The Corsican Woman

by Madge Swindells

  Western ways had infiltrated the coastal cities, he said. Nowadays there was no time for friendship. Everyone was obsessed with profits and self-interest, but the result of their busy life-styles was the gradual erosion of man’s dignity and honour.

  There was only one person prepared to argue with Xavier, and that was Michel. Sybilia was surprised. Michel was loud in his scorn of his father’s opinions. No doubt the wine was giving him courage, she decided, and he was showing off. He was French, he told them. He was born French, and he would die French, and let no one say otherwise. He despised everything Corsican.

  The mutton stew was still delayed. They were waiting for Xavier’s elder brother, Francois Rocca and his wife, Lucilia, who were coming in a donkey cart from Asco. When they arrived the old woman had to be helped down from the cart, she was so weak. They were so thin they seemed almost translucent, but their manners were impeccable, and they kept smiling and nodding politely. Francois was a gentle old shepherd who, she discovered, guarded the Rocca clan’s flocks. His voice was soft, his movements curiously graceful, and he had a long white beard.

  Lunch was over, and the dishes were washed. The men were still arguing about Corsica’s plight. Only Francois had fallen asleep on the couch, a gentle smile on his face. Maria had abruptly disappeared.

  Sybilia wandered outside to the south side of the old house. Here the garden sloped steeply down for a hundred yards until it reached the cliffs edge, where it fell to the lake below. It could be lovely, she thought wistfully. Once, long ago, some industrious people had terraced the steep slope with waist-high stone walls. Now the weeds and wild bushes had claimed almost all of the garden, but here and there was a cultivated piece planted with garden herbs and vegetables. She found rows of onions where the ground was cleared around the base of the fruit trees, and almost toppling over the edge was a row of olive trees.

  In time I will make this garden lovely, she thought. It will be brilliant with flowers, as beautiful as the cemetery.

  She walked around to the north side of the garden, where the ground sloped steeply up toward the maquis and the mountains. On the garden’s eastern boundary a stream rushed toward the lake, bubbling over boulders and falling in a thousand small waterfalls past rushes and reeds. Tall stre-litzia and flags were still blooming, although past their best. There was hardly any sign of cultivation here, for the ground was rock hard in places. Thistles and myrtle and wild fig trees burst out of granite cracks, and there was a wide strip of cultivated land with small melons ripening in the sun.

  Suddenly she came across Madame Rocca, sitting on an old garden chair, gazing out over the valley. Her face showed her surprise.

  ‘To be honest, I’m not too fond of the Bonnellis,’ Maria explained, her eyes twinkling. ‘That’s a secret, you understand. When I’ve had enough I sit up here amongst the shrubs and the birds, and then I get a sense of peace. It’s better than getting cross.’

  ‘I was wondering, Madame Rocca, if you would allow me to have a piece of the garden for my own.’

  ‘Have it all, Sybilia,’ Maria said. ‘I’m getting very stiff, and Michel has no interest in gardening. But Sybilia, won’t you please call me Mama?’ the woman asked courteously. Then she flushed.

  Mama? Sybilia watched Maria cautiously. She was so ugly, but so kind and considerate, and she had such beautiful eyes. Will I ever get that old? Sybilia stole a furtive glance at the gravel face that had fallen in pouches as Maria bent down, and at her legs, which were gnarled with varicose veins, like an old oak tree burdened with creepers. Her hands were misshapen and covered in arthritic bumps, but how beautifully she spoke.

  Sybilia went a little way down the hill and began poking around the flowers, removing weeds and grass.

  Maria watched her anxiously. She understood all too well what her daughter-in-law was suffering. For Corsicans, whose roots fed deeply into the rich loam of intense family loyalty and love, transplanting was a painful process. It could even be critical. If only she and Michel… She sighed. Well, they were progressing. The child had a piano, a garden, and her own apartment. Perhaps she would take root.

  Chapter 16

  Sybilia was up early next morning. For the first time since her wedding, she had slept well. Michel had spent the night downstairs and was sitting at the kichen table eating breakfast: black coffee with sour bread. There was no sign of his parents.

  ‘Where’s Madame Rocca?’ she asked shyly.

  ‘Talking to spirits in the mountains,’ he answered rudely without looking at her.

  Sybilia frowned. Later she would do something about Michel’s unkindness to his mother. ‘And Monsieur Rocca?’

  ‘Hunting, of course.’

  ‘I see.’ She stared at him in silence, not wishing to start a fight. He seemed embarrassed by her gaze. His neck reddened, and he began to fidget with his hands.

  ‘Have some coffee,’ he said grandly. ‘I must be going.’ He jumped up, knocking over the sugar, and fled.

  Sybilia washed the plates and then wandered outside. This morning she was determined to feel at home. Perhaps she could weed the vegetable patch. She had big plans for her garden.

  When she was hoeing the weeds from the melon patch, near the maquis, she heard plaintive mewing coming from an old stone shed on the other side of the stream. She crossed the stepping-stones and tried the door, which was unlocked. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw that the room was swept and dusted as clean as the house. There were onions and wildflowers hanging from rafters to dry. Bulbs were spread out on a table, together with all kinds of herbs, among the hoes, spades, and scythes. Chopped wood was stacked along one wall of the shed. On top of the logs was an old basket from which came the mewing. Sybilia looked over the rim and saw three ginger-and-white short-haired kittens and one beautiful tabby. It peered up at her with angry, questioning eyes.

  ‘Oh! You! You sweet thing, you.’ Sybilia almost burst into tears, for the little tabby was a miniature of the cat she had left at home. She picked it up, and after a plaintive cry it began to suck at her thumb. Its mother came rushing from the garden and rubbed itself anxiously around her legs.

  A sudden shadow appeared in the doorway. Sybilia spun around and saw Maria in the doorway.

  ‘So you like cats,’ her mother-in-law began. ‘You can have one, that is… if you like. Xavier was going to drown them, so Michel hid them up here. Of course Xavier’s right,’ she said, excusing him. ‘There are so many wild cats around. But Michel’s always been a sensitive boy. He can’t bear anything to be killed or to be in pain. He’s afraid of pain. Always has been, not so much for himself, but for others…’

  She rambled on while Sybilia petted the cat. Her own cat, she reminded herself and she would call him Tim-Tim.

  ‘Thank you, Madame Rocca,’ she began shyly, suddenly terse and mindful of her awful situation.

  ‘Poor old thing,’ Maria was muttering. ‘She knows we’re going to drown them again. We always do, but still, this time you’ll have the tabby. One will be enough for her. One was enough for me.’ She looked round sadly. ‘You’re a good girl, Sybilia. You’re going to love Michel. Be patient.’

  Sybilia looked up and said bravely, ‘Why did you go up into the mountains this morning?’

  ‘To be honest, I love the mountains and the maquis,’ Maria said, her eyes sparkling. ‘They are my refuge.’

  ‘But it’s said you are a mazzeri; that you can foretell death. Is that true?’

  Infinite sadness glowed in eyes as deep as the lake. ‘I see death in my dreams. Sometimes I dream when I’m awake. I don’t like what I see. I don’t like what I know.’ Her voice took on the quality of a sleepwalker.

  Like chanting, Sybilia thought as Maria gazed up toward the mountains.

  ‘They will be hunting up there, just as they always do, but they will be hunting death — and a living death for you -I see it all so clearly.’

  Sybilia took hold of her arm and shook her. ‘Stop it! Please! Don�
��t say these awful things.’

  Maria pulled herself together with a start. The girl looked so frightened. Had she had another turn? If only she could stop her foolish babbling, but it came and went of its own volition, and she had no control over it.

  ‘Was I rambling on again? I’m sorry, Sybilia. You are frightened. I will try not to frighten you. You see, I like you so very much, and I hope that we will be friends,’ she whispered. ‘They say I am a mazzeri, but most times I don’t really know what I’ve said. It’s like a dream that you can’t quite remember.’

  Sybilia smiled shyly. She didn’t understand, but she was glad of her mother-in-law’s confidence and her offer of friendship. ‘I’ll take Tim-Tim upstairs to my apartment and give him some milk — Mama,’ she added as an afterthought.

  From then on Sybilia grew closer to her mother-in-law. Maria was a warm-hearted, generous woman, and Sybilia was grateful for her support. It was Maria more than anyone else who helped her to adjust to a life that was so different from what she had expected. Sybilia knew how to train a servant, but she had never scrubbed floors; she was an excellent cook in the French style, but she had never gathered chestnuts and ground the kernels into flour to make dough and bread. She did not know how to press olives or make goat’s milk cheese, but she was willing to learn. Maria was glad to teach her and fond of her company.

  In the halcyon prewar days, there was nothing deprived about the Corsican peasant’s life. The Roccas were among the luckiest, as Sybilia soon realized. Working haphazardly on their eighteen acres, spread far and wide, on terraces and fields and mountain pasture, they were practically self-sufficient.

  Some of their land was fit only for grazing, but they also owned acres of old olives, big as oaks, alongside the cemetery. Down by the lake they had several rows of the best irrigated terraces on which Xavier grew barley, wheat, and maize when he felt like it. Sybilia soon took over this chore.

  Together the women planted vegetables and put in some new fruit trees. Maria seemed to have found more energy and enthusiasm now that she had someone to work with her. She showed Sybilia how to collect honey from their beehives in the maquis and how to protect the bees from the ants. The poultry were kept around the north side of the house, the pigs and goats roamed at will on the communal grazing land, stamped with the Rocca brand. Francois herded the sheep, spending five months of the year in the summer pastures high up the mountain slopes and four months further down near the coast.

  Except for hard cash, they lacked very little. There was a vineyard that provided enough wine for the year. They made cheeses from goats’ milk, they had pork and mutton. When Xavier shot a hare in the maquis, Maria cooked a pot on the open fire with olive oil and whole cloves of garlic. Sometimes they killed a sheep and lived like kings for a while. Xavier kept the bistro’s cash in his tight-fisted grasp. He could only be coaxed to part with some of it for an emergency.

  Every day Maria and Sybilia finished the household chores and gardening in four or five hours. Afterwards, they sewed or spent their afternoons sitting on the little terrace overlooking the magnificent sweep to the Gulf of Girolata, hardly speaking, glad of the rest and the peace.

  When they needed coffee, sugar, or fabrics, Sybilia learned, they would take their olive oil or cheeses to the next village and barter with the villagers. She enjoyed these outings. They would leave after breakfast, before the sun was up, and walk along the village track bordering the cliff around the lake, with frequent stops to admire the flowers and the view. Sometimes they would stop at shady fountains and drink the cool mountain water or pass some time with old men and women sitting on logs in front of their homes. Their bartering would take place with great decorum in the best parlours of the houses they were visiting. Apart from exchanging produce, they would also swap gossip and news. They never left a house without exchanging small gifts.

  In the afternoon they would start their journey home, stopping at sunset by a fountain, where they would eat some of their new bread, sausage, and tomatoes with olive oil. They would watch the sunset and discuss it and the people they had seen, and Maria would sketch in the background of each family for Sybilia. Eventually they would trudge home in the dusk of purple shadows and mountain mists, tired under their heavy burdens.

  To Sybilia it was new and strange, but she was determined to do her best and not be depressed. The Roccas understood and tried to make her welcome. Even Michel was polite and fairly amiable toward her.

  Nevertheless it was an anxious time for everyone. Underneath the deceptively calm exterior of summer days were hidden tensions. Everyone was preoccupied with their own worries. For Maria it was a time of dread. Night after night she woke sweating with fright. She would light her lamp, scramble out of bed onto her knees, and try to banish her nightmare in a tumult of prayer. But she could never forget the horror of the First World War, where thirty thousand of their young men in the Foreign Legion died in the trenches. Because of this, many of their mountain villages were still depopulated. Now war was coming again. There was no escape from it.

  Michel’s fears were for his career. He was on the point of running away from home. He had nothing against Sybilia. He even liked her. But the web of Taitan peasant life seemed to be binding him closer. Soon no escape would be possible. But if he went to study in Paris and war came, he might be killed. If the Foreign Legion didn’t get him, the Germans would.

  Xavier’s anger made life difficult in the Rocca household. Daily he harangued the family with his fears. The British and French governments were cowering from a confrontation with Hitler’s armies. Their policy was appeasement. This was no way to run a country. In Xavier’s opinion Hitler would soon overrun Europe, and who would stop him? French forces were inadequate even for their own domestic defence. Britain had begun a rearmament programme in 1936, but she was hampered by lack of funds. The British Expeditionary Force, which comprised the only two divisions capable of fighting on the continent, was badly equipped for modern warfare. It was well known that they had no infantry tanks and very few up-to-date machine guns and mortar ammunition. Europe would be occupied quite soon, Xavier told them gloomily. Then it would be Corsica’s turn. ‘Here we sit like a juicy plum waiting for Mussolini to gobble us up,’ he would say. Then he would explain his reasoning. As if it needed any clarification, Sybilia thought, since he voiced his fears at the supper table night after night.

  The Italians coveted Corsica. Last year, Mussolini had openly voiced his intentions to annex their island. This coming war would give him the chance he needed. Any day now the Italians might hop across the water and invade Corsica. There was nothing to stop them. That was the most hurtful part of all — Corsica’s helplessness. Most Corsicans despised Italians, calling them ‘Macaronis'. To be called ‘Fit for a Macaroni with reference to manual labour or a fallen woman, was the ultimate insult.

  One evening, to Sybilia’s surprise, Maria joined in. ‘At least let the war stay off for another few weeks,’ she grumbled. ‘The olives are falling from the trees, and we can’t afford to let them rot. After that we’ll soon settle the hash of those upstart Bosch. As for the Macaronis…’ She went off muttering to herself.

  So the long summer idled on, and nothing much seemed to happen. Sybilia’s days progressed smoothly enough, working a little, resting a little, trying her best to adjust. She was like a patient convalescing from an operation. But the shock of her marriage and her changed status, was slowly diminishing. She needed time and peace to rehabilitate herself.

  Chapter 17

  September was a long hot burden of a month. As the days dragged by, Sybilia slipped back into depression. She missed her brothers, her dog, her cat, and her home. She would not admit that she missed her parents. Not for anything.

  Maria was feeling the heat, but she was resting most of the time. Xavier was canvassing support for his party in neighbouring villages. The autumn work was mainly finished, the olives picked, the chestnuts gathered, and their neighbours were providing b
oth food and company for Maria. It took Sybilia a few hours to complete her household chores, and then she had nothing at all to do and the hours dragged by. For a while she practised reading English, and then she played the piano, but she had no enthusiasm for either of these activities.

  A sense of futility seemed to have invaded her body. Why bother to clean her teeth or comb her hair? Did anyone care what she looked like? She would ask herself bitterly. Most afternoons it was an effort to put one foot in front of the other, so she sat around listlessly doing absolutely nothing.

  Yet she was not at peace. She was tormented by her fears about Michel. He always ignored her, and she felt strangely empty. Not sad, not angry, she told herself repeatedly. Just sort of empty.

  For the past two nights he had not slept at home. So where was he? The question was tormenting her. Perhaps he had a mistress in a neighbouring village? Or was he sleeping in the mountains?

  One morning after she finished the washing at the communal trough, she listened at the window to the older women discussing her plight with a good deal of scorn. The bloodied sheets had not fooled anyone for long. No one could agree with what was wrong with Michel, but they liked to air the possibilities. He was a mazzeriy like his mother, and hunted souls in the maquis, Vannina Susini insisted in her soft voice. Anyone could see he was more woman than man, Germaine the weaver proclaimed. Francoise Cesari, the voceri, reported that Michel was crazily in love with a goat. This was the story they all favoured the most. Francoise had seen him carrying the beast up into the maquis for several mornings in a row. Nightly it ran back to the fold, frightened and hungry. Madame Rossi, the midwife, with her man’s moustache and soulful black eyes, said he had a secret lair where he practised black magic: And so on!

  None of this was true. It couldn’t be true! There must be a reason for Michel’s long absences. Sybilia decided to speak to Maria, but it was hard to find the right opportunity. The day dragged by so slowly. Huge blue-black cumulus clouds gathered overhead at noon, and by midafternoon the air was heavy with humidity. The kitchen became so dark they lit the lamp. The gloom seemed to invade their thoughts as the two women worked at their different tasks in silence. Maria was dressed in black, as usual, with a checked apron. Her hair was straggling down from the bun, and her face was red and perspiring. From time to time she wiped her brow with her apron, and then she continued to knead the dough.