by David Elvar
‘Lisettina, do as your beloved nonna says,’ my father was pleading now. I just looked at him.
‘Enough!’ she rapped. ‘I see the trouble here, oh yes I see it. This is what a year away from her home and her family does to a child—can you not see it?’
The assembled company murmured and nodded. Grandfather, two aunts and an uncle I didn’t remember having, they all murmured and nodded, like it was expected of them, like they didn’t dare not to. And my father, let’s not forget my father: one thing he would never think of doing is disagreeing with my grandmother, his precious mummy. There’s something faintly incestuous about the relationship between a Sicilian mother and her sons, especially the firstborn. That son can do no wrong. He can rob, he can murder. He can start World War Three and be responsible for the deaths of millions and mummy will still be there with an indulgent shrug and a comment about boys being boys. It’s a wonder they ever get to grow up.
‘We will change this,’ she was saying now. ‘We will put right the damage that has been done to this child.’
More nodding, more murmuring. Did I have to just stand there and take this? Uh…no.
‘And what if I don’t want to be changed,’ I asked. ‘What if I like the damage?’
The way they looked at me, you’d think I’d just farted. But no, they would have forgiven a fart. What they don’t forgive is someone answering back when the head of the family has just decided something.
‘You will be changed!’ she snapped. ‘You are a Pellegrino and you will think and act like a Pellegrino!’
‘And look like a Pellegrino,’ an aunt added. ‘Her clothes, look at her clothes!’
They looked at my clothes like they were seeing them for the first time—the denim miniskirt, the T-shirt with I WISH THESE WERE BRAINS splashed across my breasts—and seemed horrified by what they were seeing. My grandmother squinted closer, raised her stick to prod at my chest.
‘These words,’ she demanded. ‘What do they mean?’
No one seemed to want to answer. Maybe they couldn’t read English, I don’t know, but my father could, but for some reason or other, he seemed to have turned a little pale. But hey, I could help them out.
‘VORREI CHE QUESTI ERANO CERVELLI,’ I said simply, and the sharp intake of breath that followed was wonderful.
‘Shocking,’ my grandmother was saying. ‘Truly shocking. Is this what young girls in England are wearing now?’
My father jumped in before I could let rip with another wisecrack. ‘You see why I had to do what I did? You see why the case was necessary?’
She nodded. ‘In spite of all it cost me,’ she added, and something seemed to click into place.
‘You paid for his lawyers!’ I gasped. ‘You old witch, you paid for his lawyers!’
‘Lisetta!’ —My father— ‘You will not speak to your beloved nonna in such a way! Apologise immediately!’
‘To hell with you! I should have known—’
‘Enough!’ She rapped her stick on the floor, cutting me off short. ‘What was done was done for your own good. You are my son’s daughter and my son’s daughter you will remain. There will be no more speaking of this. Now we eat.’
They turned to go as one, in meek obedience to her latest edict. I followed. But I understood. All the long months of battle, all the triumphs that seemed to quickly turn to disaster as his side found some other loophole, some other point of law that needed close examination…oh yeah, I understood.
There’s a kind of ritual to be observed when a Sicilian family gets together for a meal. It goes something like this.
We all gather round the table, standing behind our chairs, all except my father and my grandfather, and they’re not in place because they’ve been chosen for the special honour of seating my grandmother at the head of the table. One of them pulls out her chair while the other guides her into place. Then the first slides the chair forward again while the old fossil dumps her bony butt onto it. Then and only then does everyone else get to sit down. Yeah, that’s how it is. And what she expects.
Napkins were being flipped open, voices being raised in animated conversation. And that’s something else, too. There are only two rules to be followed when you sit down to a meal in Sicily. Rule One is that you speak and everyone else listens. Rule Two is that everyone has to follow Rule One. A Sicilian conversation is a kind of free-for-all, everyone adding their own little contribution even if it doesn’t relate to anything else that’s being said. People talk less to each other and more at each other. That’s what I knew to expect. They didn’t disappoint me.
‘Ah, the sun! Did you not see the sun today?—’
‘Have you seen the size of the artichokes at the market? I swear they get bigger every year.—’
‘I heard a rumour today that Etna is stirring again. Ah, but she is petulant, that one.—’
‘Today, I started reading the new novel by—’
‘The Rustici! The Rustici have arrived!’
—and everyone stopped talking. And I nearly started laughing. Because this was a special occasion, my grandmother had hired her cleaning-woman to act as maid and serve the meal. She even looked the part, dressed in a starched black uniform that was maybe two sizes too small for her. She moved stiffly in it, looked embarrassed to be wearing it, to be doing this. But she struggled gamely on, placing a big china dish on the table and withdrawing to a discreet distance.
In the dish were the Rustici, little pastry parcels with a cheese and tomato filling.
‘The Rustici,’ my grandmother pronounced solemnly. ‘From the best supplier in all of Messina. We will be thankful that we have him.’
Appreciative nods, murmurs. And a voice. Mine.
‘So who is it this year, nonna, this-best-supplier-in-all-of—?’
‘Lisetta!’ —My father, right on cue— ‘Do not interrupt your beloved nonna while she is speaking!’
‘Hey, I just wanted to know,’ I said. ‘I mean, as I remember, this best-supplier-in-all-of-Messina used to change every year—’
‘Lisetta!’
‘—I just wanted to know who it was this year.—’
‘Lisetta!’
‘—Is it the tall thin guy on the corner?—’
‘LISETTA!’
‘—Or the greasy blimp in the market that likes looking up women’s skirts? When does he get out of prison, by the way?’
‘Enough!’ —My grandmother, just as I’d hoped. She was glaring at me with distaste, like I was a scarafaggio that had just crawled out of her underwear. ‘You will be silent at this table, girl,’ she went on. ‘You are fourteen years old, a child among adults here, and you will behave as befits your age.’
I went to answer, saw my father looking like thunder, and let it go. We ate Rustici. From best supplier in all of Messina.
We finished the Rustici. From the best supplier or not, I had no appetite for it. I remembered John once telling me an old Chinese proverb, something about it being better to have a meal of herbs with friends than a banquet with enemies. Just then, I would have traded all the Rustici on the planet for simple bread and water with him and mum, he joking his way through the meal, mum giggling uncontrollably, her eyes shining warmth and something else I couldn’t catch but could pretty much guess as she watched him clowning around.
Yeah, I remembered all that. And as I remembered, I sat and watched in silence as this ragbag of animated cardboard cut-outs strutted their way through their set-piece performances, careful to observe the form, careful to do nothing that would upset lifetimes of ritual. Yeah, this was my family in action—or as my father would call them, my family.
Next course was spaghetti. Yeah, yeah: more pasta. You think they’d show some imagination, once in a while. Another ritual no one dares to upset. But it arrived—separately, like it’s supposed to be—in a big porcelain dish, arrived hot and steaming and ready for the sauce that gives it its identity. Pasta, you see, is like the canvas in a painting. It has to be plain,
ready to take the paint that’s to be splashed on it by the artist as he struggles to produce his masterpiece. The sauce is the paint. It can be anything. Tomato-based, cheese-based, basil-based—whatever. Today, it was meatballs. They came next, arriving to a soft chorus of Oohs and Aahs and all the noises you’d expect from a family desperate to impress beloved nonna.
‘My own recipe,’ she pronounced solemnly then waited for the inevitable round of appreciation that came right on cue. Then she was silent for a moment, silent and looking at me, like she was waiting for me to let slip some smart-ass comment. But I know a trap when I see one. I just looked back at her, said nothing.
‘Long I spent this morning, preparing this,’ she went on. ‘The result you see before you. I hope it has turned out as well as the effort deserves.’
‘Only you could produce such a dish, mama,’ my father fawned. ‘It will be a gastronomic masterpiece as always.’
The meal was served, first the spaghetti, then the sauce, and I had before me a plate of what looked too much like reddish-brown lumps oozing reddish-brown slime over pale yellow string. The Italians might like spaghetti but I hate it. Eating it is like trying to slurp up a long strand of something wet and slippery while wondering when or even if you were going to get to the end of it. I looked down at it, didn’t feel like tackling it the traditional way.
‘Anyone got a knife?’ I said aloud and to no one in particular.
All around me, the voices stopped, the one-sided conversations brought to a sudden halt by those four simple words. I looked up, looked round at them all.
‘Lisettina—,’ my father began but he got no further.
‘You have forgotten how to eat spaghetti?’ beloved nonna was demanding.
‘We didn’t get much call for it in England,’ I said placidly, ‘at home.’
A bristle went round the table: yeah, I’d just said another something indecent. She ignored it.
‘You take your spoon in one hand,’ she said instead, ‘you take your fork in the other hand. Then you twirl the spaghetti round with the fork in the bowl of the spoon.’
I didn’t answer, just looked down at my plate.
‘Say thank you to your beloved nonna, Lisettina,’ said my father sternly.
‘Thank-you-to-your-beloved-nonna-Lisettina,’ I replied automatically, still looking down at my plate.
I felt rather than saw the wave of my grandmother’s hand to my father, telling him not to pursue it further, and I was left to struggle with my string.
The voices started up again. They were ignoring me, leaving me to my own devices. Well, that suited me fine. I picked up the fork, dug it deep into the steaming pile and started to twirl…and twirl…and twirl.
I remembered mum and John and I playing this game at home on the rare occasions we had spaghetti. We would sit there, giggling, twirling it round and round on our plates, wrapping it round our forks to see who could get the biggest ball. It wasn’t the done thing at mealtimes but hey, who was watching? We’d just twirl and twirl and twirl until as much of the stuff as possible was scooped up, and whoever left the most on the plate had to do the dishes. It was always John, and I used to think maybe he’d done it deliberately so mum didn’t have to do them. It would have been like him to do something like that. And after that and the inevitable accusations of cheating from the loser, we’d pick up our knives, rip the whole stupid mess to shreds and eat it. Yeah, I remembered. And I twirled.
I didn’t stop, I just gathered more and more spaghetti until I had a sizeable ball of the stuff. All around me, eating was stopping, voices were faltering, and I could feel the faces turning my way. I had their attention and played it to the full. I stopped twirling, lifted my fork and the spaghetti ball upright, waving it gently in the air like a grotesque toffee-apple. The ball sagged as strands of spaghetti fell away, dripping sauce over my hand, over the pristine white of the tablecloth that I knew had been brought out for this special occasion.
‘Okay,’ I said coolly, said looking round at them all. ‘Done. What do I do with it now?’
SIX
My father wouldn’t speak to me on the way home. Well, hey, would you? I mean, let’s be clear about this: one thing you do not do in Sicily is act up in front of the head of the family—sorry, family.
So it was a quiet journey back, and I wasn’t exactly unhappy about that. I just looked out the window, ran through in my head all that had happened after the spaghetti incident. It was comedy at its best, the stuff you’d like to write but don’t dare to in case someone thinks it’s too far gone. It went something like this.
My father jumped up from his seat to yell at me, knocking his glass of wine over as he did so and adding more and probably indelible staining to the pristine white of the tablecloth. At this, beloved nonna gasped and turned pale. Beloved nonno leapt to his feet and called my father an imbecille. Beloved aunt number one shouted something about that being unnecessary. Beloved nonna sagged in her seat and clutched at the table for support. Beloved nonno yelled at the rest of us to help her. Beloved aunt number two rushed round to prop her up, to stop her falling. Beloved uncle (the one I didn’t remember) rushed to beloved nonna’s other side and started fanning her with his napkin. And the cleaner/maid stood there looking uncomfortable.
Me? I just sat there feeling pretty good about things. All the uproar, all the chaos, all the rushing around barking orders—it couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it. In all the noise, I set the ball of spaghetti down, grabbed a knife and started chopping it up. No one commented, no one even noticed, so I just shrugged and started eating. It was only as things started to quieten down a little that they seemed to hear the clink of fork on plate, and I was aware of everyone looking my way again. I looked up, still eating. They seemed horrified, not because I could calmly eat while this major crisis was going on but because I’d quite obviously used a knife. I looked back at them, at one disbelieving face after another.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said easily. ‘You guys not hungry?’
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it went, and I felt a big curve spread across my lips as I sat there in the car and relived it. I was just thinking about enjoying it a second time when the noisy silence was broken.
‘You find something funny?’
Dammit, spoke too soon: he was speaking to me again. ‘I’m smiling, aren’t I?’ I said. ‘You do the math.’
‘I suppose you think what you did in front of your beloved nonna and nonno was a beautiful thing, do you?’
I shrugged, didn’t answer.
‘Thanks to you,’ he went on, ‘your beloved nonna had to have some of her medicine.’
‘Medicine!’ I snorted. ‘Do me a favour! It’s just alcohol, you know that as well as I do.’
‘It is not just alcohol!’ He almost screamed the words at me. ‘It is a family recipe, handed down through generations!’
‘Yeah? So what’s in it?’
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to, I know what’s in it. It’s called limoncello and is popular in all of Southern Italy. When you know what’s in it, you begin to understand why.
You start with alcohol, and I mean alcohol. For a mild version, use something the strength of neat vodka. For a version with a little more kick, anything goes, anything up to and including the stuff hospital people use to clean bacteria off operating tables. Then you add lemons and sugar. That’s just the start. You can add other stuff and Sicilians do just that, lets them claim the recipe as their very own. Like great-great-great-grandfather Antino inventing the hamster, it’s something to cling to when reflecting on the greatness of your family. So herbs get thrown in—hundreds to choose from. Or salt—yeah, the stuff you put on your chips. Or…hell, you can make it up as you go along. It doesn’t matter, no one is going to know the difference. It’s a family recipe, after all, one that’s been “handed down through generations”.
So that’s limoncello. The medicine that beloved nonna only ever seems to need at tim
es of great stress. Strange, that.
‘It can’t be very effective as a medicine,’ I said. ‘She needed three slugs of it before she calmed down.’
‘You disgraced yourself,’ he said, ignoring that. ‘You disgraced yourself and me in front of the most important people in the world.’
‘Yeah, yeah. My family.’ I drenched the word with sarcasm, dragged it through the stuff until it was dripping with it. It did not go unnoticed.
‘I will not have this attitude!’ he snapped. ‘You will apologise for your disrespect!’
‘Make me,’ I muttered. ‘Look, what is it with you? You drag me along to see a couple of semi-skeletal fossils I barely know and want to know even less, you parade me in front of them like I’m waiting for some kind of approval or something from them, and you expect me to be happy about it? Get real.’
‘How dare you speak of your grandparents in such a way!’ His face was bright red, his hands thumping the steering-wheel as he screamed at me. ‘You will apologise, you will apologise now!’
‘And what was the big deal with the tablecloth?’ I went on, ignoring him. ‘Okay, so it got a bit messy, so what. The way your mother was carrying on, you’d think it was a holy relic I’d set fire to or something.’
‘That tablecloth is a family heirloom,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘It is more than a hundred years old!’
‘Yeah? What, can’t your family afford a new one?’
No response. Nothing. I let slip a grin and went back to remembering.
Lunch broke up pretty quickly after that. No one was eating any more: beloved nonna was no longer in any fit state to eat, and when she stops eating, so does everyone else. It’s the rule, see. No, she had to be helped from her chair to the sofa where she lay back, a wan hand draped over her forehead, the other clutching hard at her glass of “medicine”, the rest of the family flapping round her like she was on her deathbed. When eventually she did deign to open her eyes again, it was only to glare across the room at me. I had the feeling she wanted to say something. I was not wrong.
‘Is this the way you have learned to behave in England?’ she demanded. ‘Speak up, girl! I will have this from you!’