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MARIA CHEATS When
my father spoke of his father, he only told of two things. How short he was,
and how mean he was. And Joe was short. He was only 5' 2'', but he was nearly
that wide across the shoulders from spending his days grinding down terrazzo
floors. After
Joe had been in this country for a year, he sent for my grandmother. Maria
was a big woman, and when she got here she was bigger. She was pregnant. They
wound up in Milwaukee, which is a nice town, but the Germans, the Irish, and
the Poles got there first. They were the politicians, the tradesmen, and the
cops. They were also the schoolteachers. This is why my father and his
sisters only went to school in the mornings. After lunch their teacher would
not let them back in the room; she said they smelled like garlic. So they sat
on a bench in the hall with the coats, all afternoon, and listened. Joe
and Maria took rooms above a corner tavern. Every night of his life Joe sat
to a plate of spaghetti, a loaf of white bread, and a bottle of red wine, and
Maria got bigger. Joe watched Maria, and she watched his anger grow. The
night she went into labor, Maria gave Joe the money she’d saved for the
midwife. He made it as far as downstairs; there was a card game. Upstairs,
Maria screamed. Downstairs, cards slapped, and Joe lost. Maria’s screams
faded as the baby’s screams started, then Joe joined the chorus as he burst
into the room looking for his knife to kill the son of a bitch who took his
money. Maria got up and held Joe down till his fury blew itself out, and he
fell asleep. Then the baby slept, and Maria got up to wipe the blood from her
legs and the floor. Years
later, after both my Italian and Norwegian grandmothers were old and widowed,
they would play canasta together. And Maria, always, cheated. She would look
you right in the eye, draw twice, discard three, just as bold as you please.
And Alma, never said a word. She was Norwegian. But
finally one morning even Alma had had enough. She took my mother to the side,
and stood silent for a moment, touched her shoulder and whispered, “You know
. . . Maria cheats at cards.” As if no one had noticed. I
always thought this was a funny story, and a few years ago I repeated it,
“You know . . . Grandma cheats at cards.” My mother overheard. She
stood silent for a moment, then took me to the side, touched my shoulder and
whispered me the rest of the story, from the beginning. That’s when I learned
why Maria cheated at cards. Maria cheated, because she knew what it meant to
lose. |