The Caviar Lady Read online

“Yes, of course.” I lower my eyes.

  “Well, we thought we’d have some fun with the Turk’s wife, you know what I mean?”

  I don’t really, but I pretend I do and keep on with my questions.

  “So did you do it?”

  “No! The priest, not Don Antonio, but the old one, Don Armando, brought us to our senses. He called us a bunch of ignorant heathens and told us that if the Turk was catching more fish than us then it was up to us to learn how to do it, and what was all this talk of burning down people's houses. So the next spring two of us took it in turns to go and spy on the Turk instead of going fishing, until he noticed what we were up to and came to speak to Anselmo, the oldest fisherman - Pietro’s grandfather, you know who I mean.”

  I nod, of course I know him, but I wish Mario’s father would get on with it, because they’re bound to be waiting for me at home and I don’t want my ears pulled for being late.

  “Well, the Turk went to see Anselmo to say that there was no need to spy on him, and that if we wanted to learn his way he would teach us. So we got together one evening to decide what to do. Some people were against it, and reckoned that he wasn’t a real fisherman. Others thought we should give it a try and see what he had to say. In the end we decided to put him to the test, so we invited him down to Nena’s tavern. It was just us fishermen in the tavern that night. We put a big bottle of grappa down in front of him and start pouring. It was a big thing for us, paying for all that grappa, but we had to see whether he was one of us. So we keep pouring out the grappa and knocking it back, holding up our glasses and shouting ‘Down the hatch!’ And he drinks and drinks, and never says a word. Till Anselmo says: ‘So what is it with the music?’

  And the Turk tells us that fish like music, and that he uses his ocarina to attract the sturgeon. He says that in other places they use whole orchestras, violins, trombones, the lot. So Anselmo says: ‘You mean people fish for sturgeon in other places?’

  And the Turk bursts out laughing.

  ‘Astrakhan,’ he says. ‘Astrakhan is the capital of sturgeon and beautiful women and caviar.’

  ‘But what about Ferrara?’ says Toni. ‘And Pila? And Milan?’ ask the others.

  We all want to know more, so the Turk starts telling us about fish six meters long, measuring it out in paces across the tavern floor, fish with a hundred kilos of caviar in them, and the fishermen renting boats with musicians to catch them. The whole thing sounds crazy to us.

  ‘And just where would this Astrakhan be?’

  ‘On the Caspian Sea, in Russia, near the land of the Turks.’

  He draws a map of the world, but what do we know, for us even Ferrara is miles away. Or Milan, where no one from round here has ever been. Some of us have left the riverside, but only to go to the war, in Libya, or on the Carso plateau, or along the Piave and Tagliamento rivers, but no one’s ever seen a river bigger than the Po. None of us had seen sturgeons anywhere else.

  Well, he’d almost made us come round that night, but Toni wasn’t having any of it and shouted over:

  ‘You’re not a fisherman, you’re a devil!’

  It might have been the grappa talking - or maybe it just wasn’t very good grappa - but then he got up on the table too. Nena yelled at him to get down but he yelled louder and pointed at the Turk, shouting,

  ‘If you’re a fisherman you know what it takes to get the biggest sturgeon... Go on then, tell us, if you can.’

  He was ranting away, looking at us as if to say ‘Now I’ve got him. He’s not one of us, he’s the devil, Beelzebub, and even Don Armando will have to face it. People like him deserve to be burned here on earth, without waiting for hell.’

  So the Turk got to his feet, and with the grappa he looked taller, and he smiled - he had all his teeth, like a proper gentleman - and he said: ‘A white horse is worth just as much on the Po as it is in Astrakhan.’

  no one said a word or moved a muscle, then Anselmo went up to him and spat on the palm of his hand, and the Turk did the same and they shook hands. Toni started hollering again, still standing on the table, but no one was heeding him any more. We opened the old wine, a bottle that Nena was keeping for a special occasion.

  That’s how it went. After that he fitted in with us, or rather we fitted in with him, because he’s the one who can talk about fish, he knows about selling, about doing deals on caviar, about what music the band has to play. We were all sorry when Lukina died giving birth to Nicola. All the women, our women, helped out when he was little. A father can’t do it on his own.”

  So there it was. Now I knew. Apart from one thing.

  “But why is he called the Turk if he comes from Russia?”

  “How should I know? The furthest I’ve been is Ferrara!” Mario’s father replies, laughing.

  III

  But the question keeps going round and round in my head till I work up the courage to ask the Turk why everyone calls him that. I don’t know what kind of answer I’ll get, after Mario’s father’s stories. But he’s in the mood to chat and he tells me he was once the gardener at the villa in Tarabya, the summer home of the Italian Ambassador to Istanbul.

  “A gardener? But how do you know everything about sturgeons then?”

  “Because fish need looking after, just like roses.”

  I don’t know what to say: I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

  I started to figure some things out one day when something strange happened at home. It was Sunday and Uncle wanted us all there for lunch in the station. Meaning not just Mother and me, but also the Turk and Nicola. Bechi wasn’t around back then. The table was set with bread and butter and a bottle of Malvasia wine that Uncle got sent by train.

  “This might not be embassy champagne,” said Uncle. “But if you’re talking caviar ours is second to none. Just taste this.”

  We were flabbergasted, the Turk started saying that he wouldn’t dream of it, no way, but Uncle insisted.

  “It comes from the Lady, it’s a present. We could have sold it but I thought it was only right to share it.”

  The Turk started up again, but then he gave in. And his eyes lit up, he even kissed Mother on the hand. He took out a little pouch with a tiny gleaming white spoon. It was in the pocket of his jacket. I saw him looking for it.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said.

  And he began picking the caviar off the butter and placing it slowly in his mouth using the shiny spoon, one egg at a time, almost as if he was taking holy communion. He closed his eyes and you could tell it wasn’t his first taste of caviar, and his thoughts were far far away. For us it was the first time, and for Uncle and Mother, as far as I know, it was the last.

  But the whole gardener story began to sound a bit suspect to me so I started spending more time with Nicola, because he was my friend, and to get the chance to bombard him with questions. Who was the Turk? Just who was his father? At the time I was reading Salgari’s books and felt like I was pretty well versed in all things exotic, and ready to uncover this mystery.

  IV

  As for me, and what I have to do with the sturgeon fishing, well, I am the official messenger, because I have a bicycle and Uncle is the stationmaster. I like it because in the village people know who I am: I’ve heard people saying: “You know, Nellino, the boy who brings word of the sturgeon.” I like my name Nellino and also my surname, Scaramagli. And the fact that I live in the station with Uncle Pompeo and Mother, whose name is Argia.

  I am the stationmaster’s nephew, so I am quite important in the village, perhaps more due to that than the sturgeons, and it means I get to wander around among the locomotives, go to the farm supplies stor e, and Re mo’s house. Remo is the signalman who lives right by the rails. From there in one hop you’re in front of the signal box, the front door of which faces the railway, rather than the street, which is behind it. Remo doesn’t know anyone who would come in from the street anyway. As Uncle always says, we’re railwaymen, we know the score.

  V<
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  72 kilos Stop Female Stop Await arrival station Stop.

  “What about the greeting? And the sender? You never put anything in these telegrams and people will get the wrong idea and think it’s the post mistress who’s rude.”

  “But this is all my Uncle said to put... Look here...” And I show her the hand-written note.

  The telegraph operator smiles. But then she grumbles: “I don’t understand why you can’t use the telegraph in the station. Why do you need to come to the post office?”

  I just shrug my shoulders but really I know the answer: the telegraph in the station is for official railway business, it’s not something public for all and sundry to use. Uncle often says that. He would never use it. And when the caviar Lady comes we give her the receipt for what we spent on the telegram and she always pays us back, right down to the last cent.

  Actually she hasn’t come for a while - her errand boy has been coming. His name is Girolamo but we all just call him the errand boy. He came a few times with the Lady and she called him Gino. He’s tall and a bit podgy, and he’s always out of breath when he gets off the train. He has fat fingers and he sweats like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve never seen anyone sweat so much. He takes his jacket off and his shirt is always soaking wet under the arms.

  When he has to hold a fish he opens the top button of his shirt and his tie, and his neck looks like it’s about to explode. Sweat starts trickling down his forehead. He hasn’t got much hair, which maybe is why you can see the sweat so much. Anyway he looks like a pig, I mean a nice, kind pig, not the sort you’d gladly butcher for the Feast of Saint Anthony.

  He smiles a lot, but doesn’t say much. He puts ice into the zinc case, his own personal one, or rather the Lady’s one, places the egg sac inside it, seals it shut, says goodbye and goes outside, where he sits on the concrete bench on the platform to wait for the train. As if he was a complete stranger. He lights a cigarette, smokes and adjusts his glasses.

  When he cuts open a sturgeon his glasses always slide down his nose because of the sweat. The errand boy is a funny person, but we like him, because the Lady sends him, and because he’s not afraid of hard work, or at least that’s what Mother always says.

  But when the Lady came it was different. She traveled in third class but behaved as if she were in first, and she would get off the train and greet everyone and we would all stand to attention. Uncle would invite her into the station for a coffee, which he always manages to get hold of because Remo the signalman has a sort of shop in his house where you can get practically anything. It costs a bit more, but you can get anything there, even things which aren’t always available. And I would run hell for leather along the drainage channel to the main embankment, to shout down to the riverside: “The Lady’s here!” “The Lady’s here!” Everyone knew it was the caviar Lady.

  VI

  When I tell the Turk the errand boy is here he pulls the fish out of the water where it’s tied like a dog on a leash, and knocks it out. You have to know how to do it properly, because you want the fish to be still but it’s better if it stays alive - it’s better to finish it off in the station. If it’s a small one you can put it in a bag, like a priest in a robe, and tie it to the crossbar of the bicycle. In that case the Turk tells me to get off my bike, then ties the sturgeon tight to the crossbar and sends me back to the station.

  “As fast as you can,” he always says.

  Which is hardly necessary: class of ’28 I am, I’ve good muscles in my legs and a great set of lungs on me. I could be Bartali’s wingman, no problem. Well, not really, but sometimes I imagine myself there, racing along, like you see in the illustrations in La Domenica del Corriere Sunday paper. I can see myself winning, lifting my arms up without falling off because it’s something I can do: I can also pedal with one foot, if need be. But sometimes there’s a really big one, a gigantic fish that takes two men, even three to get it up out of the water and even the Turk’s mallet is not enough to stun it. So he wraps it up tightly in bags, props its head over the handlebars of his bike, and ties it with a rope that goes through its gills and out of its mouth, with a double knot near the brakes and at the front near the light. Then he puts another bag over the saddle, places the fish on top and ties it to the crossbar with straps. The tail sticks out the back, over the mudguard and the Turk pushes the bike along, using one foot to turn the pedals to get to the station faster. For the smaller fish, by the time he gets to the station the Lady or the errand boy are already doing their business.

  Mother always invites the Lady into the house, where we live, above the station. In the kitchen there’s a table with a marble top that always looks too big when Mother is cooking, but always seems a bit small when the Lady or the errand boy put the fish down on it, ask if they can wash their hands and then cut its belly open. The sturgeon always quivers at first, but then it stops moving. Then right after that the Turk kills it. Every time he says: “It’s suffered enough for us,” like he really cares about the fish.

  Remo’s wife used to come and clean up because it’s a dirty job getting the eggs out. Now Bechi comes, which means I can see her and we can talk. It just doesn’t seem right to see her there, her being just a girl and all, not much more than a child really, on her hands and knees cleaning up blood from our kitchen floor.

  “Let me give you a hand,” I say.

  I get down on my knees beside her. She lifts her eyes, which are black, but not that dull black like the girls round here. Her eyes are bright and they sparkle, they are big, round and kind. I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, just that they’re beautiful. She brushes her hair off her forehead. Just a strand.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  She lowers her eyes. I can feel my face getting hot. I lean on the cloth but the floor is wet and the cloth slides away, leaving me face down in the sturgeon’s blood. Mother sees me and bursts out laughing. Bechi joins in too. And Uncle, who hasn’t said a word, looks at me pityingly and says:

  “That’ll teach you to do women’s work. Leave the kitchen to them.”

  Once the egg sac has been taken out the Turk slices up the sturgeon. After it’s been emptied it’s not always easy to sell the fish whole. If it still looks okay he gets me to call the factor and does the deal right there, in the kitchen, until Mother shoos them all away. If it’s a fish that can be sold whole the factor has us put it in one of the railway’s zinc trunks and writes the address in Milan where it has to be sent. The money arrives by telegram in the station. The telegram says how much it is, then the money gets sent to the post office. In this case the telegram comes to the station because it’s part of the rental of the zinc trunk.

  VII

  I’ve never met anyone quite so precise about everything. The Lady makes a perfect cut down the fish’s belly with a knife called a scalpel. She looks at the egg sacs to see how big they are then pays. The Turk never haggles over the price with her. He just takes the money and says thank you. She apologizes to Mother for the trouble, smiles at me in a kind way and then goes down into Uncle’s office. They always spend some time chatting before the first train to Ferrara comes along. I’d give anything to know what they talk about. I see them from behind the glass door in the station. Uncle always smiles when he talks to the Lady, but she doesn’t move her mouth much, except to smoke, and she keeps the caviar box on the desk. It’s her own personal box, not the station one, and it’s always spotless. And so is she: not so much as a drop of blood on her, never a button undone, a hair out of place or a hint of sweat. She couldn’t be more different from the errand boy. And she doesn’t smell of fish, but violets. Her hands are long and quite wrinkly, a worker’s hands, but her fingers are delicate and her nails always look perfect. So many times I’ve watched her cutting a sturgeon or holding her cigarette between her forefinger and middle finger. Uncle always holds his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. I like watching them. And I’d like to know what they talk about but from the outside you can’t hear anyt
hing and if Uncle sees me hanging around he sends me off on some errand or other.

  When the train bell starts ringing they go out onto the platform together, Uncle and the caviar Lady. He puts his hat on, the hat that makes him look like a sailor, a sea captain like the ones in my comic Il Vittorioso. When the Lady isn’t here he hardly ever puts his hat on to blow the whistle. He gets his signaling disk and whistle and then kisses her on the hand. I reckon it’s a bit over the top. But I think that Uncle misses the Lady now she doesn’t come any more. And he never invites the errand boy, whose box always seems to be a bit leaky, into his office. And maybe the errand boy wouldn’t even go. In any case he never has anything to say for himself and he likes to wait on the platform. Of course the caviar season is in the spring, which here on the Po is the best season of all – the fog disappears after dawn, and the mosquitoes don’t come out till nearer the summer.

  VIII

  Me and Nicola are friends starting from our names. Nellino and Nicola. At school the other kids are jealous and shout, “N and N, nobody’s children.” Because both of our names begin with N and both of us are orphans. I’ve got no father, Nicola no mother. We really are nobody’s children. After a bit we got used to it and now it’s almost a badge of honor because me and Nicola are unbeatable in the times tables and leapfrog and learning poems off by heart. I think it’s a real shame that Nicola can’t come to school any more. Because he came top out of the whole school in the fifth grade tests. Half the village went to try and convince the Turk to keep him at school. Uncle went, and even the teacher did too.

  “There’s more than enough for him to learn here,” says the Turk.