A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (17 page)

When his mouth had released the last nail, I asked, “Do you make many shoes?” I had asked my question just in time, for he was ready with another batch of tacks in his hand.

“Only when someone orders them. Maybe six, sometimes even ten pairs a year. I do mostly repair work. New soles or heels.”

I needed to make a real effort to understand the man's dialect. “Are there other cobblers in town?”

“Oh, yea.” He began to laugh. “One guy thinks he is a shoemaker.” He laughed some more. “Every time he repairs someone's shoes, they come to me to get them fixed right.”

Absorbed in the conversation and in watching him work, I didn't realize how much time had elapsed until the church bell rang eleven times.

“
Arrivederci!
I'll see you soon,” I said.

I walked by the
caffê
. A priest had just sat at an outside table. “
Vieni quí
!” a voice called, asking me to approach them.

I pointed at myself. “Are you calling me?”

“Yea, yea. Come here. What's your name?” the priest asked.

I walked up to his table. “Enrico. What is your name, Father?”

“Don Pasquale. I'm the monsignor. I've never seen you before. You're new here, aren't you?”

“Yes. My mother and I arrived yesterday. We came from San Remo.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At Antonietta's. I don't know her last name. She has two daughters.”

“I know who you mean. Matarazzo, eh?” He looked for approval from the men at his table. “Well, welcome to Ospedaletto. I hope you will enjoy your stay with us and I expect to see you in church for communion.”

“I'm sorry, Father, I don't go to church. I'm Jewish.”

A surprised look appeared on his wrinkled face. “Oh. I will want to talk to you soon.”

I left the priest and continued my one-legged hop down the hill. At the bottom the road formed a T with the road that came from Avellino. There, facing me, was another fountain. Quickly I bounced across the road eager for another taste of that fresh icy gift of nature. A boy more or less my age approached.

“Who are you?” he asked in heavy dialect.

“I'm Enrico. What's your name?”

“Totonno. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, we just moved here. How old are you?”

“Twelve,” he said. “And you?”

“Eleven.”

The barefoot boy looked ragged, with dirt that clung to his skin like what I had seen on the urchins the day before. Afraid of offending him if I left, I continued to talk. “I'm walking around to get to know Ospedaletto. I've never lived in a small town. I just met Don Pasquale. He's a nice man.”

“He's a sonovabitch.”

Realizing the priest was a bad conversation topic, I changed the subject. “How many people live here?” I asked.

The boy shrugged and answered with an obscene phrase: “
Che cazzo ne saccio
?”

I was at a loss for words. Rarely had I heard such crude language and certainly not from the mouth of someone my age. His reference to a man's genitalia shocked me. The church bell signaled the half hour and saved me from a difficult moment.

“Oh,” I said, as though the bell's toll had meant something. “I must be getting home.
Ciao
!”

I followed the uphill road the taxi had taken the day before. Forming a wide ring around the village and marking its outer border, the carriage road reached the top near the main square. There it leveled off and separated one small section of Ospedaletto from the rest of the hamlet. On the smaller side of the village, just at the foot of the mountain, was the municipal garden and Antonietta's house.

“Well, what did you learn?”
Mutti
asked.

“I saw the shoemaker working in the square. You should see him. He puts all these nails in his mouth so he can have them ready when he needs them. And Mamma, I drank the water from the fountain. This is the best water I have ever had! You must try it. I'll take you there this afternoon. I also met Don Pasquale. He is the monsignor. He told me he wants to see me in church. I told him right away that I was Jewish and he shouldn't wait for me.”

“That's fine. I want to hear more later, but now wash your hands. Please speak in German. I don't want you to forget it. Signora Antonietta has invited us to lunch.”

The combination of mountain air and the missed meals during the last forty-eight hours had given me a lion's appetite. So I was relieved when I entered the kitchen and a delicious aroma filled my nostrils. On a clean wooden table waited a large bowl of pasta and on the stove was a pot with a cut of beef cooking in the sauce.

Mamma wanted to know more about my exploration. I told her all about the young woman at the fountain, how she had lifted the heavy container onto her head and carried it barefoot on that pebbly road.

“They start when they are little. Girls all have to help at home,” our landlady said.

Antonietta and my mother hit it off from the beginning and her two daughters, Raffielina, one year older than I, and Maria, one year younger, became my friends.

The next day we planned to stop at city hall to register. I had passed the municipal building on my discovery tour. A simple structure, not any different from the others around it, the building housed city hall, the Fascist club, and two private offices.

“I'll take you there,
Mutti
,” I said, proud to know something my mother did not.

City hall consisted of a single room where portraits of
Il Duce
and the king and queen were prominently displayed on its white walls. Don Pepe DePetris, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt with frayed cuffs, and black tie — the only person there — greeted us with a friendly smile. The room was so hot, I wondered how the man had not already fainted. From his heavily wrinkled face I guessed he was old, much older than my mother. He must have known we were coming, for our papers were laid on his disorganized desk.

“
Buon giorno, Signora
Lif-a-schutz.” He too struggled with our name.

Don Pepe was genuinely happy to see us. “I love when you people come here to speak with me. Oh, how I wish to have been born in the big city and gone to the university. Dealing with the ignorance of a small village is so depressing. I will never understand why you people are being sent here. Oh, pardon me. I don't mean any disrespect. On the contrary, I think it is terrible that a fine lady like you,
Signora,
should have to stay here. Most of the people who have been staying here as guests of Signor Mussolini are too educated, too refined for a place like Ospedaletto. I wish I could get out of here, but for me it's too late. I'm almost seventy-four years old. Where could I possibly go?”

Mother seemed to be in a hurry, for she had been looking at her watch and giving hints that she wanted to leave, but the talkative man did not seem to notice.

“I'm supposed to make certain you follow all the rules set down by those imbeciles in Rome. They also want me to read all the mail you fine people receive every day. Can you imagine? I should read the mail of so many people? Only idiots can think up such foolish regulations.”

It was obvious that he relished poking fun at the Fascist government. I refrained from smiling.

“I am curious,” Mamma said. “How many
internati
are here in Ospedaletto?”

“About seventy,” he responded. “All wonderful, cultured, and highly educated people.”

The church bells rang for the second time. We had been there close to an hour, and the man would have kept us there longer if Mother, as politely as she knew how, had not interrupted him. “I hope you'll forgive us, Don Pepe, but we have to leave. We have made other plans. Maybe we can get together again soon.”

“Of course, of course. I'm so sorry I've kept you here so long. I enjoy talking to educated people like you. I hope we will have other occasions to speak again.” He handed Mother the list of dos and don'ts and, from his expression of disdain, even I could tell he was not about to enforce any of them.

“But you will have to report to the
carabinieri
twice daily,” he added with a wink. “If it were up to me, believe me,
Signora.
…” Holding his open hand level to his mouth, he gave his index finger a symbolic bite and threw the hand in the air. “I have nothing to do with that.”

Reading from the sheet she had been given, Mother discovered we would be paid a monthly subsidy.

“Look here,” she said. “I will be getting two-hundred-seventy lire a month and you will get fifty lire and they will give us fifty lire for rent as well. I had worried how we would manage.”

“You come here the first of the month and I'll have the money waiting,” Don Pepe said.

On the walk home from city hall Mamma changed her mind. “We'll start reporting tomorrow,” she said.

So on our fourth day, we arrived at the
carabinieri
station by 9:30, where we found several
confinati
already standing in line. We were to report at 10:00, which, as experience would soon prove, had no resemblance to reality.

A lone
carabiniere
stood at the small door. The building was not any different from the other houses in the village: a large portal with a small door cut within it, two windows on each floor, and one balcony jutting out above the entrance.

The woman ahead announced herself to the man at the door, “Runia Kleinerman.”

As she turned to leave, she noticed us. “Oh, you must be our latest arrival,” she exclaimed, with a distinct Polish accent.

Mother's face broke into a bright smile. She had not spoken Polish since our days in Milan, three years before. “You're Polish?” she asked.

“Yes. You too?”

That's all I could decipher, for the rest of what they said got lost in the ardor and rapidity with which they spoke their native language.

“Who is next?” the
carabiniere
asked. The two women did not realize they had blocked the door.

Runia led my mother to the open gate. “
Prosche
,” she said.

“Lifschütz, Lotte, and Enrico,” my mother announced, then turned away and followed her newfound friend up the hill. “Is that all?” Mamma asked.

“That's it,” Runia replied.

It didn't take long for us to see that the process of reporting to the
carabinieri
was nothing more than a farce.

When we reached the main piazza, three internees were standing at the corner — the
internati's
customary meeting point, I soon learned.

“This is Lotte Lifschütz,” Runia announced. “Oh, yes and this is her son … what is your name?”

“Enrico.”

“And this is Enrico.”

We met William Pierce, John Howell, and Paula Alster. Within minutes, other internees arrived and Runia introduced us to everyone. We met her son Giorgio, Agnese Caine, and the Spaechts. What a mixture of nationalities: British, German, Austrian, Polish. The sound of the church bells, less disturbing to my ears at that distance, marked 10:00 and, without a word from anyone, the group began their walk. Only Miss Caine with her handsome brown British setter did not come along.

From here the group would leave for a leisurely walk down the main road. About two hundred yards past the square, this road split, the right fork led up the mountain to Montevergine and the left down to Avellino.

“Up?” John Howell asked.

“Fine,” some voices answered.

June was a great time for these strolls, because only during that month did the small wild strawberries ripen beneath the low bushes shaded by the branches of the tall chestnut trees. On those morning walks I learned the true meaning of aroma. Nothing could match the fragrance and taste of the tiny berries we discovered growing in those woods.

I also learned how to find the fruits missed by others. Instead of looking while standing erect, I brought my head close to the ground to seek under their protective leaves for the small aromatic berries that others had missed.

In the beginning I felt out of place in the midst of all those adults. Everyone was wrapped up in some political or philosophical discussion while Mother and her new friend enjoyed loosening their tongues in Polish. Though six years older, Giorgio Kleinerman was the only person even close to my age. I tried a conversation with him.

“Do you collect stamps?” I asked.

“No. Do you?”

“Yes.” I tried another tact: “What do you like to read?”

“I like Schopenhauer,” Giorgio answered. “I also like Cicero and Plato but haven't been able to find any of their work. What do you read?”

Cicero, Plato, and Shoppe … what? I never heard those names but was too proud to say so. I thought hard and fast what to answer. “I read a book on wild animals. It was fascinating.”

“Only human thoughts are fascinating,” Giorgio said.

Did I detect an air of superiority? Because Giorgio wouldn't come down to my level and in no way could I rise to his, I never got to know him well. But as I became more acquainted with his mother, Runia, I concluded that I liked the pleasant woman from Lodz, who was often willing to include me in her conversations. Not a sharp word ever came from her mouth. What a contrast there was between my mother and Runia.
Mutti
an emotional volcano, temperamental and openly affectionate, Runia sedate, reserved, and even-tempered. Considering our displaced lives, when most of us craved a warm embrace or a friendly kiss, Runia was satisfied with a simple hand shake or a light kiss on the cheek.

Giorgio, too, rejected any form of affection. In my impetuous manner, I tried to put my arms around him one day. He pushed me away. “Please don't do that,” he said in a distinct yet slight Polish accent.

Runia wanted us to meet her parents, so one afternoon Mother and I were invited to have tea and cake and make their acquaintance.

“This is Enrico,” Runia introduced me. “You may speak to him in German and call him Erich.”

I shook hands with both her parents and was struck by how much taller Mrs. Rozental was than her husband. I thought the man should always be taller than the woman.