History (7 page)

These lingeri signs of her illness beca rarer and weaker as time passed. They attacked her again, with considerable frequency, when she was about eleven; but later, when she had passed the stage of puberty, they disappeared altogether, as the doctor had promised. Finally Ida could stop taking the medicine, and regain her natural little-girl's humor.

Perhaps it was also the stopping of the treatment that provoked a simultaneous transformation in the chemistry of her sleep. In fact, that was the peri when her nighttime dreams began their luxuriant burgeoning, which was to complement her daytime life, with pauses and recurrences, to the end, entwining around her days more like a parasite or prison-guard than a companion. Still mingled with the fl of childhood, those fi dreams already put down the roots of sorrow in her, although they them selves were not particularly sorrowful. In one, which returned at interv with several vari she saw herself running in a place gloomy with soot or wi smoke ( factory, or city, or slum ), clutching to her bosom a little doll, naked and all a vermilion color, as if it had be dipped in red paint.

The First World War spared Giuseppe, thanks to his bad leg; but the perils of his defeatism hovered like bogeys around Nora, so Iduzza also learn to fear certain subjects of her father's (even when they were barely hinted at, with the family, in a low conspiratorial tone! ). In fact, since the time of

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the war in Libya, there had been arr and prison sentences in the very city of Cosenza for defeatists like him! And here he was now, standing up again, raising his fi :

". . . Th refusal to obey will become more and more frequent; and at last only the memory of war and armies as they are today will remain. And these times are near. TOLSTOY!"

". . . The people are always the beast that needs a muzzle, that must be treated wi coloniza and war and denied all rights. PROUDHON!"

lduzza, for her part, didn't even dare judge the decrees of the Powers That Be, which to her appeared mysterious Beings, beyond her reason, but which possessed, however, the capacity to carry off her father, with police men . . . At the fi hint of certain subjects which frightened her mother, she would cling to Giuseppe, trembling. And Giuseppe, rather than upset her, would be persuaded to avoid such dangerous talk, even at home. From then on, he spent his evenings going over her lessons with his beloved daughter, though he was a bit more drunk than usual.

The post-war was a period of hunger and epidemics. However, as often happens, the war, which for most people had been a total disaster, for others had be a fi success (and they hadn't supported it for nothing). It was now, in fact, that these men began to fi the
black squads,
in the defense of their own endangered interests.

In the industrial cities, this danger came mostly from the workers; but in Calabri (as elsewhere in the South ) those whose fortunes were most threatened were the landown who, among other things, were largely usurpers, having appropriated in the past, with various methods, lands belonging to the State. These were fi and forests which they often left abandoned and untilled. And this was the period of the "occupati of the land" by the peasants and farm laborers. Illusory occupation : because when they had fertilized and cultivated the lands, the occupiers, in the name of the law, were driven off

Many were killed. And as for the subjugated ones, who worked for the landowners, the pay (according to the latest
labor agreements,
achieved after long social struggles ) was this, for example:

for a working day of sixteen hours, three quarters of a liter of olive oil ( half that amount for the women).

Giuseppe's relatives (down in the province of Reggio ) were tenant farmers, who also worked out by the day as laborers. In August 1919, a sister of his, with her husband and their two sons, died of Spanish fever. Th epidemic, in certain areas, has left a frightful memory. Th were no doctors, no medicines, no food. It was during the worst summer heat. Th deaths outnumbered those of the war. And the corpses remained unburied for days, since there wasn't enough wood for the coffi

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In this peri Giuseppe sent his relatives his entire salary ( which in the present public diffi ies was not always paid to him regularly) . And, in the infl tion of that time, the three had to manage on what Nora made. But Nora, who in some family emergencies was as brave as a lioness and frugal as an ant, managed to support the family without too much hard ship.

Less than two years after the war's end, Ida duly received her teacher's certifi And during the vacation of that same summer, though she had no dowry, she found a fi

The fi Alfi Mancuso, was from Messina, where he had lost all his relatives in the 1908 earthquake. He himself, who had been abo ten at the time, was saved by a miracle of good luck. And despite his deep seated love for his family, and especially for his mother, he did not bemoan that past disaster in later years so much as he boasted of his luck, which on that occasion had come to his aid and which had continued to stand by him. The miracle (enriched, in Alfi telling, each time with new details and variations ) was, briefl as follows :

In the winter of 1908, little Alfi was working as an apprentice at a small boatyard, for an old man who repaired boats. Both the boy and the old man used to sleep in the yard itself, where the master had a cot, and the youth would make his bed on the ground, on a pile of shavings, wrapped in an old woolen horse-blanket.

Now, on that evening, while the old man, as was his habit, lingered over his own work ( in the company of a few glasses ), the apprentice, on the other hand, was already settling himself for the night in his horse blanket, when, after some chance blunder, the old man shouted at him, as he always did on such occasions :

"Eeeeei! rapa babba!!" (which means :
stupid as a turn p!)

Usually the apprentice took such insults without answering; but this time, maddened, he had answered :

"Turn yourself!"

And, taking ( extreme foresight ) his horse-blanket, he had promptly run outside, for fear of his master, who in fact began running after him, ready to beat him, armed with a length of rope folded double.

Now, on the terr where this pursuit was taking place, there were, at equal distance, a palm tree and a pole. After a moment's hesitation be hveen the two (note this!) Alfi chose the palm tree, and a moment later he was already occupying the top, determined to stay there forever, like a monkey, rather than surr to the old man, who fi beca fed up with waiting under the tree and went back to the yard.

To make a long story short, hours and hours went by-until dawn and the blanketed Alfi was still lodged in that palm tree when th earth-

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quake came, razing Messina and the boatyard to the ground, and knocking down the pole; whereas the palm tree, after having its crown shake in a great gust, with Alfi Mancuso perched in there, remained safe and standing.

Was there also some prodigious quality in that horse-blanket ( for merly the property of a groom by the name of Cicciuzzo Belladonna )? In any case, at that very moment Alfi determined to name his fi son Antonio (after his father) Cicciuzzo ( that is to say, Francesco); and his daughter Maria (after his mother ) and, as a second name, Palma. ( Since boyhood, creating a family had always been his main ambiti .)

Among the other signs of his good luck he also counted the end of the war, whose date coincided with his draft summons. Some red tape involv ing his military discharge had taken him to Rome, where he had found employment as a salesman for a firm And in his subsequent business travels, he had passed through Cosenza and met his fi love there.

Between Alfi and his future father-in-law a great friendship sprang up at once. And Ida quickly became fond of her suitor, who had various qualities which she found resembled her father's, with the diff that Alfi wasn't interested in politics and wasn't a drunkard. Both men, in appearance and behavior, were like big country dogs and always ready to celebrate any good turn in life, even if it was only a breath of wind in the summer heat. Both had maternal qualities, as well as paternal : far more than Nora, whose proud, nervous, introverted character had always fright ened lduzza a little. Both men acted as her guardians against all violence from outside; and with their instinctive good humor and their innocent love of fun, for her, not naturally very sociable, they provided a substitute for the company of friends her own age.

The wedding was held in church, out of the usual respect for public opinion and also for the groom, who, personally indiff to religions, was never to know, not even he, the secret of Nora Al Beca of their common poverty, the bride, instead of a white dress, wore a dark blue woolen suit, with the skirt tucked at the waist, and a fi jacket. But she had dainty white leather shoes, a white blouse with embroidered lapels under her jacket, and, on her head, a little tarlatan veil with an orange blossom crown. Her purse, a present from Nora ( who every month, no matter what, always laid aside a few lire against such exceptional events) was of silver mesh. In all her life, before and afterw lduzza was never so elegant and brand-new as on that day; and she felt an enormous respon sibility, taking care in church, and also during the subsequent train jour ney, not to stain her shoes or wrinkle her slip.

The wedding journ (except for a couple of hours' layover in Naples) consisted of the trip to Rome, the couple's new residence, where

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Alfi had already prepared their cheap two-room apartment in the San Lorenzo quarter. Iduzza was a virgin not only in her body, but also in her thoughts. She had never seen an adult naked, because her parents never undressed in her presence; and she was extremely modest also about her own body, even when she was alone. Nora had informed her only that to procreate babies the man's body had to enter the woman's. It's a necessary operation, to which you have to submit dutifully, and it doesn't hurt too much. And Ida desired ardently to have a baby.

That evening, after their arr in Rome, while the husband un dressed in the bedroom, Iduzza undressed in the adjacent sitting room. And when she went into the bedroom, shy and embarr in her new nightgown, she promptly burst into irres laughter, seeing Alfi also in a long nightshirt, which shrouded his virile, corpulent fi to his feet, making him ( with his fl and innocent face ) look like an infant in its bapti dress.

He fl and stammered, uncertainly: "Wh are you laughing?"

Her great hilarity prevented her from speaking, while she also became covered with blushes. Finally she managed to blurt out: "It's . . . the

. . . night . . . shirt . . ." and she exploded in laughter again.

The reason for her hilarity, actually, was not Alfi comic (and also pathetic) appearance, but the very idea of the shirt. Her father, in fact, followi the custom of his peasant relatives, used to go to bed in his underwear (wool shirt, socks, and long drawers ). She had never imagined that males wore nightshirts, convinced that such garments, like slips, be longed to women, or to priests.

A little later, they turned off the light: and in the darkness, beneath the sheets, she held her breath, dismayed, feeling her husband raise her long gown up above her thighs and seek her denuded fl with other fl moist and burn Though she had been expecting it, she felt it was terrible that a man whom she had unconsciously compared to her father Giuseppe should infl such atrocious torment on her. But she lay still, and let him have his way, overcoming the terror that threatened her, such was her trust in him. And so from then on, every evening, she let him have her, sweet and willing, like an untamed ch who docilely allows his mother to feed him. Then, as ti went on, she became accustomed to that great evening ritual, necessary nutriti of their marriage. And he, for that matter, despite his natural youthful ardor, so respected his wife that they never saw each other naked, and made love always in the dark.

Iduzza didn't understand sexual pleasure, which remained a mystery to her always. Someti she was moved to a kind of tender indulgence towards her husband, feeling him panting on top of her, overcome and made savage by that ravi mystery. And at his last, very loud cry as if at

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an invoked execution, merciless and ineluctable, she would pityingly stroke his thick curly hair, a boy's still, all clamp with sweat.

Four years of marriage, nevertheless, went by before the promised baby arrived. In this period, since she would be so often alone and idle during his salesman's travels, Alfio urged her to apply for a teaching posi tion in Rome. He himself, possessing a certain simple instinct for intrigue, helped her win the competition, through an acquaintance of his at the Ministry whom he rewarded with some commercial favor. And this was, perhaps, Alfi only important success : in fact, though he combed cities and provinces (always setting forth with the bold, adventurous mien of the famous "brave little tailor" of the fairy tale), Alfi Mancuso was never much of a businessman, poor and vagabond.