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Giacomo laughed hoarsely, pulling a chair up to the kitchen table, sitting down. “No. No bathroom. If you'll look out the window at the far left of the yard, you'll see a neat little privy for your important private needs.”
“I had so hoped,” Maria sighed, going to the door, seeing a small square of a building that had a door hanging loosely on hinges, gaping open.
“I'm sorry, honey,” Giacomo said. “I know this ain't much. But maybe we can make it feel like home. Maybe with Alberto's wages and mine put together we can cheer this place up a bit with more furniture, and even some rugs on the floor to cover up the gaping flooring.”
Maria hugged him tightly. “I'm sure of it. Papa,” she whispered. “I'm sure of it.”
When the tea kettle began to whistle, Maria went to it and carried it to the table where her Papa had placed three cups with tea leaves scattered in the bottom of each. “And do you have nice neighbors, Papa?” Maria asked, trying to force a cheerfulness into her words.
“Ah, yes,” Giacomo said, smiling broadly. “There are the Valzanos, Collettis, Hurtados. They are the nicest of the lot. On Sundays, we usually sit around on our porches and have nice leisurely chats. You know. About Italy. About the vineyards we each left behind.”
Alberto entered the room. “Speaking of vineyards,” he said. “I can see off in the distance and I see a vague sign of a vineyard. Whose is it?” He sat down opposite his Papa, thumping his fingers on the table top.
Shadows creased Giacomo's facial features. He lowered his eyes, fidgeting with the cup. “That is just a small part of Nathan Hawkins's estate,” he said.
“I didn't see it, Alberto. Where?” Maria rushed into the living room and opened the door and craned her neck
, seeing only a glimpse of what Alberto was speaking of. She could see it in the distance … the ocean of dried grapevines against the horizon. And then when she looked even further … she saw the vague outline of a house. She now knew why she hadn't seen it earlier. She had been too absorbed by the house that her Papa was leading her to.
She continued to stare, eyes wide. “I've never seen such … a … house….” she whispered to herself.
Chapter Eight
The mine whistle blew long and loud, making goose-bumps ride Alberto's spine. He glanced sideways at his Papa, wondering if he had truly gotten used to this way -of life. He appeared to have accepted it, but Alberto had noticed that the old joviality was lacking in his eyes. It made Alberto's insides ache to see just how much his Papa had changed since having made this trip to America.
“Now, son, you stay pretty close to me these first few times beneath ground,” Giacomo said, hooking his carbide light on the leather bill of his work hat. “Coal mining is one of the most dangerous works in America today. It kills many. There are always dangers of explosions and cave-ins. Just a small rock fall can be the end of a man.”
Fear etched itself across Alberto's face. He knew that he lacked in bravery at times, and he was still amazed at himself for having gotten enough courage to put Sam and Grace in their places. His gaze lowered, feeling a sickness at the pit of his stomach, remembering how embarrassed he had been when he hadn't been able to succeed at seducing Grace. He would always remember her mocking laughter.
“Son? Did you hear a word I said?” Giacomo said, leaning up into Alberto's face.
Alberto fidgeted with the carbide light he held. “Uh . . . yes . . . Papa,” he murmured, knowing that his face was coloring. What a damn time to be thinking of women, he thought to himself. But he knew that when he wasn't thinking about cards, thoughts and fantasies of women filled almost every moment of his days . . . and. .. nights.
Maria. Ah, Maria. It was her fault. If she wasn't so beautiful and always so close . . . reminding Alberto of just what a woman did have to offer a man.
Guilt plagued him, remembering how he had just snuck to stand beside Maria's bedroom door to watch her undress. He had even hidden behind the privy and had watched her through a crack in the wall.
Something similar to a stabbing sensation made his stomach lurch, knowing that something evil was guiding him to do such unthinkable things. But he knew that it was because his needs to possess a woman had yet to be fulfilled.
“Then, son, it's time to get your hat readied with your carbide light,” Giacomo grumbled. “There's nothin’ darker than the insides of a coal mine with that carbide light blowed out.”
“Okay, Papa,” Alberto said, watching men scurrying around, stirring the coal dust beneath their feet, looking like black fog rising into the air. Ponies had been lined up and hitched to posts, ready to start hauling the coal once it was brought to the top. Alberto hadn't noticed before, but one stretch of railroad track lay in the depths of dried, overgrown weeds and ran along the ground to cross the tracks that had carried Alberto and Maria to Hawkinsville. The ponies would carry the coal to the gondola cars of a train oncea day, for the train to then carry and distribute this coal to different sections of the country.
Alberto pulled his soft-shelled hat more secure on his head, frowning, realizing that this hat with its top made of cloth offered no protection whatsoever against any rocks that might choose to fall on his head. But this was the only hat offered to the miners, so Alberto had no choice but to be the same as the others milling around him … to accept a fate that had been so unjustly handed his way.
He placed his carbide light onto the hook of the leather bill of his hat, then followed along beside his Papa, who was quiet with worry. His Papa had confessed that he already was ailing with a rupture from the constant handling of the heavy loads of coal. Alberto wondered what other sort of ailments could be an aftermath of working beneath the ground. Would one's lungs have to work harder to keep oxygen pumping through them? Would Alberto become like a bat, preferring the dark to the light?
“Here's how we get lowered to the city underground,” Giacomo said, stepping up to a mesh-covered cage held upright by a pulley. “Come on, son. Step in beside me.”
Alberto swallowed hard, looking quickly from one person to another. The faces were docile. The men stood, most with rounded shoulders, in dark, coal-stained clothes. The Italian exchange in morning gossip ceased as the cage began to be lowered, sliding gently into the darkness.
The shadows being cast against the wall of earth on each side of Alberto from the men's hat lights made him grow tense and his eyes strain. He scooted closer to his father, hearing the heaviness in the way he was breathing. “Papa, are you all right?” he whispered, focusing the dim light from his hat onto his Papa's face.
“The closeness of the air always seems to grab at my chest,” Giacomo said, openly wheezing now. “I keep hopin’ that my body will adjust. I'm sure in time it will.”
Alberto began to experience such a tightness himself. He coughed, then reached up and loosened a button at his neck. He felt as though a dead weight was crushing in on him the lower the cage moved into the deepest recesses of the ground. “How much further, Papa?” Alberto said, feeling cold sweat beading his brow, though in truth the air had grown damp and cold.
A snapping noise above his head and an abrupt halt of the cage made Alberto aware that the pulley had stopped. A trembling rumbled through him, seeing how pitch black it was on all sides of him. He quickly remembered his Papa's warning . .. “There's nothin’ darker than inside of a coal mine with lights blowed out.”
