“Come on, spit it out. As they say, you don’t shoot the ambassador. Look, I’ll turn around, it’ll be easier for you to tell me.”
“You ridiculed them in front of the whole town by joining the procession in broad daylight like that. And they want to pay you back, in spades. It would be at the Osteria della Bassa. They’d make you drink castor oil, a bottle or two, until you shit your pants, in front of your friends. There, that’s the price they want you to pay.”
Floti spun around, his face red and his eyes lit up with ire: “Never! You understand me, boy? Never! I’d rather they murdered me. These humiliations are what killed your father, more than any beating he ever got, you know that, don’t you?” The boy nodded. “Tell Nello that he really doesn’t know me at all if he thinks he can propose something like that. Go. Tell him.”
“That’s exactly what I expected from you,” replied the boy. “Nothing less. In an hour they’ll hear your answer, the only answer that Raffaele Bruni, known as Floti, could give!”
He went back out and ran off across the fields.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Two days later, Floti sent word through Bruno Montesi that he’d found a way to leave and that he would like to meet with the family on Wednesday, to say goodbye. Checco sent Bruno back with the message that they were expecting him.
That next Sunday the Madonna left the parish church to go back to her sanctuary. Clerice said farewell and thanked her with a lump in her throat. Her prayer had been heard, but it was a bitter satisfaction. She would have to say goodbye to this son of hers; who knows where he’d have to go to escape danger and who knows when she would ever see him again. She accompanied the Image all the way back to the sanctuary on foot and when the band at the end struck up the first notes of “Mother Of Love”, “It’s the hour that, piously, the faithful call . . . ”, Clerice wept all her tears as the Madonna turned her back to her, entered the sanctuary and vanished into the darkness.
Wednesday, she thought, Wednesday would be the last time in the Lord only knew how long that her whole family would be together. She thought of times past, of the celebrations, the weddings and baptisms, of the long winter nights listening to stories, even of the funerals that had pierced her heart and, looking forward, she saw no reason to hope for better times than those she had behind her. Her sons’ wives were all pushing to move out, to go live on their own, without realizing that they had everything to lose, that strength lies in unity and that in such harsh times, each isolated family would find it much more difficult to make ends meet. By the time she got home it was already dark and she started to prepare dinner with Maria’s help: a bowl of bean soup followed by crescente with prosciutto.
“Always this same old stuff!” Armando blurted out, seeing that the menu didn’t tend to vary much.
Clerice didn’t let the comment go. “You’ll remember,” she replied, “this same old prosciutto when you’re out on your own.”
On the appointed day, they sat down all together at the table to wait for Floti, who didn’t show up until long after dark. When Clerice went to open the door, she saw another couple of dark figures leaning against the elm tree, both with rifles slung over their shoulders.
“They’re friends, mamma, here to watch my back,” said Floti, and entered.
They sat down at the table together, each one of them wondering whether this might be the last time they’d see each other. Clerice had saved some broth and tortellini from the Festa della Madonna, because Floti hadn’t had any yet, and Maria served, passing around the table to pick up the bowls and bringing them back one at a time, filled to the brim and steaming.
“What a treat!” Armando said this time, adding an abundant sprinkle of grated parmigiano to his bowl. “Tortellini on a weekday!” he marveled, and plunged his spoon into the soup.
They didn’t talk about much, besides everyday concerns like the weather, the hemp crop and the wheat. Luckily, Maria amused them by recounting her Florentine adventures, some of them familiar by now, others new. She never left out the story of the two marble men, tall as a house and naked as the day they were born, with Rosina saying that she shouldn’t attach any importance to that, because they were works of art and artists could do as they please. But not even that topic lasted very long. They all continued eating with their heads in their plates because it was evident that the person who should have done the talking wasn’t.
“What are you thinking of doing?” asked Floti at a certain point, as if to say “after I’ve gone?”
“Each man for himself and God for all,” replied Dante
“Yes, that’s the only solution,” confirmed Fredo.
Savino didn’t say anything, because he’d already made his choice and no one could blame him. Checco had already started a little business venture on his own and it must have been doing well, for he always seemed to have money in his pocket.
Floti turned to his sister: “I’ve heard that you’re still seeing Fonso. You still want him.”
“Of course I still want him. And he wants me.”
“No kidding,” commented Armando, “where’s the storyteller going to find another girl like you?” forgetting that Fonso had a stable job and that they paid him every week.
“Good,” said Floti, “that’s good. Maria will be getting married and the rest of you will strike out on your own . . . every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. As for me, I’ve found a job in the Garfagnana, at Camporgiano.”
“What’s that?” asked Fredo.
“It’s a place in Tuscany. There was an earthquake there a couple of years ago, and a lot of houses fell. They still need bricklayers.”
“But you’ve never held a trowel in your hand your whole life!”
“It can’t be too hard to learn.”
A leaden silence fell over the table. Floti wanted to ask: “Who will take mother?” but he said nothing because the answer didn’t depend on him. He looked over at Armando, who was so frail and unaccustomed to hard work. How would he find work with that weakling’s build? His own thoughts echoed his mother’s; Armando would certainly remember the same old prosciutto he was served nearly every day in the Bruni household.
The atmosphere was oppressive and no one felt like talking. Eventually, Floti broke the silence: “Well then, I’d better go before it gets too late. I don’t want them catching up with me tonight since it’s going to be my last. Goodbye to all of you. Good luck.”
“Good luck to you too,” said Checco, “you need it.”
Dante and Fredo took the cue to get up to go to bed, and just then, each of them realized that with the family breaking up this way, the soul of Hotel Bruni would vanish. They both gave Floti a nod, as if to say, be careful, but they couldn’t speak a word because they felt a deep sense of sadness, and if they had spoken their voices would have trembled.
Savino walked up to him and slapped him on the back, “Stay well, Floti. I’ll always be here. Just say the word and I’ll be there for you, count on it.”
“I know,” said Floti with a tired voice.
Maria got up and threw her arms around his neck saying, “Write me as soon as you get there! I’ll come to visit you, even to the ends of the earth. I’ve been to Tuscany and I made my way home on foot from Casalecchio. I’ll find you for sure. And I’ll always love you because when I love a person it’s for always.”
“I’ll always love you too,” replied Floti. He dried her tears with the clean, pressed handkerchief he kept in his pocket and he touched her cheek: “Will you forgive me?”
“I have nothing to forgive you for. You only did it because you loved me too much.”
Floti’s own eyes became shiny at those words. “You’re exactly right. Marry your Fonso. He’s a good man and he tells beautiful stories. Listening to a good story is like dreaming, but then you have to wake up, and life . . . well, life is another thing. Don
’t ever forget that.”
“I won’t forget it, Floti.”
“My children.” Tears were running from his eyes down his bristly cheeks now but his voice was firm. “You take care of my children, Maria, I’m trusting them to you. They have no one. But one day, I’ll come back for them.”
He left out the back door and disappeared into the dark.
After dismissing the friends who had been standing guard, Floti cut through the property and headed towards the Samoggia, jumping over all the ditches and drainage canals until he could hear the voice of the river in the distance. He tumbled through a hedgerow in the dark, pricking himself on the thorns, and ended up on the road that flanked the ditch on the other side of the bushes. At that same moment, a galloping horse burst onto the road from a curve at his right and nearly trampled him. He rolled to the ground to avoid being hit and was caught by a blinding light.
A voice cried out: “Damn you, what do you think you’re doing?” as Floti heard the horse’s hooves pounding the ground just a footfall away from his head. He got up, aching all over, shook the dust from his clothing and walked in the direction of the voice. The man sitting upright on the saddle eyed him: “Look, I’m armed. Make a move and I’ll put a hole through you. Is that clear?”
Floti tried to invent an excuse, “Forgive me, I hadn’t seen you coming,”
As he spoke, he studied the man who was holding the horse’s reins in one hand and a carbide lamp in the other, which lit up his face enough to suggest to Floti that he’d already seen him. “There’s no need for weapons,” Floti continued. “I know that you don’t meet many gentlemen out at this time of night, but sometimes appearances can be deceiving: I’m out here in the dark, jumping over ditches and startling people, but I’ve never hurt anyone, while those who are after me are safe at home in their beds and they’re the true delinquents.”
The man got off his horse and approached him: “Who are you?”
Floti shook his head.
He held his lamp up to Floti’s face: “I’ve seen you someplace before. I know your face.”
“And I know yours. All right, let’s say that you took me for a highway robber, I can see why. But who could you be, out at this time of night and on this road, but a priest or a doctor? Priests don’t travel armed and on horseback, so you must be . . . a doctor . . . Oh yes, the lieutenant! Sir!” He raised his hand to his brow in a military salute.
“Codroipo del Friuli, the field hospital: that’s where I saw your face!” remembered the doctor. “You broke my balls until I sawed off that lad’s arm!”
“That’s exactly right. You were all covered with blood, like a butcher. What happened to that guy?”
“Who knows? What’s your name?”
“Bruni, lieutenant, sir, Raffaele Bruni. And you’re Doctor Munari, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Good memory, dammit! And I was a captain when I left the service.”
“What are you doing here, captain?”
“I’ve been named the town physician. What about you?”
“I’m escaping. The Blackshirts are looking for me . . . ”
The doctor raised his hand: “Not another word. It’s not necessary. The only thing that counts is that you and I passed through hell and we survived. And we’re still human beings, it seems. It’s a pity you’re leaving.”
“Yes . . . it is a pity. I would never be doing this unless I was forced to. It’s sad to have to leave home.”
“You’ll make it. After what we went through, we can’t be afraid of anything. When you do come back, come by to see me. We’ll have a cup of coffee and chat.”
“I’d like that, but it won’t be easy. But you know, doctor, I’m taking this meeting as a good sign. Good night, then.”
“Good luck, Bruni, and let’s hope the night won’t be too long. You know what I’m saying.”
“Let’s hope, doctor.”
Doctor Munari spurred on his horse and rode off in the direction of town. Floti continued walking towards the Samoggia, until he saw the water sparkling in the moonlight. There he found a hiding place, tucked under a tangle of locust trees, that he’d used in the past. He covered himself with an old tabarro that he’d left there and tried to sleep.
The next day a friend gave him a ride on a cart that he used for transporting crushed stone and took him to the station of Modena. Floti took a train from there to Parma and then to Lucca, from where he could catch a bus to Camporgiano. He’d heard that the town had been partially rebuilt, but many of its buildings were still in ruins. That’s where he was headed.
For a while, the Brunis bided their time working the land they had farmed and turned, clod after clod, for over one hundred years. In the meantime, each of the brothers was wondering who Clerice would choose to go and live with. It was an honor and a privilege that each one of them aspired to in his heart, but it was also true that there were objective impediments for some of them. Savino lived in his father-in-law’s house and came, now and then, to give a hand. It certainly wouldn’t be easy for any of them to convince their mother to live in someone else’s house, after she’d wielded the soup ladle her whole life in her own home. Fredo had found work as a cowherd on the property of a landowner in Zola Predosa, too far from all the other brothers. That would be a bit like kidnapping her. Poor Floti had ended up living at the back of beyond somewhere; who knows whether he’d be able to make a living for himself, let alone support someone else. Armando, poor thing, didn’t have many prospects. He hoped to work days if someone would have him and to settle his family in the hovel that the parish priest had set aside for the homeless in the old part of town. A miserable solution which he nonetheless took philosophically, laughing that “even the mice, in that place, go around with tears in their eyes.”
Checco and Dante were left, and Checco was the first to step up at the beginning of fall. “Mamma,” he said, one day that there were just the two of them in the chicken coop, “wouldn’t you like to come live with me and my wife? For us it would be a great pleasure. I’ve found a house at the other side of town, near the Morandi villa. It’s nice and big, it’s dry and there’s a bedroom all for you, with the commode right in the hall, opposite the door of your room, because the house used to be annexed to the villa and the estate foreman lived there. I’ll be earning well, because I’ve started up a wholesaling business with a friend of mine who buys and sells feed flours for pigs and cows. You’ll live like a countess.”
Clerice looked into his eyes. “Thank you, Checco, I’d like very much to come and stay with you, but you know I’ve always lived in the country, with my chickens and rabbits. I like waking up to the rooster crowing and going to bed when the church bell chimes for the last time. And I’m used to having a lot of room around the house. Living in town, where everyone is so close together and so interested in other people’s business, that’s not for me. I’d be happy to live with you because you’re a good boy and your wife is a respectful, virtuous woman.
“But my place is with the child who needs me the most, without me being a burden for him. I think it’s best I go and live with Dante. He’s found work as a tenant farmer on a property near Cavazzona that’s one hundred and fifty furlongs. He already has three children and his wife is pregnant. I can still be useful to them; I can cook, feed the chickens, heat the water for the pigs, take care of the little ones while their parents are in the fields . . . They need me, Checco.
“You’re talking to me about a life that I’ve never lived, and at my age it’s not easy to change. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself all day; I’ve always been accustomed to working. Please don’t take it badly. I’ll come to visit and we’ll have a cup of coffee together on Sundays after mass. And you can come to visit me whenever you like.”
Checco dropped his head without managing to say a word, and Clerice understood that he had taken it badly. He must have been hoping she w
ould accept and her refusal had hurt his feelings. All he said, finally, was, “Whatever you wish, mother.”
Fonso wanted to get married right away, at that point, because the new public housing development was almost ready. The windows weren’t in yet, but that wasn’t a problem. The problem was Maria, who felt responsible for her niece and nephew. One day at the end of October, Floti finally sent word: he had found a place to live and a job and he wanted his children to join him. He asked Maria to bring them to the station of Bologna, since he still couldn’t set foot in town. One foggy morning, Maria dressed them in the nicest clothes they had, tidied them up, put a pretty ribbon in Ines’s hair, had the farmhand hitch up the horse to the cart, and headed to Bologna. She had begun to feel like they were her own, and she wept during the whole journey, at the thought of separating from them. Corrado, the elder of the two, kept asking her: “What’s wrong, zia?”
By the time she got to the station, Maria was almost hoping her brother wouldn’t be there. Instead, she soon saw him emerge from the fog and steam of the locomotive and come towards them. Floti embraced the three of them tightly, then brought them to a café where they could have something hot to drink. They spent a couple of hours together before it was time to go. The children kept looking at the ground because they were a bit afraid of their father, who they hadn’t seen in so long and didn’t really feel at ease with. Maria kept her eye on the big clock hanging in the station. The hands clicked forward, marking, minute after minute, the approaching moment of separation. It was even worse, sadder, than when she had left Fonso to go to Florence.
When the moment came, Maria burst into endless, inconsolable tears, and stood watching while they got onto the train and rode off. The fog swallowed them up instantly and she went back to the cart, pulling her shawl tight over her shoulders. She couldn’t say a word the whole way back and the farmhand, who’d always been in love with her, said now and then: “Cheer up, Maria.” But he had a lump in his throat as well: he knew that no more obstacles lay in the way of Maria getting married. He was right.
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