A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (22 page)

Early each Sunday morning, Dora brushed her shiny hair, slipped into a clean black dress and left home before eight to attend the early mass. Ida, the young live-in maid, got the children ready so Antonio could take them to church later. Each Sunday, while the family was at church, Dora prepared different kinds of pastas, meats, and desserts. In awe, I watched how fast she used a sharp knife to create even-sized fettuccine or a fork to score small bits of dough to create fresh gnocchi.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“Sure, pull up a chair and I'll teach you how to make gnocchi.”

I sat next to Dora, trying to duplicate whatever she was doing. Often my mistakes had to be scrapped and reworked into dough, creating much frustration for me but not for Dora, who never seemed to mind. Only after several weeks, having mastered the technique, could I be of help to her.

Every Sunday morning the scent of tomato sauce filled her kitchen and seeped into the hallway. Dora started cooking before leaving for church, because, as she once said, “A good sauce needs to simmer for at least six hours.” Basically the sauce was always the same, plain or with a small meat roast, but I never tired of that exquisite bouquet of fresh tomatoes, oregano, garlic, and basil. One of my great treats was whenever Dora invited me to share the Sunday meal with her family.

“Dora, I will not let you invite us to dinner. You cannot afford the extra flour,” Mamma protested.

“Don't worry. I have plenty. Even if I didn't have enough, we would be happy to share it with you.” Dora's invitations came from the heart, and I was allowed, from time to time, to accept, although my mother declined more often than not.

The weather in late September was still summery, so at night we left our balcony doors wide open to the crisp mountain air. I had always loved the mountains that, along with the local water, were two of the few joys of Ospedaletto.

We had been in our new apartment just a few days when, in the middle of the night, we were shaken from our sleep by hundreds of feet grinding the gravel road. Shattering the night's silence, the sound had a spookiness to it. I jumped out of bed, as much curious as scared and, without knocking rushed into Mother's room to find her sitting in bed. Together, barefoot and holding hands, we moved to the balcony to see what had awakened us. We leaned far back against the wall to make us less visible and peered down the moonlit road. An uninterrupted column of people was snaking along the main road and breaking their silence with occasional chants.

The pilgrimage season to the monastery of Montevergine had begun. The pilgrims walked for days, some from as far away as fifty or more miles, with only a few loaves of bread and perhaps some tomatoes to appease their hunger. Men walked barefoot and carried their shoes over one shoulder, while a large napkin, its four corners knotted together so as to hold their provisions, hung from a tree branch resting on the other shoulder. The women, close behind, some with
zoccoli
but most barefoot, skillfully balanced a suitcase or a heavy vine basket on their heads. We watched whole families, from infants in their parents' arms to old men and women walking with the aid of handmade canes, go by our balconies.

They were going to Montevergine to pray and from Ospedaletto, they had to tackle the steep stony path up the mountain. After their long and exhausting walk to the top, as their final task the faithful would ascend the twenty-three steps leading up to the sanctuary on their knees. Day and night for six weeks, the columns of devotees passed under our balconies.

I soon memorized their dissonant chants as they passed through the village.

“
Simmu arrivate ad Ospidaletto e a Maronna cce Stan rimpetto
.”

“Simmu arrivate a Summonte e a Maronna cce Stan in fronte
.”

During that period, dozens of wooden stands, would be erected and lined up along the pilgrims' path. I had seen some of the preparations but had not realized what an important event this was for the town. The stands displayed strings of dried chestnuts and smoked hazelnuts as well as the popular homemade honey nougat. The merchants sold this local specialty either in pre-wrapped pieces of various sizes or in bulk. Bulk nougat was priced less by the pound than the packaged goods because the weight of the chunks could be deftly manipulated to make them appear to weigh more than their actual weight.

“Don't put your lousy finger there,” a woman shouted. She had caught the man using his small finger to give the scale that extra downward push. Having seen that so often during my short stay, I assumed no one considered it a crime. “You're just outsmarting the customer,” someone told me.

Many of the townspeople earned a portion of their annual income during this short period of six or seven weeks. Whole families were engrossed in the enterprise. They worked in shifts, manning the stands day and night. Grandparents, women nursing babies, fathers, and children of various degrees of dirtiness, clothing colors, and ages, all took turns selling their wares and guarding their stands around the clock. The season was short and they needed to take advantage of every minute. At night the stands, each lit by one acetylene lamp, presented an eerie scene in the looming shadows.

During pilgrimage season, Ospedaletto d'Alpinolo bustled with people, lending this otherwise dormant village an uncharacteristic liveliness. Only the twice-a-year concert by a roving band of musicians similarly energized the townspeople and shook them out of their lethargy.

A few steps from our building flowed a narrow and shallow rivulet where local women gathered to wash their clothes. Looking down from the small bridge, I realized the gossip as much as doing the wash was what brought these women together. Their skirts raised above their knees — the only time in Ospedaletto when one could see a woman's bare leg above the ankle — they stood in the cold mountain water. Some used soap and a corrugated metal washboard; others, holding the garment at one end, would swing it hard against a protruding rock to beat the dirt out of it and save the precious rationed soap. When all the gossip was exhausted, the women intoned local songs, which must have been passed down for generations.

But Ospedaletto d'Alpinolo was also a very industrious village. Chestnuts and hazelnuts were its natural resources and nougat was produced with pride.

One morning, walking through town, I watched a young man banging and turning a large wooden spoon in a copper cauldron hanging over a wood fire. The spoon was the size of the oars the fishermen used in San Remo and the kettle was at least twice as large as the water-filled ones the local women carried on their heads. Forcefully he pushed the spoon down, then half a turn around the kettle in a constant one, two, three rotation. From time to time he switched hands and continued his hypnotic labor without missing a beat. I asked the man how long he had to do this. Without stopping his constant rhythmic pound-and-mix movement, he replied that he needed to stir the mixture of honey and hundreds of egg whites for eight hours and keep the fire going before adding the roasted hazelnuts and create a superior nougat.

Days later I again stopped by that shop to watch the young man. I might have liked to try my hand at it, but realized the mere size of that ladle made it too heavy for my small frame. At the end of the day, the man stopped and reached for a towel to dry his face and body. After resting for a few minutes, together with abothe man they poured the thick paste onto a marble slab. Slowly it spread to the edges, but the men were quick to stop the run with a large wooden paddle.

The young man came to me. “When it cools I'll give you a taste. But it will take another hour.”

By asking many questions, I soon grasped a geographical picture of where Ospedaletto d'Alpinolo was located. Over the mountain that hugged the village and less than twenty-five miles to the north lay Naples. To the west, down the valley and almost equidistant, was Salerno, while to the east, following the main road from Avellino and continuing past our building, was the city of Benevento.

In Ospedaletto chickens and pigs lived in people's courtyards and sometime inside their homes.

Summer was coming to an end but the days were still hot. Laboring up the hill coming back from city hall, I was startled by a high-pitched squeal. I stalled my steps just as a large fat pig, chased by a wild mob, came charging from a small opening between buildings and almost crashed into me. Men and boys of all ages were falling over each other, their screams and laughter competing with the hunted animal's oinks. Every time one of the chasers grabbed the tail or leg of the pig, the animal let out a squeal that ran an icy chill through me.

Without leaving my spot, I turned on my heels to watch the numerous chases up and down the road and the fine dust that rose into the air. One of the men always managed to get in front of the animal, forcing it to turn around and run back into the chasing crowd. Inwardly, I cheered for the outnumbered pig. The animal, in spite of its large size, was swift and agile and with sudden stops and turnarounds, it outmaneuvered the frenzied mob until one boy threw himself on the exhausted hog and the others, quick to take advantage of the swine's immobility, grasped its limbs and dragged it back squealing into the house from which it had escaped.

Dozens of onlookers came from around town to witness the animal's slaughter. The spectacle was a break in the monotony of the villagers' everyday lives.

The hog was strong, a good match for the strength of the seven muscular men holding it down over a wooden barrel. While the animal finally yielded to the superior forces and stopped kicking its legs, it continued its endless, soul-piercing, high-pitched screeching. Standing there, inside the house, I was fantasizing an escape plan for the pig, when a man approached the animal and, with one pass of a long sharp knife, slashed its throat.
Swush!
The sound, sent a tremor rushing through my body while the dying pig's grunts slowly decreased into a low murmur.

The small room overflowed with people pushing and shoving in their attempt not to miss any details of the gruesome spectacle. Children created a circus-like atmosphere by jumping up and down, women spoke loudly, some men either helped in the killing or gave the semblance they were and a few older men enjoyed stinky little Tuscan cigars. In this mix of humanity, flies were everywhere, landing on me, on people, and on the bleeding pig.

The chase might have been bedlam but the killing ritual was well orchestrated. Just before the first drop of blood gushed out from the opened throat, someone had squeezed through the crowd and placed a wooden bucket on the floor to collect it. The pig did not take long to die. I hated to watch the animal twitch and, while it was not totally still, it quivered from time to time. I was hoping it could no longer feel pain.

The steaming blood had stopped spurting into the bucket and the man with the knife slit open the animal's underside. From its throat to its tail he cut a straight line. Then, with the help of two others, the butcher parted the two sections and cleaned out everything the animal held within its body. I had never seen intestines, hearts, lungs, or any insides, or blood gushing freely from a living creature and the sight made me nauseous. Only my compulsive curiosity kept me watching, making sure not to miss anything for I wanted to describe it all to Mamma.

These people wasted nothing. I was full of questions and the man standing next to me was very obliging. He explained that every part of the animal was used. The blood served to make sausages and some other gross concoction, its intestines served as casings for sausages, and the thick, fatty skin would be fried.

I stayed longer than half the people there, until the procedure became routine. On the way home, mentally I prepared the details to be shared with my mother, but as soon as she heard the words “pig” and “slaughter” she stopped me, thus foregoing the gory description of the butchering and limiting my explanation for being late.

“What a foul smell. I didn't know whether it came from the pig, the people, or the house. Mamma, you cannot believe the filth. Worse than Annunziata's room.”

In the succeeding months, I met many more townsfolk and, in their homes, found similar squalor, where dogs, chickens, fleas, and flies mingled freely with villagers. But most of the people I met were kind and hospitable. I seemed to be a novelty to them: foreign, clean, and well dressed. Often, I felt they kowtowed to me.

New Internees Arrive

S
easons changed rapidly in Ospedaletto. As summer gave way to fall, the weather turned dreary and the incessant rain and shorter days dampened our moods. The roads deteriorated to mud and our morning walks became fewer. Thus, when in the early fall of 1941 we greeted two new arrivals, our spirits lifted. These two men were confinati politici, the true enemies of Fascism.

The morning after they arrived in Ospedaletto, Ettore Costa and Pietro Russo joined the group of internees at the customary corner. Pietro smiled often, displaying a slightly chipped tooth that kept attracting my attention. Ettore wore such thick glasses to make his eyes appear enormous. Once the obligatory, somewhat lengthy introductions were out of the way, a barrage of questions hit the newsworthy Italians.

Ettore was the first to respond and the vigor with which he answered each person revealed his vibrant personality.

“Why am I here?” his voice rang out as he answered the question someone put to him. “Well, for one thing I am a professed anti-Fascist. I will write against this miserable dictator as long as I have strength left to hold a pen. After that, I'll ask someone else to write for me.”

“Aren't you afraid to speak so loud?” Mamma asked.

“Why? What are they going to do, send me to an internment camp?” His laughter was an obvious sign he enjoyed his own bitter humor.

“Frankly, I'd rather not discuss politics in the street. You never know who is listening,” my mother said.

“What about you, Signor Russo?” John Howell asked. “Why did they send you here?”