I shook my head. ‘I know where my loyalties would lie,’ I said.
‘And I have my own view regarding Feraud and his politician friend.’
Calligaris nodded. ‘I think you will find the opinion here agreeable with yours.’
Don Accardo raised his hand again and the hubbub ceased.
‘So we have a vote to take. All those in favor of working again with Brennan and the Cicero Gang to oust these French and Hispanics, raise your hand.’
The vote was unanimous. No question. These people knew who they wanted close, and it was not Feraud’s organization.
We stayed a couple of hours. We ate well, we drank many bottles of rioja, and when we left we believed that we had been party to a small matter of politics. Even Don Calligaris waved his hand aside when I mentioned it, saying, ‘This is nothing of great consequence… I imagine we will hear a few words in the coming weeks, and then it will be gone. The Irish will be Irish and keep the whole thing within their quarter.’
Don Calligaris’s words could not have been further from the truth.
Within a week thirty-seven men had been killed, eleven from within the Chicago family, one young man the son of Don Accardo’s own cousin. Though whatever battles raged on the northside did not directly involve us, we were nevertheless aware that at any moment the telephone could ring and we could be despatched to take care of something.
By the time September arrived Chicago had fallen silent. The call we expected never came. We waited still, but there was no further word of what had happened between the Irish and Feraud’s people, save that Feraud had withdrawn his French and Hispanic soldiers from Chicago and gone home.
Don Calligaris believed the thing was done.
Christmas came and went.
We celebrated the New Year with a trip to Niagara Falls. We went – Angelina, myself, Victor and Lucia – like a real American family. We were not, had never been and never would be, but for all appearances that was what we were.
Again I broached the subject of where we would go when I ceased to work, and once more Angelina changed the subject tactfully. It seemed she did not want to mention this, as if ceasing to be part of what we had in Chicago would signal the end of something else. Perhaps she saw some sense of balance had been attained, and she did not wish to tempt fate by unsettling it. Perhaps she was doing nothing more than working out what she really wanted, because she knew that the decisions we made at this time would determine the rest of our lives. I did not know; Angelina would come to me when she was ready, and when she was ready she would tell me what she wanted to do.
In March of 1991 Don Accardo died. For a brief while the family was in disarray. Don Calligaris spent more and more time away from the house, and it became a rare occasion when I would see him.
On the sixteenth of that month Ten Cent called at my house.
‘Don Calligaris is coming tonight,’ he said. ‘He has been away dealing with family matters, but tonight he is coming back and he wants to take you and your family out for the evening. Get yourselves dressed and ready. He will bring gifts for Angelina and the children. He is very happy. Things have worked very well for him.’
I spoke with Angelina. She seemed excited, the children too, for all the children knew of Don Calligaris was that he spoke to them as if they were grown-ups, but he spoiled them like eight-year-olds.
By the time Don Calligaris came we were dressed as if for church. The children were uncontrollable, and we had to shut them in the kitchen until Don Calligaris was ready to meet them in the front.
We drove together, all of us – Don Calligaris up front with Ten Cent, me and Angelina with the children in the back. It was a warm evening for the time of year, and we went right into the heart of Chicago to the finest restaurant in the city. Out of respect for Angelina and the children Don Calligaris had chosen a place that had no family connections. For this I was grateful; I knew that my children were old enough and wise enough to hear everything that was said around them.
We ate well, we talked of inconsequential things. The children told tales of their trip to Niagara, and Don Calligaris told them a story of a visit he made to Naples when he was a boy.
My children were well-behaved and polite, interested in everything Don Calligaris had to say, and more than once he looked at me and smiled. He knew how special my family was; he understood, above all else, the importance of family, and as he spoke with them, as Angelina leaned forward to refill their glasses I watched all three of them – my wife, my son, my daughter – and I was truly aware of how I had been blessed. They were everything to me, just
The evening drew on. The children were tiring, and before I knew it we were calling for the check, gathering coats and hats, preparing ourselves to leave.
Don Calligaris gave the keys to his car to Ten Cent. ‘Take Angelina and the children,’ he said. ‘Pull the car out front. Ernesto and I will be no more than a minute.’
‘There will be changes now that Don Accardo has passed away,’ he said once we were alone. ‘We have elected a new boss, a good man, a friend of Don Alessandro’s, a man called Tomas Giovannetti. You will do well with him.’ Don Calligaris leaned back in his chair and smiled. ‘For me things will change too. I will be returning to Italy at the end of the month, and I will be staying there.’
I opened my mouth to speak.
Don Calligaris raised his hand. ‘I am an old man now, much older than you. I did not have a wife and children to keep me young… such a wife you have, Ernesto, and your children!’ He raised his hands and clenched his fists. He laughed. ‘You have such a special family, and even though they are not mine I am proud of them.’ He lowered his hands and reached out to grip my forearm. ‘The time has come for me to make a move to pasture. You will stay here with Ten Cent, and Don Giovannetti will ensure that things are taken care of for you… like I said, he is a good man, believes greatly in the importance of family, and he knows of all the things you have done to assist, both here in Chicago, also in New York and Miami. I spoke well of you, but he knew already of your reputation.’
I shook my head. I did not know what to say.
‘Change is inevitable,’ Don Calligaris said. ‘Everything changes. We take the changes, we change with them, or we lose everything.’
I heard Victor calling for me at the door. I turned and saw him standing beside Ten Cent. They walked across the room towards us.
‘Angelina and Lucia are in the car out front,’ Ten Cent said. ‘We’re ready to go. The children want to go home and play with their toys.’
‘To go to bed more likely,’ I said, and started to rise from my chair.
Victor pulled a face at me, the spoiled-child face he had somehow mastered to perfection.
‘Perhaps ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Ten minutes and then bed for you, young man.’
‘Twenty,’ Victor replied.
Don Calligaris laughed and ruffled Victor’s hair. ‘That attitude I have seen before, eh Ernesto?’
‘We shall see,’ I said. ‘Now we go… come on.’ I took his hand and turned away from the table where we had been seated.
‘So we shall stay in touch once I am home,’ Don Calligaris said, ‘and perhaps when you are too old to keep a job in the city you will come out and see me.’
I laughed. It was a pleasant thought. The image of myself and Don Calligaris as old men sitting beneath the olive trees in the warm evening sunshine.
I looked ahead at Victor and Ten Cent. Victor reached no higher than Ten Cent’s elbow, but Ten Cent was leaning down to listen to something Victor was telling him. I could hear the sound of laughter, of people sharing one another’s company, I felt the warmth of the atmosphere, the feeling that things were going to change, but change for the better; the feeling that despite everything that had gone before us we were still alive, we had made it through this far, and we were going to make it all the way. A sense of accomplishment perhaps; a sense of pride; of certainty that somehow all was well with the world.
Later, all I could remember was the light. The way the room seemed suddenly bathed in light. The sound did
