“With this cold and damp weather, they send them up here with no coats. My God . . .”
I don’t say anything about throwing our coats out the train window, or about the mothers giving them to their other children. I just think about my mother’s face when she sees I’ve been sent back like the discards from the vegetable market. I plunge my hands deep into my jacket pockets and that’s when I realize Mamma’s apple is still there. I pull it out, but I can’t bring myself to eat it. My stomach is in knots.
“One adult, one child,” the lady says to the ticket man when the bus comes. We climb on and sit side by side. The new shoes are hurting. It feels like I’ve been wearing them for a whole year, not just one day. The bus leaves. It’s getting dark and my eyes are drooping. Before falling asleep, I slip my shoes off under the seat and leave them there. What use are they, anyway? I was barefoot when I left, and I’ll be barefoot when I get sent back.
Part Two
13
WHEN I OPEN MY EYES, IT’S PITCH BLACK. I stretch my feet out to feel for Mamma Antonietta’s legs and look around to where the light usually filters in through the half-closed shutters. I sit up in the middle of the empty bed, and there is no relief from the dark. I fumble around the room with my arms stretched out and my hands like scoopers looking for a window, a door, anything to orient myself with.
“Mamma! Mamma!” I start shouting.
There is no answer. The silence tells me I’m not home on my street.
“Mamma,” I call again, more softly.
The darkness is wrapped around me, and I’m not sure whether I’m awake or asleep. My heart is beating hard, and I can’t remember a thing. I was on a bus with a blond lady, who was supposed to be taking me back home. I must have fallen asleep, and now I’ve woken up in this strange bed.
After a while, I hear a sound coming closer and closer. A door opens. It’s not Mamma Antonietta; it’s the lady who came to get me yesterday.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
Without the gray skirt and white blouse, she looks less like a Communist.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“Would you like a glass of water? I’m going to the kitchen . . .”
I don’t answer. She crosses her arms over her breast and rubs her shoulders to warm herself up and walks toward the door.
“Signorina,” I call out to her. “Have you brought me to Russia?”
She opens her arms wide.
“Russia? Poor little boy. What did they tell you down there? No wonder you had bad dreams. These stories are enough to give you nightmares!”
I feel as though I’ve made her angry, but it’s hard to tell in the dark because I can’t see her face. The lady comes back to my bedside and brushes my cheek with her hand, which is cool to the touch.
“We’re in Modena, not Russia, with people who will grow fond of you. This is home. Trust me . . .”
This isn’t home and Mamma always says not to trust anyone, I think. But I don’t say anything.
“I’ll go and get you some water,” she says.
“Signorina,” I murmur as she is about to vanish into the darkness.
“What is it, son? You must call me Derna, though. I’ve told you . . .”
“Don’t go, please. I’m scared . . .”
“I’ll leave the door open, so there’s a little light,” she says, disappearing behind the door.
I am alone in the room. It’s so dark it makes no difference whether my eyes are open or closed. After a while, the lady comes back with a glass of water.
“You can drink it, son. Don’t worry, we haven’t poisoned the wells. Is that what they told you?” she asks, as if she were angry.
“No, no, of course they didn’t,” I say, trying to appease her. “Sorry, it’s just because Mamma always tells me to sip my water slowly, so I don’t get indigestion.”
The lady looks upset, as if she’s lost face somehow.
“I’m sorry, son,” she says, in a kinder voice. “You drew the short straw with me. I don’t really understand kids. I don’t have any of my own. My cousin Rosa is good with them. She has three.”
“Don’t worry, signò,” I reassure her. “My mother had two, but kids are not her strong point, either.”
“So, you have a brother?”
“No, ma’am! I’m an only child.”
The lady doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s still upset about the poisoned water.
“Tomorrow morning we’ll go to meet her kids. Kids need to be with kids, not with signorinas, as you call them.”
I’m embarrassed, because I still can’t bring myself to call her by name.
“You’ll like them, they’re almost your age . . . How old are you? I didn’t even ask. You see what a warm welcome I’ve given you. You must excuse me . . .”
The lady is asking me to excuse her. When I should be asking her to excuse me for being here in her house, eating and drinking, sleeping in her bed, and waking her up in the middle of the night.
“I’ll be eight next month,” I tell her. “Anyhow, I’m not scared of the dark. One time I was locked inside a chapel with some live skeletons!”
“You’re a brave boy; you’re lucky. You’re not scared of anything.”
“Well, one thing . . .”
“That I’ll take you to Russia?”
“No, ma’am! I never believed the stories about Russia . . .”
“I’ve actually been to Russia, you know? With some companions from the Party.”
“I’ve never been anywhere, and I’ve never had companions. This is the first time. That’s why I’m scared.”
“It’s only natural . . . all these changes . . .”
“No, ma’am! The truth is, I’m not used to sleeping alone. At home, there was only one bed: for me, for Mamma, and for Capa ’e Fierro’s coffee stash before the police took him away. But don’t tell anyone or Mamma will kill me. It’s a secret.”
She sits on the bed beside me. She smells different from Mamma. Sweeter.
“I’ll tell you a secret, too. When the mayor asked us to take a child in, I said no. I was scared.”
“Are you scared of kids?”
“No, I was scared I wouldn’t know how to console them. I know about politics, about labor relations, and a little about Latin. But I don’t know anything about kids,” she says, staring at a fixed spot on the wall like Mamma always does when she’s doing the talking. “I’ve become a bit brusque over the years.”
“But you did take me.”
“I came to the station to lend a hand and make sure everything went smoothly. Then Comrade Criscuolo told me there had been a problem with the couple that was supposed to take you. The wife had been rushed into the hospital because her baby had come early, so there was no one to come and pick you up.”
“So that’s why I was the last one there!”
“When I saw you sitting there on the bench all alone, with your lovely red hair and those cute little freckles, I decided I would take you. I don’t know if I did the right thing. Maybe you would have preferred a real family?”