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Around the Block  My family was part of a tiny enclave of Jews in our all-Italian neighborhood. Our block, running between Kings Highway and Avenue S, was densely lined with narrow, three-story brick row houses modeled on those that the first Dutch settlers had left behind. Each house had a basement apartment, a porch on the first floor, and a small second story that looked out on an impossibly crowded backyard. Trees, vegetable gardens, and Crayola-colored flowers flourished there amid the clotheslines which to me looked like giant necklaces, hung out in every weather and every season, festooned with aprons, overalls, sheets, dishrags, and embarrassingly oversized undergarments jiggling in the wind. A strip of concrete sidewalk stretched the length of the block on either side, with a crack running crosswise every four feet or so. These divisions were not to be stepped on under any circumstances. Telephone poles with perpendicular iron rods running up them stood at thirty-foot intervals; the repairmen used them to fix the phone lines, but to us kids they were vertical playgrounds. Lampposts occupied the spaces between the telephone poles, tricycles and bikes collapsed at their feet like weary acolytes. At dusk the street rang with the cries of mothers calling home their flocks for the nightly feeding: "TOE-KNEE! SUH-PPUH!" "MARIA, GETCHASEFF HOME NOW!" "JOSEPH, I’M GONNA KILLYA IF YA DOAN GEDDINHEAH!" Leaning out the open window, even my mother chimed in, although "Marcia" and "Warren" were names that hardly lent themselves to these kinds of operatic flourishes. In minutes the block would be cleared, leaving only the smells of spaghetti sauce wafting along the empty street. In the summer, the kids were let out again before bedtime to play one last game of hopscotch, hide-and-seek, or ring-a-leavio in the hopes of wearing us out. Our landlords, John and Maria Benfante, were generous Italians who quickly befriended my parents and became our second family. Our doors were never locked unless both families were gone at the same time, and there was a steady exchange of food, utensils, umbrellas, hats, shovels, books, and anything else that anyone needed to borrow or lend. John and Maria had no children of their own, at least not yet, and they doted on me. I spent more time at their place playing games, listening to music, and overdosing on spaghetti, lasagne, pasta e fagioli, and milk and cookies than I did in our own apartment, where my mother was busy with my new baby brother and my father was gone, working late at the office. Plus, the Benfantes spent at least half the year getting ready for Christmas, a holiday whose splendors made me certain that I had been born into the wrong ethnic group. On a hot July night in 1945, when I was five, I woke up suddenly in the dark, sweaty and scared. My tiny room, with its duck-and-umbrella decals and green wooden bed, faced the street. From the open window I heard explosions, the crash of garbage cans, men shouting. The noise was incredible. Terrified, I pulled myself up by the sill and peered out the window. The cheerful brick facades that I knew so well were transformed into a nightmare of leaping flames, showering sparks, and a blur of streamers and confetti, like an electrified snow globe that had short-circuited. Through flashes of white light I made out the figures of two burning men hanging from the lampposts, crowds of people dancing and hooting below them. I began to cry so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I was choking, alone in the dark, when I felt John kneeling by my bed, his arms around me. His deep voice was telling me over and over, "It’s all right, bambina, it’s all right, it’s a party in the street, don’t cry!" He handed me his huge handkerchief. "Here, listen, let me tell you what a wonderful thing just happened. The war is over! And everyone is celebrating! Your mamma and papa went outside for a minute, because we’re all so happy!" He took a piece of candy from his pocket, unwrapped it, and put it in my shaking hand. "There now," he said, "that’s better," and he began to sing. To me John was the handsomest man in the world. He was broad-shouldered and muscular, with big features, a shy smile, and a pompadour. He was also a real live celebrity, a radio opera singer. Because I would do anything to hear him sing, I stopped crying and curled up on his lap, hiccupping. He had a maple syrup baritone, and he liked to serenade me. At the first lilting note the burning men, reduced to cinders in my mind, floated off into the night air. Years later, I found out that they were effigies of Hitler and Mussolini. Whatever differences there may have been between the Italians and Jews in our neighborhood melted away into the flames that night—at least among the grown-ups. |
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