Paradiso: Utterly gripping and emotional historical fiction (The Paradiso Novels Book 1)

by Francesca Scanacapra

  Of course, telling my parents the truth would have been the sensible thing to do, but by this time I was in too deep. A few extra chores and a couple of days on my knees was a small price to pay for my aunt’s protection. What was more, I had made Rita lie for me and I did not want to get her into trouble.

  Salvatore tried to keep a straight face, but could not control his mirth.

  ‘My brother and I stole a donkey once after a few too many glasses of Nocino,’ he chuckled. ‘And one man I knew woke up in the Piazza del Plebiscito stark naked apart from a saucepan on his head. But peeing in the confessional? That’s quite a caper!’

  I did not see the funny side.

  It was the pain in my knees which woke me the following morning. Bruising was starting to bloom across my kneecaps, which were swollen and tender to touch. The thought of a second day kneeling filled me with dread. I took the old tablecloth on which Salvatore had dried the tomatoes and tore it into strips, which I bound around my knees. My improvised bandages made walking difficult and they were still slightly imbued with the smell of the tomatoes, but the binding dulled the pain and would provide padding for my second day of kneeling.

  The second day on my knees was far from comfortable, but it was bearable. Miracolino kept frowning at me and I prayed that he had not eaten too much bad fish, for I was certain that the slightest whiff of fart would make me vomit.

  Pietro and Paolo continued to taunt me, drawing their fingers across their necks.

  ‘How’s your aunt?’ they said. ‘Has she invited anyone over for a couple of drinks recently?’

  I did my best to ignore them, but their goading was relentless.

  I shifted my weight from knee to knee and tried to sit back on my haunches, but the pain spread down my shins and up my back. Maestro Virgola told me repeatedly to stop fidgeting.

  ‘Stand up!’ he ordered.

  My knees creaked as I heaved myself upright. My legs felt as though they would not carry my weight and my feet were so numb I could not feel the floor. Had it not been for the support of the bandages I believe my legs would have buckled.

  ‘Lift your skirt,’ he commanded.

  I raised the hem of my skirt by a few centimetres and revealed my makeshift bandages.

  ‘What’s this?’ he demanded.

  ‘Bandages, Maestro,’ I replied quietly.

  ‘Bandages?’ he bellowed. ‘Bandages? Lift your skirt higher!’

  The long wooden ruler appeared from nowhere. I did not feel the pain of the first strike, or the second, or the third. All I heard was a swooshing as it cut through the air and a cracking as it hit the back of my bare thigh. I was aware of a rushing in my ears and a prickling up my spine. For a moment it felt as though I had eaten sloes again.

  When I came round, Maestro Virgola was standing above me telling me to wake up. It took me a few moments to realise that I had fainted, and it was then that the searing pain branded itself into my leg. Total silence had descended on the class.

  ‘Get up, girl! Go and wash your face. Be quick!’ he said. ‘The rest of you, get on with your work.’

  Everybody did as they were told, except Miracolino, who ran out of the classroom so fast that several exercise books were blown off desks. Maestro Virgola bellowed at him to come back, but Miracolino was out of the building before he could finish his sentence.

  I hobbled to the washroom, still dazed. My vision was flecked with spots of light and I could feel a throbbing, egg-shaped lump growing on the side of my head where I had hit the desk as I had fallen. The welts on my thighs were the colour of red wine. Trickles of blood snaked their way down my legs.

  The terror I felt at the thought of going back into class was so overwhelming that despite the pain and my giddy vision, I hastened out of school. I knew I would be in more trouble for absconding, but all I wanted to do was to go home.

  I only made it as far as the little garden beside the church before feeling faint again. I cowered by the same laurel bush where I had fallen asleep with Rita two days previously and cried. The empty sloe jar was still there.

  I would have hidden if I had heard Immacolata in time, but my sobbing must have drowned out her footsteps. She appeared quite suddenly, barely two paces from me.

  ‘Is that you Graziella? Why are you crying?’ she asked.

  I could not speak.

  ‘Oh my Good Lord!’ she exclaimed, crossing herself. ‘You’ve banged your head. Did you fall, dear child?’

  It was then that Immacolata saw my bandaged knees and the wounds from the ruler and made another sign of the cross. She bent down as far as her stout frame would allow, reached out her hand and helped me to my feet.

  ‘Come along now,’ she said gently. ‘Let’s get you inside and sort you out and we’ll find a nice piece of cake for you to eat.’

  Immacolata walked me back to Don Ambrogio’s residence, murmuring words of comfort and supporting me with her arm. She had remarkable strength for a woman of such advanced years.

  She took me to the kitchen and applied cold compresses to the bump on my head, tutting and muttering the entire time. The cold compresses made me flinch.

  ‘There, there,’ she clucked. ‘I know it’s not very comfortable, but the cold’s good for bumps and bruises. Now, let’s have a look at them legs of yours.’

  She began to unwrap the strips of torn tablecloth from around my knees. Her old hands were a patchwork of stove-burn scars and liver spots, but her fingers were nimble.

  ‘Been praying, have you?’ she asked as the last of my bandages fell away. ‘Looks like you’ve gone on a pilgrimage all the way to Lourdes and back on these knees.’

  She inspected my legs carefully and puffed out her red cheeks.

  ‘This weren’t no fall, was it?’ she said at last. ‘I need you to tell me exactly what’s happened. Who did this to you, dear child?’

  Somehow through my sobbing she managed to understand that my injuries had been caused by Maestro Virgola.

  ‘Does he hit all the children?’ she asked.

  I nodded. ‘But not always with the ruler.’

  ‘So why did he punish you so much more harshly than the others?’

  ‘Because I was very, very naughty,’ I wept.

  ‘Very naughty? What could you possibly have done to deserve this?’

  I told her about wanting to miss the test, about the sloes, about the tabernacle and the statue, but when I told her I had peed in the confessional, she said, ‘No, you didn’t.’

  Immacolata looked at me gravely as she took a fresh bandage and began to wind it around my wounded thigh.

  ‘Don’t you tell me no fibs,’ she warned. ‘I’m an old woman who can smell a fib a mile off and this one fairly stinks. At a push I might believe that you broke Saint Egidio,’ she said, making a sign of the cross as she said his name. ‘I might also believe that you broke the latch on the tabernacle. Perhaps. But I can say with absolute certainty that you did not pee in the confessional. You see, I was the one what discovered it. I went to change the flowers in the church and I could smell it as soon as I walked past. I thought a cat had got in. But when I had a look, I knew it wasn’t no cat as surely as I know it wasn’t you. Do you know how I know that?’

  I shook my head and looked down at my feet.

  ‘I’ll tell you how. Whoever peed in the confessional aimed at the wall when they did it. Right up as far as they could. It stripped the varnish clean off! But being a little girl, you are not equipped to pee up walls.’

  Everything was just getting worse.

  ‘So who was it that did it then? I know you know. And you need to tell me,’ she said, giving a long sniff. It made me wonder whether she really could smell lies.

  Finally I admitted Pietro and Paolo’s involvement, although I stopped short of mentioning my aunt.

  ‘I knew it! Them boys is nothing but trouble. And they’re bullies - and if there’s one thing makes my blood boil it’s a bully,’ she said, crossing herself again.

&
nbsp; I had told the truth, but not the whole truth because the whole truth could never be told. However, it seemed to be enough for Immacolata. I hoped with all my heart it would be.

  Immacolata gave me a generous wedge of the richest cake I had ever tasted and finished binding my wounds. She had used such enormous lengths of bandage that I could not bend my legs at all. Despite the fact that only my knees and thighs were injured, she had bound both my legs from ankle to hip. They stuck out in front of me as stiff as posts. She also bound my head. I must have looked as though I had been partially mummified.

  ‘Well, I can promise you that you won’t be in no trouble, but I do need you to tell me something else. When you came here yesterday with that beast of a teacher, what did Don Ambrogio say to you?’

  ‘To think about what I had told him and to come back when I had.’

  Immacolata made an angry grunting noise and crossed herself, then bellowed, ‘Don Ambrogio!’

  The priest appeared remarkably quickly, as though he was accustomed to being summoned and knew better than to leave his formidable housekeeper waiting.

  ‘Don Ambrogio! I told you that boys had been in the church and why I knew it was boys, didn’t I? You’ve even seen for yourself that the mark in the confessional goes all the way up the wall. I even told you who I thought it might be who done it!’

  ‘Indeed you did,’ he replied, looking at me quizzically, obviously trying to work out why I was in his kitchen and why I was so excessively bandaged.

  Immacolata hadn’t finished. Furiously, she demanded: ‘So why did you not say anything about it when that brute Virgola came here with this poor child?’

  ‘I did ask Graziella whether anybody else was involved and I gave her more than one opportunity to amend her story. I also asked her to go and think about it.’

  ‘Go and think about it? And in the meantime you put her in the hands of that beast Virgola? Look what he’s done to her, the sadist! She’s been beaten! Beaten!’

  ‘Maestro Virgola beat you?’ Don Ambrogio was obviously taken aback. ‘Because you took the blame for the incidents in the church?’

  I nodded as I felt my eyes well again.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, rubbing his pink chins.

  ‘Oh dear?’ exclaimed Immacolata angrily, her face turning from red to crimson. ‘Is that all you have to say, Don Ambrogio? Oh dear? That teacher comes marching into your house bandying blame and accusations at this innocent little girl and you said nothing? You knew it couldn’t have been her!’

  ‘Well, I did say we should be slow to chide.’

  ‘And as for them boys, they’re the same ruffians I caught putting ink in the holy water! Them very same boys that you won’t have in your catechism classes.’

  ‘Yes. Indeed. Pietro and Paolo.’

  Immacolata rounded on Don Ambrogio with her hands on her hips

  ‘You have dealt with this very badly, Don Ambrogio!’ she said fiercely, wagging a fat finger at him. ‘Your problem is, you’re all long words and no common sense. Now, do something useful and find somebody to take poor little Graziella home. She can’t walk in her current state. Call on somebody with a car and make sure she finishes her cake. I’ll be back in a bit.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘To the school. To do what I cannot rely on you to do!’ She slapped her cauliflower hat onto her head and left the priest’s house with an air of absolute purpose.

  *

  It was Rita who gave me a report of what occurred next. Maestro Virgola had been furious that both Miracolino and I had run out of school. The class had been particularly quiet and Maestro Virgola had patrolled the aisles between the desks, grunting from time to time. He had not struck anyone else, but everybody had done their best to ensure he had no reason to. Rita said that even Pietro and Paolo had looked worried.

  Then suddenly, Immacolata had marched into the classroom, surprising everybody, including Maestro Virgola.

  ‘Could I ask you to wait outside, Signora Ogli? Class is in session.’

  Clearly Immacolata had no intention of waiting outside.

  ‘Perhaps I should expect a thrashing with that ruler of yours for having intruded?’ she said. ‘If you’re willing to hit children, then you’re probably willing to hit an old woman too. How dare you hit these children! And how dare you inflict violence on an innocent little girl?’

  ‘An innocent girl? If it is the Ponti girl to whom you are referring, I will have you know, Signora Ogli, that the girl admitted everything, not just to me, but to the whole class and to Don Ambrogio,’ he said self-righteously.

  ‘Of course she did - she was frightened! But even if she had done it, it was not your business or your duty to punish her. It was absolutely nothing to do with you!’

  Maestro Virgola puffed his chest out and replied, ‘How I choose to discipline my class is my business entirely, Signora. But if you wish to discuss this with me in a civilised manner, then we can arrange a time, but this is neither the time nor–’

  ‘Civilised? Civilised? Do you call beating little girls civilised? Hitting children is not acceptable under any circumstances. Do you think this is how children learn? Through fear and the threat of violence?’ She looked at him with loathing. ‘Have we not had enough of violence? We have lived through two wars! We should be educating our children with kindness and love. I have raised thirteen children, Maestro, and I have never raised my hand in anger against any of them - not even them what deserved it. You are a bully, a tyrant and a brute. And if you feel you have to resort to physical violence, you are obviously too incompetent to teach. And God help me, I will make it my personal crusade to make sure that you are removed from your position. And quickly!’

  She crossed herself fervently several times, then jabbed her finger at Pietro and Paolo.

  ‘As for you two,’ she said, ‘you can come with me!’

  Class was dismissed with immediate effect.

  *

  Don Ambrogio arranged for me to be taken home in a car, as Immacolata had instructed. As I was waiting for my lift to arrive, Salvatore turned up with Miracolino, who had run home for help. Somehow he had managed to explain everything that he had witnessed. He had been in the church the entire time.

  Although I did feel some sense of relief, I was still plagued by the thought of Pietro and Paolo exacting revenge by spreading the rumour about my aunt. I asked Salvatore to repeat everything that Miracolino had said to him, which he did. There was no mention of my aunt or the poisoning. The report ended with the desecration of the confessional.

  My parents were horrified at the way I had been punished. My father was distraught.

  ‘If I was an able-bodied man I’d whip that teacher within an inch of his life,’ he said to my mother. ‘And then I’d whip him again. And once more, just to make sure.’

  I was exonerated of all wrong-doing, relieved of all my chores, laid out on my father’s bed in the corner of the kitchen and given yet more cake. My father pulled up a chair, sat by my side and offered to tell me a story, but I was so exhausted by my misadventures that I fell asleep before he could begin.

  A nightmare woke me with a start sometime in the middle of the night. I had dreamed about opening the confessional door and finding my mother shackled to the seat begging to be saved. It took me a moment to realise I was still in my father’s bed. He was sitting slumped and snoring in the chair beside me. He had not wanted to disturb me.

  I lay down and tried to fall back to sleep, but all I could think of was Pietro and Paolo’s revenge. I was so filled with panic that I began to cry again. My sobbing woke my father.

  ‘What is it, my little one?’ he said. ‘Are you in pain?’

  Of all the people in my world, I knew my Papá was the only one to whom I could pour out my woes. After all, he was the one who had made me keep the secret.

  ‘They know about Zia Mina,’ I sniffled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pietro and Paolo know about Zia Min
a.’

  ‘What do they know, little one?’

  ‘They know she poisoned the soldiers and they said they’d tell.’

  My father rearranged himself awkwardly in his chair and reached out his hand to take mine. ‘Is that what all this is about?’ he said quietly.

  ‘They swore that if I told anyone what they did, they’d tell everyone the secret. And then the police would come and get Zia Mina and she would go to prison and you and Mamma might go too. Is it true, Papá? Did Zia Mina really poison those soldiers? I don’t want any of you to go to prison!’

  My father took several deep breaths, as though he was going through his words in his head before speaking them out loud.

  ‘My little one,’ he said. ‘War is a terrible thing and I pray every day that we will never see another one. Bad things happen during wars. Our little village experienced a terrible atrocity which brought the war right into our own home. But that madness is over now and everything that happened needs to be put aside and forgotten. As for those two nasty boys, ignore their threats. Nobody is going to give those two lying thugs the time of day.’

  He squeezed my hand gently, but I still wasn’t convinced.

  ‘But if it’s a secret, how do Pietro and Paolo know what happened? Who else knows what happened? What if they tell?’

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ said my father, leaning forward in his chair so that our faces were close. ‘Once upon a time in a village in Lombardy there lived a family of mice. They were happy little farm mice. They had plenty to eat, they played in the fields and slept in soft straw beds. They didn’t have a care in the world.’ My father paused, then lowered his voice. ‘But one day a gang of big, nasty rats arrived on their farm. They ate all the corn and took over the cosy mouse nests, and the poor little mice were so frightened that they ran to hide in a drain. They were very scared, very cold and very, very hungry. One night, five little mice crept out of the drain to try to find some food. But the big, nasty rats saw them! Big rats can run much faster than little mice so they easily caught the mice and hung them up by their tails. It was a winter’s night and the rats watched and laughed as the little mice froze to death.’