Solitaria (8 page)

“
In the League of Nations there is talk of sanctions instead of recognition of our rights. Until there is proof to the contrary, I shall refuse to believe that the true and generous people of France can support sanctions against Italy.

“Similarly, I refuse to believe that the people of Great Britain, who have never had discord with Italy, are prepared to run the risk of hurling Europe along the road to catastrophe for the sake of defending an African country universally recognized as a country without the slightest shadow of civilization.”

The voice droned on, and the smaller children began to play games using small stones. Some of the girls drew pictures in the dirt. Their restlessness was a wave of heads and shoulders. Now and then, the teacher signalled for quiet, and for a few moments, the children would be still.

“We shall face economic sanctions with our discipline, our steadfastness, and our spirit of sacrifice.”

From the radio came a rallied cry of solidarity.

“Against military sanctions we shall reply with military measures.”

“Military measures!” the radio boomed, and some of the villagers joined in.

“To acts of war we shall reply with acts of war.”

“Acts of war!” they all cried.

“Let no one think that he can make us yield without a hard struggle.”

“War! War!” the radio voices said. The villagers were unsure of this. Several women began to fan themselves in hyperbolic gestures. A man removed his hat and scratched his scalp.

“A people guarding its honour can use no other language nor can it adopt a different attitude.”

“Honour! Honour!” the radio voices boomed. They sounded thick, immense, as if all of Italy were shouting at once.

“But let it be said once more and in the most categorical manner — and at this moment I make before you a sacred pledge — that we shall do all that is possible to prevent this conflict of a colonial character from assuming the nature and scope of a European conflict…”

The crowd murmured and shuffled. Vito elbowed his way towards the blackshirts, stood within metres, eyed the cigarette packs in their shirt pockets.

“Never before as in this historical epoch have the Italians revealed the quality of their spirit and the power of their character. And it is against these people to whom humanity owes some of its greatest conquests, and it is against these people, these poets, artists, heroes, saints, navigators, emigrants — it is against these people that one dares speak of sanctions.”
Mussolini paused, as if for effect. The radio crowd cheered.

“Italy, proletarian and fascist, Italy of Vittorio Veneto and of the Revolution, arise! Let the cry of your decision fill the heavens; let it be a comfort to the soldiers who wait in Africa, a spur to friends,
and a warning to enemies in every part of the world: a cry of justice, a cry of victory.”

“Victory! Victory!” the men shouted, then the Italian national anthem began once more, and everyone sang along, carried away by the fervour, the promise. At the end, they erupted in applause, although some of the women crossed themselves, thinking no doubt of their sons and husbands who would be conscripted, of the famine which would inevitably follow sanctions. Papà shook his head. Mamma touched his elbow and leaned in, whispering, “Please, Ovidio, I beg you. They're watching us.”

A song began on the radio in the square, and we children stood up hastily and began to sing along.

If you from your plateaus stare out to sea

Little black one, slave among slaves

you'll see as if a dream of many ships

and a tricolour flag flying for you.

Little black face of the Abyssinian

Wait and hope that the hour is near

when we will be with you

to give you a new law and a new King…

“Nonsense. All nonsense!” Papà said. “Has everyone gone mad?”

“Hush, hush, Papà, please,” Mamma implored.

The butcher's teenaged son approached them, his black shirt wet in the armpits. “Are you not singing, Signor Santoro?” he said, his voice pleasant, his eyes narrowing.

“He is tone deaf,” Mamma said, smiling. “Let him spare our ears.” She waited until the children had finished singing, then nodded, picked up Clarissa, and carried her to me, who was expected to care for her after school. Mamma was a good seamstress, and she used this skill to augment Papà's income, sewing in the afternoons and often into the night while we slept. Papà turned and strode off towards his field, while Mamma marched down the hill, away from the village, back to the railway
casello
where we lived. The tobacconist switched off the radio and began to carry everything inside. People dispersed, murmuring among themselves.

As soon as the teacher dismissed the children, I moved to one side and waited with Aldo and Clarissa. Across the piazza, Vito smoked a cigarette and chatted with two young men in black shirts. He laughed, joked with them, nodded. And when they held out the pack, he took the cigarettes and slipped them into his pants pocket.

The piazza was almost deserted now. Clarissa was restless, seated on the ground, her legs dragging across the dirt, raising dust. Aldo and I stood stoically in the sun. The teacher ran a hand through her hair and smiled. “Well?” she said.

“We're waiting for our brother,” I said.

“Oh.” The teacher smiled again, hesitating. She seemed unsure as to whether she was to wait with us or not. A woman called out her name, her mother perhaps. The teacher shrugged, gave us a small wave, and walked off across the piazza.

Aldo sat cross-legged on the ground. He reached into his schoolbag and pulled out a textbook. Only six, he was already in Form 4, his eyes ablaze, intelligent. Though he was born in October in the midst of the Great Depression, Mamma declared that he would be happy and studious, have a keen business sense, great humour, and a long and fortunate life. It was the only prediction she ever made that was entirely positive, and Aldo proved her right. Aldo was privileged both by nature and nurture. When other children were learning to add one-digit numbers, Aldo could do six. When others were struggling with the alphabet, Aldo was reading encyclopaedias. He was the toast of his teachers and of our parents.

Clarissa slid next to him. I leaned against the tufa, in the small shade cast by the doorway, and stared at Vito, who seemed to enjoy defying Papà's rules, as if he welcomed punishment. I signalled to him, and he nodded, though he took his time sauntering over.

“You know Papà does not like those blackshirts,” I whispered. “Why must you talk to them?”

“We're going to be the greatest country in the world,” Vito said. “What do you know about anything?”

“Are you going to join them?” I said.

“He can't,” Aldo said, without looking up. “He's only nine. They don't take children in the army.”

“I'll run away as soon as I'm old enough,” Vito said. He patted his shirt pocket and drew out a cigarette, which he lit.

“Papà will beat you if he sees you with cigarettes. Why must you upset him always?” I said.

Vito shrugged. Ever since his return home, he had been at odds with Papà.

We walked around the school to the back, then crossed a field and began the descent down the hill, towards our
casello
. When we reached the bottom, at the
Y
in the path, Vito headed to the left.

“Aren't we going home?” Aldo said, pausing.

“You go home,” Vito said. “I want to walk a bit.”

“I want to go with Vito,” Clarissa said.

Aldo shrugged, picked up his schoolbag, and headed home. Clarissa and I shadowed Vito, as we often did in the afternoons. Now and then he turned, and we hid in the tall brush, or behind a tree. We followed him halfway across the field, when he turned and waved us away. “Go on home,” he said.

I wasn't sure, exactly, if he was serious or playing. I frowned. Clarissa laughed and ran towards him. He stopped and pretended to chase her. Clarissa squealed and ran. Vito turned and continued walking. We followed a few paces behind.

We crossed an abandoned field, and when we came to a small stone wall, Vito waited. He lifted each of us up on the wall, then hoisted himself up and straddled the stone, legs swinging. Clarissa pushed one leg over, mirroring him. A blaze of poppies bloomed against the rock, around our ankles. Vito pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. It drooped a little.

“Children are not supposed to smoke,” Clarissa said. “I'm going to tell Papà.”

Vito raised his eyebrows. “I'm not a child,” he said. “I'm a man.” Then he winked at me.

I wasn't sure what to make of this. “Anyway, we are all children,” I said, “and you're not supposed to smoke.” I hopped off the wall, and pulled down Clarissa, who planted her heels into the ground. “Mamma will be wondering where we are,” I said, dragging Clarissa along by the hand, leaving Vito riding the wall, cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth.

Mamma expected me home to look after Clarissa and to tend “our little shop” as she called it, which consisted of a table to the right of the door, from which we sold miniscule amounts of basics — 100 grams of oil or pasta, for example — to peasants who could not afford to buy in larger quantities, and on feast days, to the
bandisti
who would come across our
casello
during one procession or another.

After school, while Mamma sewed, I measured oil or kerosene, wrapped bread and pasta in brown paper, sliced mortadella for others — myself a hungry child, stomach growling, mouth watering. I could only guess its taste from the succulent smell and the pink soft flesh. But it was not meant for me or for any of the family. What we ate regularly from the shop was broken pasta that we could not sell. But this was not a hardship — the pasta was a specialty, delicious, varied in colour and texture. We felt so fortunate. We were all working for a common goal — for all of us children to have university educations.

But on this day, when I'd dropped Clarissa off with Mamma, I sneaked out in search of Vito and found him exactly where we had left him. He had a book open in front of him on the wall and didn't notice me approach.

“I can read too, you know,” I said, and he jumped.

“Can you now? And where did you learn?” He smiled at me, his hand holding the book open.

“I'm almost six, you know,” I said. “And I learned from Papà's newspapers.” I moved closer to him. “I can prove it,” I said, staring at the page. “
I found myself within a sha—sha—dowed forest / for I had lost the path that does not stray
,” I read, trailing my finger along the lines.

“Brava!” he said. “Already you can read Dante.”

I smiled and stood straight. “I'm going to be a teacher,” I said.

We walked along the edge of our field, amid rows of tobacco leaves. The poetry book was in his pocket, and he had promised me he would buy me one like it.

At first, we didn't know what the sound was. Someone crying, perhaps. No. A moan. Vito silenced me with a finger in front of his mouth. Together, we ducked among the tobacco plants, then scrambled on our knees towards the sound.

Papà was lying between the legs of a woman, his trousers halfway down his buttocks. His lips were on the woman's lips, and both their eyes were closed. I drew in my breath, and Vito put his hand over my mouth. We needn't have worried, because Papà and the woman were too engrossed in each other to hear anything. Vito sat back on his knees and watched the pumping with bright unblinking eyes. I covered mine.

A long shudder. The woman moaned, and Papà fell against her. Vito and I retreated slowly until we were far enough away to get up and run. We were both flushed and giddy with excitement. When out of danger, we slipped into one of the rows, and we lay down, side by side, chests heaving.

“They were doing it,” Vito said, his voice hushed.

“Agata works for Papà,” I said. “She's supposed to pick tobacco.”

Vito laughed. “You are such a little baby.”

“I am not,” I said, but I felt small against him, against all he seemed to know of the world beyond our
casello
.

We lay quietly for a few moments, then Vito said, “He does it to Mamma too.”

“He does not!” I said, although I didn't really understand what it was Papà did or didn't do. But I didn't think whatever it was, that Mamma would be involved.

“Where do you think babies come from?” he said, raising himself up on one elbow and staring down at me.

I looked at him uncertainly. “They grow in Mamma's heart,” I said.

Vito burst out laughing. I pushed him and started to get up, but he held my arm. “I'm sorry. Wait,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

“You're making fun of me,” I said.

“I'll show you what they do,” he whispered, and gently pressed his lips against mine.

I held my breath, my heart pounding wildly, then I pushed him away and stood up. “They do not,” I said.

He let me go and we resumed walking. Vito ran ahead of me for twenty, thirty steps, then turned and ran back to me, to and fro, to and fro, as if to dissipate gratuitous energy, zigzagging all the way home. I walked slowly along rows, the field dark and forbidding, thick with tobacco plants and hidden secrets. A wind surfaced, and I shivered and buttoned the front of my sweater. At the edge of the field, I picked three poppies out of the stone wall. When I reached the little chapel, I knelt in front of the Virgin Mary and offered the flowers.

Vito ran circles around the chapel. “They'll all die,” he said, breathless. “Flowers need water.”

“Please, Mary,” I said, “make everything all right.”