Over the years since their father had left them and the don had forced them into his service, Caterina, Paolo, and their mother had worked to collect the things they’d need for a journey to America. In dribs and drabs, fits and starts, they’d stashed clothing and other necessities, and coins as well, enough to cover the cost of their travel and the bribes they would need to pay.
They had accomplished this in their few moments of private time, sacrificing an item of clothing, or sewing something new, working a trade when they were in the village, or, yes, sometimes in less honest ways. Paolo in particular had little compunction about stealing from the don who’d stolen so much from them, and he’d pocketed a coin here or there, or stray bullets, or their casings, which could be melted down for their metal.
By the time they rode away from the village, secreted under the tarp in Mario’s wagon, they hoped to have collected enough coin to pay for the papers and passage, and the bribes, to get them to America, and enough goods to keep them on the way. Not much, but hopefully enough.
Mario got them to the train station, but the last train to Messina, where they could pick up the ferry to the mainland, had already run.
He had no choice but to leave them and continue on, and they were left at the station, exposed, with nowhere to go until the next day. They didn’t know where Don Cuccia was, or where he’d looked, or if he were still looking, so they hurried from the station into the countryside, seeking cover.
They slept outside, in the rough, shielded by the rocks and hills. Paolo, Caterina knew, barely slept, but kept watch for trouble. She and her mother, on the other hand, slept heavily under his care. The night in the well had taken every ounce of their energy.
No doubt her brother was as exhausted, if not more, but he pushed doggedly forward. At last, he was protecting his family.
When the sun rose, he woke them. They had passed the night without trouble, or at least not more than they were already caught in. They changed into clean clothes, and rolled the soiled ones into small wads for the bottoms of their packs. It would be better to discard them, since they could not clean them, but they could not afford such waste.
And then, with Paolo scanning the horizon in every direction, they made their way to the train. If they could manage to get out of Sicily, they might have a chance to reach America after all.
Caterina couldn’t think all this horror was worth it, but she could think it was at least one good thing to turn her dreams toward.
After a long train ride, a ferry, and another long train, they finally arrived in Napoli, just as the sun set. They had seen no sign of Don Cuccia in all the long day, and Caterina began to feel hope. As they made their way to the port, and she saw the massive steamers moored there, that hope began to blossom.
None of her family had ever been so far from their village before, nor seen a city so vast and bustling as Napoli. Caterina, exhausted and sore, still reeling from the horrors they’d survived, was frightened by the crush of people and wagons and beasts, and the thunder of their feet and wheels and hooves.
She could tell her mother and brother were frazzled as well. Paolo’s eyes seemed bruised, with the black half-moons of exhaustion beneath them. And their mother stumbled repeatedly into one or the other as she walked between them. In fact, Caterina was growing worried for their mother—she seemed more than tired and frazzled. She seemed to be dimming.
Yet another night was upon them, and they had nowhere to go. The ticket office for the steamer was closed for the night; they couldn’t book passage until the morning. But they weren’t ready to book passage yet. They needed to make sure their papers were in order first. At the moment, they were not.
They needed some kind of paper—a telegram or a letter—from their father, indicating that he was in America, employed and housed, and ready to receive them. All they had was that old letter, saying he’d arrived himself. They would need someone to make that letter say what the Americans at the door expected it to say.
“We need to find the inn Mario told us about,” Paolo said, trying to cipher Mario’s notes.
“Can we afford an inn?”
“We can and we will, Mamma, but not this one.” Paolo answered. “That’s where we’ll find the man to help us with our papers. He’s a friend of Mario’s.”
“Can we afford him?”
“Don’t worry about money, Mamma.” Paolo insisted. “There will be enough.”
The inn was loud and full of drunken men playing card games and shouting at each other. The only women Caterina saw were dressed like the don’s son had had a go at them already. Their hair was loose and tangled, their clothing disheveled, and their lips bright red. They all seemed tired and angry.
Caterina felt a hundred eyes on her as they wended through the jostling crowd, and Paolo grabbed her arm and dragged her behind him, holding her close with one hand while he kept his arm around their mother.
They found a man sitting in a corner, at a table set up like it was his work desk. He was big and round and sweaty, with slick black hair and a mustache like a black broom that covered his mouth.
“Are you Giovanni Alteri?” Paoli asked.
“Depends on who’s asking,” the man barked in a voice higher than his size would have suggested.
“We come on the word of Mario Giordano,” Paolo said. “He said you can help us.”
“I help no one unless I help myself as well.”
Paolo slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a ten lire coin. So much money in such a small disc.
He set it on the table, keeping his finger on its surface. “Will that help you sort our papers?”
A thick black eyebrow crawled up the man’s sweaty brow like a caterpillar. “For all three?”
“Most of our papers are in order. We need a letter altered only.”
Alteri lifted a meaty hand and waggled his fingers. “Let me have a look.”
Keeping his finger on the coin, Paolo fished the letter from his pack with his other hand and gave it over.
Alteri set a pair of pince-nez on his nose—a ridiculously foppish look on his wide, shiny face—and considered the letter. “Ah. You need a new sentence or two and a newer date, I assume, all to look original. By when?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Alteri looked over the letter. “For a rush like that, I’ll need twice the help.”
Caterina’s knees nearly buckled. Twenty lire. But Paolo put another coin on the table, as if his pockets were full of gold.
Alteri swiped them into his big hand. “Breakfast at eight. Be here.”
“We will. Thank you.”
Alteri’s hooded eyes slid to Caterina and swept over her. “Come close and let me put my mouth on your neck and my hand on a tit, sweetling, and I’ll push one of these coins back to your brother. Let me take you up to my room for an hour, and I’ll push the other one back as well.”
Caterina’s stomach began to ooze up her throat. Her skin crawled. Why, why, did men look on her and see a meal? Why did they not see more than her body, as if she were a cut of meat? She was a person. A human being.
But they did not. Seemingly no man but her brother saw her as anything more than something on which to sate their vile hungers.