Caflisch

Towards the end of April 1959, on one of those spring days that seems to me that only Naples can offer, when the air is enchantingly warm without being annoyingly hot and a light breeze comes from the sea, my mother leaves the house as she does every morning, crossing via dei Mille to fare dei servizi, an expression that in the city lexicon means to go shopping. She too is a bizarre character. Equally divided between the work of an elegant lady and a passion inherited from her astronomer grandfather, Francesco, for the stars. On summer nights she spends hours at the telescope studying the sky, and with equal enthusiasm she loves clothes and everything sugary that can be eaten, with unsuspected greed for such a slender woman.