The Children's Train

by Viola Ardone

  “Mamma doesn’t love me anymore,” I say, breaking the silence. “First, she sends me up there for my own good, and now she has it in for me. I want to go back up there where they treat me properly and caress me.

  “Listen, kid,” Zandragliona says as she cuts the onions. “Your Mamma Antonietta has never had a caress in her life, and that’s why she doesn’t have any to give. She’s taken care of you all these years, and now that you’re growing up, you’ll have to take care of her. The war took many things away from us, all of us. She lost a son, and I lost my Teresinella.”

  I’d heard the story on the street, but she’d never told me herself.

  “How did it happen?” I ask.

  “She was only sixteen. She was one of my sister’s four children and she’d come to live with me. I brought her up as if she were my own daughter. She was beautiful and very bright. After the Armistice, she joined the partisans, because she had fallen in love with one of them. She went back and forth across the enemy line, carrying information. Once, while she was on an assignment, she stole a revolver from a German soldier who had been killed in action. He didn’t look like a German when he was dead, she said. He just looked blond and startled. She didn’t tell anyone she had stolen the revolver, because the men would have taken it away from her. She kept it to herself. I was the only one who knew.

  “When the partisans attacked the German car in the Vomero quarter, on September 27, 1943, Teresinella had left the house early in the morning. Nobody knew why, but I understood. I looked all over the city for her, and that was when I found out that the whole area was being barricaded by the insurgents. When I got there, I could smell the gunpowder in the air. I looked for Teresinella, but the air was thick with gray smoke, and I couldn’t see a thing. It was a matter of seconds: I looked up and there was Teresinella with the revolver in her hand, shooting from behind a barricade as if she were a grown-up man. Every shot made her body shake, but she went on. I shouted, ‘Get down! Get down from there!’ Teresinella looked at me and smiled, but she didn’t come down. She stayed up there, surrounded by men, shooting and shaking. Then there was the last shot, the loudest. After that, Teresinella didn’t shake anymore. She didn’t move anymore. Two days later, the Germans retreated. The city had been liberated by its own citizens. But Teresa never knew.”

  The onions on the cutting board have been reduced to thin slices, and Zandragliona’s eyes are red and brimming with tears. She gets the green-checked tablecloth out and the napkins. All you can hear between us is the clatter of plates and glasses.

  When I get back home and open the door, Mamma Antonietta, who has been sleeping, wakes up with a start.

  “Ah, it’s you! Come here. Come and lie down a little with me . . .”

  I go and lie down on the bed. It’s three in the afternoon and Mamma’s in her nightgown. Her eyes look a little tired, but she’s beautiful anyway. More beautiful than before, in fact. Her raven-black hair is longer and shinier and her mouth is dark pink, even though she doesn’t use lipstick; she has never had any makeup. I think about Derna’s pale skin and blond hair.

  Mamma rests her head on the pillow. She reaches her hand out and ruffles my hair. I cuddle up next to her and take in her smell again. I remember that I’ve missed her. I fall asleep and dream about Derna and our day at the beach, the sand sticking to my legs, and the water that seemed so light to begin with, but then had gotten so heavy it pulled me under. I look back at the beach, but everyone has gone: Alcide, Rivo, Luzio, Tommasino. Only Derna is left. As I was going under, I saw Derna waving at me. “Help! I’m drowning. Come and get me!” I shouted. She looked at me, her blond hair mussed. I couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. In the end, though, she turned on her heels and walked off, too.

  I wake up in a sweat. Mamma Antonietta is still asleep.

  30

  WE DON’T WALK TOGETHER ANYMORE, WITH Mamma one step ahead and me one behind. It’s just me, now. Sometimes Tommasino.

  Life has gone back to normal, but nothing is like before. The summer is almost over, but it’s still hot. In the morning, I go to Mariuccia’s cobbler father’s workshop. I’m learning to use glue and little nails to resole shoes. The nails leave dimples in my fingertips, replacing the calluses I had from playing the violin. Mariuccia’s brothers look askance at me. There’s not much work, and I’m stealing theirs. Mariuccia sends a letter every now and again, written in her big, slanting cursive. Her cobbler father can’t read, of course. He didn’t even open her first letters. Then he asked me to read them. I was happy to, because I wanted to know what Mariuccia was doing, and to remember the things I used to do when I was up there.

  Every time I opened one of her letters, though, her voice seemed more and more distant. She wrote because she felt she had to, but you could tell she didn’t care one bit about us. They made me feel sad in my belly and so I stopped reading them. I told the family that reading hurt my eyes, and it wasn’t a complete lie.

  Mamma Antonietta has started taking in sewing again. She mends and alters clothes for ladies who live in Via Roma or the Corso. When she’s busy, I go over to Zandragliona’s place. But it’s hot there, too. So I go out and look for Tommasino. We go around town, finding shade in the narrow alleyways. We go to Prince Sangro’s chapel to see the skeletons. We go to the market and hide among the stalls. We go to the music Conservatory.

  This is where I’d met Carolina, the day I’d sat here listening to the instruments playing inside. A porter had come out and shooed me away. He’d thought I wanted to steal an instrument to sell to the Americans. He’d said a flute and a clarinet had already disappeared. I’d been so ashamed, I felt like crying. I’m not a thief. I’d told him I was there to listen to the music. It was just then that Carolina had walked out the door. She’d looked over at me and, without even knowing who I was, told the porter I was her cousin, and that I was waiting for her. The porter had slunk away, giving me dirty looks and saying that in any case I wasn’t allowed to sit out here. Carolina had smiled at me and pressed a coin into my hand. I’d taken it badly.

  “I’m not here to beg,” I’d said. “I’m not poor.”

  She’d smiled and said, “Go buy a pastry, then.”

  I’d said I wasn’t hungry and that I’d been working.

  “Really?” she’d said. “What work do you do? Let’s hear.”

  “Me? I reconstruct music,” I’d answered, dead serious.

  After that day, she’d started to take me inside the big theater with her. She had a relative who was an usher there, and would let her into rehearsals and sometimes even performances. We’d hide up in the royal box and wait for the musicians to pick up their instruments. Then, when it was all dark, the conductor would draw two circles with his arms, as if he were embracing the whole orchestra, and each musician would start playing by himself, although the music came out all together.

  SINCE COMING BACK, EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, I SIT outside at the usual time, waiting for Carolina to come out. But she never does. One day, I asked a friend of hers I had met, and she told me Carolina didn’t go to the Conservatory anymore because her father had lost his job, and she and her brothers had to go to work after school. I asked her whether she knew where Carolina lived, but she didn’t. She thought maybe in Via Foria, but she wasn’t sure. So Tommasino and I walked up and down Via Foria the whole afternoon, the sun beating down on our heads, but we didn’t bump into her. Eventually, we turned back and started walking home. We stopped in front of Pachiochia’s apartment and saw that the photo of the mustached king was no longer there. Nor was there a picture of Comrade Lenin. We remembered when she had come north and climbed up onto the stage in her red, white, and green sash. We agreed, without saying a word, to take the Corso rather than go home, and walked all the way to the station. We walked partly in silence and partly chatting about things we’d done up north.

  We were like Trombetta, the crazy veteran who begged in Piazza Carità. He’d been wounded in the head by a piece of
shrapnel, and when he’d gotten home, he told the same story every single day, but nobody wanted to listen. “That’s enough,” they’d say. “We’ve already lost the war. Do you want us to lose our peace, too?” Tommasino and I were the same. At first, everyone asked us questions: Where were you? What language do they speak up there? What do they eat? Is it cold? But then they would start teasing us whenever they came near us. “Here come the two northerners,” they would jeer. In the end, we only told our stories to each other on our way to the station.

  We learned all the timetables and platforms by heart. Every time a train was set to leave for Bologna, I’d look at the people getting on with their heavy suitcases and tired expressions, and I’d remember throwing our coats out the window, the apple in my pocket, and Mamma Antonietta disappearing slowly into the distance, as the train moved farther and farther away. I think back to when it was us on the train: me, Mariuccia, and Tommasino, the blond kid with gaps in his teeth, the children who were scared we were going to Russia, and the ones who had no idea what they were doing on that train.

  “Does your babbo with the mustache write to you still?” I ask Tommasino, hoping he says no. Since I got back, I haven’t gotten one letter. Derna said she would write to me once a week; three months have gone by, and not one letter has arrived.

  “Always,” Tommasino says happily. “He sends us packages, too. All their produce: oil, wine, salami. And photographs of everyone.”

  He’s quiet for a while, and then he looks at me.

  “What about you? Still nothing?”

  I shrug and don’t answer.

  “Mamma goes every two weeks to pick up the packages and the letters at Maddalena’s house. They’re always there, they never fail to get in touch . . .”

  “Tommasì, let’s get on the train now. Right now. This one’s leaving. We’ll get to Bologna and then take the bus, and we’ll go back to how we were before!”

  Tommasino looks at me to see whether I’m being serious or not, and then bursts out laughing.

  “Come on, let’s go home,” he says in the end. “Let’s go and ask Pachiochia for two lire so we can buy a sfogliatella pastry to share.” He turns around and heads toward the exit. I stay behind gazing at the train, until I hear the whistle blow.

  31

  I WALK ALONG THE CORSO LOOKING AT THE SHOES. They’re all old, worn out, full of holes, or resoled. Since I started working at the cobbler’s, I see people’s shoes every day: some are worn out around the toes, others have a broken heel; some have holes, others have been deformed by their wearer’s feet. Every pair of shoes belongs to a poor person; every hole is a mishap; every broken heel, a fall. It’s not a game anymore.

  My shoes are hurting. Alcide bought me a brand-new pair but now they rub against my heel. The shoes are still good. It’s my heel that’s grown, that’s no good. But I carry on walking. They’ve just put up the lights for the Piedigrotta Festival. A group of boys playing tambourines and party blowers is parading behind me, singing songs that have been chosen for the competition this year. On the other sidewalk, five or six girls dressed as peasants for the traditional Epiphany procession join in the singing. The boys turn to send the girls kisses, and the girls turn the other way pretending not to notice. There are stalls laden with lupin beans and taralli crackers. Kids in their best clothes stroll with their parents, and the farther down the Corso I walk, the thicker the crowd gets, like that morning when Mamma Antonietta took me to the station. The crowd is massive, people are pushing me this way and that. It’s like a wild animal. When I was at Derna’s and Rosa’s, the streets were never as full as this. I was used to it before, but now I’m almost scared by the crush. There are lots of people with painted faces or masks. I start running away from the crowd toward Via Mezzocannone, and then walk up the hill to Piazza Domenico Maggiore.

  Without realizing it, I have somehow ended up outside the Conservatory. The violin is still sitting under my bed, and I haven’t played it since I got back. Mamma Antonietta says my practicing gives her a headache.

  Music wafts out the open windows. The air is still and stifling. I sit on the steps and close my eyes. I hear my name being called from far away.

  “Amerigo, Amerigo, is that really you?”

  Carolina crosses the road, and her violet smell hits me. She’s not carrying her violin.

  “You stopped coming to wait for me after my lessons. I was worried . . .”

  She looks at me as if I’m a ghost who has returned after a long time. Maybe I am just that.

  “I went to a place that is very far away,” I say. She’s grown, too. She looks almost like a signorina.

  “Was it nice?”

  “They taught me to play the violin. I could choose any instrument I wanted, but I thought of you.”

  She turns away. Maybe she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore. But I soon realize it’s because she’s sad.

  “My violin’s at the pawnshop. My father lost his job, and there are four of us kids. We all have to contribute. I’d have stayed up there if I’d been in your place.”

  “You can play my violin if you like,” I said. “In exchange, you can give me a few lessons. What do you say?”

  I smell her perfume before I feel the kiss on my cheek.

  We start heading toward my house. There’s a light breeze, and every now and again, in waves, I smell the violets, and it makes my stomach tingle.

  “Have you ever been back to the theater?” I manage to ask her as we walk up the hill.

  The crowd on Via Toledo is even more jammed together than before. They are all snaking toward Piazza del Plebiscito to see the church completely covered in festival lights and the papier-mâché floats preparing to set off. Pachiochia told me that the rain had ruined many of them and that only four were still standing. One of them, she said, was called “North-South,” and it had been built by the festival committee to celebrate our journey north on the train.

  There are so many people crammed into Via Roma that it looks narrower than our alleyway. I grab Carolina’s hand and start walking up the street in the Spanish Quarter where I live, terrified of losing her in the crowd.

  When we get to my apartment, I pause. I’m a little ashamed to invite her in. I open the door, and Mamma isn’t there. Carolina comes in behind me. She looks around and doesn’t say a word. I don’t know what her house is like. I’d like to tell her that at Derna’s house I had a room of my own, with a desk and a view of the fields. But I don’t say anything and crouch down by the bed.

  I lie on the floor and, after all that heat, I feel the cool of the tiles refreshing my whole body. I stretch both arms under the bed. There’s nothing there. I get up, turn on the light, and look again. My violin is not there. There’s nothing under the bed.

  “Maybe Mamma moved it,” I say, blushing bright red. “So that it wouldn’t get ruined.”

  I pretend to look around the room. Then I crawl under the bed again.

  “It’s getting late,” Carolina says. “I really need to go. You can show me another time.”

  I think about the day I’d gotten the present, wrapped in colored paper. I think about when I had opened the case, and the smell of wood and glue hit me for the first time. It wasn’t like the glue at the Pizzofalcone cobbler’s. They were two very different workshops. And I think about when Derna had produced Mamma Antonietta’s letter that I’d waited so long for and that she’d had Maddalena write for her. All of a sudden, Tommasino’s words come back to me: those letters and packages that arrive every two weeks. I brush away my tears and run out of the alleyway.

  32

  MADDALENA LIVES AT THE TOP OF THE PALLONETTO steps at Santa Lucia. There are five or six kids playing tag on her street. I used to be like them before I got on the train. They look at me and I look back at them.

  “Do you know where a woman called Maddalena lives?” I ask the biggest one.

  “The Commie, you mean?”

  I nod.

  He strides up to me
and stares straight into my eyes. I don’t flinch. Then he’s suddenly on top of me. Another, shorter boy with a red birthmark on his face leaps onto my shoulders. The big one grabs me by the shirt and shoves me down onto the ground hard. I try to get up, but there are five or six boys holding me down.

  “You’re one of those kids that got to go on the trains, right?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Every day there’s one of you here. They have her write letters and go home with food packages. They’ve struck gold!”

  “And we’re here at the ready,” the short brat with the birthmark on his face says. The big one stares him down and the short one shuts up.

  “This is our street. Anyone who comes this way has to give us their stuff. And that means you, too,” the big one says, sending me sprawling with a kick, just as I was getting up.

  “Do you get it? Yes or no?”

  “Nobody’s sent me anything,” I say, and it’s true.

  “We’ll see when you come out,” the big one says, signaling that I can get up now. “Go to the Commie, go on. We’ll be waiting for you when you come out.”

  I run up the steps and knock on the door labeled Criscuolo. I hear Maddalena’s steps approaching, and then I see her face appearing behind the door. I slip in as quickly as I can, scared that the gang might have followed me up here. She doesn’t say a thing. She just looks and smiles.

  “I’m Amerigo,” I say. “The one who was left until last.”

  “I know,” she says. “Sit down.”

  I sit in an armchair with worn armrests. What has gotten into me to come all the way up here? This woman doesn’t even remember who I am, and that gang will have my scalp as soon as I leave. Maddalena gets up and goes into the other room. When she comes back, she’s holding a package of envelopes. The letters are all there, sealed inside, with the stamps on the outside.

  “Here they are,” she says. “I think they’re all here.”