Lead Petals

by Quelli di ZEd

  23

  The sky was of a blue fiabesco, turquoise as the mantle of the principles. The light of the sun gave a phosphorescent gradation to the green of the gardens. In the principal plaza of Mussolinia, the Duce came out of his/her absorbed residence in the green. A rejoicing crowd welcomed him/it with it howls warm. With his/her ordinate grey uniform, mantled by the long coat, he/she greeted the crowd with the lifted right arm and the open hand. The flood esagitata responded in chaotic way. The face of the Duce was serene. A steel eagle shone in his/her hat. Three small children, you dress with white suits similar to those of the first communion, they made him meeting to him. One for time the omaggiarono, giving him bunches of roses redheads, white and yellow. Mussolini took the flowers and delivered them among the hands of the fascist gerarchis, that followed him/it in every public exit. You bent on the children and he/she kissed on her forehead. The operators and photographers of the Light, the educational cinema union created by the fascist empire, didn't miss to immortalize that greedy moment, able to give life to short films and services photographic able to educate the masses to the greatness of the fascism and its greater exponent.

  Crossed Mussolini a brief street line disseminated of agrarian fittingses. The incessant roar of the applauses was as a fall of foamy water. That was people that loved him/it really. People that, after the reclamation, from one day to the other one you/he/she was found again with farms and agricultural grounds in hand: the same grounds that up to little time before you/they had been marshes of mud impestati from ready mosquitos to infect with the malaria.

  Mussolini walked discussing with the engineers of the reclamation. The men in black shirt of the voluntary militia appeared nervous. You/they had not foreseen that human wall and it was difficult to check him/it. Mussolini came in proximity of the popular houses: great quadrated buildings and entirely dressed again with pietrame by the red shades, black and grigie. An inactive housekeeper on the stipite of the door saw him/it. He/she invited him/it to enter and its eyes flashed as in the dreams. «You are really you, Duce?» he/she asked him with a voice broken by the weeping. Smiled Mussolini her and he/she embraced her/it. The woman tightened him/it strong, touched, as if you/he/she knew for a long time it.

  The militiamen didn't move a finger. The housekeeper was Julia Puppin, that had been being prepared for days as every person to which would have been granted to approach the Duce. An invitation to enter, an embrace, a weeping and any abrupt movement, this would have had to make Julia Puppin and this did.

  The procession of automobiles left the town submerged by a new wave of exultation. The auto of the Duce, a lance astura decapottabile, black and with the chromed inserts, it proceeded in the mezzeria of the procession. It was protected on all the sides from other lance driven from the voluntary militia and from balilla 508 Ms in military order. The autos darted among endless rows of poplars that shaded the mantle of the road, dappled from stains of sun. The chirruping of the sparrows and the clean air aroused a feeling of peace; the same one that is perceived walking in the avenues that introduce to the cemeteries. The Duce sat in the back seats, with the elbow leaned on the counter. The open canopy allowed the air to caress him the face. You raised the headgear of the uniform and dams the eyes, inhaling to full bellows the odor of his/her power, the perfume of his/her realized ideas.

  Vineyards encircled by luxuriant fig trees of India. Expanses of wheat and cereals color honey. Cows in health to the pasture. Then Terralba.

  Terralba was the country with more inhabitants of the district. The population was entirely lined up along the principal artery. Same Mussolini been surprised of how much people were that you/he/she interested for earning in the first row him a place. To be able him/it healthy, to see, or only to be us and taccheggiare a special moment, seen or imagined only by them, to exploit as corollary for the history that one day would have told to his/her own nephews of that time when Mussolini had been to Terralba.

  «Duce, will win!» they howled the terralbesis to squarciagola.

  Some children invaded the roadway arresting for an instant the advance of the automobiles. Four men and two women, dressed with suits that for them they were from party but that the fascist gerarchis would not even have worn if you/they had been forced to pick up the tomatoes for the preserve, they reached his/her children and they brought them out of the run. People howled as if those six people arrived from the cathedral of the cinema from Hollywood. You/he/she had been their small moment of glory and if you/they were taken him everything.

  The Duce greeted his/her children with a radiant face. It was very good to dissimulate; a minimum of apprehension for the sudden stop had certainly grazed him/it. The militiamen came down from the autos and to work they succeeded in containing the heat of the immense crowd that trod in every direction. There was the necessity to show the hard fist to appease the most excited. Some gun in hand worked better than the camomile. The procession arrested him in front of an imposing building with an ample finestrata that leaned out on the road. "House of the Bundle" it recited the writing posted under the moulding that contained the building. The taxes of the finestrata were open. It leaned out the podestà; the lance astura of the Duce stopped really under of him. The man the voice cleared him. It trembled but not for the fear, for the emotion. There was the presentiment that the podestàs, set to replace the mayors with the ascent with the power of the fascism, they were not select at the king Vittorio Emanuele in person as they declared the official sources but that their position came in way piloted from the fascist gerarchis or of the same Duce. Those voices were more than a suspect but, if the podestà already knew Benito Mussolini, that day didn't give him/it to see.

  «Terralba makes free to you, Duce, light of the empire!»

  «Dux mea lux!» latinizzava departs some crowd.

  Benito Mussolini lifted him standing on the lance astura, erect as the statue of Napoleone and it turned the fascist regard. A clamor rintronante responded to its regard. Placards that represented him/it with I wear the military helmet you/they were shaken in the various zones; they were so as that if combined you/they could constitute a drapery able to shade the vineyards of Bastiano Sabiu.

  The coverage of a great lavatoio composed from tubs of cement had been conquered by people that they hoped to exploit that dominant point to see the Duce. They seemed some piled up starlings one on the other ready to migrate. Only God knew how you/he/she had made that slender coverage to sustain the exaggerated weight. A microscopic crack would have been enough for giving the street to I unswathe him/it complete of the roofing, and there would have been then quite a lot bones to put again to place.

  The podestà continued its discourse made of decorums and certainties on the victorious result of the war. Mussolini didn't do anything else other than to smile and to nod; as him, also that black crows of the gerarchis.

  The automobiles left again followed by the people that it raced. Regardless of the hot ground they scurried about naked afoot. Sharp stones were pierced in their heels, as clogs of horse made hard by the habit to do him/it.

  The bells of the suggestive church of san Pietro they took to play. From the bell tower, perhaps the priest and the chierichettis or someone that in way truffaldino had succeeded up there in climbing until, they shook the hands sticking out himself/herself/itself from the parapet. Under of them the plaza was an ant hill gone crazy by the sight of crumbs of bread. The Duce he still lifted on the auto and he/she greeted for the nth time the people terralbese. Also to the prisoners of the jail, young thieves of hens, were granted moreover to see the Duce from the bars of the guardiola that it gave on the road.

  They sat in four in the lance astura of the Duce. They turned all toward left when to the exit of the country they saw the wall of surrounded of the full cemetery of people, that you/they sat with the legs to three earth meters dangling. The whim to see Mussolini had demolished the wall of the respect for the peace of the gone souls. This time the Duce didn'
t get up on the auto, that proceeded too expeditious. It lifted the hand and he/she still greeted and for the last time the terralbesis.

  Under the scorching sun, from the fields the farmers greeted the Duce shaking for air their straw hats. The autos responded making to play again the horns. In the country of St. Nicolò of Arcidano the parade of auto. They didn't stop him. Procedettero slowly to give the possibility to everybody to see Mussolini. The country was constituted by teams of houses leaned out along the cardinal road. There was everywhere people. The arcidanesis to the passage of the Duce made to rotate hundreds of strocci-ranas: a knickknack in wood that, thanks to a small mechanism, it produced a sound similar to the croaking of the frogs. Mussolini looked around him amazed, convinced to be himself/herself/themselves in the beautiful mean of a pond; noise was infernal and the cry always the same: «Duce, will win!»

  Other crowd, other fields and other farmers. Mountain and trees. Finally Montevecchio.

  Avenue Littorio seemed a box of sardines in which was tried to insert the meat of a whole whale. It was too much a small road to contain that wave of people. The women were together all, with the black skirt, the white shirt and the tied up black handkerchief on the head. The more youths dressed all with the uniform from" Young women", formation that wanted to be a sort of Balilla to the female one. Risking to be crushed against the villa of the chemistry they were stirred again between them excite, fighting for being immortalized by the photographers of the Light. Ciccitta Marongiu had left his small dormant in the house. You exhibited in a laying accattivante that, with a pinch of fortune, you/he/she would also be been able to appear in the first page of some newspaper. "The secret of the power is in the wish" it hymned a writing to characters cubitali that occupied a side of the villa. Meledda Tresca and Feffa Sanna had taken seriously indeed that writing, their wish was to make to be photographed, their power they were the shoves.

  To the intersection among avenue Empire and avenue Littorio the miners quivered. Minghetti had stopped the production that day and there was really everybody. A mass of people had been instructing for weeks to welcome in memorable way the Duce. In the center and in the circle of the dopolavoro you/he/she had been done their a brainwashing: now all knew that the Duce was infallible and its fascist empire would have known centuries of longevity.

  On I break down him/it some imposing Linas mountain, an enormous poster sustained by two bundles tall littori more than five meters it recited the writing": Italians and Italians once more standing we will win."

  The Italian flag raised him on the crowd, accompanied to the sides by those of Nazi Germany and of Japan, the allies. Identical placards to those visas to Terralba, with the Duce provided of helmet, you/they were scattered in the hands of the miners. The autos of the fascist procession appeared on the surface from the last slope and the din of the miners it gave the idea of a volcanic eruption. Nobody dared to escape to the ritual of the fascist regard. Mussolini he raised upward still on the auto with the tense arm. Others give auto they were raised fierce braccia by the black sleeves. Long avenue Littorio, to the feet of the great rows of oaks, the children of the elementary ones and those were had the asilo,tutti adorned with the lupetti uniform; the handkerchiefs azzurrinis their faces and the muskets even though toys, they gave out a rudeness place on the shoulders of so small children. The autos were hedged in in front of them. A teacher lifted the arm: you/he/she was the signal. Every child cast frustrated his/her incensamento: «the Duce Lives and lives the king!» They were not able more than that sentence that you/they had been forced to have been repeating for the whole day for weeks of it, as if it were a poetry of Giovanni Pascoli.

  «You see how they grow well!» he/she ascertained fierce the Duce, turning to the three gerarchis that sat in his/her auto.

  Minghetti had succeeded in his/her intent. The hotel workers Francesco Sartori you/he/she had been finished and furnished with two weeks of advance. The Italian flag with the coat of arms of the empire to the center was hoisted of side to the entry and sfarfallava in the air. The engineer went on and back absorbed in his/her soliloquys. «Where you are you outcast, Daniel?» it kept on wondering uneasy.

  Mrs Clotilde Minghetti scrutinized his/her husband distressed some that the absence of Daniel was caused from Geneva. «Phillip, tries to calm you!»

  Phillip puffed. «Here I gamble away me all, as can I calm down?»

  The clamor of the crowd reached them. Phillip was immovable.

  «For the poverty, they have already arrived!»

  Just in that instant the lance ardea of Daniel stormed in the avenue to big speeds. With a manoeuvre it breams the auto it inserted him in a free space of side to the hotel.

  Phillip saw his/her child race the black tie of the suit holding himself/herself/itself, that tried to escape him of hand as a rattlesnakes. He/she didn't even greet him/it. «Where Geneva is?»

  The face worn out of Daniel said everything. It bent the head. You/he/she had been with Geneva the evening before. You/they had planned everything, yet she was seemed him strange, almost absent. That morning, Daniel had uselessly attended that she went out. You/he/she had knocked without standstill on the front door, vainly. Resigned, you/he/she had looked for then her in the middle of the crowd. Among the miners, rather than she, had perceived the marshal Troise, that used him in to maintain the order.

  «Marshal, is worried for Geneva. In your house nobody responds!»

  The marshal was allowed to escape a grimace of suffering. «Geneva won't come to this parade! Daniel, from the time, it is very confused. But you will see that the thing will resolve him!» you/he/she had been his/her chilly declaration.

  Daniel had been petrified. It was not a bad boy but its snob ways didn't probably coincide with the virtues that Geneva sought in a man. Was ended! And she had not found the courage to confess him/it to him the evening before, Daniel you/he/she was firmly convinced of it. It ignored however that the end of their history was to attribute to another man: a man of whom he had laughed in more than an occasion.

  It was about to come less to his/her promise, invalidating the day attended for a whole life by his/her father. «Dad, is really for this that I have delayed. Geneva won't come» he/she confessed keeping on holding the lowered head.

  Phillip did him/it to feel more still embittered. «Bushels agreeing with your mother, Daniel. It regrets me to tell you him, but Clotilde was right!»

  Daniel began an attempt of explanation and Phillip you/he/she interrupted him/it. It was the least proper moment to slip himself/herself/themselves in a mordant discussion: the Duce was arriving.

  Launch her they placed a little before and after the hotel, reserving the parking lot to the auto of the Duce in front of the entry. The balillas 508 Ms were parked in second line, to protection of the other autos stuffed of characters of I detach. The shield mask chromed of the lance astura sparkled as the quintessence. The you look for, the handles and the edgings of counters and lighthouses seemed electroplated with the silver of the mines. Mussolini came down from the auto. The colors of its grey uniform detached in the background shining of the dark body shop. If Phillip Minghetti had seen the Pope his/her expression you/he/she would have been less disorientated. You/he/she was dressed with the black uniform and the boots of skin. Clotilde wore a sober suit instead color it fishes and a toque that contained his/her thick blonde head of hair. Hardly behind, Daniel followed his/her parents, dressed with a black suit that showed off a pin with the bundle littorio. In front of the entry all the collaborators of the engineer were hedged in. To their shoulders a rampart of attendants, cooks and waiters of the hotel.

  Phillip was the first one to offer the fascist regard, then it tightened the hand of the Duce and the quiver it became tachycardia: an infiltration of astute adrenaline to the heart.

  «Well, well, ingegner Minghetti, has seen down in country that you bossily have the situation in fist!» it said the Duce.

  It was a compliment. T
he pupils of Phillip dilated him and a shiver of pleasure sent away the nervousness. «I try to do better mine, Mr. Duce!»

  Mussolini shook the hand of Clotilde. «I see with pleasure that you also have good taste in fact of women.»

  Clotilde blushed and its cheeks seemed covered by the fard that instead they didn't have. Phillip hastened to introduce her/it. «You are Clotilde, my wife.»

  «Onorato, Mrs Clotilde.»

  Clotilde shook, the words didn't come her. «My honor, Mr. Duce» he/she answered stuttering.

  «This elegant young fellow has to be his/her child!» Mussolini exclaimed; you/he/she had just perceived Daniel.

  Phillip had a new shiver. «Yes, Mr. Duce, he is Daniel.»

  They shook the hand. Mussolini assumed an austere frown.

  «You don't have a companion, Daniel?»

  The blood of Phillip chilled and takings to flow in sharp splinters that risked to chop off its veins from the inside.

  «Yes, but it was not very well today!» almost annoyed Daniel answered.

  «You are already in family age. If you intend to follow the tracks of your father you would do well to marry you to have some children. Today day a clean image cannot be maintained if a family is not had to the shoulders. An united family is the base for an united empire. Not you mind my reputation of seducer, from Ida Dalser in then so many errors of which I/you/they am reformed have committed. With Rachel then you/he/she has been a disastrous marriage. But beside a wife can give so many children. And to have so many children means to have a work force and a superior army. The appearance in front of the people counts more than the pride. Boy there are understood?»

  Daniel nodded, scrutinizing the eyes of his/her father rather than those of the Duce. Phillip, after minutes of apnea, started over breathing. Its boat had perhaps shunned a dangerous iceberg.

  They visited the hotel. It was a modern structure able to almost entertain four hundred workers. Vases of flowers refined the rudeness of the long corridors. The walls were disseminated of photo in black and white raffiguranti the Duce to half bust and the victorious soldiers in battle. The name of Francis Sartori was recurrent in the whole hotel, understood the entry, on which the insignia had been suspended

  "Hotel workers Francesco Sartori."

  The local cafeteria was an unadorned room, entirely constituted from long tavolate and chairs. The Duce and two gerarchis sat him. Phillip and Daniel made them company. «I have to say that it is really a beautiful hotel workers» it admitted Mussolini.

  Phillip and Daniel exchanged a fleeting glance, they knew how much job was cost and how much to risk had been that visit. Phillip responded pleased. «I am happy also me of the result.» It avoided to make references to his/her expeditious letters to Rome.

  From the kitchen the cooks came and out they served the same ration destined to the miners: watery soup of pasta and ceci with a piece of bread. Mussolini ate that frugal meal as him same tasting the savory food of the world. There were still the operators of the Light to take back him/it.

  In the afternoon, from the balcony of the scholastic building, the secretary of the fascist party ordered the regard to the Duce; the acclamation was of an immense greatness. Mussolini plotted the praises of the workers remembering the utility of their job to the goals of the victory in the world conflict. The nth explosion of the miners was not for that encomiums but because you/he/she had just been orderly to double their rations cafeteria.

  Before leaving Montevecchio for Guspini, Mussolini it stuck out him from the auto toward the ingegner Minghetti. «I have personally read all the letters that you have sent to Rome. Seem me an able and ambitious man; the empire has need proper of people as you. You attend my news, I wait you in brief times to Rome. We will systematize the matter and I will find you a charge of relief.»

  Phillip had a wince. Clotilde was of side to him and tightened him strong the hand. Daniel contracted the fists and dams the eyes from the joy. His/her father had succeeded.

  «I don't know whether to thank you Mr. Duce. Me.» he/she didn't know as continuous to anymore, as much it was his/her emotion. It shook the hand of the Duce and you/he/she would never have liked to leave her/it.

  «Coop calm. To do won't owe to do him/it anything else other than to continue so and to bring tall the name of the empire. The secret of the power is in the wish» it proclaimed Mussolini, taking back the sentence written in the villa of the chemistry; a sentence coined by himself.

  The autos crossed avenue Littorio among it shouts her some crowd and they were dissolved as fog in the last tornante. The life of Phillip Minghetti had been a walk acclive, the time you/he/she had come to take a steep slant. You turned toward Daniel and he/she embraced him/it. «Daniel, has succeeded! But you and I have a matter to immediately clarify.»

  The warm atmosphere cooled him.

  Daniel waited for that affirmation. «Tell me!»

  «Your history with Geneva a weight will become. Today you/they have seen everybody that you/he/she has given you hole and his/her tantrums they will become of public dominion.»

  Daniel felt impotent. «Dad, is right, but I care» he answered gesticulating.

  «That to which you hold you now passes in second floor. You have to make you a family to the quick one, so I can push you toward important ranks, the time of bamboleggiare you/he/she is finished. I have always favored you, this time I am not able. System as soon as possible the matter with Geneva or I will have to live without you in my next future.» It was a threat spit without his/her usual liked ways.

  Daniel; you/he/she grew loose the knot of the tie and without answering he wriggled. Phillip was sad for what you/he/she had said it was necessary. There were thousand of girls that would have paid for being with a beautiful boy of good family as Daniel. Girls without the epilepsy, girls that would have loved him/it really. You/he/she would be forgotten soon of Geneva, he/she thought Phillip.

  The face of Clotilde was covered by a pleased sneer. Geneva soon an ugly memory would have been alone.