The King of Mulberry Street

by Donna Jo Napoli

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Professor Umberto Fortis of the Archivio Renato Maestro in Venice for allowing me access to the materials about the history of Jews in Italy and for discussing them with me and recommending other readings. For comments on earlier drafts, thanks to Paolo Asso, Carolynn Laurenza, Paolo Munson, Helen Plotkin, Richard Tchen, Jeff Wu, and my editorial team: Suma Balu, Jack Lienke, Alison Meyer, and, especially, Wendy Lamb. Thanks also to Mary Reindorp's eighth-period sixth-grade language arts class at the Strath Haven Middle School in 2003-2004. And, as always, thanks to my faithful family.

  But most most most of all, thank you to Thad Guyer, whose insights put me back on emotional track.

  To Thad Guyer and the spirits of my grandfathers

  CHAPTER ONE

  Surprise

  I woke to Mamma's singing in the kitchen.

  I pulled the sheet off my head. Mamma had tucked it over me to keep out mosquitoes and malaria.

  The room was stifling. I got up from my bed of two chairs pushed together and opened the shutters. I straddled the windowsill, one leg dangling out, and savored the fresh air.

  In the alley below, mothers hurried along on errands. I hoped someone would see me—the brave boy on the sill—so I could wave. A child from the market walked beneath me with a basket of flat beans on his head. They looked good.

  There was a saying that no one starved in farmlands. My city, Napoli, was surrounded by farmlands, yet we'd been hungry for months. People wentto bed trying not to think of food. Maybe Mamma sang to ward off that empty feeling.

  I looked back into the room at Uncle Aurelio and Aunt Sara's bed. Baby Daniela's cradle sat on the floor. Aunt Rebecca, a widow, and my little cousins Luigi and Ernesto slept in another big bed.

  Uncle Vittorio snored in the cot farthest from the kitchen, our other room. He cleaned streets, a night job, and slept by day.

  I was nine, the oldest child in our home. Before I was born, a diphtheria outbreak killed all the other children and one aunt. So our friends celebrated at my birth. My grandmother, Nonna, told me they roasted a goat. They celebrated even though Mamma had no husband and I was illegitimate.

  Nonna was the tenth person in our home. In winter we crowded into the kitchen to sleep around the oven, but the rest of the year the kitchen was Nonna's at night. Her cot was beside the credenza with the mirrored doors and lion feet that my grandfather had carved. She said his spirit lived in it, and she slept in the kitchen to be near him.

  She also slept there so she could protect our home. She was tiny, but she knew dozens of charms against evil.

  Now Baby Daniela made gulping noises. Aunt Sara scooped her from the cradle with one arm and rolled onto her side to nurse.

  I got down from the window and walked into the kitchen to find warm bread on the table. Mamma kissed me, her anise-seed breath mixing with the smell of the bread. “Beniamino, mio tesoro—my treasure.” She fit myyarmulke on my head and we said prayers. Then she tore a hunk off the loaf for me. I chewed in bliss.

  Nonna's slow footsteps came up the stairs and I ran to open the door. She handed me a full basket of clothes.

  Mamma got up in surprise. “For Sara?”

  “And you,” said Nonna with reproach in her voice.

  Mamma wiped a drop of coffee from her bottom lip. “I'm going to find an office job,” she said in a flat tone. “Soon someone will hire me. Then you'll all be glad.”

  “Magari,” said Nonna. It was one of her favorite words. It meant if only that were true. “In the meantime …” She jerked her chin toward the basket.

  Aunt Sara took in clothes for mending. At least, she used to; lately it seemed that people couldn't afford it. She'd be happy for this pile of work.

  Mamma motioned to me to set the basket under the table. “How did you collect so much?” she asked Nonna.

  “I was early and beat the competition.”

  “You don't have to go out that early,” said Mamma. “You don't have to work so hard at your age.”

  “Magari.” Nonna dropped onto a bench with an “oof.” “Maybe I'll crochet today.”

  Nonna made baby clothes to sell at Hanukah and Christmas. It was my job to keep her yarn balls in order, piled just right. I went toward the yarn cabinet.

  Mamma caught my arm. “Get ready. We're going out.” Her smile surprised me; the night before I'd heard her crying quietly in the dark.

  I raced into the corridor, to the water closet we shared with the neighbors on our floor. When I came back, Iheard Nonna say, “Give up this idea of an office job. No doctor or lawyer will hire an unwed mother—and a Jewess, at that—to greet clients and keep records. You should work in a restaurant, cleaning up.”

  Mamma said, “You don't know. People will appreciate how well I read if they'll only give me a chance.”

  They hushed when I came in, as though they thought I didn't know it was my fault Mamma couldn't get an office job. But right now that didn't upset me. Mamma was in a good mood and errands were fun.

  I pulled my nightshirt off and Nonna folded it, while Mamma held out my day shirt and pants to step into. As we went through the doorway, Mamma's fingertips grazed the box mounted on the doorframe that held the mezuzah. She boosted me up so I could touch it, too, though I scarcely looked at it. I didn't need its reminder—for I knew the Most Powerful One was unique and perfect.

  Our alley opened onto the Via dei Tribunali, full of merchants and buyers and laborers on their way to work.

  Men hooted obscenely and called things to Mamma as we passed. This happened to any woman alone; the prettier she was, the worse it got. Mamma was beautiful, so I was used to this. But I still hated it. Heat went up my chest. Even nine-year-olds knew those words. I glanced up at her, wanting to apologize for not being big enough to make them stop. But she didn't seem offended; she never did. She neither slowed down nor sped up, her leather-shod feet making quick slaps, my bare ones silent.

  Mamma pointed at a small boy in the Piazza Dante. “That's Tonino's son,” she said. “Tonino just sent money in a letter from America.”

  That spring, Tonino had left for America, where everyone got rich. “Good,” I said. “Will they join him there now?”

  “Not yet. He hasn't made much money.” Mamma's hand tightened around mine. “But he will. He works in a coal mine.”

  We turned left down the wide Via Toledo. Gold numerals on black marble over the doorways told when the fancy shops were founded. Through glass windows I saw carved picture frames and chandeliers and shiny dresses. We passed a store filled with artificial roses, camellias, carnations, dahlias.

  Mamma hesitated at the flower shop. I smiled up at her, but she stared at nothing, as though she was about to weep. Then she turned quickly and moved on. “Watch where you walk,” she said.

  The
streets were dangerous for my bare feet. I looked down.

  Mamma went into a cobbler's. That was odd; we never bought outside our neighborhood. From the doorway I peered into the cool dark. She talked to a man at a workbench cutting leather with giant scissors. He hugged her. She wrested herself free and beckoned to me. The man shook my hand and went into a back room.

  Mamma called, “Wrap them, please. They're a surprise.”

  A surprise? I perked up.

  “Come look first,” he answered. “It'll only take a minute.”

  I waited while she went into the back.

  She came out carrying a parcel wrapped in newsprint, tied with yellow string. The man handed me a licorice.

  We continued down Via Toledo. I watched that surprise package. Mamma held it in the hand farther from me, and when I changed to her other side, she shifted the package to her other hand. It became a game, both of us laughing.

  Mamma turned right, toward our synagogue. Napoli had only one synagogue and no Jewish neighborhood. Uncle Aurelio said the Jews of Napoli were the world's best-kept secret. The Spanish had kicked them out centuries before. But no matter how many times they were kicked out, they always snuck back.

  We were as proud of being Jewish as of being Napoletani. My cousins were named after famous Jews: Luigi after Luigi Luzzatti, a Venetian and the first Jewish member of the House of Parliament; Ernesto after Ernesto Natan, one of Roma's most important businessmen. Uncle Aurelio lectured us cousins on the possibilities—le possibilità. “You can do anything if you put your heads to it and work hard. It doesn't matter what adversity comes; we are Jews— Napoletani Jews. We never miss a beat.”

  At the Piazza dei Martiri I climbed over the fence onto the back of a stone lion. Other kids' mothers didn't let them. But Mamma said that if the city didn't want kids playing on the lions, they shouldn't make statues just the right size for climbing on.

  We turned down the alley A Cappella Vecchia and into the courtyard. Napoli's buildings were mostly three or four stories high. Around this courtyard, though, the buildings had five floors. Passing under the thick stone arch, I felt as though we were leaving the ordinary and coming into someplace truly holy.

  “I love this courtyard,” I said.

  Mamma stopped. “More than you love the synagogue itself ?”

  I didn't want to answer. Maybe my preference for the openness of the courtyard meant there was something lacking in my soul.

  She squatted, put a pinch of anise seeds in my palm, and looked up into my face as I chewed them. “Stand here and think of why you love this place. Then go spend the day doing exactly what you want.” She straightened up.

  “What do you mean?” Usually my family needed me to run errands.

  “Visit all your favorite places. And, please, visit Uncle Aurelio and Aunt Rebecca at work.” She put her hands on my cheeks. “I don't have money for you. But don't go home to eat at midday, because if you do, Nonna or Aunt Sara might give you a chore. No chores today. See Napoli. See all that you love.”

  I nodded in a daze of happiness. I would visit Aunt Rebecca at midday. She was a servant to a rich family and she always snuck me meat from their table.

  “Stay well. You know how to be careful. I'll see you at dinnertime.” She kissed my forehead. “Stay well, mio tesoro.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dirty

  As I walked, children passed me on their way to school. I didn't go to school; Uncle Aurelio didn't like how Catholic teachers put religion into the lessons. So he taught me numbers and Mamma taught me reading. Mamma said I needed more than that and I was smart enough not to let the Catholic teachers influence me. She had just about talked Uncle into letting me go to school in autumn.

  Crowd noises came from Via Toledo. I ran over to see men in gloves and top hats and horses in black cloth hoods with white rings around their eyeholes marching down the road. A funeral. A flag waved the family crest from the top of the coach that carried the women in the dead person's family. It must have been someone important.

  The casket rolled by with lilies on top. Lilies insummer. Somehow Catholic funerals had real lilies, no matter the season. If only I could take one—just one—for Mamma.

  I made my way to the next road, where I begged a ride from a horse-drawn cart to the stables where Uncle Aurelio worked.

  He smiled when I came in, but we didn't speak. He was scraping the rear hoof of a mare. When he finished, Uncle Aurelio walked outside with me. “So what's the message? Who sent you?”

  “I just wanted to see you. I'm on my way up the hill.”

  “To Vomero?” He winked. “Going to snitch food from the midday meal?” He put his hand on my head, in the center of my yarmulke. The weight made me feel solid and safe.

  I climbed onto the next cart going toward Vomero. At the base of the hill, I took the stairs up to the piazza and looked down and out over my town and the bay and the two humps of Mount Vesuvio beyond. The buildings shone yellow and orange, and the bay sparkled green, dotted with fishing boats and merchant boats and sailboats. A huge steamer docked in the port. I saw bright market umbrellas in piazzas, and a train slowing to a halt at the station, and oxen pulling carts on the bay avenue.

  I turned to face the wide Vomero streets with sidewalks under the wispy fringe of acacias. A couple strolled along, arms linked. Everything was calm—so different from the Napoli below. Vomero was rich; rich people didn't have to hustle all the time. The people here owned the sailboats on the bay. The women played tennis in white dresses to their ankles, with sleeves to their knuckles; the men cheered fortheir sons at soccer matches. Their lives were a mystery of leisure.

  A boy sat on a barrel beside a cow and filled pails with milk for servants to carry back to the big, airy houses. Aunt Rebecca stood waiting. When her pails were full, I carried one while she carried the other.

  Aunt Rebecca was not lovely like Mamma or Nonna. Everyone had been delighted when she got married and devastated when her husband was killed in a street fight. No one expected her to remarry. But her looks were in her favor when it came to being a servant. Rich women didn't hire pretty servants; their husbands might like them too much.

  Entering the house, I heard the noises of tombola— bingo—from the parlor. Aunt Rebecca went on to the kitchen, but I stopped and peeked.

  “Look.” One of the three girls on the sofa pointed at me.

  I stepped back into the hall, out of sight.

  “It's just a servant's boy,” said a second girl.

  “Make him play with us.”

  “He's dirty.”

  I wasn't dirty. Or not that dirty.

  “It's more fun with more people. Get him, Caterina.”

  We played tombola at home, like every Napoli family. But what boy would play with girls? I hurried to the kitchen and set the milk pail on the counter. Aunt Rebecca looked sideways at me from her chopping. I put a finger to my lips and ducked behind the pantry curtain.

  “Where's your nephew?” came Caterina's voice.

  “I thought there was a noise on the cellar steps,” said Aunt Rebecca. Not a lie—just a crafty answer.

  “Why would he go down there?”

  “I could use a bucket.” More craftiness.

  I heard steps cross the room. “Are you down there, boy?” Caterina called. “Come on up. We want you.”

  I burst from the pantry and ran out the front door. I didn't stop to pant till I reached the bottom of the hill. Stupid me, now no lunch.

  I passed the window where Nicola sold hot, almond-speckled taralli—dough loops. My mouth watered, my stomach fluttered.

  Oh, for a coin to buy a dough loop.

  Instantly, I thought of the convent. I set off running to the church of San Gregorio Armeno and clanked the iron knocker on the side chapel door.

  My favorite nun answered. “Ah, Beniamino, what a pleasure.” She kissed my cheeks. “What brings you here?”

  “Perhaps you might need help?”

  “Of co
urse. You're getting bigger. You should help us more often while you can still fit through the passageways. Come.”

  I followed her to the floor hatch that opened to the ladder down to the grotto. She put a key in a pouch, then added a backup candle, two matchsticks, and rough paper. She hung the pouch around my neck and gave me a candle. “Two bottles today.”

  That might mean double pay. I held the lit candle sideways between my teeth and went down the ladder. Twenty-two rungs. That was nothing. Some grottos were two hundred steps down.

  The grottos and the channels between them formed the ancient water system, connected to the old aqueducts aboveground. Greek slaves had built it a thousand yearsbefore. The grottos had been closed for nearly a century, but they were still used as wine cellars; and thieves climbed down them, then crawled up old, dry wells into the atriums of fancy homes when the people were out. I'd never seen a thief here, but other boys claimed they had.

  Once I saw a lover, though. Lovers of rich married women came and left like thieves. I knew the man was a lover, not a thief, because he smiled as we passed. A boy told me lovers came to the nuns, too. But they couldn't come to my nuns—not unless they were as small as I was— because of the awful tunnel.

  At the bottom of the ladder I took off my yarmulke and left it safely under the last rung. I followed the passageway to where the ceiling came down so low I had to crawl. I held the end of the candle in my mouth now, so that the flame led the way. The walls were wet from the humid air. My hair stuck to my neck.

  I'd gone through this tunnel many times, but it always seemed endless. I was afraid I'd die there.

  Then suddenly I was out. I stood and breathed, and oh, what was that terrible smell? Something lay in the channel ahead. I held out my candle to see better. A body! I screamed and the candle fell. I crawled to the wall. I sat and pulled my feet up quick under my bottom. I wedged the backup candle between my knees and struck a match on the rough paper. The flame fizzled out and the dark swallowed me. My hands were wet from the damp air, so I blew on them frantically. I struck the other match; it flamed and the wick took. Blessed light.