History (31 page)

Since Ida had been there, many of the little crowd that arrived with her had moved elsewhere, to live with relatives, or to go farther into the country. In their place, there had been some newcomers, left homeless after the second bombing of Rome (August 1 3th ), or refugees from the South; but even these, gradually, had scattered to other places. Among those who had remained, like Ida and Useppe, since the fi evening, there was still Cucchiarelli Giuseppe, the marble-cutter who had brought Useppe in his barrow. It seems that, falsifying some documents for the list

1 5 4 H I S T O R Y
. . .
.
. .
1 9 43

of the dead, he had recently managed to have himself included among the bomb victims trapped under the rubble. He preferred to stay incognito with the refugees, counted as dead by the Rome Registry, rather than work as a marble-cutter at the cemetery under the Fascists and Germ

With him there was also his cat ( who proved to be a female, of a handsome stri red-and-orange, Rossella by name); and the pair of ca naries, named Peppiniello and Peppiniella, in their ca hung fr a nail. And the cat, obeying her master's teachings, always gave these two a wide berth, as if she didn't even see them.

The only other inhabitants of the shelter at present were a single family, half-Roman and half-Neapolitan, and so numerous, in itself, that Cucchiarelli Giuseppe nicknamed them
The Thousand.
The Neapolitan components of this family, left homeless that spring after the bombing of Naples, had come to move in wi their relati in Rome; but here again they had remained without a roof, along with their hospitable relations, in the July air raid. "We," they boasted on the subject, joking, "are a military objective." It was diffi to make a precise count of them, because they were a fl ctuating tribe; however, they were never less than twelve and, as some of them improvised various activities and jobs, they enjoyed a relative prosperity. There were some young men, who appeared only at interv generally staying off God knows where, also for fear of the German round ups. There was a very fat old Roman woman, named Sora Mercedes, who was always seated on a bench with a blanket around her because of her arthritis, and under the blanket, she guarded a store of provi There was the husband of Mercedes, a Neapolitan, also a Giuseppe by name. There were two other old women (of whom the more talkative, named Ermelinda, was known to Useppe as Dinda ), another old man, some young daughters-in-law, and the li ttle ones, several kids, boys and girls. In their number ( besides one Currado and one Impero ) there was also an other Giuseppe, so to distinguish the many Giuseppes, they used to ca Mercedes's husband Giuseppe Primo; Giuseppe Secondo was Signor Cuc chiarelli ( whom Ida, to herself, continued to call the Madman ); and Peppe the little Neapolitan. To them was added fi ( not counting the canaries Peppiniello and Peppiniella ) our own Useppe, who of all the Giuseppes was, without doubt, the most lively and popular.

Among The Thousand there was a noticeable gap in the middle-aged generation because two parents (already grandparents of Impero, Currado, etc.) had died, suff ed, in Naples. In addition to various sons, already adult, they had left an orphan daughter, here present among The Thou sand, a last girl by the name of Carulina. She was over fi but looked thirteen; and with her little black braids twisted and pinned over her temples, she suggested a cat, or a fox with its
ears
pri up. About a year

1 5 5

before, in Naples, when they spent the nights in the caves to escape the bombings, this Carulina, then aged fourteen minus one month, had been made pregnant, they didn't know by whom. She herself, in fact, would answer the insistent interrogations of her tribe by sweari that if some body had done it, she hadn't noticed anything. However, there was no relying on her word, because her head was made in such a way that she believed blindly in all fantasies and inventions, not only other people's but also her own. For example, in the Easter season, her relatives at home had told her, teasing, that the Americans, as Easter presents, instead of the usual destructive and incendiary bombs, would drop on Naples some egg bombs, recogniza even up in the sky because of their gaudy colors. Naturally, these would be harmless projectiles which, exploding on the ground, would release surprises : sausages, for exa , chocolate, sweets,
and
so on. From that moment on, the convinced Carulina was alert, always running to the window at the hum of every plane, peering into the sky towards the hoped-for apparition. Finally, on Holy Saturday morning, when she went out to do the shopping, she returned looking as if she had been touched by a miracle; and she off her grandmother a sweet pastry saying that just when she was going by Porta Capuana, from a Flying Fortress an egg-bomb had fallen, the shape of a huge Easter egg, all covered with tinfoil, painted with the designs of the American fl This bomb had exploded just in front of the Gate, without doing any damage. On the contrary! it had spurted lights and sparks like a beautiful Catherine-wheel; and out of it stepped the movie star Janet Gaynor, in a long evening dress, with a jewel on her bosom, and she had promptly started distributing pastries all around. The famous actress had beckoned with her little fi

to Carull in person, handing her the pastry in question, with the words :
Take this to your grandma, poor old woman, she doesn't have many Easters left to her in this world.

"Ah? Is that what she said? What language did she speak to you

in?"

"What do you mean? Italian. Neapolitan. Of course!"

"And afterwards, how did she get back to America? If she hangs

around here too long, they'll take her hostage, she'll be a pri of war! !"

"Nooo! Nooo!" (hotly shaking her head) "What are you talking about? She went right off five minutes later! She had a kind of balloon tied to her, a parachute, only the opposite, that fl up instead of down. So she got back into the Flying Fortress up there waiting for her, and off she went again."

"Ah, fi Thanks a lot and goodbye!"

A
few weeks after this extraordinary event, Carulina reached Rome

1 5 6 H I S T O R Y
. . . . .
.
1943

with her family. And when she arri she looked like a kind of freak of nature: small as she was, and with that enormous belly, so big you couldn't understand how she could carry it along, on her tiny feet. In the month of June, back in Rome, in the San Lorenzo quarter, she had given birth to twin girls, healthy, normal, and plump, while she was thin, though in good health. The pair were named Rosa and Celeste; and since they were, and remained, identical in every respect, their mother, to tell them apart, tied ribbons around their wrists, one rose-colored, the other a celestial blue. Un fortunately, with the passing of time, the two ribbons had become almost unrecognizable in their fi And their mother would examine the ri

each time scrupulously, before certi content: "This one's Rusinella." "This here's Celestina."

Naturally, her scant milk wasn't enough for the two babies; but one of her Roman sisters-in-law helped her out. She was actually suff from an excess of milk, having barely and forcibly weaned her last son (Atti ). Otherwise, he would have been too addicted to tittie, where he wanted to stay attached always; he might grow up to be a mamma's boy.

Carulina, even if she now had a family, was still childish for her age; so she wasn't interested, like her sisters-in-law, in
Film Parade
and other magazines of great success with the female audience; but spelling out the words aloud, she still read stories with illustrations and comic books for babies; and she loved to play tag and hide-and-seek with the kids of the place. However, at even the slightest whimper from Rosa, or from Celeste, she could be seen running, worried, her eyes wide, protruding, like a car's headlights, in the direction of her off ing. She conscientiously shared her scarce milk between the twins, baring her little breasts in public without shame, as something natural. And during this nursing operation she as sumed an air of great importance.

To put them to sleep, she sang a very simple lullaby that went like

th

"Ninna
o
ninna
o

Rusina and Celesta go to sleep, go

0 0

ninna
o."

And this was all, repeated always the same, until that pair fell asleep. The corner reserved for her tribe, in the vast shelter room, was always bedecked, especially on rainy days, with diapers and the infants' little shirts, hung up to dry. She worked constantly, excessively, changing and cleaning her daughters, bru turn them upside down She was, in other words, a good mother: but with brisk, authoritari ways, without

1 5 7

coyness or simpering, indeed, yammeri at the daughters when necessary, as if they understood. Perhaps, too unprepared for motherhood, instead of little babies, she saw in them a pair of her contemporaries, dwarfs, who had emerged from her as
a
surprise, like Janet Gaynor from the egg-bomb.

At the same time, however, in her unexpected promotion to the posi tion of mother, she had somehow promoted herself to be mother of all. She was always to be seen working, fanning the fi here, or washing a rag there, or combing her sister-in-law's hair in the style of the actress Maria Denis, etc., etc. One eternal occupation of hers, also, was to wind up the gramophone, the family's property, which (since their last radio had inevi tably crashed with the bombs ) was kept going from morning till night. The records were few and always the same: two songs, already a couple of years old, which were entitled "My Country Queen" and "Th Vamp of La Scala"; an old Neapolitan comic song, "The Photo"; another of the same ilk, called "Fan Me," in which a certain Carull was also mentioned; and in addition three dance tunes (tango, waltz, and fox trot) and a piece of Italian jazz, with the band of Gomi, Ceragioli, etc.

Carull knew all these titles and names by heart, just as she knew magnifi the names of movie actresses and the titles of pictures. In fact, she was crazy about movies; however, if you asked her the story of the fi she had so enjoyed, you discovered that she hadn't understood a thing. In the place of stories of love, rivalry, adultery, and such, she saw only fantastic movements, like a magic lantern's. And for her, the stars must have been something on the order of Snow White or the fairies in children's magazines. As for the male stars, they interested her much less, because they were less readily identifi in her imagination, with fairy characters.

As she had been born into a tribe, obviously, there had been nothing secret about sex to her eyes, from her earliest childhood. But this fact, oddly, had fostered her sexual indifference, so innocent it resembled abso lute ignorance, to be compared, actually, with that of Rosa and Celeste!

Carull was not beautiful : her graceless little body was already sagging after the double pregnancy, so that it made the movement of her legs unsteady, giving her a disjointed and comical gait like that of certain mongrel puppies. From her scrawny back, her shoulder blades were exces sively prominent, like a pair of plucked, trimmed wings. And her face was irregular, the mouth too big. To Useppe, however, this Carull must have

seemed a world-shaking beauty, if
n
ot actually divine. And at present, the

name he called most often and repeated (after
rna
was
Uli.

For that matter, Useppe had soon learned the names of everybody : Eppetondo (Giuseppe Secondo, alias the Madman, namely Cucchiarelli, who was not
tondo,
or round, but quite skinny), Tole and Memeco ( Sal-

1 5 8 H I S T O R Y .
o o o o o
1 9 43

vatore and Domenico, Caruli's two older brothers), etc., etc. And he didn't hesitate to call them by name joyously, whenever he felt like it, as if they were all little kids like himself. Often, intent on their own aff and schemes, they wouldn't even notice him. But after a moment's bewilder ment, he would already have forgotten the aff

Without doubt, for him there existed no differences of age, or of beauty and ugliness, or sex, or social station. Tole and Memeco were, really, two misshapen, stubby boys, of uncertain profession ( black market eers, or thieves, according to circumstances ), but for him they were the same as two Hollywood strong men or two patricians of high degree. Sora Mercedes stank; but when he was playing hide-and-seek, his favorite hiding place was the blanket she kept over her lap; and at the moment he van ished under it, he would murmur to her in great haste, with a look of complicity: "Don't tell, eh, don't tell!"

A couple of times, towards the end of the summer, a few German soldiers happened by there. And immediately, panic sprea in the shelter, because by now among the common people the Germans seemed worse than enemies. But though the announcement
the Germans
acted in those surroundings as a kind of malediction, little Useppe seemed unaware of it, and he received the unusual visitors with an intent curiosity, wi no suspicion. Now, in these cases, to tell the truth, the Germans were only simple soldiers passing by; they had no evil intentions, nor did they de mand anything beyond a road direction or a glass of water. However, it is certain that if an SS troop had turn up in the room wi all their paraphernalia of massacre, the comical Useppe would not have been afraid of them. That tiny, defenseless being knew no fear, but a universal, spon ta tru For him strangers apparently didn't exi only members of his family, returning after an absence, whom he recognized at fi sight.

On the evening of his arri after the disaster, unloaded, sleeping, from the barrow, he hadn't waked till the following morning, and Ida, to force him to eat something, had had to feed him almost in his sleep. In th night, during that long, long sleep of his, she had heard him start and moan; and, touching him, she thought he was feveri . . . In the morn ing, however (a fi sunny morning), he woke fresh and lively as always. The fi presences he had glimpsed, the minute his eyes were open, had been the two canaries and the twins ( the cat was off on business of her own). And he had immediately rushed towards them, greeting this sight with much spellbound laughter. Then, like a cat, he had -start explori his new, unexplained dwelling, as if to say : "Yes, yes, I'm quite satisfi