When I was a child of 4 or 5, my father used to listen to old-fashioned Neapolitan songs. They were sentimental, romantic, perhaps overwrought — Italian schmaltz, as someone described them. But my father would close his eyes and allow them to transport him.
One day, he came home from New York’s Little Italy with a new LP of songs sung by Luciano Virgili, with names like “Piccola Santa,” “Addio Signora,” and “Cuore Ingrata.” The music filled the room, and I glimpsed in my father’s response unfamiliar aspects of his identity — a different language, a yearning, a sense of who he was before he was my father, and of dreams he had long ago deferred.
Afterward, lost in thought, he set the record down on the seat of an upholstered chair. I sat on that chair, heard an ominous crack, and feared that with the broken record, I had broken his heart, or perhaps incurred his wrath. Instead, he saw that I was scared, looked at me tenderly, and said: “I love you more than I love that record.” Thus, he taught me about love, and I am forever fond of Italian schmaltz. The sound of it takes me away.