My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More)
Page 21
We had to hurry things along: the road to the cemetery was quite long. The band took up its place at the head of the procession and struck up with Val Sesia. The coffin moved off, followed by all of us, sons, daughters and grandchildren, uncles and aunts, then banners and standards flying freely … a real forest of flags. No priests, no nuns. The band was already a kilometre off, and still the tail of the procession had not moved from the assembly point. There was no doubt that the majority of the inhabitants of Luino and the Valtravaglia were there.
We walked along the lakeside and reached the long curve which rises up towards the hill. Down below, perched on a granite cliff, stood the Romanesque church with its high steeple. At that moment, the band was playing the waltz-time march, and the procession seemed to lurch a little. Ahead, the musicians quickened their step and accompanied the allegro con brio tempo of the piece they were playing with a swing of the hips and a drop of the shoulders. Many people in the cortège had almost forgotten they were participating in a ‘mournful ceremonial’ and executed little dance-step hops and skips, but then they composed themselves once again.
I imagined my father peeping out from somewhere or other, enjoying himself and guffawing … happily. (After all, wasn’t his name Felice, which means ‘Happy’?)
We were crossing the piazza in front of the old town hall: the band moved on to Bella ciao, played at the tempo of a cross-country race. As the coffin-bearers speeded up, the whole cortège was forced to step it out more briskly. The skipping march would not do any more: we were now onto the rhythms of an infantry charge, with the attendant flurry of banners. Groups of curious onlookers lining the streets applauded and asked: ‘What’s the rush? Who are you going to bury?’
‘A railwayman, and just for once he wants to be on time.’
We were now level with the Romanesque church: many people had gathered on the sloping piazza in front of the porch, but they had not come for my father’s funeral. They were waiting for the hearse bearing the body of Piero Chiara, the famous author of satirical novels, all set in Luino itself. The body was to be brought from Varese where he had died, and it was late. But his crowd of mourners, seeing the arrival of an impressive cortège with a flutter of red flags and a scattering of anarchist banners, immediately exclaimed: ‘Must be him! Obviously, an anti-cleric like him … you could hardly expect him to bring along a procession of priests and bishops. Red he lived, and red he died!’
And so it was that, without another word, they all climbed down the two staircases and lined up behind the multi-bannered crowd marching to the rhythm of a regimental band. Some of them began to sing quietly the opening words of the first verse:
La mia mamma la mi diceva,
Non andare sulle montagne,
Mangerai sol polenta e castagne
Ti verrà l’acidità.
My dear old mum, she used to say,
Stay clear of hills and mountains,
Polenta and chestnuts are very poor fare
And they’re bad for your digestion!
Another three hundred metres and this sea of people reached the great arched entrance to the graveyard and began to file in. Meanwhile, down below, in front of the church, the hearse with the body of Piero Chiara arrived. There was no one waiting for it except the sacristan, who was almost helpless with laughter as he observed the scene: ‘There were lots of people here, but they all went off to the funeral of Fo, the station master!’
The driver of the hearse and his followers caught up with the mourners for their deceased before they disappeared into the cemetery. ‘Hey, you’ve got the wrong funeral: your coffin’s here, on this hearse. Go back to the church!’
‘Oh, what a muck-up! Right, new orders: everybody back down!’
About-turn, a few oaths, a lot of laughter. The people started running, waving arms and shouting, all to a march tempo:
La mia morosa la mi diceva
Non andare coi ribelli.
Non avrai più i miei lunghi capelli
Sul cuscino a riposar!
My darling love has said to me
Don’t go to war to fight.
You’ll no more play with my long hair
When you lie on my pillow at night!
If you think that this mad blunder, which looks as if it came from a farce, is the product of my wild imagination, all you have to do is get a hold of the Corriere della Sera for 4 January 1987. There you will find the report of this impossible adventure, whose staging is beyond all doubt to be attributed to the jovial ghost of my father, Felice.
Selected Works by Dario Fo
Archangels Don’t Play Pinball
Mistero Buffo
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!
The Tale of a Tiger
Trumpets and Raspberries
Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman
The Pope and the Witch
A Woman Alone
About Face
The Tricks of the Trade
The Peasants’ Bible
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
MY FIRST SEVEN YEARS (PLUS A FEW MORE). Copyright © 2005 by Dario Fo. English translation copyright © 2005 by Joseph Farrell. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
This translation first published in the United Kingdom by Methuen Publishing Ltd
First U.S. Edition: October 2006
eISBN 9781466864436
First eBook edition: January 2014