Lead Petals

by Quelli di ZEd

  4

  A lance black ardea darted burning the tornantis and leaving himself/herself/itself to the shoulders the private railway station of the mines. To his/her guide there was Daniel Minghetti the child of the engineer. To twenty-four it was a step away from the degree in engineering, with in dowry a crown of laurel and the praise. You/he/she would have followed the tracks of his/her father, so it said.

  The automobile unthread in front of the villas of village you Rule and it stopped a little anymore him before. Some women dressed of black contemplated her/it to open mouth. It was not the first time that they saw her/it but they remained however bewitched. In a place where the more frequent means of transport were bicycles, motocarrozzette and wagons hauled by oxen, a lance ardea always produced flattering comments that could last for days.

  Daniel extinguished the motor and descents gently shutting the counter. He/she caressed the capotta and it stole above from us, sending away the dust that was deposited. It held in maniacal way to that car. Of person went to the factory of Bolzano to purchase her/it, in 1939, on the thresholds of the war. Then the factory had been bombed and that of Daniel represented one of the few exemplary sfornati before the catastrophe. The lance was a mixture of class and power: motor to four cylinders and thirty horses, two places to sit and three doors, a true jewel.

  The women approached to the auto postponing for some their matters. They faked indifference and they chatted to few about ten meters from marshal Troise's house. They were intenzionate to give a peek more detailed both to the car that to his/her driver.

  Daniel Minghetti was tall almost a meter and ottantacinque. Its tanned complexion showed the hair blond ash and the eyes chestnut clear, cat eyes, almost yellow pale yellow, that shone clear as two gems of gilded amber. His was a face common from the light lines, but that electroplated colors made him/it very unusual and, who knows because, they did him/it attractive to the eyes of the women. The comments of the gruppetto of curious they did soon to converge on him. Daniel acknowledged the looks ammiccanti. It made a smile and for few someone it didn't faint, also among those that already brought the faith to the finger. Daniel was the bachelor of Montevecchio that every girl desired to get married, the prototype of the man of the dreams: tall, beautiful, intelligent and rich. With Geneva it shared particularly two things: both were very beautiful, and both had inherited the physical aspect from his/her/their mothers. The character, was contrarily the exclusive fruit of the fatherly geniuses.

  The marshal Troise emerged from the stipite of entry. He/she wore the uniform and the feathered hat that it never brought. That day had decided to put him/it. This way, without a precise motive. You/he/she woke up and looking himself/herself/itself at the mirror was seemed him that it missed something. With the feathery headgear that feeling was enfeebled and you/he/she had decided to hold him/it. He/she saw Daniel and smiled. The eyes of his/her future son-in-law they sparkled as gold nuggets. It dressed an elegant black suit with grey tie. A pair of shoes in shiny skin, opacified by the dust of the avenue, they sprouted from the base of the dust coat. It was warm but people of his/her intelligence had to also maintain a certain behavior in the attire.

  The air was impregnate of a strong sweetish odor. Mrs Loi was preparing on gattou: a dessert fact with pinoli of Montevecchio mixed in dissolved sugar and allowed then to cool. Daniel sniffed and curled the nose throwing out the language. It hated on gattou. You/he/she had happened him to taste him/it. You/he/she had bite a crisp piece of gattou and the exaggerated sweetness you/he/she had made him close the eyes with a grimace. You/he/she had continued to sbocconcellare, correct not to appear discourteous, but the sticky hands and the shreds of pinoli among the teeth had disgusted him/it. Unfortunately Mrs Loi was convinced that that repugnant plate of sugar and pinoli he liked indeed. Every lunch never missed to prepare him as dessert and he/she remained to observe how much Daniel found him/it delicious. But he had learned soon to hide his/her portion in the pockets of the jacket, wound in a handkerchief.

  Pietro smiled. «Good morning, Daniel. Enter! Geneva is in the house.»

  The terror that Mrs Loi could make to again taste him on gattou overhung in Daniel any intention of courtesy.

  «Hi, marshal, would go some you/he/she scrubs, if you/he/she could call her Geneva you/he/she would do me a favor.» He/she knew that the marshal if you/he/she would be picked her/it up.

  Pietro launched him an occhiataccia. «As you want, boy!» It howled" Geneva" and with carelessness he/she greeted simply lifting the hand. It was offended and he/she was seen.

  Daniel frowned. Little lasted. From the door it leaned out Geneva, it was very beautiful with a red suit that put in prominence his/her clear skin. The color of the cloth opposed with the green emerald of its eyes. Geneva smiled and holding himself/herself/itself to the baluster the brief stairway went down. In his/her face and in his/her body there were no traces of the epileptic crisis.

  Daniel was shocked. He/she didn't succeed in tearing off her eyes of back and it had an idiot face. «My mother, but didn't we have to get married us among a few times?»

  «I don't believe that your mother would be enthusiastic to see to climb me on the altar with a red suit. I have as the impression that would appreciate more a classical white suit» he/she insinuated Geneva, thinking to how much his/her future mother-in-law was rigid and conservative.

  Daniel became serious. «You believe indeed it?»

  «Because you no?»

  Daniel seemed to reflect before answering, you/he/she didn't say anything instead.

  «I was joking only!» it continued Geneva.

  «Yes, I know him/it, but mother is not as you/he/she seems.» It was not true, Mrs Minghetti was just as it seemed. Geneva knew him/it, as also Daniel.

  They climbed in automobile truncating the discourse. They were direct to the outskirts of Montevecchio, where it rose the villetta that would have entertained them after the wedding. For the whole journey Daniel didn't utter word. The frecciata in Geneva on the nuptial model of his/her mother had upset him/it. You/he/she had been only a wisecrack, even if you/he/she was clearly understood that Geneva didn't try great liking for his/her future mother-in-law. What she didn't know anchor, was that for the lady Minghetti the thing was mutual. Clotilde had even tried to make to interrupt to his/her child that relationship. «It allows to lose my child. They is different people from us. There that will make you madden. You don't interest her you, our money interests only her. And then they also say that I/you/he/she am sick. Do you want to live with a sick wife? Possession sick children?»

  Beautiful Geneva Troise was beautiful, yet for the lady Minghetti was not enough. You dreamt that Daniel married the daughter of some political main points, of some general; in short, with the daughter of someone that counted really, not with the heir of a marshal of Caserta, a place where difficult to find someone that spoke to comprehensible way Italian was even. The Minghettis came from Turin and the ideas filofasciste of the engineer they made the rest. But Phillip had accepted the choice of his/her child and if done n'era a reason. If Geneva were what Daniel it desired, he would have welcomed her as a father.

  Montevecchio respected the conformation of the mining villages. Avenue Empire was the principal channel. The holds lanes that they were born of it, crushed by the suffocating shade of the houses, dipartivano as rivulets of water. The auto driven by Daniel as a boat ploughed the dust of the river Empire. There was to the left the chiesetta of Santa Barbara, shaded from the sumptuous building of the direction. The hospital seemed to scrutinize silent the back bumper of the Lance. Great buildings in raw bricks and stone entertained the barracks, the school and the dopolavoro. The cinema was a small stable that attended still to know the plaster; the reddish color of its bricks, in the days of sun, it gave the impression that the façade was dirtied with the particular earth of Sardara, so red to seem soaked of blood. The mail, a stumpy building, flanked the block of the local cafeteria. The avenues were
always orderly, only some sterpos it escaped the purge of the hoes.

  Montevecchio was a variegated place: the peace and solemnity of the Linas mountain that it was contrasted to the convulsive viatico for the grandiose seas of the green coast. In the month of March the lentischis, the mimosas and the brooms went to flower, carpeting the roads with a paper from protected by the marvelous colors. Their wild perfume drenched the mountain, that only in June he/she succeeded in shaking him/it to him of back to get ready himself/herself/themselves to another bath offered by the green coast to the aroma of rosemary and cisto.

  The one on the other, along the holds lanes there were the bare tenements of the miners. Manufactured with the raw bricks they sputtered the straw from the façades and they were so near that if him scoreggiavas in a house responded" health" from another. Those residences screeched with the luxury of the building of the direction and the guesthouse. In center they rose one after the other modern blocks that perfumed of it limes and appreciated wood: they were shops to the state-of-the-art one for capacious pockets. Montevecchio was this: a place where him estremizzava the contrast among hungry and satiated, between workers and executives, among cultured and ignorant. A place where the miners used the sentence" to work for living", even if you/he/she would have been more appropriate to say" to live for working"; a simple inversion among two verbs, an exchange that contained the sense of their existence. The buonanima of Raymond Spanu, worked for example thirty meters under the level of the sea, and he/she didn't even know how to swim. Ten years back the pomps were spoiled and in few minutes the mine had overflowed of water. The surges that sprinkled from the entry of the well had given the effect of an abandoned pitcher under the cascatella of the source of he/she Knows it will Lose. Everybody was saved less that Raymond, that was dead drowned as a mouse of sewer during a flood. To Montevecchio it was necessary to be ready to be some his/her own wife a widow and of his/her own children of the orphans. But from this whole Daniel Minghetti you/he/she had never been grazed. You/he/she could not be said that if it didn't care about but of certain it didn't lose us the sleep the night. He had been born rich. It knew to memory the accounts and the consequential profits from the extraction, yet he/she didn't even know as they were miners to piss every day in those galleries without being smothered from the sharp stagnation of the them same urine. Daniel in mine there had not been never, two only things interested him: to make money and to marry Geneva his/her mannerism. When you/he/she had seen her for the first time esterrefatto you/he/she had remained. You/he/she had realized from the first instant that only she would be been able to become his/her wife. From that moment you/he/she had boycotted the court of young girl of the high middle class, inclusive that of Verdiana Locci, a porca that beat her/it to him in face from the dawn to the sunset. Verdiana was so attractive that if Lisanziu Cireddu and Gamabedda would also be done her/it, two that if donkeys had been born they would have of certain preferred the baton to the carrot, even if you/they had not expressly confessed never their sexual tendencies. Daniel of Verdiana didn't care anything. The obsession to take him Geneva infested its mind as the sore of the grasshoppers that you/they flagellated the fields of wheat campidanesi, and you/he/she had also survived to the fires and the bran poisoned with the arsenic.

  After the first knowledge you/he/she had invited her to a party in the guesthouse. Without worrying himself/herself/themselves to save the face you/he/she had succeeded in convincing to withdraw her/it him in the undergrounds that entertained the places kitchen. You/they had crossed a long corridor on which they leaned out the lodgings of the servitude and you/they had reached a ramp of staircases. You/they had gone down toward the basement, where the local boilers and the kitchens resided. The staircase twisted him around them two taken by the hand portraying a stairway to snail of a medieval castle. In the basement, handed left half open from which the puff of the boilers seemed to announce the loaded irruenta of the bull Achille; then the kitchen: an immoderate environment and stracolmo of the most varied and unthinkable gastronomic utensils. Daniel and Geneva had entered together, risking to be aground in the frame of the door. Cooks and labourers had left the place, exhausted by the bustle of dishes and applications of eccentric dishes. In the great room he made party and nobody would have asked some other food, the interest was moved toward the ample counter of the cafe. Two deprived pots of cover sat on the out stoves. Daniel had grabbed Geneva for then to push her/it above a table. A pesciera almost acted her from pillow. The long evening gown had rolled up her until above the knees and with a furtive gesture you/he/she had succeeded in unthreading her panties. Geneva had not been able to oppose resistance but his/her expression he/she didn't speak of excitement, he/she spoke of fear. Daniel was open the zipper of his/her pantalonis and you/he/she had extracted the penis. You/he/she was forked among the legs in Geneva that you/he/she had spasmodically shut the hands to the sides of the table. When it was about to penetrate her/it, Geneva was twisted as an eel. A tagliere, a boiler and a casserole were upset to earth producing a big din. Daniel had stepped backwards and by instinct you/he/she was dressed again.

  «Excuse me, but I don't feel me ready yet» you/he/she had said her the face covering himself/herself/itself with the hands.

  Daniel had forcedly answered. «Calm, Geneva! I can wait if it is what you want.» And he/she anchors now it waited.

  In distance the their future villetta resided alone, carved in the shade against the energetic light of the morning. A fence delimited the perimeter of the courtyard. Two gigantic trees of mulberry grazed the path that conducted to the villetta; their red fruits sprouted among the branches as you decorate Christmas. The blackberries of mulberry were prey of the hungry little boys that you/they attended with impatience the summer months to do it raids of it. They ate and they blessed every time the Arabs, that during their domination in Sardinia you/they had cared that stately tree exploiting him as natural habitat for the proliferation of the silk bacco. Daniel had pecked at quite a lot times the young thieves. He/she asked them to show the hands with the excuse to find the guilty one. The juice of the blackberries of mulberry was of a blinding red, more intense than the earth of Sardara, and it the skin as an indelible shade. Daniel faked to be raged with the boys that showed him without saying a word the muddy hands. To that point Daniel laughed, because all also had half pregnant face of red juice and there were no certain need to show the hands to be accused of the furtarello. Every summer the same history. Daniel played us and allowed to do, he knew that that thefts were dictated by the hunger, not from the bad intentions. That children were thin as grasshoppers and they rummaged among the heaps of discards that were left in head to the fields of vegetables. Some had been seen to also eat the dry leaves of the cabbages. In the last months it was dead a horse that nobody had dared eat. To kill an illness had been him/it that had made him squirt even the blood from the eyes. All had thought that it was better to stay ignorant and not to know if that disease could result contagious. After three days, where the horse had been buried, you/they had found a deep and empty hole. Ciu Barrua with Ginetto Pintori, children of two teachers of wall that worked to the construction of the hotel for threatening, you/they had been seen to gobble him of seasoned rotten meat with earth and worms. Despite this, you/they could not even name the word hunger. In Poland there was who was very worse. And did the adults answer to hard face then: «You are hungry? Hunger they had in the year twelve» they said, remembering the hunger of the year 1812, due to the famines that had brought to the death of thousand of people. Those were children that in the night of first November they went to sleep terrorized. For a long time the legend of Maria Point Oru existed: a kind of witch that to midnight, now that had been separating the day of Every Saints for the day of the corpses, it wandered for the houses with the purpose to satiate its appetite. It was tradition that all the children left some pasta in their dishes, and then Maria Point Oru would have eaten and you/he/she would have thrown right-hand. In contra
ry case, you/he/she would have punctured the belly of his/her/their children with a point, to recover himself/herself/themselves the pasta that had been escaped her. The small ones blindly believed in the witch but the portion of pasta that you/they could eat it was so narrow that they rarely succeeded in not making himself/herself/themselves mock from the hunger. Teodorico Vincis, a child with problems of heart, was even dead of fear. Those that left some spaghettos in the dish were indeed little. In the night of Maria Point Oru they didn't close eye, vigilant in the dark of the room and terrorized by the sting of the witch, ready to punish them for their greed. Teodorico that time had eaten all of its spaghetti and you/he/she had gone to sleep with the terror in the eyes. The hunger you/he/she had also been stronger than the fears and you/he/she had surrendered, repenting only him of it to full stomach. His/her mother, with a power on candelabrum under the chin, you/he/she had entered the room to check him/it. You/he/she had called him/it without getting answer. Worried you/he/she had turned on the other candelabrum that systematized on the undone comodino. Teodorico was immovable with open braccia: stiff corpse. Its little heart had not held up. His was the face abominated of whom had believed to see Maria Point Oru in the face illuminated of his/her mother and everything for a dish of spaghetti.

  Daniel was not to the current one of the history of Teodorico, after all you/he/she was normal, considering that you/he/she knew only the aristocrats. It opened the door of the auto and it made to go down Geneva helping her/it with a rider gesture. Locusts and lecci in the green and they encircled the villetta. They protected her up to the bare zone that cold and rock had imposed with arrogance to the Linas mountain. Geneva adored the peace of that place. The sparrows peacefully chirrupped, as if they loved that serenity and they didn't intend to disturb her/it. The residence was beautiful: white and structured on two floors, with a beautiful balcony at sight and with the altana that detached above the roof of tiles marsigliesi; of the you tan elegant they embellished the external hangings.

  Daniel climbed five steps and was found on the landing in front of the front door of entry. Geneva was interdicted on the kick of the first step, with the staid elbow on the knob of the baluster. It fixed a niche positioned of side to the stipite of the front door, in which the statue of the Madonna seemed to want to welcome them with the tense braccias. Daniel turned the key and was heard the definite release of the cylinders that you/they reentered in their lodgings. They entered. The environment was dark. Daniel opened wide the taxes and the daylight you/he/she illuminated the saloon. Every mobile, every furnishing, every single maiolicas of the floor testified unknown economic possibility for the whole rest of Montevecchio. A great table in walnut-tree was found to the center of the stay. Two couches of dark skin formed an elle that contained two some three sides that leaned out in front of the fireplace. There were mirrors. There were drawn back of the ancestors of Daniel. There was everything. There was wealth.

  Suspended so that to form a pyramid, a two weeks of baskets in straw they occupied the frontal wall to the front door of entry. They were the gift of the marshal, even if himself didn't include the real value of it. In that remote angle of Sardinia the wealth of a bride was quantified in base to the number and the quality of its service of baskets. Tzia Piricca, before the marriage of his/her daughter, to make to appear through the baskets his/her wealthier family of that that was, had sold halves the flock of goats received in dad inheritance Antiogu. Instead Pietro had gotten used to the customs of Caserta, where wealth was calculated in base to the possessiones: money, terrestrial, immovable, inheritance. At the most, for the one that was affection from the allergy for the banks, the wealth it determined her/it the mattress of the bed, stuffed of banknotes by thousand liras. You/he/she was adjusted and you/he/she had commissioned to an impagliatrice that service of baskets without minding expenses, it was had to make beautiful figure in front of the child of the ingegner Minghetti.

  «You like?» he/she asked Daniel with a smile.

  Geneva looked around him. It sipped every centimeter of that house that she had alone veduto in phase of preparation. It was the first time that visited her/it from when you/he/she had been furnished. Its mouth opened and struck by the sun it showed the reverberation of its sparkling teeth. «Daniel, is very beautiful!»

  «I am happy that you like. I have tried to satisfy your tastes.»

  Geneva embraced him/it tightening him/it strong. «You have succeeded to the great one there!» But Daniel in that embraced you/he/she perceived something icy of convict.

  Shortly after Geneva had the nth epileptic crisis.