Crolla Children of this Land

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-80425-143-0
Verlag: Luath Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

The moving and delightful story of the Valente family, although fiction, is grounded in first-hand knowledge of the way of life in Picinisco, southern Italy, in the post-war years. Poverty, separation and loss were common experiences that caused many to emigrate. Yet the hardships were more than balanced by a culture of family warmth and vitality, shared connection to the land and an intimate understanding of how to work it. A born storyteller, Serafina Crolla was inspired to write Children of This Land when visiting the cemetery in her native village of Picinisco. There, she saw a headstone for 'An exemplary mother of nineteen children'. She was deeply struck by the eloquent simplicity and poignancy of this memorial inscription. As the daughter of a shepherd, Serafina well understood the joys and hardships that life would have entailed for this family. Through the vicissitudes of life, ties to this place hold strong for the Valentes. The nineteen children who make up the family tell their stories of love, marriage, trials and tribulations, loss and pain of immigration. Serafina's own family emigrated to Scotland when she was a little girl but she returns to her homeland often, for, as she puts it: 'A love for Picinisco as deep as the valleys and as pure as the snow-capped mountains is never forgotten.'

SERAFINA CROLLA is a wife, mother and grandmother who lives between Edinburgh and Val' Comino in the province of Frosinone in Italy. Born in Picinisco in the foothills of the Abruzzi mountains, the daughter of a shepherd, she has lived an unusual life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Crolla, Serafina

Leseproben

CHAPTER 3

Andrea. Francesco. Pietro.

AFTER A SEVERE WINTER, spring was in the air. The trees were adorned with delicate, pale green leaves. Some were already in flower, the pear, apple, plum and, of course, the cherry trees. Everyone hoped that there would be no more freezing cold spells to ruin the blossoms on the trees. Fruit was their dessert, fruit was what they craved; its sweet flesh was such a treat to them.

Now that the nights were not so cold, there were not so many people trying to get close to the fire. The grandparents had priority, often with a child or two on their lap.

Dinner was cooking. Matilda, Concettina and Maria were seeing to it. Le nonne were both busy preparing a huge basket of the first of the new season broccoletti, garlic and peperoncino (chilli pepper), all chopped and ready to drop in a pot of green olive oil. The smell was delicious. Soon, the meal was over and the broccoletti had been enjoyed by everyone. They used bread to mop up all the garlicky oil.

It was their routine that, after dinner, the parents would give out instructions and tasks for the following day. They were going to work for Cesidio and Vincenzo wanted to establish who was able to go, and who had other tasks to do.

Andrea could not stand to hear it, all this work and for what? He did not stay to listen to his father. He pushed his chair back and got up, saying that he was going out, and jumped on an old, battered bike that was lying outside. He pedalled hard to climb up the hill, but once he was on the high road to Colle Posta he flew downhill all the way to the bar in Villa Latina. He could see that some of his friends were already there.

The bar was full, although it did not take many people to fill it up because the inside space was small. Three or four tables were already taken up by elderly customers who would sit to play a game of cards. Others would stand at the counter with a drink in hand, while those who would have liked a drink but did not have the money would stand about hoping that someone would offer.

As soon as Andrea walked in, his friend Fernando called to him.

‘Want a drink, what will it be?’

‘No, I have just finished eating. I had a few glasses of wine, Sto bene, I’m okay thanks.’

Andrea said this in a casual way, trying not to show that he had a troubled mind. He would have liked a beer, but he knew that he could not return the favour. He was a proud man. He stood about for a while talking to the men and the boys in the bar. He knew them all and they knew him. They knew of his circumstances as he knew of theirs. That was the problem of living in small paese like Picinisco and Villa Latina – you would be judged in what you did, and what you did not do. That was the nature of the beast.

In a couple of weeks, it would be warm enough to sit on the terrace outside of the bar. They would start to sell ice cream, which would attract the women and children to come and sit outside with friends. Andrea would feel more comfortable coming to the bar as people came and went without feeling obliged to buy anything. He noticed that his friend Fernando and some other youths were all standing around a man. They seemed to be listening to him intently, which was unusual; normally in the bar everyone would jostle everyone else to be the one doing all the talking – often a lot of nonsense. Andrea made his way over to listen.

Back in the house, after Andrea had stormed off in a temper, the others in the family also went their own way.

Francesco and Pietro both had girlfriends – they each had a quick wash, changed into clean clothes and left. Pietro did not have far to go, he only had to walk up the track. Five minutes and he was there. His heart was already racing just at the thought that he would soon be with her.

Anna was the daughter of a shepherd. The family came from Fontitune, a small village on the side of the mountain. It was a village so high up that in winter it was above the snow line, and so the people had to relocate to somewhere else in the valley where they would rent a house for the family and stables for the animals. The house that Anna’s father had rented was just a shack with two rooms, but it had the basics: a fireplace, a brick oven, wooden shutters on the window and a door with gaps at the side. It had no running water, but it did have electric lights.

When they had first arrived, Franco, Anna’s father, had come to ask if they could take water from their well. That was the beginning of a friendship between the two families. They were always ready to help each other. It was also the start of a give and take, which was the common courtesy between country folk. Neighbours would share: if one family had a surplus of vegetables, at that time it was broccoletti, you would send it to your family and neighbours, and they would do the same for you when they had more than they could use. This was even more common with Franco and Vincenzo’s households because Franco had cheese, ricotta, sometimes meat and whey, a by-product of cheese making, which Pietro would collect to feed to the pigs. In exchange, Matilda would send vegetables that were in season. Sometimes she would send panettone or biscuits if she had baked. Vincenzo would go to Franco with a bottle of wine and they would sit outside to share a drink and exchange life stories. Franco had three daughters. Anna, the eldest, was eighteen years old. She and her sisters, Silvia and Patrizia, became good friends with the members of the Valente family.

When Pietro arrived at the house, he could see his girl in the stables helping her father, who was milking the sheep and goats. He was doing this by sitting on a three-legged stool beside a small opening to the stable. As a sheep was whipped towards the opening, he would grab it by its hind leg and then by its udder to milk it. The milk would spurt into the pail between his legs. Anna was there with a whipping branch, making the sheep stand to wait their turn.

It was just getting dark and as he approached her, he could see that she was continuously looking down the track. It made his heart leap that she was looking for him.

He jumped over the fence, ‘I am here, amore!’ he said. They stood for a moment looking at each other, a look of longing just to embrace.

Anna laughed as she chased a sheep round the pen. Pietro watched her. She was beautiful: lips that drove him to madness, eyes that sparkled in the dim twilight, a full womanly body.

‘Pietro, is that you?’

Pietro jumped. He felt that Anna’s father had read his mind.

‘Yes, Zio Franco, it is me.’

‘Could you give me the other pail and take this one away, it’s already full.’

When the milking was finished, they each carried a pail of milk and went indoors. The family had not yet had their meal; they usually ate much later than Pietro’s family. Pietro would try not to come until he knew that they had eaten, but it was hard to wait that extra hour before he could come up. It was as if an irresistible force was pulling him to her – he just had to be with her.

He had met Anna in the autumn when her family had arrived to live in Colle Poste for the winter. She would come every day to fetch water from the well, sometimes with her sisters. All three girls enjoyed coming for water because, in his house, there was always someone to talk to. Chatting was the favourite pastime for the people of the countryside. Pietro would flirt with all three girls. He was always on the lookout to see if one of the girls was at the well.

Then he noticed that he tended to look for Anna and would be disappointed when it was not her getting water. When it was Anna, he would drop everything and go to watch her. She would throw the bucket to the bottom of the well where it would fill up with water. Then she pulled it up. This was done manually, hand over hand, making a pile of chain in front of her, and once the bucket came up, she would pour the water into the plastic container. Pietro was fascinated watching her do this. It had a certain rhythm, feet planted firmly on the ground, and every time she lifted her arm high up to pull on the chain, he could see the full roundness of her breast. He would go over and offer to carry the container to the house for her.

Her body became an irresistible fantasy for him; her long slender neck had a beauty spot on the pulse and he could see its slight movement as she talked to him; her full bosom; her hips that flared out from her slim waist. He could not see her legs because she wore her skirt long. Sometimes if he was walking behind her up the steep track, she would bend down to pick a wild gladiolus that grew at that time of the year at the side of the road, and he would catch just a glimpse of the back of her knees which would send his pulse racing.

After a while, he noticed that it was always Anna that came for the water, which gave him hope that perhaps she felt for him what he felt for her. Eventually, he plucked up the courage to ask her to fare l’amore with him, which was the old-fashioned way to ask a girl if he could court her. She shyly said that she would ask her mother. From then on, he went to her house every night to be with her.

Courting Anna was frustrating. Her parents were old-fashioned, as were all the mountain folk. They watched their daughter, always aware of where she was. If occasionally they were permitted to go to the cinema since it had reopened after being destroyed in the war, all three sisters had to go. Anna, now that she was courting, was always accompanied wherever she...