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- Herausgeber: AVEDITORIA
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In a remote mountain village of Sicily, a little boy awakens to life. Today that child is an old man. Memories crop up, stone-hard and fleeting as birds: of faces, of hunger and beauty, love and wounding, song and weeping, war and peace.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Gaetano Paxia
Indice dei contenuti
1. Naro is my town
2. Who are you?
3. Signorina Ignazia
4. Lucia
5. My family
6. War
7. ’A Cudduruna
8. The German woman and Christmas
9. Signora Ester
10. Donna Peppina, the Dreamer
11. Don Totò, the American
12. Don Angelo Greco
13. The Shameless Woman
14. Maria Fedele
15. Uncle Alfonso and Aunt Carmela
16. The Signorine
17. Donna Pia
18. The Dead
19. Vita Lombardo
20. Uncle Gaetano
21. Cousin Giovanni
22. Rorò
23. Carmela
24. Was he a Mafioso?
25. Circolo Popolare
26. Convent picnic
27. The Archpriest and the sacrestan
28. Don Gioacchino
29. Suicides
30. Ignazio
31. Don Cirino
32. Don Nino’s wife
33. Donna Emma
34. Fears of mine
35. The baptism of Venerina
36. The wedding of Maria and Pino
37. My grandfather
38. My grandmother
39. Mala
40. The gypsy’s loaf
41. Don Benedetto
42. School
43. Menicuzzo, the Candy Man
44. Aunt Grazia
45. Easter holidays
46. Pecorino
47. Nunù
48. Steps of San Francesco
49. Sancalò
50. Mezzalira
51. Signora Floriana
52. The nobles and St. Joseph
53. Being poor
The miracle that never was
55. Politics: Father Polizzi and Sister Gabriella
56. I am not Antonio
57. Don Masino
58. The Feast of San Calogero
59. Farewell
Sancalò
Remembering Sicily
Gaetano Paxia
edited by Elena Paxia
© A.V. Editoria
© Gaetano Paxia
Via B. Crespi, 1
24021 ALBINO (BG) - Italy
1^ edizione inglese febbraio 2019
Published in Italy
A.V. Editoria is a trademark by
A.V. Marketing & Comunicazione
www.aveditoria.it
Codice ISBN e-book 9788894854268
All rights reserved.. Any reproduction, even partial, must be authorized
Translated from the Italian by Janet Sethre
Cover illustration by Elena Paxia
It was not my intention to write a chronicle objectively documenting the social reality of the times. I have described facts, events and characters by elaborating recollections solidly carved in my memory.I have changed some names.
Gaetano Paxia
To my children and my wife
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Naro is my town 11
2. Who are you? 14
3. Signorina Ignazia 15
4. Lucia 27
5. My family 34
6. War 41
7. ’A Cudduruna 43
8. Christmas and the German woman 45
9. Signora Ester 48
10. Donna Peppina, the Dreamer 55
11. Don Totò, the American 58
12. Don Angelo Greco (Father Nasca) 66
13. The Shameless Woman 68
14. Maria Fedele 73
15. Uncle Alfonso 78
16. The Signorine 80
17. Donna Pia 85
18. The Dead 90
19. Vita Lombardo 91
20. Uncle Gaetano 94
21. Cousin Giovanni 97
22. Rorò 100
23. Carmela 102
24. Was he a Mafioso? 105
25. Circolo Popolare 114
26. Convent picnic 121
27. The Archpriest and the sacristan 126
28. Don Gioacchino 129
29. Suicides 135
30. Ignazio 136
31. Don Cirino 138
32. Don Nino’s wife 143
33. Donna Emma 145
34. Fears of mine 150
35. The baptism of Venerina 152
36. The wedding of Maria and Pino 156
37. My grandfather 162
38. My grandmother 167
39. Mala 172
40. The gypsy woman’s loaf 176
41. Don Benedetto, the legend, the crucifix 178
42. School 185
43. Menicuzzo 193
44. Aunt Grazia 195
45. Easter festivities 204
46. Pecorino 207
47. Nunù 214
48. The steps at San Francesco 217
49. Sancalò 218
50. Mezzalira 219
51. Signora Floriana 220
52. The nobles and Saint Joseph 223
53. Being poor 228
54. The miracle that never was 231
55. Politics: Father Polizzi e Sister Gabriella 234
56. I am not Antonio 238
57. Don Masino 240
58. The feast of San Calogero 243
59. Farewell 250
1. Naro is my town
I was born in Naro, an ancient Sicilian town perched on a hilltop. It rises only a few kilometers from the Greek temples in the valley of Agrigento.
I lived on via Gaetani. A certain Count Gaetani had lived there in the past. The count emigrated. Those who remained were mostly poor.
Even today that little town, those people, that street, my house remain sturdily rooted in my mind. I lived in Naro during a time of misery, a time of ruin: shortly before World War II, during the war, and immediately following it. All of us remain intimately bonded to the people and things of our brief childhood.
My street and the streets nearby dated back centuries. Most of the people living on them were very poor. Many families lived in dwellings with no windows, no electricity, no running water, no sewerage. Most of the dwellings consisted of only one room. Light entered them only through the doorway. Doors were always left wide open. Inside, only a few pieces of furniture; hanging on the walls, photographic portraits of the ancestors, in black and white.
No screeching motorcycles or cars, in the vicinity. You might hear the shuffling hooves of goats and sheep, bells tinkling from their necks. You might hear the cheerful clucking of hens. Every so often a rickety Sicilian cart would totter down our street, pulled by a little old mule, afflicted. Mule honking announced that a pedlar was on his way. And here arose the Arabian chant of the little street vendor, announcing his wares: salt, lemons, local vegetables such as cabbage and chickory.
Other pedlars passed by shouting out their wares, on foot, in shoes worn down by the walking. The customers were few. Only after insistent haggling did they purchase anything. Centuries of patience dwelt in streets accompanied by misery, day and night.
A few of the neighborhood women raised one or two chickens. By day they kept them in a cage outside, set beside their doorway. In the evening, however, when great stillness descended upon us under the moon, the woman would make room inside the house for her chickens. They were part of the family.
Near my street a great number of artisans wielded hammer and saw: carpenters, blacksmiths, cobblers. I often stopped off at the blacksmith’s shop. The fire and smoke entranced me as it billowed from the forge. So did the clash of iron pounded on the anvil by a mighty fellow, sweaty and swarthy. In just a few minutes a lump of iron took shape as a flower, an ornament for someone’s balcony. What magic!
And then there was our own hubbub, the children’s. We were a bit wild. Our clothes were tattered and torn. In the street we mined our imaginations to invent games and games. Neighbors played with me, and my brothers. I loved playing with my little sister, Elena. In so many of our games, she was queen and I was the king!
There were swarms of us. In those days, families competed with one another to see who could generate more children. People lived as on some crowded train or bus, elbowing others aside to make room: especially during the war. Life was not easy. To be honest, it was cruel for everyone. Now and then we would return home in a sweat, faces red and dirty, when hunger called and we hoped to find a bit of food.
My brothers, my sister and I struggled and played and sometimes wept, during the long hours away from my mother. She was at work. But then darkness came down, and to my eyes, it covered life’s miseries: the miseries of a world where life meant travail.
The next day, as sun overwhelmed the darkness and while the moon’s circle still perched in the sky, we rubbed our eyes and stepped outdoors. We loved the feeling of fresh air on our faces. We waited, then, ready to discover what life had in store for us, until evening calmly settled down upon our fatigue.
* * *
I left my town over fifty years ago. It has not changed, in appearance. The old smells are the same, old noises, the ancient web of streets. Every so often the call of my town beckons sharply, painfully. In compensation for years of work elsewhere, I return. At least for a day or two.
Far away from his town, the Narese is often harsh, melancholy, stern. Naro remains our reality, limited and precise. Our true home. The town seems still to offer us its caring warmth. It knows everything about us: our old sufferings, the joys that came late. It preserves our memories.
Let no one be deceived. Naro is a village, half-asleep on a hill. It is old, like a long-abandoned house kept standing only by the breath of human beings. A pitiless sun, wind, water and weather, have attacked its golden stones. Seeing it for the first time, a stranger would be struck by its clear state of ruin: hovels, sunstruck streets where weary people calmly walk.
In Naro, everything tastes of antiquity. Every corner demands the visitor’s veneration. Here, time and death seem natural and kind. People hasten to show you the town’s most glorious monument, the Chiaramonte castle, rising on a mount open to all winds blowing. The castle soars up from walls of warm stone. From the summit your eyes widen to a sweeping view of countryside. As you gaze the landscape grows heavy, with distance and a sort of regret: especially when the burning sun relents. Viewed from up there, the town assumes a shining purity. It no longers seems rotted, eaten away by time.
From every direction, stillness inspires trust in the visitor, trust and abandonment. Behind façades rusticly baroque, antique churches consume the remains of their day in silence and darkness.
The main piazza is lightly brushed by the comings and goings of municipal police and city clerks. The Corso, Naro’s main thoroughfaire, snakes out from the piazza. Little shops once thickly flanked it. Recalled as imposing in childhood memory, today it first appears as a narrow street clogged with fleeting figures.
The Corso begins as starting point for the passeggiata, the promenade culminating at the sanctuary of San Calogero. The passeggiata once proceeded in a flurry of legs and arms functioning to fit together the day’s pieces, children spurting out from every corner. In former times, you would see mothers along the Corso sitting before their dwellings with babes in their arms. The babies were always avid and lively. They were always hungry.
As you approach the church of our Patron Saint, Calogero, the street widens out leisurely. Down at the end, at the very end, near the Calvario with its big cross, the countryside opens before you as if from a sudden, giant balcony. The air becomes delightfully fresh. And the sun never seems to set on one’s unsatisfied dreams.
2. Who are you?
The steam engine huffed and puffed. Slowly it pulled the train through the southwestern countryside of Sicily. After many hours had passed, long and slow as a deathbed agony, my mother and I reached our destination.
The sun was going down. Red and purple clouds veiled it. Oleanders, big as trees, decorated the little station of this unknown town. The little stationmaster understood that we were strangers. He greeted us. We washed at the fountain. Bits of coal had stuck to our hair. Other bits of coal had melted in the sweat of our faces and made them swarthy.
My mother struggled to carry the mattress, required by the Institute, which we had sent on several days ahead. The mattress was waiting for us at the depot. On my back, I carried a raw cloth sack containing my kit for boarding school: articles of personal clothing, a few sheets. And a black apron, marked with the number 59. Each boardeing school pupil was assigned a number. From that day forward, I would be number 59.
Silently we trudged up the jagged stone steps carved into the sunscorched, gray rock of the hillside. At the summit, a rambling iron railing encircled a chapel topped by a little green dome.
The chapel faced a steep cliff. The iron gate to the convent was closed. To make ourselves heard, we had to knock loud and hard with a stone. A short, skinny friar came to open the gate. His nose was hooked, his cheeks red and purple. He glanced at me and asked: “Who are you?”
Beneath the early autumn sky, standing in front of that iron gate, I now realized that my childhood was over. Thinking about my past, I entered a long, silent corridor. In the distance, a dog barked.
3. Signorina Ignazia
Signorina Ignazia was an elderly lady, short and stout. Over her upper lip sprouted a thick layer of hairs. She joked about that, herself, said her moustache was finer than her cat’s. The cat’s name was Regina.
“ Queen”: that’s what her little cat was called, since it didn’t like folks getting near it. It remained proudly apart and watched its mistress with a supercilious air, sitting on its haunches like a queen on her throne. Only when the Signorina called, “Your food is ready, Regina” did the cat pad silently over to her bowl. With a calm, aristocratic air, it ate.
The Signorina was swarthy of skin. Two long, vertical lines incised her long face, one on each side of her nose. Her nose was big and hooked. Two heavy bags stood out beneath her eyes. They were often covered with tears. She must have had a pretty face, when young. Once, I caught a glimpse of an old photo of her. To me she seemed beautiful.
The Signorina seemed to abide in a perennial state of mourning. Her garments were mostly black, varied a bit by dark blue. Her head was often covered with a scarf patterned with little red flowers against a dark blue background. She wore it knotted under the chin. Her hair had remained quite dark, though she was no longer young. Tufts of hair emerged from under her scarf, like crow’s wings. Her eyes were watery, colored a sort of layered brownish-gray.
She lived on the floor above my house. Whenever she wanted me to come visit her, she lowered a little bread basket from her balcony. The basket was woven of reeds. When it reached the level of my doorway, I understood. I scrambled up the stairs to reach her. This was all part of our agreement.
I was ten, eleven years old. How old was she? I hardly know. Maybe seventy. Her age didn’t matter to me. She was simply an elderly woman who loved me. Her name was Ignazia, but to all our neighbors, she was simply “la Signorina”.
Sometimes launched her signals when I was out. On my return, my mother or my brothers said, “the Signorina asked about you” or, “hop over to see the Signorina”. I knew who they were talking about.
Signorina Ignazia was a kind person. She was always affectionate toward me. She dearly loved flowers. At each corner of her balcony she kept big vases of geraniums. Their blooms overflowed the railing. She was proud of those. “Have you noticed,” she smiled, “that the petals of these geraniums are red, with a white stripe? Like an embroidery.” She expected me to join in her enthusiasm over flowers.
This, to her disappointment, I never did. Today, I regret that failure. I hated what seemed to me exaggerated exaltation over a given variety or a certain color of flower. Such behavior, I relegated among the weird habits of the wealthy.
When the Signorina watered the flowers on her balcony, she often overdid it. She often ended up watering me or my brothers as well. When that happened, I would look up. I liked seeing her up there, leaning on her windowsill. She would laugh, then, her mouth wide open and missing a few teeth. I guess that was simply a way of excusing herself for having doused us. From above, she would shout: “Come on now, you little rascal! I’ve got something for you.”
I went to call on her quite often. Sometimes, with my sister. Especially that last year, before I moved to another town and entered boarding school, to continue my studies. By that time, I was nearly grown up. I was nearly twelve.
To be honest, sometimes I found her presence a bit boring. Especially when, for the hundredth time, she would recount the same, sad events of her past. Stories of relatives and friends to whom she had done grand favors. From them she had expected a bit of gratitude, but they had disappointed her deeply. She told me once about a rich relative of hers. Her name was Loredana. A flighty, sophisticated woman. The Signorina had lent her money, depriving herself of necessary things, but she had never been repaid. Still, that woman continued to spend, spend, spend. She wasted money, forgetting her debts.
And then, there was the story of Arturo. I did not really understand who that was. The story involved the lady’s trip to Palermo, the finest city in Sicily. The story had a pleasant side to it. She told me about Palermo, its royal palace and its cathedral, so ancient and so wondrous. Inside lay the tombs of ancient kings, and the relics of St. Rosalia. And she described Villa Giulia, the restaurants, the cafés with waiters decked out in livery.
As she told me her stories, sometimes she would seize hold of Arturo’s photo and hold it close. He appeared as a tall man dressed in a dark suit. On his head was a hat, in his mouth, a cigarette. The Signorina would weep over his image crying, “Damn you, bless you, damn you! Why did you betray me?!”
I never knew whether I was supposed to hate the fellow, because before putting his photograph back in place, she sometimes kissed it. Her memory of that man was perennial. It consituted one of her ailments.
After speaking to me, she always added that I must treasure everything she told me. “For your instruction, and so that you will not make blunders in life!” And she insisted: “Tell me you’ve understood what I’ve told you. Then I can say I haven’t wasted my time.”
The Signorina lived alone, in a very large apartment. It was much nicer than mine. There were five of us living in a dwelling consisting of one windowless room, plus a tiny storage room, in back. We had little furniture. Our chairs didn’t match. The Signorina’s apartment, instead, was spacious. I remember her parlor, with its fine inlaid table. I admired the carved legs of that table. Their extremities were cut in the shape of animal heads. And there was a fine sofa, and armchairs.
There were two bedrooms. There was a spacious kitchen, with a charming, painted credenza, and a complete set of pots and pans. Most of them, said the Signorina, were the same ones which had belonged to her elderly aunt. She had been dead for quite some time. The kitchen opened onto a garden.
I especially liked the bedroom where she slept. It was cleaner than the church, fresh, perfumed and ample. The wallpaper was printed in a pattern featuring tiny flowers in pastel colors. A fine armoire with a mirror stood near her metal headboard painted with little angels, one on the right and one on the left. They posed a crown upon the head of a beautiful young woman with long, flowing locks. She was almost naked. She lay on her side, enveloped in transparent veils.
On the wall hung the object Ignazia most valued: the container for holy water. It must always be full. Should it become empty of holy water, the devil would take advantage of the situation and enter that house. That’s what the Signorina said. I also remember two grand rosaries, and a picture of the Madonna of Sorrows, her heart pierced by a sword.
A small bookshelf wedged into a corner of the room. It contained a few devotional works, the New Testament, several books of poetry, stories, some novels. I remember only a few titles and authors: poems by Aleardo Aleardi and Ada Negri, a novel by Liala, stories by Luigi Capuana… She said she would lend me them when I got older. “After you’ve made progress in your studies.”
Her niece often slept in the other bedroom. There, the pictures were different: a still life with fruit and game, and two gloomy photographic portraits of bygone relatives, in black and white, set in oval frames. The niece said that the people appearing in them frightened her, with their frowning faces rife with wrinkles. The Signorina asked her to show greater respect for the dead ancestors, even while promising that, one day or other, she would take their portraits down and hang them in the other bedroom.
The Signorina expected me to visit her frequently. “Show your face around here every so often” she would say. “You know I always need a bit of help.”
After so many years, I believe that she was simply lonely. She herself, however, would never have admitted as much. She often told me that at home, she never felt lonely. “I never feel lonesome, remember that, my dear. I have a Custodian Angel always by my side, to keep me company.”
When I entered, I always found her house cool, shady, almost dark. My shirt was often stuck to my back and my face was sweaty, reddened by the sun, by games and shouting. She would wipe me off, then, with an edge of her dark kitchen apron. She would need to repeat that operation when I returned, after running some errand for her.
Now, she was never completely satisfied with the results of my shopping. Especially with the fish, which she always found expensive, and not altogether fresh. When she remarked, “Let’s see what you’ve bought. Hmmm… this fish…”, I would complete her sentence: “is expensive and not altogether fresh.” At that point she would burst out laughing and pretend to chase me around the kitchen, calling me a little rascal. Birbantello.
I must say, she complained about many other things as well. She considered herself a victim of numerous ailments. Nobody understood her. “No one believes me”, she kept saying, dragging herself about the house. “Only I know what’s wrong with me… I, and the Madonna of Sorrows.” At times she felt that everyone neglected her simply because she was no longer young and pretty. “What can you expect?”, she asked. “Now I’m old and ailing, a little on the fat side, with half a cataract in one eye. Who do you think could be interested in me? You yourself stay away a lot. For days at a time. You don’t think to ask yourself, ‘I wonder how the Signorina is? I’ll go and see if she’s still alive. If she needs anything’.”
On Sunday especially, when she heard the churchbells ring, she moved ranting about the house. She longed to go out, to go to church, where she’d sometimes ask me to accompany her. She dabbed some powder on her cheeks, put on lipstick, tidied her hair, and then had second thoughts. She said she had grown fat. She couldn’t fit into her clothes anymore. Or she grew angry with her shoes, which didn’t fit. She said that her feet were swollen. For her, walking had become martyrdom. I had waited to accompany her to church, but in vain. So then I’d have to dash off alone, and running, for I was altar boy.
When I returned, she peppered me with questions: “Who celebrated Mass? What did Don Gioacchino say in his sermon? Who was there, at church?”, and so on.
One day, I noticed she was dragging her legs without lifting them, and she had trouble bending unless she found something to lean on. “Oh, my child, these rheumatic pains are torturing me night and day. They are penance for my sins.”
One day, in order to satisfy the call of nature, she asked if she could lean on my arm. As she lifted her long skirts and underskirts, she commanded: “Turn around!” She smiled as she said it, impishly fending off my curiosity.
Her pains tormented her.She hardly ever ventured outdoors. Her greatest displeasure was not being able to attend Mass. Every so often the parish priest would come to visit her, to receive her confession and give her communion. He was grateful for the work she had dedicated to the parish, in the past.
While I was preparing for my First Communion, the Signorina wished to help me with my catechism. “I’ll explain things to you and I’ll have you repeat the answers in the catechism. That way you’ll cut a fine figure with Sister Gabriella.” That was my catechism teacher. “After all”, she said, “when I was young, for years I taught catechism to children in the parish, andI embroidered the prettiest altar cloths you can imagine, for the Mother Church.”
As she often did, she ended her account in tears, saying, “Now I’ve become useless, a burden even to myself.” I said that wasn’t true! She was a great person! She could do a lot more things than anyone I knew! She embraced me then, pressed me to her flabby, comforting bosom.
It’s true, she complained a lot. But in any case, I believe the Signorina had resigned herself to living perennially indoors according to her perpetual, unchanging rhythms: according to those antique, safe rules that had been taught her, and which life had enforced. It was not solitude she complained most of, but the betrayals she had suffered long ago, and the constant pains causing her insomnia, and aggravated by it.
At times, the Signorina wept in silence as she wiped her furniture with a dustcloth. I did not always understand why. Indeed, I hardly ever did.
She cheered up when her niece and nephew surprised her with news of a visit. Their names were Armando and Maria. As she awaited them, she moved about the house singing old songs: “Amato mio”, “Amor, amor, amor”. She powdered her face. She put on lipstick, and donned her pearl necklace. Then, the house breathed an air of celebration. Festively it prepared to welcome her neice and nephew’s friends, too, who sang, drank and played cards. She sent me to buy taralli for all the guests, and special Marsala, at the Bar-Pasticceria Contrino, in Piazza Garibaldi.
She said she hated being surrounded by old ladies who were sicker and fussier than she was. “It’s nice to have such fine young people around. They bring joy and they remind me of the old days. When I, too, was a young girl, and always cheerful.”
On one occasion, persuaded by Armando’s insistent friends, she even launched into a dance, a sort of tarantella, to the clapping of her guests’ hands. She took a few steps forward into the center, and then a few steps back, hands on her hips. The young people applauded. She sweated, exhausted and ecstatic.
Late one afternoon, as the distant sun sent out its last red glimmers and twilight came down upon the street, she led me into her dusky bedroom. She pulled out a round box, hidden in the old armoire with a mirror mounted on its door. From the box she drew a fine green hat. Its wide, undulating brim was decorated with red cloth cherries. “Look,” she told me in a hoarse voice, her eyes wet with tears. “I wore it when I was young. I wore it once in Palermo. It was a gift from Arturo.”
She asked if I liked it. I replied that I’d never seen such a fine hat. Then, gazing at herself in the mirror, she took a few slow steps about the room. She swayed her hips. She tilted her face upward, her mouth closed. It formed a sort of arrow pointing upwards, toward the left. Then she turned daintily and walked back to the mirror. She tarried before the armoire for a few moments more, and leant her head against the mirror.
She remained in that position for a minute or so and then raised her head, exclaiming forlorn: “Arturo, how old and ugly I’ve become! Do not come.” At that, she dried her eyes with the blue handkerchief which she carried in the pocket of her apron.
It was nearly dark. I, too, was sad. I felt like crying. I wanted to console her, tell her she was beautiful, or anyway, that she was not ugly. But I could not find the right words. I felt ill at ease, sorry for her. When she wept, her face appeared all the more wrinkled and swollen. Above and beyond pity, for some reason, I felt a sense of guilt, as if her worries, her sadness, depended partly on me: on my incapacity to offer the support she needed. At that point, hanging my head, slowly I walked away.
The Signorina found consolation in speaking with God and the Madonna. Her faith was a simple thing, and deep. She regarded God as her faithful, benevolent companion. One willing to accompany her footsteps. Even in the kitchen. If, due to her distraction, food got burnt in her skillet or baking dish, she was disappointed: “God, my God, how could you allow this?” And she needed to keep her cooking dishes sparkling clean. God helped her do that, too.
My aunt Carmela and other neighbors of ours regarded her as a puritanical bigot. She strictly observed Lents, abstinences, fasts. Painstakingly aware of such holy obligations, she checked to see whether others were fulfilling them as well.
One morning, on the feast day of Saint Lucy, my aunt Carmela was strolling calmly in the street, below the lady’s balcony. The Signorina said: “Carmela, remember, today is Saint Lucy’s! You can’t eat anything but a little rice or, better yet, a little cuccìa” (new wheat grains, boiled). Annoyed, my aunt replied that food was always scarce in her home. Fasts and abstinences were compulsory every day, not only on Saint Lucy’s.
A few minutes later, Cavaliere Don Mommino approached, his hands behind his back. The Signorina admired him for his aristocratic manners. The Cavaliere kissed his Third-Order Franciscan scapular and, turning to the Signorina, declared: “My kind and courteous Signorina Ignazia, I am deeply devoted to the Saint from Syracuse, the glory of all Sicily. Today it gives me great spiritual joy to fast fully in honor of our saint.”
Aware, now, that the Cavaliere presented himself as being more devoted than she was, the Signorina seemed a bit offended: “Well, now, Cavaliere. You do well to observe a total fast.”
To be honest, however, Signorina Ignazia herself made all sorts of vows and promises. She prayed to God out loud so that He would enlighten her about all things. Sighing, she perennially repeated: “Jesus, my Jesus, enlighten me”, or “Grieving Heart of Mary, be my salvation.”
On one occasion, she urged me, too, to make a sort of vow. Well, a promise to the Madonna. She and I both would give up a bit of food for a week, some food we especially liked. She was certain that in this way, the Madonna would alleviate the intense pain in her lower back and the shooting pains between neck and shoulder. I agreed to join in her promise and, with a secretive air, I suggested: “But let’s not reveal what we’re going to give up.”
I liked her idea. But what could I give up? Perhaps I abstained from eating a few figs, or other fruit I loved. That, for me, was probably a true sacrifice. In any case, during that entire week, she treated me with special tenderness. She gave me food to eat and, patting my head, said, “You can eat this, despite the vow.”
Sometimes she would lower the bread basket from her balcony at dusk, when it got cooler. She would call, and then, almost begging me, plangently she’s insist that I recite the Rosary with her. “Otherwise, if I say it alone, I fall asleep and the Holy Virgin will not help me” she said.
The sun was now setting behind the fig trees in her garden. The birds were starting to mute their vigorous tweetings. The peasants’ carts were returning slowly from the fields, and bats began to dance in the air. In the halflight of her dwelling, she appeared as a weary old woman, meek and fragile. She approached me. Squeezing my hand, pulling me toward her armchair, she insisted: “Come, come, my dear, sit down beside me.”
Sometimes I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to take care of my little sister, who wanted nothing to do with Rosaries. Even if the lady gave her a piece of candy, once she’d eaten it she got bored and asked, “When is this Rosary going to be over?” Whenever possible, I avoided bringing her along with me.
If I agreed to stay, the Signorina’s eyes sparkled with grateful tears. Resting her hand on my shoulder, she smiled lovingly.Patiently I stared at the rosary beads slipping through her gnarled fingers. To be honest, while reciting the Hail Mary she often closed her eyes, even in my presence. She would drowse off or even dream, while fingering her rosary. At that point I would furtively steal away. Later on, I would tell her that I’d gone away only after the prayers were over. She didn’t believe me, though.
Sometimes, when quite weary, she sat in her armchair and wanted me to sit beside her: “Keep me company” she said, in a tired voice. Meanwhile she offered me something special to eat, or a soft mint coated with sugar. And she told me about events that had occurred in her past. Once again, she told me about the fine city of Palermo, about Villa Giulia: a big park near the sea, with myriads of palm trees and flowers of all sorts. And Quattro Canti, and the imposing Via della Libertà, with its magnificent shops. And the organ-grinders in the streets, to whom she would toss a coin from the window of her hotel. At that, they competed with each other, in playing for her. Bowing, they saluted her, doffing their hats.
Eventually, she got back to the subject of Arturo. I could not discern whether she was talking about a living person or a dead one.
Her conversation included moments of joy, too, with no apparent explanation, at least that I could tell. Sometimes she would weep, then laugh, in quick succession. That would happen when she looked at old photos of her parents, her relatives, of herself when young, wearing a fine hat. The photos reminded her of sad or happy moments of her youth. And she would sigh, and sigh. It would be wretched of me, I thought, to sneak away while she was suffering so deeply.
Sometimes she was very depressed, despondent, despairing. She felt abandoned even by God and the saints. She considered herself the most unfortunate woman in the world. She thought everyone else was better off than she, that they enjoyed themselves while she was condemned to suffer, like Our Lady of Sorrows at the foot of the cross. Even her canary, in its cage, was better off.
By the way, I haven’t yet told you about Carlino, the canary.
She kept the birdcage hanging on a hook in her kitchen. A yellow canary was in it. Poor little bird. Now it swung on its tiny swing, now it pecked at a bit of lettuce, now, flapping its little wings in that minuscule prison, it sang marvelously.
She called it “Carlino”. She said that was the name of the gentleman who’d given it to her. “This little bird”, she said, “may be a cross between a female canary and a male goldfinch.” I didn’t understand what she meant. Nor do I actually know how that little canary managed to stay alive. When the Signorina had breakfast she gave him a little piece of biscuit. At lunch she put a little of her own food in his cage: egg yolk, chickory, cabbage, even garlic and coal which, she said, “disinfects his intestine”. And when the voice of the little yellow bird seemed to decline in tweetiness, she fed it a little piece of onion. She considered herself an expert. “I know what I’m doing”, she said. “I’ve read a book about raising birds.”
She often stopped to chat with Carlino. “Lucky you, Carlino” she said, her face pressed up next to the cage. “You sing, you hop, you eat and drink. I carry the cross of my pains. I can’t even walk.” At other times, she merely uttered: “Sing, sing, Carlino. Enjoy life. You’re certainly not old and ailing like me. Your sweetheart hasn’t shown up today? You seem a bit downcast.”
The kitchen door opened onto a pretty little garden. A little window looked onto the garden as well. Its panes were often covered with steam and smoke. Outside, the blue sky seemed so far away! Even the sun seemed to eclipse from view.
The Signorina loved to keep the interior of her home in shadow, but she spent magic moments in that tiny garden. She tended to it with painstaking dedication. She knew its every plant, every flower, every blade of grass. She planted aromatic basil there, rosemary, and many other savory herbs. Not to mention garlic, onions and parsley.
Once in a while she’d save part of her omelet for me, just after consuming her share. She named the herbs she’d used in it: “Can you taste the basil, can you taste the wild mint?” I said I could, but actually I didn’t care that much about the matter. I did savor mint and jasmine, though, which were never lacking in her home: “They perfume and refresh the whole house” she said.
In her home stood two porcelain vases overflowing with flowers. They sat in corners of the parlor. Sometimes the woman grew ecstatic, tearing up in the face of some flower’s beauty. She became downcast if one of her beloved flowering plants seemed frail.
She loved pansies, purple dahlias, yellow azaleas, red and white carnations, and her aromatic lemongrass. As she walked about the garden she kept repeating, “I’m going to visit my children.” She caressed the flower petals with hands swollen and distorted by arthritis.
In autumn I’d sometimes find her looking up at the withered red leaves, about to fall from the branch. In winter, behind the kitchen window, sadly she’d gaze at the naked tree branches under a pearl-gray sky.
Once, her niece, Maria, came to live with Signorina Ignazia. She was, I think, the daughter of Ignazia’s sister, who lived in a fine big city of Sicily. Every so often Maria’s brother would come to visit: Armando, a tall, sturdy youth who loved to joke around. He said he loved to return to his aunt’s now and then, partly so he could see his dear friends in town.
The Signorina enjoyed his visits. He made her laugh a lot. Unfortunately, he never stayed for long. His aunt begged him to remain, but he always said, “I have to leave you, Auntie. Tomorrow I go back to work.”
Maria had big eyes and light blond hair. A few of our neighbors called her “la Nordica”, perhaps because most of the girls in town, in contrast, had dark hair. She was self-confident, strong in character. Whenever possible, she refused to be pushed around. When she grew angry, the Signorina accused her of having a “rebellious spirit”.
In the afternoon, Maria liked to go out. She often remained outdoors till after sunset, and that made the Signorina worry. She often warned the girl to be careful: “In town they’ll say you keep company with too many boys, or ‘men’, as they call them here.” At that, Maria was quick to reply, “Don’t pay any attention to what people say, auntie dear. Let them say whatever they want. I’m not here to be the house nun. I’m not doing anything wrong. The war’s been over for a long time, thank God. Peace! Let’s enjoy life.”
Sometimes I was present when Maria was preparing to go out. She only needed a few minutes in front of the mirror: a light stroke of lipstick, a little hairbrushing, and she was ready to join her friends. If her aunt was in the garden, she would tell me, “Tanino, let my aunt know I’ve gone out.” A cloud of perfume followed in her wake. She was happy. She sang as she walked down the stairs, and away.
Her aunt forgave her everything, partly because she’d always been jovial and affectionate toward the old woman. She was always nice to me, too. One day I saw her with her friends, in front of Contrino’s bar. She saw me, in turn, and offered me ice cream.
Signorina Ignazia was obsessed with order and tidiness. All day long she strove to clean every corner of her home. Every morning she opened the windows and threw aside the bedcovers, to air the beds. She attempted to ensnare her niece in her web of little household chores. She wished that Maria would get up early and help her. Her hope was to no avail.
Maria must have suffered harshly during the war. She was always insisting on her love for freedom. “We all have a right to be free.” Looking up at the sky from her window, one day, she mused: “Free, like those clouds up there, making the sky so beautiful!” Gazing at her for a moment, her aunt, half-smiling, half-serious, remarked: “Listen here, Cloud, your mother wrote me telling me to check up on the people that keep you company.”
She’d already assumed as much, responded the girl. She was tired of frequenting the people her mother recommended. “They are rich people, polite, elegant, but they’re false. They have no heart.” She said she like her friends in Naro. “They’re friendly in a simple way, a country way. They’re sincere, loyal, they have a heart THIS BIG.”
“ Your mother hinted that you’ve come to my house mainly to get away from your fiancé” said the Signorina. “A young man she considers a true gentleman.”
Visibly outraged, Maria rebutted that she wanted nothing to do with the fellow. She told us about her relationship with the ex-fiancé. She’d met him on the main street of her city, one day, in mid-afternoon. She had never met him, before that. He’d seemed like a trustworthy person. They had become engaged.
She’d thought she could love him. Once she’d come to know him better, however, she’d realized he wasn’t right for her. He was absurdly jealous. “He didn’t want me, Auntie dear. He was only looking for a wife from a good family, that he could consider his private possession. He wouldn’t give me room to breathe. He was always stern, frowning. Like a boulder on my head. He was incapable of enjoying anything, not even a little thing, like eating ice cream or taking a walk.”
Finally, she had said to her fiancé, “It’s over between us.” She’d been frank with him.
With a calm voice, thoughtfully Signorina Ignazia remarked: “What can you expect? Ever since the world’s existed, love has never brought us women happiness and comfort.” To her niece, she hinted that she, too, had had her love stories. She seized the moment to talk about them.
That’s how I came to know about things the Signorina had never mentioned to me before. About when she was an adolescent. Innocently, she had frequented a youth. They’d exchanged a few words one day under the sun, while walking back home from Mass. Churchbells were ringing. But her parents had forbidden her to keep company with the lad. They felt he was not worthy of her.
One day, the youth wanted to offer her a Cinzano at the bar, and she felt forced to reply that from that day forward, they must never meet again. “You obeyed, back then. You always obeyed your parents” she added.
A few years later, during a dinner party, she had met another man, an entrepreneur. He was from Palermo. His name was Arturo. He was a handsome fellow (she jealously guarded his photograph, even now). He had a lot of money. By the second or third time they had been out together, he said he loved her. She believed him. “I was a young girl. I longed to love and be loved. I let myself succumb.”
Fearing that her parents would oppose her once more, she let Arturo persuade her to flee with him to Palermo. “I was not poor, but I, too, ended up resorting to the poor people’s solution of elopement, the fuitina. Poverty-stricken girls do that to avoid the cost of a wedding. I did it out of true love. I followed Arturo to Palermo.”
Unfortunately, she soon came to hear that the man was married. She found that out while sitting in the hotel restaurant, where the couple had been staying for several days.
“ He’d just gone out. He’d said that we’d meet at the restaurant, at lunch time. The appointed time came round and still he did not show up. I was worried. A naive old waiter, a bald fellow, revealed the truth to me. He knew Arturo well. I could have died for the shame of it! As soon as Arturo returned, I saw he was embarrassed. I plucked him out of his embarrassment. Said I’d found out. He tried reciting the role of the penitent, all the usual stuff. My eyes were a fountain of tears. He begged for forgiveness, said he had truly loved me.”
Arturo promised her that if she remained in Palermo, while awaiting a probable separation from his wife, she would be lacking for nothing. “I didn’t care for the idea of being a lover, maybe all my life” said the Signorina.
She remembered it all. It was a luminous day in April. People were strolling about in the sun. She, too, might have been happy: instead, she had fallen into darkness.
“ On the verge of madness”, she found herself sitting on the train, her arms folded. She left Palermo, but she did not want to return to her native city. In those days, any young girl who ran away from home with a man stirred up an enormous scandal. Any girl who ran away from home and regretfully returned, could expect only isolation, marginalization, from both friends and relatives.
Her parents did not look for her, but neither did they disinherit her. Many other runaway girls, instead, lost their birthright.
So the Signorina had ended up in my town. Her grandfather’s sister took her in and gave her shelter, though with little enthusiasm.
Sighing deeply, Signorina Ignazia said, “Sometimes I wonder if all those things really happened. Anyway, that’s how I ended up buried alive in this house.” And after a few minutes: “I may be ridiculous, but I want to be sincere. I’ve always waited for him to come. His memory has pursued me all my life.”
During the war, she had prayed that Arturo would not suffer. Without faith, she would have crumbled in despair. Gazing at her niece, she mused: “It’s true, loneliness is a sad thing. But living all your life with a man you don’t love is Hell itself. You’re right. If you don’t love him, leave your fiancé.”
Maria hugged her aunt. “Thank you. I knew nothing about you, auntie. You made your choices. I believe you paid too much. Anyway, don’t worry about me. I won’t remain alone.”
I walked out then, while the aunt slumped onto the sofa and urged Maria to sit down beside her. The sun was setting. It was red. Purple clouds surrounded it.
I don’t know how Maria’s future turned out. Shortly afterward, I left for boarding school, and never saw her again. Nor did I ever again see Signorina Ignazia.
