The Black Madonna Read Online Free Page B

sticks,” she told the women. “It’s hard to shake.”
    The women looked down. They rocked back and forth, their skirts tucked behind their knees, and they agreed with Teresa, but one young woman stood up. It was Magdalena, Salvatore’s stepmother. “This is America,” she told them. “You can make your destiny.” The women looked at her. Magdalena seldom sat on the stoop, didn’t gossip, never put her head together with theirs, but while they were wary of her, they listened, because behind their suspicions was a grudging respect.
    If magic didn’t work, she said, maybe Nicky needed a doctor, a special kind of doctor. “You ask my husband,” she told Teresa. “He knows all kinds of people. He has business outside, away from here.”
    â€œYes, yes,” the women told Teresa. “Listen to her. Her husband Amadeo is a smart man.”
    Teresa looked down at the women and then faced Magdalena. “I know your husband,” she said. “Long before you came here, I knew him.”
    Magdalena clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She raised her chin. “Come with me now,” she said, and she took Teresa’s arm and pulled her off the stoop. Magdalena linked her arm with Teresa’s and held her close. Teresa stiffened but Magdalena held tight and led her around the corner to her house. It wasn’t a tenement, but a private house, and she and Amadeo and Salvatore lived in all of it.
    â€œShe was lucky,” the women on the stoop said, talking about Magdalena, “to hook a man like that. He started with nothing like the rest of us but now he has a house with chandeliers hanging from every ceiling.”
    â€œAnd a bathroom with colored tiles on the wall,” one of the women said to another in a low voice, “pink and green, laid in a pattern, like a checkerboard.”
    â€œHow do you know?” someone asked.
    â€œWhat do you mean by that? You think I’m lying? Tony the plumber told my husband.”
    The women argued about who knew what and who told whom, but they all agreed that whatever the color of the bathroom tiles, Magdalena had fallen in good. “If things had gone different,” one of them said, “it could have been Teresa living in that house.”
    But Mary Ziganetti shook her head. “Teresa never had the luck. Some people, they got a horseshoe up their ass, but not Teresa.”
    A madeo Pavese was surprised when Magdalena brought Teresa into the house. He stood up when the women came into the parlor. It was the room where he and Teresa had spent Sundays, where Salvatore and Nicky had played. They were so tiny then; just little boys. Amadeo remembered how Teresa would put them down on the rug by her feet, one then the other, and how they would grab at her skirt with their fists and pull themselves up. They only wanted to be in her lap, he remembered, a long time ago.
    Amadeo came to Teresa and took her hand. “How good to see you,” he said. He felt awkward, uncomfortable. If Teresa could tell, she gave him no sign. She said nothing.
    Magdalena sat down in one of the big chairs. She leaned forward, legs apart, her elbows resting on her knees. “Teresa needs a doctor, Amo. A good one, the best, to make Nicola walk. I told her you would know, that you would help.”
    Teresa looked over at Magdalena. Such a girl, she thought. But a girl with power, who knew how to make her way in the world.
    â€œOf course,” Amadeo said. “Why didn’t you come before, Teresa? You know I would help you, always.”
    Teresa inclined her head. She half-closed her eyes. “I didn’t think,” she said.
    Magdalena stood up. “Good. It’s done. Come, Teresa. Have something with us.”
    â€œNo, no. Thank you, but Nicky’s alone. I have to be with him. He needs me all the time. You understand.” She turned to go.
    Magdalena nodded. She followed Teresa to