Lead Petals

by Quelli di ZEd

  15

  After the wars in Ethiopia and Spain, Italy was not ready to face a new conflict, besides planetary, and you/he/she had temporized. In an impetus of forwardness, Mussolini was gone out then of the state of not belligerency attaching the English in northern Africa. You/he/she had been as to send some livestock to the slaughter house, considering that the big part of the heavy artillery went up again even to the first world war. And now that Hitler had launched the attack against the Urss, starting the operation Barbarossa, you/he/she would not have accepted but the Italian allies they still prevaricated and you/he/she would have pretended military troops to his/her support. It intended to close with a war lightning of five weeks, avoiding so to risk the troops to the polar Soviet winter. But it was a folly, because the Russian army he was revealing a dangerous and astute adversary; the winter impended as an epitaph. In narrow times over halves the miners you/he/she was recalled to the front. The great affinity between some engineer of the direction and some among the most important fascist gerarchis did yes that at least the least number of essential workers he/she didn't leave the mine.

  As you/he/she had foretold him same, Luigi it didn't show up in the middle of the immune ones. It had only trentadue years and during the military service you/he/she had been winning with various recognitions; its vigor was necessary to the front and you/he/she had been assigned in first line, the riskiest. You said that you/he/she would have departed for Russia, near Stalingrado: it was there that the Germans tried to give the decisive spallata to the red army of Stalin.

  A military green jeep was parked to the mouth of avenue Empire, of side to the building of the direction. As another dozen of boys, Luigi attended to take that mean. You/they would have conducted him/it away from Montevecchio, toward a different life, where the difference among to become hero or dead body would have been imperceptible. But him perlomeno didn't have wife and children and to cry him/it there would have been alone the elderly mother.

  The square was full of people. Emilio saw Luigi supported to the great awning that covered the large case of the jeep. You did wide between women and children that to a large extent you/they would never have seen his/her own husbands and fathers again. It came in front of his/her greatest friend. Luigi rose the beret from the forehead and stared at him/it in the eyes, scrutinizing his/her fears up to the soul. They remained to a meter of distance the one from the other without uttering word. Then Emilio drew near to Luigi and embraced him/it tightening so strongly it to get away for an instant the breath. «Then parts for Stalingrado?»

  «So it is said!»

  Emilio looking at the extended face of Luigi. He was young and he/she saw the war as a possibility of retaliation toward the world. It didn't have idea of thing it waited for him/it in battle during the rigid Russian winter; and it was better so, irresponsibility would have lent him a big hand to avoid to think that his would perhaps have been a trip of alone going.

  Emilio tried the last paper. «You have not tried to address in direction to annul the call to the front?»

  Luigi got out of the patched limp beret in more parts and you/he/she delivered him him among the hands. «The country calls because it needs me. When we will have won this war and I will have revealed a name, I will ask me the help of my country and I am sure that I will receive him/it. I want to depart, not to hide me as a coward!»

  Emilio contemplated the figure of Luigi with admiration. You inserted on the head the limp beret that he had given him. «I have to hold him/it?»

  Luigi gave a pacca on his shoulder in a comradely gesture. «Is not a gift! You will guard him/it to me up to when I won't have reentered from the war. Then, if I will have become important and I can purchase one of them new, I will decide whether give him/it or less.»

  Emilio smiled at work, Luigi hastened and looked for of risollevargli the moral one. «You know her that about the Sardinian baker?»

  Emilio slowly shook the head, you/he/she would have liked to smile, but he/she knew that that was the way that had chosen Luigi to greet him/it. It was a sad moment.

  «A Sardinian baker holds the flour sacks on the back of his/her shop. A French arrives that if you/he/she is doing her/it I set, he/she sees the flour and it pisses us above. Does the Sardinian see him/it and shouts him": That cabbage you are doing?" French looks at him/it and answers": Je of it compris pas." To that point the Sardinian draws near him and says": you/he/she is alone because you don't want to buy bread you owe the flour to piss me"?»

  The lips of Emilio drew a crescent just mentioned, he/she didn't succeed in doing more than that.

  «You see, Emilio, us Sardinians we are stubborn and we make us to understand everywhere. I will also do him/it me in Russia. We have thousand resources. I will make to know to all of my trallalleroses!» Luigi was not afraid, rather. Radio and newspapers spoke of corpses and wounded but they didn't succeed in making a truthful idea of that that happened, especially in Sardinia, where the real war he still made to attend. Who didn't see with his/her own eyes the death it was not able to gain her/it through the written words or you speak of a journalist. The vision of the war from Luigi was exclusively tied up to a film that you/he/she had seen from few in the cinema theater of Montevecchio: red Coats with Gary Cooper. That evening the tickets for the duecentocinquantas set of the room everybody had been sold. People howled and were exalted during the film. Luigi had remained electrified by the battles among the troops English and the Indians. It imagined so the war: a great field where you/they could die only the appearances, not the principal actors, and him it was considered a Gary Cooper. And if it were also dead you/he/she would have earned d of it' image, was its conviction. To Montevecchio it still spoke of Grisello the brave one, a boy whether to save some companions of his had been killed in the fifteen war - eighteen. «Grisello yes that it had the square coglionis!» they told with adoration the circle of the dopolavoro. In the wall of side to the counter you/he/she had been suspended the portrait of a very beautiful youth, that heated the low abdomen of the females to the first glance. «As it was beautiful Grisello!» the women exclaimed being sorry himself/herself/itself not to be able to have him/it before in meat and bones there. Who had known Grisello personally he/she affirmed that that portrait didn't belong at all to him. «Does her of Grisello it was ugly as a culo stormed of hemorrhoids after a bellyful of quaglio of kidskin» it swore tziu Mallocci, a hand placing himself/herself/itself on the heart.

  The myths must have remembered beautiful.

  Behind Luigi and Emilio the atmosphere quickly saddened him. Severinu Mannai was serious, it attended to depart and it held in arm his/her two children. Casizolu and Gianbattista Fogheri were kissed with their wives and who knows if you/they would have heard again the sweet warmth of those lips.

  A wagon hauled by the oxen, to be able to pass, broke the crowd in two. Mannoi Arannada, a bearded farmer of half age, lifted him above the wagon. It abandoned for an instant the reins and it was placed the right hand on the forehead emulating the military regard. Luigi immediately answered, Severinu Mannai and others less enthusiastic of the departure didn't imitate him/it.

  The sudden starts of the temperature, over that to slow down the maturation of the grapes, had starato the biological clock of the animals. Anticipating the times, a voluminous flock of thrushes expanded him in the air. It drew the eccentric form of a race, that opened his/her immense wings in the abyss of the sky aquamarine; then he tightened and it became a sharp zagaglia, ready to pierce through the skeins of clouds that in distance they appeared on the surface behind the Linas mountain. Hundreds of eyes to the firmament they admired that amazing phenomenon that almost seemed to announce a premonition. Luigi hoped that you/he/she was good.

  Some people removed him leaving a passage that brought up to the jeep. Caracollando, a conformation of elderly woman ingobbita appeared and wound by the mourning: it dealt with tzia Adelia Corona, the mother of Luigi. When he saw her/it he/she hardly succeeded in hold
ing back the tears. His/her mother was old and sick and you/he/she would have found impassable difficulty to live without his/her benefit. Luigi tore off the back from the mean and him you/he/she made meeting to the woman. «Hi, mother, that you do us here? I had told you to be home. It is for this that I have greeted you first.»

  The old one scrutinized him/it with worn out eyes and it tightened him both the hands. «Not to go, my child, prays you!» it implored him/it, trembling and allowing to shine through some tear.

  Seeing the desperation of his/her mother, Luigi collapsed and cried. «You are calm, mother, doesn't have at all intention to leave you. I have to go, but you will see that I will return.»

  A soldier went down from the place of guide of the jeep and leaked inside an I whistle metallic similar to that of the railroaders; the strident sound that produced attracted the attention. «Boys, are time to depart, you jump on the jeep!»

  Luigi embraced his/her mother crying. «You will see that I will return, I promise him/it to you!»

  The elderly woman, that from when you/he/she had lost his/her husband it entirely dressed of black, it extracted from a pocket the only fabric that it was not suitable him to a mourning: it was a white handkerchief. It dried the eyes hemmed of tears but the it you/he/she would be taken something of well greater to arrest that hemorrhage of sparkling droplets.

  Don't make to feel her what you/he/she would have said, Luigi turned her back and whispered to the ear of Emilio. «Friend, owes a favor to ask you.»

  Emilio started. The occasion of sdebitarsi had arrived for the whole help that Luigi had offered to his/her family after the death of Giuseppino. «What you want, brother!»

  «He/she minds mine old. Anything happens, I pray you, he/she minds mine old. Do you promise him/it to me?»

  Emilio fell in an unbearable melancholy. «I promise him/it to you as it is true that tomorrow the sun will rise, my friend.»

  The new recruits climbed all on the large case of the jeep.

  «Expected! Expected, I pray you!» It was the voice of Lella.

  Luigi jumped down to the flight from the jeep landing genuflesso to reduce the hit. Lella beat the face on his breast and made him tighten from his/her strong braccias. «Oh, Luigi, when you will return you will find here me to wait you.»

  Luigi saw Emilio make him the gesture of the lifted thumb. His/her friend was right that day of vintage, Lella you/he/she was a good girl and you/he/she would have waited for him with trepidation. It shook her the hands to the height of the basin and right-hand looked at her/it in the eyes. «Lella, will return and we will marry there, I promise him/it to you!»

  Lella stuck out him in before and closed the eyes. Luigi kissed her/it on the lips, softly, without making himself/herself/themselves space with the language. Crowd didn't seem to acknowledge nothing, there was too much demolition to mind the new loves. That film kiss would be enfeebled in an instant. Luigi went up again on the jeep that stirred and slowly takings speed. It grabbed one of the pipes that sustained the skeleton of the awning of coverage and he stuck out. Emilio saw him/it and he launched to the pursuit of the vehicle racing as a madman; I approach to him so many wives, so many children and so many friends. Lella was immovable, stunned by the kiss of Luigi.

  «Goodbye, friend!» it howled Luigi.

  Emilio the footstep, shaken by that regard, then it still accelerated. «It is not a goodbye, Luigi, deals with a good-bye» you/he/she shouted with the whole breath that had in throat.

  Luigi did just in time to hear that regard beneaugurante. The jeep took the steep descent that windingly you/he/she would have conducted them to Guspini. You sat in position from Indian. Close to him, Severinu Mannai cried. Casizolu for the time being he held back but its eyes were red and swollen as plums. They were in an about ten inside that large case and each he/she knew to be alone inside of itself. Luigi and the destroyed faces of its companions of trip almost infected him/it. He/she saw to get further the building of the direction and the hospital that it was of forehead. Only he realized now that was about to abandon all of this that up to few instants first would never be dreamt to leave. It was at that time that it contracted the infection of the sadness, to which until then you/he/she was escaped. Montevecchio, in his small, thanks to the great available workloads, for the inhabitants of the zone it represented the navel of the world.

  They left well to the shoulders Sant'Antonio with his/her tower merlata in style neogotico. Well Piccalinna became more and more small, until when it disappeared entirely from the view of Luigi, and with it the last signal of his/her house faded away also. It considering to his/her mother and Emilio. They would be Them him missed to die, the job in mine some less. It supported the head to the awning that for the attrition with the air it rippled gone crazy. It scrutinized to quickly flow in front of his/her eyes an insane dance of colors. A whirlwind of pinete, woods, rocks and animals, that plain pians melted him in a psychedelic picture from the indistinguishable forms, painting with a mixture shades irriproducibile and sounds. Who knows if the war would have had the same vivacious colors, or to attend him/it in the icy winter of Stalingrado there would only have been one discolored fresco in black and white.

  Emilio accompanied again tzia to house Adelia Corona, starting so to maintain faith to the promise sort to Luigi. They entered that bugigattolos that absurdly you/he/she had been able to have been keeping to himself/herself/themselves for the external summer and to maintain a rigid winter in his/her depth. The sixty centimeters of thickness of the carrying walls of that mousehole had worked as a customs that the sultry excitement had not succeeded in eluding. The residence was constituted from a single room in which the only clippings of furnishing were a crumbling table two chairs mended to the best and a heap of pagliericci abandoned on the floor. Three copper saucepans were suspended with some nails to the boundaries and a wake of ants it emerged from the ceiling of tables and it lost him in the joints of the raw bricks. The kitchen was a base of cement cover of cracks and sbeccata in the angles, greater than the fireplace, in which would not be been able not to even roast a quail. Of bathroom not even the shade of the shade, only the odor. During the winter, for the limbs shriveled of tzia Adelia to make the needs it had to represent every day a scourge. And Emilio was imagined the old one crouched under the tree of lemon, with the black suit lifted up to the navel, wound by the snow to try of cacare or to piss to the quick one not to die frostbitten. Now he/she explained him the fame of the lemons of tzia Adelia Corona, famous in all Montevecchio for as grapefruits to be big and. grown with natural fertilizer.

  Emilio saw the body malridotto and sick of tzia Adelia and it heard again. To grow old was the destiny of every man and for Emilio old age was only a phase of the life. His/her grandfather had been a great impassioned of piano; to play had also entered him/it to belong to the choir of the church of san Nicolò to Guspini, even if its swearwords made to turn the corpses in the graves. «Grandfather, because he grows old? You are not sad with all those wrinkles?» Emilio had asked him, when it was more or less twelve years old.

  «You don't have to be afraid of the old age Emilietto. I have gotten used to see her/it as one divided palindromo.»

  «What one divided it is palindromo, grandfather?»

  «It is a music that played indiscriminately departing from right or left always produces the same symphony» you/he/she had still replied the old one. «Old age is so: it doesn't have to frighten neither from young people neither from old. It owes to always be seen equally. Have you understood, Emilietto?»

  Emilio had nodded happy. You/he/she had understood really: old age was always equal and he didn't have to be afraid of it. But growing had realized that his/her grandfather's look toward the senility had perhaps been distracted. He/she now thought that old age possessed a meaning instead bifronte. He from child had hurry to grow old. «I am ten years old» you/he/she had said proud to Archangel Peis. As soon as one day had passed from when you/he/she had complete
d only instead eight of it. From adult, instead, the desire to grow old had disappeared together with the first wrinkles, to the first stains on the skin, to the first brizzolatures; the lie had it starts to insinuate himself/herself/themselves with overbearance in the daily paper. His/her wife Maria, with the people that didn't have means of controprova, it was always attributed a few years less. The eccentric thing was that that lie had the expectation to convince herself to have a few years in less. That is the period in which the childish and adolescent memoirs start to make evil and they torment men that he/she anchors they find it hard to recognize himself/herself/themselves in a body rusted by the first afflictions. From old he becomes sincere and truth with pride is displayed for having sometimes reached an unexpected age. His/her great-grandfather was dead to novantaquattro years. Who would be able of to diminish a finishing line as the ninety years? Anybody of certain, he/she thought Emilio. But unfortunately the fear of the death didn't weaken of equal footstep with the age. Him, when it was twenty years old, it fell asleep thinking about thing you/he/she would have made the next day; it was certain that his/her great-grandfather, to novantaquattro years, it fell asleep thinking the same thing. To twenty or to one hundred the same desire is had to live, that disappears only in the forced patients to the suffering from too much time. Perhaps old age has only the power to make aware that death is a forced footstep but not for this welcomed without fear.

  Anybody from young it was able to imagine him in the state of tzia Adelia Corona. You is born, he lives, he grows old. and then he dies. The humiliation of a departed old age under the conditions of that woman made to believe in Emilio that at least one of that four passages you/he/she could be eliminated: he is born, he lives. and he dies, without growing old, you/he/she would have been better.

  But the saddest thing was that even his/her child Luigi had succeeded in improving the things. His/her job soddisfaceva as soon as the stomach with a' derisive daily refection, when it was all right.

  Emilio arranged the elderly one on one of the chairs, helping to come down her/it while he sustained her back with an arm. For the time being his/her assignment he exhausted. Just before to leave it realized her/it that the woman didn't possess anything of his/her child. Luigi was brought away his thin and miserable personal effects. Emilio the limp beret raised him and placed him/it on the tired knees of Adelia. «Holds, lady, this is the hat of Luigi. It will make her company when it will feel him alone.» It was private hardly forever of the dearrest gift that had ever received. Yet you/he/she had done him/it with pleasure, that poor woman it had very more need in comparison to him of that ancient headgear.

  The vecchina looked at him/it with adoration and tightened him to the breast the beret as if it were the body of his/her child. «Thanks for the gift that you have done to a poor old. You are a brav'uomo, Emilio!»

  «I thank her, lady!» he responded embarrassed.

  Few minutes later it put on in march to make reentry to Guspini.