I remember the wailing of the sirens and everyone screaming. When the bombs came, Mamma would pick me up and run to the shelter with me in her arms. Once we were inside, she would hold me tight all the time. I was happy during the air raids.
The procession of ladies with no children plows past the crowd of mothers and us kids, who have somehow finally managed to get in line, and everything turns into a mess again. A few more signorinas rush out the front door of the long, long building to try to make peace.
“Don’t leave,” they tell the mothers. “Don’t deprive your children of this chance. Think of the winter that’s coming. Think of the cold, the trachoma infections, your damp houses . . .”
In the meantime, the signorinas go up to every kid and hand out a little package wrapped in silver foil.
“We’re mothers, too,” they go on. “Your children will be warm over the winter; they’ll have food and they’ll be taken care of. There are families in Bologna, Modena, and Rimini waiting to welcome them into their families. They’ll come back prettier, healthier, chubbier. They’ll have food on their plates every day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Then a signorina comes and gives me a package wrapped in silver foil, too. I tear the wrapper off, and there’s a dark brown bar inside.
“Eat it, my sweet boy. It’s chocolate!” she says.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it,” I say, trying to look indifferent.
“Donna Antonietta, are you selling your son, too?” Pachiochia calls out at that very moment, her hand resting on the photo of the mustached king, pounded so much that it is crumpled and almost unrecognizable. “I didn’t think you would stoop so low! You are not that needy. Is it because they took Capa ’e Fierro away? If you had asked me, I would have offered you a nice cup of coffee.”
Mamma Antonietta gives me an ugly look, convinced I was the coffee spy, but I go on munching my chocolate bar and pretend to keep my eyes closed.
“Donna Pachiochia, I’ve never asked anything of anyone, and if I ever have, I’ve always paid everything back. When I can’t pay someone back, I don’t ask. My husband had to go away to seek his fortune, and when he comes back . . . You know my story. I don’t need to explain anything to you.”
“What fortune, Donna Antoniè? Who are you kidding? There’s no longer any dig-ni-ty!”
When Pachiochia says the word dignity, I really do close my eyes, so I don’t have to see the flecks of spit flying through the gaps in her brown gums. But I open them again when I realize Mamma Antonietta isn’t answering, which is never a good sign. Not saying anything when she’s being taunted is not like her. So I take the last piece of chocolate out of the foil, crush the silver paper into a little ball, and put it in my pocket so I can use it as a cannonball for a tin soldier I found the day before yesterday on the Corso. In the end, I’m the one that speaks up for Mamma.
“Donna Pachiò, I have a father some place or other. What about you, though? Do you have a child?”
Pachiochia places her hand on her breast and strokes the poor crumpled mustached king.
“You don’t, right? Is a portrait of King Umberto all you have left?”
Pachiochia’s brown gums quiver with anger.
“What a pity! If you had a child, I’d give him this last piece of chocolate. See this?”
And I toss the whole thing in my mouth.
5
“LADIES, LADIES! LISTEN UP! I’M MADDALENA Criscuolo from Santa Lucia. I fought in the four-day uprising here.”
The mothers go quiet. Maddalena stands on a vegetable cart and speaks through a metal funnel that makes her voice louder.
“When we had to drive out the Germans, we women did our part. Mothers, daughters, wives, young and old: we went down into the streets and we fought with our men. You were there, and so was I. This is another battle, but the enemy is more dangerous: hunger and poverty. If you fight now, your children will be the ones to gain something!”
Every mamma looks down at her children.
“They’ll come back fatter and more beautiful, and you will be able to rest after the endless toil that life has been for you until today. When you embrace your children again, you, too, will be fatter and more beautiful. I’ll bring them back myself; I swear on my honor this is as true as the fact that my name is Maddalena Criscuolo.”
Everyone was quiet, even the kids.
Maddalena climbs down from the vegetable cart and starts walking through the crowd of mothers, with kids hanging on to their skirts, and she starts singing through the metal funnel. She has a nice voice, like the ones I hear when I go and sit outside the Conservatory, waiting for Carolina to come out with her violin.
“Sebben che siamo donne, paura non abbiamo . . .” she starts. It’s a song about a union, where women aren’t scared because they are together and they love their children and they want something called socialism: “Per amor dei nostri figli, socialismo noi vogliamo.”
The other signorinas follow Maddalena’s lead. The mothers stand there in silence, but then a few of them take courage and start singing, too. Then they all join in. That is when Pachiochia and the ladies in her procession start singing the royal anthem: “Viva il Re!” Long live the King. The happy trumpets blast. “Viva il Re! Viva il Re!” But there are not very many of them, and in any case, they sing out of tune, and so our mammas’ voices drown them out as they sing louder and louder and in the end, you can only hear their voices, their kids singing along too. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Mamma Antonietta sing. Pachiochia clamps her mouth shut, hiding her gums. Then she turns around, positions herself at the head of the procession, and leads her ladies away. As she passes right next to me, I hear her say, “Hunger is stronger than fear . . .” but then the crowd closes around her, and I can’t hear the rest.
Maddalena speaks through the metal funnel again and tells us we should say goodbye to our mammas and go into the long, long building because they need to wash us and give us a checkup from a doctor. She promises that the kids who behave will get more chocolate. I hold Mamma’s hand tightly, and when I look at her, I see that her eyes are a strange color, like the uniforms of the German soldiers when they came to raid our neighborhood for food. So I open up my arms like I once saw an orchestra conductor doing, when I snuck into the theater with Carolina during a rehearsal for a concert, and I hug Mamma with all my strength. My face is flattened against her belly, and I feel as though my eyes are turning the same color as the German soldiers’ uniforms when Pachiochia and Zandragliona made them eat pigeon poop. Mamma Antonietta is surprised, because hugs are not our strong point. But then I feel her hands in my hair moving slowly back and forth. Her hands are soft, like soapstone underwater. It doesn’t last long.
One of the signorinas comes up to me and asks my name.
“Amerigo Speranza, like Mamma Antonietta,” I answer.
She sticks a card on my shirt with a pin. There’s my name, last name, and a number on it. She gives another card just like mine to Mamma, who tucks it into her bra, where she keeps all the important stuff: a little money, a holy card of St. Anthony—the enemy of the devil—a hankie embroidered by her mamma, Filomena—bless her soul—and now this card with my number on it. That way, when I’m gone, she can keep everything close to her heart.