'O capitone

'O capitone. It’s the big eel of the Christmas Eve feast, the fish that in Naples is bought alive and slips out of the hands of anyone who tries to hold it. The Smorfia gave it thirty-two, and with it two inseparable meanings: the Christmas Eve table — because the capitone is Christmas Eve — and whatever gets away, because catching it is quite a feat and every family has its own story to tell. In dreams, thirty-two arrives when something won’t let itself be grasped. A person who never commits, an answer that doesn’t come, a situation that changes shape every time you think you’ve figured it out. Or, on its cheerful side, a happy moment with family — because in Neapolitan memory the capitone and Christmas are the same image. The images that lead here all have to do with holding on. The capitone, which slips away. The vegetable garden, which instead stays put and grows slowly. And the fief, which is land held tight for generations. Together they tell the real tension of the number: what escapes and what stays rooted. If thirty-two has come up in your dream, there was something slippery. The Smorfia doesn’t say whether to chase it or let it go. It points out that in your dream something wouldn’t stay still — and sometimes it’s the thing, sometimes it’s you.