Lives of the Saints

by Nino Ricci

  I clutched the book guiltily under my arm.

  ‘Grazie.’

  ‘You know, Vittorio,’ she said, ‘I had a son once too. He would have been your age now, but he died when he was a baby, and the Lord hasn’t seen fit to give me another one.’

  I stared at the floor. I had not imagined that teachers had babies, too. Suddenly la maestra seemed a stranger to me, as if she had split before my eyes into two separate people: one who had babies that died, the other who appeared as if from nowhere every morning in our classroom, and who faded into some shadowy limbo when school was over.

  ‘Go on now,’ she said, beginning to cry again. ‘I’ve already made a fool of myself. Go on home. Maybe you’ll send me a letter from America, no?’

  ‘Sí,’ I murmured.

  She wiped at her tears.

  ‘Here, give me the book,’ she said. ‘I’ll write my address on the front page, so you’ll know where to send it.’

  ‘Signora Gelsomina Amicone,’ she wrote, in her large, careful script, ‘Piazza del Tomolo No. 3, Rocca Secca’; but I still could not make any sense of it, could not connect her to a name and address, to a table and chairs in some dim kitchen, to a bed. I had an image of her going into the market in Rocca Secca to buy her vegetables, like the other big-boned women there, talking like them with the traders, haggling over the price of a cabbage or bag of onions; but the image did not fit.

  ‘Go on now,’ she whispered finally, still wiping at her tears.

  She leaned forward and planted a last silent kiss on my forehead.

  ‘Buona fortuna.’

  XXIV

  The eve of our departure, after supper, my grandfather called me into his room.

  ‘Close the door,’ he said.

  In his own house my grandfather’s room had looked over the valley, always airy and bright; but Zia Lucia’s house was on the hill side of the street, cut into the slope, and the only window in his room now looked onto a sloping wall of rocky earth. Seeping moisture had coated the wall under the window with frothy white sediment and the room smelt of damp and rot, like an old blanket left too long in a corner.

  My grandfather’s face had grown pale and gaunt from his confinement, loose skin draped over sharp, thin bones that looked frail as a bird’s. He lay propped on a pillow now, his cast bulging beneath the sheets like the last vestige of some former larger self.

  ‘Open the drawer in my table,’ he said, his voice already hoarse with emotion, ‘and give me the case with my medals.’

  His hand trembled as he reached for the case I held out to him.

  ‘I’ve had these medals since the first war,’ he said, clicking the case open. ‘The first two are nothing, half the men who fought then have the same ones. It’s only the last one that has any meaning. Here, look at it.’

  He handed the case back to me, impatiently almost, as if he were anxious to be rid of it. The medals were pinned to a backing of faded red velvet; the one he pointed to bore a medallion of bronze engraved with a laurel-wreathed star and the inscription ‘Al valore militare.’ A ribbon of thick blue cloth hung down from the medallion.

  ‘That’s what I got for a wasted life,’ my grandfather said, taking the case back from me. ‘That and a small pension that couldn’t keep a goat alive. And I was so foolish as to think it was enough. Do you know what I got this medal for? For saving the life of a coward. A man who if he was standing before me now I would put a bullet between his eyes. I carried him a mile and a half, on my back, by God, because his muscles were so stiff with fear he couldn’t move, and when the bomb fell that ruined my legs he left me to rot in the mud. He left me to die there, per l’amore di Cristo, after I had saved his life, and no one came back for me until one of our own horses had finished the damage and left me a cripple. I lay there in the mud for what seemed a thousand years, bombs falling everywhere, wishing only that I would die. And now I curse God that I did not.’

  Tears had begun to trickle down his cheeks; but his voice was still dry and bitter, his words hanging in the air like frost.

  ‘Here,’ he said, closing the case with an air of finality and handing it towards me, ‘take them. Maybe they’ll mean something to you some day, when you’re older. I have no one else to leave them to. When I die I’ll leave the house to you, if you ever come back for it. But now you’re lucky to leave this country, because it’s a place of Judases and cowards. That’s what killed Mussolini. Now everyone is brave, everyone denounces me in the streets, because I’ve been made a fool. But who was brave then, of those asses and cowards who laugh at me now? Who complained when the school was built, when money came from the government to buy land? All my life I’ve been surrounded by traitors and fools. Even my own daughter has betrayed me.’

  His voice was choked now with emotion. He tried to pull himself up in bed, pushing his fists against the mattress, his jaw tight with pain, until finally his cast shifted slightly under the sheets. He closed his eyes and leaned back against his pillow, the muscles of his face loosening finally like a fist slowly unfolding. When he opened his eyes again he brought a hand up and brushed it against my cheek.

  ‘Take them, figlio mio,’ he said. ‘I hope they bring you better fortune than they brought me.’

  XXV

  The morning of our departure from Valle del Sole dawned wet and cold. I heard the rain coming in the early hours before daybreak, first the wind, which dragged some object on the balcony across the metal rail and hurled it with a muffled clap to the floor, then the first dull splats of rain against the window. As the noise built up to an insistent drone, grey light began to filter through the curtain and give form to the objects in the room, the chair at the foot of the bed, a rickety table, a crucifix on the wall. I had spent the last nights in almost constant wakefulness, listening to the measured rhythms of my mother’s breathing, conscious always of the warm bulge at her belly, which seemed to hum with a strange, electric energy; but tonight my mother had tossed and turned the whole night, her breathing broken and quick.

  ‘Get up, Vittorio,’ she said, when she’d dragged herself up from sleep. ‘It’s time to go.’

  We had breakfast with Zia Lucia and Marta in silence, a small fire burning in the hearth and the rain still falling heavily outside. My mother seemed tense and irritable. She brought some breakfast in to my grandfather but they didn’t speak.

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself about him,’ Zia Lucia said, in her calm, ancient voice. ‘Marta has no one else to look after. He’ll be her father and her son.’

  There was a glint in Marta’s eye, of pride or insolence; for a moment it made her seem almost lucid, almost competent. But then she rose up suddenly from the table and moved towards the door.

  ‘Where are you going, in this weather?’ Zia Lucia said.

  ‘I have to feed the pigs.’

  ‘Dai, you can do it later.’ But Marta had already pulled on a shawl, and she slipped out of the room like a shadow.

  A small group of well-wishers, Giuseppina and her husband, Silvio the postman, a few neighbours and cousins, began to collect in Zia Lucia’s kitchen after breakfast. Di Lucci arrived finally as well, draped under a wide rain poncho, restrained and solemn; but after a moment of sombre greeting he unveiled a small parcel he carried in a plastic bag.

  ‘A camera,’ he whispered to my mother. ‘Just a few pictures before you go. Per ricordo.’

  ‘Please, Antonio,’ my mother said, ‘not this morning.’

  ‘Ma scusa, Cristina, if not this morning then when?’ Several others had come bearing parcels, holding them clutched in their hands or tucked under their arms as if embarrassed by them; but finally Giuseppina approached my mother, holding out a small brown bundle neatly tied with white string.

  ‘It’s just a little something for my husband’s cousin,’ she said. ‘If you don’t have room for it—’

  My mother sucked in her breath.

  ‘I’m sorry Giuseppina,’ she said. ‘I’m not taking anything. It’s nothing
against you, but I’m not the one to send as your messenger. Three months ago, if I’d gone, not one of you would have come to see me off. I don’t know why it should be different now.’

  But Giuseppina remained for a moment where she stood as if confused, her parcel still held out before her.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying,’ she said finally.

  ‘You know damn well what I’m saying,’ my mother said. ‘You and the rest of you.’

  Giuseppina shot a glance around the room, her face flushed.

  ‘If that’s how you feel I don’t know why I bothered to come at all,’ she said.

  ‘Then go.’

  My mother had already turned away, packing some food for the journey into a hamper. Giuseppina, as if still hoping she’d misunderstood, remained for a moment in the centre of the room, her parcel clutched protectively to her now; but finally she seemed to gather her pride around her like a cloak, and turned towards the door.

  ‘Let’s go, Alberto,’ she said coldly. Her husband hesitated a moment, staring down into his cap; but finally he followed Giuseppina out the door into the rain.

  A silence fell over the room, and a few others moved towards the door as if preparing to leave. But a clatter of hooves outside seemed to distract them, and a moment later my uncle Pasquale was standing large and wet in the doorway. It had been months since we had had any contact with my father’s side of the family; but my uncle simply tossed aside the plastic sheet draped over his shoulders and strode smiling towards my mother without breaking his stride.

  ‘So finally going to America,’ he said, bending forward to kiss her cheek, natural as rain. ‘You should have let us know. Mario didn’t say anything in his letters.’ But my mother turned away from him awkwardly.

  ‘Everything was decided in a hurry,’ she said. ‘Here, you must be soaked through, I’ll make you some coffee. There’s still some warm on the fire.’

  ‘No, no, it’s all right, I have to get to the market.’ He pulled a parcel from a hunter’s sack draped over his shoulder and held it out tentatively towards my mother. ‘Mamma wants you to bring this to Mario, a shirt or something, as if they don’t have shirts in America. If you don’t have a place for it I’ll bring it back. It’s only a token.’

  But my mother took the parcel from him quickly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll find a place for it.’ She stuffed the parcel into the wicker hamper where she had been packing food. But the tension in the room was thick now; even my uncle seemed infected by it, an awkwardness breaking through his genial surface.

  ‘Is Mario meeting you at the port?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ my mother said. ‘We’ll take the train ourselves. We’ll find our way.’

  ‘Ah.’

  He stood for a moment in the centre of the room, staring at the floor.

  ‘Maybe I’ll take that cup of coffee after all,’ he said finally.

  The other visitors began to leave now, my mother saying her goodbyes from half-way across the room, her arms folded sternly across her chest, as if only impatient for the leave-takings to be over. Finally only my uncle remained, sitting stoop-shouldered beside Zia Lucia in front of the fire, and Silvio and Di Lucci. Marta had returned from the stable, as furtively and silently as she had left, and was cleaning away dirty glasses and cups. We waited several minutes in silence, my mother and I seated at the table, Di Lucci and Silvio at the door, until finally we heard the sound of a horn above the patter of rain outside—Cazzingulo, who would be taking us into Rocca Secca. In a moment his truck pulled up in front of the house, and he popped his head through the door.

  ‘Oh, is this the house? Crist’ e Maria, it’s raining like a bitch out here. We’ll have to hurry if you don’t mind, signora, I have a dozen people in the back of my truck who want to break my balls.’

  Silvio and Di Lucci carried our one suitcase and our hamper of food out to the truck, then went up to the old house to help Cazzingulo with the trunk; but my uncle stayed behind, coming slowly across the room to join my mother at the table.

  ‘Vittorio, go in and say goodbye to your grandfather,’ my mother said. My uncle had rested his elbows on the table; he leaned forward slightly now towards my mother, staring down at his hands. Marta, washing cups at the sideboard, tilted her head almost imperceptibly towards us.

  ‘You’re not going to him,’ my uncle said, barely audible. ‘I saw it in your eyes the moment I came in.’ But my mother turned away.

  ‘Vittorio, damn it, I told you to go in to your grandfather.’

  I hovered a moment by the table; but my mother rose suddenly and prodded me with an abrupt push into my grandfather’s room. As we came in my grandfather’s eyes shot sharply towards her; but she stepped out of the room almost at once, closing the door behind her.

  I was in my grandfather’s room only a minute. Without speaking he reached out and drew me towards him, pressing his grizzled cheeks hard against my own. When he pulled away his eyes were rimmed with tears.

  ‘I hope to God she doesn’t ruin your life the way she’s ruined hers,’ he said.

  When I came out I heard my uncle just starting up his cart outside; he had not waited to say goodbye to me. There was a silence in the room like the ringing silence after an argument, though I had not heard any loud voices while I had been in with my grandfather. Zia Lucia was still staring into the fire, her back to me; Marta was still wiping glasses dry in the corner. My mother rose from the table when I came out, stepping past me into my grandfather’s room without looking at me and closing the door behind her.

  ‘Oh, are you coming?’ Cazzingulo had popped his head in the front door. ‘The bus from Rocca Secca leaves in half an hour.’

  Now Silvio and Di Lucci crowded in behind him, Di Lucci, huddled under his poncho, still clasping the plastic bag that held his camera. For the next few minutes we waited in silence in Zia Lucia’s kitchen while a low hum of conversation reached us through the door of my grandfather’s room.

  ‘What do they have to discuss in there?’ Cazzingulo said. ‘A kiss on each cheek and it’s finished.’

  ‘Sit down for a minute,’ Zia Lucia said. ‘Let them make their peace.’

  Di Lucci moved towards the fire, bending to warm his hands; but my grandfather’s voice rose up suddenly sharp and loud from behind his door.

  ‘Have you gone mad? If you go through with this, so help me God, I’ll pray every day of my life that you rot in hell!’

  ‘And what would you have me do? Go to the hell that’s waiting for me there?’

  ‘You’ll face your sins, and pray that God will have mercy on your soul!’

  ‘I’ve paid for my sins a thousand times over!’

  ‘And the boy,’ my grandfather said, shouting a full voice now, ‘what’ll become of him? You’ll not take him away from me like this!’

  ‘I’ll take my own son where I damn well please, and not you nor anyone is going to stop me.’

  ‘Then get out! Get out of this house! And if you ever step through that door again I swear by God I’ll throttle you with my own hands!’

  The door to my grand father’s room flew open, and my mother stormed into the kitchen.

  ‘To hell with you all!’ she shouted. She pulled her shawl off a hook by the door and flung it around her shoulders.

  ‘And you,’ she said to Cazzingulo, ‘don’t stand there like an ass.’ She pushed her way past the men at the door and into the street.

  ‘Vittorio! Get your coat and let’s go!’

  In a moment I had run out in the street after her, afraid that I would be left behind. From the back of Cazzingulo’s truck half a dozen people, their knees jammed up against our trunk, stared at us blankly as we came towards them; but my mother marched up to the cab, and a man sitting there quickly gave up his place and hurried through the rain to join the others in the back.

  Cazzingulo, flanked by Silvio and Di Lucci, still stood staring after us at Zia Lucia’s door.

&nb
sp; ‘Per l’amore di Cristo, what are you waiting for?’ my mother shouted back to him.

  But all along via San Giuseppe, I saw now, on the balconies, on the stoops, huddled under jackets or shawls in the street, the villagers had come out to watch us, the men and women, small children, the old people who never moved the long day from the chairs where someone had set them, all of them watching us now so still and rapt they might have been posing for a portrait, offering us a final frozen image of themselves, only the hard drone of the rain relieving their still silence. For an instant my mother, her hair curling down now in glistening coils, her dress glued to her belly and thighs with rain, seemed suddenly small and defeated: something like fear seemed to flash through her eyes, and she drew the edges of her shawl more tightly over her chest.

  ‘Fools,’ she muttered to herself. She turned back to the open door of the truck, drawing me towards her protectively. ‘Go on Vittorio, get inside.’

  But before she had lifted me into the cab she whipped suddenly around again, one hand still clutching my shoulder.

  ‘Fools!’ she shouted now. ‘You tried to kill me but you see I’m still alive. And now you came to watch me hang, but I won’t be hanged, not by your stupid rules and superstitions. You are the ones who are dead, not me, because not one of you knows what it means to be free and to make a choice, and I pray to God that he wipes this town and all its stupidities off the face of the earth!’

  When she had finished an eerie silence fell over the street, even the rain seeming suddenly hushed. The villagers stood still as stone, seemed to have merged with the rock of the houses and pavement, become finally themselves simply crags and swells in the hard mountain face of the village.

  My mother hustled me into the cab.

  ‘Get in and drive!’ she shouted back to Cazzingulo. She climbed in beside me, dripping now with rain. She whipped her head to one side to draw her locks from her face and her hair sent a spatter of rain against the side window.

  In a moment Cazzingulo had slid into the driver’s seat.