The Caviar Lady Read online

  Uncle is going mad trying to get Mother to calm down. She’s crying and hollering:

  “That’s it! We’re leaving! Do you hear me? I’ve had enough!”

  And leave we do, all of us. We go down to the riverside, to the Turk’s. Uncle takes my bike to go to work in the station, so Nicola lends me his rickety old one to get the train to Ferrara. Who could have imagined us ending up like this: the three of us all sleeping together on a straw pallet on the beaten earth floor?

  “It’s all I have to offer,” says the Turk.

  And we take it. Here at least the straw is clean, I’ve heard there are fleas in the other huts on the riverside. At night I can hear Bechi breathing. She sleeps in the same room, but she’s the only one with a bed all to herself. Or rather she used to be, because after three nights she offers to share it with Mother. So there are three straw pallets - one for me and Uncle, one for the Turk and Nicola and one for Mother and Bechi. Talk about going up in the world.

  But life in this humble shack has a different atmosphere, that I like. First of all, we don’t have to put up with Remo, his wife Pasquina and the insufferable twins Benito and Littorio. The village gossips say that the twins are not Remo’s, the usual nobody’s children. I think that even if they might not be sure he’s their father, at least they’ve got his surname. And there are no Germans here, and no machine gun on the terrace. That’s enough to make it nicer.

  The real problem, to be honest, is the night-time. It’s too quiet and the silence is too loud. Not that it’s noisy in the station, but the trains come through and while other people might think they make a racket, it’s music to a railwayman’s ears. There are no trains down on the riverside. Down here it’s all leaves rustling, nocturnal birds, mosquitoes, things jumping, buzzing, crawling, splashing in the river... The silence we have in the station is something they couldn’t even imagine.

  And then there are the smells. For us, used to coal and burnt fuel oil, it’s like another world. When I used to come here to fish, or to visit Bechi and Nicola, I’d never noticed it. Everything smells of something, and the herbs have a whole spectrum of smells of their own: some tangy and pungent, some sweet, others enveloping.

  Mother wears a smock all the time. The same kind of smock that Bechi wears. She ties her hair back every day and has the hangdog look of someone who can’t take much more. Uncle has brought all his books to the riverside and when his shifts allow he reads, but not in the evening because here, unlike the station, there is no electric light. There’s the odd candle, carefully kept and sparingly used. And oil lamps that are empty because there’s no oil. Actually, you can get it from Remo but it costs more than cigarettes. In any case it’s not Remo doing the black market any more. It’s his wife, Pasquina. Now Remo is in charge of the soldiers who are doing the work of the Railway Militia Corps. He has a uniform of good cloth and boots that don’t look like they’re made out of cardboard, like those the others wear. Or wood, like the clogs we wear on the riverside.

  The only time we wear our shoes is when I go to Ferrara and Uncle goes to the station. At school we hear bombs going off every day and even if the planes don’t come the sirens sound anyway. There are massive air raids, with lots of planes. They mostly happen at night and in the morning there’s new rubble. But formations fly over during the day too. There are hardly any fighter planes left to protect the city and in any case the machine gun bullets can’t reach all the huge British and American planes that fly high overhead and drop their bombs. We hear the explosions. And the sound of houses falling down. With all this going on school finishes earlier and by the end of May we are all at home. The fifth grade exams were a piece of cake. We all get into high school no problem. Me and Andrea say our goodbyes. He tells me that they might be leaving Ferrara that summer too, as it’s not safe any more.

  XL

  June 27th. I remember the date. Because we see bombers coming up the Po and think they’re going to attack the bridges. But instead they head for the station and bomb the railway. Not like before, when one or two fighters would break away from the main formation and try to hit the line. No, this is a proper attack. Now there are planes coming almost every day and the railway and the station get hit at least once a week. The only person who still has to go to the station is Uncle, who keeps the trains running with a helmet on his head and reports every night that there’s less left standing of our home. Not to mention the railway line. One day he tells me that there are no more trains to Ferrara. We don’t even know if they’ll be back on after the summer. The only people travelling now are Fascists and Germans.

  “There are wagons with anti-aircraft machine guns, but we’re not taking people any more,” he says gloomily.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say.

  He is distraught about the railway going to pieces, his railway.

  “You know in a way it’s partly my fault too,” he says. “We should have caught on sooner.”

  “Caught on to what?”

  “Who Mussolini was and where he would lead us. Who certain people were. Last week Remo arrested some boys who were dodging the draft. They hung them in the station after a summary trial. It was Remo and that German corporal who speaks Italian, Kraus, who passed sentence. They were in front of the office talking about whether to hang them or shoot them. They were just boys. Not much older than you two...”

  Uncle cries as he looks at us: me, Nicola and Bechi who fortunately is a girl and will not have to fight.

  “Remo said: ‘Let’s hang them. To serve as an example for the others we’ll hang them in front of the station’. Now there are four boys hanging from the kitchen window. Not the window that overlooks the machine gun. The one on the other side, facing the street. And a sign that reads ‘Draft dodgers’. It makes me sick. We just didn’t see it coming. We should have reported Remo when he started running the black market out of the signal box. Instead we bought from him.”

  “Come on Pompeo,” says the Turk. “Have a smoke and forget about it.” And he gets out a cigarette case that looks like it’s made of silver.

  “Real cigarettes, French ones, from before the war. I’ve got one, we’ll share it.”

  “It’s your fault too you know, with your cigarettes and your caviar!”

  Uncle is shouting now and pushes the Turk away.

  “I know how you feel. It’s hard for all of us,” the Turk says, smiling his half-smile and lighting his half of the cigarette.

  Uncle is yelling, swearing. Mother tells us to go outside, but I want to listen. Then we hear shots being fired.

  “Someone’s shooting.”

  “Where?”

  “Maybe at the bridge?”

  “On the other side.”

  “No, in the village.”

  “No, at the station.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  We all go outside but we can’t work out where the noise is coming from, there are barrages of gunfire and maybe bombs too. But not from planes.

  “We’d better take turns staying awake tonight,” says the Turk.

  It’s my turn when I hear someone calling.

  “Turk! Turk!” I go to wake him up but he’s already at the door with a sickle in his hand.

  “Who is it?”

  “Friends.”

  “Who?”

  “Sevruga.”

  “Beluga...”

  “Who are you?”

  “Girolamo Grandi, now open up for God’s sake!”

  “Who?”

  “The errand boy. Open up!”

  The Turk opens the door and it’s the errand boy alright, sweaty as ever. Well, it’s summer and he’s wearing a woolen jacket. With the usual badge on his lapel. No, blow me down! It’s not the same one! This one has a hammer and sickle on top of a book. He has a red neckerchief on too. And he’s carrying a submachine gun!

  “Get inside comrades,” he says, dodging the Turk.

  “What are you doing?” as
ks the Turk. All of a sudden there are four armed men in his house.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “Andrea! Enrico!” I exclaim in disbelief.

  “You know these people?”

  Everyone else has got up from their pallets.

  “Yes,” I answer. “It’s Andrea Cavicchi and his brother...”

  “Shut up!” the errand boy says. “No names. “I’m commander Sevruga of the Garibaldi Brigade...”

  The Turk laughs out loud, heartily, in spite of the weapons and the circumstances.

  “You just can’t stop thinking about caviar, can you!” he says.

  Uncle swears. “Who are you? And what is this charade?”

  “We are freedom fighters,” Enrico replies.

  “And you’ve come to fight here?” the Turk asks.

  “We’ve run into a little trouble, you see. We’ve just sabotaged the railway.”

  “Not you as well!” Uncle protests.

  “Yes, but we were intercepted by the Fascists before we could finish. There was a shoot out and one of our comrades was killed...”

  “Someone else from school?” I ask Andrea.

  “No, another partisan,” he answers.

  The errand boy continues: “Now they’re looking for us. We need to cross the river and only you can help us, Turk. We’re building a new Italy now...”

  Then he moves closer to the Turk and says in a low voice: “And when it’s all over I’ll be the only importer of Volga caviar... Just think, I have it on good authority that Stalin himself likes Imperial Beluga.” Then, in a normal voice he goes on: “And we have another problem.”

  “What?”

  “The car.”

  “What car?”

  “My Lancia Ardea, we abandoned it on the embankment.”

  “You idiots!” explodes the Turk. “Are you trying to get us all shot? We’ll have to get rid of it right away. It’ll have to be pushed into the river. Then we’ll sort out the rest. Pompeo, you guard the house. Use this if need be.”

  Uncle is left standing there, speechless, with the sickle in his hand. I follow the others.

  “Get back into the house,” says the Turk, but I decide not to heed him.

  “Andrea, what have you done?”

  “My name is Nessuno now.”

  “Come again?”

  “Nessuno, like Ulysses. I’ve made my choice Nello.”

  “What choice?”

  “What side I’m on. It’s time for you to choose too...”

  I want to say that my choice would be home.

  “And what about school?”

  “I told you to go back home,” growls the Turk, and this time he’s not taking no for an answer.

  I don’t know what they did about the car and getting across the Po. All I know is that it was first light before the Turk came back. And not a moment too soon, because then the Fascists came, led by Remo, armed with machine guns I have never seen on Italian soldiers. But then I think that they’re not Italian soldiers, they’re Republicans. Even if I don’t really know what that means. I know that my father fought in Republican Brigades in Spain. But this lot don’t seem to have much in common with “No gods, no masters’. There are all these thoughts going round in my brain when the Germans show up, hot on the heels of the Fascists, with Alsatian dogs straining on leashes. They are doing a search of the whole riverside.

  “Come out with your hands up! All of you!” shouts Remo, who is like a different man. Like a werewolf: he’s still our signalman, but in the full moon version. This is what pops into my head when I should be concentrating on everything and working things out.

  One soldier pulls Mother, another pushes Bechi. I need to stop thinking. I have to defend Bechi, I have to save Mother. Uncle’s hair is all standing on end, like he’s just got out of bed.

  “Remo, what’s going on?”

  “You tell me! The outlaws’ car was seen here, right here! Last night on the embankment! You’ve turned into Communist filth now, stationmaster indeed!”

  Then he points at the Turk: “He knows who commander Sevruga is! He knows because he’s a foreigner, a rotten bastard, a devil! Nobody knows who he really is!”

  Remo is shouting and yelling, waving his arms about, in a uniform that looks a couple of sizes too big for him. All the riverside people have come out of their huts. The soldiers, the Germans, go inside. My first thought is that they’ll find the books, as if having books was a crime. They ask for everyone’s papers. Kraus, the German corporal from the station, approaches the Turk, who is the only one not looking at his feet. On the contrary, he actually greets him:

  “Good morning.”

  Kraus is obviously taken aback. He stands there.

  “Yah! Good morning to you. So, is it true what zee second lefftenant says, zat you know where zis Serruga eez?”

  “Serruga?” The Turk asks.

  “Sevruga,” Remo corrects him. “You know it’s Sevruga, don’t think you can fool me!”

  “Beluga eez better!” adds another German who has just arrived on the riverside. An officer, judging by his uniform and posture.

  “You know Beluga, yah?” he asks the Turk scornfully, in excellent Italian with just a hint of German harshness, better Italian than the fishermen speak in any case.

  “It’s a cetacean, but also a variety of sturgeon, and a type of caviar, the finest Imperial caviar. This river used to be full of sturgeon, before the war,” says the Turk, looking the German officer straight in the eye. I’m watching too now.

  “Oberleutnant Mayer,” says Remo, under his breath.

  “Who?”

  “Lieutenant Mayer, the officer in charge of railway defenses.”

  “I thought you were in charge of defending the homeland?” I say.

  He looks away and I take a good look at the lieutenant who is not as young as I think lieutenants usually are. He might be Uncle’s age, actually he even looks like him. Now I have no doubts that we Scaramaglis are Aryans, through and through. But suddenly it doesn’t matter any more. And I don’t understand this choice I have to make. I’m thinking of Cavicchi and all the trouble him, his brother and the errand boy have caused. We’re this close to all getting shot. Maybe they’ll hang us from the kitchen window of the station too.

  “And how would you know about the best caviar?” Lieutenant Mayer asks the Turk sarcastically. But suddenly the Turk’s eyes light up. He puts his hand into his pocket and pulls out the mother of pearl spoon:

  “Tarabya, 1910, if I remember correctly. You were the orderly of the attaché at the German Embassy. I was the gardener at the Italian ambassador’s summer residence. That’s where we met...”

  “Fogazzaro!” the lieutenant exclaims. “Antonio Fogazzaro!”

  We can’t believe our eyes when the lieutenant moves towards the Turk and embraces him, I swear, actually embraces him.

  “Piccolo mondo antico! That was the name of the book! I was studying Italian and you gave me Fogazzaro’s book.”

  I can hear Lieutenant Mayer using the familiar “tu” form of address with the Turk. It’s not just a dream.

  “White truffles, francolini and wine from Ghemme, right?”

  “Right! I’ve been saving a bottle of Ghemme, I’ll go and get it... If that’s alright?” he says, looking at the Lieutenant.

  “Yes, of course, go ahead! I thought you’d be in an embassy somewhere. Or still in Istanbul. What a city!”

  We are all speechless. Lieutenant Mayer orders the other soldiers to lower their weapons. Remo protests.

  “The Turk is the main suspect in the bombing of the railway. He definitely knows where the rebels are. We need to arrest him now.”

  “Calm down Second Lieutenant Sacchini. And tell your men to go back to the station.”

  Remo raises his voice: “I would like to remind you that we are in Republican territory and I am in command!”

  The German soldiers put
their weapons up again. The Lieutenant looks at him:

  “And I would like to remind you that if it wasn’t for us you and that Mussolini of yours would already be hanging by the neck. Now bugger off! If that is correct Italian,” he says, looking in my direction.

  I nod and lower my eyes. I look up in time to see Remo ordering his men back up the embankment, while the Lieutenant invites Corporal Kraus to take a seat on the stone bench in front of the house.

  “Unfortunately times are hard,” says the Turk. “I can’t offer you anything to accompany the wine.” He fills the glasses with a dark liquid, very different from the Lambrusco that Uncle occasionally drinks. And I wonder just where he was keeping this dusty old bottle. The German soldiers look on from a distance, as the three make a toast. Me, Nicola, Uncle, Mother and Bechi are offered a drink too. The wine is strong and it makes my head spin.

  “Life has become so difficult,” says the Lieutenant. “It’s so hard to understand what our country wants us to do.”

  Corporal Kraus looks at him: “Yes Hans, I know, but we have to follow orders.”

  “Just as well, Augustus,” he replies.

  It’s as if the two were friends, not just soldiers together, and they’re speaking Italian. I think it’s not just so we can understand them, but also so that their men can’t. The Turk and the Lieutenant who I now know is called Augustus, have a different kind of sadness in their eyes now. That is what I see.

  XLI

  “Don’t you understand? The Turk saved the lives of everyone here!” Mother says to Quinto, his wife, Mario, Pietro, Toni, Battista, Amelia, Nena, Rita, Maria, Magda, and the rest of the riverside folk who have gathered in front of the Turk’s house that evening in the river mist, before the curfew.