The Right Thing to Do Read online

  “What did he tell you?” Nino asked suspiciously.

  “He told me everything,” Gina said.

  “What is everything?”

  Gina smiled. He had said Nino hauled her body to Mulberry Street and rigged a phony mass, and then decided to lie to the rest of the family about it. He had been sure Nino did it just because it would embarrass him if Maria weren’t buried in consecrated ground.

  “Just that the priest gave you a hard time before Maria was buried.”

  “Angelo talks too much. And he doesn’t talk sense. I know he told you more than that. Do you think I’m an idiot? I did it because it was the right thing to do. It’s not for him to question my motives. Look at him. He’s twenty-four and he still thinks like a kid. He goes here, he goes there.” Nino gestured. “He looks for a good time; he looks for someone to pop up with a sign that says ‘Follow Me!’ He’s too much of a fool to see the truth is under his nose. I forbid you to talk to him again. When did you see him?”

  “At the funeral,” Gina answered, amused at how annoyed Nino was.

  They passed through the door into the restaurant, Nino leaning heavily on his cane as they went down the four steps. He sighed, motioning toward a table in the corner. “Air conditioning is one of the greatest things in America. A large carafe of white wine,” he told the waiter, accepting a menu, but putting it down after a moment. He began to joke with the waiter in Greek. He prided himself on picking up languages. Whenever she glimpsed him with one of his cronies, she realized he was different with them than with anyone at home. He was like that now, questioning the waiter, ordering what he thought was good for her without asking her what she wanted. When the waiter left, Nino turned to her genially, picked up his wine glass, and said, “Salud!”

  “Salud!” she returned cautiously.

  He seemed amused, looking her over. She had been a beautiful child, he thought, a perfect little face with huge, almond-shaped eyes. Laura always dressed her in starched pinafores—pink and white and yellow. She would flutter through the empty lot next to the house while he watched, yelling at her not to get dirty. But she always got dirty. Whenever she did anything wrong, she would admit it with an air of such utter, innocent trustfulness that it was hard to punish her. Even as a child she was wily, restless, full of will. It had not been easy to change her. But somewhere along the way she had become careful, self-controlled. Even if it takes a lot of belt buckle, you have to teach a girl she can’t get what she wants. Otherwise, they’re impossible to live with.

  But she isn’t a kid anymore, he thought mournfully. Her dark hair was long, falling in soft fluffy waves to her shoulders. She sat opposite him in an immaculate white dress that set off her tanned, smooth skin. Her face had always fascinated him, partly because it was his face, only more delicate, more . . . lovely. She has a really Italian grace, he thought, satisfied. His feeling for her surprised him, rising over his determination to start questioning her right away.

  “Why is it that we don’t get along better?” he asked softly.

  “You’re too complicated to get along with,” she answered easily. When Nino pleaded for sympathy and understanding, she always wound up taking a beating in the end. Mom always said, ‘Never feel sorry for a man; you’ll always regret it later on.’ But Mom always wound up being taken in. It was better to attack now, she decided. “It’s hard to get along with someone who sneaks around, following you to the fruit store. Haven’t you got anything better to do?” she said lightly.

  Nino took a long sip of wine. “I’m your father. If there is some . . . disturbance in your life, I have a right to know.”

  “You could ask,” Gina suggested.

  “I could ask,” Nino agreed. “But you wouldn’t answer.”

  “I never refuse to talk to you,” Gina said.

  “No, you don’t. But you know how to keep quiet even while you’re talking,” Nino said. “So what good are your answers?”

  “Silence is golden?” she offered.

  “Not yours. I’ve had enough of that. I know you’re hiding something,” Nino said finally. “You should know that I am your father, and I . . . I care about you. You should feel the same because you’re my daughter. That is the way it’s supposed to be. If there is confusion in your life, you should come to me with it so I can set it straight.” He patted her hand, his long yellowed nails scraping her skin.

  Mercifully, the waiter arrived with platters of food. Nino had ordered squid for both of them. She smiled insincerely, stalling for time. “You do know what I like to eat,” she said.

  “Something light,” he said, watching her. “So you can go on looking like a stick.”

  “You do know food,” she continued, on a safe subject. He did know food. He had eaten himself into diabetes and a stroke. After that she began to live on raw vegetables. She searched his ruined face for some clue to how much he knew. In the cool, sepulchral dimness of the restaurant, she felt she was floating. He leaned toward her again, dark and shriveled like some ancient oracle. There were times when each of them seemed thousands of years old. At Aulis, he would have been the first to volunteer as a stand-in for Agamemnon, dragging her on as Iphigenia. She could see he had put an axe in her future. He was about to drop it on her neck himself, accompanied by a speech full of tenderness and piety and idealism.

  “I have nothing to hide,” Gina lied. “What makes you think I do?”

  “As you pointed out, I’m a sneak and a spy,” Nino said, grinning. “We sneaks see everything, unlike you angels, who do nothing.”

  “What kinds of things do you see?” Gina asked, slicing the longest tentacle.

  “This and that,” Nino said noncommittally.

  Gina put down her knife and fork. “That, I guess, proves you’re not a very good sneak, or else that there isn’t anything of interest to find.” She smiled sweetly.

  Nino couldn’t help smiling back. With her face lit up like that, her eyes full of questions she wasn’t going to ask, her demure white dress, she did look angelic. Even as a child, whenever she had done something wrong, she looked especially angelic. He poured her another glass of wine. She’s already becoming a complex Sicilian woman, he thought. She’ll be interesting at thirty. But, he reminded himself, the more interesting a woman is, the more misery she brings to everyone around her. An interesting woman is a curse.

  “I found some surprising things.”

  Gina bit into the fleshy upper tentacle.

  “Don’t you want to know what they are?” Nino asked.

  “Not really,” Gina said. “I know there’s nothing you could tell me that I don’t already know. Anyway, don’t you think I have a right to some privacy? I work, I’m on my own, I don’t see why my feelings or anything else can’t be my own. If I felt it concerned you, I would tell you. If it doesn’t concern you, I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

  “What I decide is my business, is my business,” Nino said, amused.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” Gina answered.

  “Nothing is a matter of opinion. I’m your father; so long as you are my daughter, what you do is my business. Only an idiot would think that his life belongs to himself. You think my life belongs to me? You live in a family with other people; what you do affects them. You can’t do anything without taking them into account.”

  “You mean, without taking you into account,” said Gina.

  Nino shrugged.

  “What do you want?” Gina asked quietly.

  “I want you to tell me the truth.”

  “The truth about what?”

  “The truth about where you are and who you’re with every evening.”

  The trouble with Nino, Gina thought, was that you could never tell if he was just fishing or if he really knew something. If she admitted to something he didn’t know, she would give herself away. He would automatically add to whatever she acknowledged, knowing that she wouldn’t tell the whole story. If she denied everything, and he knew something, he
would assume still worse.

  “Sometimes I go to the library; sometimes I see a movie,” Gina said. “I’ve told you that.”

  “Who do you do these things with?” Nino asked softly.

  “Sometimes alone; sometimes with friends I’ve made at work.”

  “These friends—are they girls or boys?”

  “Mostly girls,” Gina said.

  “These girls,” Nino asked, leaning forward, “how many of them have beards?”

  So he knows. He knows a lot. “All of them,” Gina said conspiratorially, “every one.”

  Nino looked grayer than ever.

  “Cheer up,” Gina said. “I’ve answered all your questions, haven’t I?”

  “I haven’t begun to ask questions,” Nino answered sourly. “Look how you treat this, as though it were a joke. It’s not a joke.” He tightened his fist around his cane.

  “You aren’t going to use that on me in public, are you?” Gina said.

  “I don’t want to use it at all. I’m giving you a chance to be honest.”

  “Now that I’ve taken it, let me tell you again that my feelings are my own. Not yours.” She sliced the air with her hand, to cut him off from her.

  He looked at her, little Gina, talking like a tough and hardened stranger. She had finished all the squid, eating it like someone determined to survive an ordeal. She had his firmness; he realized she would never tell him anything, any more than he would have admitted anything in her place. Her silence, it came to him, was proof of his effect upon her. She was his daughter; she was too much like him. It made it hard for him to go further, to go as far as he knew he would have to.

  She could see how troubled he was. It was beginning to get to her. He had taken the trouble to be civilized, to speak to her directly. It wasn’t the worst he could have done, and yet it was getting him nowhere. She could sympathize with how he felt, but that was it. It was clear that he wanted to be loved; he didn’t want to ruin it completely by giving in to his rage. She could see his anger flickering on and off—it was hard for him to sustain it, even though she was giving him nothing. It came upon her that his sense of failure must be terrible.

  “Dad,” she said, leaning forward, “give it up. It’s not what you think, and it’s not worth it for you. Things will always be the same between us, whatever else I do. You have to let it go, or you’ll make it impossible for both of us.”

  “How can things be the same when you’re so entirely different? How can I stand by and watch you ruin everything through stupidity?”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “People who think they’re smart enough to manage anything usually turn out to be wrong.”

  “If the worst you could imagine were true, what would be such a big deal? What difference would it make to anyone but you?”

  “You’re the one who will pay the price, Gina. It will make a difference to you. You may think it won’t now, but you’ll find out differently. What will you do with yourself? Did you think of that? I let you go to college”—he hesitated, seeing her wince at “let you”—“but do you think you’ll ever finish? Girls who play with fire burn up their diplomas.”

  “So you’ve decided that school is the lesser of two evils?” she asked.

  Nino nodded.

  “Don’t worry, Dad,” Gina said, taking his hand. “I’m too stubborn to flunk out.” She smiled. The truth was, she suspected he wanted her to succeed in college as much, maybe even more, than she did. He just wouldn’t admit it. She stood up.

  “Sit down,” he ordered. He was losing patience. She complied. “What is it you are doing, what is it you want? Do you want to marry this man?”

  “What man?”

  “The one you don’t see every night.”

  “I don’t want to marry him. I just want peace between you and me,” she said with finality.

  She checked her watch and stood up. “Enjoy your lunch,” she said. “I have to get back, but there’s no need for you to rush. And thanks.” She took his hand for a moment, then turned and walked out into the yellow heat.

  Nino, for the first time, felt his assurance fading. How she had looked him straight in the eye and patted his hand, as though he were ninety. As though he were a fool! His tenderness, rising even with his irritability, had crippled him. She had spoiled for him the desire to let her down with magnanimity. It flashed through his mind that he could go back to confront her and the boy at the office. That would be really bad for her, to do it in front of everyone. Just the sight of him with Gina would be enough to slow this Alex down, if not stop him. Somehow, when Gina had been with him, putting her in place didn’t seem so important. The minute she had gone, his responsibility came thudding on his brain. He had come all the way here and done nothing. Now he would have to take one more step to salvage the day. He sat back, enjoying the cool whiteness of the restaurant walls, heavily stuccoed and decorated at various points with dark copper bells. The waiter sat at a back table, drinking black coffee and fingering amber worry beads between sips. A black silk tassel hung from the beads, shimmering as he turned them. You could understand a man like that. Nino waited until the man had finished circling the string before signaling him for coffee and a check. Gina’s business could wait until tomorrow, he thought, sipping the thick, bitter coffee. I’ve done enough for today.

  The pins-and-needles sensation in his feet was constant now, worsening as he moved on toward 125th Street and the bus across the Triboro to Queens. By the time he had walked up Amsterdam to the Casa Italiana he was already exhausted. Less than five blocks, he thought bitterly, pausing by the door. It was almost eighteen years since he’d been president of the Dante Circle, and Columbia had rented them space there to hold socials and lectures. Memories hurled themselves at him, but the ones that hit were of dances, waltzes where he whirled around with girls in low-backed dresses, politely keeping his distance even while he held them, wearing gloves or holding a handkerchief between his hand and the smooth bare backs. Some of those girls. . . . His fingers played over the beautifully carved wooden door. He could picture the foyer inside: carved mahogany molding, deep-rust quarry tile, high cream-colored ceilings.

  He limped forward, his leg too numb already to think of making another stop. What’s over is over, he thought. When he stopped feeling the sensation of jabbing pins, he would feel nothing. Later, at home, he hoisted his bad leg—it was getting hard to tell which one it was—onto the sofa. Better bad circulation than none, he thought. He took off his shoes and socks and reached for the iodine he kept in his pocket. Someone had told him it would ward off infection. He began painting his gray toes with it. When he finished, he switched on the television set, wincing from the sting, but pleased that he still felt something. Thank God he had gotten Nunzio to check out the jerk at the Motor Vehicles Bureau for him. He couldn’t face a trip down there in the morning. But as it was, coming and going had cost him the entire afternoon. He had missed most of the ball game. The Yankees were winning, but not by much. He nodded grimly. It still wasn’t over. The game’s not over ’til it’s over! The Red Sox were only down one in the seventh inning. He settled back to watch. When Laura came in she found him cheering, goading, “Get ’em! Get ’em!”

  Another game, the same noise, Laura thought. Football, baseball, they followed one another season after season, keeping the noise level constant. The nasal-voiced announcers screaming into mikes, the raucous crowds, the tense cheers into the television set. . . . She put the heavy bags of groceries on the kitchen table. It would be wonderful to come home to quiet. Or maybe conversation. But you could never really tell him anything over the noise. He kept on watching the screen while you talked, and you never knew what he meant by his irritable answers. Sports anger—it was one of the terrible things a woman discovers in marriage.

  “What’s new?” Laura asked anyway, coming into the living room. She waited, but no answer came. “You want something?”

  “No, no,” Nino said, clenching his teeth. />
  “I have beautiful grapefruit,” Laura coaxed. “Smell,” she insisted, holding one out to him.

  “No, no. Can’t you see, I’m watching the game.”

  “You watched the game yesterday,” Laura pointed out.

  “This is a different game.”

  “Would you rather have yellow grapefruit or pink grapefruit?”

  “I don’t want any grapefruit!”

  “You never have an opinion about anything important,” Laura said. “That’s what’s wrong with you.” She was back in a minute, peeling a tangerine and putting the peels in a bowl of water. “Don’t you love the smell of tangerines?” she asked. “It fills the room.”

  “That’s it!” Nino screamed. “Strike him out! That does it!”

  Laura looked at the set. It seemed to be over, but he would still want to watch the interviews in the locker rooms. Then a bunch of men would sit around talking about the game. It never ended. Usually she was more resigned, but today there were too many things on her mind. She went to work in the kitchen, pulling the ends off smooth green beans, breaking the beans in half and plopping them into a bowl. Wonderful vegetables, she thought, really firm.

  She was supposed to write down a recipe for Mrs. Gourkas, she remembered. Spinach pie. First you go to Gino for two pounds of fresh spinach, take it home, and wash it. No: first you go to Leo’s for a loaf of Italian bread and let it get stale. No, no, you buy the bread the day before so the spinach doesn’t get soft. Then by the time you buy the spinach, the bread feels stale. Then you clean the spinach and chop it. Separate four eggs and beat up the whites; grate the bread into crumbs and add some melted butter and heavy cream beaten with the yolks. Then you put in some grated parmesan and that’s it. She ought to be able to do that, Laura thought.

  And then she had promised Luisa she would get Nino’s advice about Millie. Although what good his advice would do was beyond her. Sometimes, Laura conceded, his judgment wasn’t bad. She listened to the post-game roundup from the kitchen. The Yankees seemed to have won. Thank God. You can’t talk to him when they lose. She waited until the last thing had been said about the game, and went into the living room just as he was reaching for the radio. How many post-game roundups can he want, she thought irritably. She waited, nevertheless, as he tried station after station, arranging the rubber-backed throw so that it covered the sofa. Striped gold and green, it had absorbed countless dots of iodine and sustained several cigarette burns, while, she thought gratefully, the sofa remained OK.