Much of this novel takes place in a small office-apartment known as the portineria, which I have translated here as the doorman’s loge. Generally located in the entryway of an apartment complex, the loge may have one or two rooms: a front room with a door, a picture window, a table and a small stove, and perhaps a small room in the back. The sleeping quarters are located in another part of the complex. A uniquely Neapolitan dwelling that figures in the novel is the basso, a one- or two-room ground-floor apartment opening directly onto the street in the oldest and poorest neighborhoods. The primary building material of the city is the soft volcanic rock known as tufo. Dug into the tufo substratum of Naples is an underground city of tunnel networks, spacious cavities, cisterns, and even the remains of the ancient Greek and Roman city, Neapolis.
In Neapolitan dialect it is common to truncate words and names, so the doorman, Don Gaetano, becomes Gaeta’ (pronounced “guy-tah”), while the unnamed narrator, the guaglione (gwhile-yoh-ne)—a generic name for a boy or young man—is shortened to guaglio’. The vowels tend to be more open than in standard Italian while the consonants are often doubled.
The card game that Don Gaetano and the guaglione play is scopa, literally “sweep,” since the object is to take all forty cards and thus do a sweep. While it is played throughout Italy, the deck design and nomenclature can vary by city or region. The four suits of the Neapolitan deck are: spade (swords), coppe (cups), bastoni (clubs), and denari (coins). There are two ways to take a trick: by playing a single card to take a card of equal value, called a pariglio since an even number of cards of the same value will remain in the deck; or by playing a single card to take two or more cards whose sum adds up to the same value, called a spariglio since an odd number of cards of the same value will remain in the deck.
The history the narrator learns in school is of the Risorgimento, the process of Italian unification that was secured through three wars of independence: in 1848, 1859–1861, and 1866–1970. There was a strong rift within the movement between proponents of a republic, most famously General Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini; and the monarchists, particularly Count Cavour, the first prime minister. Carlo Pisacane was an early anarchist. Two historic battles were fought with the Austrians at Custoza, near Verona: in 1848, during the First War of Independence, and in 1866, during the Third War of Independence.
The war stories told by Don Gaetano are based on the Four Days of Naples, the popular uprising of September 27–30, 1943. As the Allied forces closed in on the city, the Nazi occupiers laid plans to blow up the harbor, round up able-bodied men and youths, and deport them to labor camps. When the Germans began summary executions of the men who did not show up for deportation, the Resistance and the populace fought them with and without regular weapons through acts of sabotage, guerrilla warfare, and open battle.