Mazie’s Diary, November 20, 1922
We met with a lawyer today. Now Rosie owns our house on Surf Avenue and two apartment buildings and half of four racehorses and a quarter of a dozen more and a bumper car ride. I own a movie theater, which I suppose I have for a while now, but something about him saying it made it seem more real. And I had never truly thought of it as my own anyway. I had signed some paperwork but all the money still went to Louis. Now there’s no Louis. Also Rosie has everything he had in the bank, which was not a lot because Louis was not a fan of the banks.
And there is more, somewhere, I’m sure of it. In a safe, maybe, or in a closet. There’s gold and there’s diamonds and there’s bills. I saw things sometimes. I saw the glint. But it’s hers, not mine.
We went home and stood, dizzy, outside Jeanie’s room. The money in the envelopes was still there, stacked on Jeanie’s bed. Neither one of us had been able to touch it. It was a thing that we didn’t need, this money, but we couldn’t throw it away neither.
I said: Should we hide it?
She said: Get it out of my sight.
I put each envelope underneath the mattress, one by one. The mattress was higher in the air when I was done and wobbled a bit. But no one would be sleeping there anyway. No one would ever know.
Mazie’s Diary, November 23, 1922
At last I went back to the cage today. Rudy told me he’d handle the tickets as long as I needed. But Rosie told me to go, it was our business and we needed to be looking after it. She believed Rudy was to be trusted, he was a good man, but he was only human and had many mouths to feed in that family of his, and leave a man alone with money long enough he just might want to put it in his pocket. I’m thinking her sharpness might be a sign of a return to health so I did not argue. But Louis would give Rudy whatever he needed whenever he needed it. Rudy wouldn’t have ever had to steal from him. Nor would he have to steal from me.
It was a relief to be back there in the cage, surrounded by all my postcards from Jeanie and the Captain. California. Might as well be the moon. I counted my cash. The regulars started lining up before eleven. The mothers with their children, the gentlemen with no place better to be. These are my people, is what I was thinking, and it made me laugh. Bitter and sweet, these tastes I know.
And then one by one, after I gave them their ticket, they gave me a gift. A flower, a card, some sweets from the truck around the corner. Offerings of sympathy, offerings of regret.
They said: Sorry for your loss.
They said: Our condolences, Miss Mazie.
They said: We missed you while you were gone.
I tried not to cry. I didn’t want them to see me that way. But I failed. I can’t blame myself though for feeling it all so deeply. These people all woke up this morning and reminded themselves to be human beings. Not everyone knows how to do that. No vermin, my people. Real human beings.
In the afternoon Sister Tee came to the cage. She marched straight to the door and rapped on it with her tiny fist. I’d never opened my door for anyone like that before, not one person. But for her I did. Because she asked. She wrapped her arms around me. Our cheeks touched. Her skin was soft, and she smelled like the soap I used that one weekend I spent in the Captain’s hotel. Then she pressed something into my hand — a medallion.
She said: It’s Saint John the Evangelist. He’s the patron saint of grief. He’ll look out for you now.
I needed no saints though, not today anyway. I had all of Park Row with me.
Mazie’s Diary, January 1, 1923
Sweet Jesus is this house empty.
Mazie’s Diary, January 10, 1923
Last night I came in and I found Rosie standing at Jeanie’s door, her arms crossed, back hunched, face all twisted up into something I didn’t recognize. I touched her real gently on her back and she jumped, spooked. I stroked her back and calmed her.
I said: What are you thinking about?
She said: That money’s no good.
I said: It isn’t, but it’s ours anyway. And we’re good.
She said: Do you really think we’re good?
A year ago or maybe two or three I would have said we weren’t good, or at least that I wasn’t. But I know a little more these days.
I said: Well, we’re not bad. We’re definitely not bad people, Rosie. And that will have to do for now.
Mazie’s Diary, January 15, 1923
This morning, Rosie came into the city with me. First time she’d left the neighborhood since Louis died and we went to see the lawyer. She said she needed to check on the buildings in Chinatown, that she’d been hearing all kinds of stories about them being run into the ground. We might need a new superintendent. She wore a tidy suit. There was a new hat too, violet colored with a jewel on it, and some lace netting she drew around the edges of her face. There was some color on her cheeks. Where it came from I’ll never know. I only see it as a sign of life.
Mazie’s Diary, February 10, 1923
Sister Tee needed to buy some winter coats for some girls she knew so I took some money from the envelopes in Jeanie’s room. Not even an entire envelope, just a few bills was all it took. I don’t know what else it’s there for if not that.
Mazie’s Diary, March 13, 1923
Rosie took the train again with me this morning.
I said: More business in the city?
She said: I’m getting my hair done.
I said: Your hair looks fine.
She said: You got a problem with me going to the city, miss?
I said: I’m just asking what your business is, is all.
It went on like that for another stop, us having a not-conversation. Everything felt flipped around, me wondering what she was doing, her not answering me straight.
I said: Do what you like.
She said: I don’t need your permission.
The subway door opened just then and she got off. Her back to me on the platform. She didn’t even turn and wave.
Mazie’s Diary, April 3, 1923
There were forty-six envelopes in Jeanie’s room and now there are forty-one. I’m not crazy. I counted them myself. There were forty-six in February when I took money for Sister Tee. It’s not mine to wonder but wonder I will.
Mazie’s Diary, April 20, 1923
A postcard from Jeanie, Los Angeles. The sign that says HOLLYWOODLAND in the hills. I’ve been seeing pictures of that sign in my magazines forever. I got a little excited, I couldn’t help myself. But then I flipped it over.
It said: What happened to you just happened to me & it is terrible, Mazie.
A lot of things have happened to me in this life but I knew exactly what it was she was talking about.
As much as I wanted to add this postcard to my wall, I threw it away. I know it’s bad juju to have bad news floating all around you. Same as that money too, still sitting in our house. Thirty-nine envelopes left.
Mazie’s Diary, May 1, 1923
Tea leaves in a saucer, a haze of incense in the house. Dishes in the sink. Rosie’s nowhere. The house stinks of gypsies. I could not bring myself to count the envelopes.
Elio Ferrante
My grandmother on my father’s side was part Romany, but she was not the kind of gypsy who conned, and anyway, even if she was, she married out of it. Her skin was colored so that she could pass for Italian, like Sicilian Italians, the real Mediterranean Italians. You should see me in the summer, my skin gets so dark, I can pass for all kinds of ethnicities, Latino, African-American. I’m a citizen of the world come June. Anyway, my grandmother knew grifters, and there were stories passed around our family, cautionary tales more than anything. One of them was about being a single person, a lonely person looking for companionship or comfort. Widows were easy targets. There was one con where they’d tell these widows, Oh, you give us X amount of dollars, ten dollars, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, whatever, and we’ll burn it, we’ll burn your loss away, we’ll burn your pain away. And then it’s just this sleight-of-hand trick — they take the money during these sessions and they slip it into the linings of their skirts. They kept everything in these skirts. Coins, jewels, and cash. Gypsy skirts were like Fort freaking Knox.