She wipes the grease off my face with the back of her hand.
“Come on, let me have a taste,” she says, twisting off a corner of the dough with her fingers. Then she straightens up and starts for home. I don’t ask her anything and set off after her. Mamma in front; me behind.
2
MADDALENA DIDN’T COME UP IN CONVERSATION again. I thought Mamma must have forgotten or changed her mind. But then, a few days later, a nun came to the house, sent by Padre Gennaro. The nun knocked at the door and Mamma peeked out the window and said: “Now what does this penguin want?”
The sister knocked again, so Mamma put her sewing down and opened the door a crack, so the nun could only get her face in. It was all yellow. The nun asked if she could come in, and Mamma opened the door a little wider, but you could see she really didn’t want her there. The nun said Mamma was a good Christian and Our Lord sees everything and His creatures do not belong to their mothers or their fathers; they are all God’s children and, anyway, the politicians want to send us all to Russia, where we’ll all be killed and nobody will ever make it back home. Mamma didn’t say a word. She’s really good at keeping quiet. After a while, the nun was bored and left. So I asked Mamma: “Do you really want to send me to Russia?” She picked up her sewing again and started muttering to herself: “What Russia? Russia, huh? . . . I’d like to see that sister on her own with a child . . . it’s easy to talk when you don’t have kids of your own. Where was that penguin when my Luigino fell ill, eh?”
Luigi would have been my big brother if he hadn’t gotten bronchial asthma as soon as he came into the world. In any case, by the time I came along, I was already an only child.
“Fascists, Communists, they’re the same to me; just like priests and bishops,” Mamma went on, because she doesn’t talk much to other people, but she does talk to herself quite a bit. “Up till now, it’s been nothing but hunger and hard work for me . . .”
If my big brother hadn’t had the bad idea of getting bronchial asthma, he would now be three years older than me. Mamma hardly ever says his name but she keeps a picture of him on her bedside table with a little red light in front of it. Zandragliona, the nice lady who lives in the ground-floor apartment right in front of ours, told me about it. She says Mamma was so sad, they didn’t think she would ever get over it. But then she gave birth to me, and she was happy again. Well, I don’t make her happy like he did. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be sending me to Russia.
I decide to go to see Zandragliona. She knows everything, and even if she doesn’t, she knows how to make it up. Zandragliona says they’re not taking me to Russia. She says that she knows Maddalena Criscuolo and that those women we saw want to help us; they want to give us hope. Well, I’ve got “hope” in my name because I’m called Speranza like Mamma Antonietta. My first name is Amerigo. Mamma said my father chose my name. I’ve never met him, and every time I ask Mamma, she rolls her eyes like it’s about to rain and she hasn’t had time to bring the washing in. She says he’s a truly great man. I think he must have gone to America to seek his fortune. “Will he ever come back?” I ask. “Sooner or later,” she answers. “I hope so,” I say. Well, that’s all he left me. My name. I suppose that’s something.
Since the news of the children’s train transports came out, the neighborhood is abuzz. Each person says something different: they’ll sell us and send us to America to work; they’ll take us to Russia and gas us; the bad kids will be sent off and the good ones will get to stay. Some don’t give a damn and carry on as if nothing is happening, because they are total ignoramuses. I’m ignorant, too, though in the neighborhood they call me “Nobèl” because I know so much. And because I talk a lot. I go around town. I hear stories. I stick my nose into other people’s business. No one is born knowing everything.
Mamma Antonietta doesn’t want me talking about her business. In fact, I don’t tell anyone that Capa ’e Fierro, Iron Head, has stashed packets of coffee under our bed. Nor do I say that Capa ’e Fierro comes to our house and locks himself in with Mamma. I wonder what he tells his wife? Maybe that he’s playing pool. He sends me out when he comes. He says he and Mamma need to get down to work. So I go out and look for stuff: rags, remnants, clothes American soldiers have thrown away, dirty tatters full of fleas. When he first started coming to the house, I didn’t want to leave them alone there. I didn’t like Capa ’e Fierro acting like he was head of the family. But Mamma said I had to show respect, because he helps put food on our plates and, anyhow, he knows people in important places. She said he’s a good salesman and that I should learn from him. That he could be my guide. I didn’t answer her, but since then, whenever he comes, I go out. Whatever scraps I bring back home, Mamma has to scrub, clean, and mend, and then we take them to Capa ’e Fierro, who has a stall at Piazza del Mercato. Every now and again, he manages to sell something to people a little less poor than us. In the meantime, I look at everyone’s shoes and count up the points on my fingers. When I get to ten times ten, something nice will happen: my father will come back from America, and I will be the one to throw Capa ’e Fierro out of the house, not the other way around.
Once the game actually worked, though. In front of the San Carlo Theater, I saw a man with such shiny, brand-new shoes that it earned me a hundred points straight off. And then, when I went home, Capa ’e Fierro was outside the door. Mamma had seen his wife on the Corso with a new handbag on her arm. Capa ’e Fierro said, “You have to learn to wait. If you wait, your time will come.” But Mamma said, “Today, you can wait,” and she didn’t let him in. Capa ’e Fierro lit a cigarette and walked away, his hands in his pockets. I followed him because it gave me a kick to see him disappointed. I called out to him.
“No work today, Capa ’e Fierro? Is it a holiday?”
He turned around and squatted down in front of me. He pulled on his cigarette and then blew little smoke circles into my face.
“Well, young man. Women and wine are the same. Either you dominate them, or they dominate you. If you let them dominate you, you go crazy. You are a slave to them. I’ve always been free and I always will be. Come. Let’s go to the osteria. Today, I’m going to introduce you to red wine. Today Capa ’e Fierro is going to make a man out of you!”
“Pity I can’t oblige you, Capa ’e Fierro,” I said. “I have things to do.”
“What could you possibly have to do, young man?”
“I have to go and look for rags, as usual. They’re worth nothing, but at least they put food on the table. Please excuse me.”
I left him there, the smoke rings vanishing into the air.
I put whatever rags I can collect into a basket Mamma gave me. Because the basket gets heavy when it fills up, I started balancing it on my head like I’d seen women do at the market. But carry it today, carry it tomorrow, my hair started falling out and I ended up with a bald patch on my head. That’s why she shaved my head, and I looked like a melon. It wasn’t head lice!
During my scavenging, I ask around whether anyone knows about the trains but nobody does. Tommasino says he’s not going, because they have everything they need at home, and his mother, Donna Armida, lacks for nothing. Severe Pachiochia, who commands a lot of respect in our neighborhood, says that these things didn’t use to happen when there was still a king in Italy; mothers didn’t use to sell their children. She says that these days there’s no longer any dig-ni-ty, and every time she says it like that, you can see her brown gums, as she clenches the few yellow teeth she has left in her mouth, and spits through the gaps. I think Pachiochia must have been born ugly, and that’s why she never found a husband, but we’re not allowed to say anything about this because it’s her weak point. That and the fact that she doesn’t have any kids. She once kept a little goldfinch, but it flew away. We’re not supposed to talk about the goldfinch either.