A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (26 page)

Don Giuseppe Sabatino, a young priest who had left Ospedaletto three years earlier to enter the seminary, returned home prepared to perform his first mass. He was lanky and pale, only the much-too-loose black tunic added some bulk to his frail body. His concave cheeks accentuated the lack of flesh, and the cartilage in his pointed nose was almost visible through the thin layer of skin, giving him a semblance of a dead man. Only his dark eyes glowed with vitality, in that otherwise lifeless face yet when he spoke, his zest for life was anything but lifeless.

Don Giuseppe had a certain charisma that made the local folks like him. Given the nature of the townspeople, so often bent on finding fault with anyone, liking this new priest was close to miraculous. Don Giuseppe had been back a few days when I spotted this new face sitting at the caffê on the small square. Prompted by my usual curiosity, I approached his table.

“Father, where are you from?” I asked.

“From Ospedaletto. I've been away for a while, but now I'm back to stay. What's your name?”

That morning, from our very first exchange, I sensed a bond. I was drawn to this man of the cloth, though I knew it would never meet with my mother's blessing. The glimmer in his intelligent eyes reflected that he enjoyed talking with me.

“What did they teach you at the seminary?” I asked.

“We learned many things. We studied the Holy Scriptures and also Hebrew. You did not know that, did you?”

“No. I also studied Hebrew but never liked it. Tell me something, why do priests always try to convert us Jews?”

“Because the New Testament tells us we cannot shed the original sin and be allowed into heaven until we have been baptized.”

“What original sin?” I asked. I had heard similar invitations to become a Catholic and remembered how one of the internees had handled the debate. But I had not heard the part about the original sin.

“When God told Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit.”

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or be serious. Was this man joking, or did he think I was a total fool? I knew the tale of Adam and Eve, but the thought that eating the apple was the original sin and that her sin was my sin seemed hysterically funny to me. Still, I held back from laughing for fear of offending my new friend. “Are you telling me that because she ate the apple, I'm guilty?”

“We all are. Eve disobeyed the Lord's command.”

“I can't believe what you're telling me. I'll remain Jewish. We don't have these
bubbe mayse
,” I said, throwing in some Yiddish for good measure.

“What was that you said?”

“
Bubbe mayse
?”

“Yes”

“It means a grandmother's tale.”

He laughed. “You're a good debater,” he remarked. “Where did you learn it?”

“From my mother and the other grownups. I don't have friends my own age.”

Don Giuseppe's appearance into my small world created a ray of joy. I rushed home to break the big news to Mother. “
Mammina
, I just met this priest, Don Giuseppe. I like him. I think we'll become friends.”

“
Eyn glik hot mik getrofen
!” That was
Mutti
's favorite expression. She had used it so often that I knew its sarcastic meaning.

“No matter what I do, you have to criticize it!” I shouted.

“I only said I'm so lucky. How do you expect me to feel? I can't send you to a synagogue, and now you pick a Catholic priest for a pal. Do you want me to light a candle in church?”

Her humor disarmed me somewhat. “Well, I like Don Giuseppe and he's going to be my friend. You will like him, too.”

Pietro was more understanding, but then he was Catholic. Catholic! For the first time this reality struck me. How can Mamma even think of being with a man who was not Jewish? That was inconceivable in our family. What was going on? Was everything upside down?

The time I spent with the young priest was never enough for me. Every get-together helped sharpen my mental agility. We had stimulating discussions even if occasionally I had to listen to his lectures on why I should convert.

Because I wanted us to remain friends, I asked him to let the religious argument rest and after a few more failed attempts, he did. Following his consecration, he invited me to be present when he celebrated his first mass. I was proud that this Catholic priest was willing to count me among his friends and never made me feel uncomfortable for being Jewish.

That year he invited me to spend Christmas night with his family. “Come to church and, after midnight mass, you'll come to the house. You don't have to pray or take communion.”

Staying out all night needed Mother's approval. “Because it's Don Giuseppe, I'll give you special dispensation. I made a funny.” She laughed at her own joke.

On Christmas Eve, I skipped church. Instead I took a short nap and, at about one in the morning, went to Don Giuseppe's home. The night was spent playing games and eating Christmas cookies until the early morning. As I was ready to leave, Don Giuseppe's mother invited me to come back for New Year's Eve.

What a difference between the companions I had left behind in San Remo and the youth I found in Ospedaletto. My old friends were well mannered and clean. I never heard them use vulgarities, while in this village cursing was the everyday language. Kids started early in life to repeat the profanities they heard their parents use. For the first time I was exposed to words I did not quite understand but was too bashful to ask my mother or Pietro for an explanation.

But foul language was the least objectionable of the local boys' behavior. I found their cruelty intolerable. They routinely threw stones at dogs and anything that moved, and they enjoyed taunting the two mentally retarded young men who roamed the village. Reluctantly, I learned to stay out of the way of these urchins and, out of self-defense, I practiced pitching stones, limiting my throwing at inanimate objects.

The girls and young women of the village were not any less aggressive. They exchanged invectives and occasionally fought amongst themselves, which invariably included pulling each other's long hair. I couldn't help thinking about the lice crawling from the pulled hair onto their hands and arms. How disgusting!

“I don't want you to associate with those boys,” Mamma said firmly after she had seen me walk through the piazza with two of the local kids.

Pietro, who was in the kitchen with us, agreed with my mother. “You must be careful about the company you keep. There is an old saying: 'Tell me with whom you go and I will tell you who you are.'”

I had a feeling they were both right, and furthermore, I wasn't about having any of those boys as my friends. Nonetheless, I resented being kept from doing so. “I'm sick and tired of always having to do what you want me to.” I complained. “I go with you when you play bridge. But the adults won't let me play because I'm too young. Jimmy thinks he is too old for me and when I find my own friends you say they aren't good enough.”

“You know Raffaele and his brother. Why don't you spend more time with them?” Mother said referring to the two Sanseverino boys whose father owned the one general store in the village.

“Raffaele has little time; he always has so much homework. And Giovanni is too old for me.”

Mother also encouraged my friendship with Sabato Pisano, who was at least six years my senior. Because Ospedaletto's solitary school offered only the first five grades, those select few who owned shoes and the appropriate clothing could walk the four miles to Avellino to attend high school. The other villagers' children remained illiterate, since their parents were seldom able to feed their offspring, let alone worry about giving them an education.

One day in the post office, I saw someone place an X on a document. “What does the ex mean?” I asked Don Guglielmo, the postmaster.

“That's his signature. The man cannot write.”

Raffaele belonged to one of the few fortunate families who could afford to provide an education for their children. His day began around 5:00, so he could make his four-mile trek in the morning darkness down the narrow footpath that led to Avellino. When classes were over at 1:00, my friend retraced his steps, sometimes through knee-deep snow.

“How come your sisters don't go to high school?” I asked.

He burst into a hearty laugh. “Are you joking?” he said. “Even in my family — and we are more modern than most — my father wouldn't think of letting my sisters walk to Avellino alone.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It just isn't done.”

Because of old traditions, most young women in Ospedaletto never had the benefit of a better education.

Two years had elapsed since I had seen the inside of a classroom, and I became concerned about the education I was not getting. Without any objection on my part,
Mutti
approached Clara Gattegno, who was respected for her cultural background.

“I beg you, give Enrico some tutoring. He needs to study something. Anything.”

“Lotte, I have never tutored anyone and besides, my eyesight has been getting progressively worse.”

“Please, Claruccia. Anything.”

Born in Ankara of Turkish parents some thirty years earlier, Clara Gattegno had moved to Italy as a child. Among her natural gifts were a strikingly sculptured head of short, black, curly hair, dark and fiery eyes, testimony of her Sephardic heritage as well as rounded cheeks and a well-defined mouth. Had she devoted a little time to her personal grooming she would have looked most attractive.

One day while Clara was visiting us, Mamma offered to help. “Let me fix your hair.”

“No, no. I don't have time for such nonsense. I'd rather embellish my mind than waste time on my looks.”

It wasn't just idle talk. She had a greatly embellished mind. I could listen to her talk and always be in awe. She was well informed and could discuss so many subjects.

Sipping tea in our kitchen, she confided to us, “I have never been religious. I don't remember the last time I saw the inside of a synagogue. When I asked the police commissioner in Naples why I was being sent away, he said because I was Jewish. Strange, though several of my Jewish friends are still in Naples living a normal life. Who can understand these Fascists?”

Succumbing to Mamma's pleadings, Clara relented and agreed to tutor me. I don't know who was happier at her capitulation, Mother or me, but I looked forward to the twice-a-week afternoon lessons. Clara taught me Italian literature, history, geography, and mathematics and rewarded my progress with postage stamps she had collected years earlier when she had worked at the American consulate.

I completed the daily assignments with enthusiasm and waited for my next lesson. Perhaps I had developed a crush on this gentle and beautiful woman and I loved the time we spent together.

Pietro Russo and Ettore Costa

T
he names of North African towns — Tobruk, Tripoli, Bengazi — were on every internee's lips. Was it Feldmarschall Rommel or was it General Montgomery who had struck a big blow the day before? It was impossible to ever get the truth from the state radio. If we were to believe what we had been told by the Italian newscasts, then British forces already had been annihilated and the only men left in that army were a few old cooks. I noticed Mother had become more vigilant when listening to the BBC. She confided that she was afraid Filomena would tell her husband and that it would turn into a major disaster.

Each morning, as my mother approached our gathering point in the piazza, the first question from the internees was, “So, hear anything new?”

“You will get me in trouble if you don't stop asking that question out loud,” Mamma complained. “I am afraid someone will overhear you and that will be it.”

Mr. Perutz, huffing and puffing, his weak legs straining to carry his portly body, was rushing up the incline to join the group at the regular meeting spot. Out of breath, he called for our attention. “Heard the latest? They bombed La Valletta again.” He was referring to the capital of the tiny island of Malta. The island belonged to Great Britain and Axis planes bombed the island every single day.

“I don't understand something,” Ettore said. “If, as they tell us, they have bombed Malta every day and I know the Fascist radio wouldn't lie to us, there can't be anything left standing. Then what are they still bombing? As a good Italian, I am indignant. They are wasting my money. I must write to Mussolini.”

Mr. Perutz had more to report. Evidently he must have listened to the BBC. “The best news is that a large convoy of Italian tankers docked in Tripoli, but instead of petrol, the tanks were filled with salt water.” As soon as that bit of news seeped in, everyone broke out in a guarded outburst of joy. “Can you imagine what this will do to Rommel? He needs this fuel to continue his North African campaign.”

Pierce pointed his finger at Mr. Perutz. “The day will come when you will wish you had been on the right side.”

“We
are
on the right side,” Mamma said.

“You keep believing in your
Duce
,” Perutz said. “We'll see who will have wished for what.”

Now it was my mother's turn. “Signor Pierce, I cannot understand something. If you're such a great supporter of Fascism and Mussolini, how come you're here with us?”

Pierce waived both arms in the air while his face contracted in an ugly smirk. “Bureaucracy, bureaucracy. Just a simple bureaucratic error. And small errors will have to wait. I don't expect the people in Rome to find the time now to examine my case.”

“Signor Pierce, you are a lost cause,” Mother said.

On another morning, arriving at the corner earlier than usual, Ettore Costa was waiting for everyone to gather before divulging the rumor he himself had concocted. “Did you hear the latest?” he murmured. He bowed and pushed his slightly balding head into the group around him. Everyone stooped to bring their ears closer. He waited for a moment, then, with the tip of his index finger, pushed his thick glasses up on his forehead. “Last night hundreds of German planes bombed Tobruk. An absolute inferno.” He stopped to let the news sink in. “Damage report: one flat bicycle tire.”