An Italian Wife by Ann Hood Page B

followed her up the stairs, through the front door. Tomorrow, he would go to Coney Island.
    ...
    IF HE DID everything just right, then he earned Eva Peretsky.
    â€œI’m here,” he would whisper, and her face would appear in front of him in his small, dark room. He would hold on to his penis firmly but not move yet. First, he would spend the night with Eva.
    â€œI can see that,” she’d say. He loved her voice. It was husky, like Greta Garbo’s, and her Russian accent made sharp cuts in the air between them. She said all of her w ’s like v ’s. You vill like this , she’d say. I vant you , she’d whisper.
    â€œEva,” he’d whisper into the dark.
    Sometimes, he got this far only to lose everything and almost frantically pull at himself until he came. Then he’d have the whole night to wipe Angelo’s brains and skull off his face. He’d have the whole night to pick his way out of that trench and step over body parts: arms still in jacket sleeves, boots with jagged legs protruding from them, and the stench of blood and dead people everywhere. His doctor told him to breathe in this particular pattern. To breathe and say, “Hoo, hoo, hoo,” in short hard exhales when his memories got too powerful. But once he stepped out of that trench, he couldn’t find his way home, no matter how he breathed or what he did.
    That was why he had to keep Eva with him as long as possible.
    â€œEva,” he’d whisper.
    And when he had done everything just right, she climbed into bed beside him, and held him in her arms, and whispered, “I am right here.”
    THE AIR ON CONEY ISLAND smelled of fried food, salt, summer. When Carmine stepped from the train onto the boardwalk, that smell almost knocked him over. It made him whoop. People stopped to stare at him, a man dressed in black pants, a black shirt, and a black fedora, in this beautiful warm sunshine. A man who gazed at the ocean and whooped, loud. He didn’t care if they stared at him. He was there to make his fortune.
    By the end of the day, he had met a Greek named Steve, who rented him a cart to set up on the boardwalk, where he could sell hot dogs. These weren’t ordinary hot dogs. These were Coney Islanders. Smaller than a regular hot dog, served in a steamed bun, and topped with a sauce made of ground hamburger meat and spices. Everyone who visited Coney Island had to try a Coney Islander.
    And Carmine began to think, as he stood the next day in the bright sunshine, selling hot dogs from his red-and-white striped cart, that everyone came to Coney Island. Women in fancy cotton summer dresses, holding parasols, walked past him. Children in short pants, rolling big hoops down the boardwalk, begged for a hot dog, and parents always agreed. Men in striped bathing suits, with enormous black mustaches, came still wet from the water and ate two or three at a time. Even the freaks came out of their tent to buy Coney Islanders.
    By the end of the week, Carmine had more money than he had made in a month at the mill. He sent a telegraph to Angelo: MONEY FALLS FROM THE SKY HERE. STOP. ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US. STOP. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY AWAITS YOU. STOP. He sent one to Anna: I MISS YOU. STOP. I LOVE YOU. STOP. HOPE WEDDING PLANS ARE COMING ALONG FINE. STOP. None of what he wrote to Anna was true. He didn’t miss her. In fact, he never even thought of her the entire month, except to think of what they had done by the river the night before he left. That he missed. That he loved. And if marrying her was how to keep getting it, he would keep his promise and return.
    At night, in the bars along the boardwalk, Carmine sat and listened to the men talking about the war. In no time, they predicted, we would be sending troops to Europe. We had to stop the Germans, or pretty soon we’d all be eating sauerkraut and wearing lederhosen. Carmine listened and drank his whiskey. “What do you think,