The Caviar Lady Read online

  “He’s in with the Germans! We should burn his house down!” shouts Amelia.

  “Yes! We don’t want people like that round here!”

  “Ask Hitler to come and save you!”

  “You, your friend the stationmaster and your whores!” Quinto hollers, gesturing at Mother and Bechi.

  “I’ve always said that nothing good can come of having foreigners here!” Nena from the tavern puts in.

  “Drinking wine with the Nazis, indeed! You make me sick!”

  “It’s disgusting! Wait till Stalin gets here and then you’ll see what happens to people like you!”

  “You’re worse than Remo and his lackeys. At least they’ve got ideals!”

  They don’t shout as loud as they’d like to because they’re afraid the Germans and the Fascists will come back. And there are spies on the riverside too. Especially now that between the embankment and the river every last shack is inhabited by people’s relatives and evacuees from Ferrara, Bologna, and even Rovigo - city people fleeing the air raids. They come here to get the country bombs instead.

  Now everyone is anti-Fascist - some are Socialists, some are Communists - but when the partisans came they went straight to the Turk, not to anyone else. I look at these drawn, hungry, angry faces. Mouths with no teeth. Heaps of rags. Arms with stringy tendons in place of muscles that have wasted away for lack of food. Eyes brimming with rage. Fear crawling under their skin. I ask myself whether these are the people my father was fighting for, the people the Cavicchis say they are fighting for. In front of our house, or rather the Turk’s house, it’s already got to the point of pushing and shoving. Nicola is shielding Mother and Bechi. I join him. They are all mad, but careful not to make too much noise.

  We need to take a stand, one gun shot would be enough. They’d all scarper. Lieutenant Mayer, Augustus, would send soldiers to save us. But if the Germans came to save us then all these angry people here would be right. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I’m standing in front of Mother but she tells me to move out of the way, to go away. And I think they’re going to drown us all in the river. Or attack us with pitchforks. The Fascists, Remo in first place, would be glad. Then I think about how stupid I was that day in Ferrara, with Cavicchi’s father. I met a person who fought side by side with my father and all I could do was ask idiotic questions and worry about getting home. I cried. I complained about my surname. But I didn’t ask him anything. No gods, no masters... What does it mean? That’s what I should have asked him.

  The Turk is speaking but I’m not listening to him. I think we’re all going to die, that this is it. At the hands of these people, I think. When I think of all the things the Turk has done for them, for us, for everyone... He, on the other hand, is unflappable. He’s standing in front of Uncle and looking at that rabble, emotionless apart from that mocking half smile of his.

  “Calm down! Let them through!” Nena orders softly.

  The tension melts away, replaced by fear. Who’s coming? Gatherings are prohibited. If it’s the Germans coming back... But it’s commander Sevruga, with a gang of boys. I look but the Cavicchis aren’t with them. Many of them have red neckerchiefs on, and all of them are armed.

  “You’d be better off taking care of the spies on the riverside,” says commander Sevruga sternly, looking over the top of his glasses. He’s sweating again, but like a man, not a flustered errand boy. “The Turk is under our protection.”

  “You have nothing to fear,” he says to the Turk.

  The Turk looks at him, like he’s wondering what he’s doing on this side of the river. I don’t know what protection he means, seeing as the Fascists and the Germans are in command.

  “We don’t have control of the riverside,” says Commander Sevruga. “But our men are everywhere and the Turk must not be harmed. Is that clear?”

  Some nod, looking convinced. That’s one way of telling the Socialists and Communists apart from the others, because they agree with Commander Sevruga, formerly the errand boy. Then Commander Sevruga comes over to us and says to the Turk:

  “Now we’re quits, but it would be better if you went away for a while. You’re not safe here.”

  “The only way I’m leaving here is in a wooden box,” says the Turk, in a voice that brooks no argument. “You can’t understand, Commander Sevruga.”

  He actually calls him Commander. The errand boy! Quinto, Mario and the others are heading off, back to their huts. When there are partisans around people are afraid, it takes nothing to be shot as a traitor, or get your house burned down. I look at one of the errand boy’s soldiers. He’s wearing short trousers, a red neckerchief and boots. He’s got the look of the troublemaker about him and no mistake. He’s smoking. I don’t think he’s much older than me. He has a military shirt on and a bandolier full of magazines for the machine gun slung over his shoulder. The Turk looks at the errand boy and says:

  “I made my choice, years ago. No gods, no masters... I’ve served all kinds of lords and masters and I could have had an easier life too.”

  “As a cosmopolitan?”

  “As a cosmopolitan, if you like. But I soon saw that all masters screw you over in the end, and the only way not to be taken for a fool is to be your own boss. Or go back to where you belong. And this river, the Po River, is where I belong.”

  It sounds like a confession given to a priest but it’s not. It’s delivered eye to eye, in the fog, one autumn evening of 1944. It’s the first time I’ve heard the Turk string so many words together, and it’s so private, so personal, that I am shocked. The errand boy is listening and maybe this time he’s getting it. And even if he hasn’t got the message, there’s a voice in his head telling him that the Turk is telling the truth, a deeper truth. There’s the same voice in my head. And that phrase: no gods, no masters.

  “As you wish,” says commander Sevruga. “But it’s not safe here. And we have had orders to fall back towards the Apennines. That’s if we can get through the German lines. And the front is moving north. There will be more bombings. The river, your river,” he emphasises, looking at the Turk, “is too strategic a transport route to leave in enemy hands.”

  “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  The errand boy gives a sign and his men follow him. He’s a leader now. Maybe he always has been, and we just didn’t see it. Before I go to bed Uncle says that I can forget about school this year. There are no passenger trains, so there’s no way to get to Ferrara. My only consolation is that Cavicchi will miss a year too. Perhaps we all will. Maybe we’ll all be dead before the trains start running again. If they ever do.

  There’s no radio on the riverside, because there’s no electricity. Nena who comes to apologize to the Turk because she didn’t know he had links with the party, as in the Communist party, not the Fascist Party this time, tells us that the Allies, which is what we now call the American and British forces, have taken Rimini and crossed the Gothic line. Nena says that the enemy’s days are numbered. I feel like asking her who the enemy is, but just out of mischief. Of course I know she’s talking about the Germans.

  XLII

  When we go into the woods we take care not to run into any Germans. Or partisans. Or Fascists, because that’s what we call the soldiers of the Republic now. The homeland can take a running jump as far as I’m concerned. The Turk tells us to keep together, me and Nicola, and never to separate, to say that we’re woodcutters and to always carry a billhook. We have papers to show if we get stopped. It’s important to have them because the conscription age has been lowered and we have to be able to prove that we’re too young.

  Mother and Bechi are better off not going out at all, and spend their days cleaning, sweeping, mending, reading. At least they get to read all those books in Bechi’s trunk. They would cook too, if there was something to cook, but we’re always short of something. Even Pasquina in the signal box doesn’t have much in stock these days. Not even if you pay through the
nose. The Turk does odd jobs and stays near the house. Only Uncle still goes to the station every day to do his shifts. On my bicycle and wearing his helmet. Every evening he tells us how little is left of his railway. He keeps a record of the bombings, the damage, engines that are out of action, lost carriages and smashed wagons. And the people who’ve died, but he’s less interested in them. He takes the German engineers to the places where sleepers and rails need changing. He lives in a different world to us, and when he tells us about it in the evening it seems so far away. But that world used to be our world too.

  Me and Nicola spend the days picking mushrooms and herbs, gathering wood to burn and going hunting and fishing. But the river is not generous, the woods are stripped bare and fights break out over firewood. Everyone else is out looking for plants and roots to eat too. On the riverside, our riverside, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of new people, evacuees. All in the same place. One time we almost come to blows with Mario over a log full of piopparelli mushrooms.

  “Let’s go halfers,” says Nicola. “Isn’t your father a Communist?”

  Mario looks at him and replies: “Yes but he’s the secretary of the cell.”

  “Of the what?” I ask.

  “Oh wake up Nellino! This lot are just like the Fascists, wanting to lord it over everyone,” says Nicola.

  “What? You calling my father a Fascist?”

  “Well, what was he up till yesterday?”

  “And your uncle was a master.”

  “And your father was a fish thief.”

  “A what?”

  “A fish thief. Everyone knows that the Turk took all the sturgeons and put a spell on them. And the priest with his church songs...”

  “The priest doesn’t even fish any more.”

  “‘Cos there aren’t any fish left.”

  “A bit like your father used to say,” Nicola says to me.

  “My father?” I ask, amazed, because the only person who ever talks about him is Uncle.

  “Yeah, and my father said it too, that day with the errand boy.”

  “What was that?”

  “No gods no sturgeons...”

  I’m about to correct him but instead I burst out laughing: “Yeah! No gods, no sturgeons...”

  Mario doesn’t understand what we’re talking about but slyly nabs the mushrooms and hurries off home.

  Winter is drawing near. As well as not having much wood or coal, we don’t have much in the way of warm clothes either. I’ve got a lot taller and I have to wear Uncle’s clothes. But Uncle doesn’t have many clothes because he wears his railway uniform. Just as well that the biggest mirror in the Turk’s house is hardly big enough to shave in front of. The advance of the Allies, which was supposed to be imminent in September, proves to be much slower than the onward march of the cold weather. The winter has a knack for being imminent. On December 20th the British are in Faenza, according to the radio. Nena is the only one who listens to it these days because Uncle can’t tune in to Radio Londra in the station.

  “Where’s that?”

  “In Romagna.”

  “Near here then.”

  “I think Christmas will get here first,” says Uncle who has got so thin that he has to keep adding holes to his belt to keep up his trousers, which look looser and more threadbare every day. Even the Turk, who used to be a big man, is starting to lose muscle. I see these things because us men get dressed together in the morning, while the women are heating up the water in the kitchen. We have hot water for breakfast, with herbs. Now and again Uncle manages to get some milk from Pasquina. As for coffee, no chance. Then it’s the women’s turn to get dressed, and we’re not allowed into the bedroom. Mother and Bechi take ages to do their hair.

  “We mustn’t let standards slip,” Mother always says, and Bechi nods in agreement. She hardly ever speaks now. There’s nothing to say. We are prisoners on the riverside. The Fascists have taken all the remaining bicycles. The country needs them, Remo says. And he issues us an official Social Republic receipt for them. Uncle walks to the station now. It takes almost an hour, more if it’s raining.

  XLIII

  With the blessing of Don Antonio, Mother decides that the birth of Our Lord is a more important festivity than St. Nicholas. So the proper celebrations will be on December 25th. Mother says that everyone celebrates on that day, all round the world. The Turk comments that Saint Nicholas isn’t doing badly for himself either. To tell the truth I don’t mind, because Saint Nicholas is of course Nicola’s saint’s day too, his personal celebration. At Christmas, on the other hand, we’re all equal. “Like we have something to celebrate,” grumbles Uncle.

  During the month of December the Fascists and the Germans commandeer everything they can get their hands on, here on the riverside, and beyond. They even take three pigs that belong to the butcher who usually supplies Remo under the counter for the black market. Everyone gets an official receipt, of course.

  “Just as well the partisans have retreated into the mountains and don’t have to eat here too,” Nena says one day. She’s a regular round at our house now. She brings us the news and stops for a chat. No one goes to the tavern these days. Wine is in short supply, and it’s pretty rough anyway. The tavern is not in a good position because it’s near the bridge that was bombed into heaps of sunken wreckage. The Germans have tried twice to construct a new pontoon bridge near the old one, on the bigger boats. There’s bombing every day now. Luckily from high up, because if they fired at close range there would be nothing left standing round here. Now beside the ramshackle bridge there are military craft that the German sappers use to take supplies across, and are careful to keep out of sight from the Americans. There’s even a sort of collapsible ferry. But Nena’s tavern is by the bridge and that’s enough to make no one want to go there any more. Apart from the soldiers who Nena serves against her will. She shuts up shop as soon as she can. And when she does she comes to ours.

  Mother says we can’t go on like this for much longer. Uncle and Bechi are both locked in silence. Neither of them says a word any more. Nicola is convinced that by Christmas his saint, Saint Nicholas, will rustle up a feast worthy of the name, so every day he goes down to the river, which is shrouded in fog. He puts down fishing lines with hooks, but it’s so cold we have trouble finding worms to put on them. There’s nothing here now.

  The odd bits and pieces we manage to get with our ration cards are not enough for our everyday meals, let alone Christmas. On the black market everything costs too much and even there, there’s not much to be had these days. The only things moving on the railway are military trains, carrying weapons, ammunition, fuel. One of these December days Uncle arrives home even paler than usual, and after not saying a word for hours, tells us about a train that was diverted through Ferrara. It was supposed to go north but it got sent here instead.

  “The transit order was marked confidential as usual,” Uncle says. “When it arrived in the station I had a look at it and it looked like those cattle wagons that they used to transport cows in, from the fields to the dairy. When it stopped to take on water for the locomotive, I could hear bleating coming from inside the wagons, like sheep, or lambs – to feed the German troops. There goes our Christmas lunch, I thought.”

  “The train was guarded but you could hear the noises just the same. Luckily the alarm went off before the planes showed up. Not the usual big bombers, but fighter planes, I don’t know what they were... They started shooting at the station...” Uncle is lost for words again.

  “What did you do?” Mother asks.

  Silence.

  “What happened?”

  “Well, the Germans guarding the convoy lay down on the ground.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I was going to try and get my hands on a lamb when the door of one of the wagons opened and they all ran out.”

  “All what? The lambs?”

  “No! It was a woman, with two children, then
another boy. They all started running towards Remo’s signal box. There were people on the train, don’t you see, Argia? The noises I heard were people crying inside those cattle wagons...”

  “But what happened?”

  “The Germans started shouting: ‘Halt! Halt! Achtung!’ Or whatever it is they say... Remo came out of the signal box and fired a shot in the air. At least I think he fired it in the air. They all stopped, all except the little boy who just kept on running. Remo shouted: ‘Stop, you little idiot!’ But the boy just kept running, he didn’t understand, maybe he didn’t hear him. Corporal Kraus shouted: ‘Get him!’. He shouted it in Italian to the soldiers in the National Guard, Remo’s men, and they all started running. Then I heard the shot.”

  “What shot?”

  “It was one of the anti-aircraft gunners, the ones who drink our coffee. He was crowing: ‘Got him!’ ‘I got him!’ Not even Remo, not even Corporal Kraus had the courage to look at the soldier who fired the shot. He was cheering like he was at the shooting range. The boy’s mother started screaming, but the Germans got hold of her and pushed her back into the cattle wagon. She was screaming her head off but all the others were just wailing quietly like before. Remo turned round to me and said: ‘Jews.’ That’s all he said. Not another word. Not another look, then the train set off again.”

  Uncle says it doesn’t matter if there’s no food. At Christmas Mother manages to make a broth out of pumpkin, with song birds in it that me and Nicola have trapped. She gets some rice on the black market and puts that in too. We nibble on the birds and the boiled pumpkin. The Turk roasts a couple of chubs that Nicola has fished, that are more bones than meat.

  “Better that way,” says Mother. “If things take longer to eat in the end you feel fuller.”

  I think of the lamb we missed out on. I have to admit that I think more about the lamb than the boy Uncle told us about.