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

by Francesca Scanacapra

  We set two of the saucepans back onto the stove, filled them with the appropriate amounts of water, sugar and lemon juice, and weighed out peeled and quartered pears.

  Once the sugar water was simmering, we added the fruit. It was almost one o’clock by the time we were ready to place our mixture into the jars. The kitchen was filled with the most heavenly scent.

  It took us over an hour to transfer all of our delectable concoction into the jars. By the time we had finished, we had twenty-four jars of preserved pears. A bowlful was left, which we agreed would make an excellent lunch.

  ‘This is the best thing I’ve done for ages,’ Gianfrancesco said, as we sat on the kitchen steps, sharing from the same bowl.

  ‘Me too,’ I replied, grinning.

  We dug at the pears in the bowl, chasing the last few chunks with our forks. By the time we had drunk the juice we both felt quite sick.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’ I asked. I had expected Signora Marchesini to appear at some stage. I was curious to see what she might be wearing.

  ‘She goes to Cremona to have lunch with a friend and do some shopping most Saturdays,’ Gianfrancesco replied. Suddenly a quizzical look spread across his face.

  ‘I’ve just thought: how are you going to carry the jars home on your bicycle?’ he asked. This aspect had not crossed my mind.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps you could lend me a basket to hang on my handlebars?’

  ‘I could. But you will only be able to take a few jars. Half are for you.’

  ‘I don’t have to take them all at the same time. Anyway, half is a lot. They’re your pears and you paid for the sugar and lemons.’

  ‘The chairs paid for the sugar and lemons. But your expertise was invaluable.’

  I frowned in thought. ‘I will have to make a few trips,’ I said.

  ‘I can ride back to your house with you I can take some on my father’s bicycle too.’

  ‘Could you do it without falling off?’ I was doubtful. ‘Your feet don’t reach the ground.’

  ‘It would be risky.’

  ‘We can’t risk smashing the jars after all that work.’

  ‘How about you take one or two jars now and I bring another to school every day for you? You can carry one jar home easily.’

  We agreed that this would be the best plan. We cleared up the kitchen, took a bucket of fruit peel to the chickens and I prepared to make my way home.

  I wheeled off happily down the avenue, a jar of pears tied to each side of my handlebars. I had wrapped them in cloths and bound them with string. Gianfrancesco had been impressed by my ingenuity. I sang to myself as I pedalled along, breathing in the balmy late-afternoon air, and promised that I’d re-live the day in my thoughts over and over again so that I would never forget it. I would make a stone memory.

  I was almost home when I was winded by a stabbing pain in my belly. It hurt so much I had to stop, but I could not get off my bicycle as I was paralysed by cramp. A clammy chill rose through me and I thought I would be sick, or soil myself, or both. My palms were sweating.

  Somehow I managed to get off my bicycle and lay it on the verge, careful not to damage the jars of pears.

  There is no pleasant way to describe what happened next. I was overwhelmed by the need to empty my bowels, and the only place I could do it was in the ditch by the roadside. I squatted there nervously, praying that nobody would pass by. I was obliged to leave my fouled underwear in the ditch. At a rough estimate, I had eaten about ten stewed pears that day for lunch. Their laxative effect had been devastating.

  My mother was delighted with the pears, although she did suggest that next time we should shorten the cooking time slightly so the fruit would remain firmer. I thought that Zia Mina would be pleased too, but when I presented her with our creation she said, ‘I’ve enough preserved fruit of my own. I don’t need the Marchesinis’ charity.’

  As agreed, Gianfrancesco brought a jar of pears to school every day for me to take home. Every break-time, as before, we would meet in the yard and discuss our project.

  Rita was not pleased with me. She did not like sharing me with Gianfrancesco. She had made new friends in her class and preferred to sit and chat with them at break-time.

  On Friday I looked around the yard for Gianfrancesco. He was not in his usual spot by the wall. I waited through most of break-time, but he did not appear. It was only when I heard shouting from the toilet block at the far end of the yard that I spotted him. He was surrounded by a group of boys who were trying to wrestle his satchel from him. It had come undone in the struggle. There were books, papers and pencils on the ground. One of the boys was holding up a jar of pears.

  I ran over as fast as I could, shouting at them to stop. The two who noticed me seemed surprised that a small First-Year girl like me would try to intervene. The boys were older than me, some by five years. They were still in middle school because they had failed their end-of-year exams more than once and had to repeat the whole school year each time. They had out-grown middle school physically, but not academically. Although he was tall for his age, Gianfrancesco was not as thickset as his aggressors, and he was seriously outnumbered.

  I flew into the tussle, using my elbows to great effect. The boys backed off more out of surprise than anything else. Gianfrancesco had been pushed to the ground and was clutching his bag tightly against his body, partly to save its contents and partly to protect himself from the kicking which was about to take place.

  ‘You stay away!’ I screamed. ‘Stay away!’

  I stood squarely between the boys and Gianfrancesco.

  ‘Why? What are you going to do, little girl?’ sneered one.

  ‘Marchesini needs a girl to protect him!’ jeered another. ‘Maybe she needs to learn a lesson as well.’ He reached out and took hold of my hair. He tugged so hard it hurt my neck and I was immobilised. He shook me, then amused himself leading me like a haltered mule in circles around where he was standing.

  Gianfrancesco scrambled to get up, shouting at them to let me go, but two boys pinned him down.

  ‘See this, Marchesini? Your little girlie friend ain’t much good to you now, is she? Look at her - she’ll do anything I say. Kneel down, little girl!’ With that, he wrenched my head again so that I had no choice but to drop to my knees. The sharp gravel of the yard cut into my kneecaps.

  ‘You can get a girl to suck your dick when she’s on her knees,’ said the boy. ‘Shall we try it? Do you want to watch your little girlie friend suck my dick, Marchesini? I bet you wish she was sucking yours.’ His grip tightened. ‘No, wait, I don’t suppose you’ve got one, have you?’

  They all laughed. I knelt contorted on the ground. He brought his face close to mine.

  ‘You want to taste some dick?’ He smirked, yanking at my hair in such a way as to make me nod. ‘Look, Marchesini! Yes, she does. She really, really wants it!’

  As he tugged on my hair again, forcing me to nod, I felt my fist fly into his face. The arc of my outstretched arm delivered a single, precise blow. It could not have been a luckier punch. The crack of his nose breaking as it made contact with my knuckles seemed to reverberate through the schoolyard. He yelped and let go of my hair immediately.

  There was a loud gasp and much shouting from the rabble which had gathered around us to watch the affray. The boy howled, cupping his broken and bleeding nose in his hands. His friends let go of Gianfrancesco, who stood up shakily.

  The commotion had attracted the attention of the headmaster, who pushed his way through the crowd demanding to know what was going on.

  As we all stood lined up in the headmaster’s office, the boys pleaded innocence and misunderstanding - but it seemed that the headmaster had heard it all before.

  The boy whose nose I had broken was called Bruno. He was holding a bloodied handkerchief to his face. Bruising was starting to bloom under his eyes.

  ‘Would you care to explain what happened?’ asked the headmaster.

  ‘We were just mess
ing about,’ said Bruno with some difficulty through his handkerchief. ‘Just having a laugh with Marchesini. Weren’t we, Marchesini?’

  The other boys made noises of agreement, though Gianfrancesco did not. The headmaster raised an eyebrow doubtfully.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Gianfrancesco firmly. He looked pale. His glasses sat slightly twisted. ‘I was in the cloakroom when they came in and grabbed my satchel. They put my history notes down the lavatory and tore up my maths book. And then they threatened to smash my jar of pears.’

  The boys made noises of shock and denial, but Gianfrancesco continued to explain.

  ‘And when I tried to get away, they chased me into the yard and pushed me over. It was then that Graziella came to try to stop them. None of this is her fault. Please don’t punish her, sir.’

  ‘She broke Bruno’s nose!’ exclaimed one of the boys indignantly.

  The headmaster looked me up and down. I was significantly smaller than anyone else in the line.

  ‘It was you who broke Bruno’s nose?’ he asked with some surprise.

  I nodded.

  ‘Sir, she had no choice. Please don’t punish her,’ Gianfrancesco pleaded again. ‘He grabbed her hair and threatened her.’

  ‘He threatened her?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Graziella only wanted to help me. he asked them to leave me alone, but Bruno took her by the hair and . . .’ Gianfrancesco swallowed hard.

  ‘And what?’

  My friend seemed to be searching for his words. ‘He threatened to make her . . .’

  ‘Make her do what? Come on boy, spit it out!’

  ‘He threatened to make her perform a sexual act. A disgusting sexual act. He made the threat repeatedly and in the coarsest language.’

  The headmaster turned to Bruno.

  ‘Is that the case?’ he demanded. Bruno and his accomplices protested innocence.

  The headmaster turned back to Gianfrancesco.

  ‘That is a weighty accusation,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me exactly what was threatened?’

  Gianfrancesco looked at me, then back at the headmaster and stood up as straight as he could.

  ‘I cannot, sir,’ he said firmly. ‘I cannot let Graziella hear it again. But there were many witnesses who would have heard it.’

  The witnesses were called and each corroborated the evidence given. Gianfrancesco and I were dismissed without punishment.

  Both my mother and Signora Marchesini were summoned to school separately. My mother was not angry with me, but instead expressed concern at the fact that I had placed myself in a dangerous situation.

  Signora Marchesini, on the other hand, insisted that the school must punish Bruno and his gang. There must be consequences to their actions, she said firmly. They spent the remainder of the term raking leaves and picking litter from the yard every break-time and cleaning the lavatories after school.

  They never bothered me or Gianfrancesco again.

  Chapter 15

  I found my schoolwork very difficult. The jump from elementary school to middle school was enormous. I was overwhelmed by the different subjects. I longed to sing my times tables, write stories, learn poems and draw pictures, but the time for such childish learning had passed.

  Gianfrancesco was right. Time did lessen the grief I felt for the loss of my father, and the fear of losing my mother in some tragic way had also diminished, but my mind still did not seem able to focus. I would listen in class, take notes and by the time I returned home and opened my books to do my homework, whatever knowledge had been imparted to me that day had dissolved away.

  It was the last day of school before the Christmas break and I had been given my report. The rule was that it should be opened by parents, but unable to stand the wait, I tore open the envelope at school.

  My grades were not good. Each subject was graded from zero to ten. My report card showed a list of threes, fours and fives. If I did not improve each one to at least a six, I would have to repeat the year, just like the big, stupid boys who had bullied Gianfrancesco.

  I cried hard. I was going to fail school.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Gianfrancesco said, dropping his bag.

  I could say nothing. I could only shake my head and sob. I passed my report to him.

  ‘This is quite poor,’ he said. ‘You will have to repeat the year if you don’t raise your grades.’

  Stating such an obvious thing did not help at all and made me cry even harder. He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t cry, Graziella. It’s not the end of the world. You still have two whole terms to bring these grades up to scratch and I can help you if you would like me to. We can study together through the holidays.’

  The days before Christmas were bitterly cold. Sharp sleet fell and iced the roads, and quickly turned to snow, which settled thickly, obliterating the distinction between roads and fields, smothering boundaries and turning the world around Paradiso into a single bleak, white mass. The sound of the church bell, which normally rang clearly every hour, was distorted to a muffled clang.

  Gutters groaned and bowed with the weight of the snow. The creamy yellow buildings in the village faded into the whiteness until all that was visible was a bloom of orange tiles around each smoking chimney.

  The cold forced its way into the house. We stuffed rags and newspaper between the windows and the shutters, and even into the keyhole, but still the cold broke in. No matter how much we fed the stove, it seemed to become hungrier, gobbling quantities of wood which worried my mother. Running the stove too hot could crack the fire box.

  I would check the temperature by spitting on the cast-iron slab. My saliva had to fizz and skip across the hotplate. If it exploded and vanished instantly, the stove was too hot and the firebox had to be opened, but this used more wood.

  I looked out across the snowy yard and thought that there was little hope of Gianfrancesco coming to help with my studies; but he arrived at Paradiso as promised, wearing an enormous sheepskin jacket and fur hat which had belonged to his father. It had taken him almost three hours to walk here from Cascina Marchesini.

  Despite his warm clothing, he was half-frozen. My mother said he had been foolish to walk out on such a foul day. She took his wet clothes and boots and lent him a pair of my father’s old trousers and a woollen waistcoat to wear, then made him sit by the stove and gave him hot soup. When he asked for a spoon, she told him to hold the bowl in his hands to warm them and to drink from it directly. He seemed to find such rustic manners quite charming, but declared soon after finishing the soup that he had thawed and that he was ready to settle down to work.

  He looked odd, bizarrely dressed in a combination of both our dead fathers’ clothes, but had an air of purpose as he spread his books out on the table.

  ‘I am your tutor today, not just your friend,’ he began. ‘We are going to start with literature. You will be studying this after Christmas. It is The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni.’

  He took out a red velvet case, embroidered with a splendid gold shield. Inside was a large tome, bound in white leather with silver embossed writing on the cover.

  ‘This was my father’s copy. It’s an illustrated limited edition print from 1904. It’s extremely valuable so we have to be very careful with it. Please don’t bend the spine.’

  I looked at the huge book. I couldn’t imagine myself reading something so weighty. My trepidation was confirmed when Gianfrancesco told me that it had originally been published in three volumes and had taken Alessandro Manzoni seventeen years to write. I feared it might take me a similar length of time to read it.

  ‘When studying any work of literature you must read it with several things in mind,’ said Gianfrancesco. His tone was serious. ‘You must consider the characters, the context, the themes and the message the book is trying to convey. Once you have a good idea of those, you can begin to look more deeply into the way it is written, the use of language, and begin to formulate your own opinions. Parallel to thi
s, you must know something about the author.’

  It all seemed so far beyond me. All I could do was to stare at the silver writing.

  ‘So, we are going to start by reading it,’ he began. ‘We’ll take turns. One page each. We will stop whenever there is anything worthy of discussion.’

  ‘Have you read it before?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve read it four times. This will be my fifth study of it and each time I read it, I learn something new from it.’

  I was overwhelmed by the reading aloud. The language was difficult. Often I found myself distracted by the beautiful illustrations. At the beginning of every chapter there was a detailed engraving, depicting the characters and the landscape.

  Gianfrancesco stopped reading, placed his bookmark on the last line we had read and asked, ‘What is the purpose of studying literature?’ He was looking at me intently over the rim of his spectacles.

  ‘To improve our reading?’

  ‘Well, reading will improve with practice, yes. But what is the purpose of really reading and trying to understand what the author is trying to say?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It is to train our minds to think more deeply about all matters in our lives,’ he said. ‘The Betrothed is a very important work of Italian literature. Some people say that it is the most important work. There are many reasons for which it is important. Firstly, it deals with a number of very significant themes, such as good versus evil, power, greed and love. We can learn a lot about human nature from it. It asks a lot of questions which make us think about ourselves and how we treat others.’

  I was entranced by Gianfrancesco’s words.

  ‘Some of the locations are quite close to here,’ he continued, then cleared his throat. ‘My father promised he would take me on a tour of those places, but we only got the chance to go to Lake Como.’

  We resumed taking turns reading. Gianfrancesco read better than I did and with more expression and fluency than any teacher I had ever heard read. At times I was so mesmerised that I would beg him to read on a little further, but he was strict, making me read every other page, as we had agreed at the start.