The King of Mulberry Street (3 page)

It was late by the time I got to the coastal road and hitched a ride on a cart. When I finally jumped off, I ran to the kosher butcher. I bought three coins' worth of liver, for couscous, a rare treat, and raced home, where Mamma burst into tears and hit me on top of the head.

“Eh,” said Nonna, “
E figlie so' piezze 'e core
”—Children are pieces of your heart. She smacked me on the back of my head.

“Your uncle is searching the streets for you,” said Aunt Rebecca. “Instead of eating. You had us sick with worry.”

Ernesto pointed at my legs and laughed. Luigi joined in.

“Your pants,” said Uncle Aurelio. “What happened?”

I shrugged and avoided his eyes.

The room smelled of tripe. I lifted my nose and sniffed.

“Your foolish mother spent a fortune on a feast,” said Aunt Sara, nursing Baby Daniela. “And you didn't even show up.”

I held out my bundle, a silent plea for forgiveness, and the women went into action. Aunt Rebecca minced the liver, Nonna peeled onions, Mamma grated old bread for the meatballs. They had to cook the meat now, or it would spoil.

“You're just like your mother,” said Aunt Sara. “It's stupid to sell your pants for money for meat.”

“I didn't,” I mumbled. “It was a thief. I went swimming.”

“
Scugnizzi
.” Nonna threw up her hands.

Aunt Sara sighed. “You know better than to swim without a friend to guard your clothes.”

“He couldn't help it; Munaciello robbed him.” Mamma smiled and I smiled back in grateful surprise. “We'll leave the dishes in the sink tonight. Munaciello needs something to eat.”

“You just want to get out of work,” said Aunt Sara. “Munaciello never eats when we leave the dishes dirty overnight.”

“He's a spirit,” said Mamma. “He eats the spirit of the food, not the food itself.”

“You think you're too good for menial tasks.”

“Enough,” said Uncle Aurelio. He wagged his finger at the meat. “So where'd you get the money?”

“The nuns. I did a chore.”

“The church is rich.” Uncle Aurelio winked. “Next time be here for dinner. With your pants on. Now eat.”

I filled my bowl with thin tripe slices and soft beans and ate greedily.

Nonna dumped hot meatballs into a bowl. She pointed toward the door with her chin, telling me to bring them to the Rossi family next door. If you received unexpectedly, you had to give unexpectedly. It was how friends behaved.

I delivered the meatballs, then raced back.

Uncle Vittorio came in only seconds behind me. “Ah, you're home, Beniamino,” he said. “Now I can eat and go to work.”

Mamma wiped sweat from her brow and raked her fingers through her hair. “Beniamino and I will sleep in here tonight. Nonna will sleep in my cot.” Before Nonna could protest, Mamma put up her hand. “We'll guard this home with our lives.”

So I lay on my chairs in the hot kitchen as Mamma whispered stories to me. I don't know which of us fell asleep first.

Once in the night I woke to Mamma's almost silent crying. Her back was to me, and her shoulder barely moved in the moonlight. I put my hand between the wings of her shoulder blades and pressed. She stopped, as she had the night before and the night before that. When we woke, I'd ask her what was wrong.

I woke to Mamma's hand over my mouth. “Don't say anything,” she whispered in my ear. “Don't make noise.”

She dressed me in my synagogue pants and shirt. I loved those pants; they had pockets. And the shirt didn't have a single mended spot. She lingered over the buttons. I raised my hand to help and she firmly pushed it away. Then she sat me on the kitchen bench and put socks on my feet. Socks. And then, miracle of miracles, shoes. My first pair of socks, my first pair of shoes. That was what she'd had in that package the morning before. The big surprise. I stared through the faint dawn light and wiggled my toes. If I held them up, they just grazed the leather, there was so much room. The smell was heavenly: clean leather. Shoes got passed from the rich down to
the poor. They always held a bump here from the first owner, a dent there from the second, scuffs along the toes from the third. But these were absolutely new—all mine.

She tied the laces in a bow and whispered, “
Antifurto
,” and with the two bow loops she made an extra knot against thieves.

From beyond the door came the muffled sounds of sleep. I wished the others were awake to see my shoes. Especially Luigi and Ernesto. It was all I could do to stay quiet.

I put on my yarmulke, took Mamma's hand, and walked proudly out the door. She lifted me and we touched the
mezuzah
together.

Though she hurried me, I walked carefully. I tried to make sure that nothing would dirty my shoes. It was hard because the light was feeble, the ground was covered with trash, and we walked fast. I kept imagining Luigi's and Ernesto's reactions. I would take care of these shoes so that they could be passed like new to Luigi.

The leather-smacking sound of my own footsteps was a surprise. The strangeness of walking on the street without feeling it underfoot almost made me laugh. Gradually, though, the giddiness wore off and I looked around.

The people out and about so early were mostly men who worked the farmlands. They had to walk an hour or two to reach their jobs. They carried bread in one hand and, if they were lucky, cheese in the other, eating as they went.

I smelled the sharp pecorino and wanted it. Without songs filling me as I woke, I was hungry. That morning Mamma hadn't sung. She'd acted as if we were sneaking out, on a secret treat.

The tenseness of her shoulders told me she was excited. I squeezed her hand in happiness. “Did you get a job?” I asked. “In an office? Are you starting today? Am I helping you?”

Mamma looked at me, her eyelids half lowered. “They hired someone else.” Her voice broke.

I squeezed her hand again. “You'll get the next job.”

She gave a sad “humph.” Then she pulled me faster, the long shawl over her head and shoulders flapping behind. In this hot weather no one but an old crone would cover her head. Mamma must have been sweltering.

“Mamma, where are we going?”

She gripped my arm and pulled me along even faster through neighborhoods I'd never been in before. Long strands of spaghetti hung from poles in front of a pasta factory. Men dressed only in towels around their waists set more poles of pasta to dry in the sun. Other men wrapped dried strands in blue paper. Shopkeepers swept steps and washed windows before opening. The air was coffee. Men came out of coffee bars with powdered-sugar mustaches, licking pastry cheese from their teeth.

A group of women stood around an empty washtub and looked at us. Mamma snatched my yarmulke and tucked it inside her shawl. Why? Those women hadn't said anything. But Mamma's face was flushed.

The seagull screams grew louder. The first fishermen had already returned to the beaches near the port. They gutted fish and threw the innards to the swooping birds. A stooped man grilled fish tails for sale. My mouth watered.

Mamma stopped, as though she had heard my stomach call out. She ran onto the sand and talked to the man. He
fashioned a cone from newsprint and filled it with fish tails. He squeezed on lemon and laced them with salt.

Mamma whispered a prayer and we squatted side by side. Normally, we'd sit to eat, like any Jew; we weren't horses. But there was nowhere clean. The Most Powerful One would understand—squatting was almost sitting. Mamma draped her shawl over my head, too, and we ate. Those fish tails were amazing.

I chewed and stared at my shoes. Life could hardly get better.

When we finished, we walked along the water. A steamer loomed in the harbor. I'd seen it the day before from the high piazza on Vomero, but up close it was overwhelming—a giant iron monster. We walked onto the dock. Mamma went down on one knee and smoothed my shirt across my bony chest and wiped my hands and face with the inner hem of her shawl.

From somewhere under that shawl she pulled out a little fold of cloth. It had a string tied around it. Another surprise? With her thumb, she tucked it inside my right shoe, under the arch of my foot. It was so small, it fit easily. “Your job is to survive.”

“Wha—?” I opened my mouth, but she put a finger over my lips.

“First of all, simply survive.” She stopped and swallowed and for a moment I thought maybe she was sick. “Watch, like you always do, watch and learn and do whatever you have to do to fit in. Talk as little as possible—just watch and use your head.” Her eyes didn't blink for so long, they turned glassy. “Nothing can stop you,
tesoro mio
. Remember, you're special, a gift from the Most Powerful One. As soon
as you can, get an education. Be your own boss.” Then she said, “Open your mouth.” I opened my mouth and she spat in it. “That's for long life.” She stood up. “Don't undress with anyone around. Ever. Swear to me.”

“What?”

“Swear, Beniamino.”

I swallowed her saliva. “I swear, Mamma.”

We held hands and walked the plank onto the ship. I looked beyond to the two mounds of Vesuvio, red in the rising sun.

A man stopped us.

“We've come to see Pier Giorgio,” said Mamma.

“He went to visit his family in Calabria.”

“Then we'll wait for him.”

“He's not coming on this trip,” said the man.

Mamma sucked in air. “That can't be.” She pulled me in front of her and pressed her hands down on my shoulders so hard, I thought I'd fall. “I paid,” she said. “I paid Pier Giorgio.”

“For what?”

“Passage to America.”

America. I reached up and put my hand on hers. That was why she had said those crazy words about survival; she was afraid of the journey. But it was worth it; we'd find our fortune in America, like Tonino. We'd send money home, enough for everyone to come and join us.

I would have whispered encouragement, but the man was arguing with her. “This is a cargo ship,” he said for a second time. “No passengers.”

“That can't be,” said Mamma. “It's all arranged.”

The man sighed. “How much have you got?”

“I gave it all to Pier Giorgio. My son's passage is paid.”

“Go to another ship. Give him to a
padrone
—an agent— who will pay his fare in exchange for work once the ship lands.”

“My son will never be anyone's slave.”

“Then he's not going to America.”

I looked up at Mamma to ask her what was going on. But she put a hand over my mouth and stared at the man. “Yes, he is.” She took off her shawl. The cloth of her dress seemed thin and shabby, like gauze. In an instant my strong mamma changed into someone small and weak. I wanted to cover her up.

The man rubbed his dirt-caked neck, leaving a clean streak of olive flesh. Then he took us down a ladder. We stepped off at the first inside deck, but the ladder kept going down. “Go hide in the dark, boy, past those barrels and boxes. Don't make a peep till you feel the sea moving under you. Even then wait a full hour before you come up. Promise.”

I looked at Mamma. She nodded. “I promise.” I took Mamma's hand, to lead her to the right spot, but he slapped my hand away.

“Your mother has to hide in a different spot, for safety. Hurry up now. Go.”

My eyes stung. I blinked hard. This was nothing, nothing at all, compared to being in the grotto under the convent with the body and the rats. This was simple.

I felt my way into the dark. When I looked back, Mamma and the man no longer stood in the circle of light that came in above the ladder. I went farther. Finally, I sat. But the floorboards were wet. They smelled of vinegar. So

I climbed onto a barrel lid. Other smells came at me— machine oils and salted foods and wine and olive oil. And, strangest of all, hay.

Soon men climbed up and down the ladder, disappearing below or above, mercifully not stopping on this deck.

My skin prickled, but I didn't rub my arms. My bottom went numb from not changing position, but I didn't flinch. My tongue felt fat against the roof of my mouth, but I didn't open my jaw. There were noises from the deck above as though hundreds of people were up there. And there were quiet sounds, too, now and then in the dark nearby. The labored breathing of a frightened person. Mamma. I wanted to call out to her. But I had promised not to.

After a while, scraping sounds came from the deck below, then the whoosh of fire and the roar of the steam engine. I heard a clank and all light ceased.

Only babies were afraid of the dark.

A horn blasted over and over, and I felt the movement of the sea. We were going. Going to America.

I waited in the dark. More than an hour, it had to be more. I waited in the heat that grew until I was drenched with sweat. Then I whispered, “Mamma.”

“
Zitto
—quiet,” came a hot hiss of sour breath. A man's voice.

I twisted my neck and peered into the dark. I couldn't see him, but someone was near. “Where's Mamma?”

“Halfway back to hell by now,” came the raspy voice.

Catholics talked that way—hell this and hell that. I got off the barrel and felt my way in the direction of the ladder, calling loudly, “Mamma.”

“Stop,” said the man. “Come back and shut up. Someone might hear you.”

Yes. “Mamma!” I pressed forward. I'd find her and we'd climb to the top deck and see America.

Something caught my pants at the hip. I pulled and the cloth came free with a small rip.

“They'll throw you overboard,” said the man.

That stopped me. I swam good; I wouldn't drown, no matter how deep it was. But I didn't know which way America was. And what if they threw Mamma overboard, too? With her shawl on, she might sink.

A long time passed, enough for my shoulders to ache from holding them tight and still. Think—use my head, like Mamma said. People couldn't just throw other people overboard. Weren't there laws against things like that? And even if there weren't, someone would have to have a terrible reason to do such a terrible thing.

I slid my foot forward silently. My path was blocked. I pushed at crates. “Mamma.” I whispered as loud as I dared. “Mamma, Mamma.”