—Ma, vaio a giocà con la bomba—

Uncle Antonio and I walk through a patch of tall grass. I hear more echoes from the past.

Walking ahead of Giovà in a field of tall grass, his mother, whispers cautiously:

—The fieno needs cutting.

A quick, swishing sound startles them, then fades away. 

—Che è, Ma?

—‘Na serpe. Fermu. Passa dellá. Scanzemuce.

The change to their route to avoid the unidentified snake, gets them closer to the little farm house.  Giovà remembers the farm house and its favourite pastime.  He is excited:

—Ma, vaio a giocà con la bomba—

The boy darts off bouncing through the tall grass like a hare. In a moment he has slipped away from his mother’s tethering hand and has reached the side of the farmhouse, or casittu.  There he finds it, just as he left it the last time. It is mostly rusted; with spots of khaki, military paint still visible. The rear end of the casing of an American bomb still stands, as if impaled into the ground.

It had exploded years earlier, not far from the casittu, missing the railway bridge across the narrow valley near Rapelle, and destroying neighbouring houses. Instead of being blown up into shrapnel, this piece had remained intact. He spins the little propeller at the back, wondering what it is for, and imitates the engine roar of an approaching American Spitfire. Then, the high-to-low whistle of a shell dropped from the air, which he has never seen, and the explosion, which he has never heard but can easily imagine.  His father had said they were like those botti at the end of the fireworks, on the feast of the Madonna delle Grotte.  

The salvos marking the end of the fireworks echoed all over the valley and made the windows rattle. They felt like a punch in the stomach that didn’t hurt. Like that from his baby sister when he took chicken from her. He never could get enough of his mother’s roast chicken in a bed of potatoes, cooked with plenty of olive oil and generously sprinkled with rosemary needles.

This bomb was of the type that did not explode the moment it hit the ground. In the narrow valley separating Fallarino from Rapelle, the Americans had dropped several bombs only meters away from the targetted railway bridge, and missed every time. The little propeller that Giovà was spinning at the back of the shell served to arm the fuse, which would detonate the bomb after completing a certain number of rotations. This delay allowed the aircraft to reach a good distance, far enough to safeguard pilot and plane from being blown up to pieces along with the target.  After the drop, the safety of the pilot’s was further ensured by rolling the plane to the vertical, so as to avoid flying into the sides of the narrow valley.  The small fighters, loaded with bombs, got so close to the ground that they could clearly see the faces of the shepherds on the hills below.

On flying back to confirm the drop, Eugene, a young Canadian replacement pilot, saw that he had missed the railway bridge disastrously.  Furniture and bedding had been blown to bits and were strewn all around.  A woman wearing a white apron was running towards the destroyed house.  Eugene saw that an enormous crater waited for her. Eugene climbed up to Giano once more, did a roll-over and nose-dived once more. The woman didn’t seem to notice his plane, or mind the pitch of the engine’s revolutions.  She moved slowly as in a trance.  She stopped several times to pick up and place in her apron.  He could not tell what. 

On a second and final nose-dive, Eugene thought of rocking the wings of his plane as a sign of peace.  

The walls of the hills looked far apart from the air, but he knew this to be an optical illusion.  At his speed the plane was not responsive and there was little room for error.  His time to report to base was overdue so Eugene focused on approaching closer than before.  He would regret his actions.

The woman no longer moved as if transfixed.  A hand in a girl’s dress sleeve protruded limp from her small apron.  The stump of a muddy foot finished the stack she carried in her apron, now crimson and soaked below her waist to her feet.

3. Vipers and Pears

Today, Zio Antonio and I are going pear picking to Fallarino.

He lives across the hallway in mother’s apartment building, an imposing five-residence, two-story unit.  It was built in the middle of the nineteen eighties on the farmland, L’Orto, where I used to play as a child. The pigsty, the khaki tree, the grape vines, and the strawberry patches are all gone now; replaced by a driveway and a small decorative garden. Thanks to Zio Antonio’s influence, the ancient pear-tree and the walnut-tree were spared from the excavators’ steel jaws and they remain as the sentinels, the reminders of the changes that have occurred to the land. This dream house was built mostly at the urging of my mother, and thanks to uncle Lando’s most cruel, but effective, sink-or-swim manner of involving other family members in the financing of the project.  After we left for the new world, mother worked as a tailor for the Holy Cross hospital, and with everyone’s help bought two houses, not thinking that the house in Antrodoco would ever happen.  The dream endured through Calgary’s skyrocketing real estate, inflation, and her son leaving for McGill in Montreal. Occurring very closely together, these were signs that mother’s age-old-dream had  dawned into reality.  The planets, the moon, and the stars all lined up properly for her.  She welcomed her Age of Aquarius.

I get dressed quickly and go knock on his door. It is barely light out; a gentle rap with the knuckles should be enough to wake him without disturbing my aunt Iside. They have been married for almost fifty years and she sleeps longer because of her heart-condition. He answers immediately and lets me in. He is already dressed.

—Lo vuoi il caffè?— he says in raucous tones like those of the asthmatic rooster, which he never hears. Zia is still asleep so talking loud is forbidden. Conversation with uncle is normally difficult because he is very hard of hearing, and though he wears a hearing aid, most of the time he does not understand what I am saying. His redeeming quality that compensates for his lack of hearing, is that he loves to talk.  I love to hear his soothing voice speaking Antrodocano with the nasal intonations of Ternano, the dialect which he learned after living in Terni for many years. Like hearing a melody for trombone and fugle horn.

A familiar sense of unrest begins to return. I fidget and ask myself what I am doing driving up the hills of Antrodoco so early in the morning with a relative who only has one-way conversations with me. Damnation, I feel like the most unaccomplished man in the whole world. Panic grips my throat. I could be re-reading I Promessi Sposi, fun but hard work, or maybe planning to ascend the mountain Giano that has been staring me in the face and teasing me ever since I was a child: “Giovanniiiinooo. . . vieni. . . vieni, sali su. . .” Or, I could be thinking about what to say at the memorial, -- they will want me to say something for sure --  since I have come from so far. Damned circumstance, che rotta! Why me?

I take a deep breath and try to relax. I am another city-slicker impatient with the ways of Italian villages. I should focus on the good Zio Antonio and my cousins whom I love dearly. The thought mellows me. He is the kindest of men, and he has known me since I was born. His son and my sister were born on the same day, only a few hours apart. He is fun to be with. Very patient. I recognize that this trip is a moment to cherish, and a privilege. I am reliving with him a food gathering experience of other years. 

He knows a lot about current farming of the hills. He lets me drive his royal-blue Fiat 126. I have to duck because my head always hits the rooftop. The inside is meant for shorter people and my head remains scrunched against the hard top. I am so well wedged in, that I do not need a seat belt. Zio jokes about what a large car I would need to accommodate my six-foot frame and 250-pound bulk. He says that I am so lucky that I live in Canada where cars are so much bigger. I agree with him, but my laughter hides my self-loathing and my wish to be smaller and skinnier. 

We drive up the road to La Rocca, past a switchback just to the right of the sign that says San Terenziano, which everyone knows in the vernacular as Santu Lonzanu. On the right, an outdoor fountain with a rectangular wash-basin as big as two pool tables overlooks the creek below.  Concrete washboards all around it, it was built many years earlier solely for washing clothes by hand, From here both the creek and the river are distant. A water tap drips continuously and the basin and is rarely used now, having been replaced by the Italian washing machine, ever present in bathrooms, and requiring no separate hot water tap. An energy efficient appliance for certain, but it is as slow to finish a small load as it is efficient.

—Gira qua Giovà—he says. He points to a sign that indicates we will be going the wrong way on a narrow and very steep road up the East face of bushy Marmorale. It is a one-way road in the opposite direction of our climb and so narrow that it can barely accomodate our Fiat.  It is the shortest way to get to the top of Marmorale and around to Fallarino, no doubt about that. I venture on cautiously.

Suddenly I see a car rushing at me at 120 km/hour, horn blaring.  I hear more traffic behind it.  I grip the wheel tightly, ready for impact. Blood leaves my clenched fingers and rushes to my face.

Shaking my head, I deny my eyes and shuddering to break the spell of the hallucination  I whisper sanity mantras to myself:

—No way! We are not in Toronto!

—This is not Highway 401!

In first gear, even with both of us aboard, the Fiat is amazingly able to manage the steep hill. I have seen it do it fully loaded: four people on board, and trunk filled with a harvest of fruit. The motor whirs and its valves go clickety-click like an old Singer sewing-machine. The gears whine like a bee, but the car climbs like a mule.

Parking is not a problem because some enterprising soul with some heavy earth-moving equipment has taken a chunk out of the mountainside and left a square-sided hole, as if he had helped himself to a large serving of Black Forest cake. The hole is made to measure: large enough for just uncle’s car and with room only to get out from one side. He opens the passenger door and walks around to guide me as I attempt my parallel park manoeuvre.  I do it the first time, after whirring the clickety-clicking engine and plunking the gear shift lever just the right amounts. Parking completed, I turn off the motor. It is very quiet here now, we are alone. At last I can speak loudly so he can hear me. I ask:

—E il padrone?— I realize that this is someone else’s parking spot, because it is right in front of a new mountain-chalet built with stones.  I do not recognize it.  It is not the property of uncle’s family. Uncle accepts his transgression in a very natural, matter-of-fact way, without bothering to answer me in detail.  He hints that we were here first and that the others, owners or otherwise, would have to wait until we came back to move the car.

The family hillside land is situated below the road we just drove on and it is rented out as pasture for sheep. At cherry and pear-picking time uncle retains the right to reap a too-often-small harvest from fruit trees that have grown large with wild, unkempt branches. We walk down the hill to where the old pear tree will certainly reward our early-morning climb with ripened fruit. I carry, in one hand, a wicker basket, and in the other, a long handled sickle. I will use it like a hook to bend distant branches and bring them within arm’s reach. 

I have borrowed the tool from my father’s garage, removing it from his orderly, well-stocked shop, without asking. I am suddenly aware of a longstanding supposition of implicit permission from father to son, most certainly arrogant for my current Canadian values and circumstances. Father has often thanked me for helping him make the decision to return to Antrodoco to live in the new house for his retirement. He bought me a pair of Scarpa, rugged mountain shoes, as a present to mark the occasion. I am proud of having deserved his gratitude.

The path to the pear tree is grown over with grass but in some parts it has been widened by machine. The top soil has been scraped off showing the bare white rocks and yellow clay underneath.  All of the bare ground is peppered with sheep droppings, round and about the size of an olive. It is hardly recognisable as the tight, well-groomed trail that I walked on as an eight-year-old. As my feet make clumping noises on the grass, I retrace my footsteps of an earlier time and I hear the echoes of voices long faded.

—Ma, ho visto ‘na serpe!—squeaks Adele, my little sister running back down the hill, to my mothers arms.

—Ma va!—mother always seems to doubt the things her children say to her. Intrepid Antonina, mother’s younger sister, goes up the path to investigate the spot at which Adele had pointed.

—Ma è vero! Gesú è una vipera! Corri.

Uncle Antonio jars me out of my reverie with uncanny perspicacity. Up to now, he has been walking quietly, eyes to the ground slightly ahead of me. He starts talking as if picking up from a previously held conversation, in tune with my thoughts:

—Le vipere, diciamo, non ti fanno niente, ma vedi, le vipere sono maledette. Perché le altre serpi ti lasciano . . .  ma la vipera se ti vede passà, la vipera ti mozzica, la vipera!

For a moment, I pause on the fact that it is true that there are vipers everywhere (so the papers say) because of an ecological imbalance where rodents are plentiful and hawks scarce. I clip the pushy thought in the bud, before it overwhelms me, that just when I felt safest, humans surprised me with a sneaky, conniving attack, and then, victorious, ran away to multiply their kind. Like these vipers, they had no predator to keep them in check.

I ask uncle:

—Ma l’hai mai vista, una?

—Sì, e come. 

—Ma che ha fatto?

            —È scappata, che ha fatto? Ma guarda che sono bestie feroci le vipere!

Earlier in the week my friend, Luigi, and I took the traditional easy route up to the top of Monte Giano—not the more difficult, still unconquered route that keeps beckoning me straight up to the Cerdolimoli peak on the North East side.

“Viper fear” almost caused us to cancel the hike. I did not want to bother buying a viper venom antidote and syringe kit to take with us: it was expensive and the last time I bought one, I gave it away to my aunt Tonina, unused. She never found occasion to use it either. Also, talking to my cousin Rolando, who is always knowledgeable in everything, he insisted that the unlikely bite from a viper would, normally, not be more harmful than a large bee-sting. He knew of no one in the area who had ever died of a Mediterranean viper’s bite. He added that vipers were viviparous, so they hatched their young inside the mother, and at birth were the deaf, harmless aspu surdu. Showing off his knowledge of the species and the Latin names with masterly eloquence, he clarified that the species of deadly asp that killed Cleopatra’s with its bite, did not live in the area.

As an incentive, I promised that I would give Luigi one hundred thousand lire, about 80 Canadian dollars, if we spotted a viper. I did not lose any money. Three tiny lizards was the total number of reptiles that we encountered in the full-day trip.

Uncle Antonio and I walk through a patch of tall grass. I hear more echoes from the past.. . .

1. Snow, Wolves and Vipers

Giovà loved the mountain.

He wanted to draw it and had tried many times but the picture never made the Cerdolimoli peak look right.  Sometimes it was round like the elephant’s head in the teacher’s flash card of the letter E.  Sometimes it was steep like the giraffe’s neck in the G card. He had never seen a real elephant or giraffe.

He had been promoted twice and was happy to read and write in proper Italian.  No more practicing rows and rows of letters. Now he could start to write short paragraphs called “Saggio” based on a theme the teacher gave. Maestro Elvino had told his father about him being smart but impatient and undernourished.  Giovà hated to have to wait for another three school years, until Prima Media, before taking the Design subject.

The bright, blue morning-sky made him feel happy.  The mountain stood out like a giant paper doll cut out.  He traced its silhouette against the sky with his index finger as if with a pencil on a sheet of paper.

This was a Spring day in the 1950’s, post-war Italy. On such a day everything seemed to be more real than real, the old convent took on a clearer complexion; and the old, brown-grey walls appeared to shine like gold under the rays of the sun. On such a day, even school felt like a happy place.

It was the mid-morning recess. For fifteen-minutes, the third grade children were free from classroom restrictions. At the teacher's signal, they had rushed out of the dim classrooms as one screaming body. Dozens of arms and legs longing for play finally flayed wildly as one creature. Dozens of stomachs, longing to be filled, communally welcomed the bread and jam treats stored carefully in a pocket, or in a desk, since the day had begun.

Recess was always loud and active but confined to the space underneath the great arches covering the second story terrace, the location of the elementary school. The building was the former convent of Santa Chiara, a decaying medieval structure that had long been without nuns. It had more recently been used to house fascist bureaucrats and black-shirts, and had survived the Second World War, and their political demise.

Underneath the arches, running was not permitted.  In the Spring the children enjoyed the morning sun and the brisk mountain air and stayed protected from cold winds gusting from the mountain and the river gorges.  The second of the three arches in the large balcony faced the boy’s classroom door and it was the boy's favourite place.  Climbing the long, straight flight of stairs to the classrooms every morning was hard work for the small boys, but going back down to the spacious courtyard  when school ended was always welcome. Only then could the children run about freely in the large yard for a few minutes before closing time. At half-past noon, they were expected to go home, like the rest of the school staff, the caretakers and the teachers.  "Pranzo" the biggest meal of the day was waiting.

The boy’s breakfast was traditionally small: a little milk with some bread and sugar. The ten o' clock snack was a small help in quieting hunger pains because by one o'clock hunger would take over as everyone rushed home. After pranzo if there was homework, freedom and physical activity would not begin again until late afternoon and remain unsatisfied until very late in the evening.

The second arch was the place for temporary relief from the boredom of paying attention in the classroom and being still in your seat.  Because it did not give a full sense of freedom, it was just a good place to dream about boyish quests. It had the best view of the mountain.  From the second arch he could see Cerdolimoli. This peak was a minor peak not the real top of Monte Giano, as the whole mountain was called..

On such a clear day, the peak had all the majesty of a much higher climb.  It stood-out against the azure sky, brown like the artificial beauty of crumpled cement bags, sprinkled with flour in the churches nativity scene at Christmas.

  The boy had always viewed the peak with both exhilaration and fear. It was the largest he had ever seen; larger than an elephant or a giraffe. He did not really understand that this was just the front of Monte Giano. Giovà  had been borne in the warmer valley near its base where the town of Antrodoco clung to a smaller hill.

Large mountains all around watched over the whole valley. Monte Giano however, stood out from the others. It was closer and large enough to dominate the village and the whole area. It acted as an ancient overseer, an omnipresent and benevolent force, referred in village stories both as a father and as a mother. For the boy it felt as protective and stimulating as a buxomly, outrageous grandmother.

His own mother feared the mountain; but the boy thought she hated it. She had always warned him to stay away from it, always refusing permission to let him go even a short distance up its slope. There were many legends about the mountain: werewolves, wild boars and brigands.  All had been known to roam freely in the remote areas at one time or another. Some of the local stories had been exaggerated with events such as landslides and avalanches; howling wild animals; hissing, enormous snakes; and the cold, suffocating darkness that enveloped all creatures that roamed the mountain on moonless, winter nights.

Once, on waking on a day with no school, from a night when legends are born, the whitest snow he had ever seen in his seven years, had arrived to the high ground of Monte Giano. This was a good omen because though he liked snow, only once or twice could he remember it coming down to cover the whole town and keep it covered for a few days. The snow in fact,  only rarely lay its white mantle below the half-way mark down the face of the mountain. It usually melted into rain as it got closer to the valley town. And every time that the snow teased the boy this way, he felt even a great aching desire to touch it. But the snow that he could see this time was still out of reach. He dreamed of winter bliss: throwing snowballs, making a snowman, and simply walking and sliding on cobble stones polished to a glassy finish by ice and packed snow. And snow was always welcome! It made everything look and feel exciting and new.

The climate was such that most likely the next morning the snow he saw would no longer be there. Every January since he could remember, he had for many days patiently checked the snow line, hoping that it would get colder and the whiteness he liked so much would also come over the houses, the roads and the fields of Antrodoco. To his dismay he had awakened each new day to see that just the opposite had occurred: the snowline had crept further back up the slope, destroying all his hopes that it would ever come down for that year.

That winter, the snow had found him older, braver and more impatient than ever before. He was no longer like a first grader, swallowing disappointment while waiting to grow up some more.

He had nagged his mother for the whole morning on the way home from grandfather’s L’Orto. Carrying a “sporta” of winter vegetables, the woman breathed heard with the effort of the climb and the additional load of a boy yanking at her coat. He asked a hundred times, if he could go touch the snow, forestalling objections by adding that the mountain wasn't so big anymore, because he was bigger now, and could go up and be back at one o'clock for pranzo. He whined, he sobbed and he grabbed angrily at his mother’s coat when she repeated an equal number of times

 —No, you cannot!

As they came across a clearing, on the way home up the Mantella, the mountain came into glorious view, every nook and cranny covered by the beautiful white powder.

—But I want to go up there, Ma!—said the boy pointing to it.

—What? Are you joking? There are wolves up there, it is too far and you cannot make it!

—Then you take me there. Let us go tomorrow.

—Sure, tomorrow . . . —she said ironically—I never went up there when I was young, but I am going to go up there now with you? You can go with your uncle to Fallarino or Lacanale, if you want to scale mountains.

—But I already went to Fallarino with him before. It is not high like Monte Giano, and there is no snow.

—Sure there is. When there is snow, there is snow in Fallarino and Lacanale too.

—It is not true, Ma! You know it is not true!

He knew his mother’s well-meaning lies. Fallarino and Lacanale were the hillside properties which his mother's family, the Paulucci, farmed for a living. They were located on hills opposite to the mountain. One faced East and the other faced West. They were less than two hundred meters higher than the town.

—You can wait for the snow to come down, then.— She replied exasperated—There will be plenty, do not worry. Plenty enough for your feet to be always wet, and cold enough for your knees to make you cry from the hurt of your rheumatism.

Growing up in the shadow of the mighty Giano meant being fed a steady diet of popular myths based on fears, whose purpose as only to stop curious children from venturing into the surrounding mountains. Invariably, no matter what the season, the boy had heard that the mountain would punish him appropriately, if he disobeyed. In winter, it would be either with colder temperatures that would hurt his knees with rheumatism.  Worse, hungry wolves would come to relish a meal of young boy as a welcome break from a steady diet of lamb, old sheep, and occasional lame shepherds.

In the summer, the mountain was unapproachable because small boys were not strong enough to climb. And the seasonal dangers? Vicious vipers at every step would gaze at you hypnotically, neutralize your will, freeze your limbs, and make escape impossible.  If there was no one to cover your eyes to break the magnetic gaze of the viper, you were in for a slow death. Vipers were more insidious than wolves and even grown-ups discouraged each other from mountain excursions in the summer. Vipers, he was told, were known to amuse themselves for hours by coiling around the arms and necks of their victims, especially young impatient boys, who would either die of fright, or be choked to death.

But Giovà was beginning to question the barrage of mountain-bashing propaganda that he heard.  He largely accepted it especially the matter of wolves and vipers. Many said that wolves looked like dogs. He considered  wolves more honourable than vipers because they would kill you quickly and eat you out of necessity. He was afraid, but also felt sorry for them. They were just very hungry, and not bad animals; just unlucky not to have enough food in winter.

Vipers were another story. He believed that their only appetite was for torture. They could not eat you, because they could not chew anything and human beings were too big anyway. He knew that they attacked for pleasure and would kill a person with their poisonous bite, but only after they got bored torturing their victim; and only if the person was still alive after enduring the horror of the serpent’s embrace.

Vipers were really mean and did not like to waste venom. If he ever saw one, he would be ready to always look at it sideways and to use a stick or a rock to kill it.

He would then throw it in the fire for revenge.

—Yawn, my name in English is Yawn! Like “Forza Yawn!” I exclaimed.

While still in Italy, preparing for the event of their emigration, Giovà had discovered his English name. In Italian, his name was Giovanni, Giovà for short but he also went by a host of other diminutives, cute only for a baby. In Canada, what would be his name? He received as a parting gift an important linguistic tool: a pocket dictionary. It was wrapped by a brown, plastic cover, and it exuded an irresistible odour that compelled him to nibble and slobber on it. With a careful bite, you could even make satisfying little punctures in it. The substance was probably an intoxicating oil by-product that chewed like bubble gum. Afterwards, he would always associate the smell and texture of that dictionary with the English language to the point that years later, while in Italy, he was surprised by a girl who spoke English and it caused a Pavlovian response that he had to keep to himself, for the sake of good manners. It was as if his body was saying: "Oh you speak English? How yummy! Let me slobber all over you like a St. Bernard!"

Zio Antò had given Giovà the dictionary because he would need it to learn English, he had wisely said. Skimming through the two inches of cigarette-paper pages no wider than a box of cerini, tiny waxed-stem matches, Giovà discovered that the key to the door of the English language was closely related to cigarettes! Still, captivated by the scent of the vocabulary, Giovà turned the pages of a lexicon otherwise unmanageable without the sharp eyes and slim fingers of a young boy:

—Yon, my name in English is Yon! Like “Forza Yon!” —he exclaimed.

He had no idea of English phonetics. The name was identical to that of his hero, John, from the continuing episodes of “Forza John!” from Il Monello, his favourite comic book. He read it every two weeks, cover-to-cover, as he walked home with his face buried in it. From the minute he bought a copy at the newsstand, he re-read Il Monello several times, and his sister and mother read it at least once.

He imagined flying in planes upside down in adventures with many other of John’s friends: gangly Palissandro Giacinto Livingston, the bespectacled, English journalist; Rosario, the burly sailor and owner of the schooner for the sea adventures, and Geremia, the yappy parrot who was always drunk.

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John was going to be his name in Canada!

—Ohó! Ohó! Che forza ddavero!—was his victory cry.

He would learn the correct pronunciation of his English name very soon after touching ground at the airport. Foreign sounding names were not welcome in Calgary.