Solitaria

by Genni Gunn

  “Of course you do,” Mamma said, then pushed our little sister forward. “And this is Clarissa.”

  “I’m three,” said Clarissa, “and I’m an angel.” She ran a little way up the platform, waving her arms like wings.

  “Clarissa! Come here immediately,” Mamma said, but she was smiling.

  We all walked the kilometre home along the railway track, a procession headed by Papà, then Vito with Clarissa beside him, holding his hand, then me, then Mamma and Aldo. The wind swirled around us in a yellow blizzard. We held kerchiefs over our noses and stared down at the ground. Now and then, a train would pass and force us into brush or flatten us against the walls of a cutting. We were not the least bit nervous, having grown up in railway huts beside the tracks.

  Later, at home, when the wind had died down, there was an eerie calm. Vito opened the door and looked out. What he recalled were rolling hills, various shades of green on green, and endless leaves, like fingerprints, their delicate veins unique. He had forgotten autumn, the hills turned to brown, and the fine membrane of dust accumulated in the centre of leaves, in dried flower pods, in the indentations of stones, inside any visible crevice.

  “We’ll have to get the tobacco leaves in before the rain,” Papà said.

  Mamma opened the window. Geckos slithered in and darted across the walls. Flies zipped through the air. She picked up a broom and tried to squash everything against the ceiling.

  “Mamma, wait until we’re gone, per carità,” Papà said. He took the broom from her and leaned it in a corner of the room. “You’d better feed Vito.”

  Mamma smiled and took out two slices of bread from a wrapping of brown paper. She poured a thimbleful of oil onto the top of each and spread it. Then she handed the slices to Papà and Vito.

  In the field, their bare feet were the colour of volcanic tufa, their hair stiff and chalky, and in their mouths, the air itself tasted like plaster. They gathered tobacco leaves until dark, then stacked them in a corner of the room. Most days, we children would thread them into long garlands, which Mamma would hang to dry in the sun. By today, in the perfect humidity of the siroccos — when the leaves did not crumble under our fingers — we stacked them into wooden boxes left by tobacco agents, who would come and collect them at dawn.

  That night in the windowless attic, while Clarissa and I slept — me curled on my side, Clarissa on her back, arm flung above her head — Vito lay awake on the thin mattress beside us. He waited for his pupils to dilate so he could see the dark shapes of people, things. Beside him, Aldo yawned, his face turned to the wall. The wind howled against the hut, hot with moisture. Vito stared into the darkness and listened to our parents in the bed across the room.

  “He’ll be all right, “ Papà said, “once he gets to know us again.”

  “But he seems so… serious,” Mamma said.

  “He was always serious,” Papà said.

  The village piazza formed a square around a water pump which jutted out of a stone basin and was flanked by a greengrocer and a butcher shop on one side, a bakery and tobacconist on the other, a church on the third side, and the village school on the fourth. The latter was a one-room rectangle of piled tufa blocks, its windows open to the sticky air. Inside, children recited in unison the multiplication tables, their eyes languid, their voices monotone and resigned. Outside, the sun cast almost no shadow. Farmers walked silently home, their faces wet with sweat. The village grocer locked up, as did the butcher and the baker. Only the tobacconist stayed open for another half hour. It could have been a black-and-white sequence, an Italian film: sullen young men on bicycles; coquettish, defiant young women leaning against the stoops of windowless huts; old men seated on chairs in the maws of doorways; children squatting in the narrow streets; donkeys braying, and chickens underfoot, squawking and pecking the dirt. Southern Italy in a perpetual cycle of poverty, abandoned by Rome, by the rest of the country, backwards and rural, superstitious and alien. In close-ups, there were immense watery black eyes, wizened cheeks, dumb animal stares. Everyone in black and white, ambiguous, so that one was never quite sure who was doing what to whom.

  A trumpet blared. The tobacconist emerged from his shop, carrying a large speaker, which he set on the bench outside. He was a squat little man, with a bald head hidden under a hat. He turned back in and emerged moments later with a large framed photograph of Mussolini that he leaned against the bench, and a shortwave radio, which he plugged into the speaker. Villagers flowed out of their houses, unhurried, and stood in clumps in the piazza. A man rounded the corner with a handful of small paper fans bearing the name of his clothing store. He distributed these among the women, who gratefully accepted and waved them like butterflies in the air.

  A bell pealed. The school door opened and the teacher stepped out. She stood like a sentinel beside the open door. Over her skirt and blouse she wore the school uniform now mandatory throughout Italy — a black smock, its white, starched, Peter Pan collar askew. Children filed carefully past her, then stood in rows, like crows on a wire.

  I hastened out, eyes downcast, because although I loved my teacher, I had been taught it was disrespectful to stare. I was barely five, and had learned how to read and write on my own. I took my place in the row with the smallest children, but searched anxiously for Aldo and Vito. All the children wore black uniforms and were virtually indistinguishable from each other, their skin browned, their hair black, cropped. Only a couple of minutes, and already they were fidgeting, hopping foot to foot. The sundial on the church tower read three minutes to the hour. Across the piazza, Mamma, Clarissa, and Papà stood in the shade of a holm oak.

  At precisely one o’clock, with the entire village now assembled, the tobacconist flicked the dial, and the Italian national anthem began amid static and the sound of soldiers marching. Everyone stood at attention. Mussolini’s voice boomed from the speakers.

  “Blackshirts of the revolution! Men and women of all Italy! Italians spread throughout the world, beyond the mountains and beyond the seas! Hear me!

  “A solemn hour is about to sound in the history of the fatherland. At this moment twenty million men occupy the public squares of all Italy.

  “Never in the history of mankind has there been a more gigantic spectacle. Twenty million men, but one heart, one will, one resolve.”

  Mussolini paused, as if to let this thought reverberate. And sure enough, for a moment, everyone appeared enchanted by this idea, by the oratory powers of that human voice. Some of the women’s eyes welled with tears, which they wiped with the corner of their aprons.

  Mamma and Papà moved further into the shade. Mamma picked up Clarissa and held her in her arms. Papà scowled.

  “This gathering must and does show the world that Italy and Fascism constitute a perfect, absolute, and unalterable identity.

  “For many months the wheels of destiny have been moving toward their goal under the impulse of our calm determination… It is not only an army that strives toward its objectives but a whole people of 44 million souls against whom an attempt is being made to consummate the blackest of injustice — that of depriving us of some small place in the sun…”

  Vito had managed to escape the watchful eye of the teacher and now stood at the far end of the piazza, his hair glossy and unruly. Perfectly still, he listened to Mussolini, his eyes dreamy. No doubt he was already imagining himself in Ethiopia, fighting injustices. He had told us that he would join, if only he were old enough. His chest swelled with imagined glories. He surveyed the villagers in the piazza. What fools he thought them all, peasants. He was determined not to become like them, torpid and ineffectual, like the mules and donkeys that walked the paths, their heads down in perpetual resignation. No, he would have a different life, he told us children. He would be rich and live in a city. He would have money to spend, and girls to choose from.

  He didn’t realize that Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia would cause international economic sanctions against Italy, that as food and fuel w
ould become more scarce, so people would become more disenchanted with Mussolini. I’ve had years of understanding what was happening to us then. At the time, however, we children born after 1922 knew nothing of democracy. At school we were indoctrinated into believing that fascism was The Truth, and that we were to worship at its altar. We were told we must be proud to be fascist children, to wear our uniforms, to call ourselves Figli Della Lupa, Balillas and Giovane Italiane, to sing and dance and parade down the town’s streets together. We tried our best to fulfill these expectations, but what troubled us — and the boys in particular — was the lack of external things. Fascism, you see, is for the rich, not for the poor. We lived our childhoods wanting to be the perfect fascist children, but we had no money with which to buy the uniforms and for the boys, the toy guns. Everything we owned was handmade and tawdry in our eyes. If only we had seen Mamma sewing while we all slept, or watched Papà whittle the toy guns after fourteen hours of work.

  Even at home, where Papà often grumbled about fascism, we didn’t understand. The newspapers — controlled by the fascists — had us believe that we were readying to become a world superpower and that it was our duty to endure the present hardships for this greater glory. But we had always been poor; hardships were part of our normal life. Military glory was not within our dictionary of needs or wants. Food, good health, a roof that didn’t leak, shoes in winter, schoolbooks — these were our imagined glories.

  At the far end of the piazza, Vito shifted his weight and narrowed his eyes. He was a handsome boy, like Papà, with fine features and lustrous wavy hair. Already the village girls promenaded past him, their glances coy, their lips smiling behind modest hands.

  “When in 1915 Italy exposed itself to the risks of war and joined its destiny with that of the Allies, how much praise there was for our courage and how many promises were made! But after the common victory to which Italy had made the supreme contribution of 670,000 dead, 400,000 mutilated, and a million wounded, around the hateful peace table Italy received but a few crumbs from the rich colonial booty gathered by others.

  “We have been patient for thirteen years, during which the circle of selfishness that strangles our vitality has become ever tighter. With Ethiopia we have been patient for forty years! It is time to say enough!”

  “Enough!” the people said in unison. Visible in the crowd were a number of young men in black shirts, their arms crossed, their eyes surveying the people in the piazza. Vito eyed them, took in their stance, their clothes. He mimicked them, and moved a few steps closer.

  “In the League of Nations there is talk of sanctions instead of recognition of our rights. Until there is proof to the contrary, I shall refuse to believe that the true and generous people of France can support sanctions against Italy.

  “Similarly, I refuse to believe that the people of Great Britain, who have never had discord with Italy, are prepared to run the risk of hurling Europe along the road to catastrophe for the sake of defending an African country universally recognized as a country without the slightest shadow of civilization.”

  The voice droned on, and the smaller children began to play games using small stones. Some of the girls drew pictures in the dirt. Their restlessness was a wave of heads and shoulders. Now and then, the teacher signalled for quiet, and for a few moments, the children would be still.

  “We shall face economic sanctions with our discipline, our steadfastness, and our spirit of sacrifice.”

  From the radio came a rallied cry of solidarity.

  “Against military sanctions we shall reply with military measures.”

  “Military measures!” the radio boomed, and some of the villagers joined in.

  “To acts of war we shall reply with acts of war.”

  “Acts of war!” they all cried.

  “Let no one think that he can make us yield without a hard struggle.”

  “War! War!” the radio voices said. The villagers were unsure of this. Several women began to fan themselves in hyperbolic gestures. A man removed his hat and scratched his scalp.

  “A people guarding its honour can use no other language nor can it adopt a different attitude.”

  “Honour! Honour!” the radio voices boomed. They sounded thick, immense, as if all of Italy were shouting at once.

  “But let it be said once more and in the most categorical manner — and at this moment I make before you a sacred pledge — that we shall do all that is possible to prevent this conflict of a colonial character from assuming the nature and scope of a European conflict…”

  The crowd murmured and shuffled. Vito elbowed his way towards the blackshirts, stood within metres, eyed the cigarette packs in their shirt pockets.

  “Never before as in this historical epoch have the Italians revealed the quality of their spirit and the power of their character. And it is against these people to whom humanity owes some of its greatest conquests, and it is against these people, these poets, artists, heroes, saints, navigators, emigrants — it is against these people that one dares speak of sanctions.” Mussolini paused, as if for effect. The radio crowd cheered.

  “Italy, proletarian and fascist, Italy of Vittorio Veneto and of the Revolution, arise! Let the cry of your decision fill the heavens; let it be a comfort to the soldiers who wait in Africa, a spur to friends, and a warning to enemies in every part of the world: a cry of justice, a cry of victory.”

  “Victory! Victory!” the men shouted, then the Italian national anthem began once more, and everyone sang along, carried away by the fervour, the promise. At the end, they erupted in applause, although some of the women crossed themselves, thinking no doubt of their sons and husbands who would be conscripted, of the famine which would inevitably follow sanctions. Papà shook his head. Mamma touched his elbow and leaned in, whispering, “Please, Ovidio, I beg you. They’re watching us.”

  A song began on the radio in the square, and we children stood up hastily and began to sing along.

  If you from your plateaus stare out to sea

  Little black one, slave among slaves

  you’ll see as if a dream of many ships

  and a tricolour flag flying for you.

  Little black face of the Abyssinian

  Wait and hope that the hour is near

  when we will be with you

  to give you a new law and a new King…

  “Nonsense. All nonsense!” Papà said. “Has everyone gone mad?”

  “Hush, hush, Papà, please,” Mamma implored.

  The butcher’s teenaged son approached them, his black shirt wet in the armpits. “Are you not singing, Signor Santoro?” he said, his voice pleasant, his eyes narrowing.

  “He is tone deaf,” Mamma said, smiling. “Let him spare our ears.” She waited until the children had finished singing, then nodded, picked up Clarissa, and carried her to me, who was expected to care for her after school. Mamma was a good seamstress, and she used this skill to augment Papà’s income, sewing in the afternoons and often into the night while we slept. Papà turned and strode off towards his field, while Mamma marched down the hill, away from the village, back to the railway casello where we lived. The tobacconist switched off the radio and began to carry everything inside. People dispersed, murmuring among themselves.

  As soon as the teacher dismissed the children, I moved to one side and waited with Aldo and Clarissa. Across the piazza, Vito smoked a cigarette and chatted with two young men in black shirts. He laughed, joked with them, nodded. And when they held out the pack, he took the cigarettes and slipped them into his pants pocket.

  The piazza was almost deserted now. Clarissa was restless, seated on the ground, her legs dragging across the dirt, raising dust. Aldo and I stood stoically in the sun. The teacher ran a hand through her hair and smiled. “Well?” she said.

  “We’re waiting for our brother,” I said.

  “Oh.” The teacher smiled again, hesitating. She seemed unsure as to whether she was to wait with us or not. A woman called out her n
ame, her mother perhaps. The teacher shrugged, gave us a small wave, and walked off across the piazza.

  Aldo sat cross-legged on the ground. He reached into his schoolbag and pulled out a textbook. Only six, he was already in Form 4, his eyes ablaze, intelligent. Though he was born in October in the midst of the Great Depression, Mamma declared that he would be happy and studious, have a keen business sense, great humour, and a long and fortunate life. It was the only prediction she ever made that was entirely positive, and Aldo proved her right. Aldo was privileged both by nature and nurture. When other children were learning to add one-digit numbers, Aldo could do six. When others were struggling with the alphabet, Aldo was reading encyclopaedias. He was the toast of his teachers and of our parents.

  Clarissa slid next to him. I leaned against the tufa, in the small shade cast by the doorway, and stared at Vito, who seemed to enjoy defying Papà’s rules, as if he welcomed punishment. I signalled to him, and he nodded, though he took his time sauntering over.

  “You know Papà does not like those blackshirts,” I whispered. “Why must you talk to them?”

  “We’re going to be the greatest country in the world,” Vito said. “What do you know about anything?”

  “Are you going to join them?” I said.

  “He can’t,” Aldo said, without looking up. “He’s only nine. They don’t take children in the army.”

  “I’ll run away as soon as I’m old enough,” Vito said. He patted his shirt pocket and drew out a cigarette, which he lit.

  “Papà will beat you if he sees you with cigarettes. Why must you upset him always?” I said.

  Vito shrugged. Ever since his return home, he had been at odds with Papà.

  We walked around the school to the back, then crossed a field and began the descent down the hill, towards our casello. When we reached the bottom, at the Y in the path, Vito headed to the left.

  “Aren’t we going home?” Aldo said, pausing.

  “You go home,” Vito said. “I want to walk a bit.”