THE CAGES have names outside, animals inside, standing there. That’s how they fight back, standing still and refusing to give us any satisfaction. Only the wolf keeps going in circles, out of homesickness and to get some exercise inside the cage. He stares off into the distance, even if there is no distance before him. He’s running around waiting for a hunter, a savior, is what I think. The dead are caged animals, awaiting resurrection. Uncle Totò is a wolf, eager to run far away from Via Medina ever since the day they locked him up. I’m older than he ever was. His life ended before he was ten, one day short of his birthday. He never went to school. That’s why Papa cares so much about education, so that I won’t be held back by the street, so that I won’t be stuck there.
23
NICE COOL evenings come, buffeted by the wind that ascends the Vomero and San Martino hills and passes over Montedidio before rubbing against the sea. I wait for Maria to come up to the terrace. I practice and look at the sky to find a target. I’ll throw the boomerang, closing my good eye and opening up the bad one so that I can stare into the distance without crying. Later on, Maria and I scour the starry sky, our noses in the air. She says it’s a lid; I say it’s a fishnet, and every star’s a knot. She says that we’re the same height. Even those of us on the ground seem to float in the sky like buoys.
CHRISTMAS COMES. At Maria’s house the creditors knock on the door and make a scene. On the stairwell you can hear the screaming. Her mother won’t open up, her father’s gone out. Papa comes home at six when I warm up his coffee. I drink some, too. He doesn’t say a word. When Mama was around I used to drink coffee substitute. Now he wouldn’t even notice if I started smoking. Grown-ups withdraw into their troubles and leave us behind in houses that don’t make a sound. We only hear ourselves, which is a little scary. The spirits rub against my face in the empty kitchen and soothe me. The boomerang is always against my skin and it warms me. Its wood holds so much heat it must have been grown in a pan of sunlight. Maria bundles herself up against the cold with me and an overcoat. I’m upwind from her so I shield her. Christmas is coming, Maria says. Let’s buy a chicken and cook it. Who needs them. It’ll be the best Christmas of all. I’ll bake some cookies, she says, and plants a kiss on my cold hair. The north wind rains kisses down upon me.
24
PAPA INFORMS me that on Christmas night he’ll be in the hospital with Mama. This disease is something between them. My job is to take care of the house and wait. I’m waiting. For the flight of the boomerang. For it to break away after my shoulders have gone through the motions of throwing it and go hurtling off into the darkness, for it to smack against the stars, against what Maria calls the lid and I call the fishnet. I feel strong enough to throw it into the clouds. The boomerang is getting lighter, getting ready. It won’t be long now. In the meantime Rafaniello is looking more like a bird. He’s getting thin, the bones are poking through the skin of his face. Don Rafaniè, you’ve got to eat. Bread, oil, garlic, and onion aren’t enough. The trip is long and you’re traveling in winter. The other birds have already come and gone. I know, he replies. In his hometown in September he saw the storks join together in the sky to go to Africa. They pass near Jerusalem. “Inside my head the eye of a stork is breaking through to show me the way.” When’s it going to be? I ask. “When the wood of the Ark of the Covenant flies, that is what the angel told me. I’m keeping myself ready for the night of the end of the year. The Neapolitans throw old things out the window. Without realizing it, one of them’s going to throw out a piece of the Ark.” Then he adds, in a birdlike voice, “He’ll throw it out because the Ark no longer holds the tablets of the Law, the Ten Commandments.” He’s right, I think. That night no one will notice Rafaniello’s flight.
I’M STANDING there holding the broom, lost in thought, when Master Errico comes in early and says, “You’re already here? What, you like the job?” Yes, I say, I eat with Don Rafaniello. Master Errico remembers that at home I haven’t got anyone and invites me to his house for lunch to have some hot food. “Tomorrow I’m getting braided mozzarella from Agerola; have you ever tried it, kid? It’s special. Agerola’s high up. The cows there eat poplar leaves. Poplar leaves are what gives the cheese the bitter taste that makes it so special. Do you want to come?” I thank him, but things are all right the way they are. I’m happy to stay in the workshop at lunchtime. “Suit yourself, I’m not going to tell you where to vote,” he says. Master Errico lights his half-smoked cigar and starts up the bench saw. The most he and Rafaniello do is exchange greetings, but they do it properly, purposefully. They respect each other. “Don Rafaniello’s made shoes for all Montedidio. Before, everyone used to go barefoot.” “And you gave me wood to keep warm and a place to sleep. Without you I would have gotten lost in the alleyways by the port.” “With that mop of red hair on your head you couldn’t get lost in ‘na sporta ‘e purtualle,” in a basketful of oranges, I translate for him.
25
AT THE workshop Master Errico reads in the newspaper about the man who’s nicknamed The Jinx. One day out of desperation he decides to throw himself from a window and ends up falling on top of some unlucky guy who was passing by that very spot. The passerby dies, and The Jinx breaks two ribs. “Check out the numbers, kid,” he says. “You should play them on the lottery.” In the meantime he goes over to rub the red horn hanging in the doorway to the workshop. Rafaniello mumbles a spell in his language and spits on the ground. We never let superstition into the house. Papa says it’s for women. Mama says it’s a bunch of nonsense and that men are more obsessed by it than women. Master Errico says we’re alive by accident and scrape along by hiding from God. All it takes is one dirty look and we’re done for. Around here no one would ever say “Lucky you” to someone else. People would immediately call you a jinx if something bad happened to the other guy. A man twists his ankle and blames it on the person who wished him good luck. Rafaniello says that in his hometown they say “anóre” for evil eye. He remembers that his mother was beautiful. They even paid her compliments when she was pregnant, and she kept them for herself, she didn’t do anything to exercise the bad luck they bring. That’s why her son was born a hunchback. At home they scolded her. If she had only said “cananóre,” her son would have been born healthy. Nothing causes more damage than an envious eye, Master Errico says.