La Brigantessa

by Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli

  As Nicolina’s back disappears past the door, Gabriella turns again to Tonino, whose cup is still full.

  “Gabriella, I want to talk to you.” His voice is husky, urgent.

  She swallows. “Yes?” She stifles the desire to wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead.

  Tonino shakes his head. “Not now. This is not the right time. Or place.” He searches her face for a moment. “Will you meet me down at the river this afternoon, past the place where you do your washing?” He clears his throat. “By the abandoned vineyard?”

  Gabriella feels her cheeks burn. She looks away. Is Tonino trying to set up a secret tryst? Does he think she will agree to a secret meeting instantly, as if she has no scruples, no thought for her reputation? What reason does he have to think that she will agree? For as sure as her middle name is Lucia, after Santa Lucia, she knows that her father would not approve of such a meeting, even with the son of his best friend. She turns back to him with a frown.

  He coughs. “I just want to talk to you. Nothing more.”

  “You can talk to me now.” She glances at him sideways.

  “There’s no time. In a minute, my father will be calling me to chop up the meat for the sausages.”

  “I’ll be helping with the sausages.”

  “I don’t want an audience when I talk to you.”

  Gabriella wants to ask, “Why not,” but bites back her words at Salvatore’s booming call.

  “Eh, Signor Antonino, how are you supposed to perfect your father’s trade if you’re playing with girls? Get your apprentice’s ass back here.”

  Amid the laughter, Tonino looks wryly at Gabriella with a “What did I tell you?” expression. He sets down his cup on the rough stand and begins to walk away. He stops and turns around after a few paces. “I’ll be there at mid-afternoon,” he says. “By the abandoned vineyard.”

  Gabriella watches as he strides away, noticing how his linen shirt clings to his back in places. She lifts her face to the crisp breeze from the Ionian Sea in the distance and inhales deeply, trying to steady the drumming in her chest.

  Hoping that her face doesn’t betray her, she walks briskly to the others, who are ready to begin the chopping and mixing of the sausage meat. She rinses her hands with the rest of the water from the jug and takes a spot at the long oak table. After Salvatore and Tonino chop up the larger pieces of pork shoulder, her father cuts them up further and slides them over to her. All chatter seems to die down suddenly, as if they are taking in a solemn church service. Gabriella salts, peppers, and sprinkles the ground pork with fennel, stirring to distribute the spices evenly, before placing it in a wooden vat, where it will remain until the following day. Occasionally, she steals a glance at Tonino, and to her surprise and pleasure, he happens to be gazing at her on every one of those occasions.

  She flushes with the sudden conviction that she will be meeting Tonino later by the river, forbidden or not.

  ASCENDING THE WESTERN SLOPE of Mount Gallica, Don Simone Oliveri anticipates his retreat with his friend Don Filippo, abbot of the Monastery of the Capuchins in the hamlet of Gerace. He prods his mule Vittorio around a series of ruts toward the last stretch of road leading to the monastery.

  Don Simone waves at the appearance of Don Filippo. The abbot is striding toward him, his cassock billowing. Don Simone dismounts, and as he embraces his friend, another monk takes the mule away to be tethered, groomed, and fed. Don Filippo opens the thick domed door of the monastery. Their shoes slap the slate floor as they pass through a series of rooms and narrow halls that lead to an open courtyard.

  Don Simone feels the fatigue of his two-hour journey begin to dissipate as he breathes in the familiar herbal scents around him. Sweet basil, thyme, rosemary, and mint thrive in the garden maintained by Brother Domenico, who enjoys a well-earned reputation both within the monastery and outside its walls for his tisanes and culinary concoctions. Even the most simple of meals becomes a celebration of abundance with Brother Domenico’s touch. Nothing is wasted; much is conserved for winter use or for the weekly soup dinners made for charity. People travel from as far away as Gioiosa Ionica to line up at the monastery gates every Saturday, carrying a tiana, its glazed terracotta interior keeping the soup or vegetables and beans protected until later use.

  A giant fig tree towers in one corner of the courtyard, and in another corner, a prickly-pear cactus drapes the outer wall, and spreads along the mountainside. A lone persimmon tree stands nearby, its fruit long picked. Don Simone has his fill of its fiery orange fruit every autumn, and the thought of its extraordinary succulence always makes his mouth water. It is as tempting as any fruit could be in the Garden of Eden, he muses.

  Don Filippo and Don Simone turn into a vine-edged doorway and continue down the slate corridor until they reach a sitting room that houses the abbot’s desk and bookcases. In one corner, a table has already been set with fresh linen and cutlery.

  Brother Saverio, the newest member of the Order, enters the room and offers Don Filippo and Don Simone a tray with two cups, a steaming kettle of fennel tea, and several fresh golden-brown panini that are split in half and drizzled with olive oil and oregano, accompanied by several wedges of sheep’s cheese that Don Simone knows is made on the premises. Don Simone thanks him and the monk retreats to the refectory to reassume his duties as bread-maker and assistant cook to Brother Domenico.

  “Eat, eat,” Don Filippo bids Don Simone.

  The edge of his hunger appeased after finishing his panino, Don Simone leans back before retrieving a parchment from within his cassock. It is affixed with the formal seal of the State of Piedmont. He recalls the shock of reading its contents two days earlier. “I have some news to share with you, Filippo.” His voice catches. “Not good enough, however, to warrant a celebration.”

  “Simone, what is it?” Don Filippo leans forward, frowning. “Has something happened to a family member?”

  Don Simone takes a deep breath. “No, nothing like that, thank God.” He hands the letter to Don Filippo. “I have been informed by the State that my church lands have been sold.” He slumps back in his chair while Don Filippo reads the letter.

  “I’m truly sorry for you, Simone. It is a disgrace, the number of religious orders that are being suppressed by the new State. Church properties auctioned off like fattened goats to the land-owning classes.”

  “Yet your monastery and the Convent of St. Anna here in Gerace will remain open, Filippo. And the Sisters of Charity in the Aspromonte have been spared also, apparently for their dedication in caring for Garibaldi’s wounded.”

  Don Simone bites his lip. General Garibaldi’s victory in ousting the Bourbons under King Francis II from the southern territories in The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies has brought changes none of them could have foreseen. How many bodies maimed and lives lost to become one nation under King Victor Emmanuel II! Months after Garibaldi’s victory in Naples and Sicily, the territories were called to pledge their allegiance to the new State by way of a plebiscite. And those voting “yes” seemed to be enjoying special privileges in the aftermath of Unification.

  Don Simone’s jaw tenses. It is a known fact that the dozen or so monasteries that were known to have voted “no” for the plebiscite for the annexation of regions for Italian unity, were shut down by the new State, including the House of the Holy Redemptor and the Monastery of the Capuchins in Stilo. He clears his throat. “So, tell me, good brother, how did you…?”

  “Manage not to get shut down?” Don Filippo rubs his chin. “I think, perhaps, we were not as openly hostile to the annexation proposal as some of our brothers. Out of the twelve of us, only eight of us—including myself—quietly voted ‘no’ without stirring up the villagers, as some of our more outspoken and subversive brothers have been doing.”

  Don Simone sets down his tea. “I am neither overly outspoken nor subversive and yet.…” He hears his voice crack
. Unable to go on, he wipes the corner of his eyes with his handkerchief.

  “Oh dear,” Don Filippo places a hand on his arm. “What a shock this has been for you.” He glances again at the letter. “You’ll still conduct masses,” he offers consolingly.

  “Apparently so,” Don Simone says drily. “But on whom am I to depend with no land, no food, no animals? The collection provides barely enough to pay for a basket of figs. And I don’t intend to seek charity from the poor villagers, either. They’re barely subsisting as it is.” He thinks of his labourer, Lorenzo Falcone, who farms and tends the animals for a portion of the crops as well as eggs, goat milk, and the occasional meat after the yearly hog slaughter. How will Lorenzo’s family subsist if the new owner dismisses them? “Poor Lorenzo,” he murmurs. “I shudder to think what this news will do to him.”

  “Must they leave?”

  Don Simone purses his lips. “They may have no choice. You read the letter. It specifically states that once Alfonso Fantin, the new proprietor from northern Italy, takes ownership in July, he may require all vassals and livestock to be dispersed of as quickly as possible.”

  “Why does he want the lands if not to work them?”

  “Like so many northern men of status, Fantin has no interest in anything other than ownership. An absentee landlord, that’s what he’ll be. I should have paid more heed to what’s been going on in the latifundia all over Calabria.” Don Simone feels anger coiling in his stomach. “If the Piedmont government can seize half the Papal States after Unification, why wouldn’t it extend its greedy reach to every corner of Italy?”

  Don Simone takes a loud sip of his tea and sets it down, his eyes starting to prickle again. Damn the liberals. How else to pay for the cost of war and independence, and to pay the expenses needed to make the new nation a viable entity in the competitive, industrial world? How else but to sell expropriated church property and inundate the new nation with taxes?

  “These are troubled times for the brotherhood, Filippo.” He shakes his head. “And to think that most people thought their ‘yes’ vote in the plebiscite would result in a greater freedom for all. Those poor, deluded souls. If anything, Unification has only brought about more poverty.” His mouth twists.

  The clanging of the bells announcing vespers startles him. His elbow hits his cup and it falls, cracking against the slate floor. He apologizes profusely to Don Filippo, who rings for assistance.

  As he stoops to pick up the bigger pieces, he thinks how his life and Lorenzo’s family’s life will shortly become as jagged and shattered as the cup….

  TONINO SPRINTS THROUGH THE WEED-LADEN PATH of the abandoned vineyard. The late afternoon breeze whips his face. He can smell the imminent downpour in the air. He has grown up in this valley, shadowed on one side by the dusky, jagged foothills of the Aspromonte mountain range, and bordered on the other by the endless Ionian. The salt-laced wind is blowing in from the sea. He welcomes it; his body is suffused with the same kind of heat he felt in early December during the mass commemorating the death of San Nicola in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta.

  Tonino’s glance was not transfixed on the altar, where a life-sized statue of the saint gazed at the congregation with luminous eyes that some swore blinked miraculously from time to time. Tonino’s eyes were fastened onto the back of Gabriella’s head, draped in a black kerchief with fringed ends.

  While Don Simone chanted the Psalms, Tonino chanted silently: Turn your head, Gabriella, so I can catch a glimpse of your saintly face. She truly was a saint. Anyone who did what Gabriella was doing—devoting herself to her family, housekeeping and cooking for Don Simone—deserved such a title.

  Tonino was rewarded moments later when a latecomer entering the church with cumbersome steps drew the attention of many and caused heads to turn and faces to scowl. Gabriella turned, bestowing Tonino with a flash of her profile, and a glimpse of her plum-red lips and bright eyes that matched San Nicola’s in lustre. Her hair, thick and wavy, looked eager to burst from its kerchief restraint. Her eyes didn’t meet his, but he was almost relieved, for his knees would surely have buckled.

  The procession started after the mass. Tonino thrust himself into every opening in the thick cord of followers, hoping to get closer to Gabriella, but something or somebody always thwarted his progress: old Nicolina, the village midwife, who sought support for her arthritic knees; Signora Danone, who at seven months pregnant lumbered along, praying aloud to San Nicola to bless her unborn child; or a boisterous group of youngsters who were hardly willing to give up their spot with their companions.

  Every once in a while, Tonino would lose sight of Gabriella, and the hope he felt would plummet, until a wave in the ocean of limbs leaving the church restored her to his view and then he felt like a saved man. God forgive me, he murmured to himself, for thinking of Gabriella instead of venerating San Nicola. But surely God would see that his heart and actions were pure when it came to Gabriella. His heart ached whenever he thought of her, and whenever he saw her. Tonino felt a tremor course through him that had nothing to do with a threatening roll of thunder that momentarily caused the processional cries, laments, and devotions to cease. Moments later, the first drops of rain began to fall.

  As the procession shuffled through the main road of the village and out into the open countryside, the rain intensified. The six robust men carrying the statue on a platform with extended wooden arms ploughed ahead, their heads bent. Mothers held their children near, fathers sheltered the older folk, and the younger ones fended for themselves.

  Tonino felt a jolt of envy as he saw a villager, Dino Poletti, offer his cloak to Gabriella. His heart twisted as he glimpsed the grateful smile she offered the recently widowed neighbour. As the procession reached its destination to the cemetery on the outskirts of the hamlet, Tonino’s heart felt increasingly heavier. It seemed that everything and everyone was contriving to keep him from getting close to Gabriella.

  As the rains turned into a deluge, the men set down the statue, and everyone headed frantically back toward the hamlet, shrieking as lightning forked the sky. Tonino lost sight of Gabriella in the scattering crowd, and by the time he reached his house, he was shaking uncontrollably. He dried himself by the hearth, but the chills continued. He spent the night in torment, seeing Gabriella’s eyes over and over again, her smiling face directed at Poletti.

  He discovered later that his mother and nonna had stood by his bedside incessantly during his feverish thrashing and outcries, taking turns applying cool cloths and giving him elixirs to bring out the fever. Another day and they were ready to call the village exorcist, so great was their fear that some envious villager had laid a deadly curse on him.

  After two days, the fever broke and he came out of it feeling like the cloths the washerwomen would wring out and slap against the limestone outcroppings by the river. He was weak, weaker than he had ever felt in his life, but his conviction about Gabriella was stronger than ever. Slowly, with his daily intake of the pigeon broth his nonna prepared, making sure to add the yolks of freshly laid eggs, his physical strength returned. And being the son of a butcher, he didn’t lack for liver or sweetbreads to build up his constitution.

  In the weeks of recuperation and for weeks afterward, Tonino thought of ways of approaching Gabriella. He played them all out in his head, knowing full well that there were expected procedures to follow if he was contemplating a serious courtship, and that some of his imaginings would not likely ever take place. He would never compromise her in any way; no, he had every intention of doing the right thing by her. He would approach her father first, or maybe he could take his father into his confidence and have him talk to Lorenzo.

  There was also the matter of Dino Poletti to consider, who might very well be looking for a new wife to tend to his three children. He made some discreet inquiries about the widower and was ecstatic to hear that Poletti was making plans to go live with his mother up
in the hills of Serra San Bruno, and that his second cousin, a spinster, was promised to him in marriage.

  Tonino returned to work with renewed vigour and health. He made sure that he and not his brother delivered meat to Don Simone, and he would leave the rectory after hand-delivering the package to Gabriella with a sense of breathlessness and excitement that almost drove him mad with the effort of keeping his feelings a secret. He couldn’t help but drink in as much of Gabriella as he could with thirsty eyes in the few moments it took for the exchange, and any accidental contact of her fingers against his ignited his senses like a torch. To his mortification, Gabriella once made mention of this after her usual inquiries as to his parents’ health.

  “And how are you, Antonino?”

  “I…I’m well, thank you.” He wondered why she was peering at him with furrowed brows.

  “Your face is quite flushed. Are you sure you’re well? Perhaps you have a fever.”

  Tonino inwardly cursed his traitorous skin. “No, no, I’m not ill; I just ran to get here, as I have to head into town very soon.”

  “Well, don’t overexert yourself.” Gabriella gave him a shy smile. “Or you might get sick again, and then Don Simone will have us all reciting the rosary after Sunday mass to pray for your recovery.”

  Tonino’s cheeks burned. Was she joking with him? He gave a laugh that sounded like a croak and thanked her for the payment. “Arrivederci.” He tipped his cap and turned away.

  “Ciao, Tonino.”

  Tonino froze. She had used the short form of his name. It had been uttered with a soft familiarity that warmed him like his grandmother’s pigeon soup. He turned around. Gabriella was still in the doorway of the rectory, her face and eyes bright with genuine innocence and purity. His heart sank. There was nothing there but neighbourly concern and camaraderie. He tipped his cap again and then sprinted away, vowing to find a way to make her want him the same way he wanted her. He hoped one day her eyes would let him know….