The Sicilian Woman's Daughter

by Linda Lo Scuro

  I swing our Residence’s heavy gate shut behind me and step onto the towpath. Strolling along the Thames always makes me feel good, that fresh light breeze in my face and in the trees, the clouds floating by... But today, I am more absorbed in my thoughts. Going to see Zia after all these years has brought back memories of my family as a child. I’d heard that Zia had been involved in things not quite above board in her past. I don’t know what exactly. I couldn’t ask and, even if I did, she wouldn’t tell me.

  My earliest memory of my extended family in Sicily was when I was there as a nine-year-old when we stayed with my grandparents and Aunt Peppina. Zia and her family were in Sicily, too. Though Zia’s family stayed with her in-laws in the same village, within walking distance, as there wasn’t space enough for all of us at my grandparents’ house. Zia and Susi spent most of their day with us, though. Susi and I were very close and we loved playing together. Our grandfather didn’t like us. I vaguely remember him. A severe man. He never spoke to me, or to Susi, come to that – only to Silvio and Stefano, Susi’s brothers, out of his grandchildren. He had a deep revulsion for females. Susi and I were playing in the courtyard with other girls in the neighbourhood. My memories are those of hearing the sound of the hooves against the cobble stones, then looking up to see him arriving sitting proudly on his mule. You could even describe him as arrogant. Getting off, he landed lightly on the ground causing some dust to lift. Then he spat not far from his boots, led the mule to the stable, and yanked the reins hard, on the sharp corner, to turn the mule round, and force it in. At that moment, my grandmother came down to the courtyard all in a tizz, like she did every time he arrived home. He didn’t acknowledge her, so much was his disdain of the sight of her.

  The mistreatment was due to the fact that she hadn’t been capable of giving him a son. I remember he insulted her in front of visitors and threatened to hit her by raising his hand into a slap position. Once I overheard some women saying that when my grandmother and grandfather were out in the village together, they bumped into the mayor and stopped to talk to him. My grandfather slapped my grandmother in the face, while she was standing there silently, just to prove he was boss in his house. A real man.

  Our grandmother signalled to Susi and me to go back inside the house. So we followed them upstairs. He sat on a chair in the kitchen, lifted one of his feet for my grandmother to pull off his boot. She tugged so hard that she jolted backwards as the boot came off. Then the other boot. After which she took the boots out to the garden where she gave them a wash and brush up.

  It was also during this holiday that Ziuzza’s husband died in the unforgiving campagna. It was summer. Not understanding what was going on, all I could do was to listen to the shrills and shouts in my grandmother’s house. She sat down and slid her hands into her hair, rocking backwards and forwards in the chair, in a kind of distressing trance, yelling and repeating in Sicilian dialect “Ammazzru me cugnatu, disgraziati. Ammazzru u marito di me sorru!” meaning: “They’ve killed my brother-in-law, the villains. They’ve killed my sister’s husband.” I was frightened and couldn’t understand what was going on. She knew that Ziuzza would be left vulnerable, without a husband, and on the wrong side of victory. And Ziuzza had always been defiant. Her enemies knew she wouldn’t back down, that she had been the driving force behind her husband. And that she was more than capable of taking the helm.

  Ziuzza’s husband’s body was brought to my grandmother’s house because it was bigger. Ziuzza’s house had a narrow spiral staircase up to the first floor and there was no way they could bring a coffin down, if not vertically. Like my grandmother’s house, Ziuzza’s house had a stable on the ground-floor. It would have been disrespectful to hold the wake there.

  I can still remember the day when they brought his body back to The Village – it’s impressed on my memory. I’ve forgotten a lot about my childhood, but I will never forget this episode. Ziuzza needed support when the body arrived in The Village, so my grandmother and other women were there to comfort her. Ziuzza had two sons. They had both emigrated to England and could not console her. So she was accompanied by a couple of men, while others went before them and cleared the roads by telling people to go inside. With a sheet over her head, she walked to my grandmother’s house through, what was at that point, a ghost village. Even the two little grocery shops and the chemist pulled down their shutters. Only stray cats and dogs roamed the streets.

  My grandfather and two other men, all on mules, went to fetch the body. They knew exactly where his land was. A man whose land was next to his had noticed that his sheep had strayed. That meant they weren’t being herded. He went to inquire and found Ziuzza’s husband lying perfectly immobile face down where his blood had coagulated with the dust. Flies hummed around him and feasted on his injuries. The peasant rushed to The Village to raise the alarm.

  The grown-ups stood at the entrance door and in the courtyard to wait for his body to come into sight. Susi and I weren’t allowed to be there with them. Silvio and Stefano, had been sent to their other grandparents. Susi and I were told to go out and play in the garden at the back of the house. But we knew something extraordinary was happening and didn’t want to miss it. So we went to sit quietly on the balcony, on the first floor, and kept our heads down. We had a wide open view of the whole courtyard and, to the left, we could see the women spilling out of the entrance door while they waited for the body to arrive.

  My grandfather on his mule appeared first around the corner. Following him, close behind, was another mule tied to the first one by a thick rope. Both animals dribbling foam from their mouths. Slumped over the second mule, face down, hands and feet dangling, was Ziuzza’s husband’s body wrapped in a blanket with blood seeping through it. A man walked by the side of the mule to keep an eye on the body. All you could hear was the clip-clop of the hooves in the stillness under the outrageously hot sun, until the women caught sight of him and began howling to the sky, hitting themselves, pulling their own hair, and out of rage Ziuzza tore the black skirt she was wearing. It was a sorry sight.

  As the body was being brought up the stairs, Susi and I scarpered to the garden. But when the body was laid in the middle of the room, we crept into the kitchen and watched through a slither of the open door. They washed the body, put a suit, shirt and tie on him, combed his hair, pulled his legs straight and folded his arms across his chest. Everyone sat in a circle around the body. Peppina led the rosary. The room filled up with visitors who’d come to pay their respects. Standing room only. The people who had killed him were there, too, offering their condolences to his widow. Ziuzza spat at one man in the face. He slowly wiped the spittle off, grinned, turned around, and left.

  When my family went back to Sicily, when I was aged fifteen, my grandfather had already died. My grandmother in Sicily had a similar lifestyle to Zia’s in London: family, friends, drinks, and cake. Hospitality is a Sicilian custom. Guests are always welcome. But there was a big difference between the entrance to my grandmother’s house and Zia’s house. Grandmother’s front door was always wide open during the day. My aunt Peppina used to go and pin the door back at 6.30 every morning. From then on women, mostly dressed in black, would parade in and out of the house until sunset.

  My grandfather died years before my grandmother. She died at a ripe age. Just like Zia, grandmother was a widow for years. Left on their own, aunt Peppina and grandmother used to squabble no end. Aunt Peppina had never married. And if you didn’t marry in those days in Sicily, your only way out of your parents’ house was in a wooden box – a white one. Grandmother used to get me breakfast: yesterday’s leftover bread soaked in milky coffee and sprinkled with sugar. I’d usually have a different assortment of ‘godmothers’ or women relatives, clad in black, watching me having breakfast. And, as mentioned before, Ziuzza, was among them until she was killed.

  Custom was that when your husband died, you wore black for the rest of your life. That included black shoes, stockings, and handbag. If you did
n’t wear black, it meant you were on the lookout for another husband. Widowers, bachelors, any man, both far and wide, could come knocking at your door asking your hand in marriage. For the first year after a husband’s death, women also wore a black headscarf when going out. If you didn’t, your sadness for your husband’s loss was fake. Who made up all these rules called customs? Why were women always expected to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

  The default for women was that they were loose, ‘troie.’ They were born hussies. A kind of original sin. So only by her ‘good’ behaviour could a woman climb out of the troia category and become a decent woman. Women were obsessed with not putting a foot wrong. And the most rigorous enforcers of women’s morality were women themselves.

  You could be a troia for no-end of reasons. Because you smiled at a man in the street, because you wore make-up, because you wore high heels, because you wore revealing or tight clothes... Once when I was in Sicily, Peppina decided that all the clothes I’d brought over from England were troia clothes. She ran up a couple of dresses, or should I say sacks, on her Singer sewing machine. I still remember how she saw lust in everyone and sought to cover my body in long-sleeved, baggy kimono-like things.

  Zia called Ziuzza’s son Cushi. The name means ‘cousin’ in Sicilian. He died about ten years back in about 2007. He emigrated to England when he knew he’d be killed if he stayed. After his mother, it would have been his turn as the eldest son. However, he kept going backwards and forwards between Sicily and London. Doing God knows what. With God knows whom. Cushi had worked a few years for British Rail – cleaning trains – but he was caught sleeping on seats more than once, when he should have been working, and finally got fired. Since then, he refused to look for any more work. If he was unlucky, as he used to say, work would find him.

  He bought a few huge run-down old houses in a run-down part of London, and rented out rooms to anyone: prostitutes, drug pushers, all low-life seemed to be there. Weekly payment on Fridays in cash. No contracts. “If you no pay, I keep your nice things and chuck rest out of window, you no come back.” He actually threw a woman out of a window once, or so it was rumoured. And he got into trouble with the police over it. He diddled electricity meters, he found a way. His hobby was poaching on country estates. If anyone questioned him about the latter, he’d say he was the gardener. The lord of the manor had given him permission.

  The most horrendous episode he was involved in was the abduction and rape of a young Sicilian woman. An honour rape. His brother had fallen in love with her, she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Her family had no mafia connections. She was easy prey. To be refused by a woman from an ‘inferior’ family is an insult to one’s honour. One morning when she was going to work, Cushi, his brother, and another man, frogmarched her into a white van. They parked the vehicle in a quiet spot. Cushi and the man kept guard while the brother attempted to rape the woman. They had the radio on loud to disguise the screaming. But, she was resistant. Cushi and the other man had to go into the van to hold her down and silence her. Word was then put around that she had been raped. She was dishonoured and had to marry him. It’s called a matrimonio riparatore, meaning: ‘a marriage that repairs.’ By marrying her, he was repairing the damage he had done. Making an honest woman out of her.

  This kind of mindset was exactly what I chafed against. The reason why I have been a feminist ever since I can remember. Going on marches when I was at university and standing up for women whenever I could. Though I would never tell my daughters about these heinous acts taking place in our family. I sometimes wonder how they would react given that they do not seem particularly interested in feminism. The fighting was done by my generation, and the generations of women before mine.

  Back in The Village, Cushi had become bosom friends with the Mayor. Zia helped him recruit relatives and friends to go to Sicily and vote for Cushi’s Mayor. Cushi would already be there in The Village piazza doing the meeting and greeting, simultaneously giving everyone voting instructions, along with subtle threats. Voting in accordance with your political outlook wasn’t an option. Votes were for Cushi’s candidate. The opposition would only get his family’s votes. That was allowed. There had never been a woman candidate.

  And Cushi’s side knew exactly who you’d voted for. Although the ballot-papers were all alike, you’d think that your vote would be anonymous. Nothing of the sort. You gave your ballot-paper to the man standing behind the box. He put a sign on it. He would crease it slightly, on a corner, or tear it a little bit around one of the edges. Then he’d add your name to his list, ‘to remember that you’d voted.’ Next to your name he’d write how your ballot-paper could be singled out. They didn’t even try to hide their dishonesty. I saw him. Right in front of me creasing a corner, the first time I voted in Sicily. Everyone knew. Nobody said anything. The result was that the mayor would be Cushi’s puppet. Cushi was the mayor maker.

  I arrive at Zia’s house. She has two front doors, an outer one, and an inner one. The outer one being a wired-glass cage. She obviously thinks one door isn’t enough to keep undesirables out. I remember her reason for this was that “People rob. Get in house.” She opened the inner front door and, if she didn’t like the look of you, she’d shout “No today,” and shut it directly. She’d also had metal blinds fitted on the inside of her ground-floor windows, “Break glass. People come in.” The blinds fastened at the bottom with a good chunky lock. But the smell of freshly baked cakes manages to escape through all the security measures. She is always on the bake. Trayfuls. Free to anyone who visits the house: “Mangia, mangia. Cuppa tea?” Eat here or take away. Incessant coming and going, to and from her house, every weekday afternoon was the norm.

  “Zia. It’s me, Maria,” I call out after she has opened the inner door.

  “Maria, Maria, trasi, trasi. Long time no see you.” Zia is visibly moved. She hugs me tight then looks me in the eye and says: “You look like my poor sister.”

  “It’s nice to see you again,” I say to her, feeling guilty that I can’t quite conjure up the same Sicilian effusions about seeing her, although I actually love her as much as I do Susi and Silvio. They were my childhood.

  “I make eclair this morning. Cuppa tea?” Zia says to me, then she shouts “Maria here,” to her guests in the living room, as I wipe my shoes on the doormat.

  “Yes, please, Zia. That would be great,” I say as I follow her down the yellow-painted corridor, like Sicilian sun, with prints of saints on the walls on one side, and Popes on the other, chronologically ordered so that Pope Pius XII is the first in line, and the present Pope Francis is nearer the living room door. Though there is space for more before she gets to the door frame.

  The eclair is already there waiting for me. I greet Angelina and her daughter Provvi, and another woman who I don’t know. This lady is just leaving. Zia goes to show her out saying “I see you next week.”

  The living room floor is still covered with chequered light-blue and black lino tiles. I remember Zia and my mother laying them down after brushing glue onto each tile, then stamping them down into place with their feet. Susi and I did a bit of jumping up and down on the tiles, too. The wallpaper is new: orange roses with big green leaves on a white background. Clara, as an art historian, would be horrified if she saw this décor. Zia still has her wedding photo standing on the sideboard in an aluminium frame. And next to that, she has Silvio and Stefano’s wedding photos, and a few of her grandchildren. Zia has decided to forget about Susi’s disastrous marriage. In the middle of the room is a big wooden table, and on this table a tray of eclairs, a teapot and pink flowered cups and saucers. All very English. Chairs scattered wherever there’s a space. The room is a thoroughfare. It has four doors. Three in a row along one side: from left to right, the pantry door, the corridor, and the sitting-room door. On the opposite side is a door leading to the kitchen. I notice the pantry door is padlocked.

  As Zia is still chatting with her departing visitor, I s
it with Angelina and Provvi. Angelina has an identical twin living in The Village called Beatrice. Both Angelina and Beatrice’s husbands died together in the same car accident in Sicily years back. There had been a lot of talk about identical twins losing their husbands at the identical time. It was too much of a coincidence, people murmured.

  Angelina looks straight at me, squints and asks “Do you live near the Thames?” It comes across as an accusation. As if it were a crime to be well-off. Lucky she doesn’t know about the cottage and the chalet. We keep those secret.

  “Ma, you know she lives near the river,” Provvi butts in.

  “Yes, I live in a flat near the Thames towpath,” I nod, smiling at Provvi as if to say ‘It’s OK, I know their ways.’ Angelina, like the others in the community, can’t stomach that I have moved away from them, and have thrived by that decision.

  “Good place. You’ve got money. You don’t work. Your husband works for you,” Angelina goes on.

  I detect a tinge of envy, and give her a half smile.

  “Ma, stop it!” Provvi huffs, red with embarrassment.

  A noticeable bruise peeps over Provvi’s neckline as she bends down to pick up her handbag. “We need to go now. We’ve got to get some shopping before we go home.”

  They bid me goodbye, kiss me on both cheeks, pick up their cake box and go to the front door where Zia is still yabbering to the other woman. Zia is full of flowery apologies saying that they mustn’t go, that she is all theirs now. But the mother and daughter insist that they must leave otherwise they won’t get their shopping done before Provvi’s boys finish school.

  Zia’s expression has changed, softer; she is motherly towards me. “Long time no see,” Zia says looking at me, smiling, and picking up her knitting. She’s still making bed socks. Her bed socks accompanied me through my childhood as my feet grew. Mostly pink, sometimes yellow the colour of lemons and the Sicilian sun, Zia used to say. These were mint green. I knew the style. Ribbed above the ankles, leaving little eyelets for a crocheted cord to run through, then adding a pompom onto each end, nicely anchored so the cord wouldn’t come out when you untied the bow in the morning. She used to make baby-blue ones for Silvio and we’d laugh about them.