Now and Then in Tuscany: Italian journeys

by Angela Petch

  With her straggly hair unpinned and her headscarf removed, she looked even uglier than I’d remembered – more like a witch than a midwife.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, ‘if there are any problems, I told you already, you take him to the doctor. I’ve done my bit.’

  Before she could close the door on me, I wedged my foot to block it open. ‘I need your help, not a doctor’s.’ I said, dangling Luisella’s gold chain before her. ‘And you can have this.’

  Her greedy eyes widened and she grabbed the metal, biting it to check its worth. Then she opened her door wide, ‘Come in, come in,’ she said.

  With a long strip of cotton, she showed me how to bind the baby from his chest to his feet, like an Egyptian mummy. ‘Otherwise he’ll not grow straight. That’s if he grows at all. This one’s had a bad entry into the world.’

  She handled the baby with sure hands and when she had finished, placed the ‘papoose’ in my arms and showed me how to get my son to suckle from a teat fixed to a glass bottle containing goat’s milk.

  ‘He’ll gag at first, mind,’ she explained, ‘this is bigger than a woman’s nipple and this milk will have to do, poor creature.’

  She gave me enough milk for one day. ‘It’ll not go off,’ she said, ‘you’re lucky it’s not high summer.’

  When she asked what would happen when we arrived in the mountains, I told her not to worry and that I had somebody up there to help me. Before I turned to leave, to my surprise she handed me back the gold medal and chain.

  ‘I can’t take this from you,’ she said and muttered something under her breath. Then she made the sign of the cross on his little forehead.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Take these instead, signora.’ I pulled Luisella’s earrings from my pocket. ‘They’re no good to a boy but I can give him the chain when he makes his First Holy Communion.’

  Before she ushered us out into the early morning, I added as an afterthought, ‘Remember my poor wife’s soul in your prayers.’

  The journey to Arezzo passed in a blur. The midwife told me of a neighbour of hers who was taking a cart load of animal skins to the station and when I explained my predicament he gestured to me to climb up beside him, pulling the shawl from the infant’s face and smiling. I was grateful he was a man of few words; there was nothing I felt like talking about that morning.

  I caught the little Appennino train just in time, running down the platform, the station master shouting at me as I pulled open the first door I reached.

  The compartment was occupied by a woman and a tangle of children, cardboard cases and bundles tied up in scraps of cloth. There was also a basket of seed potatoes and three chickens, their heads poking from a box under the wooden seat. I hoped to blend into the confusion but half an hour into the journey, my son started up a noisy protest.

  ‘That’s a hungry cry,’ the woman in the corner seat commented to everybody and nobody in particular. I lifted the wriggling bundle of bindings out from within my coat and balanced the baby on my lap, whilst trying to sort out the task of feeding him the first bottle. The woman watched us struggle for a few moments and then thrust her own baby into the arms of a young girl. She came over to me, steadying herself as the train clattered round a bend, ‘Mi permetta, signore,’ she asked. ‘Will you give the baby to me?’

  She returned to her corner seat and loosened the cloths from around the baby. Then she pulled open the drawstring on her blouse, whereupon my son latched on to her nipple for his first proper feed, one fist punching the air whilst the other little hand rested on the woman’s breast.

  ‘I’ve always too much milk, signore - it’s a help to me too, if you don’t mind,’ she said and then she asked me where his mother was.

  I shook my head, whereupon the baby received his second sign of the cross of the day and she rocked him gently as if to protect him from a distress he was too tiny to know about. Then she changed the soiled bindings, talking to him all the while, telling him he was beautiful, that he must grow up big and strong to help his father, who was a good man. Her four children watched her, the older girl jiggling her baby sibling up and down on her little hip.

  ‘I’ll top him up for you before we get off,’ she said, handing him back to me. ‘I expect you’ve a wet nurse lined up for him once you arrive home?’

  I smiled vaguely in response. In my head I said a prayer of thanks for the kindness of strangers, thinking God might not have abandoned me after all - despite my not having paid much attention to Him of late.

  The child slept for the rest of the journey. Maybe this was due to the woman’s rich milk or maybe it was because of the rocking and bouncing of our rides by bus to Sansepolcro and afterwards by mule up the stony track to Montebotolino. I’d borrowed the animal from Valentino, the miller’s son. By now it was quite dark, the path lit only by a waning moon, but I could have found the way blindfold. We passed the cemetery, votive candles flickered, keeping the dead company. Over the weir where spring water splashed into a clear pool where women of Rofelle beat their washing clean. Along Bettino’s strip of meadow planted with erba medica for his two cows. Then by a stretch of prickly bushes which would be laden in late summer with blackberries for jam. And finally, the steepest part of the climb, where the mule had to work harder to keep her foothold on slippery slabs of rock studded with quartz that glistened in the moonlight. I clutched my son to me within my jacket and held fast to the reins with one hand. Then the familiar outline of Arturo the barrel maker’s house loomed over us and I slithered down to lead the animal into our stable, tying her to a metal ring forged by myself with Nonno’s guidance. Finally, I pulled down a bundle of hay for the tired beast as a reward for delivering us safely home.

  It took half a dozen pebbles tossed up at her window before Marisa appeared, ‘Who is it?’ she hissed, ‘what do you want at this time of night?’

  ‘Shhhhh! You’ll wake everybody. It’s me – Giuseppe. Let me in.’

  Chapter 23

  Marisa

  Do you think I could refuse to help Giuseppe? Of course not! I did what came naturally, what my heart cried out to do. I climbed down the ladder from my bedroom without a moment’s hesitation and let him into my house. And when he explained the situation, instinct took over.

  I lifted the lid of the trunk that smelled of lavender, where poor Mamma over time had added item upon item to my wedding dowry. I hunted beneath linen sheets which had been waiting to be embroidered with nuptial initials and pillowcases, and towels and pot holders all edged with fine crochet, until I found rolls of thick cotton bindings. Taking the baby from Giuseppe’s arms, I unwrapped the soiled cotton strips from around his tiny body. He was perfect, beautiful, the baby I longed to bear. I gazed on his fists, stroked his starfish fingers and the baby clasped my finger more tightly than I had imagined possible for anything so delicate and small.

  ‘Here’s what we shall do,’ I said, moving to the fire with Giuseppe’s son in my arms. It felt as if I had been a mother all my life as I placed a small pan of ass’s milk on the ashes to warm. ‘We’ll tell everybody he’s ours. If they say anything, I’ll tell them you came back to help me. You called for the midwife but the baby came too soon. I’ll tell them I was ashamed I’d gone with you out of wedlock, so I didn’t tell anybody.’

  I poured warm milk into his bottle that I’d scalded with boiled water and I attached a teat we used for orphaned lambs.

  ‘This will have to do for the time being. In the morning we’ll fetch Paolina the wet nurse. We’ll tell her my milk just won’t come.’

  Testing a few drops on the soft skin of my wrist, I coaxed the baby to drink. It came too fast at first and the child spluttered, his fists fighting the air, cries of protest bringing Giuseppe to hover over us.

  ‘He’s strong for a baby that came too soon,’ I said, adjusting the teat so the milk flowed more evenly. ‘He obviously couldn’t wait to make his mark in this world.’

  I moved to the side of the fireplace to sit in m
y grandmother’s chair and the baby settled in my arms, finishing the bottle, bubbles of milk at the corner of his tiny blistered lips.

  Giuseppe was staring at me and I looked at him square in the eyes. ‘We’ll have to get married,’ I told him. ‘And we’ll call the child Dario, after my brother who died in the war.’

  And Giuseppe went along with my decisions. What else could he do? He told me months later that when he had looked down at me holding Dario, we reminded him of a painting. We looked like a Madonna and child, he said, on a holy picture he’d seen in the seminary and he said he knew I would be a wonderful mother to his son. I wondered if he felt I could be a good wife.

  At six o’clock in the morning ten days later, a group of figures straggled over the dew-drenched grass and up the worn steps to our little church of San Tommaso. A thorn from the rose bush at the entrance snagged on my veil, which was the only item of wedding apparel I agreed to wear. ‘It will hide my face,’ I told Giuseppe, ‘because my eyes would tell the real story.’

  Don Mario, my father and poor old Nonno and Nonna huddled close to keep warm, for there had been a storm during the night and the mountains were shrouded in cold mist. Giuseppe’s mother Vincenza, his little brother Angelo and his two giggling sisters, Maria Rosa and Nadia, made up the wedding party.

  Vincenza cradled Dario during Mass. He was dressed in the same christening gown and shawl I’d worn as a baby. They were yellowed at the edges because I’d found no time to launder and starch them. Don Mario performed two sacred sacraments of marriage and baptism that morning.

  After we had exchanged vows there was a moment of confusion, for we’d forgotten entirely about rings. Vincenza stepped forward and slipped her own wedding ring off her middle finger. She no longer wore it on her ring finger as she had lost so much weight since her husband and her oldest son had passed away. ‘It’s no use to me now,’ she said as she handed it to Giuseppe, ‘take it as my gift to you both.’

  It was the first of her many acts of kindness and over time I grew very fond of her.

  When Don Mario announced we were man and wife the children started to clap, but when no adults joined in, they stopped abruptly. No bells rang out but I smiled as a single shaft of sunlight burst through the tiny window high up in the church, lighting up the spot where Giuseppe and I stood together. I took it as a sign and I watched dust motes circling round in the sunbeam and imagined I saw a smile on the downcast face of San Tommaso on the glazed tiles behind the altar. Giuseppe squeezed my hand instead of lifting my veil to kiss me and because my veil covered my face, nobody could see the tears in my eyes.

  There was no dancing at my wedding. There were no bawdy comments from the few guests present; no preparations of the wedding bed which normally would be strewn with rose petals or orange blossom or whatever flower was in bloom at the time. Vincenza had killed a chicken for lunch and roasted it with garlic, rosemary and sage and served it on a bed of sun-yellow polenta. Babbo found a bottle of vinsanto and we dunked hard cantuccini biscuits that Vincenza retrieved from her corner cupboard.

  Babbo moved into my single room and Vincenza helped to make the matrimonial bed up with more of my trousseau that I’d painstakingly sewn but never believed I would ever use.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were expecting, cara?’ she whispered as we smoothed linen sheets over the mattress and folded the corners neatly underneath. ‘I would have helped you with the birth.’

  I lowered my eyes and my mother-in-law took my hands in hers. ‘There’s no shame, you know,’ she continued. ‘It’s happened many times before and it will happen again.’

  She moved over to the wooden cradle at the side of the bed, love written all over her face as she gazed upon her first grandchild.

  That night I sat in bed feeding Dario with another bottle of ass milk and Giuseppe came to sit next to us. He had drunk almost two jugs of strong red wine but he seemed quite sober.

  ‘Does he look like her?’ I asked.

  ‘I hope not,’ was his reply.

  He was quiet for a few moments and I asked him no more questions about the woman who had given birth to his son. Then he rose from the bed, saying, ‘I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.’

  I smoothed the baby’s downy hair. ‘If that’s what you want, then sleep on the cold floor by yourself. But there’s room enough next to me.’

  But he pulled a blanket from the chest and on our wedding night he slept on the hard floorboards.

  Chapter 24

  September 1923 – Marisa

  At the end of summer, everybody in the village set to, stripping leaves from their harvested maize, throwing cobs into large baskets arranged around the square, making sure to leave two leaves on the end. This was so we could tie bunches together to dry from hooks and nails on the walls of our houses.

  I laughed at a group of children who were playing with the black strands, making pretend moustaches and fringes, impersonating people from our village. Softer outer leaves were put to one side to make into fresh stuffing for bedding and I helped my friend Rossella lay these out to dry upon the ground. The sun was still warm. Before long the walls of the houses in our village of Montebotolino were daubed with yellow cobs hanging from all the houses. They represented security for winter and this year the harvest had been good.

  Giuseppe filled a bag with our share of the corn that had fallen from the husks. On the following day he would take them to the mill for grinding into maize flour for polenta. I stored some into clean sacconi to take down later in October when the first rains arrived. And the empty husks would be used as firelighters. Nothing was wasted.

  After the work of scartocciatura was over, we celebrated with a small party. In a couple of weeks the men would start preparations for their annual journey down to the Maremma and cold nights would set in, changing Montebotolino to a mournful place. So this gave us an excuse for an open air veglia.

  The last portions of beans and tripe had been scraped clean from plates and the fire we’d lit in the middle of the square began to die down. I stirred the embers. Sparks spluttered into the star-canopied sky along with my thoughts and dreams. I watched Gianni and Stefania seated together on a low stone bench next to the bread oven, half hidden by branches of the laden apple tree. They’d been married a month and Stefania’s swollen tummy told the age-old story of premarital love. For the whole evening their hands had been intertwined, except for moments when they shared supper from the same plate, feeding morsels to each other, whispering secrets, needing no other company save their own.

  Giuseppe was over by the wine cart. Every now and again his distinctive laugh carried over to me. I knew he had drunk the best part of a litre of strong Sangiovese wine. Now he was holding court, recounting stories that met with guffaws and backslapping by his old friends circling him. He drank a lot these days and I wondered if it was a habit he’d picked up in the Maremma or whether I might be the cause.

  Baby Dario was fast asleep in the basket I used for carrying washing to the fountain, his long dark eyelashes closed on plump cheeks, one fisted hand stretched out above his head and his mouth twitching in his dreams. I wanted to scoop him up, hold him against my aching heart. I loved him as much as if I’d given birth to him myself.

  ‘Asleep at last.’ Giuseppe said, creeping up behind me. He touched my shoulder and leant over the basket, his breath sour with wine. ‘Shall I carry him to the house?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘You keep your friends entertained.’ I stood up, ignoring his helping hand.

  ‘But I’ve had enough of them. My wife and son will do me just fine for the rest of the night.’

  He swayed a little, blinking, his eyes red-ringed and bleary.

  I knew he would fall fast asleep as soon as his head touched his pillow and I hoped he wouldn’t keep me awake again with his snoring. If so, I would move into Dario’s little room, warm above the inglenook situated directly below. I’d taken to keeping a thick counterpane beneath his cot and folding it
double to use as a mattress on the floor.

  The first time I’d slipped from our matrimonial bed had been exactly one month after our hastily-arranged wedding ceremony. Giuseppe hadn’t tried to make love to me once. Each night we lay together like two stone figures, carefully keeping to our own sides of the mattress.

  One morning I woke before him. In his sleep he’d thrown his left arm over me. I could hear the steady beating of his heart. I watched the rise and fall of his chest and gazed on the hair where his nightshirt buttons had come undone. His mouth was slightly apart, his breath morning-stale, and there was stubble on his chin and upper lip. I tried to imagine what it would be like to feel his roughness against my face, neck and breasts. Then the cockerel crowed in the barn next to our house and my husband opened his eyes. Seeing me staring at him, he rolled over and turned away.

  That evening I boiled water in the cauldron in the hearth and after Dario was settled in his cot, I sponged my body clean and washed my hair, adding fresh rosemary sprigs to the water to release oil and sharp perfume. Then I sat by the fire in my nightgown, brushing my long hair until it shone. Giuseppe found me waiting when he came in for his supper. I was hunched on a milking stool staring into the flames and he pulled me gently to my feet and led me upstairs.

  But it had been no good. I could tell he was only being kind. He kept his eyes closed all the while he held me in his arms, saying nothing. I wanted to melt into him but my mind wouldn’t let my body abandon myself to him. All the while I thought of the girl who had died, Dario’s real mother, and images of her and Giuseppe making love filled my head. I lay there rigid, like the wooden doll Babbo had carved for me one Christmas when I was quite little. With its stiff smile and arms clenched tightly at its sides, Babbo had even thought to make its little legs misshapen like my own.