Sometimes people looked down their noses as you tried to make situations whole, giving information as you translated into Italian what a doctor, or insurance agent, or nun said to them. With their sense of concern for the questions, my relatives would try to do the best they could. Even going to the store with someone from ‘the other side’ as they used to say could be an adventure.
In spite of the onus of interpreting English to Italian and then Italian into English, you also had the advantage of some comic revenge.
Sternly and matter-of-fact: “Tell her I need her birth certificate.”
“Grandma, lui vuole il certificato di nascita!”
“Dire questo personaggio, cosa ti sembro, municipio?"
“She says she doesn’t have one.”
Grandma was a leader of the clan often sponsoring others who came to America after she was settled. Soon new aunts and uncles, cousins and amici’ or paisanos started appearing out of nowhere. They seemed to have an imported look that said and sounded like ‘Made in Italy’. There was my Uncle Mimi who I called ‘Uncle’ because no one knew what to call him. That changed as he started to give his political views. Uncle Mimi was a very handsome man who knew how to dress to wow the ladies. Slim with a thin Roman nose curly black hair and a smile that stretched to the back of his head on both sides, his eloquence was accentuated by his hand gestures and calming voice. He wore black turtleneck shirts, fancy trousers, and expensive black patent leather shoes. He had a perpetual cigarette in his fingers that he used for emphasis and to take the edge off his accent.
Trailing right behind him as his fiancé he spoke about. Uncle Mimi went back to Italy and married Concetta, a strikingly beautiful woman who was sweet and soft-spoken. At the tender age of 10, I conspired as to how to do away with Uncle Mimi so I could get her attention. The newlyweds moved upstairs in the building my grandmother owned, had two kids and shattered my dreams.
Then there was the ‘Smelly lady’ who I believe never bathed when she came to America. It seemed she was always around somewhere, vocal and full of piss and vinegar (That might be what I was smelling) and put up with her crazy husband, Carmello. Carmello was a communist, or at least that is what everyone thought. Blond wiry hair, the curls in a row, he would gather the men into a circle and discuss or yell politics. He was an accomplished debater, using the hand motions of an orchestra conductor on speed, emphasizing his points in fluid rapid motions, truly a spectacle to watch and admire.
Then there was Quellodopey, a frequent visitor to grandmas for coffee or a drink with grandpa. Quellodopey, or Michele as he was addressed when seen, would often find himself in some sort of box where Grandma or Grandpa had to bail him out. Nothing serious, just stupid would happen to him. Being little I called him Quellodopey not knowing that was not his name.
My grandmother had a housemate that lived with her after grandpa passed. We called her Zia Michela and she was a sad case. Very grateful to grandma for taking her in and making her part of the family, she did anything grandma wanted to be done, including setting the table or doing the dishes. The trouble was she was almost blind, so grandma would have the cleanest dishes in Brooklyn, as all my aunts would re-wash the dishes a second time. A very sweet woman, she treated us like her own, ignoring us because she couldn't see too well.
Italians are more clannish than any nationality I know of. To an Italian, interracial marriage was marrying someone from another providence. For instance, Mom’s family came from Moli di Bari, Dad’s from Naples, thus the interracial marriage. With that came the insinuations of who were the country hicks and who were the gentry or more civilized.
Mom to Dad: “Huh, your family was too busy yelling to get anything done in the mountains!”Dad to Mom” “Ha, your people were too primitive to know any better, when my people threw out a cup of coffee, your people at the bottom of the mountain placed their cups along the side of the mountain to get their morning coffee!
All this banter was in good humor and always good-natured unless you pissed-off Mom. Then Mom gave chase and Dad ran for his life, while his kids laughed at it all.
The neighborhood was a different story. Sicilians got along with Neapolitans, Genoans co-existed with Tuscans all you needed to do was talk the same language, that is, with your hands.
Come the holidays, the people all somehow came together, gathering in Grandma’s kitchen. The huge restaurant-style pasta pot was steaming, the chicken was in the oven, pastries sitting on a counter, the gravy and meats arranged in a plate or two, wine flowing and bags of nuts waiting to be cracked, a crescendo of love, laughter and good strong yelling. It was a cast of characters assembled for my memories like actors in a play.
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