The Caviar Lady Read online

  One morning Mother takes the train with me. She is a sight to see, a real lady, almost like the Lady herself. The caviar Lady I mean. She’s put on her shoes with the heels, a really elegant black skirt, silk stockings, and her coat with the angora rabbit collar that she insists on calling “lapin,” even knowing full well that French is a useless language. We can say the same things in Italian and they even sound better. We are the heirs of the ancient Romans, not descendants of the Gauls. Julius Caesar had no trouble conquering them.

  “Yes Nellino, I’m sure you’re right,” she sighs, clearly bored.

  I look at her: she’s wearing earrings too, and a string of pearls round her neck. Even a smart hat and a little bag. At home Mother looks very different. Even when she goes into the village I’ve never seen her dressed up like this.

  “Come with me Nellino, be my chaperone.”

  Actually I would have preferred to talk to Giuseppe who gets the train to school too.

  “Where are you going Mother?” I ask.

  “Ferrara,” she says, coquettishly.

  I hate it when she uses that voice. Insufferable woman.

  “You’re not coming to speak to my teachers, are you?”

  “If I have time, maybe I will.”

  “What do you mean if you have time?”

  “Don’t you worry about it Nellino, your mother knows what she’s doing.”

  Well good for her, because I have no idea what my mother is doing on the morning train. She gets back in the evening, much later than me. In good spirits. What the blazes...?

  “Why are you singing, Mother?”

  “I’ve had a good day.”

  “What for?”

  “Give me a rose to hold on my heart... tie it with your golden hair...”

  “Come on Mother, why won’t you tell me what you were doing in Ferrara today and why you’re so happy?”

  “Maybe tomorrow you’ll cry... but then will come a smile...”

  “Would you just stop it with that singing and tell me!”

  “Who is Lilì Marleen?” Mother continues, as if I was invisible.

  “Who is Lilì Marleen?” now Uncle’s gone and joined in too.

  They’re making fun of me with all this stupid singing.

  “Your Mother is happy,” says Uncle, “because she went to talk to Aldo.”

  “Who?”

  “The boy who helps the errand boy.”

  “Ah yes, the errand boy’s assistant. The one with all the freckles. And what’s so important about him that Mother’s all done up in her Sunday best?”

  “He’s going to come and work with us,” Mother chirps.

  “Who’s us?”

  “Us and our caviar factory.”

  When she says this, in my mind’s eye I get a picture of a hand-painted sign in the centre of the village: Scaramagli Brothers, Prized Po Caviar. I can see the colors too, gold writing on a red background. Or maybe black would be better, black like the sturgeon’s eggs, like the Fascist shirt. I like what I see... a delivery truck full of mahogany chests proudly emblazoned with our name, ready to be sent by train to Switzerland, Germany, America, even to the English who are bombing us. Anywhere there are cosmopolitans with money... I’m so lost in this daydream that I don’t realise I’m talking out loud.

  “What did you say?” Uncle asks curiously.

  XXVI

  Mother and Uncle are making plans.

  I’m still studying and going to school where Cavicchi tells me that I should care less about Aeneid and more about war bulletins. When I ask him why, he answers me quite rudely:

  “Can’t you see that everyone’s screwing us over?”

  “There’s no need to be so rude! Studying classics is important!”

  “You’re a real idiot Scaramagli.”

  Every time I want to ask him why, Boldini, the supply teacher, tells us to be quiet. After school I’m running to catch the train when I hear a voice calling my name:

  “Nello! Nellino from the station!”

  Who on earth can be calling my name here in Ferrara? I turn round and see a dark-colored car, and for a moment it reminds me of the one they took Salvi away in. Then right away I recognize the Lancia Ardea and see it’s the errand boy, smiling and waving at me. Overdoing it a bit, I think. He’ll be sweating.

  “What a pleasure to see you here.”

  “What do you mean here? I live in Ferrara.”

  “Here at school I mean.”

  “Ah yes, I was just passing and I thought that maybe you would enjoy a ride in the car.”

  “Where to?”

  “To the station, the village.”

  “Is that where you’re headed?”

  “Yes, I want to talk to your mother and see if they’ve any intention to start fishing some sturgeon again and make a little money.”

  He rubs his thumb and index finger together in the classic gesture.

  “The Turk says that this year the season is late starting.”

  “The Turk always has something to say for himself, but times have changed, I’ve no use for an old scaremonger like him. You going to get in?”

  “If it’s no trouble,” I venture, never having set foot inside a car before.

  “Climb aboard then!” and he opens the door of the Ardea.

  Now here’s a taste of luxury, I think to myself. I clamber in awkwardly, my books under my arm.

  “Get in, get in. I’ll wager you didn’t know this beauty can do 105 kilometres an hour!”

  And as he says it he turns the ignition key and puts the car into gear, and we’re off with a roar. He opens the window and says: “Now just listen to that, my boy!”

  I’m too busy being cold with the window down, but I don’t say anything. The errand boy extols the virtues of the Ardea.

  “In a tick we’ll be in the village, no need to wait for the train. Do you have any idea of the number of cigarettes I’ve smoked on that station platform? I could stop smoking now if I wanted to, once I’ve got my hands on the wheel there’s nothing else I need. Zang tumb tumb! Do you study Marinetti at school?”

  “Erm, no. We’re still on Petrarch.”

  “That old stuff! Now’s the time for speed, modernity, technology, machines. This is the future, my boy. You do care about the future, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “But whose?”

  “Italy’s.”

  “It’s your own you should be worrying about. Just look, round that corner and you’re home.”

  He’s right, it’s hardly taken any time at all.

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you tell your mother that I’d like a quick word?”

  “Of course.”

  “Call me Girolamo if you like.”

  “Mother, Mother, you have a visitor!”

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” she says, not exactly happy to see him.

  “I’ve come to talk to you and your brother.”

  “Come through then, he’s in the station, in the office.”

  Unseen, I slip into the cubbyhole by the freight office, the perfect spot for hearing what’s being said in Uncle’s office. Too bad I hadn’t noticed it when the Lady used to come...

  “Well, this is a fine way to repay me,” I hear the errand boy saying.

  “What do you mean?” asks Uncle.

  “Don’t play the fool with me, your sister has been trying to hire Aldo, my assistant.”

  “It’s a free market.”

  “Nonsense! Betraying someone you’ve known for years! Is that your idea of a free market? I’ve always been a friend to you, I’ve always kept quiet about your relationship with the lady, your dealings, your friends and relatives...”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “We would’ve told you when the time was right,” Mother interjects.

  “Sure, once I was ruined. All I need to do is have a quiet word to the Secret Pol
ice and remind them who your son’s father is... not to mention our other little agreements...”

  Not being able to see anything, I can’t tell who he’s looking at or see their expressions, so it’s hard to work out what’s going on. I’ve never heard the errand boy sound so threatening.

  “Don’t you go raising your voice to me,” says Uncle.

  “And you stop trying to pull a fast one on me. I have all of your sister’s papers.”

  “Oh no you don’t.”

  “That means you must have them then...”

  “That’s enough! Would you two please just stop it now?” Mother cuts in.

  “I know you’re a reasonable boy... I mean man…,” she corrects herself, “a reasonable man, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

  “A gentlemen’s agreement,” says Uncle.

  “A gentlemen’s agreement?” says the errand boy. “Actually you’re right. I’m growing tired of the caviar business anyway.”

  “What? You mean you want to leave the business?”

  “Nothing of the sort Mrs. Scaramagli! I just mean I’m tired of being up to my elbows in fish guts to make an honest living. I could deal with the sales side of the business.”

  “And who would make the caviar?”

  “Your factory.”

  “Aldo told you about that too?”

  “Of course. Aldo knows where his loyalties lie. There’s just one small detail we need to discuss.”

  “What?”

  “That it won’t be just your factory, but ours. You supply the workers, as you’re good at convincing them. I’ll send Aldo and give you the benefit of my experience. And if you need capital I know the right people to go to.”

  “With a war on?”

  “More so than ever. Money is worth less and less these days. Either you spend it on the black market to fill your belly...”

  I bite my lip so as not to laugh thinking about the tubby errand boy saying these things.

  “Or you can invest it where you’re sure of a return. And you can’t go wrong with caviar. Everyone wants it. From the Caspian Sea after the strategic retreat from Stalingrad.”

  “You mean the defeat,” Uncle puts in.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a defeatist now Mr. Scaramagli? Don’t forget I’m a patriot, a good Fascist and a good Italian.”

  “Forgive me.”

  “And we all know that the war can’t last forever.”

  “Ah, of course, I was forgetting that the final victory is always near.”

  “There’s no need to be like that. No one wants the war, I know people are sick and tired of it. There will be an armistice, you’ll see an honorable peace. I know important people who are working on it.”

  “Well, that would make things easier,” says Uncle.

  “No, it would make everything more complicated, because the Russians would start selling caviar again, so ours would have to be the best. Now we’re doing well because we’re the only ones selling it.”

  He’s got that sweaty head of his screwed on alright, I think, crouching behind the door.

  “I’ll have the notary draw up the papers to set up the company. What shall we call it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, seeing as I have some knowledge of the business, we’ll call it The Italian Caviar Company, Prized Sturgeon Specialities.”

  “Isn’t that a bit long?” Mother attempts to get her oar in.

  “No, no, quite the opposite, the longer it is the more important it sounds. Oh, and I was forgetting. Fifty one percent of the company is mine, the rest is yours.”

  “But there are three of us, it should be split three ways,” Uncle says.

  “Are you forgetting what we talked about?”

  “No, of course not. As you wish.”

  “And be sure to tell the Turk it’s time to start fishing again. Sooner or later we’ll have to get round finding a replacement for him though.”

  “Why so?”

  “He’s the old guard. We are the future.”

  “But he’s fifty-two, like me.”

  “It’s his ideas that are old fashioned. But don’t you worry about it. You are open minded, and from now on you’re the boss.”

  XXVII

  The Turk tells the women. And Mother. And Don Antonio. The season is late starting this year, there’s no point going out on the water. But everyone else wants to get started. With the same enthusiasm as the year before, but with a few more black headscarves worn as a sign of mourning, because since the retreat from Stalingrad every so often there has been news of someone’s son who has died.

  Those in Africa or Greece are not faring much better. I mean I know the war is finished in Greece but every so often someone dies nonetheless. No one knows why.

  Getting to school is more difficult now too: there are hardly any trains these days and it’s usually mid afternoon before I get home. Giuseppe, the other student who used to take the train, has moved in with some relatives in Ferrara. The only one who is doing well out of all of this is Remo. Of course, it means he never goes anywhere without a gun, even when he’s just working on the railway, but even the nobility are going to him to buy flour, eggs, meat, fish, sugar and coffee these days. People say they come by road, to the other side of the signal box, in cars that are even bigger than Dr. Girardi’s Isotta Fraschini. Rumor has it that a countess was seen making eyes at Remo, a duke, fallen on hard times, bartered his coat of arms for a string of sausages, and the drivers of some noble families have brought jewels, gold and silverware to exchange for a couple of capons or a salami. I don’t know how much of it is true. But as these stories do their rounds the delights that Remo keeps in his signal box multiply, along with our hunger and the desire to sate it. Some of the women on the river bank say that he’ll end up selling caviar too. I know that it’ll actually be Mother and Uncle selling the caviar, they just haven’t told anyone yet.

  I’m a bit disappointed that the factory is not going to be called Fratelli Scaramagli. The river beds have been dredged even more thoroughly this year, the boats are ready, all spick and span, the nets are as good as new and though the women are tired after the harsh winter, they’re eager to get out on the river. Don Antonio even sings the Stabat Mater to winkle out the more religious sturgeons. But it gets to the tenth of March and they’ve been out fishing every day for a month and caught nothing.

  The only person who has no intention of coming home empty handed is the Turk. He and Nicola go hunting or fishing for pike and in the end they always manage to get their hands on something to sell to Remo, for his rich customers. The sturgeon fleet is all in, the houses and families are going to rack and ruin and there doesn’t seem to be any way to turn things round. The women go back and forth to the Turk to ask him the reason why, and he just shrugs his shoulders:

  “It’s cold this year, and anyway you can never tell with fish.”

  He’s not bothered, but all the others are.

  XXVIII

  At school Cavicchi tells me that he knows for sure that all the workers in Turin have gone on strike and people are sick to the back teeth of Mussolini and the war. I don’t really understand it, everything is getting more and more complicated to figure out for someone like me. I’m just a lad from the provinces, a stationmaster’s nephew. When I get home I ask Uncle what a strike is. In the village and on the riverside we have other problems, in any case. Okay, the government, the Duce, the homeland, the king, the war, which is now total, the strikes… that’s all well and good. But we have no sturgeons and with no sturgeons there can be no caviar factory. And all the women in the village are cross with Mother. Actually some are plain mad with her, saying that she’s got ideas above her station, that she wants to boss everyone around. Others blame the Turk, saying that he’s stopping the sturgeons from coming, that he’s the devil in person. Then there are others who say it’s Don Antonio’s fault, while he keeps defending both Mother and the Turk and asking everyone to pray.

&
nbsp; “Only curses can save us now! You can keep your prayers to yourself!” Mario’s father says to him one day. “This river is cursed, and no one can see it.”

  “The sturgeons will come, you’ll see, just have faith in the Lord,” Don Antonio replies.

  “The Lord’s got nothing to do with it. Some years the fish just don’t come up the Po, and it looks like this is one of them,” the Turk says.

  “Nonsense!”

  “Ave Maria...”

  “It’ll take more than a prayer.”

  “Gratia plena...”

  “Amen to that Father.”

  “Dominus tecum...”

  “What we need isn’t a rosary,” says Don Antonio all of a sudden. “We need to pray to Saint Joseph! Saint Joseph grant us forgiveness for our sins, protection for our children on the front line and mercy for the sturgeon.”

  But Saint Joseph can’t have got the message and takes mercy on the sturgeons instead, making sure none of them land in a net till April. And this despite the fact that on March 19th 1943 a total of thirty-nine boats, all the boats on the riverside apart from the Turk’s, line up to pray for mercy to the statue of Saint Joseph that Don Antonio has hoisted into the biggest boat in place of the harmonium. So, while Italian soldiers are dying in Russia and Africa and workers are striking all over Italy, here, in the middle of the Po, we are all praying for a fishing miracle.

  “Maybe they should have prayed to Saint Sturgeon,” Cavicchi points out mischievously when I tell him about it at school.

  He tells me the latest on the strikes: they’re everywhere now even if the workers are getting sent to jail in their dozens, in their hundreds... He gets the news from a clandestine newspaper his father receives. In the evening he calls them to the table - Andrea, which is Cavicchi’s name, his brother, his mother and the maid, and reads the articles out quietly then folds the sheet in four and hands it back to the maid.

  “And what does she do with it?” I ask, amazed.

  “She takes it to other comrades, I reckon.”

  Cavicchi calls himself a comrade, which, like strike, is another word I don’t know.