Return to paradiso the p.., p.1
Return to Paradiso (The Paradiso #2), page 1
Return to Paradiso
Francesca Scanacapra
Book 2 of the Paradiso Novels
SILVERTAIL BOOKS ♦ London
CHAPTER 1
Pieve Santa Clara, Lombardy, 1950
The dawn of a new decade brought a feeling of optimism. At last the constraints of rationing and the hardships of war were being consigned to memory as Italy entered the throes of the Economic Miracle.
The consumer age rolled in at a galloping pace, blurring the distinction between essentials and luxuries. Slick salesmen brandishing shiny hire-purchase catalogues began to call at every house in the village. They offered every conceivable modern ‘necessity’, from kitchenware and farming tools to furniture and clothing, and all payable in affordable monthly instalments. The array of domestic appliances and gadgets was quite bewildering.
‘Graziella, look at this!’ exclaimed my mother. ‘A tin-opener which uses electricity. Can you think of anything more ridiculous? As if anyone would want to waste electricity on opening a tin.’
For my mother, the electric tin-opener became a symbol of things having gone too far, but eventually even she succumbed to the allure of hire-purchase. After several weeks of careful consideration she purchased a set of baking trays, although she was reluctant to use any of them until she had paid in full – a process which took six months.
Telegraph poles were installed along the North Road during the summer of 1950 and my aunt paid for the connection of a telephone line. There had been a telephone in the village post office since before the war, but having one in our home made it feel as though Paradiso was connected to the whole world.
‘You could even call the President of the Republic if you wanted to, Mina,’ said Ada Pozzetti, who had come over with several of the little Pozzettis to witness the wonder of modern telecommunication. One of the Pozzetti twins, who was in a particularly excited state, asked whether it was possible to telephone God.
However, Zia Mina’s first call was made not to the President of the Republic, nor to God, but to her foster-mother, Immacolata Ogli, the housekeeper at Don Ambrogio’s residence.
It took my aunt several attempts to dial the number correctly as she was unsure whether she was supposed to remove her finger from the dial once she had turned it. When she did finally manage to get through, the conversation lasted under a minute and consisted of Zia Mina and Immacolata asking one another repeatedly whether the other could hear them, followed by confirmation and amazement that they could. They both shouted so loudly into their receivers that they would probably have heard each other just by opening the windows.
The village buzzed with activity and with the noise of new vehicles. Vespas and Lambrettas would pass our house, their engines spluttering and popping and leaving the smell of two-stroke fuel in their wake. Some would have whole families on board, with children clinging on behind or wedged between parents’ knees.
Luigi Pozzetti extended his workshop and purchased modern machinery, but the whine of electric saws and rhythmic drone of wood being planed never bothered us. It was a cheerful and positive sound and a reminder that fortune, peace and prosperity had finally arrived. Pozzetti even bought an ex-military truck, which he painted yellow and used to transport both his work and his ever-growing family.
Zia Mina still advertised her produce for sale on the blackboard outside the gate. Salvatore continued to man her market stalls, which had become so popular that Zia Mina was able to employ him officially, and pay him a wage.
The success of my aunt’s market garden had allowed her to acquire a second-hand washing machine. It was probably well over twenty years old, but both Mamma and my aunt were thrilled with it. Of course it was not an automatic machine which could be filled and left, like a modern one. It required almost constant supervision. Also, it did have a tendency to walk across the room when spinning, so Pozzetti screwed several pieces of wood into the floor to keep it in place.
The washing machine was not the only improvement. At last my mother and I had our own inside lavatory. A section at the back of the laundry room was partitioned off and a fully flushing indoor WC was plumbed in.
My mother’s business was flourishing. She had amassed so much work that often we were forced to eat our meals squeezed up at one end of the kitchen table behind piles of sheets and tablecloths. However, the embroidery she undertook in such enormous amounts was never a chore for her. She would thank her clients for bringing work. It seemed that every new sheet, tablecloth or handkerchief increased her confidence.
My mother knew the price of everything and was meticulous with the money she earned, proud of the fact that she had never had to rely on handouts from the widows’ charity. She had even been able to pay for my schoolbooks without having to ask for assistance.
Every week she sat doing her accounts, placing coins and notes in different envelopes.There was an envelope for food, another for firewood, another for household bills. She also had a tin for her business expenses.
At last she began to speak about my father, and whenever she did so, it was of him as he had been before his accident, as though she had decided to close her eyes to the struggle of his disabilities and instead, wished to remember the vigorous and able-bodied man she had first loved. She had been creating her own stone memories. As she recounted stories and jokes he had told, and laughed at them again with me, her affectionate descriptions of my Papá gave me new ways to think about him. I borrowed her memories and made them my own.
The candle she lit every Sunday in church, and for which she paid 100 lire, was for him. She would smile gently as she lit it, kiss her fingers and place it carefully in the holder.
The value of money had changed significantly in the six years since the end of the war. Now, a labourer could expect to be paid between 1,500 and 2,000 lire per day, depending on his skills. It pained me that the 100 lire my mother placed in the collection tin was the same amount that the church had paid my father for each day of his labour.
When I was not at school or helping at home, I spent my time with Gianfrancesco. The acres of fields and orchards which surrounded Cascina Marchesini were our world where we could do and say as we pleased and where our secret kissing could be concealed. As far as our mothers knew, Gianfrancesco and I were just friends. We were both afraid that if our mothers found out about our kissing they would forbid us from spending time together.
I still missed my father, though not in the same way as before. I wished that he could see how things had improved. I wished that I had been able to show him my good grades. And finally, I wished that he had been able to be part of the new post-war world which was emerging. I spoke to him constantly during my prayers.
In truth I spoke to my father more often than I did to God. I found praying to God pointless, since it felt as though my prayers were too small to be noticed. God was obviously too occupied listening to millions of others to hear mine. Speaking to my father was different. He was there for me whenever I wanted, and I could be sure of his undivided attention. Even in church every Sunday I did not pray to God, but communicated with my father. I was not sure whether this was a sin or not, and thought it better not to enquire in case it was and I was told to stop.
I didn’t like church very much. I was too old for Sunday school, which I had quite enjoyed because we listened to Bible stories, but Mass I found to be a tedious and mechanical occasion. The repetition of the same rites week after week was so boring that I would spend most of the service sucking in my cheeks to stop myself from yawning.
Although I went to confession regularly, as was expected of me, I kept my sins lightweight. I was not comfortable baring my soul to Don Ambrogio and certainly never told him about Gianfrancesco and our secret kissing.
‘Why don’t you go to church?’ I asked Gianfrancesco.
‘Because church is no place for me. I’m an apostate.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Apostasy is the abandonment of religious beliefs. I find the whole concept of organised religion questionable. I’m not even sure there’s a God.’
I was aware of the fact that there were people who didn’t believe in God, but as far as I knew, I had never met one. Sometimes Don Ambrogio offered prayers for those who had abandoned their faith. Although my own communication with God had been unsatisfactory, I had never questioned His existence. Everybody I knew believed in God. Surely it was impossible for all those people to be wrong?
‘God is an unproven unknown,’ Gianfrancesco stated. ‘So when it comes to God, I’m an agnostic. I would like to be more decisive about it and say I’m an atheist, as my father was, but I’m still an agnostic.’
I considered this for a moment. Then I said: ‘Aren’t you afraid that if there is a God, you’ll anger Him by not believing?’
Gianfrancesco laughed.
‘No, not at all,’ he said decisively. ‘If there is a God, because I’m not saying there definitely isn’t, then I think He, or She, would just want me to try to be a good person. But what I am certain about is that I don’t need all the rituals and dogma of the Church in order to be a good person. In fact, I think it gets in the way. And the Catholic system of confession where absolution is granted for any sin, even a serious one, simply by telling a priest is a very flawed concept.’
‘I sometimes make things up to confess,’ I confided. ‘Just small stuff. Like being greedy or not having prayed enough.’
‘So you lie in the confe ssional? There’s not much point in you going to confession then, is there?’
‘I’ve never confessed about us.’
Gianfrancesco looked at me, slightly perplexed. ‘What would you confess about us?’
‘Well, we kiss.’
‘And you think that’s any priest’s business?’
‘It’s supposed to be a sin.’
Gianfrancesco snorted. ‘Are we hurting anybody when we kiss?’
I had asked myself this very question many times. ‘Well, no.’
‘So it can’t be a sin, can it? It’s not like stealing or murder.’
His words made sense, but I was confused. ‘So why would the Church say it’s a sin?’
‘Because the Church can make up any rules it likes and people will obey for fear of being punished. If the Church banned people from wearing socks on Tuesdays, then people would stop wearing socks on Tuesdays. My father used to say that religion was all about control of the people. He said you should never submit to the authority of the Church in place of your own powers of reason. Catholicism isn’t really about God. It’s a system of rules and threats to ensure those rules are followed. It’s just a form of government and taxation, but with added guilt.’
These were new and radical words to me. I found them compelling, but more than a little unsettling.
‘But it’s not all bad, is it?’ I asked. ‘What about heaven – that’s not a threat. Don’t you think your father is there?’ The thought that my Papá looked down at me from heaven had been my greatest comfort since we had lost him.
‘The only place I can be certain my father is, is in the cemetery of Pieve Santa Clara,’ replied Gianfrancesco.
‘But wouldn’t you like to think he was in heaven, watching over you?’
‘There are lots of things I would like to think, but it doesn’t mean any of them are real or true. If you believe something enough you can bend the facts to justify it. But I don’t think my father’s looking down from a heaven full of harp-playing cherubs and angels any more than I believe he’s in hell drowning in a lake of sulphur. He didn’t believe in heaven and hell anyway. The Church uses the promise of heaven and the threat of hell to keep control without having the slightest shred of evidence that either exists.’
‘The church here helped my father when he couldn’t work any more.’
Gianfrancesco looked at me, then looked away again, shaking his head. ‘Really?’ he said.
‘Yes. The church charity gave him work at the cemetery. If it hadn’t been for that, he wouldn’t have had any work ever again and we could have starved.’
‘Graziella, how did your father have his accident, the first one?’
‘He was crushed.’
‘What was he doing when he was crushed?’
‘Repairing the church tower.’
‘And he was doing it gratis, wasn’t he? He gave his services free of charge because he was a devout man.’
‘Yes.’
‘So don’t you think the church had a duty to help him?’
My mouth was dry. Gianfrancesco’s words expressed thoughts which I had never dared to articulate.
‘And the second accident. How did your father have his second accident?’ Gianfrancesco persisted.
‘Removing a wasps’ nest from Don Ambrogio’s house.’
‘And did the church help your mother?’
‘She didn’t have to pay for the tomb.’
Gianfrancesco looked me in the eye. ‘How very magnanimous of the church,’ he said.
*
That evening as I sat eating supper with my mother I wondered whether the same thoughts had ever occurred to her. She had cursed Don Ambrogio for instructing my father to climb a ladder to deal with the wasps’ nest and refused to let him take my father’s funeral service, but she still went to church every Sunday and she still prayed before bed every night.
‘Mamma, do you think that the church should have done more when Papá died?’ I said.
‘More? What do you mean?’
‘I mean, should they have taken more responsibility?’
‘Well, the parish gave us 5,000 lire.’ She shrugged. ‘It was better than nothing. And I didn’t have to pay for his place in the cemetery.’
‘But you were very angry with Don Ambrogio.’
‘Yes, of course I was. Asking a crippled man to climb a ladder to deal with a nest of wasps was an irresponsible thing to do. And your father was irresponsible for agreeing. I was angry with them both. But that wasn’t the church’s fault. It was two foolish men deciding to do something foolish.’
‘And have you ever wondered whether God might not exist?’
This made my mother put down her fork. Obviously alarmed by my question, she frowned, then said, ‘Why would you ask me that?’
‘Just because of a conversation I was having with Gianfrancesco. We were talking about how some people don’t believe in God.’
‘Is that what he thinks? That there isn’t a God?’
‘No, of course not. It was just an interesting subject,’ I replied reassuringly, not wanting to worry her. I thought it better not to mention apostasy, or agnosticism. My mother seemed relieved.
‘Of course God exists,’ she said.
‘But how do you know?’
‘I feel Him in my heart, just as all good Christian people do.’
I didn’t question her any further, for I was questioning myself. I didn’t feel God in my heart, or my mind, or anywhere else, despite the fact that I considered my behaviour to be that of a good Christian. I tried to be kind and thoughtful and helpful towards others. I had never stolen anything, apart from Zia Mina’s sloes. My lies were limited to small untruths, mainly told in the confessional, and to omissions about how Gianfrancesco and I spent our time together.
Doubts which had been chattering in my mind since my days at the convent were becoming louder.
CHAPTER 2
Salvatore had been living at Paradiso for over six years. It was difficult for me to remember a time without him. We all thought of him as family.
One day he took my aunt to one side and said, ‘Donna Mina, there’s something you should know. I have a project. A plan for the future.’
‘It’s always good to have a plan. What is it?’
‘I am going to open a restaurant again.’
‘A restaurant?’
‘Yes, but not like the one I had before in Naples. Donna Mina, I am going to open a pizzeria. More and more people know about pizza now and I think it would be very popular.’
‘Won’t it be rather expensive to set it up?’
‘I have been saving my salary, Donna Mina. Almost every lira you have ever paid me,’ he said proudly.
‘Will that be enough?’
‘Almost. Just a few more months, maybe a year, and I will have enough. I have even seen a premises near the cathedral in Cremona. It’s in a beautiful old building, with an arched doorway and vaulted ceilings. The current owner wants to retire soon and he said he would give me first refusal. That as long as I could come up with some of the money to start with, I could pay him the rest in instalments once my business gets going.’ Salvatore’s voice grew excited. ‘And right after I had spoken to him, I saw a sign, Donna Mina! A hunch-backed man walked right past the door and stopped and looked at me. He looked me right in the eyes! You know that they say in Naples that it’s lucky to see a hunchback?’
My aunt’s smile was tinged with sadness as she said, ‘So you wouldn’t live here any more?’
‘I love living here, Donna Mina,’ Salvatore replied, ‘and I love working for you, but my heart is in the kitchen, not the garden. I will never forget your kindness and your generosity. You are a remarkable woman. But I’m thirty-five years old now and I need to make my own life.’ He paused. ‘I was thinking that you could be part of it though.’
‘How? A restaurant is no place for me.’
‘Tomatoes, Donna Mina. You grow the finest tomatoes and if you could grow more, I would buy every single one from you.’
‘I would like that,’ my aunt said, and she smiled.
‘You would?’
‘Yes.’
He said shyly, ‘Then I have your blessing?’
‘You do, Salvatore. And I’m certain you will be very successful.’
