Lead Petals

by Quelli di ZEd

  6

  The moon was disguised alone, as if the god Apollo had decided to extend over the owed one the services of the red-hot bright disk. To save, Emilio extinguished the lamp to carbide, that yes that it was sincere, not as the chestnut tree: when he extinguished allertava on an imminent lack of oxygen; for the miners during the job in depth it meant to have it saves the life. In twenty years, to Emilio had already happened quite a lot times to be saved himself/herself/themselves thanks to his/her inseparable companion. The only advantage to be pendulum-like was that to be able him to bring behind the lamp; the residents had to deliver her/it in lampisteria at the end of every man day instead. Antiogu Prinzis, the storekeeper, was fussy as the bees workers and annotated everything. The first time that someone didn't redeliver the lamp, the cost was escaped him increased by the salary. The second time that happened was better to look for him another job. It was necessary to be careful to the tools received in endowment, the mines kept on magnifying him really because they were also watched the most meaningless expenses.

  The path excavated that Emilio was crossing it was well clear, illuminated by the natural torch that embellished the sky. From village you Rule they still separated some hundred meters and him to it you/he/she could separately hear already the sound of the guitar of Luigi. villaggio Righi era uno degli insediamenti che si erano creati attorno alle miniere di Piccalinna e San Antonio. The well Amsicora was very more next to the village of Telle, yet the miners of the zone were poured again to village you Rule. Telle was busy to a large extent from the meurredduses: hates him iglesienti that, according to the arburesis, you/they were trespassing and fottendo the job that was up to others. For the truth you/they were poured again in the arburese because the American airplanes had devastated with the bombs the mining fittingses of Carbonia and outskirtses. But the fear to lose the job had worked with the arburesis as a blinker for horses. The pulsating heart of the Linas mountain was the village of Montevecchio, where the building of the mining direction resided. «Anything else other than mountain Olimpo! You remember, boys, that we here are to Gennas, be you of it proud» it told his/her pupils teacher Tiddia, that read more books now of when it attended the magistral school. In Roman epoch, Montevecchio called Gennas, built on the hill of" Genne Serapis", in honor of the Greek-Egyptian divinity Serapide, protectress of the underground world. Even if teacher Tiddia would not have agreed, the miners said that Montevecchio of divine you/he/she had only the name. The mines resembled to of the endless holes that conducted to it inflicted him. In antiquity the slaves worked us under torture; they begged the goddess Serapide to assuage their sufferings. Those prayers still wandered in depth, waiting for to be granted. The goddess Serapide had chosen to listen to the centurionis rather than the slaves. Life went and will always go this way. They will be dissatisfied the poor men, the weak, the defenseless ones. As that time that the destiny had made to lose by chance to the jeweler a gold bracelet. Romeo Ghiani" the laborer" you/he/she had stamped on him/it without not even seeing him/it; to find Gramminu Pilloi had been him/it" the hereditary one", a nullafacente recipient of the fortune of a known rich aunt never. Stumbles in a lock of grass and it was fallen with the open mouth, the bracelet finding again himself/herself/itself among the teeth without being him not even scratched the face. You/he/she had gone so, and so it will continue to go.

  Village Rules it was surely the most pleasant village of all the others. Placed to around two kilometers by Montevecchio a happy island he/she remained. The night they arrived miners and families from the whole zone. To forget the war was looked for to make party and it was enough well few to have a good time him. That village distinguished him so much from the others that all called him/it Shanghai, for the fervor of its nights.

  Emilio observed the great cork oaks and the stately leccis that shaded his/her walk. It increased the footstep. Before a rustle among the leafy branches of the trees, then the song of an owl they made him accapponare the skin. In the daytime the wood was pleasant and marvelous but the night had the power to turn him/it into a left and anxious place.

  The to strum more and more some guitar and the song of the people near they succeeded in infusing in Emilio a safety minimum. You looked around wary. When it emerged from the planted with trees path it almost did him/it of run. In front of him the new villas of mint were risen: you build in 1938 you/they had not made the knowledge of bombs or machine guns yet.

  You turned and it gave a last look to the wood. A gust of wind made to dance the leaves of the leccis that seemed to greet him/it.

  Despite the big noise, the lamps were all out ones. The voice was turned that the pilots of the airplanes unhooked their bombs really in correspondence of signals of light. Taddeo Trincas, a legionary of the war of Ethiopia reentered with a leg and four fingers of the hands in less, you/he/she had told that in first line the soldiers smoked the cigarettes with the power on point in mouth, to avoid that the fiammella attracted the enemy. Nobody knew if that history were real, of truth there was that all intended to avoid to be the first ones to discover him/it.

  The party blazed to the plain earth of the last villa the most hidden and reserved. You clearly heard the voice of Luigi tune up one of the trallalleroses.

  «Luigi plays the guitar and also plays the violin but when his/her woman goes you/he/she is in bed a little dog. Trallalera larillalillalera, trallallera larillalillala!» This time you/he/she had been the voice of Terenzio Bellu to speak and you/he/she had just dared to challenge Luigi with a trallallero; you/he/she had mocked him/it because to thirty played Luigi was still bachelor.

  Emilio timidly mailed him in the villa. Luigi is sat on a chair to the center of the room and you/he/she aimed the guitar. Around him a flood coming from every angle of Montevecchio. Luigi was a phenomenon of the trallallero and nobody almost dared to make him/it object of the wisecracks in rhyme. It was rapid in to elaborate the answers and he/she left spiazzati his/her adversaries. Terenzio Bellu, with that provocation, a hit of hoe was given to alone the feet. Luigi stared at him/it with a sneer that didn't allow to presage nothing promising. It strummed the ropes of the guitar and it unsheathed his/her trallallero of it replies: «Luigi will go in bed also with a dog, but you/he/she is a particular dog, you/he/she calls Teresina and I do her/it howl. Trallallera larillalillalera, trallallera larillalillala!»

  People bursted to laugh. Terenzio Bellu, was instead inactive as a ferret in hunting, that stings a snake. If the looked for era. The Teresina of which he/she spoke Luigi was his/her sister. Who possessed sisters or a beautiful wife it was thrusted in serious troubles pricking Luigi, because his replies it was acute and prickly more and more.

  Without notice, Luigi interrupted the refrain of the trallallero. There was silence. It faked to look for the concentration with the lowered head on his/her guitar. It played some slow notes, then the rhythm grew and all recognized the song" Dust of stars" of Natalino Otto. The fascist regime had prohibited the broadcast diffusion of that song defining her/it a Barbaric black antimusica. The disks however they were found in commerce. From when Gennaro Fois, dealer of return from Rome, had made to know that song to Montevecchio, the people you/he/she loved her/it to go crazy. The things after having been for a long time ignored, when you/they are prohibited they become necessary: allegories of rebellion. All observed abducted Luigi and they dreamt that the notes emitted by the musical tool were magic and they had the power to change their lives to make her best. Plain Pian to his/her song the voice of others united him, then of other anchor, up to that the uproar instigated him. Susan Porcu dragged in footstep his/her husband Giandomenico; I taken to braccetto they kicked first with a leg and then with the other, using him/it style of dance of the music folk. Loredana Melis put us few to follow bringing them with itself his/her brother Giaggio. There was not to eat but all danced and they sang happy. They took the by the challenges for the one who withstood more dancing in couple. The untiring Pino Demontis and Cisca Satta to the long on
e would have remained to circle alone in footstep: they always won them.

  The next day was Sunday and as every week from the advent of the Duce you/he/she would not be worked. You/he/she could be done late. Toward midnight his/her children were brought by their mothers to the close-up of the villa that, as the other levels, were constituted from an only great room occupied by some bed and a myriad of covers. The floor gave the impression of a carpet. That room would have offered kindergarten for the night to all the babies, while down he kept on making party.

  Luigi was a real rascal, an animal from stage, knew always as to revive the evenings. Another of his/her specialties they were the jokes with the Sardinians protagonists. Every Sardinian would have been able to tell jokes on the Sardinians for times but those of Luigi they were unbeatable. It invented her himself, he/she perhaps thought of her the night. To the sudden one it deposed the guitar for earth, on the side of the chair. When it told the jokes it gesticulated quite a lot. «A French, an English and a Sardinian go to Africa for a safari and forgive him in the jungle. You/they are captured by a tribe of cannibal and death row inmates.»

  The circle was tightened and the people by now it was behind their preferred cantastorie.

  «The head of the tribe decides to give a possibility to the three and says": to have salute life, you to plunge in a fall tall fifty meters, to comb fierce bear and finally to make love with my daughter".» Someone already snickered, only for the way according to which Luigi told. Anybody however it had idea of as you/he/she would have gone to end the joke.

  «The first one to try the enterprise is French. You plunges from the fall and the bone of the neck breaks him. "Dead. end. caput" the head of the tribe exclaims. "Before another"!»

  Emilio could see only the shoulders of Luigi, even if the faces of the people spoke alone. People to open mouth, smiled sincere, thoughts distant from the hunger and from the war.

  «For according to the English it is thrown and, with great surprise, he/she succeeds in still resurfacing alive from the fall. The head looks at him/it and tells him": Now you to enter cave of bear and to comb him, then to make love with my daughter." From the cave they come out it howls terrible and the English is devoured by the bear. "Dead. end. caput" the head tribe exclaims. "Before another"!»

  The attention of the spectators reached the apex. Everybody knew that now the Sardinian would have entered in scene. The end of the joke was near the pure laughters.

  «The last to try the enterprise is the Sardinian. The head tribe looks at him/it and while it is being about to again explain the three tests, the Sardinian stops him/it and tells him": I have understood everything, other explanations don't serve me." You throws from the fall and as the English it goes out from there uninjured. Does it put on to place the hair and does he/she ask": Where the cave of the bear is?" The head points out him the direction. The Sardinian enters and from the cave they are felt you/he/she howls terrible. The head tribe snickers but when he/she sees the Sardinian go out of the cave he/she remains to open mouth. The Sardinian, with a proud look, does it look at him/it and does he/she ask him": Where it is his/her daughter that now have to comb her/it"?»

  A boato of laughters flagellated the villa. The walls waved as I shaken by an earthquake. Emilio didn't succeed to riprender anymore breath from how much it laughed. Some were laid down to earth and they rolled him. The women, usually more composed, genuflesses cried. Also Luigi laughed at taste for his/her same joke. But you/he/she was not ended there. You unthread from under the bottom a long red ribbon. It climbed above the chair and the band tied him on the sides, staging a teatrino with his/her cousin Bruno. To be able to work in the mines was necessary to be enrolled to the fascist party and to show every saint day the enrolls to the entry of the wells; the communists were hidden for fear of retaliations but in past you/they were distinguished going around with a showy red band to life, just as that of Luigi. From above the chair, its face detached more aloft than everybody as its ribbon. It started to recite the part of a rich communist owner. His/her cousin Bruno put on to four legs and neighed as a horse. Luigi jumped us in rump and howled as a crazy person: «Ridarò the mines of Montevecchio to the miners, will become all rich ones,» while Bruno him imbizzarriva and you/he/she tried to unsaddle him/it.

  People were folded up in two by the laughters and Emilio you/he/she didn't make exception, there was so much need to forget the insufficiency of their lives, the horrors of the war and the bites of the hunger.

  Toward the two, only the eyelids of few stoic miners had succeeded in withstanding the twelve hours of job. Bruno, from good landlord, definite to reward them. «I have a surprise for you old scoundrels!» It rummaged in a belief and it again advanced in direction of the residual gruppetto. It hid something behind the back. It almost been sorry. «I preserve for a long time her for a great occasion. Beh, believes that has arrived.» It lifted aloft the arm that held hidden behind the back. The reverberation of the moon filtered from the windows and was enough to misguide the dark. You clearly distinguished a dusty bottle of Scottish whiskey from the worn-out and faded label.

  Emilio and the rest of the miners started as if you/they were admiring a millennial object, they seemed centuries that you/they didn't see a bottle of Scottish Whiskey. The Duce had banished all the products that didn't derive from Italian workmanships: to drink a Whiskey or a coffee was become an unattainable desire. That evening the dreams could be made true.

  «I am ready to kill for an I drip of that Whiskey» the arganista Foffu Dessì shouted, breaking the religious silence that was created. And they still laughed.

  Each had his/her goccetto and it tried to taste doing him/it last him/it the more possible. Emilio made to tinkle his/her cup of scraped aluminum banging her/it against that of Luigi; it dealt with a toast. «Then that letter?»

  Luigi lifted the shoulders. «It said not to leave Montevecchio. I have to maintain me available in case of a call to the front.»

  «I understand! You will see that the war will still be ended before calls you.»

  Luigi smiled and nodded. «Certain! Certain!» it whispered looking at his/her glass.

  Emilio still lifted the cup. «To your health, friend, has been really a beautiful birthday party. Thanks!» You looked around and shaken the head being sorry himself/herself/itself, Lucio you/he/she had not taken part to that party.