A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy by Eric Lamet Read Free Book Online

Scala. Only if you take a nap.”
    I had heard of the famous opera house and decided that going to La Scala to see an opera was worth a nap, perhaps even two. That night, at the age of eight, dressed in my best Lord Fauntleroy suit, knee-high socks, and a black velvet ascot, I entered the portal of the greatest opera house in the world to hear Turandot . The red velvet parapets and overstuffed chairs, the gilded wall decorations, the huge crystal chandeliers, men and women in their flashy evening clothes, all made a lasting impact, putting me in a state of total ecstasy.
    For days I told everyone I met of having been at La Scala, little realizing that, for those living in Milan, this was nothing unusual.
    Another first was learning true woodworking. When I was five years old and still living in Vienna, with a small coping saw and a piece of thin plywood, I created a complete bedroom set that fit into a shoebox. But that had been child's play. In Milan I befriended a real cabinetmaker. Passing by his shop one morning, I stopped to watch. Cautiously, I moved into the sawdust-filled shop. The man stopped what he was doing and, shining a broad smile, greeted me and asked me something.
    We had been in Italy less than two months and my Italian was not good enough to understand the question. In the best way I knew how, I asked the man to repeat what he had said. It took a few minutes and a great deal of the man's patience before I understood that he had asked me if I liked woodworking. I then tried to explain to him what I had done at age five, but only when I drew pictures to explain did he finally understand me.
    This cabinetmaker did not work with coping saws and shoeboxes. He made full-sized furniture with full-sized tools. I was impressed by the large and deafening electric saw. As I prepared to leave his shop that first day, his arm around my shoulders and his warm squeeze made me realize I would be welcome back. His shop was just around the corner from where we lived and that made it easy to hop over any day I had time.
    During that same period I became the little darling of some of the salesladies of the local Upim store located on Via Meravigli. What a perfect combination. The cabinetmaker supplied me with scraps of lumber, and the sales clerks were generous in letting me have batteries, lamps, wires, and everything else I needed to build my small projects.
    So while most other kids played in the streets or the courtyards, I was in our room sawing, hammering, running wires, and building things. Despite the mess I created in our bedroom, my mother was proud of the scaled-down trolley car her little son had built — a copy of the real thing running through city streets. It had a seat for the conductor, two rotating controls (one the accelerator, the other the brake), a working headlight, and a bell.
    I realized at an early age that my mother was a great socializer, and soon after we settled down in our new country, she made a great number of new friends. They must all have been refugees like us, for I never heard anything but German and Polish spoken. Mother had friends for bridge, others for sitting with at a coffeehouse, and others with whom she spent pleasant hours at home. Every time one of these friends came to visit, Mamma would ask me to sit in the trolley and show off my creation. She made it a ritual. They never stopped coming, and so biased was my Mutti that she failed to recognize what even I could see: her friends had little interest in her son's handiwork.
    In going through my father's night table one day, I found a pair of glasses. With the find held high in my hand, I bolted out of the room in search of Mother. “Whose glasses are these?” I called out.
    “They're Papa's,” she answered.
    “I've never seen him wear them,” I said, stunned.
    With her words still ringing in my ears, I dragged myself back to our room and broke into uncontrollable sobs. To me, only old people wore glasses and I didn't want my