Naples '44 by Norman Lewis Page A

and then they, too, had died through the failure of the filtration plant.
    The Via Carducci joins the Riviera at this point, and I followed it into the square containing the church of San Pasquale. This possesses the miraculously preserved body of the Blessed Egideo whom I found on view in the glass case in which he has lain for some two hundred years. The flesh, as proclaimed, showed no signs of decay, and the Blessed Egideo’s facial expression was serene to the point of indifference. He enjoys huge fame in the area of San Pasquale as the protector of women in pregnancy, and only requires to add two more miracles to his already impressive list to complete all the qualifications for full sainthood.
    San Pasquale is a community of its own, with its own fiestas and folklore, and even a surviving feudal chieftain, the Prince of Rocella, who raised a force of partisans in these streets and led them against the Germans in the celebrated four days of the uprising. Here I found myself immersed in the popular life of Naples which has been resurrectedamong the ruins. A hand-operated roundabout for children had been set up, and an old man with a concertina was squeaking out ‘ O Sole Mio ’ and selling printed fortunes for a lira apiece. Fishing has at last been legally resumed and in the street market an excited crowd had gathered to watch the cutting-up of a tremendous swordfish, rarely caught at this time of the year. The head had been cut off and stood up in the street for separate display, the sword pointing upwards and the huge flat blue eyes staring into the sky. This is a lucky sight, with phallic associations, and the onlookers circled the head reverently as if about to break into a dance.
    Luck, and even more so bad luck, plays a powerful part in the lives of Neapolitans. There is not a jeweller’s shop in the city that does not sell amulets in the form of a little coral horn to be worn on a necklace or a bracelet, and here in the Via Carducci something was pointed out to me which I did not imagine could exist – a house considered to suffer from the evil eye, which is carefully avoided by passers-by. There was nothing particularly sinister in the appearance of Number 15, which was just a small modern block of flats in which several tenants had put an end to their lives. The eventual remedy would be for a number of the neighbours to get together and put up the money to build a shrine in the street wall of the malefic building, placing it under the special protection of some powerful exorcist such as San Gaetano.
December 18
    Again the vendetta. Not only are we subjected to a flood of accusations and denunciations that come direct from the Italian citizenry, but to a further, and usually even more senseless and baseless outpouring, from the static military units in the area. These – road and railway construction companies, petrol supply companies, signal units, base depots, and so on – are thick on the ground in the Naples area, and their commanding officers soon fall victims to the Italian interpreters they employ who tell them what the interpreters think fit that they should know, and ply them with wild legends of spies and Fascist saboteurs. They also do what they can to involve these gullible and innocent men – just as they do us – in the local feuds.
    The chiefs of police, being for the most part villains, figure very largely in these indignant reports from the units and recently a number of charges have been made against Marshal Benvenuto, who rules with a rod of iron in the village of Torrito, near Aversa. An Italian police marshal is only the equivalent in rank of a sergeant-major, but he wields huge and often tyrannical power in small Italian towns, where he is in command of the forces of law and order. Benvenuto is said to use the unsatisfactory food situation to spread propaganda against the Allies, and in the words of one anonymous accusation ‘to promise with open malice