The first figure they gave me would have kept me paying until I died. I crossed it out while Aldo's brother watched from the other side of the kitchen table. That looked like bargaining over a dead man's worth, and I nearly put the pencil down. Instead I asked them to separate Paolo's lost wages from the help proposed for Aldo's household. I would not buy forgiveness, and I would not sign an amount that required me to return to Neri.
Paolo came with his own reckoning, written on the back of a grocer's bill. He excluded the treatment and wages I had already paid. Aldo's brother brought no accusation he could establish, only household expenses and a hard anger that needed no paper. We settled on fixed sums and a schedule. The help for Aldo's family was voluntary compensation for the danger my choices had helped create, not a price assigned to his life. His brother said accepting it changed nothing between us. I said I understood.
My equipment interest was already gone. What remained was a small share in a service business that supplied men and carts to dining rooms. Selling it meant losing the income I had counted on to make the payments. Keeping it meant remaining answerable to men who could turn an ordinary delivery into a favor. The buyer knew I needed cash. He offered less than half what I had once claimed it was worth. I walked outside, stood beside the carts, then returned and signed.
I carried the first payments myself. Paolo counted his and put it away without inviting me to stay. At Aldo's home, his brother opened the door only wide enough for the envelope. I had imagined that taking responsibility would produce some visible relief. What it produced was a smaller debt and an empty afternoon. I went looking for kitchen work before I could turn that disappointment into another demand on people who owed me nothing.
The first proprietor said he had no opening. Through the kitchen hatch I could see two tables waiting to be cleared and a boy struggling with a stockpot. The second man had once asked me to settle a delivery dispute. Now he kept wiping the same dry patch of counter while he explained that customers disliked trouble. At the third place, I said I could wash, carry, or drive. The woman behind the register asked whether I would arrive on time without sending someone else. I said yes.
She put me downstairs with a stack of greasy roasting pans. By closing, my cuffs were soaked and the old cut inside my lip ached from clenching my teeth. The pay was less than I had earned for standing outside certain doors. I accepted a second shift carrying provisions upstairs. When the cook shouted that I was in his way, I moved. There was no insult to answer, only a narrow kitchen and work that had to reach the stove.
The years did not improve in a straight line. Some weeks a broken cart wheel or a bad cough meant asking to move a payment date. I asked before the date passed and supplied what I could. I learned which market sacks would split when wet and how far my wages stretched after rent. During the war years, shortages changed menus and deliveries; my obligations remained the amounts we had agreed. I did not offer them as an excuse to demand anyone's company.
Neri found me one evening rolling an empty handcart toward the yard. His shoes were cleaner than mine. He said there was work for a man who could still bring people together. No banquet doors, he promised. I kept both hands on the cart. “I have work.” He glanced at its patched wheel. “You call this work?” A wagon behind us needed room. I pulled aside, waited for it to pass, and told him I would not join him. He walked away before I finished speaking.
In 1945 I carried the final envelopes on a wet Thursday. Paolo shook my hand. Aldo's brother counted the money, checked his remaining figures, and said we were finished with payments. He did not say we were finished with Aldo. Neither did I. Walking back, I stopped beneath an awning and let a funeral procession pass without trying to recognize the mourners. Aldo's killer remained unknown to me. My last payment had changed a balance, not that fact.