Children of this Land E-Book

Serafina Crolla

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The moving and delightful story of the Valente family, although fiction, is grounded in first-hand knowledge of the way of life in Picinisco, southern Italy, in the post-war years. Poverty, separation and loss were common experiences that caused many to emigrate. Yet the hardships were more than balanced by a culture of family warmth and vitality, shared connection to the land and an intimate understanding of how to work it. A born storyteller, Serafina Crolla was inspired to write Children of this Land when visiting the cemetery in her native village of Picinisco. There, she saw a headstone for 'An exemplary mother of nineteen children'. She was deeply struck by the eloquent simplicity and poignancy of this memorial inscription. As the daughter of a shepherd, Serafina well understood the joys and hardships that life would have entailed for this family. Through the vicissitudes of life, ties to this place hold strong for the Valentes. The nineteen children who make up the family tell their stories of love, marriage, trials and tribulations, loss and pain of immigration. Serafina's own family emigrated to Scotland when she was a little girl but she returns to her homeland often, for, as she puts it: 'A love for Picinisco as deep as the valleys and as pure as the snow-capped mountains is never forgotten.'

Leseprobe

SERAFINA CROLLA is a wife, mother and grandmother who lives between Edinburgh and Val’ Comino in the province of Frosinone in Italy. Born in Picinisco in the foothills of the Abruzzi mountains, the daughter of a shepherd, she has lived an unusual life.

By the same author:

The Wee Italian Girl (Luath Press, 2022)

Domenica (Luath Press, 2022)

This is a work of fiction; any similarities to any person alive or dead are coincidental.

First published 2023

ISBN: 978-1-80425-143-0

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 12 point Sabon by

Main Point Books, Edinburgh

© Serafina Crolla 2023

In memory of my beloved brother Vincenzo, who fought bravely against COVID-19 but lost his life.

Contents

Valente Family Tree

Foreword

CHAPTER 1  The Family

CHAPTER 2  The Tarttaglia Family

CHAPTER 3  Andrea. Francesco. Pietro.

CHAPTER 4  Andrea Has a Problem

CHAPTER 5  Teresa Goes to the Palazzo

CHAPTER 6  A Nun’s Story

CHAPTER 7  A Letter from America

CHAPTER 8  Matilda’s Baby

CHAPTER 9  Matilda is Feeling Blessed

CHAPTER 10 Teresa

CHAPTER 11 Smallpox

CHAPTER 12 The Boys

CHAPTER 13 Osvaldo

CHAPTER 14 She Wanted to be Dead

CHAPTER 15 Maria Comes Back

CHAPTER 16 Teresa Again

CHAPTER 17 Festa Time

CHAPTER 18 Wedding Plans

CHAPTER 19 Francesco

CHAPTER 20 Giovanni

CHAPTER 21 They Come to a Decision

CHAPTER 22 Stefania

CHAPTER 23 Catarina

CHAPTER 24 Ten Years Later

CHAPTER 25 Andrea Comes Home

CHAPTER 26 Back from America

CHAPTER 27 Family Reunion

Afterword

Valente Family Tree

Foreword

CLOSING HER TRILOGY on her native country with Children of This Land, Serafina Crolla reconfirms herself as a talented writer and storyteller, shaped by Italian and English matrices.

Taking her cue from one real fact, the epitaph on the tomb of a mother of nineteen children, she imagines the lives of the Valente family in a series of stories set in the 1950s and grounded in the realities of life in our territory, Val Comino, in the aftermath of war.

Among the many vicissitudes of her unfolding tale, the conflict between the long-established customs of rural families and the rapidly altering socioeconomic conditions brought by the mid-1900s comes into sharp relief. The Valentes’ lives offer few resources, sustenance comes only with hard manual labour and poverty is a recurring threat, and yet the times are bringing new fashions, innovations and an individual dilemma that threatens to tear families apart: should they leave or stay?

Within the struggles of the Valente family, we find the whole condition of life of these times writ small: the ways of thinking, the old and new customs, the rhythm of everyday life and the interruptions of unforeseen events, positive and negative. We find the circumstances that prompted some to emigrate, prevented others from doing so, and made others still choose to stay.

Serafina brings us intimately into the experiences and aspirations, the thoughts and feelings, of both the younger family members and those of the adults who support them with a narrative freshness that captures the nuances of each, profoundly drawing out their individual psychologies. Her humanity closes the gap between past and present with characters that move us, have fun and leave us to reflect on the meaning of life’s many events, the wisdom of knowing how to live even in the midst of tough choices.

This book is a treasure trove of special moments brought to life by dialogues painted with objectivity and honesty. Serafina makes us become attached to each character, each co-protagonist, arousing empathy and sympathy in these many intersecting lives and creating an interest in their various situations, trades, decisions and hidden desires which stays with the reader until the end – this is what makes Serafina a great storyteller.

Now we can only wait for the next novel that her fervent creativity will give us – perhaps one that takes us into the mists of Great Britain.

Maria Antonietta Rea, author of Uno e 50

CHAPTER 1

The Family

IT WAS NOT long ago that country people in Valle di Comino in central Italy were illiterate. Before the Second World War, children had some education, at least to be able to read and write. Then war brought misery and hunger. There was no time for school where this story is set, in the town of Picinisco. This area of Italy had been very much affected by the Battle of Monte Cassino. With many civilian casualties, it had taken ten years for things to return to normal for the citizens of the valley. The country people did not know much of the world; some did not even know what was over the mountains. Their whole world was their house, their brothers and sisters and extended family. They knew all about the surrounding towns and villages, and all the family connections, because, to them, talking was a pleasure and a pastime. Aside from the local gossip, they got to know things that would help them to make a living.

This tale is about a large family: a mother and father, his parents and her mother, and their sixteen children. Andrea, the eldest, was twenty-four years old. Concettina, the eldest girl, was twenty. She had nine brothers and seven sisters. Bruno, the youngest, was two, and the mother pregnant.

How they lived was simple; they had the basics of life, the very basics. To put food on the table every day for twenty-one souls was not easy, but it was a joint effort. It meant everyone had something to do, from the youngest to the eldest. They scraped a living in their few acres of stony land, with their few animals. To keep these animals alive was a constant fight and the temptation to eat them was also a struggle.

In comparison with their neighbours, their house was big enough. It had four rooms downstairs, four rooms on the first floor and attic where they stored their grain. The house did not belong to the family, but to the mother’s brother Alfonso, who had emigrated to America. After five years they heard nothing more from him, so his sister, with an ever-growing family, decided to move into the house with the approval of her mother.

The ground floor of the house had a very large kitchen, with a fireplace and a brick oven in one corner. In the middle of the room there were two huge tables placed end to end with chairs, stools and benches, but still there were not enough seats for the family. The very young children sat on the floor to eat their meal. The rest of the ground floor rooms were used to stable the animals and to store firewood, hay and foodstuffs.

Of the four rooms upstairs, only three were usable – the other room was open to the elements, with no window panes and a hole in the roof. It was fortunate that the rooms were all large because to accommodate such a large family, young and old, was not an easy task. But at least they were warm with the heat that came from their bodies; they slept close, man and wife.

Vincenzo Valente and his wife Matilda slept in one room with the baby in their bed and the twin girls, Erica and Lia, were squeezed into the crib which they had outgrown long ago. Baths were an unheard-of luxury. The girls would take a large basin of hot water to their room and wash all over with a cloth and rough soap – and where they could not reach, there was always a sister to help. The life of the children at home was like a chain reaction: each was one of the links and those just a little older would help the younger ones. They were not really brought up, they were dragged up. How could it be otherwise? How could the parents cope with sixteen children and another on the way? God bless them all.

The family had a few acres of land in little patches here and there, some so far away it would take all morning to get there. But time was one thing the family had. Three or four of the siblings would set off and what needed to be done was done, after which they enjoyed a leisurely walk home. On their way, they would meet others – there was always time for fun, games and catching up with friends.

Everyone had a job to do. The grandfather and grandmothers kept the fire going, chopped wood, gathered tinder, fed the hens and the pigs: that was their domain.

Concettina and her sister Maria would help their mother to make bread every three days. The mother would oversee the task, making sure that everything was done to her liking. But it was the girls that would knead the heavy dough, one at one end of the deep wooden trough, one at the other end, four hands pulling and stretching, the warm dough up to their elbows. Sometimes they would stop to straighten their backs, wipe the sweat from their flushed faces, then carry on until the dough was ready for its first rest. It was covered with a warm blanket until it was ready for its second kneading, then made into large two-kilo loafs, covered with the blanket again and left to rise. In the meantime, Nonno Andrea would light the huge brick oven and feed it with bundles of twigs, the prunings of the olive trees and a few chunks of heavy wood to keep the fire going until it was the right temperature to bake the bread.

The father would make sure that they cultivated their plots of land to the fullest. He would send a squad of the younger children to remove surface stones before ploughing. Then, after ploughing, the children would go again to remove all other stones that the plough had turned over. Some were so big that it took two strong boys to carry them to the edge of the field; these bigger stones were left there to reinforce the supporting terrace and stop their land from sliding down the hill. Then it was up to the children to dig with spades, right up to the edge of their property, so as not to waste a single inch of their land. Land was bread and bread was life.

The women at home were tasked to prepare two meals every day for the large family. It was never ending. The family would return to eat no matter where they happened to be.

CHAPTER 2

The Tarttaglia Family

BECAUSE THERE WERE so many mouths to feed, the Valente family also worked ground that belonged to the local landowner. Don Stefano came from a well-to-do family that had owned an estate in the area for centuries. It was said that his family originally came from Spain and that they were gifted the estate from the King of Naples. Whether this was true or just a legend nobody knew, but it made no difference – when the men passed him, they tipped their hats and the women curtseyed.

The Tarttaglia family lived in a palazzo (mansion) on the top of a hill. Lime trees lined the road that led to its iron gates. The gates were always open so that wagons and carts full of produce could pass through to its grain store. The silos were full to overflowing on good years and nearly empty on bad years. Some years, the farmers would have no money to buy the seed to sow the land, and the factor would give them some, for which they would pay when the new harvest came in. This would happen again and again until the loan was called in, and the only way to pay it was to sell a piece of their own land at a rock bottom price to the Tarttaglia family until there was nothing left, leaving farmers totally dependent on il signore on the hill. Then whatever they produced on the land that they had once owned would be halved. It was back-breaking work to produce enough for their large family and enough to fill the landlords’ coffers to overflowing.

Some farmers had to abandon the land altogether and work as labourers for the estate. But it was always as day labourers; if there was work, they would be paid, if not, there would be no pay and they would have to look elsewhere, a day here, a day there. Sometimes they went further afield, as far as Rome or over the Abruzzi mountains to Pescasseroli, doing seasonal work: picking grapes, scything wheat, harvesting potatoes or gathering olives. The men would come back on Sundays to pass on their meagre wage to their wives. Then they would go back again on Monday.

The bodies of the men were scrawny, sun-baked and dark. Their teeth were black from smoking rough tobacco. But if they were in good health, there was always a twinkle in their eyes and if there was a laugh to be had they were ready for it. And when they went back home, they would enjoy their wives. The young men were virile and fertile and another child to feed would be conceived.

That year there was seed. Vincenzo was behind the plough and his two cows were attached to the harness, pulling with all their might and turning the earth over ready for the seed. His sons Andrea and Francesco followed behind, breaking up the clods of earth. Giovanni was leading the animals, pulling at the halter, and his sister Teresa and his younger brother Osvaldo were turning over the earth. It was hard work, back-breaking work; the sun was hot and tiring. Teresa kept looking at the sun – it was surely midday, time for her mother to bring food.

Eventually, Teresa saw three figures walking towards them in the distance, her mother and younger sisters, Stefania and Fiorinda. The workers put down their tools and made their way to the edge of the field where there was some shade.

Matilda and her daughters arrived and set down the basket that they carried. Food for them, and hay and water for the animals. Andrea and Francesco saw to the beasts while their mother ladled the food onto plates. Sagne e fagioli, homemade pasta with beans, and a few stray bits of cotechino, rough pork sausage made with pig skin. This was, of course, followed by bread and cheese.

The family made themselves comfortable to eat. They were always hungry; although food was plentiful, the sheer number in the house made it impossible for them to feel truly satisfied. When they finished, Vincenzo took his tobacco and paper out of his pocket. Slowly and skilfully, licking the paper with the tip of his tongue, he made a perfect cigarette. Andrea, his eldest son, looked on greedily. If only he could have one too, but his father did not know that he smoked whenever he could get one. If he asked his father for a cigarette, he would get a blow on the back of his head. Vincenzo, although he was a smoker himself, did not want the boys to get into the habit. He was always telling them that it was bad for their health and for their pocket.

Vincenzo inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke out of his nose.

He finished his cigarette, threw the stub away and got up to resume ploughing the land. The boys followed him, disappointed, because usually they could lie down in the shade and rest a little after their meal before they went back to their toil.

Matilda called him back. ‘Vincenzo, on my way here I met Don Pasquale. He said that he had spoken to Donna Tarttaglia – she asked him if he knew of a good clean girl to work at the house as a maid and he has suggested Teresa. I said to him that I was sure that Teresa would be very happy to go, what do you think?’

Teresa was looking from her mother to her father.

‘Yes, yes! I want to go!’ she exclaimed. Anything to get out of the house.

Her mother ignored her and spoke again to her husband, ‘What do you think?’

Vincenzo’s first thought was yes, one less at home, but, on reflection, he did not know if it was a good idea. He looked at Teresa – she was the prettiest of his girls. Fresh face, a golden glow to her skin, plenty of dark hair and a good figure. Would she be safe away from home?

‘Do you want to go? Remember, if you do, you will be at their beck and call all day. It won’t be like when you are at home where you please yourself and avoid chores if you can. All I hear when I am home is your mother calling you – you are never there when you are wanted.’

‘Yes, Papà, I want to go. I am sure I will learn many things in the big house, and I will work really hard, make myself indispensable to Donna Tarttaglia, you will see. I will make you proud of me.’

‘All right, then go, you know your way home.’

His wife then said, addressing Teresa, ‘The priest said that he will come tomorrow morning, he will take you to the house. La signora wants to see you first.’

Seeing her daughter’s excitement, Matilda raised her eyebrows and added with a wry smile, ‘Don’t get your hopes up too high, she may not like you when she sees your capo alerto, arrogance.’

Teresa implored first her father then her mother with a look. ‘Please can I go home now to get ready?’

Her father looked at the flushed, excited girl with her good looks and charming way. She always got what she wanted.

‘If you must, then go.’

Matilda and Teresa packed away the remainder of their meal and went home, where Teresa spent the rest of the day getting ready. She washed her hair and prepared the clothes she wanted to wear the following day, hoping to make a good impression on Donna Beatrice. The rest of the family slowly made their way back to their work.

Andrea was in a foul mood. He picked up the rake and pulled and pushed at the clods of earth, smoothing the soil into a fine tilth ready for the wheat seed.

All the while, he talked to himself and to his brother Francesco, who was beside him. ‘Why is it that we have to work like beasts of burden, like mules. Look at us breaking our backs to do this work by hand. Tomorrow we will go to Cesidio’s farm to do it all over again. He is a wealthy man, he owns a large farm, why does he not buy a tractor? He has the money. But no, he uses us as cheap labour. I tell you, brother, if I had the money, I would buy a tractor. I would use it on our land and other people’s land and charge a fee per hour. At least I would be sitting, driving the tractor, not breaking my back like this.’

In his frustration he kicked the earth. He hated the earth.

‘You are right,’ said Francesco, ‘times are changing. We can’t go on like this, we have to do something.’

Andrea continued, ‘I am going to leave home, I will either go up north and work in the factories or emigrate, I don’t care where to. Zio Alfonso is in America, but we have not heard from him in years. Maybe I could go to England, or France or even Germany, where you can choose where you want to work. They are rebuilding the cities that were bombed during the war. One thing is for sure, I am not going to spend the rest of my life making a living from the dirt,’ and he again kicked a lump of earth. The good earth did not deserve it, it had eased the hunger of many before him.

He stopped for breath, looking around him, looking for inspiration. He could see his sisters Stefania and Fiorinda, as brown as berries and singing in harmony while they worked, used to the hot sun. But he knew from experience that their joyful, happy youth would not last long. Within five years of getting married, they would already have three children and any trace of their former youth would have vanished.

CHAPTER 3

Andrea. Francesco. Pietro.

AFTER A SEVERE WINTER, spring was in the air. The trees were adorned with delicate, pale green leaves. Some were already in flower, the pear, apple, plum and, of course, the cherry trees. Everyone hoped that there would be no more freezing cold spells to ruin the blossoms on the trees. Fruit was their dessert, fruit was what they craved; its sweet flesh was such a treat to them.

Now that the nights were not so cold, there were not so many people trying to get close to the fire. The grandparents had priority, often with a child or two on their lap.

Dinner was cooking. Matilda, Concettina and Maria were seeing to it. Le nonne were both busy preparing a huge basket of the first of the new season broccoletti, garlic and peperoncino (chilli pepper), all chopped and ready to drop in a pot of green olive oil. The smell was delicious. Soon, the meal was over and the broccoletti had been enjoyed by everyone. They used bread to mop up all the garlicky oil.

It was their routine that, after dinner, the parents would give out instructions and tasks for the following day. They were going to work for Cesidio and Vincenzo wanted to establish who was able to go, and who had other tasks to do.

Andrea could not stand to hear it, all this work and for what? He did not stay to listen to his father. He pushed his chair back and got up, saying that he was going out, and jumped on an old, battered bike that was lying outside. He pedalled hard to climb up the hill, but once he was on the high road to Colle Posta he flew downhill all the way to the bar in Villa Latina. He could see that some of his friends were already there.

The bar was full, although it did not take many people to fill it up because the inside space was small. Three or four tables were already taken up by elderly customers who would sit to play a game of cards. Others would stand at the counter with a drink in hand, while those who would have liked a drink but did not have the money would stand about hoping that someone would offer.

As soon as Andrea walked in, his friend Fernando called to him.

‘Want a drink, what will it be?’

‘No, I have just finished eating. I had a few glasses of wine, Sto bene, I’m okay thanks.’

Andrea said this in a casual way, trying not to show that he had a troubled mind. He would have liked a beer, but he knew that he could not return the favour. He was a proud man. He stood about for a while talking to the men and the boys in the bar. He knew them all and they knew him. They knew of his circumstances as he knew of theirs. That was the problem of living in small paese like Picinisco and Villa Latina – you would be judged in what you did, and what you did not do. That was the nature of the beast.

In a couple of weeks, it would be warm enough to sit on the terrace outside of the bar. They would start to sell ice cream, which would attract the women and children to come and sit outside with friends. Andrea would feel more comfortable coming to the bar as people came and went without feeling obliged to buy anything. He noticed that his friend Fernando and some other youths were all standing around a man. They seemed to be listening to him intently, which was unusual; normally in the bar everyone would jostle everyone else to be the one doing all the talking – often a lot of nonsense. Andrea made his way over to listen.

Back in the house, after Andrea had stormed off in a temper, the others in the family also went their own way.

Francesco and Pietro both had girlfriends – they each had a quick wash, changed into clean clothes and left. Pietro did not have far to go, he only had to walk up the track. Five minutes and he was there. His heart was already racing just at the thought that he would soon be with her.

Anna was the daughter of a shepherd. The family came from Fontitune, a small village on the side of the mountain. It was a village so high up that in winter it was above the snow line, and so the people had to relocate to somewhere else in the valley where they would rent a house for the family and stables for the animals. The house that Anna’s father had rented was just a shack with two rooms, but it had the basics: a fireplace, a brick oven, wooden shutters on the window and a door with gaps at the side. It had no running water, but it did have electric lights.

When they had first arrived, Franco, Anna’s father, had come to ask if they could take water from their well. That was the beginning of a friendship between the two families. They were always ready to help each other. It was also the start of a give and take, which was the common courtesy between country folk. Neighbours would share: if one family had a surplus of vegetables, at that time it was broccoletti, you would send it to your family and neighbours, and they would do the same for you when they had more than they could use. This was even more common with Franco and Vincenzo’s households because Franco had cheese, ricotta, sometimes meat and whey, a by-product of cheese making, which Pietro would collect to feed to the pigs. In exchange, Matilda would send vegetables that were in season. Sometimes she would send panettone or biscuits if she had baked. Vincenzo would go to Franco with a bottle of wine and they would sit outside to share a drink and exchange life stories. Franco had three daughters. Anna, the eldest, was eighteen years old. She and her sisters, Silvia and Patrizia, became good friends with the members of the Valente family.

When Pietro arrived at the house, he could see his girl in the stables helping her father, who was milking the sheep and goats. He was doing this by sitting on a three-legged stool beside a small opening to the stable. As a sheep was whipped towards the opening, he would grab it by its hind leg and then by its udder to milk it. The milk would spurt into the pail between his legs. Anna was there with a whipping branch, making the sheep stand to wait their turn.

It was just getting dark and as he approached her, he could see that she was continuously looking down the track. It made his heart leap that she was looking for him.

He jumped over the fence, ‘I am here, amore!’ he said. They stood for a moment looking at each other, a look of longing just to embrace.

Anna laughed as she chased a sheep round the pen. Pietro watched her. She was beautiful: lips that drove him to madness, eyes that sparkled in the dim twilight, a full womanly body.

‘Pietro, is that you?’

Pietro jumped. He felt that Anna’s father had read his mind.

‘Yes, Zio Franco, it is me.’

‘Could you give me the other pail and take this one away, it’s already full.’

When the milking was finished, they each carried a pail of milk and went indoors. The family had not yet had their meal; they usually ate much later than Pietro’s family. Pietro would try not to come until he knew that they had eaten, but it was hard to wait that extra hour before he could come up. It was as if an irresistible force was pulling him to her – he just had to be with her.

He had met Anna in the autumn when her family had arrived to live in Colle Poste for the winter. She would come every day to fetch water from the well, sometimes with her sisters. All three girls enjoyed coming for water because, in his house, there was always someone to talk to. Chatting was the favourite pastime for the people of the countryside. Pietro would flirt with all three girls. He was always on the lookout to see if one of the girls was at the well.