The Shoemaker's Wife(79)

Enza had been pulling double shifts since Laura and she decided to get out of Hoboken. When Enza was this exhausted, she felt the withering despair of defeat down to her bones. She was so depleted, she was beginning to doubt Laura’s grand schemes.

Perhaps it was the letter she’d received from Ciro Lazzari that contributed to her black mood. He was making excuses not to see her. He said his work would keep him in Queens for longer than he expected; it might be Christmas before he could visit. Their kiss on Columbus Day had meant something to her, but the meaning for him was not the same. Perhaps she had been too direct, a fault that had been brought to her attention before.

A letter from her father told her he would not see her this Christmas either. Marco was working on a highway crew in California, and could pick up overtime working through the holiday. Everything they did, every penny they saved for their future, was to be reunited with their family on their mountain. But at moments like these, Enza wondered if the time would ever come when the Ravanellis would be together again.

The weathered row houses of Hoboken, built of plywood covered with cheap tin roofs, leaked in the rain and were hot in the sun. Winters meant furnaces that didn’t work, frozen pipes, and the kind of conditions that forced people to give up before they even got started. Enza hiked to work through drifts of snow, because nobody bothered to shovel and plow tenement streets.

Year round, small packs of hungry children were left to wander the streets and beg. Occasionally, during school months, a truant officer would knock on doors and admonish parents that they were required by law to educate their children. But there was rarely a follow-up. The poor were left to fend for themselves.

The air over Hoboken was choked with clouds of heavy smoke from the factories, and the constant stoking of ovens burning cheap wood for heat. Enza longed to see the sky in the daytime, but the clutter of roofs and the low-hanging industrial smoke created a dismal canopy. At night the stars were obscured by the same haze, making it impossible for Enza to follow the patterns of the night sky as she had in Schilpario.

Sometimes Enza broke down as black thoughts consumed her, worries about her father, anxieties about her job, and fear for how she would ever survive the trip home to Italy. She tried to pray through the despair but found no peace, not even in church, which had always given her comfort. This wasn’t how it used to be.

The only joy Enza knew was her paycheck, the portion saved to make the move into Manhattan, and the satisfaction that came from the money order sent to Mama in the envelope each week. She still relished the return letters each week confirming the arrival of the money, and filled with news written by each of her brothers and sisters:

I am taking care of your garden. Love, Alma.

I have fallen in love with Pietro Calva. Love, Eliana.

Don’t believe Eliana. Pietro Calva doesn’t love Eliana. Love, Alma.

We bought a new horse. We named him Enzo after you. Your brother, Battista.

I found the most truffles on the cliff. Battista took one to Bergamo. It brought 200 lire! I miss you, your brother Vittorio.

The small bits of news were like spoonfuls of honey for her hungry heart.

We cleared stones from the land. Everyone helped. Battista and Vittorio cut down a birch tree and made planks for the windowsills. Eliana sewed the curtains. Alma helped me dig the garden. I am watching every lira. I love you, Mama.

Enza could withstand anything, knowing that she was making her mother’s life easier. She was thinking of her when she climbed the ladder to the supply room above the machines. She was busy loading her apron with spools of tickets to pin to the finished blouses when she felt hands against her back. She was thrown against the wall, her hands pinned behind her.

Enza cried out for help, but the drone of the sewing machines below drowned out her calls. Feeling a man’s hands moving up her legs and under her skirt, she tried to kick from behind, but lost her footing. She landed on the floor, her face hitting the uneven planks of wood. She felt the warm ooze of blood down her face.

“Dago bitch. Now you’ll talk to me,” she heard Joe Neal growl in her ear. Enza pulled her hands out of Neal’s grasp, flipped herself over, and buckled her knees, kicking him. He lunged at her and, as she rolled over to crawl to the ladder, pinned her again.

“Mai!” she shouted in Italian. “Never!” she repeated in English.

Months of being ridiculed, shamed, and humiliated by Joe Neal created a fury within her, and with the full force of her body, she threw him off. She saw the momentary flash of anger in his eyes before he threw himself back on top of her. His full weight crushed her, and the feel of his body against her own disgusted her. Enza heard her underskirt rip as she twisted to get away, but she could not.

“Let her go, Joe Neal!” a voice thundered from behind.

Enza saw Laura on the top rung of the ladder, brandishing a large pair of scissors from the cutting-room table. “I said, let her go. I’ll plunge these scissors into your back. Move away from her!”

He rolled off.

“Keep your distance. Stay over there.” Laura pointed with the blades of the scissors as he cowered in the corner.

“Come on, Enza. Come down the ladder. You stay there, Joe. And I mean, stay there,” Laura said to him.

Enza stood, reeling from the assault. She took the hem of her apron and held it to the cut on her face. She made it to the ladder, where she fell into Laura’s arms. Laura helped her down the ladder, step by step, to the waiting arms of her fellow operators, who had gathered at the foot of the ladder.