There Were No Tears

Whenever Dad spoke of his parents, it was not with warmth.  He would begin a tale of familial woe with the words, "My parent were peasants. . . .". But there was something else, a deep regret, a deep sadness, so much so that once or twice, after several glasses of wine, he actually broke down. He considered that crack in the facade "shameful". The best I can ascertain, as nothing was ever discussed, on either side of the family tree, is that Dad's father was an unbending Greek who tried to build an ethnic moat around his children, though having married out of the group, to a first generation Italian girl. He drank, sang Greek songs and was abusive to wife and children. His wife, a burly four foot eleven terror, unlikely thus to find someone with whom to stray, would berate him as he had the home brew brought up from the basement with the words to his eldest daughter, "Georgia, catch me some wine." There were nine children, only seven of whom survived,into adulthood, and only three into old age.  Of those who survived, there was among them little happiness.

The story that follows is a rare one exposing his real family pain, with a bit of forgiveness mixed therein--though fictionalized in large part. He would never say which was fiction and which was truth, but I can guess. Maybe so can you.

There Were No Tears

Funny what the smell of flowers does to me.  I suppose I ought to have a little more sense, now, but you know how it is--you just don't get rid of those things so easy.

I guess it all goes back to the time Grandpa died.  Now mind you, I liked the old guy, but you know how a kid is about such things.  Well, Mom didn't--she said I had to pay my respects to the dead--and she dragged me into the parlor where they had him laid out.  I remember I put up quite a scrap  In fact, I don't think she'd have got me in there if it wasn't for what she said.

"He''ll come back and haunt you every night."  She wasn't just trying to frighten me---I know that now--Mom was pretty superstitious herself.  You know how the old people are from the other side. Well, that clinched it.  I quit fighting and let her take me by the hand.

The parlor door was closed--we had one of those old fashioned houses that still had rooms with two sliding doors.  With her free hand, Mom slid open one of the doors, never letting go of me for a second, then she pushed me into the room.

It was pretty hot that day--I think it was one of those unseasonably warm Fall spells we were having--and the room was crowded with friends and relatives, some sitting on those chairs the undertakers rent out, others standing around gabbing, and all around there were wreaths and bouquets in all kinds of shapes, crosses, archways and I don't remember what else, and the air was moist and thick with the sickening sweet perfume of dying flowers. 

I wanted to vomit. Behind me Mom kept pushing me toward the casket. "Kiss your grandfather for the last time," she kept saying, "go on, now, kiss him goodbye," and she started crying, "O Dio. . .Dio. . .mio Padre. . .Padre mio. . ."

I tried not to look at him as I bent forward to kiss him.  His forehead was cold, like marble, and he smelt sweet and damp--later on someone told me it was embalming fluid. I was scared.  My lips barely touched his stone-like brow and I turned and ran from the room.  Outside I puked. My stomach kept retching and retching until it hurt.

And that night it seemed the smell of flowers was all over the house, wherever I went. I couldn't seem to get that damp-sweet fragrance off my mind.  And then I dreamed. I forget what it was about but I know it was something that would scare the pants off a nine year old kid--and there were flowers in the dream--that much I do remember. Then finally I slept but it was only after Mom said I could have the light on that night.

Well, I don't mean to say that it's anything like that now.  There's the same wreaths and crosses--though mostly crosses--and the friends and relatives are all sitting around on those hard-backed wooden chairs and there's that sick-sweet smell of flowers in the air. There's not much weeping, now, just an occasional sob.  They're getting ready for the final goodbyes and I guess that's when it will really break out.

Not that he was ever really tough. Oh, I guess a lot of the things he did just can't be glossed over like that, but I think I know why he did them. In his own peculiar way he must have wanted the best for all of us; but I don't think that the others would believe that if I told them.  You really can't blame them, though. It isn't easy to forgive a man who's played God all his life and made a mess of a lot of other people's lives. 

There's Emilio going over now.  He bends over to kiss his brother. I wonder what he's thinking? I wonder what I would feel in his place?

Uncle Emilio--we all call him Uncle Mil--was always a gentle quiet kind of guy, reserved--Mom used to say he'd had a good education on the other side--thoughtful, the kind of guy you'd like to know, but can never get close to.  He used to come over to the house once in a while with his wife.  Funny about his wife--at least it seemed so then--he never used to talk to her much except maybe to say yes or no to a question, and she seemed always to be waiting on him hand and foot.  Of course we never thought this was the least bit out of the way--lots of the old people say that when you go back to the old country to get married you really get a wife.  When I got older I began to understand about such things, and then later Mom let the whole story slip in an argument with the old man.  I kind of felt sorry for Uncle Mil after that.  The girl he wanted to marry was really beautiful. I wasn't to young to be able to see that he must have loved her very much. But the old man was always so dead set against American girls--they bobbed their hair and wore short skirts. I don't exactly know what happened, but after a while she didn't come to the store anymore to see Mil and the same year Mil sailed for Europe "to pick himself a lemon in the Garden of Eden" as Mom used to put it.  But I think she was being just a little spiteful.  

Take for example Gino's wife.  Gino is the old man's youngest brother.  I think he was about fourteen when the old man brought him over. Gino's wife never had much use for any of us and most especially she hated the old man. Seems she felt the old man cheated his brother and kept too large a slice of the business for himself.  Course that isn't true at all, since the business was his in the first place and making his brothers partners was pretty dumb the way I see it. But's that how the old man was, I guess. Anyway, I don't think it was the old man she hated so much.  The way I figure it, she never did hit it off with her husband but if she had any complaints along those lines, I know she'd be too scared to air them.  Gino's been here a long time but those old country ideas don't die so easy.

Gino really hated the old man though.  At a time like this your imagination kind of plays tricks with you but the way he looks over at the coffin now and then gives me goosebumps. 

Years ago he was a pretty happy-go-lucky fellow, I understand, liked his good times and didn't care too much about the business.  He used to be crazy about the movies, especially the pictures with Douglas Fairbanks.  You know how it is with a lot of these very little guys, they like to identify themselves with big heroes.  He was a great story-teller--when he could get someone to listen to him. I used to be crazy about the stories he' tell, especially about a character named D'Artagnan.  Well, the old man never had too much patience with Gino and I must say he did have a nasty tongue.  I suppose he thought it was all for Gino's own good, but these little fellows don't like you to make a fool of them all the time, particularly in front of people.  I used to wonder why he took a lot of the stuff he did.  You'd think he'd know things are different over here.  Well that's something that's hard to explain about old country people.  I don't really understand it very well.

Then again you can't explain it by putting the label "old-country" on it.  For example, Mom was born here; 'course her folks were old country--but still she shouldn't have taken what she did.  She's over there crying now, but that's only because it's the thing she's supposed to do.  I heard her cry when her father went and then a little later when her mother died and it's not the same thing.  I don't guess she really hates him anymore--I don't think there's that much feeling in her one way or another. Not for a long time. She looks so old and beaten--I wonder if she's ever laughed or smiled as if it were coming from inside.  Funny not being able to picture your own Mom smiling. But you just don't laugh away thirty-nine years of struggle--of continuous child bearing--she had nine though there's just three of us left--you just don't smile away the physical beatings the unjust accusation of a bitterly jealous man. But that's just it. He loved her very much.  If he had only been less proud--less old country--if he had only known that all she needed was a caress, a soft word, a little trinket, a little love that shows, that's all it would ave taken.  But he didn't know. I know he didn't.

He didn't understand Tina either.  God!  How they grew to hate each other. She's got her wish now  I wonder how she feels? I wonder if it's enough for her to see her father dead?  Her eyes are cold and her mouth a tight thin line.  She used to have such a pretty mouth and laughing eyes.  She was so much in love with Jeff.  I could always tell when she was sneaking out to keep a date with him--the old man never would have heard of bringing a fellow to the house.  Where he came from the father arranged such things.  And sometimes I used to be her alibi  We'd tell the old man we were going to the movies together and she'd meet Jeff and I'd it it out alone in the show.  A lot of times I had to see the features over twice and then she'd finally pick me up and we'd rush ho together. And she'd be laughing and her cheeks would be flushed with happiness. She'd be so pretty.  Ad then one day the old man got wise, somehow, and he caught them together.  "You little whore--you dirty little whore!"

But she didn't stop seeing Jeff after that.  It seemed to me she had a lot of nerve in those days.  She'd just get dressed up and off she'd go--and she didn't seem to care whether the old man knew or not. What's even funnier, he didn't say a word to her--it was almost as if she no longer existed for him.
Then--it was all so sudden--she didn't go out anymore and her eyes didn't smile and she never laughed. She just kept to her room all the time.  And all the time Mom was like a mother hen, bringing her chicken soups and milk and the kind of food they tell you builds up.  Often Tina would cry for hours and the sobbing made you feel funny all over.  And she would say over and over "I wish he were dead. . .I wish he were dead. . . I wish he were dead."  Then she went away for a while to my Aunt Rosa and we all knew shy; but no one ever mentioned it.  She's got her wish now.  I wonder how she feels?

I know it's different with Elsa. How she cried yesterday! She really loved her father. I'll never understand how she could. They say you don't take anything with you when you go but he did.  When they close the lid for the last time, Elsa will be locked within the coffin. She's only thirty-seven. But she's dead as the still body in the coffin.

Once she wanted to marry.  It seems that's all she wanted out of life, to marry and have kids and keep a house for her family.  There was a fellow.  He was going to be a doctor  I called him "Doc". He just didn't believe people acted this way these days anymore.  He was all for coming to the house and asking the old man outright.  But she begged him not to--she was so scared-so timid.  and the months passed into years and finally "Doc" didn't ask anymore. Then she read in the local news he'd married and she cried, not out loud like some girls would have--just a few tears trickled down her cheeks. She locked the pain in her heart with her cries.

Yet yesterday, she cried and her thin little body shook with tremendous sobs. "Come back, Papa" she cried, "Papa, Papa please come back."  They had to drag her from the coffin. 

Well, I wonder what he's saying, if there's such a thing as the beyond.  I know he saw it all before he went---at least a little. You see I watched him go, little by little.  For him the nights were long. He didn't sleep. Sometimes, the pain would be intense and he would moan and I would know it must have been terrible because he hated any show of weakness.  And even though I needed sleep I used to sit up with him at night and we would talk.  Sometimes I would carry him downstairs in the daytime and wheel him to the park.  Once he cried a little.  I made believe I didn't notice.  "It's so beautiful here," he said.  It was as if he had never seen beauty before.  It was Spring in the park and life was beginning again.  And we would talk some more and then, suddenly I think I saw, I think I knew what he had been trying to do.  I don't guess I can really put it into words. I suppose it's something we all want one way or another.  We've got to leave our mark here some way--you just can't leave it all cold.  "Dust thou art, unto dust.  .," what a terrible prophesy.  The artist must know what I mean, the sculptor must know as he chips away at stony formlessness.

There's activity in the room though no one is really moving.  It's almost as if the room itself just heaved a big sigh.  They're getting ready to close the lid now.  Yes Pop. You left your mark.  It doesn't show but it's there nevertheless, raw and bleeding.  

But you just didn't know.  I know you didn't.