The Caviar Lady Read online

  The New Year starts with bombs. The errand boy, or rather Commander Sevruga, was right: it is only going to get worse here by the Po. Mother still does Bechi’s hair every day but she doesn’t put hers up any more, she can’t be bothered. The bombing continues for the whole of January, and the riverside huts get bombed for the first time, a sign that they’re just dropping them at random, anywhere around the river. Some of the shacks are destroyed and the evacuees are the first to get moved on again. No one really goes anywhere these days, because of who you might meet, or the risk of getting hit by a bomb, or mowed down by a machine gun, or picked up by a German patrol and not showing your papers in time. We are all paralyzed. Not even books can keep us together. Only Bechi still devours them one after another, but in total silence.

  “We have to do something,” Mother repeats incessantly.

  The Turk and Uncle don’t even bother answering. It’s cold, so cold that we pile on all the raggedy old clothes we can find. There are no more trees to burn, and the damp fog sneaks into every nook and cranny. Even the straw pallets are damp. Our clothes stink and there’s no point in washing them because they would never dry out.

  When I read The Paul Street Boys for the umpteenth time, because it’s the only book that seems to suit all this gloom and doom, I feel just like Nemecsek with his fever, about to die. Then I think of the Trojan war that lasted ten years and I calculate that if this war is the same we’re about half way through. How on earth are we going to survive for the rest of it?

  I hear Mother telling Uncle: “Can’t you see he’s burning up? It’s not quinine we need. We need heat, blankets, a proper house!”

  “And where am I supposed to get blankets and a proper house?” Uncle replies wearily.

  “I think we should go back to the station. Please Pompeo.” Mother is irresistible when she smiles. I know even if I can’t see her.

  “But what about the bombs? And the Germans?”

  “I’d rather live with bombs than all this damp. These people live like savages!” Mother howls.

  “We live as best we can,” the Turk says apologetically. But he’s tired of Mother’s constant state of agitation too.

  We are going to move back to the station. Uncle invites the Turk and his family to come with us but the Turk just says: “This is my home.”

  Then he looks at Nicola and Bechi and says: “This is our home.”

  By the end of January we are in the station again. Or rather what’s left of the station. On Remo’s signal box someone has painted the words “honor loyalty courage’ in big letters. Half of the flat, our half, needs straightening up a bit, but luckily no one’s been in it while we’ve been away. Apart from bombs and bullets. My bed is still there, the cupboards have the same smells in them, the marble table stands in the kitchen. It’s cold, of course, but not damp like the Turk’s house.

  “Well, if we need to we can always burn some of the furniture,” Mother suggests, before she sees the look of horror on Uncle’s face.

  “Go on, for Nellino...”

  He’s still horrified. I think that we’ll probably get killed by a bomb sooner or later, but at least we’ll be comfortable. The railway is unusable, even for the Germans. The train carrying the Jews was the last one that got through. The sappers can’t patch up all the missing stretches of track. The National Republican Railway Guard, which is what the Railway Militia Corps is called now, are based in the station, but if there are no searches to do they play cards. Sometimes Uncle joins them when he’s not out and about taking stock of all the damage. When the alarm goes off we go down into the basement and the gunners go up onto the terrace. They aim for the planes overhead, which are always out of their reach, and which are targeting the Po. Because the railway line has been blown to smithereens.

  Slowly, I recover. Pasquina, who is glad to have a female neighbor again and not just military, gives us an egg or some black bread every so often. War is such an everyday fact of life now that it’s like we’ve always lived this way. I wonder about Cavicchi, or rather the Cavicchi brothers, and the errand boy. Maybe I should be doing something for the cause too.

  “Study,” Uncle is always telling me. As if it were easy to study in these conditions.

  “Leave him in peace Pompeo.”

  “He has to earn his keep too, you know”

  “With what we’ve got to give him...”

  In the evening we listen to Radio Londra and nobody says a word. Littorio and Benito, Remo’s twins, have told me that their father listens to it too. Now that there are no trains the Germans are not guarding the station any more, just the Fascists.

  XLIV

  One day Uncle observes that it’s almost sturgeon season. I don’t want to think about the state of the riverbed these days, and all the dead bodies, bombs, wreckage and scrap metal that have been washed up onto the banks. I don’t even have my bicycle to go and take a look. No one knows whether the spring will bring sturgeons, but people are saying that the partisans are on their way back. In the sense that there is news of attacks, shootings, people getting killed. It is also rumored that somewhere they set fire to the conscription lists to stop more boys getting called up. On Radio Londra there’s news of fighting on all possible fronts, but here in Italy the war is playing cards. And we are prisoners in the game.

  Then all of a sudden everything changes. It’s April and every day there are compact formations of hulking great planes heading for the Po. The air is filled with the constant roar of engines. Propellers. Explosions. I wonder what the errand boy would make of it all. Not the Commander Sevruga we know now, but the pudgy errand boy of the past who loved Marinetti. He would certainly have got his fill of progress and modernity, engines and noise. Every day Radio Londra says that the Allies are advancing. Gaining ground, taking new cities. You wouldn’t know it here. Uncle, who has a good grasp of geography, says that it’s true, that it’s really just a matter of days. The English, or rather the British, are in Alfonsine, which is on the other side of Ravenna.

  “Maybe we should do something for the cause too,” Uncle says to Mother.

  “But what?” I ask.

  “Not you. Us as in your Mother and I. You’re too young.”

  “What about Cavicchi then?”

  “Don’t say that name! Do you want to get him killed? Careless talk costs lives!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sorry won’t help your friend.”

  “Let’s just give it time, Pompeo,” says Mother.

  “We can’t wait forever, you know. We’re overrun with Fascists here.”

  “We could cut their throats,” I suggest.

  “Now you’re just being stupid,” says Uncle witheringly.

  We wait. But we don’t need to wait long because suddenly it’s like the end of the world is starting. The German sappers put in an appearance, but only to blow up the iron bridge that wasn’t taken out by the bombs. Troops come past the station on all modes of transport imaginable: trucks, cars, motorcycles, even horses and mules. They’re heading for the Po. We see Remo loading up a car. I snidely wonder whether he’s requisitioned it and left a receipt. I’ve learned to be suspicious now. Remo, the twins and Pasquina are in the car, and the gunners and all the members of the Railway Militia or whatever they’re called are hanging onto the outside of it for dear life. Others are taking out bicycles, our bicycles, and there are four people balanced on one motorcycle. Everyone’s bailing out, and in a hurry.

  “Blast them all to buggery!” curses Uncle, at the people and vehicles streaming quietly past the station.

  In the sky propellers throb. Then silence, a deathly hush. I mean you can still hear explosions in the distance, and shooting, lots of shooting. But it’s like the station is floating on a cloud. There’s no one around, they’ve all gone. The machine gun is still on the terrace, but in pieces. The soldiers smashed it up before they left. All around us is the desolate sight of a war that lasted half that of the Tr
ojan war, but had no hero. Honor, loyalty, courage, I think. The words are still written on the wall of the signal box.

  “Do you think this means the war is over?” I ask Uncle.

  He looks at me: “Who knows?”

  We don’t know what’s going on. There’s nobody else here. We stand there in front of the station, not on the train side but on the road side, like lost souls. We get found by two jeeps that arrive bearing soldiers wearing helmets that look like bowls. They don’t even look like they’re worried someone might shoot at them. When they reach us Uncle and I raise our hands, as if we were the ones losing the war.

  “Tu Mussolini?” one of the soldiers asks me, laughing.

  I shake my head.

  “Good lad!”

  And he tosses me a pack of cigarettes. A whole pack! I scrabble for it. A minute later the soldiers are inside the station.

  “Where are you from? American? English?” Uncle asks.

  Finally he’s getting a chance to show off his English, which doesn’t sound all that great to me. “New Zealand,” one of the soldiers answers, “Nuova Zelanda.”

  His Italian sounds a lot better than Uncle’s English.

  Other trucks pull up with more soldiers from the same place, which I know I couldn’t find on a map.

  “I think it’s near Australia,” Uncle tells me, but even he doesn’t sound too sure.

  “Can we set up a garrison in this station?” asks one, who looks like an NCO.

  They’re asking for permission? Not even our own army has ever asked for permission.

  “At your service,” replies Uncle.

  In an hour, maybe less, the downstairs offices are occupied. Mother has found some coffee in the hastily abandoned signal box, but they have tea, condensed milk, and, best of all, chocolate. We are their guests, in other words. They stay long enough to occupy the village and the surrounding area, and to check that the railway is out of action.

  “We hit this area hard, no doubt about it,” says the NCO to Uncle.

  Then they take everything away because they’ve set up camp down by the embankment. They tell us that by tomorrow the English and probably the Americans will be here too. They seem happy to keep us informed, so I ask:

  “And the Germans?”

  “Down there,” he replies, pointing towards the Po and the riverside.

  That night, for the first time in years, there are no soldiers around. Not the new ones or the old ones. In the morning there is a constant procession of trucks, tanks and jeeps, with and without machine guns, armored vehicles and strange contraptions that Uncle tells me are called amphibians. And soldiers in different uniforms, with different helmets, even of different races. “There are black people too,” I tell Uncle.

  He laughs: “Well, we’ve got Turks!”

  I think about the Turk, and the riverside. Here it’s easy to feel like the war is over, but maybe things are different down there.

  “Can I go down?” I ask Uncle.

  “Yes, but just make sure you come back in one piece. Argia would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

  “Are you worried about Nicola and Bechi too?” I ask.

  “Yes,” says Uncle. “Be sure you’re home before nightfall.”

  I think he meant, be sure to get back alive. When I arrive at the riverside I realise I have never seen war so close up before. In the sense that everyone is fighting but no one really knows who or where the enemy is. There’s gunfire on the embankment. Obviously there are still Germans by the river, maybe Fascists too. But they are spread out, gathered in little groups near the bridges, or what’s left of them. I take the safest path to the Turk’s house, passing among the New Zealand soldiers who are advancing calmly and don’t even notice me coming through on foot.

  If anyone stops me, they ask: “Tu Mussolini?”

  When I shake my head they give me a piece of chocolate or a packet of cigarettes.

  I get to the Turk’s house and knock on the door.

  The Turk says: “Come in, you’re welcome here!”

  “What did you say?” I ask.

  “Ah, it’s you Nellino! Forgive me, I thought it was more New Zealand soldiers.”

  “There’s been a lot going on these last few days,” Nicola says. “Even Lieutenant Mayer came by on his motorcycle to say goodbye. To hell with him, I say...”

  “Nicola!” the Turk scolds him.

  “He was a Nazi, father...”

  “But a good person too, Nicola.”

  I make out Bechi in the gloom of the kitchen.

  “Hi Bechi.”

  She gives me a little wave.

  “She’s still not talking, then?”

  The Turk shakes his head.

  Nicola continues excitedly: “They’re dropping like flies now, those bastards. Some are surrendering, others are trying to escape. Yesterday there were even German tanks, right here, but the others forced them into the river. You should have seen it, they were drowning like rats right in front of my eyes. I’ve been going to the bridge for the last three days, they’re trying anything to get across. I even saw Remo with money in his hand, big five hundred lire banknotes, trying to buy one of the sunken boats. Then he went west, they say there are other bridges still standing.”

  “Yeah right,” I say. “Like we haven’t seen all the planes bombing the Po. There’s no way there are any bridges left.”

  “Worse for Remo,” Nicola continues. “You should have seen the Germans! They were going crazy, driving their cars into the river.”

  “The Americans have got trucks that go in the water,” I interrupt. “They passed by the station today.”

  “But how do they go in the water?”

  “They’re like a cross between a truck and a boat... That’s how they won you know. It’s a question of military supremacy.”

  “No,” says the Turk. “They won because they have food and cigarettes.” He has a packet of biscuits in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other and a smile on his face that I haven’t seen since the sturgeon days.

  Nicola is on a roll: “Y’know, the Germans came to the riverside and took wash tubs, and two wine barrels from Nena’s and went into the river with them to try and swim across. They’re all waiting at the river crossings, looking for a way to get over. If they don’t make it they surrender. Or drown. Or...”

  “Or what?”

  Nicola makes a knowing expression: “Or they get shot by the partisans, people from round here, who hide behind the trees on the river bank and ‘Bang! Bang!’ There’s not one German or Fascist who gets through alive... The Allies take them away with their arms up in the air, but the partisans don’t let any of them leave under their own steam...”

  Nicola pauses for breath then says: “And they’re right, these bastards deserve everything that’s coming to them.”

  “We should have done something about it before now,” I say.

  I feel a bit guilty, what with Cavicchi being a partisan and all.

  The Turk intervenes in the ensuing silence: “You can tell your Uncle that everything’s okay down here. I’ve heard that the Allies are going to cross the river tomorrow. Then it’ll really be over.”

  With that, he gives me a slap on the back and sends me home. He knows that Mother worries. I say goodbye and head back to the station.

  XLV

  Now, there’s nothing left of the Turk I know, have always known. The Turk before me is a man without a face, hands trembling, bewildered, covered in blood, kneeling on the river sand. He’s holding Nicola in his arms and in the boat there is a huge white sturgeon, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before. The Turk is biting on his lip and shouting and crying, incoherent. Then someone understands what he’s saying and shouts:

  “Get a doctor! Get a doctor for God’s sake!”

  “A doctor? Where on earth are we going to find a doctor?”

  “It doesn’t matter! Just get one!”r />
  “Ask the Allies, they’ll have a doctor!”

  The other people from the riverside are coming down now. Someone has told Uncle who gets here with Mother... Bechi is probably here too but I can’t see her.

  I’d gone down to the river because I wanted to see for myself what Nicola told me yesterday. I wanted to see the end of the war, I wanted to be there. I’d come to wake Nicola up. But he was already awake. Then.

  “We don’t need a doctor, we don’t need anything,” says the Turk in a muffled voice, spitting out tears, sniffing and clinging tight to that body that looks like an empty sack, with the strength he uses to bring in a sturgeon. We all look at Nicola and there is a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. His eyes are rolled back in his head and his skin is pale, as if from the cold, but it’s different to that.

  “He’s dead, dead, dead...”

  The Turk wails and doesn’t even have the strength to open his eyes, and doesn’t know what to do with those big hands of his that are holding onto Nicola for dear life, but are no use, no use any more.

  “How could it have happened?”

  “The war’s over!”

  “Yeah the Germans have done a runner!”

  “Scum of the earth!”

  “Remo’s gone too.”

  “With that harpy Pasquina and those bastard twins of his!”

  “I hope they drown in the Po! I hope they all drown in the Po!”

  “But what were you doing out on the river, Turk?”

  “Where did you get the boat?”

  “Friends with the Germans, are you?”

  “Were you taking them across the river?”

  “You been double dealing, Turk?”

  The fishermen have all come along. The children from the village. Everyone.

  “This happening, now that the war is over!” they keep saying. “Now that the New Zealanders are here.”

  “And the Americans.”