Vitessa was about to be proved wrong.
The seventeen-year-old was firmly convinced that nothing would ever happen to change the inevitable course of life in her isolated village. Encircled by the craggy hills and plummeting ravines of the deep south of Italy, Fasinella was cut off from the wider world, and there seemed no other future besides the withering cycle of poverty, hardship and hunger that had endured for centuries. An ancestor from the 1530s would find little different in the 1930s.
But now, as her eyes skimmed the crowd gathering in the square where each evening the battered mail van brought their only contact with the outside world, Vitessa saw excitement – and even some fear – rippling through the usually stagnant sea of faces. Rumour had it that something unusual was about to happen.
“Nidd de maelle,” assured the mayor, Don Silvestro Falco, in the local dialect. Seeing the peasants’ nervous glances at the two Blackshirts, Mussolini’s paramilitary police, who flanked him on the steps of the village hall where his office was located, he cautioned the soldiers in proper Italian. “Niente di male alla gente qua. Nothing bad for these people.”
Accustomed to the empty promises of the Fascists, the villagers nodded quietly at his assurances, and promptly ignored them, preferring to see for themselves what the truth was.
“Having a couple of armed Blackshirts from Potenza at his side doesn’t seem like nothing bad to me,” murmured Giovanni.
“Well, he doesn’t say it is anything good either,” quipped Michele.
Vitessa laughed nervously with her two friends. For the young people, this daily ritual was a time to meet friends and flirt innocently under the chaperoning eyes of their elders. Giovanni, three years older than Vitessa, was a tall, slim, strikingly handsome young man with jet black hair, yet surprisingly somber grey-blue eyes. His more comfortable position as a tradesman’s son and an only child meant that some lucky woman would enjoy a secure life and the touch of a hand that had never done a day’s work in the fields. Always easy-going and dashingly well-groomed, he attracted many admiring glances from the local girls, but he never returned them. Vitessa was the only girl in the village he seemed to notice, and in return she saw him as a cut above all the other young men with their ignorant machismo posturing and vindictive teasing.
Michele – shortened to Miche among this trio of close friends – was everything Giovanni was not. Instead of furtive giggles of desire from the young girls, he drew motherly sighs of concern from the elderly women. The fourth son of a bracciante, a day laborer who owned no land of his own but who worked in the fields of the region’s most powerful landowner, Count Spagnola, Michele was a scrawny slip of a lad who looked fully three or four years younger than his actual age of eighteen. All he possessed was a quick mind, the piercing black eyes that should have been Giovanni’s, and ambition – ambition to escape the predetermined destiny written on the shrivelled faces and worn-out bodies of the peasants around him.
For both these young men, Vitessa’s friendship was a sign of distinction. Not only was she pretty and comely, but her colouring was very unusual for a local girl, and that made her special. She did not look like a meridionali (southerner), short, swarthy and dark-haired, but like a Viking. Her blonde hair, fair skin and dark blue eyes were a striking reminder that in the distant past the Normans had colonized Sicily and parts of southern Italy, settling down and marrying the locals.
Vitessa’s grandfather had been Sicilian, and he had brought his dark red hair and flashing blue eyes with him to Fasinella. In turn, Vitessa’s father seemed to inherit both the Viking looks and wanderlust, for twenty or so years ago, possessed of a dream to make his fortune in America, he had convinced his older brother that they should set off together in search of a better life, only for both to die in that far-off land. The story was a scandal that still excited gossip, so much so that Vitessa’s mother Carla rarely made an appearance in public any more.
“So, what will today’s mail bring, I wonder?” mused Giovanni.
“Nothing for poor La Calabresa, that’s for sure,” Michele responded with his usual sneer.
“How long has La Calabresa’s husband been gone now?”
“Fourteen years,” Vitessa answered. “And still no word since the day he left.”
“And yet she waits and hopes!” Michele’s cynicism emphasised the words. “Silly fool! He’s either dead or he’s abandoned her! Crai! She’ll never hear from him! Crai!”
Giovanni broke into a grin, “Crai. The perfect word for Fasinella, don’t you think? Only in this awful place is tomorrow always never!”
Crai, originally the local dialect word meaning ‘the next day’, had also come to mean ‘never’ in common usage.
At that moment the sound of a straining engine was heard on the road leading into Fasinella. But it wasn’t the tinny cries of the mailman’s van; it was something bigger, a more powerful drone. A wave of nervousness spread through the crowd. This was a different sound; a threatening sound. So, as the roar of the approaching engine grew louder and closer, the villagers silently prayed, nothing bad, please, nothing bad.
As the vehicle drew into the square, they saw that it was the coach from Gratano, a market town 10 miles to the north-east which served as the local administrative centre, and to their amazement it was rather full. Foreign visitors? To see what? Government officials? What could they possibly want? It made no sense for it to be stopping here.
But the coach did indeed come to a halt in the square, a few yards from where the mayor stood. All eyes, young and old alike, were strained on the vehicle through the gradually settling dust, and when the door opened, four men stepped down in an orderly file, each carrying a suitcase. Two were young and poorly dressed; they looked gingerly around at the staring crowd. The other two were older and wore clothes of good quality; both seemed more confident, less intimidated.
Most interesting to Vitessa was the second of the two older gentlemen. He was middle-aged, tall and slender. His fairer coloring was unremarkable, but the contours of his face and his erect bearing were very different from the local men – he was a man of poise and grace, undoubtedly well-educated and probably well-to-do.
“Mussolini has decreed Fasinella a new tourist destination!” Michele hissed.
The coach quickly closed its doors, and as it turned back onto the lone winding road out of the village, the mayor and his Blackshirts marched up to the four strangers. The crowd of villagers advanced too, relieved that it truly was nothing bad. Perhaps it was even something good.
“I know what this is!” Giovanni suddenly announced. “They’re ‘in confino’. Political detainees. I heard about them from Rocco, my friend in Gratano.”
“You mean they have been sent here as a . . . punishment!” Vitessa laughed in disbelief.
“Exactly. They are exiled from their own paese (region) to another one. And the harsher the place is that they are sent to, the worse their crime was against the Fascists.”
“Well, Fasinella is definitely as good as a prison!” Michele spat on the ground.
“How long do you think they will stay?” Vitessa asked.
“Until they are told they can go home or they die, I guess. The young ones look like university students from some big city. The heaviest thing they ever had to carry was a satchel.”
“They must be either socialists or communists,” Michele volunteered.
“Communists, I’d say. Their clothes are awful and they look like they have nothing. Socialism is for the rich; communism is for the poor. I reckon the tall older one is the socialist. His clothes are of a fine cut, but the cloth is a simple one and not meant to impress.”
Vitessa fixed her eye on the dignified stranger. “Perhaps he is a teacher or a doctor. He looks educated and refined.”
“What about the other one? He looks pampered and cowardly. What do you suppose his crime was? Too much food?” Michele asked with an acidic laugh.
“His clothes are made for bella figura, to impress, and he looks like he is used to wielding power. Perhaps he was a bad boy Fascist. A very, very bad boy since he wound up down here.”
“You’ve got to be pulling my leg, Gio!”
“No, Miche, it’s true. Rocco told me that if they’ve done something the big bosses don’t like, party members can get sent away just like anyone else.” Michele still looked skeptical, so Giovanni explained further. “Do you remember the big scandal of that famous doctor up in Potenza?”
“Yes, two men burned his house down and beat him to death.”
“Well, those squadristi were acting on orders. The doctor was stirring things up against the Fascists, and Rome wanted him out of the way. They were supposed to make it look like an accident, but were caught in the act. As a punishment, they were sent to some tiny island off the coast of Sicily. Rocco heard it’s an awful place – there is absolutely nothing there! So, as far as our overfed friend here goes, I reckon he is the greedy type; probably a party official who got caught with his fingers in the till.”
“Anyone that fat must have been stealing. I bet he eats meat every day,” Michele added, his own stomach grumbling loudly.
“He should lose some weight while he’s here, then,” Vitessa commented wryly.
“Let’s see how long he stays first. I bet he’s already pulling strings to get out of here.”
The sound of the mayor’s voice brought their attention back to events in the square. Unlike most piazzas in Italian towns and villages, this square was long and rectangular, being a natural plateau between hills. There were several gaps in the buildings that edged the longer sides of the rectangle, while at the north end stood the village hall and at the south end a small church. In front of this was the war memorial, a weathered stone obelisk on a large pedestal, honouring the nameless men conscripted to die in countless wars down through the years. The square’s greater size and openness made it an excellent place for large gatherings, and today it was almost full as the villagers thronged to see these confinati, now lined up in front of the hall, awaiting the roll call of their names and place of origin.
“Il Clementi, Carlo, ed Il Ferrari, Marco, studenti dell’ Università di Bologna!” called the mayor, and the two young men stepped forward.
“Students, just as we predicted!” Michele exclaimed. “I bet the fat one is next.”
“Il Signore Gilberti, Niccolo, da Trentino.”
Another cry of satisfaction burst from Michele’s lips as the large, flashily dressed man strode forward belligerently.
“Trentino – I think that’s close to Austria! He was very naughty indeed,” laughed Giovanni. “Now let’s see about Vitessa’s favourite.”
“Il Professore Galfani, Alberto, dell’ Università di Milano.”
“Told you so!” Vitessa crowed.
The prisoners were pushed together by the armed Blackshirts and the mayor addressed them briefly in proper Italian. Afterwards, one Blackshirt headed the group while the other positioned himself at the rear, and they were marched across the square toward a house that had some rooms for hire. As they passed, the villagers continued to gape at these foreigners deposited in their midst. Although most understood little of what the mayor had said in Italian, murmurings of why they were in Fasinella and of schemes to make money out of them were humming through the crowd. The younger women eyed the students with appraising glances while the widows commented on the two older gentlemen in hushed tones. The peasant farm workers and labourers soon saw that these newcomers would bring no benefit to their lives and so returned to waiting for the mail.
As they crossed the square, the prisoners took in the reality of their designated place of confinement; a collection of simple stone houses, each with mud tile roofing, a single window without glass, and a double, arched door leading into a large room that was home to both family and animals, if the family were lucky enough to own any. They passed a barber’s shop, a tabacchi selling cigarettes and stamps, an ironmonger’s, a pottery where cracked earthenware lay scattered beside the entrance, and, side by side, a bakery and a small store where the peasants could buy or barter goods. This was just about all that Fasinella had to offer by way of services.
At the far south-eastern corner of the square was the only café-bar in the village, run by Giovanni’s mother and father. Amidst all the squalor and dirt, this was a welcoming oasis. It had dashes of color to alleviate the drab stone, and a well-tended terrazzo (outside terrace) on which several hand-hewn tables looked across to the little-used church. Women rarely came here, but for the men of the village the café-bar was the centre of their social existence. Some men who were sitting outside smoking and playing dominoes looked up and stared warily at the little band of prisoners as they walked by. The young students glowered back defiantly, the fat middle-aged man sniffed at them indignantly, but the distinguished one who so fascinated Vitessa turned toward the men and acknowledged them with a smile and a nod of the head.
When they were out of sight, the villagers surrounded the mayor, eager to hear about these strangers, but the familiar panting of the mail van driven by Guisseppe from Gratano interrupted the proceedings. With seemingly its last breath, the van stopped in its usual spot in front of the town hall displaying the obligatory portrait of Mussolini, Il Duce. Although the sun had begun to fade the original colours to pale browns and grays, the eagle eyes and full lips reminded the people well enough who was keeping watch and giving the orders.
For most, the excitement of finding out about the new visitors held sway, and only the villagers who hoped to hear from loved ones changed position and moved over to the mail van. Vitessa, Giovanni and Michele never received any mail, nor were they keen to listen to the mayor pontificate, so they began to wander in the direction of the café-bar, where Giovanni could get them a free coffee.
“Vitessa! Venn’ca!” A new, lilting voice called out from a small group of young people by the war memorial. It was Vitessa’s first cousin, Carina.
“What does she want, I wonder,” Michele groaned.
“Attention, what else,” muttered Giovanni.
“You two are terrible!” Vitessa scolded. “I’m sure she has a very good reason for calling me over. Perhaps she wants me to remind everyone how pretty she is.”
“When is Vitessa going to realise she is pretty too,” Michele commented once Vitessa was out of earshot.
“When she sees that what is on the inside is as interesting as what is on the outside. But you must admit, Vitessa isn’t as pretty or as shapely as Carina.”
“I don’t agree!” Michele protested hotly. “Vitessa has intelligence and spirit and class, and that makes her just as good.”
Giovanni regarded Michele for a moment. “Life is a brutal trick, my friend, a brutal trick.”
Michele was too angry to return Giovanni’s remark or gaze; he simply looked down at the unpaved ground and pushed a pile of earth about pensively with his feet. Giovanni instinctively raised his hand as if to pat his friend’s shoulder but then slowly withdrew it and turned away.
“Cosa c’é, cugina, what is it, cousin?” Vitessa kept her tone polite as she came face to face with Carina. She had always tried to be deferential to her cousin, for she knew that the village blamed her own father and his blind ambition to go to America for what happened to Carina’s father, but lately the two girls’ relationship had become more strained.
Throughout their childhood they had been constant companions, going off with their grandfather to pick herbs for his medicines or helping their grandmother to cook and make cheese. But as they grew older and began to develop their own ideas and personalities, they drifted apart. Vitessa was interested in learning about her grandfather’s cures, and curious about life beyond Fasinella, while Carina focused more on gossip and clothes and marriage. For a year or so now, since the mayor’s wife had begun to show an interest in the two cousins as a possible match for her son, Fabio, Carina had grown noticeably frostier towards Vitessa. With both girls on the verge of adulthood, their differences now defined two opposing sets of values: it was Vitessa’s ‘idealism and books’ versus Carina’s ‘pragmatism and looks’.
“We didn’t hear the mayor. What’s going on?” Carina demanded in a sugary voice.
“They’re all from the north. Giovanni thinks they were sent here as confinati by the Fascists in Rome.” Vitessa then had to explain what a confinato was.
“Too bad. The young ones are nice looking, but obviously have nothing. The other two looked better off but they must be forty at least! The tall one was the most interesting,” Carina concluded in typical fashion.
“He is a professor from Milan,” Vitessa answered, following her own train of thought.
“So, no one with possibilites. Still, the intellectual is probably your type. Too bad he is rather old. But maybe that is better,” Carina said, smiling slyly.
Vitessa was at a loss to understand the point of this last remark, but nonetheless wished to give as good as she got. “Given the choice, I would certainly prefer a Milanese professor to a Fasinella doctor, if that’s what you mean.”
Carina’s mouth hardened abruptly. “Choices are made, Vitessa, not given.”
“Like the one your father made to go with mine to America?”
“My father had no choice. He followed his duty as the eldest son to watch over a foolish younger brother. All he got was to die far from his family in some strange place called New Jersey.”
“Your house on the hill and the animals you own are part of that too,” Vitessa countered, tired of hearing the same accusations, and determined at least to defend her father.
“My mother says that papa was clever, and able to get by well enough if he had stayed right here,” Carina snapped back, and turned away to her crowd.
Seeing that she had been dismissed, Vitessa returned to where her two friends were waiting. She understood the game her cousin was playing, and it was one she could play, too. Let Carina plot her little schemes to divert attention from Fabio; that she actually had no interest in marrying the mayor’s son would be Vitessa’s secret. And, in a way, Carina was right – there was now a very interesting stranger amongst them.
Back with Giovanni and Michele, Vitessa saw the crowd around the mayor was dispersing and that he himself was heading towards the trio on his way to the café-bar. She fell into step alongside him.
“Don Falco, who are those men? Why are they here?” she blurted out, her thoughts racing.
The mayor confirmed that they were confinati, and mumbled some vague details about the reason for their punishment: the students were communist agitators, and the portly gentleman was a Fascist who had committed an ‘indiscretion’. Giovanni beamed with self-satisfaction. “What about the tall man?” Vitessa tried to sound nonchalant.
“Ah yes, Professor Galfani. He is furbo, that one. Clever and sly. Rich too. A socialist teacher who refused to pledge allegiance to Il Duce. Apparently very influential. And vocal. Too vocal for his own good. He’s lucky he wasn’t knocked off by the squadristi.”
“So we were both right about him, Vitessa,” Giovanni whispered.
“What happens to them now?” Vitessa continued, giving her friend a nudge to keep quiet.
“Happens?” The mayor stopped dead in his tracks. “Nothing. They stay here until they are told they can leave.”
“Do they have to work in the fields?” Michele asked, relishing the idea of the fat one being made to do hard labor.
“No, nothing. They must report to me each day. They cannot leave the village and I must censor all incoming and outgoing mail. If they are good, I will report that to the authorities in Gratano and maybe Il Duce will pardon them. If not . . . .” The mayor simply shrugged his shoulders, as if to say ‘who cares’.
“Must they stay at Signore Besso’s?” Vitessa persisted.
“They will stay there initially, but if they can afford other accommodation, I will consider it,” replied the mayor, calculating the profit he might turn on granting such a favor.
At this last remark Vitessa smiled, cultivating a hope that she had begun to foster. Since her grandparents’ death, the little annex of sitting room, bedroom and washing area attached to the family home had been empty. Her mother had rented it out briefly once, and Vitessa hoped that perhaps the professor might take these rooms, giving her mother extra income and herself a chance to learn from someone who must know far more than she could ever imagine.
Vitessa decided to be bold. “Do you think my grandparents’ rooms on the side of our house would do for one of them?”
“Well, it might be possible, yes. And especially as Roberto is such a model Party member,” Don Falco acknowledged.
Vitessa winced at the mention of her brother’s name. Tall and fair, with blond hair and blue eyes, Roberto was a perfect example of Aryan perfection who had soon caught the eye of the Fascists once they came to power. Lacking a fatherly figure in a house full of women, the young man was quickly seduced by the camaraderie, the social superiority and the paternalistic propaganda of Fascism, and when Mussolini created the Giovani Fascisti, his organisation for 17-21 year olds, Roberto eagerly joined. Now, in his mid-twenties and rising rapidly through the ranks of the Party, he was the chief aide to the podestà, the appointed Fascist administrator of the area and the official ‘eyes’ of Il Duce. He seemed made for the times, and destined to flourish in them.
His mother, his elder sister Angela and ‘baby’ Vitessa could only watch in horror as Roberto grew cold, arrogant and dictatorial. Angela constantly challenged him, but everything changed when she married a shopkeeper and moved to Gratano. He then took it upon himself as the ‘man of the house’ to give orders and dispense official advice, chastising his bookish sister for her lack of fascist values and praising his marriage-conscious cousin Carina for her model behaviour. There was little need for a portrait of Mussolini in Vitessa’s home when his living caricature constantly stood before the women.
But, as these thoughts tumbled through her brain, a new perspective took hold; perhaps this dark cloud of having a staunch Fascist for a brother had a silver lining.
“Si, si, Don Falco,” she responded a little too enthusiastically. “Perhaps some of Roberto’s fascist values will reform the socialist teacher. You would be a hero in Rome for it.”
The mayor eyed Vitessa suspiciously. He knew that neither of the women in the household was keen on Fascism and that Vitessa and her two friends were quick to poke fun at it if allowed. Still, having the professor lodged with someone like Roberto might be the answer to his prayers for an easy life, even if it were not the most profitable option.
“We’ll see. For now, the prisoners will be billeted at Besso’s.” With that he turned on his heels and strode into the café-bar.
“What are you up to, Vitessa?” Michele snapped as the mayor disappeared inside.
“Are you that slow?” Giovanni teased. “Vitessa is up to her old tricks. She’s bled her family dry of everything they know and now she means to start on the poor, unsuspecting professor!”
“A vampira! Thank God I am an ignorant peasant,” Michele sniffed.
“That’s not true, Miche!” Vitessa retorted. “If an architect had come as a confinato you’d be beside yourself with joy and ready to kidnap him for lessons!”
“And if there was a clothes designer, Giovanni would kidnap him!” Michele shot back, trying not to acknowledge the truth of Vitessa’s words.
Giovanni shrugged his shoulders as if to calm the squall. “A clothes designer would be fine, but my biggest temptation would be a designer of scenery for theatres. I love it when the travelling players come here every summer. Maybe someday I’ll go off with them.”
“Me too, Gio, I’d love to get away. Perhaps I’ll ask to come along with you,” Vitessa chimed in brightly.
Michele didn’t think this was something to joke about. “Your father had the right idea, Vitessa. If I had a way to get to America, I’d be off like a shot. But now, the only Italians they will let in are the ones with relatives who send for them.”
“I think my father was right too, Miche, at least for wanting to get out of this place. I don’t care where I go, but I really don’t want to stay here. What is there for me? I’ll be traded off in marriage like a goat, and become a slave to my mother-in-law! Life must hold more than that.”
“Where in the world can you go to change that? Even the mayor’s wife was traded off. Perhaps if you were rich you might be considered a horse or a cow …”
Vitessa thumped Giovanni on the shoulder. “Very funny. Basta, enough! Time to go home. You are spared treating us to a coffee, Gio. I don’t think I want to meet Don Falco again in the bar.”
Giovanni nodded and the three youths said their farewells. Vitessa turned left, taking the track up the hill on the north-eastern edge of the square, Giovanni went into the café-bar, and Michele carried straight along the steep path that led down into the valley, close to where the mosquitoes would breed, causing the mal’aria, the bad air, that brought fever and death to the poor of the village as it had done for centuries.