Erri De Luca - God's Mountain

THE WOMEN were talking, saying that he had done the right thing. The women in Naples are always egging on the men. The oldest one said that Master Errico was a real kingpin, and during the September uprising against the Germans he got the whole block together to drive them out of Naples. Another woman said that when there’s someone like Master Errico on the block the criminals are nowhere to be found. The women talked, so I learned about past events. Back in those days my father was at the port defending his job. The people of Naples went wild. They took to the streets yelling, “ Iatevenne!” —get out of here! and they used guns to show the Germans to the door. Some even lost their lives. So this afternoon I asked Master Errico about it. He answered that everyone had come out that day — Don Liborio, Don Ciccio the doorman, the women, the street urchins, the city’s whole motley crew. “The Germans were tearing everything apart, dropping bombs on houses. In the end they wanted to take all of the young men to Germany to work for them. Anyone who didn’t report was shot. The only ones on the streets were old people and women. We wanted to drive them out. We didn’t want to hide anymore. The Americans showed no signs of entering Naples. They were waiting. So we got sick of waiting.”

I WANTED to hear more. After I pestered him for a while with questions, he continued. Master Errico was in the right mood. “Even Father Petrella the priest got involved. During the bombardments he had learned to say mass quickly, fifteen minutes at most. The practice has stayed with him, which is why they call him Father Fast. Once an air-raid siren went off after Communion, just as he was finishing the service. Rather than say the usual, ‘Ite, missa est,’ he said, ‘Fùìte!’ —make a run for it—‘ missa est!’ He was the first to run like a hare, blessing the shelter while he was running and holding up his cassock, the landlord close on his heels, followed by retired General De’Frunillis. During the September uprising even Don Petrella came into the line of fire, not to hurt the Germans but to bring us comfort. He gave absolution to those who were dying from gunshot wounds, including a German soldier. The whole neighborhood came out. When it was over, I said, ‘Now this city is mine.’ ” Rafaniello listened with tears in his eyes.

PAPA SPOKE with me. They’ve got some hope for Mama. Sitting down to coffee at six in the morning while the block is silent and dark, he lays it out for me. This year there will be no Christmas. “The only thing I care about is her, and she is leaning on me with all the strength she has left. She’s weak, but not her hands. She squeezes tight. She even broke a glass and cut herself. We’re fighting this one together. We don’t want to put you in the middle. It’s between us, going back to when we went to the air-raid shelters during the bombings and swore that we would never be apart, bombs or no bombs. No one could separate us. When a bomb exploded nearby, the blast made her throw up. I held her head and she vomited between my feet. I was happy that our love could do even this. We were engaged back then and even closer than newlyweds. The war allowed us to be the way we are. If she leaves, I’ll be like a doorknob without a door.” He forced himself to use Italian. He wanted to speak with me. He made me feel important. I didn’t say anything. I looked him right in the face. It was a small thing, to stay right in front of him and listen as well as I could, keeping my eyes on him and not moving. Then he let out what he was thinking. “All three of us will get back together, as if nothing happened, we’ll go back to having our Sundays. Do you remember the Solfatara Volcano?” It was time to go. That’s where he stopped. He got up and rinsed his cup out in the sink. It was the first time he’d done it. He splashed some water on himself, dried off, and smiled at me.

HE WAS really confiding in me. He explained carefully, mustering the patience he needed to speak Italian. In his mouth it becomes a Sunday language. When he can’t find a word he turns red from the effort and I find it for him. Right away he says, “Bravo,” and repeats what I said, even if it isn’t the word he was looking for. Yes, I’m thinking of the Sunday we saw the Solfatara Volcano. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? ‘A tieni mente? ” Yes, it’s fresh in my mind. He wants to climb Vesuvius, too, on a winter Sunday when there’s snow on top. “Do you remember the snow?” he asks me sometimes, and I nod yes, and stare out into the darkness. I can see the 1956 snowstorm, the soft rain of the north, white and silent. We tell each other about it again and every winter he tells me, “This year it’s going to snow by the sea, too,” out of his desire to see it again. The port becomes clean. You can’t see the dirt, the oil, the rust. Silence grips the city. Even the streetcar forgets that it’s made of steel and passes by as quietly as a trolley bus. “Even the garbage piles, ‘e muntune ‘e munnezza, seem beautiful.” The oak trees at the Villa Comunale wear white skullcaps and I wonder: How do the blind get by without white?

PAPA LEFT with a change of clothes for Mama, wrapped up in a paper bundle under his arm. I turn the light off. I’m alone. It’s cold. I squeeze the boomerang in my hand and warm myself. Of course I remember the Solfatara Volcano in Pozzuoli, Papa. You took me there one Sunday, without Mama, who couldn’t stand the stench and doesn’t wear perfume. We took the streetcar as far as Bagnoli, then went the rest of the way on foot. It was drizzling, raindrops as fine as pinheads tickling the calm sea and the tar-mottled beach. Under the umbrella I walked at your pace. I had to rush. I didn’t pay attention to the puddles and my feet got wet. Outside the entrance the air was already heavy with sulfur. We went in, Papa, and you started reading one of the signs out loud: The solfatara is a volcanic exaltation . The right word was exhalation , but I didn’t correct you. When a volcano dies, it exhales its final warmth in green brimstone salts the same color as Rafaniello’s eyes. We arrive at the crater, which is sunken into the plain. A silent smoke rises from the crusts of earth. A pond of mud boils, bubbling on the surface. Papa closes the umbrella. The steam from the solfatara stops the rain. The only sound is of shoes touching the ground. With no city movement around me I feel a little dizzy.

I SEE a black butterfly. I read the names written below the plants near the crater: laurel, myrtle, arbutus. At one fumarole I remove my shoes and let my trousers dry. The earth is hot. It feels good on my back. A smell of burning rises from the bottom of my trousers. Too late I realize that the seat of my pants is scorched. Papa laughs, but he stops when he realizes that Mama will have to fix them. We circle the crater. I pick up green stones that are good for writing, like chalk at school. I think I still have them somewhere. If I find them I’ll bring them to Rafaniello to see if they match his eyes. On the way back Papa buys Mama a cut of musso, boiled calf’s lip. That’s how we are going to apologize for the trousers. Then we go up the hill to Montedidio. The students of the Nunziatella Military Academy pass us in their gold-buttoned uniforms, with white-handled dress swords hanging from their belts. Their clothing glares next to the shabby clothing of the crowds around them. They’re kids, a few years older than me, walking with their chests out and not looking anyone in the face. It must be awful to set yourself apart from other people that way, shunning them. At home Mama didn’t say a thing about the trousers or the musso, no scolding and no thanks. So we’re even.