A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories

Maria sighed, and said, “Sometimes I dream we’re in the taffy machine at Bartole’s candy store.”

“This bed,” he announced to the darkness, “served our family before Garibaldi! From this wellspring alone came precincts of honest voters, a squad of clean-saluting Army men, two confectioners, a barber, four second leads for Il Trovatore and Rigoletto, and two geniuses so complex they never could decide what to do in their lifetime! Not to forget enough beautiful women to provide ballrooms with their finest decoration. A cornucopia of plenty, this bed! A veritable harvesting machine!”

“We have been married two years,” she said with dreadful control over her voice. “Where are our second leads for Rigoletto, our geniuses, our ballroom decorations?”

“Patience, Mama.”

“Don’t call me Mama! While this bed is busy favoring you all night, never once has it done for me. Not even so much as a baby girl!”

He sat up. “You’ve let these women in this tenement ruin you with their dollar-down, dollar-a-week talk. Has Mrs. Brancozzi children? Her and her new bed that she’s had for five months?”

“No! But soon! Mrs. Brancozzi says … and her bed, so beautiful.”

He slammed himself down and yanked the covers over him. The bed screamed like all the Furies rushing through the night sky, fading away toward the dawn.

The moon changed the shape of the window pattern on the floor. Antonio awoke. Maria was not beside him.

He got up and went to peer through the half-open door of the bathroom. His wife stood at the mirror looking at her tired face.

“I don’t feel well,” she said.

“We argued.” He put out his hand to pat her. “I’m sorry. We’ll think it over. About the bed, I mean. We’ll see how the money goes. And if you’re not well tomorrow, see the doctor, eh? Now, come back to bed.”

At noon the next day, Antonio walked from the lumberyard to a window where stood fine new beds with their covers invitingly turned back.

“I,” he whispered to himself, “am a beast.”

He checked his watch. Maria, at this time, would be going to the doctor’s. She had been like cold milk this morning; he had told her to go. He walked on to the candy-store window and watched the taffy machine folding and threading and pulling. Does taffy scream? he wondered. Perhaps, but so high we cannot hear it. He laughed. Then, in the stretched taffy, he saw Maria. Frowning, he turned and walked back to the furniture store. No. Yes. No. Yes! He pressed his nose to the icy window. Bed, he thought, you in there, new bed, do you know me? Will you be kind to my back, nights?”

He took out his wallet slowly, and peered at the money. He sighed, gazed for a long time at that flat marbletop, that unfamiliar enemy, that new bed. Then, shoulders sagging, he walked into the store, his money held loosely in his hand.

“Maria!” He ran up the steps two at a time. It was nine o’clock at night and he had managed to beg off in the middle of his overtime at the lumberyard to rush home. He rushed through the open doorway, smiling.

The apartment was empty.

“Ah,” he said disappointedly. He laid the receipt for the new bed on top of the bureau where Maria might see it when she entered. On those few evenings when he worked late she visited with any one of several neighbors downstairs.

I’ll go find her, he thought, and stopped. No. I want to tell her alone. I’ll wait. He sat on the bed. “Old bed,” he said, “good-by to you. I am very sorry.” He patted the brass lions nervously. He paced the floor. Come on, Maria. He imagined her smile.

He listened for her quick running on the stair, but he heard only a slow, measured tread. He thought: That’s not my Maria, slow like that, no.

The doorknob turned.

“Maria!”

“You’re early!” She smiled happily at him. Did she guess? Was it written on his face? “I’ve been downstairs,” she cried, “telling everyone!”

“Telling everyone?”

“The doctor! I saw the doctor!”

“The doctor?” He looked bewildered. “And?”

“And, Papa, and—”

“Do you mean—Papa?”

“Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa!”