The luck of the draw

Di Danilo Balestra

On the night of February 22, 1887 – the eve of the earthquake that will cause widespread destruction through western Liguria – Alfredo and Germano go to bed, snuggled up against each other to protect themselves from the cold. A few hours later, they awaken in the rubble of Bussana, caught up in a tragedy destined to bring their childhood to an end far too soon.
On the 19th of June, 1920, more than thirty years later, the story of these same brothers finds us in Valloria, a little town in the Alta Val Prino, where a festival day unleashes a series of rash acts and unexpected revelations of long-hidden secrets.
Between these two moments in time, we follow the daily lives of Alfredo and Germano as they grow to adulthood amid the breathtaking natural beauty of western Liguria, marked by the events that determined the history of Italy between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

 

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Atene Edizioni
• Data di uscita: 24 set 2019
• ISBN: 9788831226042

Anteprima del libro

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1. Ruins

On the night of the 22nd of February, 1887, a few hours before the earthquake that would shake western Liguria to its core, Alfredo and Germano stopped playing and said goodnight to their parents. To the sound of their mother and father talking below, they went up to the loft, got undressed, and slipped under the covers.

It was cold. It was as if winter had waited until that day to unleash its full severity, and so, after murmuring a couple of prayers, they pulled the sheets up to their foreheads and wrapped their arms around each other to protect themselves from the stingingly cold air of the loft. Before they closed their eyes, they tried to steal time away from sleep with a low, intense conversation. They talked at length about their marbles, about the birdcage for their robin, about their peashooter made from the stem of an elder, and in the end, after having gone over the times when they’d had the most fun on the last day of carnevale, they talked about a bigger boy who was amusing himself by making fun of them, and about how, sooner or later, he’d have to be made to change his attitude, perhaps by means of a fistfight.

The older of the brothers was Alfredo, a boy of ten, with dark eyes like ripe olives, black hair, and a strong, decisive air to him. Their father had chosen his name one evening when he’d watched a performance of La Traviata, and he’d sworn that if he ever had a son, he’d name him after the main character in that opera. Several years later, when his wife told him she was pregnant, he remembered his promise. We shall name him Alfredo, he’d said, without considering the possibility that they might have a little girl. Luisa did not object. Very well, she answered simply, Alfredo is a lovely name. It will be a good start to our family.

A year later, at the birth of their second son, Luisa wanted to name him in memory of her father who had died a few months previously, and Augusto willingly agreed. Germano didn’t resemble his brother in the least; he was small, he had dark brown hair and eyes, and he tended to be introverted. Even so, the two were close from the start. They were never jealous of each other, and the difference in their personalities made their bond even closer.

Alfredo protected Germano: he protected him in the alleys or in the piazza of Bussana, defending him from the bigger boys, and he protected him at home, where he was ready to take the blame for things he hadn’t done, as long as he could keep his father from punishing his brother. As for Germano, he adored Alfredo and trusted him like a god, far more powerful than any adult and a good deal higher in his estimation than his own parents. In even the simplest things, his advice was mandatory, because Alfredo always knew what to do. With his brother beside him, Germano would have gone to the ends of the earth, to the point that before he’d fall asleep, he would imagine stories which saw them involved in the most fantastic and incredible adventures. Before sleep tugged him into the world of oblivion, the loft would transform itself variously into a desert to be crossed with the most strenuous efforts, a forest teeming with ferocious beasts, or perhaps a sailing ship like the ones which, from time to time, would cut through the sea beneath the hills of Bussana. That night, however, almost as if he could foresee the next day’s destruction, he kept his imagination in check, and after talking for a while, he too fell asleep, just like their parents did, and like everyone else who lived in the town.

The house in which Alfredo and Germano lived since the day they were born was set away from the others, but like every building in Bussana, it was made of stone, roofed with the slate tiles called ciappe, and had only a little plaster around the doors and windows. It stood on its own, between a strip of terraced land planted with almond trees, a small vegetable garden, and the edge of an olive grove, and so if you looked at it from particular angles, especially at night, it seemed to be painted on the sky, rather like in certain paintings where a building emerges out of the dark, completely surrounded by stars.

It is well known that beauty stirs the imaginations of even the hardest souls, and this pretty little house was able to enchant all passers-by, from the pedlars who cried their wares along the streets to the farmhands who came to Bussana to work as day-labourers. You would often see someone stopping to look at it from the top of the lane, or from the pathway that ran beside the wall of the little garden. And yet, despite all its beauty, at twenty-two minutes past six the next morning, it too suffered the same fate as the entire town.

The earthquake announced itself with a dull, deep roar. It was as if the rumbling rose up from the depths of the sea. And then the earth started to shake. The house swayed in on itself, the roof cracked, and when Alfredo and Germano, jolted awake, saw the sky like a dark bruise behind the sinister web of the rafters, they realized something extraordinary was happening. They flailed beneath the covers as the walls and floors groaned from the shocks, and then, amid a mouth-drying odour of lime mortar, their horsehair mattress slid out over the crumbling house. It came to a stop against the garden wall and stayed there, in the cloud of dust that enveloped the whole town.

When the shaking ended, they could still hear the creaks of buildings settling, the rustle of lime falling from walls reduced to stumps, the cracking of rafters as they broke, and the mineral rattle of stones rolling over the rubble. Finally, there was silence, and then, in the calm after the disaster, came the first voices. They were horrifying: they were crying, they were screaming in pain and calling out in heart-rending desperation.

Germano, struggling amid the bedclothes and the chunks of plaster, moved over to Alfredo: he held on to him tight and when he realized that Alfredo was trembling, he burst into tears, because if even his big brother was showing signs of fear, something dreadful must have happened.

Slowly the day dawned. The shadows faded and the pitiless light displayed the devastation of Bussana. A good many of the houses had collapsed into a shocking confusion of beams, stones, and crumbled plaster. As for the few buildings still standing, their lack of roofs and parts of walls only bore further witness to the desperation rising from the heaps of rubble. Even the vaulted ceiling and roof of the church had collapsed, and in the church itself were a great many dead, chosen by fate from among those who had wanted to take part in the early morning Ash Wednesday rituals.

The two little brothers, saved first from the destroyed roof thanks to the low ceiling in the loft, and a second time from the collapsed house by the horsehair mattress that had miraculously slid out to the street, protected themselves from the freezing cold by wrapping themselves in the same bedclothes in which they had spent the night. For their feet, there was nothing they could do: they didn’t even try to look for their shoes, which had ended up who knows where, buried under vast piles of stones and debris.

After the first bewildered moments they began to dig with their bare hands, trying to shift the rubble that up to a few minutes ago had been the walls and arches of their house. Neither of them had the courage to think about it, or worse, to speak openly about it, but they both knew that under that heap of slate tiles, beams, and plaster, trapped between the terrace of almond trees and the olive grove, were the buried bodies of their parents. And this was why they moved the stones that they could lift, and why they kept stubbornly working away at the ones that were too heavy for them. They kept at it with diligence and determination, until they came to realize how far beyond their abilities the task truly was. And then they looked at each other, and going over to the garden wall, they stood there in silence, with the feeling that an infinite weight, equal to the weight of one of those stones they had been unable to move, lay upon their hearts.

After a few minutes, a dog came towards them. It was the first living being that they saw going about amid the rubble of Bussana. It walked slowly, sniffing the air and stumbling, as if it had lost its balance. It stopped for a moment on the path, and then it left, attracted by some unknown, mysterious call. A few minutes later there came a woman. She appeared from behind the corner of a ruined building and she too walked towards what was left of the house with an uneven gait, as if she didn’t know where to place her feet. Alfredo shouted out to get her attention, and when he saw her face he saw that it was Laurina, a good, kind woman, a friend to all the town’s children, with whom she would happily talk and joke.

"Cusse a famu?" he called out, his voice cracking with misery.

Laurina, what do we do? – he repeated a few moments later, thinking that the woman hadn’t made out what he’d said.

Laurina turned. One of her arms hung by her side at an unnatural angle and she gazed blankly into space.

"A nu-u so! she replied, and she repeated her I don’t know" over and over again, in the same, resigned, sing-song tone until she walked away, hesitantly, along the road that led to the open countryside.

Germano moved closer to his big brother. He said nothing, but the question on his face was all too obvious.

Alfredo took him by the hand and pulled him away from the remains of the house.

We have to go, he said. We can’t stay here.

The other boy looked at him in surprise.

We have to go, Alfredo repeated. We can’t do anything by ourselves.

The truth was that at that moment, in which both of them became aware of the brutality that life subjects us to in the most difficult moments of our existence, nobody could have really given them good advice. Any decision would have been both the right one and the wrong one, and by leaving Bussana, the little brothers simply made a choice: among all choices, the easiest.

In silence, they descended the road to the fields and then, with difficulty, as they were barefoot, they went down the same path that Laurina had taken. Once they’d walked about fifty metres, Alfredo finally decided to speak up, and he came out with a fib made up to reassure his brother.

We don’t know for sure that mama and papa are buried under the rubble, he said, shaking his head. Maybe they went to feed the goat; sometimes they go down to the stall early in the morning. You’ll see. We’ll find them there waiting for us.

When he heard these words, Germano nodded like he usually did, but for the first time, he found himself doubting Alfredo. Surprised by the tone of his voice, he looked up at his face, and in a brief moment of shock, he read there a grief identical to his own.

Soon the town of Bussana disappeared behind them, along with the scene of devastation that had begun their day. In the countryside that stretched out behind the hill on which the town stood, there were no visible signs of the earthquake. The cobblestones of the path were intact, the dry-stone walls still supported the terraced land, the olive trees stood just where they had been planted centuries earlier, and their fruit hung dark and shining from the branches, as if utterly unaware of the tremors that had turned the land upside-down.

After about ten minutes, the boys reached the stall. They climbed the few steps that led up to it from the path with all the haste that they could manage in their bare feet, and when they were in front of the building, they called out to their parents, but nobody answered. The only reply was from the goat, who bleated for them to open the door and take her out to pasture.

Alfredo sat down on a low wall, where he rubbed his feet to clean off the dirt and bits of debris stuck between his toes. Germano did exactly the same thing, imitating him as he usually did. However, when he was finished and found himself with nothing to do with his hands, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about their parents, no longer there with them. In that moment, he had an overwhelming urge to cry.

We have to obey and do what mama and papa said we had to do, said Alfredo, almost as if he could read his mind. We have to do what they told us. You’ll see. If we behave well, they’ll come back and get us and take us with them to a new house.

This time too, he was lying to console his brother, but he did it with more conviction, as if he really believed that at any moment their mother and father could come up those steps that led to the farm buildings. The truth was that even he couldn’t find the courage to accept the awful truth. Just then Germano moved up against him and rested his head on his shoulder, so he took an arm out of the blanket and held him close. They stayed that way, one beside the other, until Alfredo said that it was time to get to work, that they couldn’t leave the goat shut in the stall any longer.

February 1887 was an extremely cold month, as often happens in western Liguria, when winter can be even more biting than in December and January, with freezing cold and the northern wind of the tramontana. And those were the days in which Alfredo and Germano stayed in the shelter of the stall, living on milk from the goat and the little they were able to find nearby. In their forays out, they found some old boots and a pair of clogs. They put them on, wrapping their feet in strips torn from the bedclothes; they used the same bedclothes to protect themselves from the cold. Luck also saw to it that one of the farm buildings, which had lost half a wall to the earthquake, still contained a few apples laid out on a bed of straw and two old, torn shirts, which completed their impoverished wardrobe.

In all this time, the little brothers never went back to Bussana. Never, ever would they have found the courage to enter the narrow alleys and laneways that in a matter of minutes had turned into a formless mass of rubble. However, despite their revulsion towards the place that had become a real-life circle of hell, they continued to live near it. That was how, a couple of days after the quake, while out exploring for food, they heard voices coming from the hill where the houses were. Afraid, but also curious, they went closer and saw a column of soldiers.

Others in the same circumstances would have immediately run to them to ask for help, but Alfredo and Germano, who’d been taught through a mixture of jokes and threats to fear men in uniform, hid themselves away in the stall and from then on started to go out in search of food only at dusk, when they were sure nobody would find them.

Among the soldiers heading to the town was Lieutenant Marino Campodonico, a young man from Genoa, who had been sent to Bussana along with his entire company when the earthquake occurred, to aid the victims. His job was to co-ordinate the small field kitchen set up for the civilians who were still in their houses, and his tasks included ensuring that the camp was provided with supplies. It was for this reason that in the late morning of the third of March, together with Corporal Morandin, he headed down the mule track, which ran past a spring of potable water.

The two walked for a few minutes along the cobblestones, surrounded by dry-stone walls and olive trees, until they saw a little farm building half-hidden by a row of grapevines. Just beyond it were vegetable gardens and orchards, and the pair, believing they had arrived at their destination, busied themselves about trying to locate the spring. They were exploring a strip of terrace that overlooked the bed of a little stream when they heard the bleating of a goat coming from the building.

"Belin! – exclaimed the lieutenant, expressing his surprise in his usual mixture of dialect and Italian. They sent us to look for water, ma chi u gh’è da mangià! We’ve found ourselves something to eat!"

Losing no time, he ran towards the building and pushed the door, which stayed upright with difficulty. The windowless stall was dim and shadowy, but as soon as his eyes became accustomed to the dark he saw the two little boys huddled between the goat and what remained of a bundle of firewood. He stared at them in astonishment, and what disturbed him the most was not the rags they were wearing, nor their dirty, dishevelled hair, but their eyes. They were not the eyes of two human creatures, but the eyes of two hunted animals.

It’s all right, he said, holding up both his hands to reassure them. "A nu ve fassu ninte! I’m not going to hurt you."

Alfredo and Germano held each other tight.

Honestly. I’m not going to hurt you.

You hungry? he asked, taking a packet of hardtack out of the pocket of his jacket.

At that moment, Morandin walked in. The little brothers, terrified by the presence of the soldiers, looked around for a way to escape, but the only exit was the door, and there was no way they could get past it.

Holy mother of God! exclaimed the corporal as he saw the state that the boys were in, and when he realized that his superior officer was offering them his hardtack he did the same thing. He too dug around in his jacket pocket and held food out to them. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the goat shuffling about, and then Alfredo and Germano, reassured by the soldiers’ gentleness, came forward. The four of them met each other half way, two with their arms stretched out to offer the food and the other two with their eyes darting back and forth between the intruders’ hands and their faces.

Don’t be frightened, said the lieutenant. We’re here to help you.

Alfredo suddenly reached out a hand and grabbed the hardtack. As soon as he had it between his fingers he shoved a couple of pieces into his mouth. Germano took the hardtack too, but only bit into one piece and chewed it slowly, without haste.

We want to help you Campodonico repeated. You mustn’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you. If you come with us, we’ll bring you to the camp. You’ll have food there, and clothes, and you can have a wash, he concluded, looking at the brothers’ filthy faces.

Then he told them that their ordeal was over. Soon they’d be taking them to the tent city, a wonderful place where they’d find shelter and where they wouldn’t have to go hungry any more.

On Sundays, they even hand out chocolate to the children, he concluded with a wide smile, and this last claim, made to a pair of boys who’d eaten nothing for ten days but a bit of milk and apples, a few onions, and some raw cabbage and broccoli, did away with any remaining fear of uniforms and insignia.

And so a couple of hours later, following a patrol heading to the camp, Alfredo and Germano headed down the road that led to the coast. The sky was clear that day, clear in the way the Ligurian sky can be on only the coldest days of the year, and the sea reflected back its colour. Between the land and the vastness of the sea lay the railway line, and the boys gazed at it as they walked behind the column of soldiers. They fixed their eyes on the tracks that ran along the coast and their thoughts flew to all the places that still held their memories: to the beaches, the rocks, the steep paths that led to the railway tracks, and then to the piazzas and houses of a town in which part of their life lay forever enshrined.

They turned and looked back before the broken walls of Bussana disappeared completely from view. A breath of wind carried the odour of dust and mortar; it was an unpleasant odour, able to call up horrifying thoughts. For a few moments, they stared at the ruins, and then, since the soldiers were calling them, they walked on, leaving behind them a dream interrupted. That was what their home had become: an interrupted dream, its weight of memories trapped between a railway line and a hill that dropped down to the sea.

2. The tent city

The camp wasn’t at all the idyllic place described by Lieutenant Campodonico, but rather a field equipped with a substantial number of tents, where the smell of people huddled together mingled with the stench of the latrines. Fortunately, the place included a functioning hospital and a number of kitchens that served hot meals to the displaced residents, even if, truth be told, nothing was ever heard again about anyone distributing chocolate.

Alfredo and Germano were housed at the back of the camp, in a tent bigger than the others, reserved for unaccompanied children. There were children from Baiardo, from Ceriana, from Castellaro, and from Taggia, besides, of course, those from Bussana, but despite what they had in common in terms of age and region, none of them ever really managed to make friends with each other. The fact was that all these children were like the survivors of a shipwreck, washed up in some hostile land where nobody was able to communicate with anyone else. And to think about it, they really were shipwrecked, given that they’d watched the people they loved sink to their deaths in a matter of minutes.

The tent city was staffed by good number of nuns and plenty of volunteers. They all tried to do what they could to alleviate the suffering of those who had lost everything, but if this was a difficult task with the adults, it became almost impossible with the little ones who, literally overnight, had found themselves alone in the world.

There were also soldiers in the camp, and among all those who worked there, they were the ones the children liked best, partly because of their age – not too far removed from childhood themselves – and partly because they too were far from their homes and their families, able to understand the pain of those who had lost both forever.

Lieutenant Campodonico was a frequent visitor to the tent at the back of the camp, and it fell to him to tell Alfredo and Germano about the event that would determine their immediate future. One morning, he took them aside, treated them both to a few slices of bread, and told them about the conversation he’d overheard the day before between the major and a maresciallo.¹

They’ll be coming to get you in a few days. It looks like there’s a family planning to adopt you.

Seeing how fearful the boys looked, he hastened to explain that they shouldn’t be afraid; indeed, they ought both to be thanking the heavens for such good fortune.

"I listened carefully to what the major said: you’ll be going to a family that will take good care of you. And I was in time to hear what the maresciallo said, too. I can understand him well because he speaks in dialect: I Raimondi i sun gente ricca! The Raimondi family are rich folks! He said it more than once, and I know that you can trust him, because Maresciallo Berta