Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana

That Winter Evening

Antonio Costabile 141 That Winter Evening Antonio Costabile (Translated by Lucia Mudd) Fiction (2002) Prologue This story, presented as a framed engraving of its time, is in truth a pretext for remembering and describing the life of our old village and its people—real or imagined—in that small corner of the world where we spent the most beautiful years of our lives. In that remote, never forsaken corner of the world, where pigs wandered blissfully and hens flapped in the dust and sang the praises of a newly laid egg, where asses brayed with hunger, thirst, or love, and dogs coupled freely in our streets, which were littered with piles of manure and innumerable flies, unknowingly , we acquired the necessary antibodies that would protect us from every contagion, political, moral, or environmental. There, with the war and its subsequent upheavals, we were tempered to confront the grave adversities that the future reserved for our generation. Nevertheless, like most studious young people then, we, too, were idealistic, romantic, and a little poetic. On the marvelous nights of the full moon, next to the little church, ‘‘Purgatorio ,’’ we faced each other across balconies and, with our favorite poet, Leopardi, interrogated the moon that shone in the sky above Pazzano. And, even if a sudden creak of a rusty shutter broke the silence of the evening , and then, the night soil flung onto the cobblestones fouled the air and forced us to shut ourselves behind the balcony windows, even then, the shining moon, silent and full of mystery, continued to light our fantasies and illuminate our dreams from beyond the glass. And now, after man has stepped onto that heavenly body, and scientific progress has swept away romance, dreams, religious beliefs, secular errors and all the wretchedness of the past, now one dares to believe that there is no longer anyone who might look toward heaven and, with the poet, pose our naı̈ve questions of yesterday. Prometheus, the Titan who stole the spark from Jove and will ever represent the enduring progress of mankind, has prevailed and carried the spark of modern life even to that remote corner of the world—our home town. Yes it is beautiful, believe me, to think about the moral and material miseries of the past in this marvelous present. Mecca, short for Domenica, lived in the neighborhood of the old castle, near the little church, Purgatorio, in a narrow, dirty street that some patriots of 142 that winter evening the past had proudly dedicated to a victorious battle of the second war for Italian independence, Via Palestra. She occupied a room on the ground floor, which was at one time the stable of an old noble’s palace. There weren’t any windows, and the air and light filtered in through the upper half of the so-called ‘‘mezzaporta,’’ the half door, which was, out of necessity, always left open. The cat and the hens went in and out freely through a special, circular opening. Inside the house on the left was a hearth, black and shiny from old smoke. The walls of the hearth were marked with mysterious Egyptian-like hieroglyphics from macaroni which had been thrown there as part of the traditional Christmas Eve vigil, the same night that rings of dough were fried in new oil to make the famous ‘‘scurpedde,’’ as they’re called in the local dialect. That night, a large pot hung from a chain in the fireplace. Boiling water was readied to receive the ‘‘manate,’’ a local homemade pasta white with semolina flour, which was spread on plastic sheets everywhere—across the bed, on the big chest, all over the table—indicative of the appetites of those about to sit together at the table. Vito di Ciullo, the temporary sacristan (who, along with Vito Zucarieddo, was the only one who still wore ‘‘cotori,’’ the traditional, calf-length, leather boots), had just rung the bells for the Ave Maria at the small neighborhood church, and everyone had already returned to their homes. Damp air forecast the coming snow. Thick smoke from olivewood burning in fireplaces rose above the low rooftops and mixed with fog and the odor of garlic and oil being fried for the peasants’ suppers. In Mecca’s house there weren’t any electric lights. They cost too much. And just that night by sheer coincidence, the oil lantern wasn’t working because the wick was all used up. Mecca had gone around to all the...