Bread and Roses, Too

"Well, I guess he figures the strike will be over soon and all you kids will be leaving."

"Oh, yeah."

"He wanted to be sure you didn't miss this."

"Why—uh—why didn't he show me himself?"

"He must have thought I could explain it better, being a Scot. Besides, I can always borrow my brother's truck. It's a cold walk from the North End." Duncan grinned and put his glove back on. "Come on, I want to show you one more thing before I take you home." The word "home" sent a spike through Jake's belly, as though the Gerbatis' house could ever be home to the likes of him.

They rode back down Main Street. Duncan didn't even glance toward the city hall. He just drove the noisy, smelly truck along the street, past the shops, taverns, and livery stables. A block before they got to Brook Street, he turned right. They wound up a hill until they stopped at the gates of what was obviously a cemetery. It was here that Duncan pulled over. The road between the gates had not been rolled, much less c

leared, so the snow was high. Duncan set the brake. "Can't risk trying to drive in. Can you walk?"

"Yeah," Jake said, though he didn't much like walking into a graveyard, even in broad daylight.

They hiked through snow higher than his new boots, and he could feel it melting on his stockings, but he dared not complain. At last, Duncan stopped. Snow had blown against the stone, and he wiped it off with his large gloved hand. "Here," he said. "Look at this." He was pointing to letters chiseled into the light gray granite. He didn't know that the letters meant nothing to Jake, whose eye was caught by the stream of flowers cascading down the stone. Roses, lilies, daisies, daffodils—all alive in a way that made him sure that Mr. Gerbati had carved them.

"It's his masterpiece," Duncan said. "The boy was his life. First his master dies, then, within the month, his son. They tell me his hair turned white overnight." Duncan took off his glove and reverently fingered a rose. "In the more than eight years since, the man has carved nothing but flowers, only flowers. It's as though he's determined to bring dead stone to life."

So this was where Vittorio Gerbati lay—the boy whose clothes he had put on that first morning. Now here he was, dead and under the ground, and his father had made these flowers, which would never die, for him.

"I wanted to show you this, too, before you left. Mr. Gerbati probably wouldn't have."

They walked in silence to the truck, which was still put-putting bravely in the cold, and drove back to Brook Street. Duncan stopped in front of the house. "I won't be going in," he said. "Can't risk this old crate dying on me. Been tempting fate all day. See you tomorrow."

"Thanks," said Jake.

"My pleasure, lad."

He opened the front door. Someone was in the parlor—not the sitting room, but the parlor across the hall. He was talking.

"Come in, Salvatore," Mrs. Gerbati called out as he tried to pass the door unnoticed. He took off his cap and went into the room. Mr. Broggi was seated on the best chair, Mr. and Mrs. Gerbati were on the settee, and Rosa was on the footstool. "Sit! Sit! Mr. Broggi bring news of your mamma." Jake perched uneasily on the edge of the small rocker, not daring to glance at either Rosa or Mr. Gerbati.

"I was just telling your sister here," Mr. Broggi said, "that Mrs. Gurley Flynn—you know?" Jake nodded to indicate that he knew who Mrs. Gurley Flynn was. "She telephone to say Mamma and Anna is okay. They still look to find where baby Ricci is taken, but they will find him soon, sure."

Everyone looked at Jake for some response. "Swell. That's just swell." Rosa glared at him. "Except for the baby," he added hastily.

"Mamma and Anna are still in jail, Sal. Maybe you didn't understand."

"Oh. Oh, yeah. But they'll be out soon, won't they?"

Mr. Broggi beamed. "All the big-city papers is there—Boston, New York, Philadelphia. They tell the whole country about shame of Lawrence, beating up women and little children, snatching babies from mamma's breast, throwing innocent women in jail. Everybody in America'll be mad, be mad as hornets by tomorrow morning. It's great day for the union. My friend, Mr. Savinelli, he call it..." He looked around until he had everyone's attention, including Jake's. "He call it 'The Strike for Pane e Rose.'"

Rosa started on the stool. "What?" she asked faintly "What do they call it?"

"Bread and Roses. Is beautiful, no? The strikers carry big sign. It say—" and he used his large stonecutter's hand to shape the words in the air. "It say: 'We want bread and roses, too.'" He beamed. "You understand? Not just bread—hungry, yes. But only bread is not enough. Need roses, too."

Mrs. Gerbati clapped her hands together. "So beautiful!" she said, nodding her head, her eyes closed. "Must be made by Italian."

"It was," Rosa said but so faintly that only Jake, sitting the closest, could hear her.

Mrs. Gerbati herded everyone into the kitchen for cake and coffee. The men laced theirs with some of Mr. Gerbati's grappa. Jake could have used some of it himself, but he didn't dare ask, and none was offered. Rosa picked at her cake, but Jake ate every crumb and took a second slice when Mrs. Gerbati offered.

When Mr. Gerbati returned to the kitchen after seeing Mr. Broggi to the door, he found Mrs. Gerbati at the counter gazing dolefully at her carefully prepared Sunday dinner, which had been left congealing in its own juices since noontime. "He stay so long, my nice food is cold like ice."

"You warm it up," Mr. Gerbati said. "We eat it for supper." He pulled out his watch. "Is nearly time."

She began to protest. "But you have no dinner!"