The King of Mulberry Street Read online

  I pressed my back against the wall and stood on tiptoe to look again. Rats ripped at the naked, bloated body of a man.

  My eyes burned. The month before, an old man had stabbed a man on our street. A week later a young man had shot another in the piazza. When the stabbing happened, I was with Mamma. She whisked me home and held me till I slept. For the shooting, I was alone. I bit my knuckles to keep from screaming. The shooter walked up to me, and I recognized him—he lived nearby. He knocked my yarmulke off with the tip of the gun and hissed, “Bastardo Jew.” Bastardo—a name for mongrel dogs, not people.

  I ran home, but I didn't tell Mamma. She would have cried. I didn't cry then and I battled away tears now. Boys didn't cry.

  I kept my eyes straight ahead till I got to the locked grotto that held the convent's special wines. I took two bottles and walked back. Fast, fast past the body. Hardly breathing.

  At the tunnel I tried to tuck the bottles into my waistband. They wouldn't both fit. The idea of leaving one behind and passing through that tunnel two more times to fetch it was unbearable. So I lay on my back in the tunnel with my hands cradling the bottles on my belly and with the candle in my mouth. Little by little I scooched headfirst the length of that tunnel, as hot candle wax dripped on my chest through my open collar.

  When I got to the ladder, I kissed my yarmulke and stuck it on my head. I climbed up with one bottle and put it on the convent floor, then went down for the other before I could think twice. I set it beside the first, crawled out, and stood.

  “What's the matter, child? You smell awful.”

  The nun's worried face undid me; I cried. Loudly, asthough I was crying for everyone who had ever died and everyone who ever would. And I thanked the Most Powerful One that there were only nuns to watch me disgrace myself like this.

  Soon five nuns huddled around me, wiping me with a wet cloth, offering water and bread with chocolate. I rinsed my mouth. “There was a body,” I said.

  “Oh. That. Ah.” My favorite nun smoothed my hair gently. None of them was surprised. The cemeteries were full, so after funerals, men dug up the corpses and dumped them in the grottos.

  I ate as they talked. Chocolate, such good chocolate, speckled with nuts.

  My favorite nun lifted the pouch from my neck. “A candle is missing.” She touched my cheek. “Munaciello stole it.”

  Munaciello was a spirit who hid things. Children blamed him, not adults. I felt charmed, though her words were just kindness, to keep the head nun from charging me for that candle.

  The head nun gave me three coins. Three! “Beniamino, special one.” She was about to tell me to become Catholic. Mamma hated my coming here because of that. But for three coins, let her blab. Besides, she called me special. Everyone said my cousins Luigi and Ernesto were special because they were named after famous men, but only Mamma thought I was special. “A boy with no earthly father is always special,” said the nun. “Jesus Christ was just so. Your right place is here, child.”

  Despite the praise, I knew she felt sorry for me; I was Jewish and fatherless. What a fool she was to feel that way.Being Jewish was best. And Nonna had taught me not to be jealous of children with fathers. “Chi tene mamma, nun chiagne”—Whoever has a mother doesn't cry. A proverb. That's all I needed, all anyone needed: a mother.

  My favorite nun handed me half a lemon dipped in sugar. “That extra coin can't lessen the horror behind, but it may make the prospects ahead better, right?” That was why she was my favorite—she spoke straight. “Come back soon, sweet one.”

  I sat on the step and blinked at the sunlight. The lemon made my mouth fresh, but I couldn't shake the feeling of being dirty. The odor of the corpse clung to me.

  I walked slowly through the empty streets; people had gone home for the afternoon rest. The three coins pressed into my fist. I needed something to put them in so I wouldn't lose them.

  I took a side street, where a girl sat on a chair outside while her mother combed her hair. At the next corner a woman dressed in rags picked lice from the head of a boy at her feet. They were all poor. Maybe poorer than us.

  I came out into the marketplace. In front of an oil store a family had set out a table under a canopy of grapevines. Their meal was over, but two men leaned back in their chairs, talking.

  A fine gentleman came into the square, and a man and two boys appeared from nowhere. The man plunked down a shoe-shine box and the gentleman put a foot up on the box. One boy stood behind the gentleman and reached a stealthy hand under the loose hem of his fancy coat. He pulled out a handkerchief and stuffed it under his own shirt.

  The thief looked hard at me.

  The man finished the shoe shine, and he left with the boys.

  People were robbed all the time; still, I went all jittery.

  My family would hit me if I stole. Nonna especially. She'd recite: “Chi sparagna 'a mazza nun vô bene ê figlie”— Those who don't beat their children don't love them. Then she'd hit me again. And the Most Powerful One, He'd never forgive me.

  The men at the table were still talking. Had they noticed? I'd noticed, but the thief had glared at me to make sure I'd never tell. Like the man with the gun who'd said, “Bastardo Jew.”

  I felt dirtier than ever. In the trash I spied a matchbox. I slipped the coins into the box and tied the ends of my pant strings around it, then tucked it in at my waist. Now to get clean.

  I ran along the bay to a cove. Boys were jumping off a fishing boat. They were naked, like most boys at the beach, but these boys were probably always naked except in church. They were scugnizzi—urchins, the poorest of the poor. No one trusted them. One stood on the gunwale and jabbed with a pole under the water. A seagull circled, screeching greedily.

  They didn't look at me, but they knew I was there. They were aware of everything that happened; scugnizzi always were. If I hid the matchbox, it would disappear while I was swimming.

  I was so filthy. I had to swim. Where else could I go?

  Vesuvio, of course. Up to the rain-filled craters near the volcano's peak. I hitched a ride on the coastal road and layon my back in the empty wagon, arms and legs spread wide. The sides were high; I saw only clouds. The air smelled of sea. I felt tiny—a speck of nothing, suspended without time or care.

  The wagon turned inland and stopped in front of the monastery at the base of Vesuvio. Then I climbed on foot.

  Some of the crater lakes were so hot they bubbled. I stopped at the first one that wasn't steamy, and I hid the matchbox under a rock. Then I took off my clothes, swished them in the water, and stretched them to dry on a rock while I swam. The water was heavy like oil and stank of sulfur. I scrubbed my skin nearly raw with bottom silt, the black volcanic ash.

  When I came out of the water, my pants were gone. I had two pairs—one for the Sabbath, one for other days. Now one was gone. But the matchbox was undisturbed.

  In my wet shirt I walked with slow, heavy steps downhill. Mamma would be furious, Nonna would smack me, my uncles would shout. It wasn't that I was indecent; my shirt came to my knees. But how much did pants cost? And I was supposed to be smart; no one should have been able to steal from me.

  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.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Shoes

  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 tothe 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. Hefashioned 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 soonas 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.”