Christ in Concrete

Annunziata, Paul, and Louis are gathered at the cemetery for Memorial Day. Fausta, Geremio’s former coworker, arrives to pay his respects to Geremio and other workers who lost their lives. Fausta offers Paul a job with better pay: $5 per week. Paul and Louis vow to meet at the cemetery every year to remember Geremio and Louis’s brother Leov. Louis wonders whether dead men can enact revenge. He believes his brother’s spirit toppled the Czar’s soldiers, whereas Paul believes that was an act of God. Louis says he does not believe in God, and Paul’s faith in God seems weakened. Paul says he must go to work, and Louis tries to plead him to go to school. Paul, Louis, and Annunziata weep. At Job, Fausta the foreman shouts at the workers to work harder. Paul is able to keep up with Nick the Lucy at work, and this pleases Paul. He does not need to be told what to do anymore, but that doesn’t make his tasks any easier. The narrator describes the daily stench of sweat which mingles with lime-mortar and brick and how the daily toil of Job can feel inescapable.