Bread and Roses, Too

They passed the street leading back to the station and turned into a narrower one a little way farther on. By the time the driver stopped the auto, it was truly night. Night came early up here, it seemed.

"Okay," the driver said. "Here we are. The feast is waiting."

The three smaller passengers leaped out of the auto and joined the crowd of children hurrying up the stone steps that led to the brick building, which must be the Labor Hall the driver had mentioned earlier. Rosa was still sitting there on the seat, as though frozen in place. Jake punched her elbow. "We're here now. Get out."

She stumbled toward the open door, onto the running board, and then down to the street. He followed her, and the two of them walked up the steps into the hall.

The smell of food was what hit Jake first. The glorious smell of meat and garlic and hot, fresh-baked bread. He'd thought, on the train, that he'd never have any appetite again, just thinking of pa's dead body and what might become of it—as well as what might become of him when it was found. But he was hungry, hungry enough to eat an automobile if it was covered with enough meatballs and tomato sauce.

There were people at the door greeting everyone, both in Italian and in English. Jake almost burst out for one of the long tables, but he was stopped and sent to one end of the hall. Rosa was sent to the other end. Hell's bells, hadn't a doctor just cluck-clucked over him a few hours ago? But there was nothing to do but to wait his turn while a local doctor listened through his little rubber thing and thumped his back and looked down his throat and into his ears.

A young man was standing by the doctor, checking names off the list. What was Jake to do? His name wasn't going to be on any list.

"What's your name, son?" the young man asked.

"Oh," Jake said, "I ain't on no list. My sister—see, that girl over there with the—Wait, I'll get her. She can explain."

The man looked puzzled, but he didn't try to stop Jake from running across the hall and grabbing Rosa by the arm. "You gotta come," he said. "I ain't on the list."

He was glad to see that she seemed to have recovered from the terror of the auto ride. "Oh, honestly," she said, but she came with him to speak to the man holding the fateful list.

"I—I wouldn't leave unless my brother came with me this morning, so he snuck on board. Mamma will know where he is. She wanted him to come to look after me."

The man raised his eyebrows. "And your name, young fellow?"

"Uh—Sal—"

"Salvatore. He hates it. He wants everyone just to call him 'Sal.'"

"All right, Sal, but we need to have your whole name."

"Serutti." Rosa jumped in quickly. "Same as me."

"Salvatore Serutti," he said and then smiled. "Just for the list, all right? Otherwise, we call you Sal." He wrote something down on the board. "Have you had your examination, Miss Serutti?"

"Rosa," she said, smiling prettily, like a picture. "Yes. I have." What a faker!

"Then you're all set. Go find yourselves seats at the tables. The food is coming as soon as we finish the examinations and check everyone in."

"Well, you could at least thank me," she muttered as they headed for the nearest open seats.

"Okay," he said. "Thank you. Now are you satisfied?"

She just sighed. "Just behave yourself, all right? I can't help you if you don't try to behave."

But Jake was paying no attention. His eyes were following the line of women emerging from a room at the end of the hall. Each was carrying either a pot or a huge platter, which she then set down on one of the tables. There were round tubelike noodles big as his finger covered with tomato sauce. There was a platter with hunks of sausage swimming in tomato sauce. There were huge plates of juicy pieces of chicken so tender they were falling off the bone. There wasn't the spaghetti that he thought Italians ate with every meal, but a dish of something that wasn't potato but not pasta, either.

"What's this stuff?" he asked Rosa.

"Polenta," Rosa whispered. "Taste it. It's good."

Good? Jake bet the angels in heaven didn't have anything that tasted half this good.

There were baskets of bread—thick, crusty slices of it—and smaller platters with cheese and salami and olives and all sorts of strange things. Jake didn't pay much attention to these—he was loading his plate with chicken and polenta and meat sauce, none of that other foreign stuff he didn't recognize. A meal like this ought to last him a few days. Now all he needed was enough money to get himself out of here.

The bands had followed them right into the hall, and while they ate, the musicians played cheerful tunes. Every now and then, between the food and the music, Jake would forget all about the troubles he was running from.

The feast ended with cakes and sweets. Jake stuffed some of the candies into his pocket when Rosa wasn't looking. He knew she'd object if she saw him do it.