Neapolitan Chronicles Page 6

  Outside the grotto it was much more beautiful. The shepherds were a real army, motionlessly inundating that small mountain. They appeared to be going up and down the slopes, looking out of one of the white houses built into the rock (in the style of southern towns), or leaning over a well, or sitting at the table of a country inn; or, finally, to be sleeping, waking, walking, courting a girl, or selling (and you could see their mouths opened in a cry) a basket of fish, or resoling shoes (sitting at a cobbler’s bench), or performing a tarantella, while another, crouching in a corner with a mischievous air, touched a guitar. Many, standing near a donkey or some sheep, had their arms raised to indicate a distant point in that blue paper, or shielded their eyes with one hand to protect them from the bright light of an angel, who had dropped from a tree, with a strip of paper on which was written “Hosanna!” or “Peace on earth to men of good will!” Finally, there were two elegant cafés, on the model of those in Piazza dei Martiri, with small nickel-plated tables on the sidewalk, and red-wheeled carriages that drove up and down, carrying ladies holding fans and white parasols.

  Every so often someone stopped piously in front of that simulacrum of the Divinity, and observed this or that animal, or even picked one up—a sheep or a rooster—and examined it from all sides with curiosity.

  The room was already full of family members, chatting as they waited for lunch, and the younger, like Petrillo and Anna, jokingly played some notes on the piano.

  “Murolo is always Murolo,” Eduardo was saying, while Anna, standing in front of the piano, played now this key, now that one, enunciating, with her mouth closed, the words of Core ’ngrato—Ungrateful Heart—the same that could be heard in the morning, rising here and there in the narrow streets from phonographs and radios:

  Tutto è passato!

  “That’s enough, enough of these sad things,” said Dora. “Today is supposed to be joyful. This is the year that everyone’s getting married,” she added, winking at Anastasia.

  Anastasia, standing near the balcony, elegantly dressed, but with a long, melancholy expression, because she was still thinking of this life and of Antonio, gave her a glance full of gratitude and at the same time of anxiety, feeling herself revive yet again in those words. Therefore, she, too, was considered young; for her, too, there was hope! And that obstruction in her heart, that confused shame, that opposition to thinking things not suitable for her—maybe those were the mistake, and not the hope of living.

  Aunt Nana’s walking stick could be heard pounding everywhere. The poor woman, like a frog that happens into a circle of butterflies and no longer cares about the boredom of its existence, was eager to seize on some voice, a single note in that jumbled, gentle chatter, which would restore to her a connection with what she had long ago lost. Youth and love tormented her with curiosity, and she examined faces, unable to hear the voices, and muttered and laughed continuously, approving what she thought she grasped.

  “Oh, oh, what joy, what beauty is youth!” On her yellow cheeks, in honor of youth, she had put a little rouge, and now her terrible eyes were burning. “Oh, oh, what joy!”

  “As for me,” Giovannino Bocca, a young man with a carrot-colored mustache and big red ears, was saying, “as for me, I think the Naples team is on its way to becoming good. But it needs money … yeah … a lot of money.”

  “Also, our stadium needs to be renovated …” Eduardo observed, in a bored tone, and, approaching the piano, he moved some scores around on the music stand. “It seems that Casa Ricordi is having a revival. Have you heard what great songs they have this year?”

  “Here’s one that’s pretty good for dancing,” said Anna. “Listen …”

  “It really makes you want to dance,” and Dora Stassano spun around vivaciously, while Petrillo observed her.

  There was nothing extraordinary here. Anastasia knew and pitied the young, who were sickly and unemployed, with few ambitions, few dreams, a scant life; and yet, at that moment, they appeared to her beautiful, healthy, happy, rich in dreams and possibilities that would one day be fulfilled; and she shared in that joy, even though she knew that it didn’t belong to her, that she was remote from it. Her brain knew this, but her blood no longer knew it. Now at any moment, the young man would arrive; the door would open and he would come right in, and, sitting at the table, without looking at her, would ask, a little self-conscious, a little emotional: “Well, how are we doing? And you, Anastasia, still at the shop? I heard you’re getting married, too, is it true?” Oh, my God! Everything would change, after that conversation, the afternoon would be different from the usual, and the evening as well; maybe, talking to Anna in their room, late at night, she would tell her everything. And the next day would be another day, and the day after, too. The news would spread. “Anastasia’s getting married … It seems she’s marrying the Lauranos’ older son … He’s younger than she is, but men have these odd passions … He’ll never leave her … He’s jealous.” No, jealous was too much, even if it warmed her heart. They would say, instead: “She’s almost old, but he loves her just the same … It was a feeling he’d had for years … He admired her.”

  “To the table, to the table!” Signora Finizio cried just then, entering the room with a tray that held the steaming white porcelain soup tureen, full of the countless little yellow eyes of the broth.

  With a great scraping of chairs, the table was soon occupied. Prayers were recited, good wishes repeated, and Anastasia felt a happiness so intoxicating and strange that, suddenly, without saying a word, she went around kissing everyone, mother, siblings, in-laws, and when she returned to her place, her eyes shining with tears, she couldn’t breathe.

  They had finished the appetizer, and were tasting the first tagliolini, with small sighs of satisfaction (only Anastasia, completely absorbed in her dream, had barely touched her spoon), when the contentedness and peace of that hour were pierced by an indescribable noise, a broad and secret wave of sounds, of sighs rising from the courtyard overlooked by the dining room balcony, and from the building’s stairways and open loggia. Petrillo, who had jumped up to go and see, held his breath for a moment, then erupted in an excited “Madonna! ” at which they all or almost all rose abruptly to go to the windows, while Nana, who, her mouth full, and intent on chewing, hadn’t noticed anything, continued to repeat, “Oh, what joy, oh, what joy!”

  In front of one of the two doors on the third floor, where Donn’Amelia lived, there was a small crowd from which rose weeping and laments. That weeping came from the servant and one or two neighbors, while the others confined themselves to remarking on the fate that had cut off the life of Donn’Amelia, still young.

  In a rush, Eduardo opened the balcony door, and they all went out, despite the cold air, to see better. Indeed, all the tenants had done the same.

  The balconies overlooking the courtyard were crowded with people who had interrupted Christmas lunch to observe with surprise and a certain disquiet how death had passed over that house, and on a holiday, too. Silence had fallen on the Finizio family, which was then broken by remarks such as:

  “Who would have thought!”

  “Poor Donn’Amelia!”

  “Still, she was ill.”

  “Don Liberato was in time to see her.”

  From one person in the crowd came this message, directed toward a distant balcony: “She died with the blessing of the Holy Father!”

  “Lucky her!” responded another voice. “Now her suffering is over.”

  “This life is a torment,” another lamented.

  “Punishment.”

  “Hear the bells!” (And in fact they were rumbling again, announcing the last Mass.) “They’re ringing for her.”

  “She’s no longer of this world.”

  “God rest her soul.”

  And the Finizio family, as if dazed, murmured:

  “On this day!”

  “Who would have expected it!”

  “Now we must go and offer our condolences!”

&nbs
p; “Certainly not,” Signora Finizio burst out. “It wouldn’t be polite. Close them! Close the windows! God rest her soul. Let’s go back inside.”

  Turning, she bumped into Nana, who had come toward the balcony, and now, leaning on her stick, with her puffy face upturned, all confused, raised her big eyes questioningly.

  “Who was it? Who was it?”

  “Donn’Amelia is dead. God bless us!” her sister shouted in her ear.

  “The bread? What does she want with the bread?” answered Nana, bewildered.

  “Unstop your ears, aunt,” Eduardo said harshly. “They haven’t brought her any bread, in fact, she’ll never eat any again. She died suddenly.”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” said the old woman, and her horrible, crimson-colored face darkened, her eyes lowered and filled with tears. That was life, one day or the next, when youth had gone: the poorhouse or a coffin.

  Anastasia needed to go to her room to get a handkerchief. Her heart that day was as delicate as the strings of a violin, and vibrated if it were merely touched. She wept, not so much out of pity for the dead woman, whom she knew and respected, as out of tenderness for this life, which appeared so strange and profound, as she had never seen it, resonant with emotion. It was as if, for some hours, she had been drinking two or three glasses of wine all at once: everything was so new, so intense in its daily simplicity. Never, ever had she been so aware of the faces, the voices of her mother, her siblings, other people. That was why her eyes were full of tears: not because Donn’Amelia was lying on her deathbed, pale-faced and meek as she had always been, but because in this life there were so many things, there was life and death, the sighs of the flesh and despair, sumptuously laid tables and dirty work, the bells of Christmas and the tranquil hills of Poggioreale. Because, while downstairs they were lighting candles, a kilometer away was the port, where Antonio’s ship was anchored, and Antonio himself, who had been so dear to her, at this hour was sitting at the table, with his relatives, thinking of who knows whom or what. And suddenly she realized that, amid so many emotions, her deepest thoughts had returned to being calm, cold, inert, as they had always been, and she no longer cared about Antonio or about life itself.

  She didn’t wonder why this was. She sat again on the bed, as she had that morning, and, looking calmly at the plainest and most familiar details of the room—the chairs, the old paintings, the dried olive branches against the white of the walls—she was thinking what her life would be like twenty years from now. She saw herself still in this house (she didn’t see her own face), she heard the slightly irritated sound of her voice calling her nephews and nieces. Everything would be like today, on that Christmas in twenty years. Only the figures changed. But what would be different? They would still be called Anna, Eduardo, Petrillo, with the same cold faces, joyless, lifeless. They would be the same, even if in reality they had changed. Life, in their family, produced only this: a faint noise.

  She was amazed, remembering the festive atmosphere of the morning, that budding of hopes, of voices. A dream, it had been: there was nothing left. Not for that reason could life be called worse. Life … it was a strange thing, life. Every so often she seemed to understand what it was, and then poof, she forgot, sleep returned.

  The bell rang in the hallway, and right afterward steps could be heard, exclamations, animated voices, including Signora Finizio’s, secretly victorious. “My dear lady, what a pity, have you heard?” It was the neighbor from next door, coming to borrow some coffee. On the street, which should have been deserted, two imbeciles were intently blowing into a bagpipe and because no other voice arose, no other sound, that sad and tender note spread everywhere, at times mingling with a light wind now meandering across the Neapolitan sky.

  “Anastasia!” called Signora Finizio. Of course she needed something. “Anastasia!” she repeated after a moment.

  Mechanically, in that torpor that had now taken over her brain and made her inert, Anastasia went to the closet, opened it, and, seeing the blue coat, which hung there like an abandoned person, delicately ran her fingers over it, feeling a compassion that wasn’t, however, connected to anything, to any particular memory or suffering. Then, suddenly aware of her mother’s call, she answered slowly, with no intonation:

  “I’m coming.”

  THE GOLD OF FORCELLA

  The bus that was supposed to take me to the intersection of Via Duomo and Via San Biagio dei Librai was so crowded that it was impossible for me to get off at the right stop. When I finally did set foot on the ground, I found myself staring at the dismal façade of the Central Station, along with the monument to Garibaldi, and a procession of faded green tramcars, rickety black taxis, and carriages drawn by small, sleepy horses. I turned and headed back the way I’d come until I reached Via Pietro Colletta, in the renowned Tribunali neighborhood. The sky was bright blue, as dazzling as a postcard, and beneath that luminosity people came and went in a great confusion amid buildings that rose like clouds here and there in no apparent order, and I stopped at the beginning of Via Forcella somewhat perplexed. Farther up the narrow street there was a terrific commotion, a buzz of mournful voices, and a wave of colors, red and black predominant. A market, I thought, or a street fight. An old woman was sitting near a stone at the corner and I stopped to ask her what all those people were doing. She raised her face, pitted by smallpox and framed by a large black kerchief, and took a look for herself at that distant strip of sunlight at the heart of Forcella and source of that intermittent mournful buzz, where the crowd was bulging like a snake. “Niente stanno facenno, signò—No one’s doing nothing, signora,” she said calmly, “you’re dreaming.”

  It was years since I’d been down here, and I’d forgotten that Via Forcella, along with Via San Biagio dei Librai, is one of the most densely populated streets in Naples, where the hustle and bustle often gives one the sensation that something extraordinary must be happening. Through a veil of dust, the sun gave off a reddish glow that had lost all cheerfulness. From the thresholds of hundreds of small shops or from chairs set out along the sidewalks, women and children stared up at it with a strange, dazed air. Even the donkeys hitched to the vegetable carts seemed struck by the peculiar murkiness of the light, twitching their long ears to shoo the flies with a silent, apathetic patience. From within a small pushcart, like those used by the sanitation authority, which seemed to have been momentarily abandoned in the middle of the street, a head could be seen; beneath it was the trunk of a man of about fifty, carefully dressed in a jacket buttoned to the neck and sewn at the sides and lower hemline like a sack. A small gilt plate tied to his chest with twine invited passersby to give alms, but no one noticed him and, to be honest, he didn’t do much himself to attract the public’s pity. With his wine-reddened cheek resting against a sack, his ears also reddened by wine, even glowing, his white hair cascading over his eyebrows, and a delicate smile on his parted lips, the citizen slept. Meanwhile, all around him dwarves of both sexes passed by, respectably dressed in black, with pale, distorted faces, large sorrowful eyes, and twig-like fingers held at their chests, careful to avoid colliding with children and dogs. Other beggars, cripples or simply professionals, were sprawled on the ground wearing images of this or that patron saint around their necks or holding signs listing their misfortunes and their children—a sight that was replicated in the more fashionable streets of the city, in Chiaia or Piazza dei Martiri. They waited politely, or dreamed. Several church bells rang out loudly, calling these souls to Mass.

  As I came out of Forcella onto Via Duomo, the traffic seemed more orderly and almost silent, but soon became even louder again in the San Biagio dei Librai district, which could be described as a continuation of Forcella.

  Like other ancient, impoverished streets in Naples, Via San Biagio dei Librai was packed with shops selling gold. A lackluster glass display case, an excessively polished counter (so many ladies’ elbows and hands having leaned on it for probably more than a century), a bespectacled shadow of a man who cautious
ly balances a shiny object in his hand and silently observes it, while a woman, young or old, standing before him at the counter, eyes him anxiously. Another scene, even more intense: the trap now momentarily empty, the same maggot, coming out onto the shop’s threshold as if taking a break, looks vaguely around him, spying, in turn, in the crowd, the approach of a pale, hungry face, the eyes full of shame. That carpet of flesh which, even as I entered San Biagio dei Librai, had appeared extremely dense to me, seemed to disappear the deeper in I went, or at least it wasn’t as extraordinary, much like a fresco when you move up close to it. The fact remained that, as in Forcella, I had never before seen so many beings together, walking or hanging out, colliding and fleeing one another, greeting one another from their windows and calling out from the shops, bargaining over the price of goods, or yelling out a prayer, in the same sweet, aching singers’ voices that had more the tone of a lament than of the vaunted Neapolitan cheer. It was truly something that both shocked and eclipsed all one’s thoughts. Most alarming was the number of children, a force perhaps sprung from the unconscious, who were not remotely supervised or blessed, as could be determined by the black halo hanging over the head of each. Every so often, one of them would emerge from a hole in the pavement, move a few steps out onto the sidewalk, and then scurry back in like a rat. The alleys off this street, itself narrow and eroded, were even narrower and more eroded. I didn’t see the sheets for which Naples is well known, only the black hollows in which they were once hung: windows, doors, balconies where tin cans sprouted withered bits of lemon verbena. I felt compelled to search behind the miserable windowpanes for walls, and furnishings, and perhaps other little windows opening onto a flowering garden at the back of the house; but there was nothing to be seen except a confused jumble of various items such as blankets or the remains of baskets and vases, a chair on which a woman, like a sacred image blackened by time, sat with her yellow cheekbones jutting out, her eyes unmoving, thoughtful, black hair pinned on top of her head, sticklike arms folded in her lap. At the far end of the street, like a Persian rug worn down to clumps and threads, lay bits of the most varied kind of garbage, from amid which issued forth the pale, swollen, or bizarrely thin figures of more children, with large shaved heads and soft eyes. Few were clothed, and those who were wore shirts that exposed their bellies; almost all were barefoot or wore sandals from another era, held together with string. Some played with tin cans, others, lying on the ground, were intent on covering their faces with dust, still others seemed to be busy building a little altar with a stone and a saint, and there were those who, gracefully imitating a priest, turned to offer their blessing.