Zandragliona also never married. She’s still a signorina. Nobody knows why. Some people say she couldn’t decide among her many suitors and ended up on her own. Everyone says she’s quite rich and doesn’t want to share her money. Some say she once had a fiancé but he died. Or that she had a fiancé, but then she found out he was married. I say they’re all gossips.
Only once did Pachiochia and Zandragliona agree on something. That was when the Germans came all the way up to our street looking for something to eat, and our two neighbors put pigeon poop in the casatiello pie saying it was pork rind, which is a specialty of ours. The soldiers wolfed it down and said gut, gut! to Pachiochia and Zandragliona, who were poking each other in glee and laughing in their sleeves. We never saw the soldiers again, and there was never any punishment.
MAMMA ANTONIETTA HASN’T SOLD ME. NOT YET, anyway. But then, a couple of days later, I came home with my basket of rags and found Maddalena Criscuolo at the house. I said to myself: “Here we are. They’ve come to buy me, too!” So, while Mamma is talking to the lady, I’m spinning around the room like I’m half-crazy or something, and whenever they ask me anything, I either don’t answer or I stammer and dribble on purpose. I’m trying to look like I’m brain-damaged so they won’t want to buy me anymore. Who would be so dumb as to buy a cripple or a stutterer, huh?
Maddalena says she came from a poor family, too, and she isn’t well-off even now. Being hungry isn’t anything to be ashamed of, she says; it’s an injustice, and women should unite to make things better. Pachiochia says that if all girls cut their hair short and wore pants like Maddalena then the world would go to hell in a handbasket. I say she shouldn’t talk because she’s the one with a mustache! Maddalena doesn’t have a mustache. She has a lovely red mouth and white teeth.
Maddalena lowers her voice and says she knows Mamma’s story. She knows how she suffered for her tragedy, and says women should help one another. She calls it solidarity. Mamma Antonietta stares at a point on the wall, where there is nothing to look at, for two minutes, and I know she’s thinking about my big brother, Luigino.
Before Maddalena, there were other ladies coming to the house, but they didn’t have short hair and they didn’t wear pants. They were real signoras with smart clothes and that blond fresh-from-the-hairdresser look. When they came into our street, Zandragliona would always make a face and say: “Here come the charity dames.” At the beginning, we were happy because they brought us food packages, but then, when we opened them, we saw there was no pasta, no meat, no cheese, no nothing. There was rice. Always rice. Nothing but rice. When they came, Mamma would look up at the sky, as if a storm was coming and we were only halfway home, and say: “We’ll kill ourselves laughing tonight with another risible risotto!” The charity dames didn’t get it, but when they realized that nobody wanted the food packages, they said the rice was “Made in Italy” and they were working to promote it. After a while, people stopped opening their doors to them when they knocked. Pachiochia says we know no gratitude, we deserve nothing, and there’s no longer any dig-ni-ty. Zandragliona says the dames come to gloat. Them and their rice. Anytime someone gives away something useless, she says: “The charity dames are here!”
Maddalena promises we’ll have fun on the train, and that the families up north will treat us like their own children. They’ll take care of us and give us food and new clothes and shoes (two points). I stop my crippled dribbling act when I hear this and say: “Mamma! Sell me to this lady!” Maddalena’s big red mouth opens wide into a laugh, just as Mamma gives me a clout around the ear with the back of her hand. I put my hands up to my face; I don’t know whether it’s burning more from the smack or more from my shame. Maddalena stops laughing and reaches out to touch Mamma’s arm. Mamma pulls away, as if she’d touched a boiling hot pan. She doesn’t like being touched or even stroked. Then Maddalena speaks in a serious voice and says that she doesn’t want to buy me. The Party is organizing something that has never been undertaken before, that will make history, and that people will remember for years to come. “You mean, like the pigeon poop in the casatiello?” I ask her. Mamma Antonietta looks at me, and I look at her. It feels like another spank is on its way but, instead, she says: “And you? What do you want to do?” I say that if they actually give me a pair of brand-new shoes (a star-studded prize), I’ll go up north to the Communists like a shot, on foot if necessary. Maddalena smiles while Mamma’s head moves up and down, which I know means I’m in.
3
MAMMA ANTONIETTA STOPS IN FRONT OF THE door where the Communists have their headquarters in Via Medina. Maddalena told us we had to put our name down on the list for the children’s train. On the first floor, there are three young men and two signorinas. As soon as the signorinas see us, they lead us into a room where there is a desk with a red flag behind it. They tell us to sit down and start asking us thousands of questions. One signorina talks while the other writes everything down on a sheet of paper. When we’re done, the one who was talking takes a candy out of a tin and hands it to me. The one who was writing takes the sheet and puts it on the desk in front of Mamma. Mamma doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. The signorina puts a pen in Mamma’s hand and tells her she has to sign. Mamma just sits there. I unwrap the candy and the lemon smell tickles my nose. I don’t get to eat candy every day.
From the next room we can hear the three young men shouting. The signorinas look at each other without saying anything, because you can see they’re used to it and they know they can’t do anything about it. In the meantime, Mamma Antonietta sits there with the sheet in front of her and the pen in her hand, which is hanging by her side. I ask why they’re fighting like that in the other room. The one who was writing before says nothing. The other signorina who was talking before says that they’re not fighting, they’re just deciding what needs to be done, so that everyone can be better off, which she says is what politics is all about. So I say: “Excuse me, don’t you all agree up here?” She pulls a face, like when you put an unripe walnut in your mouth and you don’t expect it to be bitter, and then she says that even among themselves not everyone agrees with everyone else, there are currents and movements . . . at this point, the one who was writing before gives her a dig with her elbow, as if she’s saying too much, and then turns to Mamma and tells her that if she doesn’t know how to sign her name, she can put a cross on the dotted line, because they can both be witnesses. Mamma Antonietta blushes bright red and, without lifting her eyes from the paper, draws a slightly crooked X on the page. After everything I’d heard about the currents and movements, I’m feeling a little scared, because Zandragliona always says air currents and movements are what give kids colds and coughs, and I’ve heard that the sick kids don’t get to go on the trains. And that’s not fair either, because it’s the sick kids who need to go and get taken care of, right? It’s easy to talk about solidarity with the healthy kids, as Pachiochia would quite rightly say, since—apart from her mustache and brown gums—she’s a nice lady underneath, and every now and again she even gives me two lire coins to spend.