Though scarpa is the Italian word for ‘shoe,’ it was also my friend’s surname. Even we children used it, bravely copying the way adults couldn’t resist placing an article in front of it. ‘Lo Scarpa,’ they’d say. This habit is not uncommon in Italy, treating people as if they are the one and only-too iconic to have a first name and too masterful to need one.
Lo Scarpa would sit in the courtyard on a chair scratched by cat claws and play judge for the neighborhood’s children, because 30 years ago, mothers-even le mamme italiane-did not interfere in free-for-all neighborhood squabbles. Sometimes hearing both sides of the story, sometimes bothering with neither, he was never anything but harsh-harsh and fair, the way wise people know how to be. Mica si deve vincere sempre. Non è mica la fine del mondo. Winning wasn’t everything, and the world was not likely to end before our game did, even if you were stuck on the losing team. Most of the statements he made had ‘mica’ in them, a strange vague word that gave his conversation a rough, quasi-mystical strength.
‘Perchè dici sempre “mica”‘? I asked him one day. Language interested me, even then.
Lo Scarpa snorted in response and warned me not to be a know-it-all. You could ask him things, but the answer was always a risk. ‘Mica puoi sapere tutto.’ It’s not like you have to know everything.
It took decades for me to finally get it-the definition, I mean. Not the fact, that being a know-it-all was altogether unnecessary. The word mica has eluded me for years, like a firefly that won’t be caught in a jar. Somehow, you can never quite get close enough to see what makes it light up. A term with no fixed meaning, mica is what the Italian dictionary calls un rafforzativo. It gives strength to objections and sometimes means ‘not at all’ or ‘not really.’ Often used without a negative, mica flips statements on their head, transforming them into well-grounded protests. Otherwise, it can be used for confirmation, the way we use question tags in English. Said with the correct intonation, mica also means ‘by chance.’
Lo Scarpa loved the word, for to him, protest and chance made history move and they were also the forces that kept things from ever changing. A Catholic and a Communist, an artisan and un partigiano who never went to their parades, Lo Scarpa truly broke the mold. I am still learning the extent of his paradox-as if all the clamor and quiet of Italy got trapped into single soul whose first name was lost in the shuffle. Right around sunset he’d say it-that faithful announcement he’d make daily: ‘So that’s it, ragazzi. That’s half the story, at least. The other half, we’ll never know.’ Neighborhood games ended with the knowledge that only a portion of the world’s stories ever get told at once.
Last week, at 91, Lo Scarpa had his funeral. Well, we had it for him, with the sprinkling of people who could pry themselves away from the seaside or their offices. And I’d like to tell you about it or at least make mention of a conversation had there-mica vi dispiace, vero? Though not too bright a topic, you won’t mind if I do, will you?
I was still walking out of the cemetery with Giorgio, a lifelong friend and the source of all my childhood mischief.
‘No one gave him a real eulogy,’ I complained.
‘What do you mean?’
‘No one said any nice things about him.’
‘Beh, mica siamo americani noi. We’re not Americans, you know. We’ve never made speeches at funerals. And if people do, it’s just a new fad that comes from watching movies. At least in death, a person gets to be free from praise or disapproval.’
His statement quieted me, but not entirely. ‘I just thought it would have been nice.’
‘Si, ma mica c’è tanto da dire. There’s not much to say at all. And there’s no use making a saint out of a dead man. Most likely, he wronged one person and did a good deed to the next. Just like all of us.’
I cocked my head to one side and listened. ‘Giorgio, you almost sound like him.’
My friend gave a tiny smile. ‘Well, somebody should, shouldn’t he?’
Yes. Most definitely.
Does Giorgio’s statement represent Italy’s pragmatic approach to death or epitomize its citizens’ down-to-earth attitude toward life and the living? Lo Scarpa would have told me to mind my own business about it: mica devi sapere tutto. So, perhaps death is a truly private affair and the final, silent acceptance of a person’s uncommented-upon paradox. But even so, I still think Lo Scarpa deserves a few words. Not nice ones necessarily, just a few indefinable words like his favorite, mica. It’s so much like a firefly, rousing but elusive. And so much like the man who knew only one half.
