by Angela Petch
I untied my pouch of coarse cotton from the cord round my waist and began to hunt for herbs for my salves and cures. Chicco kept running back to me, making sure I was safe. I needed chamomile flowers for stomach ache and insomnia, mint for wounds and grazes, salvia for tooth ache. The juniper berries I needed for inhalants were still too green to harvest so I left them for later in the season. Instead I planned to crush linseed flowers already stored in a jar on the kitchen shelf. Later on I would boil a measure or two in water and wrap them in a warm cloth to place as a poultice on Nonna’s chest. It would ease her wheezing and coughing at night.
The pouch was full, so I lay down on the coarse grass and lifted my skirts from my shrivelled legs to let spring sunshine seep into my bones. A buzzard coiled high above me and I shaded my eyes to squint at its flight, listening to its mewing call. A second buzzard swooped into view and the pair danced in the thermals vying for each other’s attention. At primary school I’d written a poem describing how it might feel to fly - weightless as a floating feather, spinning, circling, detached from a world of pain. To my embarrassment, Professor Daniele had read it aloud to the class and I was so ashamed that, later at home, I ripped the page from my exercise book and threw it on the fire, watching the flames gobble up my silly thoughts.
Two early swallowtail butterflies hovered in a flirtations dance over a clump of clover. I wondered what it would feel like to be courted by a mate, knowing it was something I was unlikely to experience. Who would fall in love with a girl with such an ugly, crippled body? Most of the young men had gone off to fight in the war anyway, up in the mountains of northern Italy. The only boy who ever paid me the slightest attention was thirteen-year-old Giuseppe who lived behind the church of San Tommaso. And that was because from time to time I helped him with homework when he was back from seminary. He was always grateful, bless him. Together we’d work on the old fashioned text of Dante’s Divina Commedia, putting it into simpler words. But he was ten years younger than me. A gangly young boy, with a head full of dark curls and kind eyes - sensitive eyes that would charm some lucky girl in the future. Thank Heavens he was too young to go off and fight in the Great War.
Lying there on the ridge I thought back to our talks together. One afternoon we’d discussed the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, where thieves and the slothful suffered the torture of permanent fire.
‘I don’t believe in all that.’ I’d said. ‘It’s hogwash.’
His beautiful eyes widened in a mixture of awe and amusement. ‘If I dared say anything like that,’ he said, ‘the friars would send me home immediately.’
‘That’s why I can’t believe in it. They say such things to make you toe the line, to be meek and mild,’ I replied.
‘Do you mean you don’t believe in God?’
‘I didn’t say that. I believe in a God but I don’t believe in everything I’m told.’ I closed The Divine Comedy and pushed it across the table. ‘Have you ever thought why people believe the way they do, Giuseppe? Think about it. Have a mind of your own!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How can I explain?’ I collected my thoughts for a moment. ‘I’m not talking just about religion and accepting what priests tell us is right and wrong. Take for example the stories of so-called brigands who roam the forests down in the Maremma. You’ve heard of Tiburzi, no doubt?’
‘Of course I have,’ he replied. ‘I may spend much of my time cooped up in a seminary, but we’re allowed to talk. Of course I know about Domenico Tiburzi. Everybody knows how evil he was - even my little sisters!’
‘Exactly my point! You say he’s evil but you don’t really know what he was like. You think you know all about him because you’re repeating what people tell you.’
Everybody knew something about Domenico Tiburzi. He was the stuff of legends, a famous brigand from the last century with a reputation grown distorted with each tale narrated around the hearth. The poor wretch had stolen a couple of bunches of grass for his cow so she could provide milk for his starving baby. His emaciated wife’s milk had dried up and, despite working from morning until night for his greedy landowner, he could never make enough money to live on. Eventually he was arrested for the theft and sent to Tarquinia to work in the salt mines. But he escaped and hid in caves near Farnese, ending up helping the poor and downtrodden.
‘Next time you hear somebody tell this or that frightening tale about him,’ I said, clenching my fist, ‘stop and ask yourself why Tiburzi became a brigand in the first place. Certainly not for the fun of it, Giuseppe.’
He shrugged his shoulders and that made me angry, so I shouted at him. ‘He was poor and hungry and no matter how hard he worked for those landowners, he still ended up with nothing. Stealing from the rich latifundista was the only way to survive…’
I leant back against my chair, my outburst over. My cheeks felt flushed and my heart pounded at the injustice. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, ‘but it makes me so angry.’
‘I can see that,’ Giuseppe said and he laughed. ‘You should be a teacher, Marisa. You make all subjects come alive.’
I laughed too but it came out more of a bark than a laugh.
‘How could I possibly become a teacher?’ I said. ‘There was no chance for me to go to high school, like you. I loved my school days, Beppe, but when Mamma died I had to look after the family.’
“La scuola non da pane,” they used to say to me. School doesn’t give you bread.
‘You’re so lucky, Giuseppe,’ I sighed. ‘Seize every opportunity to learn. And use this…’ I said, tapping my forehead. ‘I’ve been taught to read and write but I use my brain too, to think in my own way.’
I always enjoyed these conversations with Giuseppe.
For a while I dozed on the grass but fat splashes of rain on my legs and face roused me. The breeze tugged at my skirt and shawl as I struggled to my feet. I should have known the warmth of April would tease. It was too good to be true but winter had kept me away from my ridge for too long.
A huge clap of thunder took me by surprise and I jumped, losing my balance, a sharp pain jarring through my hip which made me cry out. Chicco came padding across to investigate, fussing at my feet with his wet muzzle.
From tall beeches at the edge of the ridge, birds exploded into the sky. The day had turned gloomy and forks of light split through sullen clouds. I held my breath, listening out for the rumbling and grumbling, counting for the noise of thunder to crash into the waiting silence. I loved its hollow sound, caught in the valleys, echoing and magnifying as if straining to escape its rocky prison. Everybody else in the village was terrified of these storms but as each tumultuous thunderclap cracked in the ravines and gorges and rumbled along the river valley, a shudder of joy passed through my body in this circle of noise. And then the rain arrived – hesitant at first - then pouring down as if emptying from huge pails. This sound was almost as loud as the thunder itself.
By the time I arrived, soaked through, back in Montebotolino, women and children were banging pans together, upturned buckets were beaten with broom stick handles or anything metal they could lay hands on in an effort to ward off the storm. Church bells in the tower of San Tommaso rang their warning to villages along the river Marecchia, babies were crying and a dozen barking dogs added to the bedlam.
I hurried indoors to check on my grandparents. They were clinging together in fear, Nonna wailing and clutching her rosary beads. Nonno thrust a cow bell into my hands shouting at me to go outside and make as much noise as possible to avert the storm devils. ‘They’ve come to ruin our vegetable plots and maize fields with their evil hail stones,’ he shouted at me.
‘Nonno, no amount of noise will stop what will be,’ I told him for the umpteenth time. ‘It’s only weather; it’s just a storm…’
I tried to calm them down but Nonno and Nonna had been brought up to believe these superstitions. They were too old now to think otherwise.
I believed in many of our traditions but I’ve alw
ays known that a belief in storm devils was ridiculous.
Chapter 7
Giuseppe 1917
With Fausto off the scene, I settled down and by the end of my second year at the Seminario Vescovile I was third in the class. In exchange for simple shoe repairs for the Salesian friars, I had been able to acquire a few old text books. I felt like a prince.
All the same it was good to return for the summer holidays to Montebotolino, to spend time with family and friends who had known me all my life. I felt at ease with myself. More than ever I appreciated the beauty of my mountains, with their springs and waterfalls to plunge into on balmy days.
The downside to my time at home was that, with Nonno gone, I was expected to take on his work, repairing boots and clogs. Sometimes I had to forge shoes for mules and horses that had gone lame.
I had started helping my grandfather when I was eight years old. At that stage he used to give me simple tasks: straightening nails so he could use them again, putting studs onto old shoes to make them last a little longer and helping him with cutting out new soles to reinforce boots worn thin. When I was older I progressed with work of my own, sitting on a little three-legged stool. I worked with alder wood. It was ideal as it was dry and light and the longer the strip of wood, the more pairs we could make. After cutting strips into seven or eight centimetre lengths, I would trace around the shepherd’s foot to make a template of card. And then I checked the length of his sole. This was crucial, for each clog was different. Then with my pialletto, a knife with two handles, I cut out the shape and finally sand papered it to smooth the inside.
In winter, as I grew stronger and older, I helped Nonno at the forge with metalwork. When it was so cold that the landscape froze and ice would cut our breath in two, Nonno’s workshop became an unofficial osteria. Nobody could carry out their outside tasks and folk – even strangers we didn’t know – came to sit in the fuggy warmth of the stone building next to our house. Nonno hammered on pieces of metal – braces for wheels or farm implements that needed to be repaired in time for spring, iron buckets and tin baths with holes. Somebody would produce a bottle of wine to help keep winter at bay. Nonno even acted as a dentist occasionally. He would use his pincers and remove an offending tooth in one fast movement, before the suffering patient had a chance to cry out. But he didn’t like doing it and refused payment of any kind, which made people reluctant to take advantage of him. I always enjoyed watching these gory extractions.
If I was honest, the work of a cobbler was purgatory to me. I preferred to be out on the hillside, watching over sheep in the fresh air. Most of Nonno’s customers were old shepherds and their feet smelt like ripe cheese. Their work made them walk for kilometres and they seldom had a chance to wash. More often than not, the shepherds’ shoes and feet would be caked in manure and even though Nonno had taught me to wash their footwear three or four times in cold water before working on it, the strong odours still clung. It was a ready made business for me to take on, but I was reluctant.
Marisa was one of the few fellow villagers who understood my dilemma.
One baking day in the middle of July, when the potent aroma of newly-harvested hay permeated the village and fields, she and I sat and chatted after our work. It was the custom for everybody to turn out to help each other at these times. After the harvest was completed, the whole village stopped to enjoy a three o’clock merenda.
In the field known as Fountain Meadow, on account of a stream trickling through that never ran dry, the women had laid out a welcome snack of fresh bread, slices of cucumber, tomatoes and dried herrings. Flasks of vinello rested in the shade of a willow and the stream provided drinking water to quench any thirst. After the capoccia had said an Ave Maria and made the sign of the cross over the meal, Marisa and I moved to a large rock to escape a file of ants attracted to the crumbs.
‘To me it doesn’t make any sense,’ I grumbled. ‘What is the point of attending the seminary all the way down in Arezzo when my family really want me to work as a cobbler? And now that my father is so sick, I feel I should be at home to help Mamma. I don’t think Babbo is going to get better, Marisa. He’s aged so much while I’ve been away.’
I plucked a loose strand of hay from the ground and chewed on it, enjoying its honeyed taste.
Marisa leant back against the rock, arranging her patched skirt over her legs and pulling down the sleeves of her blouse. Her arms were a golden brown and I thought she looked healthier than the last time I had seen her. For a while we were quiet, listening to the sound of crickets and the murmur of other people’s conversations. A group of younger children were playing with a puppy, trying to tie a headscarf round its head. Their laughter and antics made me wistful. It seemed my carefree days were over.
‘What do you want to do, Giuseppe?’ she asked me eventually. ‘It’s no good protesting unless you have some kind of alternative plan in your head.’
‘If I had my way, I’d be a teacher. And I’d come back here to teach,’ I said without a moment’s hesitation, for it was something I’d thought about often in college whilst helping my fellow students. I looked at her. ‘Do you think I’m mad?’
‘Why would I think that? You’re clever. You’re in a place where you can study and you hate working as a cobbler. What’s the problem?’
‘I can see myself leaving that place as a priest.’
She made a noise of disgust, wrinkling her nose and blowing air through her teeth, spat out, ‘Giuseppe, you disappoint me. What rubbish you talk sometimes.’ She rose from her place by the rock. ‘Actually you infuriate me! You have the chance to study down there. If you really want to become a teacher, there’s nothing stopping you.’
She hobbled over to where her neighbours were sitting on the ground and arranged herself next to them, her back to me.
I began the following term at the seminary resolved to fulfil my ambition of becoming a teacher. As well as following day time lessons which would enable me to take end of school Maturità examinations in four years’ time when I would be almost eighteen, I continued my duties as a squattero. And whilst my companions slept at night, I sneaked into the toilet to study for another couple of hours. My day was long but if my parents were making sacrifices to scrape together one lire a day for my schooling, then I must do my bit too. Marisa had been right to be angry with me.
Two weeks into term, I was summoned to Fra Angelico’s study. I wondered if I had done something wrong but the expression on his face wasn’t one of anger.
‘Sit down, Giuseppe.’ The elderly friar gestured to a bench and came to sit beside me. He pulled back his hood from his silver hair and sighed.
‘I have sad news, my child.’
In my heart I knew what he was going to tell me but until I heard the words, I hoped for the best.
‘Word has come to us from the mountains that your father was buried two days ago. Your mother asked us not to send you home, but to keep you here until the end of term. She wants you to immerse yourself in your studies and make your father proud.’ He handed me a holy picture and I read the inscription: “Walk with your feet on earth but in your heart, be in heaven.”
I didn’t want my father in heaven – I wanted him forever at home in Montebotolino, hoeing in our orto, telling us tales by the fireside, guiding us with his quiet wisdom.
The screeching of swallows outside distracted me from reading the rest of the pious words. I pictured the fleet birds soaring and swooping about the monastery walls, preparing for their long winter flight and I wanted to join them.
Fra Angelico’s voice brought me back to the austere seminary.
‘I’ve relieved you of your squattero duties for the next few weeks, Giuseppe, and we will pray for your father in chapel tonight…and for you.’
And with that I was dismissed.
I went to the kitchen to seek homely Fra Michele. He embraced me as my tears fell and said nothing. And when my tears were spent, he handed me a damp cloth to wash my face and disappeare
d into the larder to fetch a freshly baked cake.
**
I sat with Fra Michele frequently in those first raw days and he encouraged me to pursue my dream of passing the Maturità exams. He helped me by finding extra textbooks and scrap paper to write my notes. And he put by extra food, telling me my brain needed sustaining as well as my stomach. There was no difficulty for me in arts subjects and I was doing well in Italian, especially literature, but geometry was my weak point.
‘Fra Domenico is gifted in mathematics,’ Fra Michele told me when I reported back about another mediocre grade in that subject. ‘Why don’t you ask him for help? You could offer to do jobs in exchange.’
Fra Domenico looked to me like an exclamation mark, his scrawny neck supporting a small round head, his limbs spindly and long. I had never seen him smile or heard him laugh. If he was so good at mathematics, I wondered why he wasn’t teaching this subject instead of working in the kitchen. His sickly, pallid skin would have benefited from working outside in the cloister vegetable gardens too, but I had never once seen him outside helping his fellow friars.
He told me to bring my books to him in the kitchen on Saturday afternoon. It meant I couldn’t play in the football match scheduled against the boys from Città di Castello. I reminded myself nothing was gained without sacrifice and another boy took my place on the team.
Fra Domenico, myself and another elderly sickly priest too poorly to leave his bed, were the only souls inside the college building that afternoon. Everybody else was out on the field supporting the most important match of the school year. Whoever won today would win the coveted Coppa. The College was intent on winning it back – ‘To honour the memory of our many boys who died in the Great War’ – Fra Angelico had said at the end of his homily at Sunday Mass. I tried to blot out the shouts drifting indoors from the watching crowd, the ooooh’s and the aaaah’s as they followed the match’s progress..