Journal of Italian Translation - Brooklyn College - Academic Home ...

102
Journal of Italian Translation
[Dinner at Mom’s]
“Take it easy!” Cisco panted as he tried to keep up with me.
“There’s got to be a phone booth on the next block.”
“We probably have to go all the way to Court Street.” I kept
walking at the same fast pace I had started when we left the Red
Hook dock.
“What time is she expecting your call?”
“At 6:30.”
“Hell, it’s only a quarter to seven!”
“You don’t know my mother – fifteen minutes is her deadline.
If I’m sixteen minutes late, she calls the Missing Persons Bureau.”
“That’s very funny.”
“It’s not funny for me. She’s a first-class anxiety nut. When she
answers the phone, she never says hello; she always says ‘Watsa
matter!’ “ I increased my pace – there was a candy store on the corner.
I dialed hurriedly, but her line was busy.” And she’s a mass of
contradictions; she can behave with such majestic dignity and then
cut you with the foulest collection of curses you ever heard. If we’re
with people who don’t understand Italian, and she’s angry with me
for some reason, she’ll act like a queen-mother and smile benevolently,
while under her breath she’s saying to me, ‘Your sister’s a
whore and she’s going to die in the electric chair!’ – and I don’t even
have a sister!”
I dialed again. Her phone was immediately picked up. I held
my receiver so that Cisco could hear her. “Watsa matter!” It wasn’t
a question; it was a definite assertion that some terrible tragedy had
struck, and she was demanding to be told about it.
“Nothing’s the matter. I told you I’d call you, and I’m calling
you.”
I spoke English for Cisco’s benefit. “Now wait a minute, wait a
minute – Ma, come on, will you? Your phone was busy! What? You
called Minny?” Cousin Minny was our family’s Missing Persons
Bureau. “But Ma, I’ve only been missing for seventeen minutes, not
seventeen years!”
“You promise to call 6:30. You don’t call 6:30.” She spoke English
to establish the full gravity of her accusation, her tone controlled
and as formal as a prosecutor’s. “You are not a man of your
word and you not nice. You know I worry – if you can’t telephone
on time, don’t tell me you gonna telephone. I don’t know, I don’t