My Father Came From Italy

by Maria Coletta McLean

  “Supino,” says my father as he straightens his shoulders, lifts his head high and his smile is brighter than the flash of the camera.

  *****

  I’m relieved when Linda says she’d like to come to Supino with us — another person to help with my father so that, taking turns, we might do a little sightseeing on our own. But then Kathryn says she wants to come too.

  “We’ll be spending a lot of time just sitting outside the Bar Italia, taking in the village lifestyle,” I explain, but that doesn’t discourage her. So we buy another seat.

  *****

  It’s a hot August day when the limousine picks us up en route to the Toronto airport. My father stretches out in the back seat, enjoying the richness of a luxury car. He’s equally impressed with the airport itself, strolling the polished corridors and looking in store windows. We wait outside the candy shop while Kathryn and my father buy bags of jelly beans and gum drops. We change Canadian dollars into Italian lire notes and coins, which my father happily jingles in his pocket while we wait for our flight. He stands by the window looking at the airplanes at the gate loading and refuelling.

  “Flight 437. That’s us,” says Linda. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Sure. Might as well,” he replies. “If she goes down, she goes down.”

  Aboard the flight the stewards speak English to us, but instantly switch to Italian when speaking to my father. He watches the safety video carefully then turns to me, lifts his eyebrows and shrugs. Bob had called Joe last week to tell him the date of our arrival. Joe would tell Angela and later, when she walked to the tabacchi store, she’d tell Christina. From there, the man who delivered the ice cream to the shops in the village would transport the news to the Kennedy Bar. It would be the cheese lady, balancing a sturdy wicker basket of bocconcini and ricotta on her head, who would carry the news to the oldest part of the village, where people gather in narrow passageways crowded with pots of azaleas and basilico.

  But here on the plane, thousands of miles across the Atlantic, my father sits peacefully after dinner, three glasses of burgundy, two black espressos and a sip of cognac, listening to La Bohéme and returning to his homeland after 64 years. When he looks up and sees me, he checks his watch, announces, “Only five more hours.”

  I decide this might be a good time to try to explain how Supino has changed since my father left all those years ago. Change occurs everywhere, except in the memory.

  “When we walk down Via Regina Margherita to the Bar Centrale for our morning cappuccino, we pass an old woman with a basket of cheese balanced on her head. She stands in front of a store, just up from the corner where the fish man sets up his table on Friday mornings.”

  “What store?” asks my father. “There’s no store there.”

  “Things have changed in Supino since you lived there. The store is called Casa Video.”

  “Was she a short woman, kinda heavy, with a black dress and a white apron?”

  “Yes, and a walking stick.”

  “That’s what I thought. That’s Angelina. She lives up the mountain near your cousin’s place. They have a few sheep. She makes cheese and brings it to town every Friday to sell at the piazza.”

  A few hours later, I hear the airplane window blinds opening, smell the coffee brewing and I open my eyes to the early morning sunlight. My father is still wide awake, watching the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea, as we begin our descent to Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Good,” he says. “Like sitting on the couch watching the television.” Then, he reaches into his pocket for his handkerchief, wipes the corner of his eye. “I forgot how beautiful my old country is.”

  *****

  “Is this the road from Rome to Naples?” my father asks. “They paved it. That’s good. About halfway — you watch for the sign, Bob — we turn right. That’s Supino.”

  Linda and Kathryn have already succumbed to the warmth of the sunshine and the hum of the motor, both asleep in the back seat. My father sits between them, his eyes like headlights scanning the countryside for his first glimpse of the town of his youth. Bob employs his Italian driving skills and in 45 minutes we’re at the Frosinone exit. In a few minutes we turn at the bent and crooked blue sign that announces Supino, past Quattro Strade — and what’s this? A new sign, about a yard by a yard, enormous by Supino standards, welcoming us to Supino. My father is nodding his head, turning left to see San Sebastiano and the ancient buildings that line the main street. Except for some new pavement and stoplights, Supino is largely unchanged from my father’s view in 1927.

  Part way up the hill, Bob slows for the stop light. A policeman shouts, “Mezzabotte, buon giorno,” as if 64 years have not passed. The officer takes off his hat and waves us ahead despite the red light.

  “That must be Luigi, Domenico’s son,” says my father. “I guess Domenico retired.”

  We drive under the bridge, past the bakery and the pizzeria, around the shoe store where its owners sit crocheting, a sharp turn at the town clock, past the Bar Italia and up Via D’Italia, toward our house. When we reach the corner where Via D’Italia meets Via Condotto Vecchio, I have my fingers crossed.

  The outside of the house has been painted white. Someone has just washed the front steps, droplets of water, pooled in the small holes of the cement stairway, reflect morning sunbeams. Someone has plastered a smooth white archway around the door frame where our ceramic numbers, left in the attic, are mounted: two tiles with blue waves rolling around the edges and in the centre, a splash of red geranium petals. The #10 is painted in sunshine yellow.

  I step aside to let Bob unlock the door, but he hands the key to my father who accepts it without question and unlocks the door as easily as if he’s lived here all his life. The door swings open and the rank and musty smell is gone. The marble floors are shining, as if they’re wet, but the polish is from Luigi’s floor sander. Bellissimo. The walls are smooth, painted the softest shade of foam with taupe trim. The back wall has been rebuilt and the door hung with brass hinges. Sunlight pours through the bevelled glass panels. I run to the stairway, hurry up the stairs to the front bedroom which has the same coloured walls, the same shiny marble flooring. The balcony doors are bright with paint, the handles sparkling from polish. In the bathroom, white tile, white light, is everywhere. A wild canary sits on the windowsill of the shower stall, splashing in a small puddle and singing.

  Suddenly, my father is standing behind me. Outside the window beneath the tall trees grow wild blue chicory flowers and dainty Queen Anne’s lace. Rows of olive trees, with silver-grey leaves and small clumps of dark green fruit, grow in tiers. I hear the wind from Santa Serena whispering over the deep ravine below us. The warm summer breeze wafts into our house and wraps itself around us with a soft murmur.

  “Do you hear it?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says, laughing. “Someone has a new donkey.”

  “Buon giorno. Buon giorno,” calls a voice from the street.

  “Company?” asks Kathryn. “We’ve been here three minutes!”

  “It’s okay. It’s Joe, the neighbour who speaks English.”

  “Well, he’s carrying a tray of coffee,” says Linda. “I like him already.”

  We sit on the front steps, in rows, to drink our coffee, but my father is restless, anxious to get moving. He, Bob and Joe go for a walk to Pisciarello, the mountain stream up the hill. Joe and my father balance Bob’s blond height with their shorter stature, white hair and woollen vests, walking slowly with a plastic bottle in one hand, the other in their pocket.

  I open the back kitchen door, with a little flourish to reveal the garden, soil freshly turned and ready to be planted. If my father were in charge of the garden he would plant lettuce and early spring onions, tomato and pepper plants and zucchini. Soon he’d start wondering if we couldn’t keep a few chickens in a pen on the slope that leads down to the ravine and before we knew it, he and Joe would be planting rows o
f olive trees in tiers on the hillside, devising some sort of net to catch the olives when they ripen and a pulley to haul the bushels of olives up the hill and into the cantina for the press. Around the garden is a low concrete block wall and a grey terrazzo patio, not the brick and terracotta I had imagined.

  In the attic, Kathryn’s new bedroom, the walls are white plaster and the ceiling is made of pine planks coated with clear urethane. The window looks across red clay tiles, past signor Mario’s woodlot and signora Francesca’s rosemary bushes, beyond the red geraniums tumbling from the balcony of the last house on the street. We climb down the stairs to the front bedroom where my father will sleep and I open the balcony doors, which overlook the busy street below. The morning sun is high in the sky. Kathryn lies on my lap, I lie on Linda’s and we sleep.

  Shouts and rumbling noises wake us. Kathryn and Linda hurry to the balcony to see what’s causing the commotion. A blue truck edges down our street. A man walking backwards directs the truck’s progress with shouts and hand gestures: Joe. The driver has his head out the window, his dark hair brushing the front of the buildings. There are two passengers jammed in the front seat beside him: Bob and my father. Traffic backs up behind the truck and in front of it. Neighbours pour onto the street. The driver rolls up the tarpaulin that covers the back of the truck.

  By the time we reach the street, a crowd has gathered. I don’t know what the villagers do when we’re not here, but when we are, it’s as if they’re on call. They’re ready at a moment’s notice, ready to help, to discuss, to organize, to suggest, to reorganize, to debate and finally, to celebrate. The neighbours argue about who will unload the contents and where they will put them. First: six wooden ladder-backed chairs, with woven wicker seats. The old ladies examine every one for scratches or rough spots before the men are allowed to take them into the house. Second: a table with fat wooden legs, carved a mano, and a heavy marble top, streaked with charcoal and slate. Third: four fold-up beds, wrapped in heavy plastic. Fourth: a brown leather chesterfield. Fifth: a cardboard box.

  “I’m not sure if it’s a small refrigerator or a large toaster oven,” says Bob, pointing to the box.

  “Why didn’t you ask Dad?”

  “I did, but he answered me in Italian.”

  Angela comes out of her house, wiping her hands on her apron, smelling of rosemary and plum tomatoes.

  “The paint,” begins Angela, “is light and dark. Perfetto. Benito thought it’s crazy to put in a brick fireplace, but it looks good. Everybody likes the bathroom the best. Magnifico, Joe.”

  “Angela, I was wondering, should we invite the neighbours in?”

  “What for? The neighbours see your house every day. We all go in. Take a look. Everything — she looks good, no?”

  As we walk down the street people call out from their open windows, “Mezzabotte, you are returned. Benvenuto.” By the time, we’ve reached the corner, a three-minute walk, half an hour has passed. We stop at the bar to talk to Rocco and Joe and have a coffee. At the butcher shop, my father steps around the side of the building and knocks on the door. A woman comes out with a key and bends down and opens the lock on a garage door. Inside it’s stacked to the ceiling with boxes of sheets, towers of fluffy comforters, piles of bath towels, and, since it’s August, dangling from the ceiling are an assortment of inflatable water toys for the beach. My father does all the talking, arranges to buy the pillows and gives our address.

  The pillows make it back to the house before we do. Angela has already stuffed them into pillowcases and arranged them on the beds. The merry clinking of goat bells comes jingling through the pasture near the church of San Nicola. Down our street walks a man with a bundle of sticks balanced on his head, a water jug in both hands.

  “I put your supper on the kitchen table,” says Angela. “Then, everyone goes straight to bed. That’s enough for one day.”

  *****

  We awake the next morning to the sound of my father’s shuffling feet and his face peering around our bedroom door. His expression is hesitant and apologetic; he is worried. His shirt is buttoned incorrectly and his shirttails hang unevenly.

  “Let me fix it for you.” I reach out my hand to the top buttonhole. In the middle of his chest is a large, yellow-green bruise and a crescent-shaped scar the shape of my mother’s fingernail.

  I can’t breathe. I swallow hard, keep my voice calm.

  “What’s this all about, Dad?” I ask, nodding at the bruise, and resting my hand on his shoulder.

  “You know your mother. She likes to jab sometimes. When she’s yelling.”

  I want to button up the shirt and pretend I never saw the bruise. I want to phone my mother and demand an explanation. I want to find a way to keep my father in Supino. I want my father to be safe. But all I can do is rebutton his shirt, reassure him and watch as he and Bob head off to the bar for their coffee, together.

  I wait for them in the shade of a nearby building beside a brown cantina door. Suddenly, the door opens. A wooden crate appears, along with a tiny woman dressed in a navy blue polka-dot dress. Her slender body is wrapped in a spotless cotton apron. Stepping into the street, she sets down the wooden crate, balancing it carefully on the wobbly cobblestones, swings a plastic bag of green spiky vegetables on top and says, “Bella, no?” Before I can answer, she disappears into the cantina and reappears a few seconds later with an eggplant in her hand. She crowns the pile of artichokes with the majestic purple vegetable, then looks up the street and sees my father. The colour drains from her face. She clutches her heart, tries to steady herself by grabbing the vegetable display.

  “Fantasma. Spectro,” she gasps, as the eggplant rolls from its throne and the artichokes go tumbling, spiky head over rounded tail, down the cobblestone street and into the gutter where they pick up speed before coming to rest on a grate.

  My father approaches and talks to the woman like an old friend. She moves her hand away from her heart, touches his arm, cautiously, slowly. Then she laughs. They walk down the hill to pick up the spilled vegetables. The woman carries the artichokes back in her apron; my father holds the bruised eggplant in the crook of his arm. From inside the woman’s cantina floats a lovely aroma: the fragrance of ripe peaches. I peek into the doorway as they return so that she invites me in saying, “Vieni. Vieni.” Inside the cantina are crates of vegetables and fruits arranged in a circle. Under the window, a brass scale catches the morning sunlight. A Havana cigar box, lire notes protruding from the partially opened lid, rests on a wooden shelf.

  “What does spectro mean?”

  “Ghost. Elena thought she saw the ghost of my brother, Americo, walking up the street. That scared her. Americo died 20 years ago.”

  My father, his hand in his back pocket, whistles softly, looking at the pile of watermelons. “Nice looking watermelons,” he comments. I buy one and Bob carries it home.

  *****

  “Al fresco?” asks our waiter. He seats us at a table, draped in white linen and set with cotton napkins and heavy silverware, in the yard beneath a kiwi tree. Rocco recommended this restaurant; they serve only pizza or antipasto on Saturday nights. The waiter, also known as Luigi the policeman or Domenico’s son, stands notepad and pen in hand, waiting.

  “What would you like to eat? They have pizza or antipasto,” I tell my father.

  “Whatever your mother says. Anything will do. Anything’s fine.”

  “You can order whatever you want.” But he can’t. He cannot choose. Trying to encourage my father to state his preference, to take what little power is granted, makes him uncomfortable. At home he eats what my mother cooks; he eats alone, sitting at the end of the kitchen table. He has no choice. Simple things, little things, are slowly taken away from him, a drop of water hitting the stone. Day after day. Year after year. Eventually hollowing the rock, making a hole.

  The waiter brings four jugs of wine after we have ordered. “Didn’t you tell him four glasses of wine?” I ask.

  “So we take
the rest home,” he says. “Enjoy your dinner.” In the darkness of evening my father begins to speak and his voice is different, younger, as if the antipasto della montagna, appetizers of the mountain, rejuvenate him. He talks about falling asleep in his olive tree on summer nights, listening to crickets and watching the brightest star over the church of San Cataldo. And he speaks about his mother, Filomena Corsi.

  “A long time ago an army comes to Italy. They’re going to Rome to fight, but they stop at Supino. Kill some men, rape the women. They take all the food and the horses they can find. Then, the army men leave. Go to Rome to fight. This army, they come from a place called Corsica. It’s an island. Nine months pass. A lot of babies are born in Supino. Babies from these men who came to fight, you understand? No one knows what to do. They can’t give the babies the name of the family. No one knows the name of the strangers — the barbarians. The people in the village go to the church and ask the priest what to do. The priest says, ‘We give the babies a new name, a name of their own.’ And he baptizes all the babies Corsi, named for the place Corsica, where the fathers come from. Your grandmother she comes from that name. Filomena Corsi.”

  From the parking lot below, comes familiar sounds. Car doors slam. Voices shout out greetings, as more and more people arrive. Accompanying the footsteps and laughter, a metallic jangle. Gypsies in brightly-coloured clothes and jangling gold jewellry come walking over the crest of the hill. The waiter quickly assesses the situation. He claps his hands above his head and several men hurry out carrying tables over their heads, starched white tablecloths over their arms. Soon the yard is full of tables, chairs and laughter. The waiter goes from table to table lighting the candles with his cigarette lighter. We’re surrounded by women, their hair slicked back with fragrant oil, their earlobes heavy with golden hoops. Men, in dark fitted pants and silk shirts, flash quick smiles. Some carry babies, brilliant flowers or birds stitched onto their little black vests, slipping them carefully into wicker-seated high chairs. Someone pushes an old lady in a wheelchair past our table and over to the corner where the band is setting up. Beads and glittery stones decorate the wheels so that as it bounces across the gravel sparks fly like fireworks into the black night. A little girl, with curls the colour of coal, skips around the tables, passing through the squares of light cast by the restaurant windows. There’s a blur of streaming ribbons: red, yellow, blue and a flash of golden bangles — and then she’s gone — only to reappear a moment later, her red clothes becoming flames in the darkness. A five-piece band sets up in the corner. Before the drummer has time to assemble his kit, they’re playing “La Bamba”. The gypsies begin to dance and twirl among the tables set out beneath the disbelieving stars.