by Mary Contini
Map of the Fontitune/Picinisco area
‘Brava, Maria. My son is happy.’
‘So am I.’
After a rest, they all had to get back to work. Tadon Michele took charge.
‘Come on boys, wake up. We’ve still got work to do!’
During the morning any scraps and odd pieces of pork had been chopped and tossed into a big wooden tub. They were mixed with dried fennel, coriander seeds, crushed peperoncino, ground black pepper and coarse sea salt. From time to time the women mixed it with their hands, adding red wine to encourage the pork and fat to absorb the flavour of the spices. After leaving it in the cold air it was eventually ready to be made into the spicy sausage, salsiccie.
Alfonso lifted the huge wooden tub onto the table. The dried intestines were cut and checked to see that there were no tears and blemishes.
The men set to work. Skilfully and easily they tied knots into the ends of the casings, then stuffed handfuls of the flavoured meat mixture, rhythmically caressing the salsiccie so that the meat was packed in tightly, massaging them to expel any air, twisting the ends and tying them with string, weaving sausage after sausage, stringing ten or twelve at a time. Once each string was made, the younger boys who watched and learned took the salsiccie to the back smoky room and hung them up beside the prosciutto from the rafters to dry.
Pietro, Alfonso’s older brother, had a passion for the seasoning in the sausage. All spring he collected herbs and spices from La Montana, dried them and mixed them ready for the day of the pig. His salsiccie were stuffed into one long casing, about a foot in length and bent over like a hook, and dried hanging from a wooden pole. Over the years Pietro’s salsiccie had built up a reputation for being the tastiest. They were chewy and moist, quite spicy, not too hot, with hints of flavour from fennel seed and cumin.
Sometimes he rendered down some fat and stored the sausages buried deep in the pure white lard. These were moist and juicy, creamy and mouth-watering.
As the men finished making the last sausages the women called to the children to help with the tidying up. Each child had a task, rewarded by the absence of a slap across the head. They worked as hard as the adults, scrubbing down the table, pulling water from the well, carrying the pots to the wash tub in the piazza and scrubbing them clean with cold water and a wooden brush. Finally the piazza was swept with a bundle of twigs made into a broom.
This pig was not the only one to meet its fate that day. Pigs and hogs had been slaughtered in villages all over the valley. From the valley below, the bells of the two churches in Picinisco started to ring out. The evening celebrations were about to begin.
2
Fontitune was a tiny hamlet of a dozen or so houses. They were strung along a dirt path leading to the summit of Monte La Meta, the highest mountain on the Abruzzo/Lazio border, north of Monte Cassino. The centuries-old houses were simple: two thick-walled stone rooms stacked one on top of the other. A narrow door allowed access; thin slits in the walls provided scant light and air. Each dwelling butted against the next, slightly higher than the previous, as they snaked their way single file up the side of the hill.
There was a small piazza edged by a low stone wall. A steep dirt-track, passable only on foot or by ass, led down to the village of Picinisco, about an hour’s walk away. An ancient stone well provided plenty of clean, fresh water, each bucket-load pulled heavily up by a makeshift crank at the side.
The Crollas had lived in Fontitune for generations. Working as self-sufficient shepherds, their lives were exceedingly hard. In the winter, often cut off by snow for weeks on end, they survived with cunning and resilience. Bitterly cold nights gave way to bright clear days. With only wood for fuel, a fire in the single large grate in the ground-floor room of each house provided the only heat. At night the animals shared this room, their dirt and stench tolerated for the welcome warmth generated by their body heat. The families slept huddled together on rough corn sheaves piled on the earthen floor of the room above.
Fontitune, c. 1890
The stony earth with sparse topsoil produced meagre crops of vines, olives, tomatoes, corn and wheat. Some houses had side rooms, used to store their preserved foods to last through the winter. Tomatoes, cooked and bottled in the late summer, took pride of place beside flagons of olive oil. Staples of dried beans and chick peas were essential; sacks of dried corn and wheat stood ready to be ground into polenta and flour to make bread and pasta. Herbs and spices collected from the hills hung drying from the beams. Barrels of home-made wine were stacked high at the back, furthest from the entrance. Precious stores of salt and coffee were kept hidden in locked chests.
Shelves were planks of wood wedged between the walls. Hand-made pecorino was preserved in wicker baskets. Fresh goat’s milk ricotta dripped its whey into a bucket below. The hams and sausages from the pig would be hung from the rafters, preserved to last until the following year.
While the men had been making the sausages and the children cleaning up, the women of the village had started to prepare La Maialata, the feast of the pig. Every part of the animal that could be, had been preserved and cured, salted and dried. The fresh pork that was left would be eaten in the next few days. Soon the forty days’ fasting for Lent would begin, so they would all make the most of this opportunity.
By six o’clock it was almost dark. The women were nearly ready. The dishes were made to recipes and rituals handed down from mother to daughter. The ingredients never changed, the dishes cooked with respect: la noglia, l’jumacche Fellate di Sant’ Antonio, i piedi di porco – food that sounded like magic potions and tasted of nostalgia.
The women cooked together: mothers and daughters-in-law, sisters and cousins, all gossiping and laughing. They had all heard by now that Alfonso had kissed Maria then pushed her away, and the afternoon was spent deliciously analysing what he might be up to.
The men often spent large periods of time away from their families, either up on the pastures with the sheep or, in the winter, down on the plains at the coast, wintering their flocks away from the snows. This made the women fiercely independent and over-protective of their families, especially their sons. They endured the hardships and danger of survival in the mountains with great courage.
Recently and more ominously, the men had been absent because of war. Alfonso and his brothers had already completed two years of National Service, and in the previous year they had fought in the Italian war against Libya.
Tadon Michele and many of the older men also left the village to look for work away from the mountains. When they came back they talked of cities and trains and opportunity. When he was younger, Tadon Michele had walked from city to city ending up in Paris, London then Manchester and finally, Edinburgh. Playing his pipes and singing shepherds’ songs he had slept rough in doorways and parks. He had saved every penny and had come back with more money than they had ever seen.
He told them that there were itinerant Abruzzesi everywhere. In any town or city you just had to ask a few questions and before long you’d find small groups of peasants selling chestnuts, sharpening knives, working on farms, anything that they did at home. He used to laugh when he told the women how much money the people in cities had and how easily they gave it away. For people like them, who had so little money and bartered their produce to survive, this was a complete mystery.
Thank God, every time Tadon Michele had gone, he had come back safely. Some of the men didn’t come back. Some men got into trouble and ended up in prisons. Some men went further and took huge ships and travelled to America, journeys that took weeks on the ocean. One of the boys from Picinisco, Angelo Conetta, had gone to America with his wife, one of the Di Ciacca girls. Her mother hadn’t seen her daughter in ten years.
Tonight was not the time to worry about such things. The older children had started to lay out jugs of water and flagons of wine on the tables. The wood-fired bread oven at the side of the third house had been lit in the morning and the women placed the large dark
crusty loaves they had baked on the table. A huge round pastone, pie with egg, ricotta, cured ham and sausage, had been baked slowly in the oven as it cooled. It was placed ceremoniously in the centre of the table.
A huge tin pan was full of bubbling golden corn polenta; young Carmella, Maria’s niece, was stirring it constantly with a long wooden stick. Bitter winter greens collected from the side of the hill were fried with garlic, spicy peperoncino and thick green olive oil, pressed just weeks earlier.
The pork ribs were rubbed liberally with crushed fennel seeds, salt and olive oil and some of the fresh sausages were skewered on sticks. They were laid in the embers of the fire to grill slowly, the fat browning as the flesh near the bones stayed juicy, the appetising smells of spice and chilli filling the air. As fat melted it spat into the flames, creating mouth-watering aromas of sweet pork and rosemary, bay and wild thyme. Maria had slowly cooked some fine sliced onions with chopped garlic and peperoncino in warmed green olive oil. She stirred it with a wooden spoon so the onions melted down and didn’t singe or burn. She had collected the pieces of pork that she needed, the tail and the ears, la coda e le orecchie. Once they had seared in the heat she covered them with a thick red blanket of tomatoes that had been cooked and bottled in the late summer. She crumbled in some basil that had been hanging to dry and covered the pot with the lid balanced on the spoon. She cooked her sugo slowly and let it bubble and splutter till it reduced perfectly.
Alfonso came over and pulled her to him as she bent over the pot: ‘Will it be good?’
She tilted her head to one side, and shrugged her shoulders. Alfonso always wanted to tease her. She was annoyed with him now. She was tired. She just wanted him to be sweet.
‘Certo! Of course!’ She snapped at him.
She loved him but they’d not had much time on their own. She was still getting to know him. She pushed him away. This just encouraged him and he laughed and kissed her on the lips. She blushed. She felt embarrassed in front of her mother-in-law and Tadon Michele, but as she stood up they clapped and laughed. The children, sensing the mood, shouted to anyone who would listen as they danced around the fire,
‘Zia Maria è innamorata di Alfonso! Bacio! Bacio!’
This gave Alfonso every excuse to kiss her again, this time holding her so close she couldn’t breathe. When he let her go she stumbled backwards and had to hang on to him to stop herself falling. Everyone let out a roar of approval and cheered. She blushed again and then burst out laughing.
Since Christmas hundreds of long reeds had been collected and tied together with vine branches and piled fifty feet high. These bundles, fascie, were put in place at the entrance and the exit of the hamlet, a traditional symbol of safety and defence of the community.
As soon as the sun set, the men lit the fascie, waiting till it blazed, burning wildly in the night breeze and illuminating the dark that had descended so quickly. As they looked out across the valley they saw bonfires being lit at all the other villages and hamlets. The valley looked breathtaking, as if the stars and angels had fallen from the sky and were hovering, protecting every group of houses.
The food was all ready, set on the table. As she had done every year, as her mother had done before her, Filomena brought a huge steaming bowl of pasta and beans, sannie e fagioli, held high above her head, in honour of Sant’Antonio Abate. In ancient, pagan times, borlotti beans, the fagioli, were the symbol of death. Religion was cooked up with superstition. The scraps of thick pasta were mixed with pancetta and soft, juicy beans swimming in rich tomato soup. Everyone cheered as it was brought to the table, and they all made the sign of the cross.
‘In nome del Padre, del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo …’
Then the feasting began.
After they had eaten the pasta, Maria’s sugo with pasta, ribs, costelette, and the sausages, and they had all drunk plenty of wine, the older boys took up their pipes and began to sing the ancient laments they had learned from their grandfathers. They took little notice of the underlying meaning that warned of the continual battle of good and evil, of life and death. After a while they made their way with the single men down to Picinisco to play their pipes in the streets throughout the night. They would frighten the inhabitants with stories of the struggle Sant’Antonio had with the Devil and with luck earn some money or food as a reward.
The children sat beside the old grandmothers while they terrified them with the ancient stories of Sant’Antonio Abate. He was the patron saint of the pig, although, to be frank, he had abandoned the poor pig today. They told the children how the holy man fought with the Devil and resisted his remorseless temptations. Tomorrow was his feast day and they would all go down to Picinisco for the annual blessing of the animals.
As if to make sure the Devil knew not to come near them, the women all began to chant the evening prayer of thanksgiving. The children knelt and joined in the rosary:
‘Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi, peccatori, adesso e nell’ora della nostra morte, Amen.’
Every time the children had to chant the final words ‘at the hour of our death’ they shivered with terror in the dark. The fire of the fascie blazed mysteriously and the animals wailed out as if in sympathy for the unfortunate pig.
Once the women had tidied and the fascie had been made safe, they all drifted off to bed. Husband, wife, children and paternal grandparents slept together on the mats in the top room of their houses.
Alfonso, accustomed to sleeping in the open, pulled Maria aside and laid her down on a makeshift bed beside the smouldering embers of the reeds. He wrapped his dark cloak and sheepskin round them and they lay awake under the stars, whispering. The moonlight cast strange shadows. The air was freezing cold; their breath lingered like mist. The mountains loomed darkly all around them.
‘Maria, this will be our last Maialata in Fontitune. This will be the last winter you will have to struggle. Our baby, se Dio vuole, will not have to endure this life.’
Maria shivered. She was afraid of Alfonso’s plans for them to leave Fontitune as soon as the baby was born and go to live in Scotland. He had been away so many times before: for National Service, then to the war. That was bad enough. She had been terrified he would be killed. Terrified he would lose a limb or come back blinded like the boy in Picinisco.
Alfonso and a lot of the young men were full of talk about emigrating, about leaving to live in another country, leaving their homes and their families.
‘You know, cuore mio,’ he continued, sensing her body stiffen, ‘we have no choice. Do you understand? We can’t live here. It’s impossible. You know Tadon Michele has only a little land. He has to divide it among four sons. All with wives and families to feed – e impossibile! The pig today, between eight families! So we raise two pigs … but nothing will change. It is impossible to continue here.’
‘Alfonso, I know all the boys are talking like this. But I am afraid. I don’t want to leave here. I am strong; our children will be strong. We’ll survive, as our grandparents and great-grandparents survived before us. Why do you want to throw away all we have? Risk all we have here?’
Alfonso held her closer and kissed her cheek. He stroked her hair. They had talked about this many times. He knew she didn’t want to go.
‘Cara, you must trust me. It’s a greater risk not to go. Remember, I’ll be with you all the time. I’ll look after you.’
‘But I can’t speak English. I can’t read. I can’t write. I know nothing of Scotland.’
‘You are young. You are clever. You’ll learn everything. You must trust in God.
He will look after us. He always protects us. And I promise you, Maria, carissima, I’ll be with you all the time. I promise you, avanti a Dio, I’ll never leave you.’
Maria fell silent. She couldn’t argue with him any more. His mind was made up. Gradually he fell asleep. His young wife lay awake beside him, thoughts racing through her mind. She was terrified of leaving her home, terrified of what lay ahead. He was right.
She had no choice. He was her husband and she would have to follow him anywhere.
She would trust in God: she started to say her prayers, ‘Santa Maria, Madre di Dio’, imploring the Madonna to protect them and guide them; invoking the Blessed Heart of Jesus to shield them from harm; beseeching Sant’Antonio to pray for them, ‘Sant’Antonio, prega per noi.’
She thought about the faith that her parents had: an unconditional faith in the Will of God. She would believe too. She would abandon herself to the Will of God. God would protect them and guide them. Dio vede e provede. God sees and provides. All would be well. Fortified by prayer, she fell into a deep sleep.
Having scented the blood of the pig, a pack of wolves circled the houses. The burning fascie kept them at bay but they howled in frustration. Clouds had descended between the mountains, obscuring any light from the fading moon. The sky was pitch black. The wolves howled again, even louder.
Maria awoke with a start. A cold wave of fear gripped her heart. In her nightmare she had seen Sant’Antonio fighting with a fierce wolf, a wolf with the face of the Devil. She was overcome with an overwhelming premonition of danger. She turned to Alfonso and held him close. What did this mean? What terrible evil lay ahead of them?
3
Picinisco, Italy
17 January 1913
The whole village of Fontitune was up well before dawn. Before they could leave for Picinisco they had to carry out all the daily chores. Maria and Serafina, her sister, built up the fire, lit it again and refilled the pot with water from the well. They called young Carmella to help and within half an hour the water was starting to warm up. The remains of the evening’s festivities had all been tidied away. Alfonso and Pietro gathered the ashes from the previous night’s bonfires and spread it in the area where the sheep would be milked in the spring. They believed this would protect their sheep from the evil eye, malocchio.