The Caviar Lady Page 3

  “But he could really go far,” insists the teacher.

  Even the Federal Secretary has taken the matter to heart. We wrote him a letter and he comes down to the riverside in his car one afternoon with some Fascist soldiers.

  “A good Italian like your son could serve his country and the party.”

  “Take a look around,” says the Turk. “Just take a look: earth, water and mud. This is our life. This is who we are.”

  The Turk isn’t afraid of anyone. Which is probably why everyone is afraid of him.

  “I can’t afford to let Nicola go to school, I don’t have any help on the boat and life is hard.”

  “But the teacher says he’s the best in the village, and our country needs the best men.”

  “Let the country support him then.”

  “Don’t you trust our Duce?”

  “Of course I trust him, I just can’t afford to send Nicola away to school.”

  And he looks him straight in the eye. The Federal Secretary turns abruptly and says that he will write to Rome. Then he gets to his feet. And his entourage gets up too. I look out of the window, outside the house. The Turk raises his arm: “Saluto al Duce!”

  “A noi!” they fire back.

  They turn on their heels and off they go.

  The teacher doesn’t fare any better. We see her coming on her bike. She never comes here, so we all go to greet her.

  “Your father has to understand that a boy like you simply must continue his education.”

  Nicola doesn’t say a word.

  “I’ll take you to him if you want.”

  Of course she wants to see the Turk: she’s come out here on purpose. It’s summer and the air is thick with mosquitoes.

  “Father! Father!” calls Nicola.

  The Turk comes out of the shed where he keeps his nets.

  “Good evening.”

  “Good evening. I’ve come to talk to you about Nicola.”

  “I think I know why you’re here, even the Fascists have been, but I just can’t. I’m on my own. And why does he need to study to be a fisherman anyway? Spending a life time eating roots so that others can eat caviar.”

  “So it’s true you’ve studied,” the teacher lets slip. “You talk like a...”

  “Subversive?” suggests the Turk.

  “You shouldn’t say that word!” she admonishes him.

  He smiles, and lets out a laugh; she lowers her eyes. Nicola and I are awestruck: Nicola’s father has made the teacher blush! The very teacher who’s a sergeant major in class, who makes us all jump to our feet and stand to attention to sing the national anthem, recite the poems of Giosuè Carducci and repeat the names of the heroes of the Risorgimento and the Kings of Rome. Nicola’s father laughs and she doesn’t know where to look.

  “Listen to me,” he says, using the old “lei” form of address. “We don’t need book learning to get by here.”

  Uncle tries to convince the Turk too. I think he even offers Nicola a job in the station.

  “I’ve no help on the boat and Nicola is all I’ve got. Sending him to school would mean losing him,” the Turk says to Uncle. “And we’re here to stay.”

  Uncle insists: “At least the trade school!”

  “Nicola already has a trade,” replies the Turk.

  So Uncle pats Nicola on the back and gives me a nudge:

  “We’d better be on our way. This man is as stubborn as a mule.”

  “And right with it!” the Turk shoots back.

  What Nicola misses about school are the books, but not all that time sitting at a desk.

  “Now that I’m second in command I have a trade,” he says every time I try to set him against the Turk.

  “What about you? You’ve no trade.”

  “Oh yes I do. I go to school. And I’m the messenger for the sturgeons.”

  IX

  I want to be a doctor when I grow up, I know it would make Uncle happy. And Mother.

  “Who knows how many sick people you’ll cure,” she says to me sometimes, passing the kitchen table while I’m doing my homework, the same table where the sturgeons are gutted.

  To be honest I’m not that bothered about the sick people, just the gig. Because Dr. Girardi used to have a gig that looked like a racing buggy and he toured the countryside in it visiting his patients. He would stop off at the station to play cards with Uncle, and have a glass of wine and a slice of salami. They would sit in the stationmaster’s office downstairs and Dr. Girardi would offer Uncle one of his long cigars. Before the war he sometimes brought us a goose or capon that Mother would roast: what a feast! I was allowed to invite Nicola, but if it was sturgeon season he wouldn’t come. Then, it was before 1940, Dr. Girardi swapped his gig for a car, a great big Isotta Fraschini it was, and at the same time he swapped his smile for a sense of superiority. He began to like his drink a bit too much and his patients didn’t give him geese and capons any more, because he began running them over himself, or so people in the village used to say. One time he came in, belching, and wanted to come up into the apartment. Then he said some not very nice things to Mother, and Uncle took him by the arm and offered to take him back to his villa. But he turned round and his breath smelled of wine and garlic and he winked at Uncle and said: “I know you have dealings with Jews, but it won’t go on forever, you mark my words.”

  And it didn’t, at least not for Dr. Girardi, because he crashed his Isotta Fraschini. He went off the road and was found dead, something had crushed him and he suffocated. I don’t know what it was exactly. Partly because I wasn’t there – it was Uncle who told me about it – and partly because I don’t think I’m really cut out to be a doctor.

  “That car was too big for these roads,” Uncle comments darkly.

  “And just how does a country doctor come to get a car like that?” Mother adds.

  “Everyone knows it was a present for some favors he did for the right people,” Pasquina lets slip.

  Pasquina is Remo’s wife, who still sometimes comes to our house to clean.

  And it has to be said, everyone was taken aback when he swapped his gig for the Isotta Fraschini. Some people said it was second hand, probably a payment for some gambling debt or who knows what. What I always remember is the last time he spoke to Uncle. That word, Jews, is a bad word. There can hardly be Jews here. Jews have big noses, they are heavy-set, wicked and tight-fisted. Riff raff. I know everything there is to know about the Jews, I read it in The Defense of the Race magazine.

  We are Italian, Aryans. Anyone can see we’re Aryans: Mother is blonde, and beautiful. And when she puts her hair up you can see she’s got knock-out blue eyes. Her eyes sparkle, her skin is pale with tiny, almost invisible freckles. All of us Scaramagli have them. I looked it up: it’s an Aryan trait. In our family we’re so blonde we could be mistaken for Germans. Well, not me and Uncle, we’re a bit reddish to tell the truth, but only slightly. To be on the safe side, every so often Mother puts this smelly stuff on my hair. She says it’s to keep lice away, but after she does it my hair is always a bit lighter than before. In any case race is important and I’m glad I’m Aryan and Italian because I’ve been through enough already what with having an anarchist and traitor to the homeland for a father. At home though, no one ever talks about race, or anarchists, or the homeland.

  At school, on the other hand, Mario and Vittorio always give me a hard time.

  “A fisherman’s son and the chemist’s son! Cruelty makes no distinction between social classes then. They should be ashamed of themselves!” Mother exclaims, disgusted, when I ask her why Father betrayed our Country and why they call me a traitor. And Nicola a foreigner. Nobody’s children, that’s us.

  X

  Now I have to go to school by myself. I have to take the train to Ferrara, where nobody knows me or anything about me. Now race has become really important and at middle school I am held up as an example of the perfect Aryan. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mario and Vittorio. But m
y father really was a traitor.

  “An idealist,” says Mother.

  “But following the wrong ideal,” Uncle silences her.

  In any case, right or wrong, he followed his idea and couldn’t care less about me and Mother. She says that he did hold me in his arms a few times, and that there’s even a picture of us somewhere. But I don’t recall ever seeing him. I know his face, but only from a photograph. He went and got himself killed in Spain where Italy sent soldiers too. Only he was on the wrong side, with the anarchists and Bolsheviks.

  “All you can do for him,” says Don Antonio when I talk about him in confession, “is pray for his soul, even though he doesn’t deserve it. People like him killed priests and shot at the Holy Sacraments. He was an animal, your father. Just as well you don’t take after him. You are a good person, like your poor mother. A sign that the Lord God is merciful. Ego te absolvo...” Etcetera, etcetera.

  I don’t even have my father’s surname, why should I feel bad about anything? What’s it got to do with me?

  “Love is blind, and people can make mistakes,” Uncle explains, talking about Mother.

  And in any case I have my village, a house, a bicycle, a station and I’m the sturgeon messenger. I reckon that’s not bad for a boy of twelve.

  XI

  As far back as I can remember, there have always been sturgeons in the river. At least, they were here before me in any case. Because we used to live in a different village, not far from here, but with no sturgeons. Uncle was in Ferrara, working for the railway, then he got sent here, and promoted to stationmaster. Even back then he had an office, a little one, that he shared with other railwaymen. He worked in an office, he wasn’t out mending the rails. He was in the freight office. I’m not sure exactly what that is but it sounds important. One day we went to visit him and he let me use the telephone. I’d never used one before. Uncle turned the crank and let me say hello to a colleague of his in another station. It was like a magic trick, hearing his voice. Uncle was magical too then, powerful and strong, with his moustache, but he cut that off later.

  It was when we went to the city that I saw the caviar Lady for the first time. I saw her at home, in her shop, with the sign that says “Delicacies,” where she makes the caviar. To be precise she makes the caviar in the backroom.

  In the shop itself there was a prodigious display of sweets, herring, salt cod and salami that smelled so good it made you want to stay there forever. Cans of tuna, olives, peppers, salted anchovies, mushrooms preserved in oil, artichokes... Fine wines, flasks of Chianti, labels with names you couldn’t make out, with gold medals, prizes from the Universal Exposition... And gold tins of caviar with bright red labels and the regal, imperial words: Caviale del Po. The tins were arranged all round the smoked sturgeon, which was ready to be sliced by the errand boy. That’s where I saw him the first time, now I remember: he was younger, not much more than a boy, but tubby even then. He probably didn’t sweat so much back then. Or perhaps it was covered by all the wonderful smells in the shop, that were swirled around by the ceiling fan. I don’t remember anywhere more enticing than that shop, where the aromas, the tang of sweet and savory, spices, pepper, fish, hams... Ah, the ham: I reveled in that deep, intense, enveloping fragrance long before I actually tasted it. Like a game, each tin contained a different treat, an idea that formed in your head making your mouth water...

  Uncle had his Sunday best on to visit the caviar Lady: his waistcoat, his pocket watch with the chain (something that became a familiar sight, once he was promoted to stationmaster), his bow tie and straw boater. He looked like a real man of fashion, a man of the world. And it filled me with pride to see Mother, who had had her hair done specially for the occasion, in the midst of all those scrumptious smells.

  The backroom leads off from the shop.

  “Come and see, Nellino,” says Uncle. “Come and see where the food of the gods is made.”

  We go down the stairs and through a little door that leads to a room that is cold and white, like a hospital, with tiles that remind me of the butchers’ shops full of flies where sometimes, but not often, Mother buys a piece of meat or a packet of tripe. But there are no flies here. In the corridor there’s a piece of flypaper hanging up, but it must be new, because there are hardly any black marks, which are the flies. If I think of the flypaper in Nena’s tavern which is all black... People joke about it, saying it’s in mourning.

  In the white room there are some women, all dressed in white, wearing hats like nurses’ hats, cleaning up. There are instruments and boxes, but it looks more like a pharmacy than somewhere for the food of the gods. The only goddess is her, the caviar Lady, who greets us with a smile that is impossible to forget. As if we were her nearest and dearest. Uncle introduces us:

  “My nephew Nellino.”

  And she holds out her hand, like adults do when they are introduced. I shake it. I look at the caviar Lady and the world around her seems different, kinder - that’s how I would describe it today. She’s smoking, but it’s not noticeable, I don’t even smell it. She speaks in a low voice and hands me a sweet, a barley sweet.

  “For later,” she says, giving me a wink.

  She exchanges a few words with Uncle, but I can’t make out what they’re talking about. Books, maybe, but I’m not sure. Then she takes us through another door into a sort of house that has a large dining room with a few tables and chairs, where there are people sitting, reading and eating.

  “Make yourselves at home,” she says.

  It’s like a restaurant, but it’s really a house. But there’s a maid, who serves us broth with passatelli. Which is delicious despite the infernal smell of garlic that comes out of the tureen.

  “Uncle, I think the cook must have put in too much garlic...”

  Uncle laughs so hard he almost chokes. Then he gets his breath back. Mother looks at us both disapprovingly.

  “It’s truffle,” says Uncle. “White truffle, pine forest truffle...”

  After the broth they bring us meat: two slices of meatloaf that Uncle says is made of turkey, and fried pumpkin. What a feast. When pudding comes, which is sweet and creamy and tastes of lemon, I can’t hold back any longer and blurt out:

  “Mother, Uncle, what are we celebrating?”

  “We’re celebrating you coming to live with me,” Uncle answers. Then he talks to the caviar Lady again, who won’t hear of taking any money.

  We leave a different way, not through the shop of delicacies. What a beautiful word that is. It has a wonderful sound.

  I never got to go back there again.

  XII

  When the season’s over life on the riverside gets a bit gloomy, but at least Nicola doesn’t have to work that much and he gets to spend more time with us. The season lasts a few short months, and decides your whole year. From March, some years February, until May, or June, then it’s all over, and the sturgeons are gone. If there are any still in the river they’re not females and if they’re females they’ve no eggs. In other words, no caviar, and even those for filleting are second rate, when they’re late going back down to the sea.

  The fishermen who have caught a lot of fish and got good prices can save up to get through winter. Some people take their money to the post office and others, and everyone knows who, keep it under their mattress. But that’s just a figure of speech, because I’ve never seen a mattress in any of the houses on the riverside. They all sleep on straw pallets, maybe with a ticking cover, but inside it’s straw, reeds, corn chaff, whatever people can get their hands on.

  In the station apartment we sleep on mattresses, good ones, horsehair for summer and wool for winter. I don’t like saying it, and sometimes I don’t even notice it, but there is a difference between us, getting by okay but having to eke out our money, and the fishing families on the riverside, who are dirt poor. They have almost nothing because fishing is not like growing wheat that you can do every year.

  As the Turk says: “Sturgeon fishing is like gambli
ng in the casino. You can smell the money but in the end you lose the shirt off your back.”

  It takes luck, a whole lot of luck, to catch a sturgeon that can turn the year round and give you a chance to keep your head above water, pay off your debts and cover your expenses. And the year after? The people round here remember seasons when they didn’t catch a single fish, and all the fishermen ended up so in debt that not even the air they breathed was their own any more.

  Then some years, some of them made enough to buy a motorcycle or pay for drinks the whole summer. It’s just a question of luck. Skill too, but above all luck. Just like in the casino, which among other things, was a word the Turk brought here, because no one here had ever heard of it. At the end of the season the fishermen pay off their debts and take stock and there’s never much stock. And now that there’s not so many big spenders around we have to be careful not to catch too many sturgeons - we might not even be able to sell all the caviar, Mario’s father says. He always sees the negative side of things. Mario’s mother tells him to pray to Saint John the Baptist to catch the big females.

  “The females I like are big here,” he jokes, miming a big chest and making everyone laugh.

  Mario’s mother makes the sign of the cross and looks at Bechi and says, “May the good lord help you, poor child, look where you’ve ended up.”

  Bechi smiles, as always, because she has a lovely smile and it means she doesn’t have to say anything.

  Nicola asks what Saint John has to do with sturgeons,

  “Isn’t the Feast of Saint John the day for gathering walnuts?”

  “Yes Nicola,” I say because I always have to explain things. “But he’s also the patron saint of the village, so he’s the saint of the riverside and the Po.”

  The Turk smokes and hardly ever says anything. But he wants to reassure Mario’s father because he knows he’s worried: