A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (30 page)

At twelve I learned to grieve in the way most kids that age did not. Knowing that so many men I had known were no longer alive dampened my enthusiasm for soldiering. I spoke to Benedetti about my inner conflict. “You should not have told me that so many of these cadets have died. I don't think I can continue being with your men knowing they may be going to their death.”

He looked me in the eyes. “I'm sorry, but I understand. I enjoyed having you as a friend. Remember, whenever you want to come back, you will be welcome.” He shook hands with me, then, taking one step backward, gave me the military salute.

May 10, 1942 marked Mother's forty-first birthday. I had always done something special for her on that day. Many years before, when I was only five and we were living in Vienna, I had run down to the courtyard to ask a group of roaming singers who went from building to building to earn a few
Groschen
, to sing the Austrian song for all mothers: “
Mutti
.” Mother had tears in her eyes when she learned I had paid for the song. On other occasions, with Millie to help me, I baked a miniature cake, or when Papa took me out shopping, I picked out a gift for her. Even while we lived in Nice and San Remo I had been able to buy her a small something to show how much I cared for her.

This year, in a small mountain village and with few resources, my options had been greatly reduced. I didn't want to speak to Pietro, for having him buy the gift would have hurt my pride. Instead I spoke to Dora. “What could I give Mamma for her birthday?”

“How much money do you have to spend?”

“I have three lire.”

“That won't buy much. How about making her something?”

Make something? I had never made a gift for my mother.

“Like what?” I asked.

Dora had a few ideas: a scarf, a hat, a wallet.

“That sounds best, the wallet,” I said.

I went to Raffaele's family general store to look for material. I didn't know what I needed and at first was too embarrassed to explain the gift I wanted to make. In the end, realizing what little progress I was making, I told my friend's mother my plan and asked for her advice.

From one of the shelves she dragged down a large roll of shiny cloth. “You need this.”

“But I need a very small piece. Can you cut it for me? I only have three lire.”

The old woman had a puzzled or perhaps annoyed look. I couldn't tell. “Maybe I have a small piece somewhere,” she said. She looked in every corner and rummaged in the rear of the store, but found nothing. “Just because you're Raffaele's friend, I will make an exception. I never cut such a small piece. If I did this for everyone, I would have to close the store. Never could I feed my family. The least I can cut is half a meter. Even that is too small.” I suffered through all of her lamentations, a common practice in Ospedaletto. Perhaps by speaking a lot, people thought the day would slip by faster. The woman did cut a small piece from the oilcloth and handed it to me. “Just remember, only because you are a friend of Raffaele.”

I gave her the money and ran back to Dora. “I got it!” I shouted exuberantly.

“What did she charge you?”

“Three lire.”

“What a thief. Half would have been too much.”

Dora suggested first making a paper pattern. This I did and the next few days were spent secretly cutting, gluing, and taking apart pieces of paper in order to make a model of the wallet. I made many mistakes, but, thanks to the paper pattern, I did not ruin the actual material.

After I'd cut the oilcloth to match the pattern, Dora, with a saintly patience, let me use her sewing machine. “Don't forget to leave enough material at the edges so that the needle won't tear through.” After much agonizing, fearing I could not finish in time or that Mamma might not like the gift, I completed the wallet with two days to spare, thanks to Dora's invaluable help.

For two long, never-ending days I waited for her birthday. Would Mother appreciate what I went through to make her gift? Then, early on the morning of the day, I slipped into her bedroom, hoping she would still be sleeping. She was awake. “Happy birthday,
Mammina.
Here, this is for you.”

As she examined my labor of love, I added with much pent-up enthusiasm, “I made it all by myself. Dora helped me a little, but I designed and sewed it together.”

“It's beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! Just what I needed. Mine is so old already. Thank you, my
Schatzele.
” A few kisses, a big hug, and a promise of a chocolate cake, but mostly the way she held the wallet to her breast made all my work worthwhile.

Later that morning, when Pietro presented my mother with an embroidered nightgown. There was hugging, kissing, and many furtive glances between Mamma and Pietro, but by then I had learned to accept their secretive messages.

A New Suit

W
e were living in San Remo in 1939 and war had not yet broken out when Mussolini spoke on the radio. He promised to make Italy independent from what he labeled the imperialistic countries, where buildings were constructed out of cardboard. I was astounded to learn that in America houses were built out of cardboard. The Italian dictator assured us that Italy was going to produce enough grain, rubber, and armament to make all its forty-five million citizens self sufficient and to have an army of eight million bayonets. I wasn't quite sure what he meant. I asked Mamma, “Does he want just an army of bayonets?”

Three years had passed since that famous speech, but judging from the rationing that began during the early days of the war, his plan was a dismal failure. Flour, the most essential staple for Italian families, was the first item to be rationed, followed by bread, pasta, and sugar. Soon the long list filled two printed pages. Only the pure mountain water was still freely available. From soap to candles, jams to oil, almost nothing could be bought without a coupon, and often not even if you had one. Wool fabric was not rationed, for it was useless to issue coupons for items that could not be found anywhere.

While visiting his family in Sicily, Pietro had sent us a gift package. With a bit of luck, we found a neighbor willing to bring the large — and it was massive — wooden crate from Avellino on his horse-drawn cart. Three men were needed to carry the crate up to our kitchen, where, with cheerful anticipation, Mother and I gazed at the huge container.

“Oh, no! I wonder what broke?” Mamma exclaimed, looking at the oil oozing from the crate.

With borrowed tools, I removed the cover. Cautiously we searched through the straw. Pasta, pasta, and more pasta. Not store-bought but special, homemade pasta. This was like finding gold. Pietro had sent us enough pasta to last us a year and even share some with Dora.

We searched and found the broken bottle at the bottom of the crate. The rich, priceless olive oil had soaked every item except, miraculously, a bolt of woolen cloth Pietro had sent for me. With care, Mother pulled the material out.

“Do you realize how rare this is?” she said. “Look here. 'Made in England,'” she read from the edge. “Pietro must have had this from before the war.”

“Now you can get a new suit. Pietro is so good to us.”

After sharing the secret of the fabric with Dora, Mother asked if she knew a tailor in Avellino. “If I show the material to anyone here, the whole town will know about it.”

“You are right,” Dora agreed. “I know someone in Avellino.”

When Mother confided in Runia Kleinerman about the material and our impending trip to Avellino, Runia asked to come along. “I never told anyone. I have been holding on to a piece of cloth to make George a suit. This is a good opportunity.”

Runia and my mother went to the police station to ask for a permit to leave town. The next morning, the two mothers, Giorgio, and I, met in front of the post office to catch the bus to Avellino.

“I have not been to a city in more than a year,” Mamma said. “I feel so free and we haven't left yet.”

While the two mothers held a lively conversation for the thirty or more minutes it took the bus to reach our destination, eighteen-year-old Giorgio wanted nothing to do with twelve-year-old me.

In Avellino, with Dora's directions in hand, Mamma led the way down the narrow street and into a small, bleak, unlit shop, where a short man, working beneath a faint lamp, came forward to greet as though he was welcoming a long lost friend. Runia and my mother, looking around the shop and toward the door, guardedly removed the two bolts of cloth from their paper wrappings. “
Bello
,
molto bello
,” the tailor exclaimed. Then, lifting my cloth, he exclaimed how beautiful he found our English-made cloth: “
Bellissimo. Fatto in Inghilterra. Per bacco
!”

My mother told the man we wanted two suits, one for each of the boys. “I want you to give us a special price,” she said.

The man, dropping his head to his chest and placing one open hand on his chin, peered into emptiness. He was looking over his glasses and I noticed they were broken and held together by a black thread. He stared at Giorgio first, then at me, then went into a long self-consultation and finally, looking at both mothers, mumbled a price for his labor.

“Oh, no. That's much too much,” Mamma said. “We couldn't possibly afford that.”

He scratched his head and volunteered a reduction. “I'll take off ten lire from each suit since you're ordering two.”

Mother looked at Runia. Considering the textile shortage, the man could not possibly have been too busy. “You'll have to do better than that,” Mamma said.

The man cleared his throat and with a dramatic tone that he must have practiced for years, conveyed this gem: “If I do it for one
centesimo
less, I'll be losing money.”

“You'll have to take off fifteen lire for each suit because that's all we can afford.”

As per local practice, the tailor put on a small performance. He grasped a piece of partially used paper and a pencil stub and, with his arm extended, he waved it through the air in a grandiose theatrical gesture. Then, holding it out of the women's sight, he brought the pencil tip to his tongue and scribbled something. Again peering over his glasses, he looked at the two women. “If I keep doing this, I'll be ruined. You're such lovely ladies.” A flirtatious smile brightened his unshaven face.

He rubbed the corner of one cloth between two of his fingers as though looking for some magical inspiration. “But you must promise you will tell no one. I swear I wouldn't do it for anyone else at this price.” Swearing was big in these parts of the world but meant very little — unless one swore in the name of a divinity, then it meant a little more.

The bargaining over, the tailor began to take our measurements. This, too, he did with dramatic gestures. Squeezing the tape between two fingers to mark my waist size, he pranced around looking for something to write on. Still holding the mark on the tape, he pulled a badly worn booklet from a drawer, leafed through it and, as I looked in disbelief, picked the corner of a page already filled to write my measurements. How would he be able tell the sleeve from the leg? Or was my information from that already there?

Mother seemed to have the same concern. “Excuse me. Did you want to put our names on the sheet?” she asked. Her diplomacy was obvious. She was not about to arouse his southern Italian temper.

“Don't need to. Keep everything in my head. Never make a mistake.” His grin and tone of voice showed great confidence. He pointed at me, asked for my name, and marked it in the same corner. “Here, to make you happy,
Signora
.”

Finished with me and, after taking Giorgio's measurements, the tailor asked us to return in two weeks for the first fitting. Out on the street, my mother expressed her concern that the man never marked which measurements went with which cloth.

“I wouldn't worry,” Runia said. “He must have been doing this for years. I'm sure it will be all right. What I find strange is that everyone loses money in this country.”

Mother laughed. We had been in Italy longer than our friends and Mamma understood the local mentality better. “Don't believe a word. He isn't losing money. I just hope we're not overpaying. I'm more concerned that he will be able to find the page, read his writing, and know it's us.”

Two weeks to the day, with a new permit from the
carabinieri
, the four of us boarded the bus to Avellino. I was in high spirits, looking forward to my new suit. The ride on the Irpina Coach was always an adventure. One always knew when he left but never knew when he would get back.

The coach, looking as though it had been pressed into service from a museum, was the only means of public transportation to and from Ospedaletto. In normal times it might not have even qualified for junk, but now, since factories had been converted to the war effort, this dilapidated, battered, and rundown vehicle was being used to prevent our village from becoming totally isolated. And because fuel was in such short supply, the bus had been modified to run on methane gas. A tall cylindrical contraption looking like a torpedo and mounted on the rear of the bus burned the wood that would hopefully produce the needed gases to run the vehicle. If the driver made sure he had enough wood and if the wood burned and produced enough methane and if the gas reached the front of the vehicle and entered the engine, then the trip would be trouble-free. But the ifs didn't always materialize and, on the days when the bus stalled and, stall it did often, the passengers were asked to push it along and help it get to its destination. One was always certain to get to Avellino, for the road was downhill, but on the return trip, one would consider oneself fortunate if the coach lasted long enough to stall within walking distance of our village.

The day of our trip, we arrived in Avellino on schedule.

“It would be asking too much to get back without a breakdown,”
Mutti
remarked.

“I have not seen a film in so long,” I said. “Do you think we could go see a movie?”

“If we have time, after the tailor,” Mamma replied.