The Coming of Fabrizze: A Novel (Black Squirrel Books) by Raymond Decapite

Author:Raymond Decapite [Decapite, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 7874900
Publisher: Kent State University Press
Published: 2010-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

VII

DEATH came to Mendone in the night.

He was set forth in the house on Jackson Street. Three days and three nights the candles were burning beside the great coffin. There was the slow black march of the mourners. Hour after hour the anguished cries went up. Grief and sorrow flooded into every corner of the old house. Toward the end it seemed to Grace that death was the wild blind king of the world.

By the third day everyone had told a tale.

“Mendone worked for me in the market,” said Teresa. “When he started I never used to show the prices of things. I’d change the prices for different people. Some of the customers never ask you the price. It’s the gentle ones. They’re ashamed. You can see it. I’d raise the price three or four cents. And then I’d turn around. Mendone would be watching me. Not a word from him. But something was in his mouth. It was dragging that moustache down. And then one morning I was looking in the mirror. All at once I looked just like he did. From then on I showed the prices.”

“I’ll tell you how it was with my husband,” said a woman. “He finished shaving. He was teasing me. He said the funeral director wouldn’t have to shave him. He died on the spot! Right there at the sink! And then you think it’s over. But it’s beginning. They follow you. They follow and follow.”

“Always with that smile,” said another. “And then she had the stroke. She couldn’t move. And still she had the smile. I’d cry out to see it. And her eyes would fill with tears for me. For me, I tell you, for me.”

“Two hours,” said another. “Five months old she was. One minute she was smiling. Like an angel in my arms. And then she began to cough and shiver. It came in her eyes. She reached for me. It’s like she was falling. She died in my arms. And not even a word could she say. Not one word passed between us. What’s the meaning of it? But what’s the meaning of such a thing?”

Grace went numb with listening and waiting. It was not until the procession gathered at the cemetery that she gave way. She was holding Fabrizze. Suddenly she was standing over it.

“O my God,” she said. “0 my God! Don’t let it happen! Don’t put him in there! Don’t do it! O, Grandfather! God help him! O my God, my God! Don’t let it happen!”

She collapsed beside the black open grave.

For weeks after the funeral she refused to go out of the house. Her eyes would fill with tears at the mention of his name. Night was the dreadful time. Memory was like a hand squeezing her heart. Mendone returned to invite her back into the past. She remembered the day that she had come to live with him. It was as though the wind had swept the house into disorder. And yet there was a white rose nodding in a wine glass on the kitchen table.

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