16-22-81-38

Hunch-players in Italy's weekly lottery often consult a handy handbook called the cabala which gives the magic numbers associated with certain objects and events. In Naples last week bettors staked nearly half a million lire on a combination 16 (funeral), 22 (flags), 81 (flowers) and 38 (beatings). The hunch-players were impelled toward this combination by events that followed the death of one Angelo Cicatiello, an obscure and contented man in life.

At 52, Angelo was plump, jovial, devoutly Catholic. By Italian standards, he was also prosperous. Thirty years ago he had gone to the New World to seek his fortune, and in Rhode Island he had found it, in a modest way, as a Providence shopkeeper. Last June, Angelo and his wife, Anna, went back to their beloved, native Naples for a two months' visit.

Bevies of Angelo's and Anna's relatives welcomed the happy couple, but there was a small fly in the ointment. Naples, and the world, had changed in three decades; Angelo's brothers were anti-Catholic Communists; Anna's people, the Coronas, were anti-Communist Catholics. Queerly enough, they all lived in the same building, on the Via Padre Ludovico da Casoria, near Naples' biggest market.

For a while, the family differences were drowned in merrymaking. With Communist and Catholic relatives Angelo celebrated too well. He collapsed with a heart attack, and last fortnight he died. His last wish had been that every Catholic organization in the market district should send a delegation, with its flag, to his funeral.

His brother, Communist Onofrio Cicatiello, a streetcar motorman, raged: "We will never allow Catholic flags to follow the hearse. We don't want anything more to do with those bigots." The Catholic Coronas stood up for their rights. As a compromise, two lines of mourners followed the hearse, one carrying red flags, the other with religious banners. Said a spectator: "I don't know what our neighbor Angelo would think if he were alive. But never have I seen a funeral with better color."

It is a Neapolitan custom that, on the first Monday after burial, relatives and close friends of the deceased return to the grave and deck it with flowers. On that day, Cicatiellos bearing red flowers and Coronas bearing white flowers appeared at the cemetery. This time, antagonism boiled over and there was a sharp pitched battle.

Cemetery workers broke it up, but, back on the Via Padre Ludovico da Casoria, the fight started again. There were heavy casualties from flying pots, pans and chairs. Skulls were cracked and blood flowed. At week's end six of the injured were still in hospital. The Widow Cicatiello gave up trying to make peace, took a plane back to tranquil Providence.

In last week's lottery drawing the magic numbers 16-22-81-38 failed to win.

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