“Amerigo Speranza,” I say.
“Age?”
“Seven.”
“Father and mother?”
“Antonietta Speranza.”
“And what’s your father’s name? What does he do?”
“I don’t know,” I say, flushed with embarrassment.
“You don’t know what job your father does?” she asks.
“I don’t know if I have a father or if I don’t. Some say I do; others say I don’t. Mamma Antonietta says he left. Pachiochia says he ran away . . .”
“Shall we write ‘missing,’ then?”
“Can we leave it blank so that when he comes back, we can fill it in?” I ask.
The signorina looks at me, lifts her pen, and moves on to the line below.
“Next!” she says.
8
THE JOURNEY IS LONG. ALL THE SHOUTING, wailing, and laughing when we pulled out of the station has gone. All you can hear is the rolling of the train, hammering the same rhythm all the way. Then there’s the stink of warmed-up damp. I sit and stare out the window, like all the others. I think about the spot in Mamma’s bed where I sleep, with Capa ’e Fierro’s stashes of coffee hidden under it. I think about the streets where I roam all day, rain or shine, looking for rags. I think about Pachiochia, who must by this time be in bed in her tenement apartment with the picture of the mustached king on her bedside table. I think about Zandragliona, and I can almost smell her onion frittata. I think about the alleyways where I live, which are narrower and shorter than this train. I think about my father, who has gone to America, and my big brother, Luigi, who has gone to the other world with his bronchial asthma and left me to leave on the train all on my own.
While I’m thinking, I nod off every now and again. My head lolls, my eyes close, and my thoughts get all mixed up. Nearly everyone is asleep around me. I look out the window a little longer. I see the moon running over the fields, as if it were playing tag with the train. I pull my legs up onto the bench and put my arms around them. Hot, sticky tears are rolling down my cheeks and running into my mouth. They are salty and they ruin the memory of the flavor of chocolate. Tommasino is fast asleep in front of me. He of all people, who is scared of his own shadow during the day! And look at me. I used to be brave enough to go down into the sewers and catch rats, and now all I want is for the train to stop, and for everyone to come and get me and take me back. All I want is to hear Mamma’s voice saying, “Amerì, come along now. It’s time to go home!”
Just as I am about to doze off, there is a screech that makes my skin crawl, like nails scratching the bottom of a saucepan. The train comes to an abrupt halt, and we are all thrown off our seats, one on top of the other. I find myself facedown on the floor. Mariuccia, who was fast asleep, starts crying, scared that she had torn her new dress. The lights go out and we are plunged into the dark.
“Who gave this guy his license?” the blond boy calls out from somewhere in the compartment.
“Maybe we’re there,” Tommasino says.
“No,” said another boy, who had gotten on the train with us and told the signorinas his name was Mimmo. “Mamma told me that we have to wait the whole night, and then we arrive tomorrow evening.”
“I bet they throw us all out of the train and leave us in the dark,” says someone, maybe the blond boy, but maybe another boy, making the most of the dark when we can’t see anyone’s face, to frighten us to death.
“I think the train has broken down,” I say, holding Mariuccia’s hand tight, to give her courage, and maybe to give myself some, too. I’m actually thinking that the Fascists have blown up the line to stop us leaving, like Pachiochia said they would. Mariuccia starts blubbering again anyway:
“We’re going to die either of cold or of hunger.”
I put my hands over my ears, screw up my eyes, and wait for the explosion. But nothing happens. Maybe Maddalena managed to stop them just in time. That’s what she won her medal for, after all. For saving the bridge in the Sanità quarter. In the darkness I feel the icy, bony fingers of the Prince of Sangro’s skeletons at the back of my neck. So I open my eyes and unblock my ears. We hear the door of the compartment open. Nobody says a word. Nobody breathes. We are completely still.
“Who pulled the alarm?” Maddalena says, just as the lights come back on. Her face is serious, and she’s so nervous her forehead is split down the middle with a deep gray line. “Trains are not a joking matter,” she says, looking annoyed and staring at the blond boy. He understands and acts offended. I think he’s regretting not giving his name, just a little. Because now they’re going to blame him for every single thing. It serves him right.
“We didn’t pull it!” Tommasino says, getting the toothless smuggler out of trouble, too.
“We were all asleep,” Mariuccia adds, now that she has stopped crying, because her dress is still as good as new.
“It doesn’t matter who it was,” Maddalena says. “Whoever it was, you need to keep your hands to yourselves and not touch anything else, or tomorrow you’ll spend the day at the police station.”
“Which lever stops the train? Is it the red one?” the blond smart-ass smuggler asks.
“I’m not so stupid that I would tell you!” Maddalena answers.
The boy realizes she’s kidding him and shuts up.
“Anyway, I’ll stay here now. We’ll have one of us in every compartment to keep an eye on you. That way, we can avoid any further unplanned stops!”
Maddalena sits in a corner and smiles. She’s never sad. It’s like she has a light on inside her eyes at all times. Maybe that’s why they gave her a medal.
9
EVERYONE IS ASLEEP EXCEPT ME. I DON’T LIKE the silence. In the street where I live, it’s always noon, even at night. Life never stops, even when there’s been a war. Instead, here I am looking through the window and all I can see are ruins. Upside-down tanks, wrecked airplane fuselages, bombed buildings only half standing. I feel sadness welling up in my belly. Like that time when Mamma Antonietta sang me a lullaby that goes “Ninnaò, Ninnaò, questo bimbo a chi lo do . . .” and it sent all my sleepiness away, because the person in the song is giving the baby to a bogeyman, who’s going to keep it for a whole year. But then, even the bogeyman doesn’t want the baby anymore, and he gives it to someone else, and that person gives it to someone else again, and then you never know what happens to the baby in the end.
The train stops every now and again and more children get on. The screaming, crying, and laughing starts again, but not for long. Then the quiet comes back, and there’s only the chugging of the train and the sad feeling in my belly. When I was sad, back home, I’d usually go to Zandragliona’s apartment. Before leaving, I had put all my precious things in an old tin box that Mamma Antonietta had given me, and she had hidden it under a tile where she keeps her precious stuff, too. Pachiochia says Zandragliona keeps all her money under a tile, but I think she’s just jealous.
Tommasino turns in his sleep and mutters something I can’t make out. He’s dreaming. He opens his eyes, laughs, and then goes back to sleep. Maybe he’s dreaming of Capajanca’s fruit cart, the Commie ovens, his mother’s lashings when he came home after the hamster fiasco, who knows? Whatever he’s dreaming, lucky him. At least he’s asleep! I’d rather have bad dreams than waking nightmares.