Fulvio The Boy Who Granted Dreams

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-3-7325-0166-3
Verlag: Bastei Lübbe
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 784 Seiten

New York, 1909: Fifteen-year-old Cetta arrives on a freighter with nothing but her infant son Natale: strikingly blond, dark-eyed, and precocious. They've fled the furthest reaches of southern Italy with the dream of a better life in America.
But even in the 'Land of the Free,' the merciless laws of gangs rule the miserable, poverty-stricken, and crime-filled Lower East Side. Only those with enough strength and conviction survive. As young Natale grows up in the Roaring Twenties, he takes a page from his crippled mother's book and finds he possesses a certain charisma that enables him to charm the dangerous people around him ...
Weaving Natale's unusual life and quest for his one true love against the gritty backdrop of New York's underbelly, Di Fulvio proves yet again that he is a master storyteller as he constructs enticing characters ravaged by circumstance, driven by dreams, and awakened by destiny.
Haunting and luminous, this masterfully written blend of romance, crime, and historical fiction will thrill lovers of turn-of-the-century dramas like 'Once Upon a Time in America' and 'Gangs of New York.'
About the Author:
Luca Di Fulvio as born in 1957 in Rome where he now works as an independent author. His versatile talent allows him to write riveting adult thrillers and cheerful children's stories (published under a pseudonym) with equal ease. One of his previous thrillers, 'L'Impagliatore,' was filmed in Italian under the title 'Occhi di cristallo.' Di Fulvio studied dramaturgy in Rome where he was mentored by Andrea Camilleri.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fulvio, Luca Di

Leseproben

5

Manhattan, 1909

The room was warm and pleasant, with elaborate draperies at the windows, even finer than anything Cetta had seen in the padrone’s house. The man behind the desk was the same one who had picked her out when she came off the ship less than five hours before.

He was about fifty, at first sight ridiculous looking because of the long strands combed across his head from one side to the other to cover his baldness. But at the same time he exuded a disturbing strength. Cetta couldn’t understand what he was saying.

The other man, the one who was standing, could talk to the man with the comb-over and to Cetta, too, in their own languages. He was interpreting everything the man behind the desk said. It was from him — as she followed him into the room a few minutes ago — that Cetta learned that the man with the foolish hair was a lawyer and that he took care of girls like her. “Cute ones like you,” he’d added, winking at her.

The lawyer said something, staring at Cetta, who was holding Christmas — who had just been formally renamed by the immigration clerk — in her arms.

“We can take care of you,” the other man translated, “But the baby could be a problem.”

Cetta clutched Christmas to her breast. She didn’t answer, and she didn’t lower her gaze.

The lawyer looked up at the ceiling and then spoke again.

“How can you work with a baby?” the man translated. “We’ll put him someplace where he can grow up.”

Cetta held Christmas even more tightly against her breast.

The lawyer said something. The interpreter said, “If you squeeze him any harder you’ll kill him, and the problem’s solved,” and he laughed.

The lawyer laughed with him.

Cetta didn’t laugh. She pressed her lips together and frowned without taking her eyes off the man behind the desk, without moving. Except that she placed one hand on her sleeping baby’s blond head; as if to protect him.

Then the lawyer said something that sounded brusque. He pushed his chair back and left the room.

“Now you’ve made him angry,” said the interpreter, and sat on the edge of the desk. “What will you do if the lawyer puts you out in the street and doesn’t help you? Do you know anyone? Not a soul, am I right? And you don’t have a cent. You and your son won’t live through one night, believe me,” he said.

Cetta looked at him in silence, without moving her hand from Christmas’ head.

“Well? Are you mute now?”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Cetta said suddenly. “But nobody touches my baby.”

The interpreter blew his cigarette smoke upwards. “You’re a stubborn girl,” he said, as he too left the room, leaving the door open.

Cetta was afraid. She tried to distract herself by watching the spirals of smoke floating in the air, rising towards the ceiling with its ornamental plasterwork, more beautiful than anything she ever imagined might exist. She had been afraid right away. Ever since the moment when, going through customs, while the immigration officer was stamping her entry documents, the short swarthy young man with the sunny look, the one who had given Natale his new name had whispered in her ear, “Be careful.” She remembered the young man perfectly; he was the only one who had smiled at her. Cetta had been afraid from the moment the lawyer took her by the arm and led her across the line painted on the floor, the line that was where America began. She’d been afraid when they had made her climb into that huge black automobile, compared to which the padrone’s car was an oxcart. She’d been afraid as she looked at the concrete city rising before her eyes, so huge that everything the padrone owned, including the villa, was a hovel. She’d been afraid of getting lost among the thousands of people thronging the sidewalks. And at that moment, Christmas had laughed. Softly, the way babies do, who knows why. And he had put out one little hand and grabbed her nose and then a lock of her loose hair. And he’d laughed again, he was happy. Unknowing. And Cetta thought, how perfect it would be if he could only talk, if he could only have said ‘mamma.’ For in that very instant Cetta realized that she had nothing. That her baby was her only possession. And that she had to be strong for him, because this little creature was weaker than she was. She should be grateful to him because he was the only one in the world who hadn’t violated her, even though he was the one who, more than any other, had lacerated the place between her legs.

When she heard the loud argument going on outside the room Cetta turned her head. In the doorway stood an unshaven man with huge shoulders and a dead cigar between his lips. He was perhaps thirty, ugly, with large blackened hands, and a boxer’s crushed nose. He was mechanically scratching his right earlobe. He wore a holstered pistol over his heart. There was a red stain on his shirt. It could have been blood, but Cetta thought it was sugo, tomato sauce. The man was looking at her.

The argument stopped as the lawyer came back in, followed by the interpreter. The man with the tomato-stained shirt waited in the doorway while the other two walked past him, but he stayed there, watching.

The lawyer said something without looking at Cetta’s face.

“Final offer,” said the interpreter. “You work for us, we’ll put the boy in a place where they’ll take care of him, and you can see him on Saturdays and Sunday mornings.”

“No,” said Cetta.

The lawyer shouted and gestured at the interpreter to throw her out. Then he threw the immigration papers at her. They rustled in the air, and slid across the carpeted floor.

The interpreter pulled at her arm, making her stand.

And then the man in the doorway said something. His voice rumbled like thunder, low as a belch, its deep vibrations filled the room. He said only a few words.

The lawyer shook his head, then shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Then the man stopped scratching his earlobe with his black fingers, came into the room, picked up her immigration papers from the floor, glanced briefly at them, and in his ogre’s voice, without expression, he said. “Cetta.”

The interpreter let go of Cetta’s arm and took a step backwards. The man jerked his chin at Cetta and left the room without saying a word to the other two. Cetta followed him, watched him pick up a rumpled jacket and put it on. It was too tight for him everywhere, across the shoulders, across his chest. He didn’t button it. Cetta thought that he wouldn’t be able to, even if he tried. Again he beckoned to her and left the apartment, with Cetta and Christmas following.

When they reached the street the man got into a car that had two bullet holes in the mudguard. He reached across from the other side and opened the door, slapping the seat to indicate that Cetta should sit there. Cetta got in and he started off. He drove without ever speaking, without ever looking at her, as if he were alone. After about ten minutes he pulled up to the sidewalk and got out. And again he gestured at Cetta to follow him, pushing through a noisy crowd of grimy people dressed in rags. They went down a few steps to a partially underground corridor with doors on either side.

They came to the end of the dark and foul-smelling passageway where, before opening the door in front of them, he picked up a mattress that was leaning vertically against the wall. Then he went inside.

The room — for there was only one room — looked like many others that Cetta knew. Rooms without windows. Cords stretched from one wall to the other, next to the coal stove, with clothes hung up to dry, many of them patched. A curtain that didn’t quite hide the big bed. A rickety cook stove, its hood funneling smoke to the outside through two rusty pipes. Two chamber pots in a corner. An old cupboard missing a door and with one injured leg, under which — to make it level — a block of wood had been placed. A square table and three chairs. A sink and some chipped enamel pots.

Two old people were sitting on the chairs. A man and a woman. He was thin, she was plump. Both of them very short. They turned their wrinkled faces towards the door, looking worried. A lifetime of fear showed in their eyes. But then, seeing the man, they smiled. The old man showed his empty gums, and then put a hand in front of his mouth. The old woman laughed, slapped her thigh, and stood up to embrace the man. The old man, shuffling, went behind the curtain that masked the bed. There was a tiny clattering sound, and when he emerged he was forcing yellowed dentures into his mouth.

The old couple seemed happy to see the ugly man with black hands, who meanwhile had laid the mattress down in a corner of the room. Then, after they’d heard him say something in that voice that shook the air, the old woman had dipped a rag in water and begun to clean the sugo off the man’s shirt, ignoring his protests. And only after that did she look at Cetta. And nodded her head, yes.

Before the man left, he reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out a banknote, then handed it to the old woman. She kissed his blackened hand. The old man stared at the floor, looking mortified. The man noticed, squeezed his shoulder, and said something that made the old man smile. Then the...