The Day Before Happiness

by Erri De Luca

  ALSO BY ERRI DE LUCA

  Me, You

  Three Horses

  Copyright © 2009 Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore Milano

  Originally published in Italian as Il giorno prima della felicità by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, Mailan, in 2009, by arrangement with Susanna Zevi Agenzia Letteraria.

  Translation copyright © 2011 Michael F. Moore

  Production Editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 2 Park Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  De Luca, Erri, 1950–

  [Giorno prima della felicità. English]

  The day before happiness / by Erri De Luca ; translated by Michael F. Moore.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-59051-482-5 1. Naples (Italy)—History—1945—Fiction. I. Moore, Michael, 1954 Aug. 24– II. Title.

  PQ4864.E5498G5613 2011

  853′.914—dc23

  2011030641

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Translator’s Note

  First Page

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  translator’s note

  Much of this novel takes place in a small office-apartment known as the portineria, which I have translated here as the doorman’s loge. Generally located in the entryway of an apartment complex, the loge may have one or two rooms: a front room with a door, a picture window, a table and a small stove, and perhaps a small room in the back. The sleeping quarters are located in another part of the complex. A uniquely Neapolitan dwelling that figures in the novel is the basso, a one- or two-room ground-floor apartment opening directly onto the street in the oldest and poorest neighborhoods. The primary building material of the city is the soft volcanic rock known as tufo. Dug into the tufo substratum of Naples is an underground city of tunnel networks, spacious cavities, cisterns, and even the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman city, Neapolis.

  In Neapolitan dialect it is common to truncate words and names, so the doorman, Don Gaetano, becomes Gaeta’ (pronounced “guy-tah”), while the unnamed narrator, the guaglione (gwhile-yoh-ne)—a generic name for a boy or young man—is shortened to guaglio’. The vowels tend to be more open than in standard Italian while the consonants are often doubled.

  The card game that Don Gaetano and the guaglione play is scopa, literally “sweep,” since the object is to take all forty cards and thus do a sweep. While it is played throughout Italy, the deck design and nomenclature can vary by city or region. The four suits of the Neapolitan deck are: spade (swords), coppe (cups), bastoni (clubs), and denari (coins). There are two ways to take a trick: by playing a single card to take a card of equal value, called a pariglio since an even number of cards of the same value will remain in the deck; or by playing a single card to take two or more cards whose sum adds up to the same value, called a spariglio since an odd number of cards of the same value will remain in the deck.

  The history the narrator learns in school is of the Risorgimento, the process of Italian unification that was secured through three wars of independence: in 1848, 1859–1861, and 1866–1970. There was a strong rift within the movement between proponents of a republic, most famously General Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini; and the monarchists, particularly Count Cavour, the first prime minister. Carlo Pisacane was an early anarchist. Two historic battles were fought with the Austrians at Custoza, near Verona: in 1848, during the First War of Independence, and in 1866, during the Third War of Independence.

  The war stories told by Don Gaetano are based on the Four Days of Naples, the popular uprising of September 27–30, 1943. As the Allied forces closed in on the city, the Nazi occupiers laid plans to blow up the harbor, round up able-bodied men and youths, and deport them to labor camps. When the Germans began summary executions of the men who did not show up for deportation, the Resistance and the populace fought them with and without regular weapons through acts of sabotage, guerrilla warfare, and open battle.

  i discovered the hiding place when the soccer ball ended up there. Behind the statue’s niche, in the courtyard of the building, was a trapdoor covered by two wooden boards. I noticed they were moving when I stood on them. I got scared, recovered the ball, and wriggled out between the statue’s legs.

  Only a skinny child contortionist like myself could slip his head and body between the slightly parted legs of the warrior king, after twisting past the sword planted right before his feet. The ball had gotten stuck in there after ricocheting between the sword and the leg.

  I pushed it through, and while I was squirming to get out, the others returned to the game. Traps are easy to get into but getting out takes some sweat. To make matters worse, fear was making me rush. I went back to my place in the goal. They let me play with them because I got the ball back no matter where it ended up. A customary destination was the balcony on the first floor, an abandoned apartment. Rumor had it a ghost lived there. Old buildings had trapdoors in the walls, secret passageways, crime and love stories. Old buildings were dens of ghosts.

  • • •

  This is how it went the first time I climbed up to the terrace. From the little window on the ground floor of the courtyard where I lived, I was watching the bigger boys play one afternoon. The ball shot up in the air off a bad kick and ended up on the second-floor terrace. A vinyl ball slightly deflated from use, it was lost. While they were arguing over the quandary, I stuck my head out and asked if they would let me play with them. Yes, if you buy us another ball. No, with that one, I replied. Their curiosity aroused, they accepted. I grabbed hold of a rain pipe, a downspout, which passed next to the terrace and continued up to the roof. It was small and attached to the courtyard wall with rusty clamps. I started to climb, the pipe was covered with dust, the grip was less sure than I had imagined. But I had made a promise. I looked up: behind the glass of a third-floor window there she was, the little girl I was trying to get a peek of. She was in her spot, head resting on her hands. Usually she was looking up at the sky. Not this time. She was looking down.

  • • •

  I had to keep going and I did. Sixteen feet is a big drop for a child. I climbed up the pipe, bracing my feet on the clamps until I was at the same height as the terrace. Below me the comments had quieted down. I extended my left hand to grab on to the iron railing, I was short by a palm. So I had to trust my feet and reach over with the hand holding on to the rain pipe. I decided to do it in a single swoop, and I reached it with my left. Now I had to bring over my right. I tightened my grip on the iron railing and flung out my right hand to grab hold. I lost my footing: for a moment my hands held my body suspended in thin air, then up swung a knee, then two feet, and I climbed over. How come I wasn’t afraid? I realized my fear is shy, it needs to be alone to come out into the open. But the eyes of the other boys were below and hers were above. My fear was embarrassed to come out. It wo
uld get even with me later, that night in bed in the dark, with the rustling of ghosts in thin air.

  • • •

  I threw the ball down, they went back to playing, ignoring me. The descent was easier, I could stretch my hand out toward the rain pipe counting on two solid supports for my feet on the balcony’s edge. Before lunging for the pipe I took a quick glance at the third floor. I had volunteered for the task hoping she would notice me, the little dust brush from the courtyard. There she was, eyes open wide. Before I could attempt a smile she had disappeared. Stupid to look and see whether she was looking. You were supposed to believe without second-guessing, as you do with guardian angels. I got mad at myself, sliding down the pipe to get off the stage. The prize, admission to the game, was waiting for me below. They placed me in the goal and so was my role decided. I was goalie.

  • • •

  From that day on they called me ’a scigna, the monkey. I would dive between their feet to grab the ball and save the goal. The goalie is the last defense, the hero in the trenches. I got kicked in the hands, in the face, I didn’t cry. I was proud to play with the bigger boys, who were nine even ten years old.

  The ball ended up on the balcony other times, I would get to it in less than a minute. In front of the goal I defended was a puddle from a leak. At first it would be clear, I could see the girl in the window by reflection while my team was attacking. I didn’t run into her, I didn’t know what the rest of her body was like under that face resting on her hands. On sunny days I could find my way to her through the ricocheting of her reflection. I would keep staring at her until my eyes welled up with tears from the light. The closed glass of the courtyard windows allowed the reflection containing her to travel all the way down to my shadowy corner. So many rounds of her portrait to reach my little window. A television set had recently arrived at an apartment in the building, I heard you could see people and animals moving on it, without color. But I could watch the little girl with the rich brown of her hair, the green of her dress, the yellow added by the sun.

  • • •

  I went to school. My foster mother enrolled me, but I never saw her. Don Gaetano, the doorman, took care of me. He brought me a hot meal in the evening. In the morning before school I would bring him back the clean plate and he would warm me a cup of milk. I lived alone in the little room. Don Gaetano spoke very little, he too had grown up an orphan, but in an orphanage, not like me, running free in a building and going out into the city.

  I liked school, the teacher spoke to the children. I came from the little room where no one spoke to me, and at school there was someone you had to listen to. It was nice to have a man who explained to the children the numbers, the years of history, the places of geography. There was a colored map of the world, someone who had never left the city could find out about Africa, which was green, the South Pole, white, Australia, yellow, and the oceans, blue. The continents and islands were in the feminine gender, the seas and mountains masculine.

  At school there were the poor kids and the others. The poverty cases like me would get a slice of bread with quince jam, brought in by the janitor. A fresh baked smell came in with him that made our mouths water. Nothing for the others, they already had a snack brought from home. Another difference was that the poverty cases had their heads shaved in spring for lice, the others kept their hair.

  We used to write with a fountain pen and ink was available at every desk inside a hole. To write was to paint: you dipped the pen in, let the drops fall until one remained, and with that you managed to write half a word. Then you dipped again. We poverty cases would dry the sheet of paper with our warm breath. Below our breath, the blue of the ink trembled while it changed color. The other children dried with blotting paper. Our gesture was more beautiful, blowing wind over the flattened paper. The others instead crushed their words beneath a white card.

  • • •

  In the courtyard the children played amid the past remote of the centuries. The city was ancient, excavated, filled with grottoes and hiding places. In the summer afternoons when the tenants went on vacation or disappeared behind the blinds, I used to go to a second courtyard where the opening of a well was covered by wooden boards. I would sit on top of them, listening. From below, who knows how deep, came a rustling of moving water. Locked up down there was a life, a prisoner, an ogre, a fish. Cool air rose up between the boards and dried my sweat. In childhood I had the most precious freedom. Children are explorers. They want to learn secrets.

  So I went back behind the statue to see where the trapdoor led. It was August, the month when children grow the fastest.

  One early afternoon I squeezed between the feet and the sword of the statue, a copy of the King Ruggero the Norman in front of the Palazzo Reale. The wooden boards were fastened tight, they moved but couldn’t be lifted. I had brought my spoon with me, I used it to pry at the encrustations. I placed the two boards off to the side, below was the darkness, descending. Fear rushed in, taking advantage of the fact that no one was around. You couldn’t hear the sound of water, it was a dry darkness. After a while fear grows tired. Even the darkness became less compact, I could see a couple of rungs of a wooden ladder descending. I reached out my arm to touch the support, it was solid, dusty. I covered the passage back up with the boards, I had discovered enough for one day.

  • • •

  I went back with a candle. A coolness rose from the darkness and grazed my short-panted legs. I descended into a grotto. Underneath the city is the void on which it rests. Our solid mass above is matched by an equal amount of shadow below, bearing the body of the city.

  When I touched the ground I lit the candle. It was the cigarette smugglers’ depot. I knew they went for offshore pickups in motorboats. I had discovered a storeroom. Having hoped for a treasure, I was disappointed. There had to be another entrance, those boxes couldn’t fit between the legs of the king. Yes, there was a stone staircase opposite the wooden ladder. The storeroom was quiet; tufo, the volcanic rock from which it was built, erases noise. In a corner was a bedspring, a mattress, some books, a Bible. There was even a toilet, the kind you had to squat over. I climbed back up saddened. I hadn’t discovered a thing.

  • • •

  It didn’t cross my mind, it never could, to tell the police. To betray a secret, reveal a hiding place, are things a child doesn’t do. In childhood spying on someone is despicable. Not even a discarded thought, it never occurred to me. I went down to the storeroom often that August, I liked the cool and rested silence of the tufo. I started reading the books, sitting on the ladder where the light came in. Not the Bible, God was too scary. That’s how I picked up the habit of reading. The first was called The Three Musketeers, but there were four of them. At the top of the ladder, feet dangling, my head learned to draw light from books. When I finished them I wanted more.

  Down the alley where I lived were the shops of the book vendors who sold to students. Outside they kept used books on sale in wooden boxes. I started going there, to pick out a book and sit down on the ground to read. One man chased me away. I went to another and he let me stay. A good man, Don Raimondo, who needed no words to understand. He gave me a stool so I wouldn’t have to read on the ground. Then he told me he would lend me the book if I brought it back to him without damaging it. I replied thank you, I would bring it back the next day. I spent all night finishing it. Don Raimondo saw that I kept my word and let me take home a book a day.

  I would choose the thin ones. I picked up the habit in summer when there was no teacher to teach me new things. They weren’t books for children, many words in the middle I did not understand, but the end, the end I understood. It was an invitation to escape.

  • • •

  Ten years later I found out from Don Gaetano that a Jewish guy had hidden in the storeroom in 1943. I was in my last year of school and Don Gaetano had started to confide in me. In the afternoons he would teach me how to play scopa, to figure out the unmatched cards. He used to win. He
didn’t throw his card down on the table, he played quickly, delayed by my mental count of the cards that had been played. To reciprocate our newfound familiarity, I decided to tell him something.

  “Don Gaetano, one summer ten years ago I went downstairs, to the big room with the boxes.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know everything that happens here. The dust, guaglio’, the wooden ladder was covered with dust and hand- and footprints. Only you could have slipped in there, between the legs of Ruggero. They used to call you ’a scigna.”

  “And you didn’t say anything to me?”

  “You’re the one who said nothing. I kept an eye on you, you went down cellar, didn’t touch the boxes, and didn’t tell anyone.”

  “I didn’t have anyone.”

  “What did you go down there to do?”

  “I like the darkness and there were books. That’s where I picked up the habit of reading.”

  “A monkey with books: you climbed up that pipe as quick as a mouse, you dove between feet to get the ball, you had a natural courage, unforced.”

  “No one told me to do one thing or another. I learned at school what was allowed. I’m happy to go, I thank my foster mother for making me study. This is my last year, then the scholarship she got me runs out.”

  “You’re getting a lot out of school. You’re roba buona, good stuff.”

  • • •

  That was his ultimate compliment, roba buona, a noble title for him.

  “But at scopa you’re a mozzarella.”

  “Let me ask, Don Gaetano, what was the use of the tilted ladder that came out behind the statue? No one could pass through there.”

  “Yes they could. During the war I sawed through one of Ruggero’s legs, in an emergency you could remove it. During the war we needed hiding places, for contraband, for guns, for people who had to hide. A hunt was on for Jews, the money was good. In the city there weren’t very many.”