The Caviar Lady Page 11

“See what I mean, it’s what old men use.”

  “You look really nice with your hair like that,” I say, looking at my shoes.

  “Thank you, but please no more compliments, or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “Do you mind if I read you another poem?”

  “No, not at all, that would be lovely. I don’t know the whole book off by heart you know.”

  “You know, this year we’re working hard at school, especially with Greek and Latin, but I’m really glad of it. It’s a real shame you and Nicola can’t go to school.”

  “Well, we do what we can. But let’s not talk about sad things, life is hard enough already. Read to me Nellino, read me something nice.”

  I look at her, in clogs with no stockings, and a dress that looks like a work smock with the cuffs that droop down over her hands. Her hands are beautiful, with long, tapering fingers. They might be rough because of doing all the housework, but they still look like the hands of a pianist. Under the dress is her chest, and I can almost make out the shape of it, but her dress is so loose it keeps temptation at bay.

  But my gosh I feel tempted all the same, when I look at her slender neck, her soft ears, her dark hair, her dark, sparkling eyes, her mouth...

  “Are you going to start reading or are you just going to stand there staring at me all day?”

  That’s my Bechi, the feisty Bechi who’s at home on the riverside - part young lady, part fishing companion. What I really want to ask her is whether it’s true she kissed Nicola. But instead I read. She sits and listens for a bit, then she stands up and says:

  “That’s enough for now, I have to make lunch.”

  “I’ll help you if you want.”

  “You already did that once and remember how it turned out.”

  She’s talking about the time I tried to help her clean the floor.

  “I slipped...”

  “It doesn’t matter, it was nice of you to try, but now you should go.”

  “You’re sure I can’t help you?”

  “No. It’s really not suitable for a boy and a girl to spend such a long time in the house together, unchaperoned. It’s only because we’re in a war that these kinds of things can happen. Give my regards to your family, Nellino.”

  “And you give mine to the Turk and Nicola.”

  “You don’t go fishing or hunting or anything with him any more. He misses you, you know.”

  “Says who?”

  “He does.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Then tell him that this afternoon, if he wants a bike race, I’ll come by: we can go to a creek on the other side of the Po that’s full of catfish.”

  “They catch catfish here too you know.”

  “Yeah, well, tell him I’ll come, on my bike.”

  “Thank you, Nellino.”

  “Thank you, doll,” I wish I’d replied, before putting my arm round her waist and kissing her passionately.

  “You’re welcome,” I say, instead. And I leave.

  XXXII

  There’s a military train on the way. It’s a troop train going to Lombardy, Uncle tells me, but it’s a secret. It’s strange, I think, because the Americans and the British are in Sicily, we should be going South to fight.

  “It’ll be a convoy of troops coming home from the Russian front,” Uncle murmurs.

  “Not from Africa?”

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s coming back from Africa.”

  “What do you mean Uncle?”

  “They’re all prisoners. If they’re not dead.”

  Well, I’d like to talk to the soldiers on the train, embrace them, shout Long Live Italy and raise the flag. To let them know that we’re with them and that sometimes wars can be lost too. Because all wars are wrong. That’s what my father used to say, Mother tells me when I ask her why we are losing the war when we’re in the right.

  “Nobody is in the right during a war because all wars are wrong.”

  “What are you talking about Mother? What about the wars of independence that united Italy?”

  “I don’t know Nellino, maybe those had to be done, but I’m not the only one who thinks these things, it’s what your father thought, he often said it.”

  “But I thought he died in a war?”

  “Well, maybe he thought his war was a just one, just like you think the wars of independence are.”

  “This war is right too, Mother, and it will make Italy great.”

  “No, Nellino, this is not a just war, because all it’s doing is making us poorer. And killing people’s sons far from home.”

  Mother’s wrong. Well, she’s right about us having to tighten our belts, but our men in Russia and Africa fought valiantly. They still deserve a hero’s welcome. Unfortunately they’re making them travel at night, when it’s dark. And they have orders not to stop in any stations. Uncle got a telegram saying the transit of the military train is confidential. But he tells me about it nonetheless. And I go out onto platform 1 at 2.35 in the morning when the troop train is going to be passing through. At first I think I’ll wave at them through the windows, then I think that this calls for more than just a handkerchief. A flag is what’s needed. There’s one in the office, so I go to get it. Uncle is already on the platform with his light to give them the signal to pass through. I think he’s excited too because we hardly ever get long trains coming through our station. But now for some unknown reason they are sending lots of convoys on our line, almost always freight, by which I mean military freight. But this is the first troop train. It puffs in, not going that fast, but doesn’t slow down. Uncle raises his arm. I see the wagons rolling past me and I’m about to raise the flag...

  “But it’s a German train...”

  “Yes, they’re our allies Nellino.”

  Suddenly I don’t feel like hoisting the flag or even waving it any more. The train does not displace enough air to make the flag flutter, and it hangs limply on its pole.

  “Those bloody bastards!” I hear Uncle cursing under his breath.

  “What happened?”

  “They nearly took my arm off! If I hadn’t given them the signal it would have been all the same to them. Acting like they own it all. Allies my foot!”

  And whose allies are they anyway? The next day I find out that we don’t even have a government any more. Well, I mean we do, but it’s complicated. In the morning I take the train to Ferrara: this year in July the teachers are giving extra lessons for free to bring us up to speed for fifth year. It’s Mrs. Boldini’s idea. She hasn’t got a husband so it’s not like she’s going to take a holiday. The headmaster was over the moon. Basically school is going to go on for another month. I don’t really need extra lessons, but from the sounds of things those who don’t take them will have a hard time of it next year. As it’s shorter hours, Cavicchi comes to the station to get me and we walk to school together. Today, however he is all worked up about something, and comes rushing over to me:

  “Have you heard the news? Mussolini has been arrested! That’ll put an end to this sham. Let Hitler have a total war if that’s what he wants.”

  “Andrea! What are you talking about?”

  “It happened yesterday. I heard it on the radio.”

  “But I was up in the night and I never heard anything.”

  “Being up isn’t enough, you actually have to turn on the radio, genius. It was on the news at a quarter to eleven.”

  “No one on the train said anything about it.”

  “Take a look here,” he says, showing me the newspaper.

  “Hells bells! The King’s in charge of the army?”

  “Yes! And Badoglio is in charge of the government. No school for us today, my friend. You can come to my house.”

  “To your house?”

  “Yeah, go on. Not even Boldini will be in school today. And I want you to meet my parents. I’ve already told them you’ll come. It’s summer after all - we should be on holiday anyway.” />
  “No, I don’t want to be any trouble. Really.”

  “Of course you won’t be.”

  “Well, I don’t want to.”

  “What? Don’t you like the idea?”

  “Yes, a bit, but...”

  I’m not sure how things are going to develop and I think I’d better go home, but the first train isn’t till the afternoon.

  “Alright then, I’ll come.”

  XXXIII

  “So you’re Menandro Costa’s son? I have to say there is a certain resemblance... When Andrea told me I couldn’t believe it. A young Costa! Let me see you. Oh, and do come in, pleased to meet you, Lorenzo Cavicchi.”

  “My pleasure, Nello Scaramagli. Scaramagli, not Costa.”

  “Of course, sorry, Andrea told me your father didn’t give you his name.”

  “No, he wasn’t around long enough.”

  “Ah yes! Travelling the world for his ideals, eh? Well, it was high time Italy put an end to this regrettable interlude and the king took the country under control again. The country’s on its knees and we’re overrun with oafish Germans. Just think that the other day I was talking to an SS officer who didn’t even know who Weill was! ‘What?’ I said to him: ‘One of the greatest living German composers!’ ‘I have never heard of him. He cannot be German.’ That’s what he said.”

  “Actually I’ve never heard of him either.”

  “Andrea, what are you teaching our young guest?”

  “It’s not like me and Nello talk about absolutely everything, Father. And Kurt Weill is Jewish after all - it doesn’t seem like the best time to be waving it in the face of a German soldier.”

  “They’ll all have to go back home now anyway.”

  “Actually last night it looked like they were going in the opposite direction.”

  Before I could help myself I’d blurted it out. If only I knew when to keep my mouth shut.

  “What are you talking about Nello?”

  “No, it was nothing.”

  “Go on, you can trust us.”

  Well, who cares now anyway? It’s all over and knowing something important makes me feel important in this house that is so big that if I leave the lounge I’ll get lost.

  I don’t tell them about the flag, but about the German train.

  “You must have got mixed up,” says Cavicchi senior.

  “Actually no.”

  “But that’s impossible, a train full of Germans, in Italy, going towards Lombardy, when they have all those other fronts to be sending soldiers to.”

  “Did you really know my father?”

  “Of course, we were together in Spain. Sugar in your coffee?”

  But how can it be? In front of me is a renegade, a traitor, like my father, and he’s friendly, smiling, jovial, comfortably sitting in an armchair. Or rather sunk into it. I’ve spent my life being called the son of a traitor. While Andrea Cavicchi, that scoundrel... I’ve confided in him and he not only goes and tells his father everything, but knows things about me and doesn’t even tell me. There’s too much going on right now and I don’t understand at least half of it.

  “But my father was a subversive, a traitor, a renegade...”

  It comes out in a childish tone of voice, and I feel like I’m going to cry, but I don’t want to.

  Mr. Cavicchi looks at me in amazement.

  Andrea intervenes: “I told you, Father. They’ve brainwashed him.”

  “I didn’t think it was to this extent. I’m afraid you’ve been given the wrong idea about your father,” Mr. Cavicchi says, very gently, in a steady, calm voice. The voice of a proper father, I think. I start crying and he gathers me into an embrace. I hear him muttering...

  “Your father was a great man... A man who fought for freedom, equality, justice... An anarchist, a cosmopolitan...”

  “Like the people who buy the caviar?” I ask.

  It’s like floodgates have opened in my brain.

  “What?”

  I can see he hasn’t understood. Either that or I haven’t.

  “No, no, it’s nothing.”

  I stop there.

  We spend the morning talking about my father. Then Cavicchi’s mother, Maria Luisa, arrives. The maid tells me she’s a countess but doesn’t use the title, having a Communist for a husband and all. So there it is: this big house in the city centre is the only place in the world where I’ve heard people talk about Communists, anarchists, freedom, equality and goodness knows what, as if it was the price of milk. That’s another thing that doesn’t seem to be an issue here, as far as I can see. To be honest, I don’t think anything is in short supply in this house.

  “Will you be partaking of our humble repast?” Cavicchi’s mother drawls.

  “Erm...” I gawp at her.

  “She means lunch,” Andrea comes to my aid.

  “Oh, right. Actually no, I can’t, I’m sorry, I have to get my train.”

  “You’ll have missed it by now,” Andrea shoots back, triumphantly.

  I look at the time on the big grandfather clock. It’s true. Forget school, the morning here has flown.

  “I’ll get my brother to take you home on his motorcycle,” Andrea adds. “Go on, stay for lunch.”

  So I do. Judging from the house I imagined lunch would be a more lavish affair, but Mr. Cavicchi says it is important to dominate the appetite, mens sana in corpore sano and all that. Which translates into a measly vegetable broth grandly called consommé, and hot to boot, even though it’s summer, with no bread, and some boiled potatoes. Just like at home, in other words, or worse. Except at home there are no paintings, portraits of ancestors, tapestries, stuffed deer, armchairs, pianos and maids.

  “You know,” says Mr. Cavicchi to his wife, “Menandro was so faithful to the ideal that he didn’t even give Nello his surname...”

  “Oh you poor boy! How on earth do you get by without a surname?” murmurs the decountessed countess.

  “Of course he has a surname, dearest scatterbrain. It’s just that it’s his uncle’s, his mother’s brother.”

  “So what’s this ideal about then?” I ask tentatively.

  “No gods no masters, my boy.”

  What that’s got to do with surnames I’d like to know, but don’t ask. Enrico comes in, Andrea’s big brother who is studying engineering in Milan and who this morning decided not to take the train to go on holiday in the mountains, so he could see how things would unfold, Mr. Cavicchi explains.

  “Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, well get in the sidecar then, it’s safer. And put these on.”

  He hands me a leather helmet and a pair of goggles. They’re enormous.

  “Cover your mouth to keep out the dust.”

  He doesn’t give me any advice on how to keep my repast down, and the only reason I don’t spew up round every bend is that the consommé and potatoes are long gone.

  “Let’s give this chap a run for his money!” Enrico bellows every time we overtake someone.

  He toots a kind of horn and revs the engine that makes a sound like a tank. At least, I’ve never heard a tank, but I imagine that’s what one would sound like. We have to shout to make ourselves heard.

  “My old man’ll end up in jail sooner or later,” Enrico hollers.

  “Why?”

  “All that talk about Communism, worse than the bloody Russians!”

  Uncle is hardly ever on the street side of the station. He’s on the other side, where the tracks are, but in the time it takes for Enrico to park and say goodbye to me, engine running all the while, I see him rushing through, dressed in his stationmaster’s uniform.

  “We thought something had happened to you.”

  “I missed the train.”

  “These days they are few and far between.”

  “And who was that on the motorcycle?”

  “Enrico Cavicchi.”
>
  “Your classmate? He’s old enough to have a motorcycle?”

  “No, no, it’s his big brother.”

  “Ah, the engineer...”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, the Cavicchis are a big name in Ferrara.”

  That may be, but it feels like everyone else knows more than I do here.

  “Hi Mother.”

  “Nellino!”

  I’m barely inside the door and she’s hugging me, laughing, crying.

  “I’ve been so worried,” she whispers.

  “What about?”

  “That something had happened to you. It’s been a strange kind of day.”

  “What happened?”

  “Look over there.”

  On the other side of the tracks there’s smoke rising from the signal box.

  “People came looking for Remo, from the fields, or the riverside. ‘See what’s happened to that Mussolini of yours?’ they said. Then they were all kicking and spitting.”

  “What did Uncle do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And the railway Militia?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The Militia is part of the army, as of today.”

  “They only went to send them away when they saw that the shed behind Remo’s house was on fire. The Carabinieri are there now. You go and have a wash now, you look like you’ve been in the Siege of Jarabub with all that dust...”

  “No gods no masters...”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, just something I heard.”

  “What thing?”

  “No gods no masters...”

  “You too? Isn’t one in the family enough?”

  “So it’s true then.”

  “What’s true?”

  “That this is what my father believed in.”

  “Yes, that and other things too,” Mother says gently.

  “How come you never told me?”

  “You’re the one who never wanted to talk about it. Now run along and get washed. And stop worrying yourself with these things.”

  “No gods no masters...”

  “Stop it now, silly!”

  XXXIV