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

by Francesca Scanacapra

  In the photograph my aunt was only recognisable as she was the tallest amongst the young women, but years of bending double in the rice fields had affected her posture. She stood slightly stooped with her neck arched forwards. Her long, bony legs and broad hips had afforded her the nickname ‘The Heron’ amongst the rice workers. She had never cared for it much.

  We sat chatting, the sound of hard, fresh peas pinging off the sides of the bowl. I stole the occasional one when my aunt wasn’t looking. Her cat lay sunning its belly in a patch of sunshine which pierced through the vines.

  Suddenly we were interrupted by the sound of the garden gate flying open and a young boy racing up the path towards us, scattering the gravel with his hasty steps. I knew him from church. He was an altar boy.

  ‘Where’s Signora Ponti?’ he called, breathless.

  My aunt looked up and asked, ‘Which one?’

  ‘Luigi Ponti’s wife!’

  ‘In her house, working. What is it?’

  ‘It’s Signor Ponti. There’s been an accident!’

  My aunt swiftly set the bowl aside, glanced down at me and told me to stay where I was. Then she ran into the house with the boy and moments later, emerged with my mother.

  ‘Wait there, Graziella,’ called my mother and I watched as the three of them darted away, through the gate and off down the road.

  I sat on the step, trying to make sense of what had happened. I didn’t know whether I was more sad or scared. Another accident would mean more pain for my father. Worse still, it would mean he could no longer work, even for Don Ambrogio. What would we do then?

  I tried to distract myself by shelling the remaining peas and confiding my fears to the cat. It rolled onto its back and purred loudly.

  It felt like an eternity before Rita’s mother was sent to find me. Her expression was solemn.

  ‘Graziella,’ she said softly, kneeling down with some effort due to her bulging, pregnant belly. ‘Your Papá has been taken to hospital. He had a fall.’

  Fear rose through me in a sickening wave.

  ‘Has Mamma gone with him?’

  ‘Yes, she has. So has your aunt. I want you to come with me until they get home.’ She reached out her hand and took mine.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Only the doctors will know that. So just stay with me until we receive news - and try not to worry too much.’

  Rita was not there. She had gone to help her grandmother, so I sat quietly, trying to play with her dolls’ house. I had long been envious of Rita’s dolls’ house, which her father had made for her out of a vegetable crate. I had never had it to myself before, but I found it impossible to invent a game which comforted me.

  After some time, Pozzetti returned, smiled and squeezed my cheek, but there was a troubled look on his face. He had a whispered conversation with his wife and went to his workshop.

  Rita arrived home just before supper. Her presence alleviated my worry a little, but the lack of any news about my father made me a joyless playmate.

  ‘What if he can’t work any more?’ I asked.

  Rita clutched my hand and said, ‘My father will help him. Just like he does when he takes him to work on the back of the bicycle. Papá says that friends always help each other.’

  This was a little glimmer of comfort in the dark pit of my distress.

  Rita’s mother served a supper of pork and beans, but I couldn’t eat, despite the fact that I was used to strict rules about eating what was placed in front of me without question or complaint, even if I didn’t like it.

  ‘Try to eat something, Graziella. You will feel better,’ said Pozzetti. But I could not. I couldn’t even swallow any of the vanilla custard Rita’s mother had made to cheer me up.

  After supper Rita and I helped to dry dishes and once the washing-up was complete, we took turns to wash ourselves in the sink. I was given Rita’s spare nightdress and her mother combed and braided our hair.

  ‘What an adventure for you to sleep together,’ she said cheerfully. I was unsure about this as my bed-sharing memories in the convent were not fond ones.

  As the church clock struck nine in the distance and we were preparing to say good night, my aunt appeared at the door. I knew by her swollen eyes that something terrible had happened. I stood paralysed - I do not know how long for - but by the time I regained my senses, everybody in the room was crying. I don’t recall how I was told, or who told me, but I knew.

  My father was dead.

  He had fallen from a ladder, two floors up. Don Ambrogio had asked him to deal with a wasps’ nest under the eaves of his residence. My father had lost his footing, probably due to a back spasm, and had fallen. By the time he reached hospital, there was nothing they could do for him.

  The grief which overwhelmed me made me sick. I cried and shook in my aunt’s arms until I was limp and drained of all feeling.

  Pozzetti carried me home, where my mother was sitting white-faced and red-eyed at the kitchen table. She was barely able to speak, save to curse Don Ambrogio for asking a man in my father’s condition to do something so risky; and my father for accepting.

  Over the days that followed, people came and went from our house to pay their respects. Once they had been to see us, they moved on to Rita’s. I assumed that they were going there because her father and mine had been so close. It was only when I overheard a snippet of conversation between my aunt and someone who had come to offer his condolences, that I realised that my father was laid out at Pozzetti’s. Our kind neighbour was, after all, the undertaker.

  ‘Zia Mina, is Papá at Pozzetti’s?’ I asked.

  My aunt bent down, ruffled my hair and said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have all those people been going to see him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I go too?’

  My aunt paused for a moment. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me talk to your Mamma,’ she said.

  I wanted to see my father more than I could express. My aunt told me to be patient, and three days after the accident, which was the day before the funeral, my request was granted.

  Zia Mina walked me across the road to Pozzetti’s where my father was laid out in a room next to the workshop. It was a room which was always locked and out of bounds. Even Rita had only been allowed in there once, and only because there was, quite literally, no body in there.

  The room was nothing like Pozzetti’s sawdust-strewn workshop. It was immaculate, with a tiled floor and a large, clean workbench. Empty coffins stood propped upright against the wall. My father’s coffin was resting on a stand, which was too high to allow me a proper view of him. Pozzetti lifted me into his arms so I could see.

  The coffin was lined with a white sheet. My father’s head rested on a pillow which had been embroidered by my mother as a gift for Rita’s parents. Had I not known he was dead, I would have thought him asleep - apart from the fact that he was lying on his back, something his injuries would never have allowed him to do whilst alive. His skin was pale, but smooth and free from the familiar lines of pain etched into his expression. His hair had been brushed carefully and his hands had been placed together in a position of prayer against his chest. He was wearing his best suit, which was too big for him as it had been purchased years before, for his wedding. His frame had shrunk significantly since then. My mother regretted having had neither the time nor the spirit to alter it.

  Pozzetti held me for a long time, letting me take in the final image of my father. His stubbly cheek prickled against mine. He smelled of sawdust.

  ‘Is there anything you would like to put in the coffin before I close it?’ he asked. ‘Something you would like your Papá to take to heaven with him?’

  ‘What will he need in heaven?’

  ‘Something to remind him of you.’

  I darted back to Paradiso, took my special handkerchief embroidered with cherries and blossom and ran back to Pozzetti.

  ‘Did you
make this?’ he asked. I nodded.

  ‘What a beautiful thing! Let’s put it on his chest. That way, you will always be close to his heart.’

  He lifted me with one arm and together we placed the handkerchief, folded into a triangle, into the breast pocket of my father’s suit.

  ‘Can I touch him?’ I asked.

  ‘If you want.’

  I brushed my fingertips against my father’s, then traced them across his cold cheek, before craning my neck and placing the gentlest of kisses on his forehead.

  ‘Will Papá’s back still hurt in heaven?’

  ‘No. Nobody feels any pain in heaven.’

  ‘Ernesto will be happy to see him,’ I said, ‘and his Mamma and his Papá. He knows a lot of dead people. He’s going to be very busy. Do you think he’ll have time to watch over me?’

  Pozzetti nodded and held me a little tighter.

  ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘He’ll always be watching over you and your Mamma because you were the most important people in his life.’

  I didn’t cry. I felt an extraordinary, almost euphoric, sense of peace; and for as long as I live I will be thankful to Rita’s kind and caring father for his compassion and for allowing my final farewell to my father to have been so full of love.

  *

  Pozzetti made a coffin from wood which my mother could never have afforded. The lid did not match the sides, but nobody paid attention to such a trivial detail. It had ornate brass handles, one of which did not match either, but nobody mentioned it. This was Pozzetti’s parting gift for my father, his milk brother and lifelong friend.

  My mother had not wanted Don Ambrogio, whom she considered responsible for my father’s death, to conduct the funeral service. She refused to see him when he called at the house to say that the parish would provide a tomb free of charge in recognition of Papá’s services. Don Gervaso, the thin, quiet priest whose charitable organisation had employed my father was brought in instead.

  I have only a hazy recollection of the funeral. There was no cortège and no hearse. My father’s coffin was carried to the church by Pozzetti, Salvatore and four other men. I felt lost and small in the mass of black-clad mourners. I held my aunt’s hand. Rita’s mother read a prayer. My mother sobbed.

  Over the next few weeks, I was kept busy by my aunt. I was given sole use of the bedroom as my mother elected to take over my father’s old bed in the corner of the kitchen.

  I felt a deep yearning for my Papá. Bedtime was the worst time, when I felt it most. I missed drifting off to sleep to the sound of my parents talking in the kitchen. I missed their exchange of news, my father’s chuckle, his anecdotes and stories. Sometimes Zia Mina would come and sit with my mother and they would talk for a while, but it was not the same. Their conversations were domestic and mundane. I missed my father’s conversations with my mother as much as I missed his conversations with me.

  Papá’s jacket and trousers hung on a hook on the kitchen wall for a long time after his death. Sometimes I would press my cheek to the fabric, close my eyes and breathe in, imagining for a few moments that he was still inside the garments. Perhaps my mother did the same, although I never saw her do it.

  I think that for my mother, my father’s death was a horrible relief.

  Chapter 14

  In September 1949, less than three months after my father’s death, I began middle school. A brand new school building had been constructed in Mazzolo to take children from Mazzolo, Pieve Santa Clara and other adjoining villages.

  The building was enormous compared with the old schoolhouse I had been used to. It had high-ceilinged classrooms with large windows, and gargantuan cast-iron radiators. The air always smelled of disinfectant.

  We no longer had wooden desks with inkwells, inscribed with a century’s worth of graffiti from previous pupils’ schooldays, but smart, newly-designed models with chrome legs and green plastic tops. Everything was fresh and modern. There were murals made out of tiles down the walls of each corridor and metal lockers in which to store our belongings. There was even a sports hall.

  It was a noisy, intimidating place, full of children I did not know who were so much bigger than me. I had counted upon having Rita for support in class. However, there were two classes in each year, and Rita and I were both dismayed to find that we were not in the same class. We saw each other at break-time in the yard and during our journey to and from school, but I missed having her beside me.

  The corridors echoed with the commotion of children bustling their way from class to class, shouting for their classmates. I cannot count how many times I was hit by carelessly swinging satchels, or walked into by schoolchildren too busily engaged in conversation to notice a very small girl like me.

  A school bus would stop to pick us up outside my house every morning at half past seven and deliver us back outside Rita’s when the school day was finished.

  I no longer had a single form teacher, but different teachers for different subjects, which I found confusing. I missed Maestra Asinelli. I seemed to have lost my way and also my concentration, whether I was reading, writing, attempting to learn mathematics or the new subjects which now filled my timetable. I knew little about history, geography or natural sciences, and even less about Latin. The Latin prayers I had memorised in church and at the convent were of no use. I studied aimlessly in the hope that something I read or copied out might lodge itself somewhere in my brain, but very little did.

  My father’s death was still so close that no matter what I was trying to do, however interesting or involved, he would float into my mind and occupy the space. There seemed to be no room for anything else. Each time I thought of him I felt tears well in my eyes. I would wipe them on my cuff hoping nobody had noticed. Nobody did.

  The grief I suffered was compounded by a new anxiety. I was terrified that I might also lose my mother. I would torture myself with visions that she too could have an accident, or become afflicted with some incurable illness. My father had lost both his parents very young. My mother had lost hers before I was born. Zia Mina had been orphaned as a baby. The terror of being left both fatherless and motherless overwhelmed me. I felt it like a heaviness in my head.

  On the third day of my second week I was given a detention for daydreaming and I missed the bus home. When I was finally allowed to leave, the school building was silent. A cleaner in a brown overall was mopping the corridors. I skirted around the edge of the wet floor and made my way to the front door. My mother was not going to be pleased.

  ‘Graziella?’ said a voice from behind me.

  I turned around and saw a tall, tousle-haired boy with round, silver-rimmed spectacles. A heavy bag of books was slung across his body. It looked as though it was about to cut him in half diagonally.

  ‘Do you remember me?’

  It was Gianfrancesco Marchesini.

  ‘Yes, of course I remember you! How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ he said politely. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine too, thank you.’

  ‘I heard about your father,’ he went on. ‘I’m very sorry for you. I lost my father too.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry for you too.’

  As the words left my lips, I felt the sting of tears scald my eyes. My nose prickled. My mouth was instantly dry. As usual, I wiped my eyes on my cuff, hoping he hadn’t seen, but when I looked up, his eyes were also shimmering.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, swallowing hard.

  ‘This is where I go to school now,’ he replied with an air of resignation.

  ‘Why don’t you go to school in Cremona any more?’

  He shrugged, his heavy book bag cutting into his shoulder. ‘Things are different now. My mother can’t afford to pay the fees. They offered me a scholarship, but a scholarship doesn’t cover the boarding fees or the extras.’

  ‘What’s a scholarship?’

  ‘It’s when a school offers to educate good students free of charge.’ Gianfrancesco looked down
at his satchel and sighed, ‘But now I’m a whole year behind. I should be in the third year, but they’ve made me repeat the second year because I missed so much school after my father died.’

  He pretended to straighten his glasses, although I could see that really he was wiping his eyes.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘it’s better that I’m not away at school all week. It’s hard for my mother being all alone in the house. At least now I can keep her company in the evenings.’

  He gathered himself and took a deep breath.

  ‘Why are you here so late?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you have to catch the school bus?’

  ‘Yes. But I got a detention.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘And you? Did you get a detention too?’

  ‘No. I stayed behind to study because I wanted to.’

  We walked together out of the school gates. His book bag was so full that he was forced to bend forwards to counter-balance the weight.

  ‘How are you getting home?’ he wanted to know. ‘Are you catching the public bus? I’m planning to catch the next one.’

  ‘I’m going to walk. I don’t have any money.’

  ‘I can pay for you. It’s a very long way to walk with a full satchel.’

  ‘I don’t know when I can pay you back. I can’t ask my mother for money, not when I missed the bus because of a detention.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Gianfrancesco. ‘You don’t have to pay me back.’

  We had to wait forty minutes for the bus. Gianfrancesco bought a bag of toasted pumpkin seeds from a grocers’ shop and we sat together, splitting the husks between our teeth.

  ‘Do you like the new school?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve done most of the work before, and far more thoroughly,’ he replied flatly.

  ‘Then you can be top of your class,’ I chirped, but he seemed unconvinced.

  ‘I suppose so. I think it will be better when I have some friends.’

  ‘I’m your friend.’