Street Fight in Naples by Peter Robb

Author:Peter Robb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ART015000, HIS020000
ISBN: 9781741764178
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2010-10-26T16:00:00+00:00

Cuttlefish and haircut

Toledo was one of at least five streets radiating from the messy little nexus of the Carità—maybe even seven or nine, according to how you looked at it. The least visible led off from an obscure corner at a slight angle to Toledo and was its busiest tributary. Pignasecca was Toledo’s link to the Metropolitana and anyone coming by train to the centre walked down it. A steady foot traffic struggled up toward the Montesanto station: descending traffic arrived in surges from each underground train and fed into the narrow cutting of Pignasecca.

In the mornings Pignasecca doubled as a produce market. Oranges and dark green leaf vegetables pushed out over the narrow footpath. Grocers’ discreeter hams and wheels of cheese, strings of salame and blistered boulders of bread stayed behind glass. Living shellfish, squid, octopus and cuttlefish looked up through water in shallow wooden tubs, spread out on the road almost under the wheels of cars and scooters. People on foot had to dodge not only vehicles but the tubs of fish and the squirting hoses with which the sea creatures were refreshed. Sometimes an octopus briefly slithered free among the wheels and heels. Other tubs held heaps of glittering silver anchovies. Larger fish were laid out over ice on trestles. The fishmongers tramped around in aprons and gumboots that were wet and black like the cobblestones, squirting sea water from hoses, and the air around them was briny and ammoniacal. Tubs were painted white or pale blue inside, to better display the wares. The largest actual establishment was the Grotta Azzurra and its cavelike opening was a dazzle of electric blue paint and livid neon light.

At alley corners were little kiosks where you could buy a glass of blood orange juice or fresh lemon whipped into a fizz with bicarbonate. Or a paper cone of rubbery gelatinous chopped-up bits of boiled ox tripe, tongue and muzzle. On one corner an old woman in black sat on a stool selling odori. Her herbs were bunches of basil or rosemary or oregano wrapped in tin foil and she was part of the family whose men and boys played with water at the fish tubs on the opposite corner. Whether she was there to keep a controlling eye on them, whether she was being made to earn her keep or being allowed to feel useful, or whether they all just liked keeping family company, I never worked out.

Montesanto’s centre, in the space that opened up beyond the dire New Pilgrims hospital, was a decrepit station with a splendid open verandah on the first floor overlooking another street junction. The verandah was edged in rusty wrought iron. You could feel a breath of sea air and look down at olives and lemons, baccalà and stoccafisso. Idle youth perched on parked Vespas or lounged in knots under lamp posts, waiting for the action. The action in those languorous days before Naples joined the market in hashish, heroin and cocaine was a new surge of passengers arriving down a side street from the Metropolitana deep under the hill.

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