My Father Came From Italy Read online

  My Father Came From Italy

  A Memoir by Maria Coletta McLean

  Published by Raincoast Books

  Copyright 2002 Maria Coletta Mclean

  Edited by Joy Gugeler

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: In the Shadow Of Santa Serena

  Chapter 2: Maybe It Needs a Little Work

  Chapter 3: The Saint of Special Favours

  Chapter 4: Arrivederci Mezzabotte

  IN THE SHADOW OF SANTA SERENA

  In my father’s village, the townspeople tell the story of how Supino got its name. Over 2,000 years ago, Christ walked the dusty road from Rome to Naples and, weary and in need of rest, He paused halfway along the route to look out over a pasture, freckled with clover and buttercups. The late afternoon sun sent the shadow of the Santa Serena across the valley and into the meadow. A wind, fresh and clean, whispered along the ground where He stood. He lay on His back in the soft grass and spread His arms wide to catch the breeze. From the trees came the song of Italian warblers and canaries and the heady scent of burgundy cherries. The aroma of clover perfumed the air and honeybees heavy with sweet pollen buzzed around His head. Christ slept. He woke refreshed, returned to the road and continued on His way.

  In the early evening, the sky streaked with purple clouds, the shepherds came to the field to gather their sheep and saw the imprint of His body impressed upon the grasses: two lines intersecting in a giant cross. Day after day, His imprint remained a testament to the afternoon He lay, supine, the lines of His body extending to the four corners of the valley. The farmers from surrounding fields decided to build four churches: one at the base of the Santa Serena mountain where He had laid His head; another in the pasture at His feet; and one at the tips of the fingers of each of His hands, near clusters of cherry trees. Christ’s imprint lingered on long after the churches were erected. He held them in the palm of His hands. Between the churches they built a village with two intersecting streets. They named the village Supino, the Italian word for supine, for this was the spot Christ had reclined, His face to the heavens.

  *****

  I never intended to go to Supino. However, one day Bob, my husband, came home from a city council meeting and announced, “The City of York’s twinned with a city in Italy called L’Aquila. The council’s going over in November. What do you think?”

  “Well, it sounds interesting,” I began. “Who’s showing you around? Do you have an itinerary?”

  “I meant what do you think about going with me?”

  “I don’t know. Will every minute be budgeted, planned? Will we have to smile and shake hands with strangers all day?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe...but it’s Italy. You’ve always wanted to go. Opportunity is knocking,” Bob declared.

  The itinerary arrived the following week, written in Italian and English. Two pages. Morning obligations began at 9:30 a.m. and the last event of the day got under way at 8:00 p.m. Bob assured me I didn’t have to attend everything, then proceeded to point out all the things I wouldn’t want to miss.

  “You can’t count the dinners,” he said. “You have to eat anyway.”

  Dinners were sponsored by different organizations — the Builder’s Association or the Abruzzo parliament. Mornings entailed a visit to a medieval Spanish castle or the new Gallucci Supermarket. In between were numerous activities that required endless handshaking and talking to strangers.

  “I don’t know...,” I began.

  “I brought you a surprise,” Bob said. From behind his back he presented a package with a green, red and white striped cover and the words “Learn to Speak Italian in 20 Easy Lessons” emblazoned across the top, containing two cassettes. “I thought we’d keep one at home and one in the car. We’ll be talking like locals in no time,” he promised.

  The next day, I went to the seniors’ drop-in centre to visit my father and told him about the tapes. He nodded and when I asked him what he thought he said, “Someone should know my language.” His eyes filled with tears. Guiltily, I began to tell him about the trip to L’Aquila.

  “You remember your cousin Guido?” he asked me. “He lives in Rome. He can tell you how to get to Supino.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have time to visit your village.”

  “It’s not far,” he assured me. “Guido can take you.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just that we can’t really go off on our own. This trip is an official visit. The itinerary has been set by the Italian government.”

  “Go on Sunday. Everyone’s home with their family on Sunday.”

  I laughed, but I checked the itinerary and of course Sunday was free. “Does Guido speak English?”

  “Sure.”

  Later that evening, Bob and I got out the map of Italy and tried to find Supino; even though there were dozens of towns south of Rome, Supino was not among them. Bob resorted to a more detailed map of the Lazio region; no Supino. Finally, we peered through a magnifying glass; Supino was not there.

  “How big is Supino, Dad?”

  “Pretty big,” he said. “Maybe 100 families. You don’t need the map. Your cousin can show you. You remember Guido, don’t you?”

  “He’s the cousin who lived in Toronto for a few years?”

  “Right. You call him. He’ll meet you and take you right to the village.”

  “I haven’t seen Guido for 30 years. How old was I when he went back to the old country? Eight? How’s he going to recognize me?”

  “Wear your Canada pin. He’ll find you okay.”

  “And where is Supino, exactly?”

  “Take the road from Rome to Naples,” my father said. “About halfway there, turn right. That’s Supino.”

  *****

  On the first Sunday in Italy, Rocco, our Toronto travel agent who also owned a summer home in Supino and was in Italy at the same time we were, made a long-distance call from L’Aquila to Rome, arranging to meet Guido at the main bus terminal there in front of the water fountain, at noon. We took the bus from the main piazza in L’Aquila, winding through several mountain tunnels, vineyards and olive groves. At an intersection just outside Rome, a donkey pulling a cart of wicker baskets brimming with olives reminded me that there was an olive grove on my father’s family farm. Perhaps they would be pressing the olives while we were there.

  I hadn’t seen Guido since I was a young girl, but I remembered he looked exactly like my father: a short, white-haired Italian with callused hands and a creased face from too many hours under the garden sun. As I searched among the hundreds of faces in the terminal that day I realized that every Italian man of a certain age fit that description. I walked around the water fountain a few times, my Canada flag clutched in my hand, hoping my cousin would step out of the crowd and introduce himself. An hour and a half passed and still no Guido. We sat on the edge of the fountain like orphans deposited on a doorstep.

  Finally, from out of the crowd, a man walked quickly toward us. A package of Player’s cigarettes and a clip-on pen stuck out of his shirt pocket.

  Guido shook my hand, kissed my cheeks. “Maria,” he said. “Welcome.”

  “Welcome” seemed to be the only English word Guido remembered. After that, he spouted a stream of Italian; I didn’t understand any of it. And Bob was no help at all.

  “Ask him where his car is,” Bob said.

  I didn’t have a wide vocabulary, but managed to determine that Guido was walking, not driving, so I had no idea how he was going to take us to Supino. Guido took my arm and lead us to the taxi stand. In a few minutes we were whipping through Rome’s traffic.

  “We’re taking a cab to Supino?” asked Bob.

  “Apparently.”

  Apparent
ly not, because within five minutes, we pulled up in front of an apartment building in downtown Roma and Guido motioned us to get out.

  “Does Guido understand that he’s supposed to take us to Supino?” Bob asked.

  “I don’t know, Bob. He is two hours late. Obviously he doesn’t own a car. I don’t know what we’re doing here. Want to hear something funny? Do you know what the name Guido means in Italian?”

  “Man who doesn’t speak English?” suggested Bob.

  “Guide.”

  Although Guido wasn’t a great linguist, he was brimming with good will. He put an arm around each of our shoulders as he led us through a gate to a courtyard garden, red roses still blooming defiantly in the late November sunlight. In the centre was a willowy tangerine tree, its boughs extended languid and leafless, but heavy with fruit, vibrant orange skins radiant in the pale daylight.

  Guido held open a brass, folding elevator door and we stepped inside. After a few bells and several lurches, we arrived on the fourth floor to the intoxicating aroma of tomatoes and herbs. A few steps down the hall an apartment door was open and voices rose up to greet us. Inside, the dining room table was extended from the front hall into the living room, encircled by chairs and benches and stools. Strangers shook our hands, kissed us, spoke to us in Italian. A woman came from the kitchen, kissed Bob, pointed to her wedding band, saying, “Guido” and then to herself, “Luigina,” waved a bag of spaghetti and put a tumbler of vermouth in my hand. Seconds later the phone rang and Guido was motioning to me, “Maria, telefono.”

  “Per me?”

  “You don’t know me,” began the woman on the phone, who explained that a lunch had been prepared for us, after which Guido would take us to Supino in a small rented van. It came with a driver because Guido didn’t drive. The driver was supposed to pick us up at the apartment at two o’clock.

  “It’s twenty to three,” Bob pointed out when I relayed the information.

  “I know.”

  It was four o’clock and the sky was grey by the time lunch was finished. If we didn’t get to Supino soon, it would be dark and we wouldn’t be able to see anything. The doorbell rang several times, but it was only another lunch guest arriving. Guido was smoking by the courtyard gate when the van arrived a half an hour later. We kissed Luigina on the way out, “Grazie, grazie,” and flew down the stairs to the sidewalk.

  “How far to Supino?” I asked, pointing to my watch.

  “Un’ora,” said Guido, holding up one finger, and within minutes we were on the autostrada speeding south. In 50 minutes, we turned right at the Frosinone exit. The driver slowed down at the tollbooth where he passed some lire notes to the tollbooth operator, shook his head in disgust, muttered “ladro” under his breath and drove off.

  Bob looked at me. “Thief,” I explained.

  “Bloody thief,” clarified Guido.

  As the sun slid toward Santa Serena we sped past a dozen farms, olive and fruit trees dotting the landscape and low stone houses at the end of driveways lined with grapevines. Suddenly the driver stopped, beside a driveway near a flock of sheep grazing freely beneath sprawling cherry trees. A long path of dusty grapevines, heavy with burgundy fruit, led to a stone farmhouse. Smoke spiralled from the chimney. Warm yellow light glowed from the windows. The front door was framed by an arbour of red roses. I remember being told my grandmother had planted them close to the front door; she kept the door open so she could enjoy their fragrance.

  “Is this it?” I asked.

  “Sí, sí,” assured Guido, but he wasn’t talking about the farm, he was pointing to a sign that read: QUATTRO STRADE. Four streets. When my father had talked about this intersection, he had said, “I used to take the cow down to the four streets,” or “I had a friend who lived outside of town, near the four streets,” and I had always thought he’d forgotten their names. He hadn’t said this was the name. The fourth street went straight uphill into Supino Centro so we continued along it for 10 minutes through an archway of trees, the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the branches, their leaves brushing the top of the car as we rounded the curve. We paused while the driver honked to his friends sitting outside a bar and Guido said to us, “Benvenuto a Supino.”

  The main street was a marriage of ancient houses and stores. Red geraniums and black-clad grandmothers leaned out of every window. This narrow street, Via Regina Margherita, had been named for the queen of Italy, but was made for pedestrians, donkey carts and wheelbarrows. Compact cars could manoeuvre the narrow passageway one lane at a time; small vans could get by if they folded in their side mirrors. Trucks and buses had to park at the base of the hill in front of the Church of San Sebastiano. We drove up the steep cobblestone street, one eye on the orange ball of the sun, the other on the red orb of the traffic light. Out the passenger-side window, so close you could reach out and touch it, there was a hardware store. A man in a white apron stood on the top step smoking. He and Guido carried on a conversation while villagers walked past on their way to the shops and we waited impatiently for the light to change.

  I called out to the driver, “Attenzione. Red light, rossa.” But he merely shrugged his shoulders and switched gears. Guido turned up the palm of his hand, pointed toward the front windshield. “Nobody comes,” he explained. Traffic lights in Italy are negotiable.

  The buildings were tall, slim, three or four stories high and so close to the road I felt that I was passing through a long, unlit tunnel. At the end of the street, the late afternoon sun shone on a piazza. The road here would have become four lanes if someone hadn’t built a shoe store in the centre of the square. On the left, the Santa Serena mountain and the Church of San Nicola were separated by a worn and narrow path where goats, their copper bells glinting in the twilight, walked single file. We, however, took the road to the right, zigzagging ever upward until we arrived at a driveway and ground to a stop. Many unknown relations spilled from the doorways of a modern cement home, where my cousin Dina and her family lived on the first floor and her brother Antonio’s family lived on the second. They began talking quickly and simultaneously, interrupted only by emphatic hand gestures. Seven Italians speaking, no one listening. Surrounded by new-found family, we were corralled toward the wire fence adjoining my father’s property. “Eccola. There it is! Your father’s farm.”

  “This?” I asked, pointing to a small stone structure, about the size of a garden shed, and a tiny fenced yard.

  “Sí, sí,” he nodded.

  Everything my father described was here, but in miniature. The farmhouse was no bigger than a one-car garage; the roof no taller than my father himself — five foot two. There was no cherry orchard, in fact, only one cherry tree hugged the side of the house, its branches hanging low over the red clay roof. Behind the house were three olive trees. Father had said he and his brothers were allowed to sleep outside in the nice weather, from the time the blue wildflowers bloomed on the mountainside until their father had pressed the olives and crushed the grapes. I had imagined them carrying handmade quilts and a woven wicker picnic basket out to an olive grove.

  I glanced at Guido, who stood with his hands in his pockets, nodding his head. I looked at Bob. He merely lifted his camera and focused on the stonework of the little house. I stared at the low building made of rocks and stones and patches of cement and wondered how my grandparents had raised five children there. Four plump brown chickens high-stepped between the olive trees, scratching for bugs in the cool November evening.

  A square of light from the house next door highlighted a single antique rose vine a few inches from the front door. Smoke spiralled from nearby chimneys, smelling of beechnut and oak. My father’s house looked cold and dark and empty. Still, I longed to go inside. I listened for voices of the past, whispers from a house once alive with the sounds of ancestors. But it remained silent, perhaps waiting for my father rather than this tall Canadian woman who claimed to be a part of the Coletta family. The sun slid beneath the curve of the mountain and in t
he cool, damp air I felt only loneliness.

  “Come,” said Guido. “Your cousin Dina made coffee.”

  I bent close to the farmhouse wall, wiggled a small stone from beside a loose chunk of cement and put it in my pocket. The stone was surprisingly warm.

  Next door at Dina’s, four children examined us from the bench beside the fireplace: Dina’s two sons and Antonio’s two daughters. Curious because we were family, but awed because we had come from Canada. And as I smiled at the silent children I remembered something from Guido’s visit to Toronto and the Sundays we shared during his two-year stay in Canada. He could be counted upon to put his hand inside his jacket pocket and remove a rectangular package wrapped in shiny paper with letters embossed in gold. Jersey Milk. We had waited, looking at him like these young cousins sitting on the bench were watching us now. “Mangia. Mangia,” he would say, “Eat!” The warm milky chocolate, soft from its long ride on the bus in Guido’s jacket pocket. What would these children remember? I rummaged in my purse, found rolls of cherry Lifesavers and gave them to the children. Holding the unfamiliar candy in their hands, they stared at me.

  “Mangia. Mangia,” said Guido.

  The children slipped off the wrappers, unrolled the shiny silver paper, crunched their candy and continued to stare. I checked my Italian phrase book, then asked the children their ages. “Quant’anni hai?” They looked at each other, then at Guido. Guido repeated the phrase, running the words together. The children nodded their heads, called out their ages: cinque, nove, sette, dodici. I nodded my head and smiled. Bob knew numbers in Italian, almost as well as he knew them in English. He translated quickly, as if he were bargaining at the local market. “Five, nine, seven and twelve.”

  I asked the children about school. “Scuola?” This time they looked at their respective mothers. There was a quick exchange, consent given and the children bolted from the room. Two minutes later they were back, standing shyly with their school exercise books in their hands. The seven-year-old boy showed me his printing book, pointing proudly to the stamp the teacher had attached: Bravo!