Sweet Bitter Cane

by G S Johnston

  Mamma mia, dammi cento lire, che in America voglio andar

  Cento lire io te li dò, ma in America no, no, no.

  Mamma, give me a hundred lire so I can go to America.

  I will give you a hundred lire but to America, no, no, no.

  It was an old song from the north of Italy, full of longing, the hope and fear of immigration. And soon Dante began, without strain or effort, as if it had been rehearsed, the accordion gently placed under the melody. And the violin rose, so filled with sorrow it was another voice. But this performance hadn’t been planned; immigration was a melody Italians had rehearsed for decades.

  She looked around the crowd. How their eyes filled with memory, with longing, all traces of the day’s happiness lulled with nostalgia. But most of all, Fergus sat still, between the men, his eyes, also filled with tears, fixed to the singer. How could he know this song? How could he have felt its meaning? Did he, after all, speak Italian?

  After the guests were gone, Italo came to their bed. He swaddled himself and Amelia in the white veil of the mosquito net. She lay still. This event was to happen, this thing that defined so many other actions. He lay on his side, facing her.

  ‘Are you tired?’ he said.

  ‘Not overly. It was a lovely day.’

  ‘The first of many.’

  She smiled. ‘Did you invite Fergus?’

  ‘Of course. He brought you to me.’

  She laughed and thought of this. ‘Does he speak Italian?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Yet he had tears during the song.’

  Italo exhaled. ‘He’s a troubled soul … He has little to do with his family. Did you mind him being here?’

  ‘Not at all. He was the only Australian.’

  Italo placed his open palm on her belly. Paralysed, she was unsure what to do, what was to pass. Her mother had told her nothing. And Emma spoke of nothing practical. Why hadn’t she spoken more fully with Clara? Italo raised himself, pressed his lips to hers. And so it advanced. Italo took all control. She had nothing to do, it appeared. He lay on her. He kissed her mouth, the nape of her neck, which just tickled, but his energy increased. His hard horn rubbed between the lips of her vagina. When he entered her, slowly and thoughtfully, the sharp pain subsided. But would she describe the sensation as pleasure? And as he continued this irregular thrusting, why couldn’t she erase the image of Fergus, his glistening hair, the dark, dark eyes filled so with tears?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The new brown curtains darkened the room, but a ray of light pierced a small slit in the wood. Italo had gone. She rose from the bed and walked to an oval wall mirror. She looked at her face. The light was weak. She moved closer. Scrutinised it. What did she expect to see? Her hazel eyes, fine nose, cheeks, chin. So, that was what it was all about. That was what women were sweet-talked to. A traded apple for this? These feelings weren’t so great, so wonderful. She wondered at the power of it. Was that all Emma and Clara had been drawn to?

  And then she thought of the consequence – would the seed grow in her? She felt warmed by excitement. Her heart raced. How she wanted children. But then she felt a sliver of cold fear. In this new land, there was much to understand. How would she cope with a child? And especially without her mother’s help? She placed her hand on her belly. She remembered the tightness she’d felt in Emma’s. How would she know if it grew? She prayed to the Madonna. Yes, please, many children, but not just yet.

  She looked again in the mirror. Her dark-brown hair was longer. What had she expected to see? Some curious mix of innocence and self-confidence? Where Italo had known what he desired, she had not. She glared at her round face and again observed no change.

  She dressed in her house gown and walked to the verandah. Any signs of their celebration were gone – the tables and chairs, the aroma of meat and especially the music and the laughter, the lamps that had flickered so beautifully into the evening. Only the new table and bench sat under the bedroom window.

  She walked through to the breezeway. Even the earth where the pig had been roasted somehow looked untouched. Someone coughed in the main room. Her heart accelerated. It must be Ben. She braced herself, inched forward, listening, tiptoed towards the door, pushing it open slowly. But Italo was seated at the table and looked at her. She breathed out. She didn’t know the sound of her husband’s cough.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here,’ Amelia said.

  He stood abruptly and came to her, held her forearm and kissed her. She shied, more as it had taken her by surprise than anything. But she wasn’t used to being kissed in the morning. And she felt nothing great. He let go of her forearm. He smiled.

  ‘Change of plans,’ he said. ‘Enrico told me yesterday. The harvest has been moved forward a week. The gang will arrive on Thursday.’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘That gives us only three days to get organised,’ Italo said.

  ‘Organised?’

  ‘Some of the men stay here. They sleep in the barracks. They’ll have to be fed.’

  ‘What?’ She glared at him. Clearly, the blankness of her expression had had some effect on him.

  ‘You’ve had no time to find your feet—’

  ‘I need to feed them?’

  ‘Maria will help.’

  He jabbered a list that needed doing, running her mind to the point of giddiness: the barracks cleaned, menus to be planned, food stores to be bought. She grabbed some paper and a pencil and began to scribble, saying yes to tasks she didn’t understand.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come back at lunchtime, see how you’re getting on.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll send Ben to tell Maria.’

  With that, he stood. He smiled as he left. How was all this going to be done? And in such a short time. She made coffee and sat at the bench and table on the verandah and read and reread the list. The men would be there for ten days, at least. She had to cook breakfast and lunch and morning and afternoon tea. And some of the men needed dinner. She’d never cooked for more than five people, and now she would for ten or more. And there was nothing to cook on but an open fire on a stone in a room that could hardly be described as a kitchen. And she could only cook Italian food, and there were so few ingredients.

  She heard Maria’s truck straining from the main road. When Maria walked onto the verandah, she could evidently see the panic in Amelia’s eye.

  ‘Don’t be worried,’ Maria said, the stress of the situation causing her to break their rule of only speaking in English. ‘I’ve done it many times.’ She took the piece of paper from Amelia and looked over the list and smiled. ‘You’re organised. Good.’

  What would Amelia do without her? How blessed she was to have met Clara and now Maria.

  ‘Just as well Fergus has made you this lovely table for us to work at. Now, go and make me some coffee.’

  They began by planning the menus for each day. They’d make thick porridge for breakfast, as it staved off a day’s hunger.

  ‘But some of the men will want eggs with bacon or steak. Some will want both. We’ll need a load of bread at each meal.’

  For morning and afternoon tea they’d make some kind of cake. Maria recommended a rainbow cake. They could bake enough in the morning and it would do for afternoon tea. Or they could do the same with scones, which would keep fresh enough till the afternoon.

  ‘We take this out to them in the field,’ Maria said.

  ‘We need to do this too?’

  ‘Their time’s more important than ours.’

  But lunch would need to sustain the men. They worked extremely hard and needed fuel. She and Maria could roast a beast, much as they’d done for the celebration. They’d need to serve it with vegetables and roast potatoes and a thick gravy.

  ‘Not too much salt, as it makes them want to drink.’

  And they could serve some of the meat cold in the evening or use the rest for a stew the following day. They would m
ake sweetened jelly, set in the cool lee of the water tank and served with canned fruit. Or they would make bread custard puddings with the stale bread, if there were any.

  ‘What about a minestrone?’ Amelia said.

  Maria sat back in her chair.

  ‘It would be easy for us,’ Amelia said. ‘I could make it the evening before. We’d just have to heat it.’

  Maria considered the option. ‘It’s worth a try. But you won’t find any beans.’

  ‘In Australia?’

  ‘Maybe in Sydney or Melbourne.’ Maria shook her head. ‘But not up here.’

  Amelia felt confused. Was Maria making fun of her? How could they not have them?

  ‘Without beans a minestrone has no heart.’

  By midmorning they’d drawn up the menus, which Maria reduced to a long shopping list. Amelia felt breathless. There was so much to organise, such great quantities to buy, so much to learn. And once the harvest began, there would be just so much to do.

  ‘We’ll never sleep,’ Amelia said.

  ‘The men work hard and so do we. I’ll bring my kitchen hand, Meggsy, to help.’

  They went to the village to buy the provisions and by midafternoon brought them back to the house. There was no room to store anything in the small kitchen, so housed in the breezeway were the sacks and sacks of flour, bags of potatoes and carrots, a whole waxed wheel of cheese, bottles of beer and cans of fruit and corned beef, the bags of tea and oats and onions and sugar. (Of all things, they’d bought sugar.) The meat, beef and mutton, would be delivered three times a week and stored in a large meat safe covered with a damp cloth and suspended by a rope in the breezeway. She’d not been able to buy any pulses – no-one had heard of borlotti or cannellini beans – and she doubted the minestrone could be made. Maria would bring more eggs, and Ben more milk, each day.

  In the early evening, after Maria had gone, she stood in the breezeway. She couldn’t believe the amount of food. A hungry army was about to descend. How could she describe such a sight to her parents? She checked off the lists again, not just to be sure she had everything but also so she knew where it was. Would this be enough? Once the harvest began, there just wouldn’t be time for more supplies.

  ‘I thought it was a good omen.’

  Italo stood at the side of the breezeway. She’d been so caught with the inventory she’d not noticed him and wondered how long he’d been there. He looked tired, drawn.

  ‘When I came at lunchtime, you were already gone. It’s like you’ve done this before.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She went back to her master list. ‘It’s mostly Maria’s doing …’

  They ate their evening meal, cold porchetta from the celebration, the skin hard and salty, with vegetables she’d manage to cook rather than destroy.

  That night, he came to bed after he’d gone for his evening walk. He lay next to her, on his side, facing her.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said.

  She looked into his eyes. He closed them. She heard the rain at the roof, soft and discombobulated, spluttering to start. His breathing slowed and was regular. She closed her eyes. And then his hand smoothed over her belly, warm as a blanket. And then it moved in slow circles, almost soothing, and soon he was on her, his weight crushing her as he moved into her, his hot lips at her mouth, about her mouth, in her mouth. She searched for her role. Should she move as he did? Counter him? Under his weight she couldn’t budge, and it seemed she shouldn’t. His breath rushed and sucked at her cheek. He knew what he wanted and would take it. It had little to do with her. He stretched, stiffened, shuddered. And relaxed. But she lay still. He was exhausted. He rolled from her. He said nothing and in moments his breath subsided to calm and sleep. She, though, was far too agitated to dream of sleep, the night an endless list of lists.

  The following morning she went with Italo to the stable on the flat land below the house. Tacked on to the far end was a barracks, made only of timber frame and galvanised-iron sheets and a bare cement floor. Outside the door, under an awning, was a huge trough with a washboard fixed at an angle, a long line strung in the air.

  ‘The men get prickles from the cane in their clothes,’ Italo said. ‘Hairy Mary, they call it. They get ash in their hair. If they don’t wash, it irritates their skin and they scratch. Worse than a dog with fleas.’

  Three double bunk beds were perpendicular to the wall opposite the door. There were two canvas stretchers folded against the wall, and a single hammock.

  ‘After lunch’, Italo said, ‘the men come for siesta, during the worst heat of the day.’

  There was only one window on the end wall. The air was close, spiked with the scent of burnt mosquito coils, and she pushed up the tin frame. On the other side, in an alcove, was a cement floor with a drain. Strung high on a system of pullies was a rectangular tin with holes pushed through its bottom, forming a shower, like the one in the washroom, no provision for modesty. There was an outhouse to the side of the barracks.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ she said.

  ‘A bit of tidy up.’

  She nodded.

  He kissed her, thanked her, and left.

  She pulled a mattress from the lower bunk, dragged it to the sun and returned for another, which she pulled from the bunk to the floor. Someone had left a coil of yellow rope she reached for, but it began to move. She jumped back and screamed. The snake unravelled, its eyes fixed on her. It flicked its tongue. With all force she ran from the barracks into the sun, fought to steady her breath.

  ‘Italo.’

  She breathed again. She’d dealt with snakes in Italy. It had just caught her by surprise. She didn’t need Italo. The thing was probably more scared of her. She grabbed the broom by the door. But the snake had gone. She looked along the lower reaches of the walls, its tail disappearing through a split in the corrugated metal wall. Outside, she found a rock and wedged it into the hole. In a blaze, she pulled the rest of the mattresses from the beds but there were no more snakes.

  She dusted the bunks, the small table and three chairs, and then swept the floor. Once the mattresses were returned, she looked at the basic conditions. The men would have little time for luxury, working up to thirteen hours a day, seven days a week, until it was done. They needed only to clean themselves and sleep. The only comfort she could offer them was good food, and plenty of it.

  She was occupying her time, but it was more than mere occupation. Since she’d stepped on to Italo’s land, it was as if work now had purpose – all her effort was for herself and Italo. Every action brought satisfaction. For the first time since the wedding in Tovo di Sant’Agata, she felt she’d made the right decision. She squinted at the sun, high and burning. Her new life.

  The harvest began in the early evening, the whole gang arriving at around three. They parked two large trucks on the flat near the barracks, unloaded boxes of equipment and then, in a ragtag line, walked up the hill to the house and onto the verandah. They were all Italian. Some were Italo’s age and had been at the celebration, and some, younger, she’d never met before. Six men would stay in the barracks: Pasquale Alcorso, Gaetano D’Angelo, Lorenzo Nanni, Salvatore Lanza, Tullio Pesaro and Enrico Garofalo. All were from Lombardy or the Veneto except Salvatore, who was from Sicily. They were all large, strong men who would have larger, stronger appetites. Mariano Lucchesi and Sergio Tedesco owned farms nearby and would return home in the evening – two fewer to feed. Amelia didn’t know if they had wives.

  She made the first huge pot of tea and carried it to them. Some sat on the benches, and others brought chairs from the house. Although they spoke of this and that, each man knew his part and went about it. Tullio filled a dozen canvas waterbags and hung them from the edge of the verandah’s roof like washing. Immediately they began to seep, dripping profusely, but with refillings they’d be cured and watertight by morning. Italo brought a wooden case to the verandah. Each man drew a broad knife, those ones she’d seen in the fields. They were new, the light glinting on t
he metal. From the men’s talk, the blade would last only one season. She picked one, judged it in her hand. They were heavy, and she marvelled at the men’s strength to wield them like a butterknife for an entire day. She returned to the kitchen and brought the scones she’d baked earlier in the afternoon. As they talked, with care and practised ease they stroked a file along the blade’s edge. Some had the opinion that five or six more seasons and they’d return to Italy with enough money, as much as £500, to build new lives.

  Italo neither affirmed nor negated their assertions. It was something, this idea of returning to Italy, amongst so many things they hadn’t yet had a chance to discuss. But it seemed odd the men thought they could build new lives in old Italy. This was their new life. Couldn’t they see that?

  But then their talk turned to the job at hand and she knew to step back, as she had no part in this. And by four-thirty they decided the day had cooled and the wind had dropped sufficiently to burn the cane. The men thanked her as they left the verandah, ambling to the fields in front of the house. Italo kissed her cheek.

  The other men were now far from the verandah. She drew herself to her full height on her toes and kissed his cheek, the act so quick it left her with no great sensation. When she returned her heels to the verandah, he smiled.

  ‘Once this harvest is done,’ he said, ‘we’ll have a few quieter days.’

  He walked towards the rest of the gang. Smaller and smaller they became, until they were swallowed by the fields.

  She took the tray of cups to the kitchen. It was good the men worked together, in a collective. Why wouldn’t they? It made sense to share the precious resources of labour and equipment. What one gained no-one lost. They weren’t competing for a price. Even she and Maria were a collective of this type, as she would help Maria cook for the gang when Dante’s cane was harvested.

  She was unsure what time the men would return, so she’d make a simple stew for dinner, which would keep. Despite the volume of the ingredients, she soon had it simmering, suspended high over the fire. But first she smelt it, this cloying scent of smoke in the air, and walked out to the verandah. From there she could hear it, a rushing noise, this cracking and crackling. The flames reached high above the cane heads, a rain of orange cinders. Her pulse rose. Such a sight induced fear, though she was told it was done on purpose and wasn’t a concern.