MASTER ERRICO has me spreading pore-filler on wood and sanding it down. Then I polish the doors of a wardrobe for clothes. How many clothes does this family have? We’re making eight doors, two levels. They call it a “four seasons.” Today I tested the latch on the first door and it fit so well that it made a vacuum sound. The air escaped from inside. Master Errico made me put my face near the door. I could feel the air stroking my cheek. That’s how the spirits rub up against my face. against my face. They dry away the sweat. Spirits are happy in old buildings. But if someone says they saw them they’re lying. You can only feel spirits, and only when they want.
MASTER ERRICO gives space in his shop to a cobbler named Don Rafaniello. I clean up his space, too, around the workbench and the pile of shoes that he fixes. He came to Naples from somewhere in Europe after the war. He went straight to Montedidio to Master Errico’s and started fixing the shoes of the poor. He makes them new again. They call him Rafaniello because his hair is red, his eyes are green, he’s short, and he has a hump on the top of his back. In Naples, it took one look for them to nickname him ravanello, radish. That’s how he became Don Rafaniello. Not even he knows how many years he’s been in the world.
KIDS DON’T understand age. For them forty and eighty are all the same mess. Once on the stairs I heard Maria ask her grandma if she was old. He grandma said no. Maria asked if her grandpa was old. Her grandma answered no. Then Maria asked, “So there’s no such thing as old people,” and got smacked across the face. I can tell how old people are, except for Rafaniello. His face is a hundred, his hands are forty, his hair, all red and bushy, twenty. From his words, I can’t tell. He doesn’t talk much, and when he does, it’s in a teeny tiny voice. He sings in a foreign language. When I sweep up his corner he smiles at me, making his wrinkles and freckles ripple like the sea in the rain.
5
HE’S A good man, Rafaniello. He fixes the shoes of the poor and won’t take money from them. One guy came by who wanted a new pair. Rafaniello took his measurements with a piece of string, made a few knots, and got to work. The guy came back to try them on for size and there they were. They fit like a glove. Rafaniello cares about people’s feet. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, so the flies never bother him. They buzz around him but never land on his skin, no matter how many there are. Master Errico shakes his neck like a carriage horse to get them out of his face when his hands are busy. He even snorts like a horse. I swat a rag around him and they leave him alone for a second.
I WEAR sandals even in winter. My feet are growing and this way they can stick out a little without having to buy a new pair. They’re small on me. I sweep the floor in my bare feet, so as not to wear them out. Rafaniello took them one morning, and when I put them on at noon they fit me so well I was afraid they were the wrong sandals. I looked at him and he nodded yes, yes, with his head. I tell him, thank you Don Rafaniè. He answers, “You don’t have to call me don.” But you’re a good Christian. You do acts of charity for the feet of the poor. You deserve to be called don. “No, call other people don if you want to. I’m not even a Christian. Where I’m from I had a name that was almost the same as Rafaniello.” I didn’t say a word. Till then we’d almost never spoken. The sandal leather smelled nice. It had come back to life in his hands. At home Mama complimented me, saying that I was good at getting people to like me. But with Don Rafaniello it doesn’t count. He likes everybody.
6
I HEAR screeches and Neapolitan voices. I speak Neapolitan but I write Italian. “We’re in Italy,” Papa says, “but we’re not Italian. To speak the language we have to study it, like being abroad, in America, but without leaving home. Many of us will never speak Italian and will die in Neapolitan.” It’s a hard language, he says, but you will learn it and be Italian. Me and your mother won’t. “Noi nun pu, nun po, nuie nun putimmo.” He’s trying to say “we can’t,” non possiamo, but the words won’t come out. I tell him how to say it the Italian way. “Good boy,” he says, “good boy. You know the national language.” Sure I know it and I even write it in secret and when I do, I feel a little like I’m cheating on Neapolitan, so in my head I conjugate the verb “can,” potere. I’ pozzo, tu puozzi, isso po’, nuie putimmo, vuie putite, lloro ponno. Mama doesn’t agree with Papa and says, “We’re Neapolitans and that’s all there is to it.” “Ll’Italia mia,” she says, doubling the l of the article. “Ll’Italia mia sta in America”—my Italy is in America. That’s where half my family lives. “Your homeland is what puts food on your plate,” she says, and stops. To tease her, Papa says. “Then you must be my homeland.” He doesn’t want to disagree with Mama. In our house we never raise our voices, we don’t get into arguments. If something bothers him, he puts his hand over his mouth and covers half his face.
MASTER ERRICO has me spreading pore-filler on wood and sanding it down. Then I polish the doors of a wardrobe for clothes. How many clothes does this family have? We’re making eight doors, two levels. They call it a “four seasons.” Today I tested the latch on the first door and it fit so well that it made a vacuum sound. The air escaped from inside. Master Errico made me put my face near the door. I could feel the air stroking my cheek. That’s how the spirits rub up against my face. Then Master Errico took it apart and covered it. It’s a big job. He’s been tinkering with it for a year. The drawers are made out of beech, the joints are dovetailed. It feels great to run your hands over them. He checks the squaring again and again, greasing the runners until the drawers don’t make a sound when he pulls them out and slides them back in. He says it’s like dropping a fishing line in the sea. They rise and fall silently in his hands. Master Errico, I say, you’re a genius, a fishing cabinet maker.
EVERY DAY Master Errico buys the paper Il Mattino. It’s an expense, thirty lira, but a man’s got to know what’s happening in the world, he says. He reads some of the news out loud to us: the sword fell out of the hands of the statue of Roger the Norman that guards the Royal Palace. In Genoa there was a big riot between the police and the factory workers. Master Errico’s voice is strong. The pieces he reads stay with me. On Sundays he goes fishing, dropping a line from a rowboat off the port. All day long he sits quietly in the traffic of the ships going by. He waits until a sarago surrenders. Sarago swim near the breakwater, believe it or not, beneath the black sheet of water. They’re down there, he says, as crafty as street urchins. There’s an art to robbing them from the sea. For bait you use mussels. One day he’ll teach me. “I’ll learn you,” he says.