Naples, 1947. Piazza Garibaldi
binaries are covered with rubble, destroyed by bombing the rails, the debris accumulated in the corners to form compact and arid hills. After the war ended only a part of the railway has been restored, and provide two tracks running a few times a day.
's still dark, but the station is already full of people.
The convoy, which must start a load rather unique: hundreds of children, mostly street urchins, boys and girls aged six to twelve years.
Paola is one of them and has almost seven years, but it shows less, it is all wrapped up in the coat too big that gave women the Committee. He rubs his clear eyes with dirty hands, leaving two black stripes on his face haggard. "I keep cool but '" he says, yet again, pulling the skirt of the mother who raises her eyes to heaven, but then if the charge in her arms, covering her with her shawl. To her, the cold has settled it will give the bones that almost does not hear him anymore. It fits the child around the neck holding a grimace of pain. The feet, the feet are a plague, it seems that at every step you ficchino dozens of pins under the trees, 'Do a good mum, on' "she says trying to comfort her, "Mo take you in Modena, they give you milk, bread ..." continued chanting. Paola knows how that story by heart, the mother repeated it to him for a month like a fairy tale.
He sank his head in the shawl, search for the 'familiar smell her mother's neck, hairline, a mixture of lemon and camphor he uses to wash her hair instead of soap that never happened.
Michele walks beside them all intrizzito and silent. Hair rapati to zero because of head lice are growing back as velvet. Paola looks. To see him now, all mangy, would you mind taking it around to a few days ago. He continues to pull on his nose, but the mucus has now formed a flake crystallized around the mouth. It can be cleaned with an old handkerchief held in the sleeve of his coat, but the crust is always reforming.
Gaetano, a young thin man thin, with funny glasses with an intellectual, he begins to make the call: "... Mario Capuano, comes forward with a child looking down" This way "the man says, pushing the first wagon, "Casolaro Rosa ..." continues with a stentorian voice. One after the other are divided so that each group corresponds to a wagon.
The radio controls in the cabin, tuned to the weather forecast continues to predict bad weather.
Paola queues with the other holding hands Michael, who turns constantly looking at the mother. Soon they are all in, placed on wooden seats.
The train is almost ready to go when, from a wagon to another, you hear the same appeal and coat! "And in less than no time all the children take off his coat with the label sewn laboriously recognition from Red Cross on each animal, and throws it out of the windows to the other that remain, which need more. So fast that the station is emptied in an instant and there's no way to recover the jackets. On the train you want to ask the names wagon wagon to all children. No one answers! "What's your name?" Ask the women of the Committee, but the kids turn their face. But then carry the bread and languages \u200b\u200bbegin to melt. "My name is Giuseppe, Giuseppe Russo," "I Maria di Girolamo ... I've got so years," says another opening his hand with five fingers extended. When his turn, as Paul says in a low voice that no one hears and Michael is compelled to repeat it. "What beautiful eyes," says the guard by lifting the chin with a finger, "most of the blue sky." Paola face down with force, because it is what he always says his mother.
It takes hours before, lists in hand, unable to identify them all and sew other numbered plates, this time directly on clothes. If you just want to talk to are convinced by a trick: "Anto '" they shouted through the cars until one turns instinctively do not feel called, "Then TTU Antonio," and the stitching him caught on the fly to the plate. The last two, one male and one female, are identified for exclusion. "Why did not you meant to say that Ciro was your name?" Asks a woman of the committee that the child does not utter a word grumpy, "you are dumb, perhaps?". The kid looks tough, "He had to be cracked or ddic Nomme my" before closing the answers in his silence.
Finally the train is moving and shaking all at each other to get heat, while the women go between the cars to bring blankets and comforting words.
not nobody crying, more than any child complains in his sleep. Paola
brother who looks at the sniffles, sleepy. The mother has been advised to look after him until you stick together and fight off sleep until Michael, lulled by the rocking of the train, does not collapse all rolled up like a kitten. Only then closes his eyes es'addormenta Paola.
They woke up in Reggio Emilia.
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