Dear Olivia

by Mary Contini

  Maria had brought three small cheeses balanced on a roped cloth on her head. She had given one to Don Dioniso as an offering at the blessing of the animals. By the end of the day he’d collected enough food to tempt him for a further six weeks, all through Lent. Now she looked to the stalls to see what she could find that might be needed through the rest of the winter. It would snow tonight. They might be cut off until spring.

  The stalwart stall-holders made their way up to Picinisco, struggling on the zig-zag road from the bottom of the mountain, carrying their wares. They knew what the paesani needed. They would argue and barter with price, trading their produce for pecorino, sheeps’ skins, wild herbs and rare seeds.

  Some stalls had pots and pans, cheap aluminium cups, tin plates and cutlery. One stall had piles of salt cod, baccalà, that had been imported from Norway and Scotland; the cod was soaked, rinsed and cooked during the fast days of Lent. From the baker’s shop in Atina, the nearest town in the valley below, there were boys with long poles threaded with bombolone, Don Dioniso’s favourite giant doughnuts. There was a stall with nails and string, all sizes, and hammers and bric-à-brac, and many stalls with piles of clothes: shirts and trousers, boots and hats, jackets and waistcoats, all secondhand or older. One stall-holder from Naples sold nuts and pistacchi, torrone and sweatmeats. Another stall was piled high with Amalfi oranges and lemons.

  A man played a barrel organ. The shepherd boys played their pipes, holding out a can to collect lire; asking for coins for music was not regarded as begging. A crippled boy sat brandishing a picture of La Madonna di Canetto. He was abandoned. Society, fearful of disease and disability, shunned the disabled. Within the family it was hidden and denied. A black man, tall and sinewy with many hoops around his long neck, held eight monkeys, each on a thin red lead tied to a collar dangling with noisy bells. The monkeys crawled over his shoulders and his back; the children swarmed around him, fascinated.

  Maria traded a cheese for a pungent, salty side of baccalà. She had dried plums in the summer, which she would cook with the cod to add sweetness. She rummaged among the clothes and chose a thick black cloak which she would give to Alfonso as a gift when their new baby was born. The stall-holder parcelled the baccalà in some brown paper for her and she tied it together with the cloak, rolled up into a parcel to carry home.

  At the next big market in the spring she and the women from Fontitune would set up a stall of their own to sell pecorino and fresh ricotta.

  Her business done, Maria looked for the youngsters, who were all congregated at la fontana. This ancient fountain provided a constant stream of ice-cold mountain water to the houses around the piazza. It was a natural meeting place, under the naked canopy of the ancient oak tree that acted as a giant sunshade in the height of summer.

  Maria sat on the shallow wall that overlooked the valley below. The dirt road winding up and up to the heights of Picinsico could be seen snaking its way across the valley, miles away in the distance and then up and up to the mountain at the other side. Corner hair-pin bends, one after the other, so steep that the twice-weekly bus that brought visitors, news and provisions swung out precariously over the edge at every turn. Donkeys and horses attempting the climb laden with parcels struggled to prevent themselves sliding and tumbling over the edge. This town had been built in a strategic position, so that enemies could not approach unnoticed. At night the lights from the villages of the surrounding mountains created a stunning panorama for miles around.

  The company of families opened parcels of bread and sausage, some cheese and a few pears and settled down to eat. Some of their Piciniscani cousins joined them to catch up with news. As always, the men broke away and went to find a free space to eat and talk in peace! Maria was sitting with her mother, Arcangela, who had come with her cousin Marietta. They lived in I Ciacca, a small hamlet of farm buildings down the hill below Picinisco. Though they lived barely five miles apart, they saw each other rarely in winter as visits to Picinsico were few and far between.

  Marietta had been born in London, her father one of the earlier opportunists. He had walked north with his family and lived in Paris for some years, then had moved on to London. Things were almost worse in London than here. The dreadful overcrowding in Clerkenwell, London’s Little Italy of the late 1890s, was intolerable. Disease and infection were rife. Her father had played a barrel organ with a monkey just like the ones in the piazza, holding out a cup to collect pennies. Eventually he progressed to selling ice cream off horse-drawn wagons in the parks of London along with scores of other immigrant Italians.

  Marietta, c. 1915

  But life in London proved to be too difficult and, when Marietta was still young, seven or eight, they came back to Picinisco, although Laura, her eldest sister, had married and stayed behind in London. Her mother’s health never recovered from the cold and damp of the city and, sadly, she died. Marietta, now aged sixteen, lived with her ageing father and her brothers.

  ‘How is Compare Giovanni?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Not bad. He’s getting older you know, he’s a bit slower than he was. Alessandro is doing fine. It’s amazing how he manages.’ Alessandro, six years her senior, had lost a leg in a road accident with a speeding horse and carriage in Paris when he was a young boy, a thing that had distressed his mother terribly.

  Marietta went quiet, thinking about her mother. She looked out over the valley and thought how beautiful it was; how calm and peaceful. Marietta was in love with Picinisco.

  Maria wanted to talk to her young cousin. She pulled her over to sit on the wall beside her.

  ‘Marietta, have you heard that Alfonso wants to go to Scotland? He wants me to follow him after the baby is born. I’m worried sick. How on earth can I manage to live in a country where I can’t speak the language? I can’t read. I can’t write!’

  Marietta was concerned for her friend but tried not to show it. She had seen how her own mother had struggled and found it very difficult to cope away from home. She tried to reassure Maria. ‘It will be fine, Maria. It will be fine. Scotland sounds like a nicer place than London, a much nicer country. I imagine it’s not unlike here, with mountains and hills and lovely lakes.’

  ‘But I cannot speak English like you!’

  Marietta was lucky. She could speak English and Italian perfectly. She could read and write. She had gone diligently to the Italian Sunday school and, unlike most Italians, her mother had let her go to the local school as well. She missed some things about London.

  ‘Maria, cara, the only thing I can say is give it a try. You’ll be able to learn English, and your lovely baby when it’s born will learn to speak both languages, like me. It will learn to read and write. And you can always come back again like my mamma.’ They both fell silent at this. Marietta’s mother had come home to die.

  The men had moved towards the General Store, which enterprisingly had kept its doors open and placed a couple of wooden tables and some chairs outside. Giovanni Di Ciacca, Marietta’s father, was talking to Maria’s cousins, Cesidio, Gerardo, Vito and Louis. Cesidio was in uniform, home on leave during his National Service. The boys were tall and similar in looks; they formed a powerful image. A litre flask of wine lay half-empty in front of them. A game of scopa, the Neapolitan card game, lay abandoned as the boys talked animatedly together.

  They all stood up to greet their uncle, Tadon Michele, and Alfonso, Pietro and Emidio. They greeted each other with genuine affection, kissing on both cheeks and embracing each other. The young men were all in their early twenties, some newly married, some single. They were cousins and second cousins, their families inter-marrying for many generations. Cesidio poured some wine for the newcomers and they toasted each other.

  ‘Sant’Antonio!’ They toasted the Saint: hands raised, glasses chinked, wine knocked back.

  Cesidio De Ciacca, c. 1915

  ‘Viva l’Italia!’ Glasses chinked, wine knocked back. The glasses were all refilled, generously.

  They loved this game a
nd, in turn, called out a toast:

  ‘Don Dioniso!’ With a roar of laughter the last of the wine was despatched. They all sat down, pulling chairs and boxes out from the shop.

  ‘Well, Alfonso,’ began Cesidio, ‘come stai?’

  ‘Good. Good. Grazie a Dio, the war is over. Why we had to fight those poor people I’ll never know, but it’s done now. Looks like it’s successful and things will settle down. How long do you have to serve, Compare?’

  The boys’ parents were godparents to each other’s children. They called the older men compare as a mark of respect. The relationships between them all were very close, not least because they all lived close to Picinisco: the Crollas up in Fontitune, the Di Ciaccas in a string of rough farmhouses below the village on the other side of the hill.

  ‘We should be home by the spring, Grazie a Dio. Who would have thought that we would be called up? I don’t know what they are training us for. We should be fighting here, for our families. I am not interested in war, for God’s sake. We have enough to do here, staying alive!’

  Tadon Michele spoke up.

  ‘Ragazzi, attenzione! Do what you have to do but keep your heads down. We don’t need any heroes here. The world is dangerous. Things are changing so fast. God knows what the future will bring.’

  Alfonso put his hand into his back pocket and brought out a crumpled folded envelope. It was addressed to him with a strange blue stamp, unfamiliar to the younger boys in the group. The post-mark was Edinburgh. Alfonso opened it and pulled out a photograph. He passed it to Cesidio.

  Cesidio (far left) and his brothers in the piazza at Picinisco, c. 1913

  ‘Zio Benedetto Crolla and his wife and three children. They’re standing outside their shop. It’s near the port, not a stone’s throw from where he landed in Scotland when he got off the ship from Antwerp. Can you believe it? He has his own shop! And here’s a picture of Giovanni. He looks pretty good, don’t you think?’

  Giovanni, Alfonso’s older brother, and his cousin Benny had left for Edinburgh four years ago, working for the De Marco family, some of whom had emigrated ten years previously.

  The boys pored over the photograph, intrigued. The two arched windows of the shop were full of boxes of glasses of ice creams, displays of packets of cigarettes and boxes of chocolates. Signs embedded in the glass read ‘Cadbury’s’ and ‘Fry’s’.

  Gerardo had the least English. ‘Fry? Has he got a fish and chip shop?’

  Tadon Michele laughed. ‘No, it’s a brand of chocolate.’

  They laughed, and when Tadon read out the name scripted above the door in bold Roman letters, ‘Crolla Newhaven’, they applauded and cheered.

  ‘Crolla Newhaven!’

  They spontaneously stood up and raised their glasses again and good-humouredly saluted their relative.

  ‘Benedetto Crolla Newhaven!’

  Everyone in the piazza looked over to see what the commotion was about. Those young men! They were always excited about something!

  They all sat down again. Tadon Michele looked at his son. ‘Alfonso, what does the letter say? How is Giovanni? What does he say?’

  Alfonso lowered his voice. ‘Papà, Giovanni says there is work for Emidio and me and whoever else wants to come. He says life is easier. The people there don’t want to work in ice cream shops. There are plenty of places to open, with no competition. He says people there are happy to buy chocolates and cigarettes and ice cream from Italians. There are even one or two cafés. Zio Benny says he’ll give me a job, show me how to do the work and then I can rent a shop of my own.’

  ‘It’s all very well to talk about it, Alfonso, but you know I tried. It’s not easy. The journey will take you three weeks at least. And what about the immigration authorities? They’re watching all the time. I’ve heard you need to pay now. You can’t just come and go like we used to.’

  ‘No, Papà, don’t worry. You don’t have to pay. You need to show that you can look after yourself, that you have a job to go to. If you have five pounds they let you in.’

  ‘Where will you get five pounds, Alfonso?’ Cesidio had his doubts.

  Alfonso almost jumped up with excitement. ‘Here! Ecco qua! Ecco qua! Guarda! Here is the key to my future!’

  With a flourish he pulled an envelope from his pocket and carefully extracted a pale cream coloured, folded paper. He opened it out and smoothed it on the table. Here was a large, imposing scrolled note: The Clydesdale Bank Limited, Five Pounds Sterling. He passed it round, all the boys looking at it in wonder. Where in heaven’s name had he got that?

  Alfonso had the knack of making things happen that seemed impossible.

  Emidio examined it carefully and handed it back.

  ‘That’s all very well, Alfons’… that will get you past im-migration. It won’t do me much good!’

  ‘Non ti preoccupare! Giovanni says you show it to the immigration man, cause a bit of a rumpus and when he isn’t looking you pass it to the man behind. Last year twenty-six Neapolitans got in with one five-pound note!’

  They all laughed and cheered again. The combination of the wine, the feast day and the camaraderie filled them all with an infectious, ingenuous optimism.

  Now they all wanted to emigrate.

  Cesidio was still not swayed. A quiet boy, cautious and thoughtful, he had seen much hardship already in his family from this obsession with immigration. Half of his family – cousins, uncles and aunts – were all over the place.

  ‘Look at you, Zio Giovanni,’ he went on, a little agitated, ‘You tried all this. You’ve been to Paris and to London. What happened? Tell them the truth! Tell them the truth!’ He almost shouted, ‘You lived in a dirty room in a filthy tenement with twenty families all around you, with rats and disease and dirt. What fortune is that? Tell them. Tell them. It’s not as easy as it sounds!’

  Cesidio stopped almost as soon as he had started and went quiet. He felt bad, because in fact he admired all the men who had had the courage to take the chance. It was the strong ones who left, the ambitious ones. The cautious, apprehensive ones stayed here.

  So many had gone, so many: from every family in every village, gone. To Paris, London, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh, New York, Moscow, so many names, so many places. They had all gone, anywhere to get away from this vanishing way of life, anywhere to get a new start.

  While he was thinking, Marietta came across and joined the group. She nodded to the young men, modest in her behaviour, and kissed her uncle, Tadon Michele, and her father.

  ‘Papà, it’s getting late. I’m going down with my cousins to prepare the meal. Francesco will be wondering where I am.’

  Her father smiled at her, ‘Vai. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  She nodded and turned to walk away. As she turned she caught sight of Cesidio looking at her. It was as if something dawned on him as he looked at her, as if something had suddenly become clear. She didn’t know why, but she blushed. Before her father noticed, she called her cousins, moving away quickly down the hill.

  The Crolla boys stood up as well and said their good-byes. It was past three o’clock now and it was time to get home before dark. It might even snow by the looks of things. The stall-holders were starting to tidy up. There was debris and discarded rubbish all over the now muddied piazza. The band members were hanging around the door of the church, packing away all their instruments. They were hoping for a share of Don Dioniso’s collection, but they would be disappointed.

  Alfonso went to look for Maria, excited to show her the letter.

  Marietta was quiet as they walked down the hill. She sent her cousins on ahead to start the fire. She needed a moment to think. She went to the top field where the goats were waiting. The sky had turned into a glorious tapestry of watery blue and apricot cloud, the setting sun’s rays rippling out all over the horizon.

  Would she ever go back to Britain to live? Should she warn Maria how hard it had been? And Cesidio? Had she imagined it? Why had he looked at her so o
ddly? She had known Cesidio since she had returned to Italy. They were second cousins. He was twenty, four years older than her, but she hadn’t seen him for about a year since he had been away in the army.

  She gazed at La Meta, lost in her thoughts. It was beautiful here: so peaceful.

  When she heard a twig snap she turned round with a start. It was Cesidio. Standing tall above her, he looked straight into her eyes and held her gaze. He screwed up his eyes a little, giving them a sleepy inquisitive look. Not a word passed between them.

  She felt herself blush again.

  He put out his hand and took hers. The rules in this peasant community were clear. Young people of the opposite sex did not talk to each other, far less meet alone. Girls were strictly chaperoned and their innocence was protected fiercely. Marriages were often arranged, and any hint of scandal meant the girl would never marry.

  Marietta was shocked that he had touched her. She opened her mouth to object, fearful of his intentions. He immediately realised his mistake and dropped her hand, taking a step back.

  ‘Forgive me. Mi scusi, Marietta, carissima. I know I shouldn’t have followed you but I cannot help myself. Do you understand? I had to talk with you.’

  Somehow, without even thinking, she nodded. She did understand. Her heart tumbled in her breast, the feeling making the back of her neck shiver and her legs buckle beneath her. She sank to the ground. Cesidio knelt down in front of her.

  ‘Marietta, I need to tell you something. I need to tell you that I love you. Marietta, ti voglio bene. While I have been away I have thought of you all the time, only of you. I know now I can love only you.’

  Marietta was overwhelmed. She knew only that she felt completely safe, secure with this young man beside her.

  ‘Will you wait for me? I need to go away again, but will you wait for me?’