After the film, folkloric dancers come whirling out from behind the bedspread onto the stage. The children jump from their seats, some reenacting the scenes from “Topo Gigio”, others dancing in the aisles. On the stage, the dancers make a circle and a young couple step into the centre, placing their hands on each other’s shoulders. The audience claps encouragingly, as the couple spin around faster and faster and the dancers that encircle them sway from side to side, the women with their skirts held in their hands and the men with their hands clasped behind their backs, occasionally calling out, “Ey!” as they stomp their feet. The original couple, now spinning in a whirlpool of red skirt and green vest and white cotton, are joined by a second couple and in a few more minutes a third couple. Pools of light interrupt the darkness, the twirling dancers wind into view and then go spinning off into the shadows.
When the dance concludes the villagers gather up sweaters, their sleeping children and head off into the night. Within minutes, the crowd has left the hilltop.
Rocco joins us as we are preparing to leave and says, “In Supino we have to make our own small entertainment, otherwise our young people will leave the village to go to Rome or Frosinone. Every year the Council supports the Este Di Supino. Summer in Supino. Every evening, except Sunday, we have something — tomorrow is a movie, “Mediterraneo.” The next night is a magician and the Supino marching band. On Friday it is amateur band night and Carlo has a band that will perform.”
We leave Rocco and Carlo at the bottom of the stairs, with a promise to return to the park on Friday. As we climb the hill, the noises of the street diminish and the night grows dark and silent.
*****
In the morning, when Kathryn opens the shutters of the front bedroom, people are already on the street, their baskets hooked over their arms. We join the parade of villagers walking briskly down the hill and as soon as we’ve turned from Via Condotto Vecchio onto Via D’Italia we see the multicoloured awnings of the market stalls. A few fruit and vegetable vendors have parked three-wheel pickup trucks and sit behind piles of crates. You can smell the peaches before you see them — “Fresca, fresca.” At the end of the street are three barrels of watermelons. A hose stretches from a nearby garage to keep the melons cold in the August heat. We walk the length of the street, admiring the produce. We would like to buy something, but we know if we do, Joe will say, “Why you buy this? I got peaches in my yard. What’s the matter with you, Bob? You don’t like my peaches?” and if we buy eggplants or onions for Angela, she’ll accept them, with a shake of her head, and then have us over for lunch to eat them. We do buy six lemons the size of grapefruits, which my father claims are so sweet you can make a salad with them and not put in any sugar.
“It’s your uncle Fidel’s 50th anniversary party next month. Maybe a gift from Supino, to make it special. What do you think?”
The woman in the stall pulls out a handmade lace cloth from one of the boxes stacked beneath the table. The cloth is crocheted with a very fine cotton thread. There’s a row of hemstitching at both ends. I leave them to haggle over the price and count out the lire. We meet them back at the Bar Italia, but it’s too hot and the bartender’s too busy to make cappuccini so we have aranciata instead.
“I bought a basket,” I announce, holding up the wicker purchase.
“My father used to make baskets like this,” my father says. “Mostly for my mother and my aunts, but sometimes to sell at the market. I learned it when I was a boy. On Palm Sunday, we’ll get the palm after mass and I’ll fold it a few times and make a cross for you. That’s how my father taught me. But you have to wait for the spring. That’s when the vines and the willow branches are easy to bend. We went into the vineyard or the woods to get the skinny branches. The vines like to dry slowly, take their time to learn the shape of the basket.”
On the way home we pass the watermelon vendor and the usual group of young boys, about eight or ten years old, with their soccer ball. As soon as the watermelon man moves on, they can reclaim that end of the street for their usual pre-lunch soccer game. My father hands the man a lira note, calls out to the boys, tossing the watermelon toward the cement step. The melon shatters into jagged red chunks and the boys grab pieces and stuff them into their mouths.
“Grazie, Mezzabotte,” they shout.
*****
Today my father approaches his farm, one hand in his back pocket, the other unhooking the tattered twine that holds the gate in place. Sixty-four years ago he hooked the rope over the fence post, straightened the collar of his new woollen jacket, patted the leather passport and headed down the hill to the train station for Rome and Genoa and then for Canada by ship. His short fingers grasp the loop of twine, the scar on his left thumbnail where he hit it with an axe while chopping wood one winter white against his suntanned hands, rough with years of work. He lifts the gate slightly and it swings open, creaking rustily. The squeaking gate represents neglect. Sadness lives in the slump of his shoulders, in the stillness of his hands. He must have imagined, all these years, that these people were taking care of his home. Now he leans over the gate fingering the hinges powdered with rust. The neighbour stands behind him anxiously drumming his fingers against the leg of his work pants.
“We made a new gate to save walking out to the road and back in again. A big metal gate — the one you drove through on the way in. It opens automatically. You only have to push the button. You know how it is, Mezzabotte, moderno, progresso, automatico.”
My father walks the path of ancient grapevines, nodding his head in approval. The soil beneath them is freshly turned, the posts that support the branches are sturdy and straight. He stops to caress a dusty leaf that shades a heavy bunch of burgundy grapes. He rests his hand on the trunk of the cherry tree and tries to slide his fingers between the smooth bark and the rocky wall of the house. Behind the farmhouse, the vegetable patch is full of tomato, pepper and zucchini plants. The zucchini vines have travelled over the fence, tumbling into the larger yard next door. The garden ends where the rocky soil of the mountain begins. He throws some grain to the four plump chickens calling from the coop, picks up a couple of pieces of kindling that have slipped from the woodpile and replaces them carefully. He pats a metal pan with holes in the bottom hanging on the wall.
“Your grandmother made cheese,” he tells me. “Balls of fresh mozzarella. Sometimes ricotta — small circles, like a pie, with curved edges. She made lunch for the priest every day. He lived beside the church — Santa Maria — and after mass I waited to ask him what he would like to eat. One day he said, ‘Pollo,’ but I reminded him, ‘It’s Friday. No meat today, Father.’ And you know what he told me? He said, ‘Pollo is poultry, carne is meat.’ I had to eat bread and cheese — same as every Friday. My mother said the priest says what he eats in his house, but she says what we eat in ours.”
My grandmother had not followed the tradition of the village; she had not given one of her sons to the church. The first son, Giacomo, she gave to her country. He joined King Umberto’s army, fought in the war. Giacomo was gone for seven years and when he returned he was a changed man. She never asked him about those years. Instead, twice a week, she made his favourite meal: ricotta-filled ravioli.
Her second son belonged to the land. It was his place to work beside his father and learn the ways of the earth, the cycles of the seasons. Americo was patient with the tedious tasks of the farmyard: splitting firewood, picking olives, trimming artichokes. In November she knit him a woollen cap and because he didn’t like the brightness of the white wool, she dyed it by soaking it in a pail of rainwater and licorice sticks.
Then came the twin boys, Pietro and Nicolo. My grandfather, Domenico, pruned grapevines and wove them into a cradle. Two weeks in the sunshine and the cradle was as sturdy as hardwood. The aunts, who lived up on the mountain, lined the inside with sheep’s wool. When Domenico covered them at night, the brothers always had a hand, or a foot, touching each other. It was the serious Pietro who walked first.
He stood, his chubby legs spread far apart, at the doorway of the farmhouse waiting for Nicolo. That April morning, Nicolo lay listless in the cradle. Pietro sat on the floor, beside the cradle expecting Nicolo to reach out his hand, climb over the side of the cradle, and toddle to the door. But the influenza epidemic had come to Supino. Nicolo never woke from the fever.
Pietro lay beside the cradle holding the hand of his dead brother and no one had the heart to move him. At twilight, Domenico brought warm milk from the neighbour’s cow for Pietro.
My grandmother said, “Look how he sleeps. Like an angel.” But he was not sleeping. Pietro was dead. My grandfather lifted the empty cradle, took it outside. The night was dark. He dropped the cradle on the pathway. He smashed his foot down, again and again, snapping the vines. He struck a match against the cement and threw it at the pile of twigs.
The priest blessed the twin babies, and comforted my grandmother, but Domenico would not come into the house. He stood in the yard, stared at the ashes. The priest approached him slowly, not wishing to intrude on his sorrow. He could see that Domenico was consumed. They walked down the hill together to the tiny church of San Sebastiano and, in the back room, the priest assembled a table and two chairs. He brought two glasses and a bottle of whiskey. Domenico returned home the next day at noon. He never spoke of that night.
After my grandparents buried their two sons they had two daughters, Angelina and Regina. My grandmother’s hair was white by the time my father was born. The seventh child is a lucky omen. By tradition this baby belonged to the church. She named the baby Loreto, an ancient name derived from the word lauretum, which means laurel grove. My grandmother believed the legend of Loreto, a northern town situated in a laurel grove atop a hill near the Adriatic Coast, not too far from Ancona. She knew that during the night of December 10th, over 600 years ago, a host of angels had placed the home of Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the hilltop town. The angels had flown the sacred home from its original setting in Palestine and then across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. The simple cottage rested there, among the laurel leaves, and over the years, princes and popes had arranged for a tremendous sanctuary to be built around the Holy House. My grandmother had heard stories of the construction that had lasted for more than 300 years. She’d heard about the famous painters and sculptors that had worked there. She’d heard that the base of marble that surrounded the little house had been worn down like a furrow in a field by the many pilgrims who had gone to kneel and pray before the Santa Casa. My grandmother did not need to see the sacred home of the Holy Family to know the legend was true. The day the priest came to see the infant he said, “Keep your baby, Filomena. You have given enough.”
*****
In the August daylight my father’s farmhouse seems smaller than before. Sunshine pours through the open door into its emptiness. My father runs his finger along a post.
“Here it is,” he announces. “On this nail, my mother kept a cross. Nonno carved it from an olive branch. It’s a soft wood with a good smell. After Nonno carved it, Mama hung it here over the bed. Nonno always sat in the corner and carved. In the dark, you never knew if he was there or not until you heard the sound of his knife shaving the wood. In the morning, my mother gathered those shavings to start the fire. After Giacomo married the girl from town, he and his bride came to this house. The girl said, ‘Why do you leave the old man in the corner where it’s dark?’ She didn’t know he was blind. My father gave them a little piece of land near the road. Giacomo built a house there.”
Now only a corner is left, two crumbly walls smeared with patches of cement. Giacomo’s original house would have been the size of my garden shed. His grandchildren expanded it to a three-story farmhouse.
“That’s a tiny house.”
“Well sure, but there were only two people. And Giacomo and his wife — they were pretty thin.”
We pass the cherry tree and the three olive trees that are part of the original farm.
“Your aunt Regina and I used to sit on the roof and pluck the cherries from this tree. On the night of the feast of San Cataldo, there were fireworks. You could see them all over the village. When it got dark, your aunt would hang two cherry stems over her ears and she’d say, ‘I am the queen of Supino. Let the fireworks begin.’”
The people who live on the other side of my father’s land have a stucco house with an olive grove in the backyard and red roses in front. Sitting beneath the chestnut tree, we drink wine from last year’s grape harvest.
“I had trouble finding this street today,” Bob tells them. “After two years, we’ve already forgotten, but Maria’s father remembered the way.”
“It’s a steep path. Hard to find,” my father tells Bob. Then turning to me he says, “Even your grandfather lost his way home once. Papa had too much to drink one night at a cousin’s wedding. Some of my uncles brought him home. Of course, they’d been drinking too, so they left him at the wrong house.”
These neighbours call my father Mezzabotte, speak to him as if he never left the village.
*****
Bob and my father walk down to the bar each morning for coffee and sit watching the children play, the housewives walking to town to do their shopping. When the sun rises past the bell tower and Bruno lowers the canvas awning over the patio, Bob orders a cappuccino to go and brings it up to the house for me. Bruno didn’t have any cups for such a request, so the first morning Bob carried the cappuccino in a ceramic cup and saucer under a cloth napkin. All the old women sweeping their front steps stopped and chattered to each other, “What could it mean?” By the second day, Bruno has worked out a plan: he pours the cappuccino into a paper Pepsi cup. I don’t know what causes more of a stir: coffee in a paper cup or the realization that this is a man who takes cappuccino to his wife every morning. While I sit on the balcony, Bob takes the broom from the closet to sweep the front steps. Half a dozen housewives come running. One woman grabs the broom from Bob’s hand and refuses to return it. Angela hurries over to explain that Bob is using the wrong broom. That’s an indoor broom with soft bristles for sweeping marble or ceramic tiles. For the cement steps you have to use an outdoor broom.
My father and I head down Via D’Italia on our way to the barber shop. Suddenly — out of nowhere — a basket drops in front of me. A rope’s attached to the basket so I follow it up to the third-floor balcony. Hanging out of the window is an old man. The next thing I know, my father’s on his way up the stairs to visit and I’m on my way to buy bread and coffee for the old man with the money he lowered in the basket.
At the tabacchi store, I point to the bread behind the counter and chop the back of one hand onto the palm of the other, asking the woman to slice it in half. There are about a dozen brands of coffee lined up on the shelf. I pantomime the circumstances and throw in some Italian phrases until the woman behind the counter nods and says, “Alberto antico. Sí, sí.” She picks a blue packaged brick of coffee from the wall behind her, puts it and the bread into a bag and tosses in a little strawberry-filled candy. When I get back, I put the plastic bag in the basket, ring the doorbell and he hauls up the basket as my father comes downstairs.
“When that man was a boy, his father gave him a calf to take care of, same as me. We walked up the mountain together some mornings. It took three hours. There’s a beautiful stream near the top of the path, with cold water running from a spout stuck in the side of a rock. I used to stop there for a drink. I had three aunts who lived on the mountain, so everyday I had three breakfasts. At the top the cows would graze and we’d talk. I named my cow Giardinella, the gardener. She gave 10 quarts of milk a day. I walked to town, left a quart at the church and the rest at the houses in the village. After the feast of San Cataldo, Giardinella’s calf was ready to be sold at the market in Frosinone, 30 miles away. On Saturday morning my father and I walked the calf there. It was a nice walk with the sun on our backs and some bread and cheese in our pockets. It was a hard walk back though, if we didn’t sell the calf. The calf
couldn’t walk both ways. If we didn’t sell her, we had to carry her back.”
When my father’s family bought Giardinella it marked the end of his formal education, grade three. Alberto was in the same situation. They were sorry to leave school; there was more they wanted to learn. Alberto liked to read. My father learned numbers, added them in his head without a pencil.
“I couldn’t read well until I came to Canada. I learned English by reading the newspaper. Your aunt Regina used to buy it for me,” my father said.
*****
Today, we walk single-file in the shade of the buildings, but the stone walls hold no coolness from the previous night. We’re on our way to the Kennedy Bar to buy a bottle of Mille Fiori to take to Angela’s house for lunch. My father is showing us a “shortcut.” He climbs a set of narrow, crumbling cement steps. If I’d noticed them before I thought they belonged to someone’s house, or garden, but they lead to a narrow pathway and more steps. We climb and climb like a small herd of mountain goats, heads down, concentrating on the rocky terrain, trusting his memory. In a few minutes we reach an abandoned house. A huge rock face separates it from another house, three stories high. Someone has chiselled ledges from the stone, five narrow tiers, and in every space, containers the size of a tomato paste tin to a 10-quart plaster pail are crammed with blooming geraniums. Geraniums hang from baskets too, dozens of delicate petals of blazing colour — white, red, and pink — like the embers of a campfire when the wind blows up from the lake.
My Father Came From Italy Page 10
