Dear Olivia

by Mary Contini

  Margherita Crolla, aged 2

  When Alfonso told Maria, she slumped against him, shocked. She had been living with the terror of this thought for a year and, now that the inevitable had happened, she collapsed. They had a new baby girl, Margherita. Domenico was nearly walking. Maria was expecting again. When you married, babies came, one after the other.

  ‘Oh Dio! Madonna mia! Oh Dio, aiutaci! God help us!’

  Alfonso stroked her hair and gently reassured her.

  ‘Cara, senti. It had to happen. We couldn’t escape this. I don’t want to leave you. But I have no choice. I must join with our new country and fight for peace. How could we men stay here, safe, when our neighbours are at war?

  ‘Now listen, I’ve been preparing. You and the children will be all right. I have saved up some money and I have already spoken to Mrs Glen and the women in the shop. They’re going to stay with you and help you. It’s best if you keep the shop going for as long as you can.’

  ‘What about the children? What about the new baby?’

  ‘The other wives will be here, Preziosa and Carolina. They’ll help you. We haven’t had our call-up papers yet, but I doubt if Zio Benny will be called up. He’s older. He’ll be here and will help you if you are in trouble. We’ve spoken about it.’

  ‘Can I not go home? Can I please go home? Alfonso, I could just pack everything up and go with the children.’

  ‘It’s too late, Maria. The borders are all closed. C’è niente da fare. There’s nothing we can do. There’s no way back.’

  What if Alfonso never came back? She convinced herself this was impossible. It was too terrible a thought to contemplate. He had always been lucky. He was right. There was nothing they could do. Once she accepted the inevitability of the situation Maria’s stoicism took over and she made up her mind to be calm for Alfonso and do her best. Like so many millions of women around Europe, the last thing she wanted was to allow her husband to go to war worrying or distressed about his wife. She held him close and promised him she would be strong.

  That night Alfonso went to the shop at Elm Row to meet the men. They were all there, about twenty of them, sitting round the table or standing by the fire: fine, young Italian men, cousins, brothers, in-laws, strong, handsome and full of life. There was an air of expectation about them. The anticipation of returning to Italian soil, even at this price, was exhilarating.

  The older men were subdued. Emidio and a cousin had their call-up papers already. Giovanni read the instructions for them.

  Emidio listened carefully.

  ‘I’m relieved in a way. Waiting all year, not knowing what would happen, has been hell. Selling cigarettes to women whose men are fighting for peace is demeaning.’

  Alfonso was trying to be up-beat. ‘Look, lads, we need to make the best of this. I’ve heard that there have been big marches in London and Manchester supporting the Italians joining the war. We would have had to fight anyway. Thank God we’re with the British.’

  Giovanni agreed: ‘We’ll be fighting in the mountains, on the Austrian–Italian border. I’ve been there. When I came over to Scotland I took the route through the west edge of those mountains, through Bolzano. The terrain is not unlike the peaks of La Meta, but much higher. They’ll most likely be frozen, even in summer. But we’re used to living outside, hardened to the elements. You’ll see, it’ll be just like watching at night for the wolves on La Meta.’

  Alfonso spoke. ‘Only this time the wolves will be the Austrians. Poor souls.’

  Cesidio’s English was good. He had picked up more news than the others.

  ‘There’s a report that the Germans have captured thirty thousand Italian civilians, women and children who were trying to get over the Austrian border. They’re holding them as hostages. That’s reason enough to fight. This is a bad business, boys, a bad business.’

  He turned to Alfonso, worried about his fidanzata, ‘I wish Marietta was here already. I am afraid if the war moves south she may be caught up in it.’

  ‘As soon as you get leave,’ Zio Benny patted his back to reassure him, ‘go straight home. Marry her, and when things get better bring her here. Have you spoken to her father?’

  ‘Yes. He knows. Oh Madonna! It’s agony not to have her safe here beside me.’

  ‘She’ll be safe. Picinisco is remote. It should escape the fighting, surely.’

  The men started to make plans and talked late into the night. They gave each other details about their wives and children, their businesses and private things that they would not have shared before. Each took their turn. They trusted each other implicitly. They agreed who would look after their shops and keep their suppliers at bay. If they all worked together they might have businesses to come back to once this was over. Each promised faithfully to look after those who were left behind. The older men promised to keep an eye on the women, especially the younger ones.

  ‘Thank God we are on the side of Britain. I would not leave them here alone if we were on the other side. God knows what would happen.’

  Alfonso felt confused.

  ‘Governments! They play with our lives and our families just like footballs.’

  As the night wore on, the older men started to reminisce.

  ‘We had great leaders. Leaders who loved their men; they inspired us to fight for Italia. Garibaldi, Mazzini, Mameli – the sword, the brain, and the heart!’

  The camaraderie between the men was strong. They were in this thing together. They were used to spending long periods away from their wives. The bond between them was in-bred.

  As the wine bottle was emptied, their spirits rose and they toasted Garibaldi and the king, Vittorio Emanuele. Then they toasted King George V. They sang the National Anthem and then substituted the words to include their new allies. Things became increasingly hilarious.

  ‘Dall’gli Alpi a Sicilia!’

  ‘Dall’ Fontitune a Dover!’

  ‘Dall’ John o’ Groats a Picinisco!’

  Their allegiance to the Church and the family had expanded to take in an allegiance to their Motherland and their new adoptive country. They felt a purpose and a goal and were inspired with the idea of fighting. This was a chance to show their worth, a chance to prove themselves.

  Their call-up papers arrived over the next two weeks. The postman knocked on the door and, handing them the official envelope with the unusual Italian stamp, shook their hands.

  ‘Good luck, Mr Crolla.’

  ‘Good luck, Mr Coppola.’

  In the shops and cafés the regular customers who had always been a bit formal with the newcomers over the counter started to tip their hats and nod approvingly at these new allies.

  ‘Good lads, these Italians. Hard-working.’

  The women resigned themselves and prepared for the parting. They were used to the men leaving for months at a time; they convinced themselves this was not very different. Alfonso had said they were going to the Alps. It would be beautiful. He was going to Italian soil. Maria felt quite excited for him. He seemed strangely happy. He was optimistic. She noticed, however, that in church the Scottish women looked over at her with a look of pity. They knew what anxious nights she would have to spend alone, what agonising worry was ahead of her.

  Within weeks the men were gone.

  On Thursday 3 June they went with their wives and families on the train to Glasgow. The men joined a highly charged demonstration in George Square to celebrate Italy’s entry into the war. What a great day. Spirits were high, the Italian tricolour and the British Union Jack were flying together outside shops and government buildings. Their women and children joined the crowds on the street, waving flags and handkerchiefs, cheering and singing, wishing them well.

  The men looked handsome and romantic in their olive-grey uniforms, their swarthy skin and dark moustaches adding an air of recklessness that excited the crowd.

  An Italian band was playing enthusiastic war anthems alternating with popular British tunes, which the Italians didn’
t hesitate to join in. They carried a banner high above the crowd showing a cartoon of the Austrian Emperor being kicked by the boot of Italy, with the slogan ‘This boot is a bit cheugh for me!’ They had no real idea why they had to put the boot in. They didn’t think for one minute that ‘the boot’ would kick right back at them with double the force.

  They were naïve. Their Mother Country had called them to defend it and, as millions of other young men of other nationalities did, they marched to do their duty.

  Alfonso, Maria and young Domenico, c. 1915

  The trumpets sounded the beat.

  Parapum, Parapum, Parapum!

  They would die in their hundreds of thousands.

  They marched straight-backed and proud.

  Uno, due! Uno, due! Uno, due!

  They would be massacred by bullets and bombs.

  The drums thumped out the march.

  Boom, Boom, Boom!

  They would fall silently to their deaths.

  The crowds cheered in support.

  Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

  They would be blown to smithereens.

  The new front stretched 375 miles along the Austrian–Italian border. A war front fought on stunning mountain peaks at altitudes of 3,500 metres: frozen peaks that were rugged and dangerous, peaks that fell uncompromisingly to precipitous valleys along the Isonzo River, which flooded constantly in frequent torrential rain. Mountain peaks that were impossible to attack and foolish to defend.

  Alfonso and his compatriots joined other Italian emigrants from Manchester and London, New York and San Francisco. They joined mixed battalions of men from all over Italy. Sicilians fought alongside Milanesi, Abruzzesi alongside Venetians. For the first time in Italian history they fought as one nation, one country.

  It was a brutal, vertical war. The few kilometres of mountain tops that became the battleground were pulled and pushed between the two armies like a macabre tug-of-war. The loss of life was relentless, obscene.

  The rough, hardy Italian peasants of the South fared best. Luck was perhaps on their side. They had experience of the extreme temperatures and high altitudes, hunger and lack of good food were not unfamiliar, the sheer drops and deadly terrain were exactly like those of the mountains they came from.

  Nevertheless, some of these men were among the half-million Italians who lost their lives. They died from cholera and shrapnel, from grenades and bullets, from sinister splinters of brittle limestone that flew from blasted rocks and killed instantly, tearing through flesh like lethal arrows. Climbing up to the peaks in night-time marches they slipped from icy passes and fell pitifully, silently, to their deaths, without a cry so as not to alert the enemy.

  Corporal Alfonso Crolla was assigned to the artillery. There were chronic shortages of ammunition. To maintain stocks, the generals reduced the number of attacks on the enemy to separate intense battles, fifteen in all over the four years of the war. The temporary advantage gained in these battles cost unspeakable numbers of lives. The army resisted attack after attack and succeeded in maintaining the security of the plains of Italy behind them. It was a heroic endeavour.

  In between battles, when they left the front line and descended the mountain to the relief camps, life was more bearable. They could attend Mass and Confession, eat better food, wash and mend clothes, de-louse and generally build up their strength.

  They were taught to read and write – something that excited Alfonso. They met with other emigrant Italians and in the later part of the war fought alongside British regiments; therefore many learned English with London or American or Scottish accents, depending on who was in their battalion.

  Alfonso started to write letters to Maria. She still couldn’t read but he poured his heart out to her nevertheless. He told her how he missed her, how he longed to see her, how he was desperate for news of their baby and of his young family.

  How he longed for her. Moments of longing came when he least expected them. The sheer force of the feeling and raw emotion always caught him by surprise. It shocked him, delighted him and caused him physical pain, more severe than the freezing cold or the cuts on his body. He marvelled that he loved this woman so completely. It made him feel alive. He was so desperate to touch her again. His love for her left him overwhelmed and exhausted with unfulfilled desire. He willed himself to survive so that he could hold her again.

  One of the captains had a gramophone which he played most evenings: Italian opera, Verdi and Puccini, music that Alfonso learned to love. He recognised inspiring marching songs that he and his men had heard in Libya, ‘A Tripoli’, a rousing call to arms. They joined in, the words imprinted on their minds. The fast-moving tripping ‘March of the Bersaglieri’ had them up in droves mimicking the double-time march of the fearsome elite corps, and the ‘Garibaldi Hymn’, which Alfonso and his cousins had sung in the cellar of Elm Row with Zio Benny and Giovanni, brought tears to his eyes.

  So shocking was the raw destruction he witnessed that he hadn’t shed a tear in the battleground. But two bars of a familiar song had tears rolling down his cheeks.

  Alfonso was a courageous soldier. He used all his cunning and ingenuity to survive. Like the shepherd he was, he shone as a natural leader and was promoted to Senior Corporal. To him it was a true labour of love to lead his men, to inspire their courage. He felt their distress, fear and hopelessness in his own heart. As one by one they were maimed or killed, he grieved. Often they were simply shot through the head and tumbled from frozen ledges to their death. His anguish tore him apart, his spirit was crushed with pain.

  What excuse was there for war like this? What reward for those who were not lucky enough to die? Who could imagine hell like this?

  Through this journey of terror, hardship and longing, Alfonso found his Faith. His belief in God became the Truth. There had to be a higher reason beyond this futile waste. To watch death as random as this, to see one man die in the same second that another’s life was saved had to have a justification.

  Surely there had to be a greater reward for those whose lives were taken. It was the one who died who was blessed by God, taken from this living hell. He who was already in the arms of God, whose desires and longings were satisfied by a greater being: he was the one who understood and was at rest.

  Alfonso had found his God in the Now. His life became a prayer.

  11

  Edinburgh

  1916

  Maria’s faith was of a more practical nature. She thanked God for Mrs Glen.

  Maria was relieved when she realised the baby was on its way. She was anxious to get the birth over with. Mrs Glen sent a lad along to Elm Row to fetch Carolina, Emidio’s young wife.

  Carolina arrived just in time. Mrs Glen was trying to keep Domenico and Margherita away from their mother. They sensed something was happening and wanted to be near her. A farthing bar of Cadbury’s chocolate did the trick.

  The Scottish women living in the stair also sensed something was happening. They congregated at the front door so that they wouldn’t miss anything. They were suspicious of the Italian woman living alone with her two children. Her man was away at the war. Some of them fancied him; he was a ‘looker’ and always quick to hold the door open or say good morning in his husky voice with the lilting accent. They liked him. But she seemed odd to them.

  These women were even poorer than Maria. Since the war had started, there was precious little money in the till at the end of the day, but Maria had access to the produce she used in the shop. They watched enviously as she had a pint of gold-top milk delivered every morning. That was more than they had in a week.

  But their hostility towards her was temporarily put aside. She was having the bairn now. No good her dying and the poor wee bairns left on the parish. They nodded to the midwife when she arrived and moved aside to let her in. If things took a turn for the worse they would be happy to help: take the bairns for a while or get the doctor. It was unlikely they would be asked to help though.

 
; As it was, it took no more than three hours before they heard the baby cry, a loud healthy cry. It was a relief. It hit you in the stomach, that sound. A new-born Italian baby sounded much the same as one of their own. They had to admit, we’re all cut from the same cloth when you get down to basics like having a child.

  All week there was plenty of coming and going in Rossie Place. Everyone was thrilled that the baby was a boy! Alfonso would be so pleased. They must write a letter to let him know. Zio Benny’s wife arrived with a huge pot of chicken soup. The DeMarco and Valente women came bringing some hand-me-down baby clothes. The priest came and baptised the baby. Alfonso had left instructions: if it was a boy he was to be called Vittorio after the king of Italy.

  Maria asked the priest to add ‘Fortunato’, a lucky name that would bring this baby’s father home safely from the war.

  The women in the stair were kept going with gossip for a whole month, watching all these peculiar women and swarthy Italians coming and going. When they eventually bumped into Maria some of them had the courage to say hello and congratulate her and steal a look at the wee boy strapped to her chest. He had a shocking head of straight jet-black hair and sallow olive skin.

  One woman felt encouraged by his smile and slipped a farthing into the baby’s shawl as a lucky token. Maria didn’t understand this gesture of good luck and stepped back alarmed. The woman was affronted and thought Maria was rude. She walked off, insulted. ‘Bloody Eyeties!’

  An Italian Flag Day was being held the following weekend. The Italian women were all working feverishly, embroidering the Star of Italy on the corner of squares of white linen. The handkerchiefs were so delicately sewn and beautifully embroidered they would be able to sell them for sixpence each, along with little badges of the Italian national flag. The funds would go to the Italian Red Cross and the dependants of the men who had gone to war.