MAMA ANDRILLI SAT at the kitchen table preparing lunch. The hot white
sun of the Sacramento Valley hurst into the room from the south windows
—
big cascades of sunshine over the red linoleum floor where slept Papa's
cats, Philomina and Costanza. Both were males, but Papa recognized only
one sex in cats.
In less than an hour he would be home from
work. Papa was seventy now, and worse than ever; except for a weakening
of his eyes, he still laid brick and stone as fast as a young mason. But
the years — no matter how blasphemous his denials
— had taken their toll, and by now Mama had given up all hope of a quiet old age.
When a man reaches seventy you would think he might mellow. But no: the past ten years, with their three sons married and gone, had been the worst. Now Papa would never soften and
grow gentle. Until his last breath he would go raging and shouting, with
Mama always there, patient to the end. It had been so for forty years,
and now Mama was sixty-eight, with white hair and sometimes excruciating
agony in her withered hands. Papa still had his red mustache and only
traces of grey at his temples. He still pounded his chest with furious
blows as he entreated God to strike him down and remove him from this
valley of travail. Years ago, when she was young and strong, Mama took
comfort in the thought that she would leave her noisy husband as soon as
her children were grown. The notion was a tiny jewel she hoarded in
secret. But it was lost now, misplaced in some teapot of the past, and
Mama had forgotten it.
On the table stood a bowl of bell peppers,
green and fat. Mama cut them into strips for frying and thought again
of last night's dream. Papa had slept badly, his kidneys heckling him,
tumbling him from bed half a dozen times. Naturally he blamed Mama. Not
enough peppers in his diet. Papa was a sort of primitive medicine man
with some ancient Italian notions about food. You ate fish for
the brain, cheese for the teeth, eggplant for the blood, beans for the
bowels, bread for the brawn, chicory for the nerves, garlic for purity,
olive oil for strength, and peppers for the kidneys. Without these a man
faced quick decay.