her mother’s arms, and the memory of the laughter of her brothers and sisters got her through each day—but just barely.

Enza sealed the envelope addressed to her mother carefully, then tucked it into her apron pocket.

“Vincenza!” Signora Buffa’s voice thundered from the kitchen.

“Coming!” Enza shouted back. She slipped into her shoes and climbed the basement steps.

“Where is my rent?”

Enza reached into her pocket and handed Signora one dollar in cash, for the rental of her basement room. The original agreement had been that Enza would work in exchange for her room and board, but that plan had quickly died when Pietro Buffa took a job in Illinois, taking his three sons with him, to build train tracks on a crew in the Midwest. Enza only stayed because she had heard stories of immigrant girls who left their sponsor’s homes only to find themselves in the street, without a position or a place to stay.

“You’re behind on the laundry. Gina needs the baby clothes.” Signora Anna Buffa had thin black eyebrows, a turned-up nose, and a cruel mouth. “We’re tired of waiting for you to finish your chores.”

“I hang the laundry when I leave in the morning. Gina could take it down.”

“She’s watching the baby!” Anna shrieked.

“Maybe one of the other girls could help.”

“Dora is in school! Jenny has children! It’s your job!”

“Yes, Signora.” Enza lifted the laundry basket and entered the kitchen.

Anna called after her, “The sun will go down and the clothes won’t dry. I don’t know why I took you in, you stupid girl!”

Late that evening, Anna stood by her phonograph player in the living room. She sorted through stacks of Enrico Caruso’s records, shuffling through them like cards. She chose a record, placed it on the turntable, and cranked the wheel. The needle settled into the grooves as Anna poured herself a glass of whiskey. Soon the air was filled with Caruso’s artistry, long, luscious notes, arias sung in Italian. The scratches on the wax records only made his voice sound sweeter, the grooves deepened from wear.

Anna played “Mattinata” over and over again at top volume, until the neighbor yelled, “Basta!” Then she changed the record, playing music from Lucia di Lammermoor until she fell asleep, the needle scouring the innermost track of the wax in an endless hiss.

Enza checked the strands of fresh pasta she had made that morning, hanging them up to dry on wooden dowels. As they dried, the powdery scent of flour wafted through the kitchen. These were the things that made Enza long for the Ravanelli kitchen in Schilpario, on days when Mama would cover the table in flour and they would knead fluffy ropes of potato pasta to make gnocchi, or roll small, delicate bundles of crepes filled with cheese and bits of sweet sausage.

Enza tried not to think about home when she did her chores. She would rather be helping her own mother than this ungrateful landlord.

Enza walked through the piles of dirty laundry on the sunporch. None of the Buffa women worked in the local factories, nor did they perform any of the usual household chores. They considered Enza their personal maid. They had adjusted quickly to having everything done for them, as if they came from homes with servants.

Enza lifted the tin washtub, filled with wet laundry she had scrubbed and rinsed by hand. She pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the patch of grass behind the tenement, where she had strung a clothesline across the courtyard. Every bit of space behind the building had been negotiated and bartered, including the open air. Lines of rope choked the sky like strings on a harp.

Enza lifted the corners of her apron, tucking them beneath the sash. She filled the pocket with clothespins. She lifted a bleached white diaper out of the bin, snapped it, and clipped it to the clothesline. She yanked the pulley and hung the next, and the next. Enza’s laundry was always the most pristine in the courtyard. She used lye soap, and finished the job with a soak in hot water and bleach.

Enza hung the underpants, pantalettes, and skirts of the Buffa women one by one. When she had first arrived, she would drop lavender oil into the rinse as she had when she washed the family’s clothes in Schilpario, but after a few months, she stopped. Her extra efforts were neither appreciated nor acknowledged. She only heard complaints: there was a wrinkle in a hem, or the laundry wasn’t finished fast enough. Four babies had been born in six years on Adams Street. Enza could barely keep up with the workload.