The San Giuseppe

By Helen Macie Osterman

I must be insane, I thought as I climbed aboard a #36 bus. My seven-month pregnancy made me feel like a cow. A man in front graciously extended his hand and pulled me up.

      “Thanks,” I grunted then plopped into the nearest seat. I felt perspiration dripping between my shoulder blades; the temperature was already climbing toward the ninety-degree mark. My stomach gave a lurch as I inhaled a combination of sweat and cheap perfume. I took short quick breaths but with each one, the smell got worse. Finally I took out a hanky and held it over my nose. I leaned back, closed my eyes and remembered the conversation with the Realtor.

“Mrs. Malone, do we have a closing date?” I had asked clutching the phone and walking around inspecting the boxes all neatly packed and labeled.

“Not yet,” she said. “There’s a little problem. The brother in Sicily won’t sign the papers.”

“What do you mean? I thought they both accepted the offer.” My heart picked up its pace.

“They’re arguing over a family heirloom. The brother in Sicily refuses to sign unless he gets this object.”

“What is it?” I asked in disbelief.

“I have no idea.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. We have a contract.” My voice rose a few decibels with every word.

“We have to vacate this apartment in three weeks. You tell Mr. Martelli my husband and I will be out on the street.” I sank to the floor and leaned against the wall.

“Take it easy, Mrs. Selinski,” the Realtor said in a placating tone. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Tears streamed down my face as I visualized the quaint old house in the country away from the noise and dirt of the city. I fell in love with it the minute we walked inside, big spacious rooms, a nice yard, even an old oak tree with a sturdy branch begging to hold a swing. No one had lived in the house for over a year. It needed a lot of work, but we were willing and able to do it. I wanted my child to grow up in that house!

When my husband, Chester, came in he took one look at me and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, there’s a problem with the owners of that house we’re buying. It seems that the brother in Italy refuses to sign because he wants some heirloom the other brother has.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Go figure.” In frustration I opened a box of crackers and started stuffing them in my mouth.

“So, what’s the upshot?” Chester asked.

“The Realtor is gonna try to get through to him. You know, maybe I should go see this guy myself. I might be able to get somewhere.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Leave it to the Real Estate people.”

But did a woman ever listen to her husband when she had a goal? After Chester went out to get more boxes, I picked up the phone and dialed the number on the contract.
 
“Hullo, is this Sam Martelli? This is Clara Selinski—Selinski. My husband and I have a contract on that house of yours.”

“Si, si, Mrs., you sound like a nice lady,” he said in heavily accented English.

“Thank you. You sound nice, too. The Realtor tells me something is holding up the closing.”

“Oh, Mrs. Malone. She’s nice, too, an Italian lady.”

“ Yes, I know she’s Italian.” At this point I felt like screaming into the phone, Hey mister, get a life!
“Mr. Martelli, is there anything we can do about this? In less than three weeks my husband and I will be out on the street.”

“Eh, it’s a big problem with my brother, very big.”

“I know it’s something serious, but can I at least come over and talk to you? Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t know what you can do, but sure, come over.”
                                                    
I got off the bus in an area of two flat buildings known as Little Italy. The small front yards were filled with flowers interspersed with tomato and pepper plants. I waddled the two blocks and found the house. A steep flight of stairs seemed to go on indefinitely, but I was determined. I took a deep breath, then struggling and panting and clinging to the railing, pulled myself up to the door. The baby kicked in protest.
                 
“Easy, little one,” I whispered. Holding my abdomen, I pressed the doorbell.

“Pronto,” a voice called. The door opened to reveal a short, squat Mediterranean looking man with balding head, piercing black eyes, and a handlebar mustache.

“You are Missus Se...Se...”

“Selinski,” I breathed.

“Mama mia, you climb all’a those stairs in you condition.” He took my hand and led me into a living room filled with memorabilia of the past.

“I give you glass of lemonade,” he said. “Is’a hot today.”

 “Thank you very much.”

 As I waited for him to return with the drink, I scanned the room looking for something that might be considered an heirloom. Overstuffed furniture with claw legs, hand painted lamps of uncertain vintage, traditional religious pictures, a few framed photographs fuzzy with age. Nothing leaped out at me.

“Mr. Martelli, is there any way we can get your brother to sign the contract?”

“No. He is stubborn Sicilian and won’t sign unless I give him the San Giuseppe.”   
“Pardon me?”

“The statue of San Giuseppe.” He walked to the mantle and took down a battered plaster statue that once might have resembled the saint.

“I don’t understand.” I sighed, exhausted and confused.

“I tell you the story. My nonna, grandmother, she liked me the best. When she was’a dying, she give me this statue. She say. ‘San Giuseppe perform many miracles in my town. He protect you always. Pray to him and he give you what you want.’

“I pray every day to marry my Maria. She say yes. But my brother Mario, he put the malocchio, the evil eye, on me and she married him instead.”

Mr. Martelli walked back and forth, clutching the statue and muttering in Italian. I waited, shaking my head and trying to be patient.

“Now he got trouble with his eyes and he wants the statue to make a miracle. Can you believe? He took my Maria and now he wants the San Giuseppe. What if I have trouble with my eyes? I no gonna give to him. No!”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was like an Italian soap opera. I thought for a few minutes as I sipped my lemonade, then the germ of an idea began to grow. “May I see that statue, please?”

“Si.” Carefully he handed me his treasure.

I had taken a few sculpting classes a number of years ago. I could find nothing unusual about the statue. It was chipped and worn in places from rubbing and handling. It looked much like the plaster of Paris statues sold at all the religious stores and ethnic flea markets.

“Mr. Martelli, when was the last time your brother saw this statue.”

“Oh maybe twenny, twenny-fie years ago.”

“If we could get one like this, make it look old, and send it to him, would he know the difference?”
“How we gonna do that?”

“Well, I saw statues something like this at a church sale.”

“But if we find one, it’s gonna be new. How we gonna make it look old?”

“Leave that to me. I can do it.” I sounded more certain than I felt, but at this point I was willing to try anything.

Sam Martelli threw his head back and guffawed. “What a joke. That no good brother of mine, we teach him a lesson, eh?”

“Yes, a good lesson.” I crossed my fingers and hoped I was right. By now I was exhausted from worry, lack of sleep, and the incessant heat.“Let me look around. When I find something, I’ll call you. Is it a deal?”

“A deal. I lik’a you Missus Se...”

“Selinski. I like you, too. You’re a reasonable man.”
               
When I told Chester, he thought I was crazy. “Why are you even considering this?  Let’s look at some other properties.”

“And what do we do in the meantime? We have to vacate this apartment.” The pressures of packing, the baby, the total frustration brought me close to tears.

“Easy, honey,” Chester said taking me in his arms. “My ma said we can stay with her ‘til we find a place.”

I froze. The thought of living even one day with my mother-in-law was unthinkable. She didn’t like me because I wasn’t Polish, said I’d never learn to make Pierogi, and she thought I’d gained too much weight. My child would be tainted. I was more determined than ever.
After a frantic search in stores, churches, moving sales, and flea markets, I came up with three statues about the right size, all made of plaster of Paris, but in slightly different poses. I carefully packaged them with plenty of bubble wrap and put them in a tote bag.
Again I boarded the #36 bus in ninety degree heat, climbed the stairs that had gotten steeper since the last time, and, again, sat in the overstuffed chair in the crowded living room in Little Italy.
I carefully opened the package and lined the three statues in a row next to the ‘heirloom.’

“Which one of these statues looked like the Saint Joseph when it was new?” I asked.
Martelli shrugged. “ I dunno. I never saw it new.”

I breathed an exhausted sigh, picked up the original statue and held it next to each of the three new ones. “This one seems the closest. See the way the arms and the head are turned?”
He nodded.

“Okay.” I took out my digital camera and photographed the old statue from every conceivable angle. Then I turned it upside down and looked at a scribbled signature at the bottom. It was eroded beyond recognition. I photographed that, too.

“I’ll be back in two days, Mr. Martelli, and I’ll bet even you won’t be able to tell the difference.”
                
In an adrenaline rush I worked non-stop on the statue. I chipped, sanded, gouged, soaked it in tea. I even scribbled a reasonable facsimile of the signature on the bottom.

 When I returned to the house in Little Italy, the statue was transformed into a replica of the original. Proudly I stood it next to the old one.

“Mama mia,” Martelli shouted. “You are a genius. He never gonna know.” He grabbed my hand and covered it with loud kisses. “Missus Se...Se...”

“Selinski.”

“The house is’a yours.”
                 
Two months later, I was planting tulip bulbs along the front of our house in the country. My full term pregnancy made the job doubly difficult. I was on my hands and knees wondering how I would ever get up. As I jabbed the trowel into the soil it struck something hard. I dug deeper until I turned over a clod of soil with a small object sticking out. When I picked it up and rubbed the dirt away, I burst into peals of laughter. In my hand lay a miniature statue of Saint Joseph, the kind that was sold in all the dollar stores. According to tradition, he was supposed to be instrumental in selling a house if buried in the front yard upside down. Who had put it there? I would never know.
I crawled to the fence post and pulled myself to a standing position, clutching my treasure. I rubbed my back and waddled into the house, cleaned the statue, and placed it on the mantle. As I turned away, I quickly looked back. Had San Giuseppe winked at me?