The Caviar Lady Read online

  It’s hard work getting home, we have to row against the current and the Po has big muscles even in the summer. I can’t sleep, and spend the night tossing and turning. I even hear the cargo trains passing through, something I don’t usually notice. It’s still dark when I go down onto the station platform and see the locomotive handlers and hear the trains puffing. The steam is boiling hot in the cool morning air.

  “Where are you off to Nellino?” asks Remo the signalman, who is lending a hand with the load and the maneuvers.

  “Fishing...”

  “Sooner or later the good times will come to end for you too...”

  “I put food on the table you know,” I object, testily.

  “Well, if you’ve anything going spare you know where I live,” he says sarcastically.

  I can feel my blood start to boil but it’s getting late, and we can’t run the risk of being stopped by the Turk, because then he won’t let us take the boat out. I reach the riverside and wait, out of sight like Nicola said. When I hear a low whistle I make my way over to him. We head back down the river, downstream, with the dazzling light of the morning sun in our eyes. The entrance to the inlet is impossible to spot by day too. Nicola points it out: it’s like a little corner of paradise in there, birds and colors flashing over water that is green and blue and crystal clear. The smell of the herbs that grow on the river bank is more pungent here, and the river mud gives off its earthy tang. We reach our branch and start pulling in the line. On the third hook we find our first eel, writhing, huge.

  “Get the rag, and put it in the basket.”

  We have a wire creel to keep the eels in, to make sure they don’t escape. At the tenth fish we feel like we’re the apostles on the sea of Galilee in the story Don Antonio read to us. But this here is a real live miracle!

  There are a few tench along with the eels too. There’s enough for everyone, for at least a week. We head back like Greek heroes, like Roman legionaries, like...

  “Has no one ever told you not to go stealing from thieves?” It’s Battista the eel man, and he’s waiting for us on the riverside.

  “The river don’t belong to no one,” replies Nicola.

  “Well, this bit belongs to me, lad.”

  “He’s got a point,” I say. After all we did track him like spies.

  “I could have cut off all your hooks if I’d wanted to.”

  It was true.

  “And I could have kept all the eels.”

  That was true too.

  “So?” Nicola asks, grudgingly.

  “So we go halfers, from now on. And you can fish for eels whenever you like.”

  “There are three of us, so it’s a three way split,” Nicola answers.

  “Well, you’re a sharp one aren’t you?”

  Battista is right, Nicola is sharp. It would never have occurred to me. We split the eels. We get five each, which isn’t bad at all, and I head home with my share. I walk past Remo’s signal box and jump over the rails holding a writhing serpent in my hand.

  “This is for you.”

  He makes a face but accepts. After all it’s wartime and we’re all hungry, even Remo who always seems to have a bit of everything in store.

  XVIII

  “Here’s what I don’t get: the more we win the war, the less of everything there seems to be. Why is that, Mother?”

  “Perhaps because we’re sending everything we can to support our soldiers at the front...”

  “Yes but if we’re getting closer and closer to winning surely we must have conquered something? Greece for example. Uncle, is there nothing coming for us from Greece?”

  Uncle raises his eyes from his newspaper, takes off his glasses and stands up.

  “Why don’t you go and ask the barber?”

  “Who? Comrade Baffoni?”

  “Yes. Ask him why we’ve got nothing left, not even diesel to run the Littorina railcars. We only see military trains running now. Getting people from place to place is more and more difficult.”

  “What are you talking about Uncle?”

  “Just the truth Nellino, just the truth, but we are not supposed to say these things. Go and ask Remo why he has real coffee and sugar and eggs on sale for the price of caviar... Go to your Fascist friends and ask them why their sons still haven’t been sent to Russia. Then go to your friends on the riverside and see how many youngsters are left. I want to see just who’s going to be around to work in the fields next year. And who’ll be left for the sturgeon fishing.”

  “But Uncle, who needs sturgeon when there’s a war on? Our country needs iron, tin, weapons, soldiers...”

  “And boys in black shirts...” retorts Uncle.

  “Pompeo!” Mother glares at him.

  “Yes Pompeo, Pompeo, but look at the state we’re in, and him, at his age still believing in the final push for victory...”

  “You’re not turning into a subversive like my father, are you Uncle?” I’m almost afraid to ask.

  “If only I was! Then I’d go and put a bomb up the Duce’s backside.”

  “Pompeo! That’s quite enough!” Mother says decisively.

  She looks at me, with a worried look, but then she smiles and says: “Uncle’s tired.”

  “But he’s offending our Country.”

  “He’s just saying what everyone’s thinking Nellino.”

  “But it’s not true!” I yell. “We’re winning the war, one final push is all it’ll take. Our boys are fighting like heroes, in no time we’ll be in Moscow and the war will be over. The Germans...”

  “Ha! The Germans!”

  “Pompeo! Hush now! Do you want him to report you?”

  Report Uncle? It hadn’t crossed my mind, because I’d always thought he was a good patriot. But maybe Mother is right, maybe I should report him. Perhaps my father was not the only one with subversive leanings. Now Uncle too. No, it’s impossible, they aren’t even related. He’s Mother’s brother...

  “Nellino.”

  Uncle has gone all serious. I can tell by the way he says my name.

  “I want to speak to you man to man, but I want to speak to a real man, not one of those puppets hell-bent on marching on without even seeing if there’s a road under their boots...”

  I listen. It’s Uncle’s tone of voice... I don’t know, I don’t really understand why, but I know I have to listen.

  “You’re a good boy, you work hard, you love your family. And there’s no doubt you’re a good Italian too, but...” Uncle pauses carefully. “But you need to open your eyes. You can’t just believe everything they tell you.”

  “But what about Il Duce? And the homeland? And the empire?”

  “Nellino. It was fine when it was all just a game, but life is getting harder and harder every day. No one can get by on their salary these days. Even people who’ve got money are having a hard time getting what they need. The conscription age is getting lower and lower - boys are getting called up now and even people who’ve already served are being sent back to the front. This war is not going to finish tomorrow and they say the worst is yet to come.”

  “But how do you know these things Uncle?”

  “I listen to the radio.”

  I listen to the radio too, but I’ve never heard this kind of talk.

  “Uncle, surely you’re not listening to Radio Londra? Don’t tell me you’re a Bolshevik too?”

  “Listening to Radio Londra doesn’t make you a Bolshevik,” says Mother, with an authority I had never heard before.

  I look at Uncle and I don’t know what to say. I can’t hardly believe my ears.

  “But you’re a party member,” I protest. “You do the Roman salute and everything...”

  “Of course I do Nellino, I hardly have a choice!”

  “So you’re just pretending?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just that there some things it’s a good idea to do.”

  “And some things you can think but not say,” adds Mother. “Do you understand what I�
��m saying?”

  “Yes Mother, yes Uncle.”

  But to tell the truth I’m thinking about going to Secretary Baffoni and telling him I’m surrounded by subversives. In the end I tell Nicola, who’s really my only friend. Nicola says that telling tales is the worst sin of all.

  “Worse than treason?”

  “Telling tales is treason,” Nicola replies.

  “I meant betraying the homeland.”

  “It’s the homeland that’s betraying us, there isn’t even any coal to be had these days.”

  “What do you need coal for with all the wood you’ve got down on the riverside?”

  “Just saying. Anyway, you know what happens to telltales...”

  And he draws his finger across his throat, just like the Turk did that night in the tavern when he warned everyone off Bechi.

  “Phew! I thought for a minute you were going to say they went to hell,” I say, to lighten the atmosphere.

  “Yeah, well that too,” Nicola answers, seriously.

  “Did Don Antonio tell you that?”

  “No, I just know.”

  So there it is. He just knows. I don’t feel like I know anything anymore. I thought Uncle was a patriot, getting the trains running on time, but now he’s behaving like a Bolshevik. And Mother’s going along with it! I thought I would never be interested in girls, just like Uncle. But now I like Bechi, only I can’t pluck up the courage to tell her. Or even look at her. So I decide to tell Nicola, all in one go: “IreallylikeBechi...”

  “What?”

  “IlikeBechi.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “I can’t understand you, slow down.”

  “I like Bechi.”

  “What? You lay a finger on her and you’re a dead man.”

  I look at Nicola to see if he’s going to do his dad’s cut-throat finger, but he’s deadly serious. He’s glaring at me just like Uncle did before.

  “What did you say?” I ask, amazed.

  “Lay a finger on her and I’ll kill you.”

  “Hey! Don’t get your knickers in a twist! I know she’s your cousin and all, but...”

  “I said, lay a finger on her and I’ll kill you.”

  “Wait a minute...”

  Now it’s dawning on me, and I take another deep breath.

  “Now you listen to me. If you lay a finger on her I’ll kill you.”

  “I’d never touch her,” says Nicola. “Not before I marry her.”

  “You? Marry her? But you’ve only just turned thirteen!”

  “I can wait.”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh because it’s one thing being all serious and in love, but he’s just being stupid. And now suddenly I understand something else too. I was so devoted to the homeland that I couldn’t see that some of the things Uncle was saying are actually true. Not all of it, maybe, but a bit of it. Because Secretary Baffoni’s sons, and Remo’s sons didn’t get sent to Russia, but all of Mario’s brothers are away. And not by choice. And Remo always greets me with a Fascist salute, but then he tries to touch Mother and I always see big banknotes coming out of her purse when he brings her eggs. If Uncle was not at least a little bit right, Remo would be sending those eggs to our men in Greece. Or maybe he would give them to the shop because when we go to buy food with our ration cards there’s hardly ever anything left.

  “You never know, maybe you will marry her one day,” I say jokingly to Nicola.

  “Of course I’m going to marry her,” he replies, totally in earnest.

  “You’ll need to learn a trade then.”

  “I’ve already got a trade.”

  “No you haven’t, that’s your father’s trade. You’re just the...”

  “I’m the second in command.”

  “Does the Turk give you a percentage then?”

  “What’s that got to do with it? We’re family.”

  “See? You don’t have a trade.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “I’m going to be a lawyer.”

  “I thought you were going to be a doctor?”

  “Yes, alright, but whatever I do I’ll be coming to pick Bechi up in my car...”

  “I can’t wait to see you trying to get down to the riverside in a car.”

  Nicola laughs heartily, and it makes me want to laugh too.

  In the end we go back to his place, arm in arm, chanting: welikebechi, welikebechi...

  Once we are within sight of the house of course we stop. I get on my bicycle and head back to the station, where I cross paths with Uncle.

  “I’m sorry I was impertinent,” I say.

  “Don’t worry about it, I know you’re growing up.”

  And he hugs me. I don’t remember him doing that before.

  XIX

  ’42 is a sturgeon season to remember. Everything was crazy: the people and the fish. And the river. By the end of the winter it was really low. In February the great Po gets lower and lower day by day. The cold makes the water sparkle and when the morning sun burns off the fog little wisps of white linger on over the riverside. Standing by the boats in the morning it’s like when you can see your breath in the cold air: even the river seems to be making white puffs of breath. It’s a Sunday at the end of the winter, so I’m not at school but down on the riverside. I told Mother I was going to mass. But instead I’m here with Nicola and Bechi, watching the Turk staring out at the river.

  “He had a dream last night,” says Nicola.

  “Was it the white horse?”

  “No, no, if only it had been,” he shakes his head. “He had a dream about the lady...”

  “The caviar Lady?”

  “Yup, her.”

  “He told me she was walking through the trees on the riverside, pointing at an exact spot, in the distance.”

  “So?”

  “My old man says it’s a sign.”

  “A sign of what?”

  “He doesn’t know, he’s looking at the river to try and work it out.”

  For a while we stand there and watch him looking at the river.

  Then he turns to us:

  “Hello Adam, did they tell you about my dream?”

  “Yes, we were just talking about it.”

  “But not the whole story.”

  “What whole story?”

  “That when I woke up I went out and heard noises.”

  “Noises?”

  “Yes. Fish, jumping in the river.”

  “But it’s still winter,” I object.

  “Yes I know, but look over there.”

  And he points out a line of current in the middle of the river.

  “See?”

  “I see the water.”

  “Yes but underneath.”

  “Underneath what?”

  “The river bed is almost ready. Maybe the sturgeons are on their way. Today is the Lord’s Day, but tomorrow we can get started. The boat and nets are ready, right?”

  Nicola and Bechi nod.

  “I still think it’s too early,” I say; being the messenger boy I do have a bit of experience, after all, and I don’t remember there ever being sturgeons in February.

  “So they’re teaching you to fish in school now, are they?” the Turk asks, lighting his pipe.

  “That’s tobacco!”

  “Indeed it is, son, indeed it is.”

  “But where did you get it?”

  “I was saving it for the start of the season.”

  The sweet, pungent smell of the Turk’s smoke envelops the riverside, sneaks between the huts and mingles with the white clouds of the river’s breath. I can’t work out whether the Turk is joking or not.

  “Come down tomorrow as soon as you get back from Ferrara,” he says. “We might be needing to send a telegram.”

  He gives me a wink and gets into his boat. He pushes off and glides away on the current.

  “I’m going to have a look.”

  “Wait! I’ll come too,” says Nicola.


  “No, you’ll stay at home because from tomorrow you’ll have more than enough to do in the boat.”

  “See what he’s like,” says Nicola dejectedly.

  “You never know what he’s up to, he just ups and offs, comes and goes as he pleases, gives out orders. Tomorrow, sturgeons, huh!”

  “Maybe it’s a joke for Carnival,” I venture.

  “No way! He never jokes about fishing,” interjects Bechi.

  We both turn towards her, she’s usually so quiet.

  “You’ll see,” she says. “He’ll be right about this. The Turk never makes mistakes.” And she gives us a knowing smile, the kind of smile that makes you feel like a little kid again.

  “We’ll see,” I reply.

  “Now do you see why I can’t go to school, not even the trade school?” says Nicola.

  “If school started in the summer and finished now, then I could.”

  “No point letting it get you down” I say. “Are you still reading?”

  “Hey, what’s happened to you? You sound like a right know-it-all.”

  He’s right, how come I’m sounding like a know-it-all? I don’t know. I don’t say anything. I should probably go home. I go back the next day, after school. And Bechi tells me that the Turk and Nicola are still out in the boat, but that there is a telegram to be sent.

  “They got one?”

  “They got four.”

  “Four?”

  “One’s a female that weighs at least fifty kilos. They’ve tied it up here in front of the house.”

  I turn round and see the ropes attached to one of the posts of the little jetty. I can see the fish stirring up the water.

  “Does it have eggs?”

  “It’s full, otherwise why would I tell you to send the telegram?”

  The low water levels, the lowest I’ve ever seen, have brought us luck, at least as much as dreams have, anyway.

  XX