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The lunch break was a relief. When the heat in the Maremma would become unbearable, they stopped working and the break, even if it was short, was a relief. They would sit on the ground or on the sheaves, and they would eat their food which was distributed. Many of them would hide the bread in the big pockets of their aprons because in the evenings, at home, their younger children were hungry, if the other ones were slightly older and working already. Once the season ended, the fields were left so you could see groups of women and children were picking the fallen spikes of wheat off the ground with their sacks tied across their shoulders.
The more spikes, the more wheat, the more flour, the more bread.
Bread.
Bread for them and for their children and for the old people who did not work anymore.
The bread that men did not bring home because they were stuck in the Karst Plateau.
That was in in winter, once the olive harvesting was over. First they were picking from the trees for the owner then, if the owner allowed them to, they were picking olives for themselves off the ground, to get a couple of litres of the precious olive oil.
When the war broke out, Rudi joined the army, but Giovanni stayed at home. He was thirty-five and his position as the head of the family spared him from joining in the war. In the last two years the financial situation of the Barrieri family had improved indeed. The army required great quantities of horses and food and he doubled his livestock. Many pieces of land were fallow because nobody was working them so they were up for sale and Giovanni bought them without making the most of the situation because he was happy to help people if he could, he did not take advantage of people’s misfortunes. At home, in some parts of the year, when the work in the land had stopped and people did not know what to live on, there were women coming and going offering the most diverse things they could do, bringing a basket full of chicory or wild fruit as a present, hoping to get something in return.
Giulia, Maria and Ada knew those women, they knew their stories and they would always send them back home with food to eat for their dinner. Before accepting what they offered, many of them would say that they had come over in case there were some things to do but their eyes would say thank you before getting the gift in their hands because the words that went with that were not words of pity and would not demean them:
-You’ve just come at the right time, I’ve just prepared this- they said handing the packet over- Take it, please, I’ve just made too much of it and it would rot..
-Giving without humiliating- Giovanni stressed that – because humiliation is worse than poverty- The three of them had learnt that.
That morning Ada woke up with her usual headache. It would happen often and when that occurred, the best way to look after it was to stay in bed, in the darkness, in peace and quiet for a few hours until the pain would alleviate and only then she would manage to get up, still daze and pale.
Dr Marinucci, the elderly family doctor, always felt that the cause for this was her nervousness. –It’s anxiety, it is not a serious condition. Ada is a strong and healthy woman. She should have got married…-
She did not leave the house and stayed with her father and her older sister instead. She was only two years younger than Maria and she looked less resigned. Compared to her thinness, Ada’s body looked almost plump, more feminine, with her large breasts in a corset which made her waist thinner and highlighted her round hips.
She moved around the house with quite some energy which was too much at times as if she was jerking, showing an agitation out of control and some kind of permanent unhappiness. In these days she could work for hours without feeling tired, she cleaned the house from top to bottom, she washed curtains and covers, she rubbed out old stains frantically. She was extremely generous. In a burst of affection she would take the kids’ breath away when she would hold them in her arms against her soft bosom and would smother them with kisses. Antonino couldn’t stop laughing, Clara tried to escape from that torture and the little ones, Agnese e Luciano, were mesmerized, laughing and crying, not too sure if that little pain was worth putting up with.
The first of November was dull day and the sun was just a dull light behind a cloud that was slightly fairer than the others. Maria was still in bed and Ada, once over the worse part, was not sure whether to get up or not. The house was unusually quiet got her to do downstairs. Antonino and Clara were at school and you could not hear the voices of the little ones.
She got up and got dressed. The fire was already on in the kitchen to warm up the air. Giovanni was in his work clothes and was sitting with his arms resting on the table in front of the open newspaper. Giulia was sitting in front of him, she was pale. Her face which was usually stern but not worried, was furrowed by a line on her forehead showing deep concern. Her blank eyes were following a far away thought . Maria was moving about quietly, busy making something to eat for the children, who were sitting on the ground and were talking in a low voice, feeling the worry in the room. Ada, stood at the door, and felt that unusual atmosphere.
-What happened?-
-How are you, Ada, are you feeling better?- Giulia asked, fighting hard to come out of her thoughts.
-Yes, I am feeling better. What happened?-
- ….things are not looking so good….- said Giovanni
-Which things….-.
-The war…. The news about the war is not good…. Rudi wrote a letter…-
-Rudi?...what does he say…? Where did he write from…? how is he…?- Ada rested her hands clenched in a fist on her stomach and her voice was now panicky.
-He wrote from the warzone-, Giulia answered, thinking now about the current situation and looked as if she was in control again –He says he has fought in Caporetto and now he is at a field hospital….at least up until ten days ago when the letter was written…here, read it..-
Ada took the pieces of papers in her hands and saw that Rudi’s handwriting, usually with big characters, looked unsteady and crooked. She started to read silently, quickly:
‘ Dear Giulia and dear all,
As you can see I am able to write so please don’t worry about me.
I am at a field hospital ….because during an operation my shoulder was injured, luckily it is not serious. What I experienced with my fellow soldiers over the last few months is virtually nothing compared to what has happened over the last few days. I hope you have received my previous letters. If so, you are aware of the situation we have endured for months: the barricades are our home, these dugouts where mud gets as far as your knees, and you can only get out of them to go and fight the enemy who is not too far from you. It is cold in there, very cold. I can say it to you: I am scared. I am scared when I can get some sleep for a little while and I am woken up by the blast of the bombs nearby, I am scared when we have to advance and my riflemen look at me with their ashen eyes, without expression, almost indifferent to their destinies, fear when Tornieri, my fellow soldier, collapses beside me with his stomach opened up and you can see inside and begs me to help him, not with the words because he has no more, but with his eyes. I look at him crying, he knows there is nothing I can do to help him and I have to leave him there because we have to go. So I go but I can’t see anything because of the tears in my eyes and I pray, for a quick moment, I pray for Tornieri, whom I was talking to just a moment before, to die quickly. I pray for his death, he is so young and far away from his home which I got to know thanks to what he recounted, without anybody around him. No, no, it does not have to be like this! I turn back then just in time to hold his hand, soiled with mud and blood. He looks as if he is smiling at me and he passes away near me without even a sob: just a little sigh and he is gone forever.
I am scared because I don’t know what tomorrow would be like and I am horrifies that it is going to be like today, or even worse.
On the night of October 24th, we are in the barricade on Livek gap, waiting for the enemies to attack. It is the middle of the night, it is raining heavily and there is a thick fog everywhere. Around two in the morning there is the first blast, and then it goes on for hours on end. The cannons are fired so often that at dawn the land is covered in deep holes which were so near one another that the soldiers jump into them to get some shelter during their advance. They are given the order to defend the post and that’s what has to be done, whereas the holes they jump into to get some shelter are full of dead bodies and men all deformed in the attempt to breath, due to gas asphyxiation.
The night never ends. We advance for a few metres and when the position seems to be consolidated, here come the enemies, ready for an attack. I gather up my men, there are so few of them that I think it is pointless to resist, yet we just fight, we just keep at it without thinking, then we withdraw again, and again on the dead bodies of our fellow soldiers. All of a sudden I cannot remember anything about this living hell, apart from a sensation of heat that runs from my shoulder down to my arm and an almost pleasant vertigo that doesn’t make me hear the blasts and feel the fear.
I was in hospital then when I was informed about what happened to our army and I heard about this withdrawal that neutralized our long-standing efforts.
I am feeling better and you are not to worry about me.
This war now does not even scare me anymore. This defeat has made me aware that now, after so much suffering, we need to fight harder for our country not to neutralize the sacrifices made by many fellow soldiers. I hope it finishes soon so that I can come back to you all, but I have to do my full duty first.
Give the kids a kiss from me. A hug to you all.
Your Rudi.’
Maria raised her eyes from the letter and looked at Giovanni in dismay.
-Is Rudi injured? …Are we losing the war?-
They were getting the news only from the newspaper that Giovanni would buy when there was something particularly important, and that day all over the front page there were public announcements about the retreat of our army and about general Cadorna being replaced by Diaz for the High Command .
-I think so- he answered, looking worried- Things are worse that we would have expected.
Those words were said at last and were taken in in silence, as if to voice what everybody thought. Now every daily chore felt like a burden to carry and a relief at the same time, a way to get going and shake off that sense of oppression caused by endless hours.
1 Chapter IV
Agnese and Luciano
The twins, that was how they were called by the family, had turned five. To everyone they were ‘the twins’, not just because they were twins, but because they were connected by a knot that did not untie when they were born.
-The twins didn’t eat- the twins have a temperature- check where the twins are…- nobody ever called them by their names. The age difference with the older brothers had turned them into a little world of its own. Especially when the older siblings started going to school, they would be all day together, complementing each other so much that at times they would isolate themselves and people would forget about them. They would rarely argue and it was difficult that they would quarrel over swapping toys or roles that they were taking up.
-You do this- No, you do it- That’s fine, I’ll do it-
Or
-I play with this now…. And I’ll play with this, then we swap…- They would have accepted any compromise in order to be with each other. That wasn’t because they did not have any other friend, considering that they lived a little bit further out in the small town. The farmers would often bring their children with them and even thought they were a little shy, they would be in the house with them, but above all because the two of them would easily communicate, even without using words, without too many explanations. It was all quite simple.
Agnese was the chubbier of the two of them. She had been that way since their birth and growing up she would keep her build. She was a cheerful but not boisterous little girl, her big dark eyes would brighten up when she smiled, almost hidden by her chubby cheeks if she was laughing whole-heartedly. She loved to play not so much with her doll but with the doll that used to be Clara’s, because it belonged to her older sister who had given it up without regretting it. For her birthday her father brought back her a pram from the town fair, the image of her own pram when she was smaller. Now mum was looking after her baby girl taking her out for a walk in the porch, wrapped up in a little yellow quilt that auntie Maria had made for her. While she was walking around, she felt that everything was perfect: a home, a mum, a baby and daddy that was waiting for them.
Luciano was always daddy. He would ride back home on his wooden horse, to eat at a table where dainties made with mud, small stones and little pieces of paper were served, to say that everything tasted so good and to go back to work, on horseback, trotting or at a gallop according to the situation. A role that turned out to be rather marginal in the daily running of their house, where the most demanding tasks were carried out by the house mistress. While she was cleaning, cooking, going for walks, he had some free time to fill in, so he would say -What can I do now?- he asked.- -You work the land- and he would start digging lightly with a stick. After a little while, the farmer would get bored and would go back home saying that it was time to draw. So straight away they would drop the kitchen with the pots on the fire and the poor doll was left on her own in the middle of the porch.
The time they spent doing their drawings would fly by, especially for him. While they were at it, it was Agnese’s turn to ask –What now?- Without raising his eyes off the paper, lying down on the ground or kneeling down on a chair which was too low near the table, Luciano would give her some instructions and some advice.
He was a tall child, quite thin, and was told to look like his auntie Maria. His build was exactly the opposite of his sister’s and his dark and straight hair was cut quite short at the back of his head, he had some sort of a lock in the front that would stick up on top of his head and fall down onto his forehead. His face was not as cheerful as his sister’s. He did not have a frown but he always looked very interested in everything that was around him and his own way to understand what was going on keeping a distant attitude. There were times whereby he seemed to be totally dependent on Agnese, and other times when the little one would rely on her brother, and this naturally well-balanced relationship made them both confident and for their age, quite independent.
There was also another child they could often play with, Andrea, Lucia’s son.
Lucia was a young woman who the Barrieri family knew so well. She was just over her twenties but she started working in their farm at the age of six or seven with her father. Her mother died when she was giving birth so father and daughter have been both orphans since then, lost in a world that had not been very kind to them and did not look too promising for the future either. Lucia had not really been reared in her own home but in the neighbours’ who looked after her in turns, feeling sorry for her living conditions of extreme poverty and neglect. Her father was a good man, simple, a hard-working man, born in a world where working hard could just guarantee to make ends meet. He would get up at dawn and come back home when the sun had gone down; in the evening he could not do all the tasks usually carried out by a wife who wasn’t actually there. Their home was on the ground floor, there was a long corridor that was getting some light only from the front door and the double bed was at the bottom, a curtain would separate it from the rest. Winter nights were very long and cold and the fireplace was often off. When darkness fell, rather than lighting up a candle, they would go to bed, so their meal was just one and they would feel the hunger in the morning. The mattress was made with dry leaves which would creak every time they moved about in the bed. Lucia’s little body, wrapped around her father’s, was still, crushed under the heavy cover and there she would feel finally at home. As soon as she was old enough, she went to the land with him. She never went to school and nobody ever came looking for her. The Barrieri family was the first family she worked for and she stayed with them ever since, growing in the fields year after year.
The first time she went into the big house she was about five. She was due to get the water to bring to the men who were working nearby. She had always seen that house from outside, it was a two-storey house, with the curtains at the windows and the big front door. It looked like a castle to her. There was not anything as beautiful in the small town. She was a bit scared getting near it, holding the jug covered with broomcorn to keep the water cool. She was still, not too sure whether to push the half-closed door open or bang that big iron ring which ended with the head of a lion. A tall and austere woman came out of the semi-darkness of the corridor and saw her right in front of her after opening the door wide.
-What are you doing here?-
The woman bent forward to her, she put a hand on her head. She was smiling and from a close distance her face was not as stern as it appeared earlier on. Lucia’s heart was throbbing like a crazy horse up until a little while before, but she calmed herself down a little at that touch. She held out the jug keeping her eyes down, and she managed to say:
-Here is the water…-
Maria felt a surge of tenderness looking at that scared little thing.
-What’s your name?-
-Lucia…- she kept her head down and her words were almost whispered
-Come in- she told her while she was pushing her gently in the hallway
-Lucia and?-
The little girl was silent.
-What is your mummy’s name?- The little girl still kept her head down and did not answer. Maria was taking her to the kitchen keeping her hand on her shoulder. She could feel all her bones through her apron
-What about your daddy, what is your daddy’s name?-
-Adolfo...-
She realised that she was the daughter of that man named Adolfo who had lost his wife too soon and that that little girl had only experienced poverty and loneliness growing up.
She filled the jug with water.
-Are you sure that you can carry it? It’s heavy…-
-Yes…yes…-her voice could hardly be heard
-Would you like to eat an apple?-
Almost touching her chest with her chin, the little girl shook her head.
-Put it in your pocket then, you can eat it later- so she slipped it into the pocket of her long apron.
-Take two indeed, you can give one to whoever you want-
She took her to the door and she saw her go away nearly running, as if she was free from a burden, despite the jug resting on her hip.
Everything had been so new and exciting that day that Lucia did not even looked at the kitchen she had gone into. As soon as she was on her own, the blood started to throb in her veins quickly and her face got some colour while a feeling of joy would take over her. While she was running, she felt the two apples banging against her legs and she was holding on to them with her free hand in order not to lose them. She got home out of breath, she left the jug near her father without saying a word and she stepped away. She took one apple, she rubbed it with her sleeve to make it glossy and precious and she started to eat it with small bites as if it was Paris’s golden apple.
After that day, Lucia herself would offer to do small jobs around the big house and little by little she started to look up when people were talking to her. Later on the Barrieri family themselves would call her if they needed some help.
Then she got married and she had Andrea. Everything could be different. However the war, on the first year right away, after getting a postcard that Giulia read for her, took that hope away from her forever. She was on her own again, working to make a living, for herself and that child that would keep her close to life. The Barrieri family would treat Andrea always with affection. While his mum was working in the house or in the fields, the child was often in their house and would enjoy his afternoon snack with the twins, consisting of big slices of bread with jam.
1 Chapter V
Antonino and Clara
Despite the pregnancies, Giulia did not put on weight and her tiny and well-shaped body, which was still young-looking, with an increased maturity and gracefulness in her ways which would make her more beautiful to Giovanni’s eyes. What he loved most about her, apart from her appearance, was her mannerism and her words, almost a dignity that was never tedious or detached but a natural ability to fully understand the situations and know exactly when it was okay to speak or be quiet. They were the qualities that he had first picked up off her which now that he knew her better, they would make her extra special. He trusted her judgement and in the evening, when at last they were on their own in their bedroom, he would talk for a long time about the work he did during the day, she would listen carefully to him and Giovanni was grateful to be able to share a burden. Giulia had a secret part that was hidden deep down and would show up only through some of her deep and distant looks that would look away with a sudden flash from something she couldn’t really see, as if just for a few seconds she had picked thoughts from a remote and intimate place which were impossible to explain to other people. At first that imperceptible startle almost frightened Giovanni, then he was jealous of it because he realised that he could not access a place buried deep down her soul, which was distant and unattainable. He had stopped asking ‘What are you thinking about?’ waiting for that startle to go as suddenly as it had come about, something he felt painfully left out from, it was a brief moment of loneliness fully compensated by the way Giulia would be right after that.
That side to her personality that would have been so prone to anxiety, had been fixed up by Giovanni’s vitality and liveliness. In those times when the love a wife had for her husband showed in the dedication and obedience to a man, Giulia felt for him a very strong physical attraction which let her discover the juvenile and repressed passionate nature of her body. At the beginning of their engagement, when she saw him coming from a distance, she felt her legs shaking nervously and she was trying very hard to keep herself under control, leaving her speechless. She almost felt uneasy thinking about him, being aware that this new feeling was out of her control and would make her more fragile. After the wedding, their nights together were soon free of all embarrassment. Happy to enjoy each other without reserve, they would keep an unconfessed secret from the family during the day, hidden behind the stern expression of her face and slightly more visible in Giovanni’s gestures and looks.
Giulia was aware that Clara had taken after her a lot, she could sense those thoughts that she managed to keep under control since she was younger. She could sense them running wild deep down her as a teenager who was finding it difficult to restrain them and would confine herself in an inexplicable, almost hostile silence. When she realised that Clara favoured her father, she was relieved because she had tacitly empowered him to keep an intimate contact with their daughter’s soul, keeping for herself the place of a careful observer. This was secretly acknowledged and shared by Giovanni, even if it had never rationally come up, and it was a great joy, because along with him Clara was able to let herself go to childish games without feeling the need to hide from him those anxieties that he had learnt to understand and respect in Giulia. His closeness was a relief to Clara’s anxieties, she did not feel as if someone was watching her like with her mother, nor partially misunderstood like with her aunties. It could only be Clara, in the simplicity of her moments of silence and the depth of her thoughts.