1/ FIRMINA “Little journey”

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Written and translated from Italian by the author

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Voce narrante Giuliana Poleggi Quaranta 

“In Bologna I have to change … in Bologna I have to change …” This was what I was repeating over and over to myself while, my face turned to the window of the moving train, I tried to catch a glimpse of the each station names’ signals, even if, it was perfectly useless since, unfortunately, I could neither read nor write.

When the conductor came to the compartment to check the passengers’ tickets I immediately got the chance to ask him: “Excuse me sir, how long before the train gets to Bologna?” He barely looked at me and replied: “We have just left Orte, madam … there are still a full couple of hours and a half left …”. I immediately looked at the watch on my wrist to check the time and therefore to establish the time of arrival and, most of all, to avoid asking again.

The train I was on, came from Naples. The six-seats compartment was complete and there were people even along the narrow corridor. I, with Silvia on my knees, was in the middle seat, opposite the travel direction, between a beautiful lady of about fifty and a rather robust man of about sixty wearing very clean brown shoes. In front of me, by the window, sat a middle-aged man, a man from the city, very well dressed, with a naturalness of manners that certainly don’t have the men of my area who dress well only on Sundays and holidays and that when, washed and shaved, wearing their blue suit and their freshly laundered and ironed white shirt, you notice, a kilometer away, they are “in Sunday clothes” peasants: exactly like the rather elderly man who sat on the aisle side seat: his large, gnarled hands revealed a past as a worker, peasant or bricklayer, in short, he had something of our men that it was impossible not to notice next to the others who looked like citizens, employees …

Raphal Olbinski, Abandoned sensitivity

In the middle, right in front of me, sat another man, a gentleman who was reading a newspaper and, with a pen in his hand, was marking something here and there on its pages. The paper large sheets hid him almost completely from my view and only when he lowered them a little to turn the page I noticed he was young, about forty, with a nice scarf that perfectly matched the chequered jacket he was wearing.

When, dragging my child, I entered the compartment, immediately perceived a sense of hostility from the lady next to the window who, to make room for us, had to remove from the seat her bag which, with a little suspicion, she then slipped between herself and the window and another package which she had instead placed on a small light gray pull-out shelf.

Even the one who was reading the newspaper had withdrawn his legs that he had previously kept comfortably stretched. Upon entering, I had just whispered a shy “Good morning” to which only the elderly gentleman had replied. Nobody had deigned to look at me but the lady, who had looked me from head to foot.

I took my brown suitcase and tried to slip it under my legs but the old man stood up, smiled at me, waited for me to return it, and placed the suitcase in the luggage rack above the seats. I, although worried I would not be able to pull it down by myself when arrived if someone had not helped me, I murmured a shy thank you and nodded a small gesture of my head.

Silvia did not speak, she sat on my lap and looked around curiously and, at the same time, intimidated by all those people she had never seen before. Who knows, maybe she was also surprised that no one spoke to her or complimented her like when we went out together on the streets of my village where everyone, especially women, have that simple but so elegant way of speaking to you, of paying a compliment to a child, of asking about you, your family …

When, feeling my legs stiff, I tried to get her off, she clung to my neck without saying anything, so I rearranged my dress that had pulled up a little and whispered to her: “Silvia, you weigh on me, my legs are hurting, go down a little, then I’ll grab you back by my arms… ”. Not at all! Nothing to do, Silvia had settled down even better. At this point I resigned myself and left her on my knees.

The train had begun to slow down and the first houses of a city were beginning to be seen. I immediately looked at my watch: we could not have arrived, it had not been two hours passed yet but, to be sure, I asked the elderly gentleman, the only one who was looking at me: “Excuse me sir, are we arriving in Bologna?” “No, no madam, don’t worry, I’m getting off at the previous station, you have to get off at the next one, about seven, eight minutes later,… don’t worry, you can’t go wrong! Excuse me, where are you going to? ” “To Milan. They told me that in Bologna I have to change because this train goes to Venice. ” “It’s true! If there is no delay, there is a train for Milan after ten minutes, otherwise you have to wait an hour for the following connection. But generally, it’s on time, don’t worry! ” I thanked him and blessed him inside myself for his kindness, and finally I relaxed.

Not even Silvia weighed on my legs anymore … From that moment on, I began to pray to God the train would not be delayed: first because we would have had to stay an hour at the Bologna station, doing what? Secondly, because we would have arrived too late in Milan: it was the first time I went there and arriving late at night would have further complicated the situation … Iole wasn’t waiting for me, she did not even know we would arrive, after all, how could I have warned her? How would we get to her house? Then, a flash: we would have taken a taxi as, once, Fiorella our youngest sister had written us, she really was a clever one! The address? I had to have the address somewhere in my bag, I would have looked for it when I was on the train to Milan. “My God I thank you!

I beg you, make sure everything goes well! ” Meanwhile Silvia was beginning to fidget: “Mom I’m hungry, I want pasta!” The lady next to me had opened the package she had placed on the gray shelf in front of her and had pulled out a small white plastic container full of pasta with meat sauce and was eating them with a small white, also made of plastic, fork. At this point the old man looked at me, got up, greeted everybody saying “Goodbye” then: “Madam, remember the next one is yours! Good continuation! “

I barely had time to thank him again as he hurried out of the compartment. Five minutes! I took Silvia and put her standing on her feet at the door opening, then I stood up on the tips of my toes to take the suitcase from the trunk. It was too high for me. Rising precariously on my tiptoe, I managed to hook the handle without being able to grasp it well. The suitcase literally rushed at me, hitting the lady at the side of the window. The pasta had spilled on her dress, a disaster! “What are you doing? Are you  stupid?” She yelled at me. “Look what you did to me!” I, agitated as never before and not knowing what else to say, replied like a fool: “Excuse me, I have to take the train to Milan, otherwise I would be late and miss it! Sorry!” and I went out immediately, dragging Silvia after me.

At long last we were on the train to Milan! My little girl, sitting next to me, looked out of the window mesmerized by the landscape that seemed to be running away. She had even forgotten her hunger… Without saying anything to her, I took two slices of bread stuffed with an onions omelette out of my bag, unwrapped them just enough so as not to let her eat the paper, and handed them to her. “I want pasta!” she told me. “But we’re on the train, where do we get pasta, huh?” “So how did that lady on the other train do it? Where did she get it? ” “And what do I know? We eat pasta every day, we’ll eat it tomorrow too, you will not die if you eat two slices of bread today! Eat, please, and shut up! “.

She began to nibble on the bread, drank some water from a bottle that I had filled at home before leaving, and when she no longer wanted it, I ate what she had left over. I got her up and shook the crumbs off her skirt. Five minutes later, her face leaning against the window, she was asleep …

Raphal Olbinski, I am a child  exhibition

It was at that point that I noticed the gentleman sitting in front of me: in his fifties, in a beige corduroy jacket, forest green wool flannel trousers, a burgundy scarf and some nice brown shoes with laces. He looked at me fixedly and smiled: “Where are you headed lady?” At last someone who spoke to me, I was not used to so much indifference … “I’m going to Milan.” “Me too!” … “Is the girl yours?” “Of course it’s mine!” What a silly question! If a woman goes around with a little girl, who knows whose she is, if not hers … Then I thought about it for a moment: well she could have been a niece or, what do I know?, the daughter of some very friend … no, the daughter of a friend, absolutely no! Who gives you a daughter? For example, I would not have handed my daughters to anyone … Yeah, but I had left Stefania at home … Oh my God! My God! … “What is her name?” “Firmina” “Firmina … original … Gabriel Garçia Marquez “Love in the time of cholera”… beautiful name for a little girl! …” ” No, no sorry … I misunderstood! My girl’s name is Silvia, Firmina is my name… it was my paternal grandmother’ name… ” He smiled maliciously at my ignorance. We began to talk. He told me he had two daughters, he was divorced from his wife and that his girls, as he called them, lived with a sister of him who had not had children. He told me to be a journalist by profession and that he worked in Milan.

When he ran out of information about him I knew he expected the same from me. What would I have said? Anxiety gripped my throat … What was I supposed to say? Meanwhile, I smiled and reflected. After all, I thought: find out if he told me a lot of lies … Who knows me? I can also say what I like … I ended up telling him I was going to Milan to visit my sister and that above all I wanted to look for a job because I wanted to settle there. “Ah well, so, maybe, we’ll meet again!”. “Who knows?” “Listen, I’ll give you my name and the address of the newspaper I work for, I’ll try to help you, in any case, show up yourself. But wait at least a couple of days because I have to do some chores somewhere else before. ” I thanked him, took the note he had written by tearing a piece of paper from a diary and, without looking at it, I put it in the internal compartment of the bag that closes with the zip: it would certainly not be lost there. “My Jesus, I thank you!”

I had found a good person, one who could help me …

Relieved, I started talking to him about myself: obviously, as if it were a dishonor, I did not tell him I was a peasant … but I told him I was married and that I was leaving my country and my home because my husband mistreated me. I also told him that I had another younger daughter whom I had left at home but whom I intended to bring to Milan as soon as I found a decent accommodation. He listened to me in silence. The other travellers in the compartment also listened to me, certainly intrigued by a person who spoke so easily of herself to complete strangers.

At the end, a very well dressed elderly lady with her hair of such a bright and beautiful white that in my country had only the doctor’s wife who went to the hairdresser every week, getting up to get off the train, said to me: “Greetings my dear, take courage! Take care of the girls … and listen to me: take care of yourself too … you are so young … ” Another gentleman offered Silvia a candy but, since the girl, who had woken up and listened to everything, was unable to take it from the little box, he insisted on her having the whole box. It was at this moment that I realized that the gentleman opposite, the journalist, had fixed his gaze on my legs. Silvia had sat on the edge of my skirt and, moving, it had just lifted showing the blue-blackish patch of a large bruise. I pulled down my dress immediately, I knew I was blushing embarrassingly: it was as if my cheeks were on fire … I felt uncomfortable as if that bruise, all the blows taken, the heavy as boulders words, said just to offend, this running away like a thief, everything was my fault… And who knows?, maybe it was, maybe my mother was right when she said to me: “Did you want him? I told you he was jealous and abusive … you knew that … now, have him!”

Raphal Olbinski, Texture Of Casual Desire

At long last we arrived! All in all, the station seemed less big than I had imagined, we had to get to my sister’s house. Finding a taxi was not a problem, at the station exit there were many, indeed a driver came personally to offer us his services: really kind of him! I had an envelope with the address and I showed it to him, he looked at me as surprised and left immediately. “Number 133,” I told him. A quarter of an hour later we were at our destination. I paid and we got out. Meanwhile it was getting dark. We approached the sidewalk and began looking for number 133. It was the only thing I remembered about my sister’s address, the years of Jesus Christ plus a hundred. What the hell was going on? The number corresponded to a lowered shutter … and yet I was sure … I then began to call in a loud voice “Iole! Iole! … Iole!” It was a surreal situation: how to find my sister in Milan? It was like “looking for Mary in Rome”… as they say in our country when you are looking for someone without having the slightest clue. I tried to call again, the hasty passers-by looked at us curiously but no one stopped. Finally a man peeped out a large wooden door, made an eloquent sign with his index finger over his mouth to shut up, then to approach him. “Who are you looking for, lady?” “My sister Iole, I’m coming from Vasanello …

The man smiled: “Iole isn’t here, if you wait a moment I’ll take you there”. He had passed without many pleasantries to a more confidential way of speaking. He went back into the door and came out shortly after wearing a jacket and with a large set of keys. Who was he? And how did he know my sister? I was so tired and worried  that I did not even have the courage to ask him.

“Iole lives nearby, but why were you looking for her at the wrong address?” “And what do I know? My daughter read it once on an envelope: I remembered the number very well in Via Padova because Iole always said that the number of the house was the age of Christ plus a hundred … ” ” It’s true Iole lives at number 133 but in Via Asiago, Via Padova is where I live, your daughter may have read the address on a letter I sent to Iole when she came back to her village for the feasts of your Patron Saint, what’s His name …? To send her the bills to be paid at the post office … as she asked me … ” ” Damn! Luckily you heard us, otherwise, what could we do? Who could we have contacted? ” “Nobody, here, all the people, do their own business…. even if you had a stroke they would leave you there and go their own way, not like us! ” “Why? Where are you from? What’s your name?”

“My name is Alfio, I’m from Magliano Sabina, in the province of Rieti, but I’ve been living in Milan for eleven years now, I met your sister at the market, here in Milan, in a square back here, I immediately understood from her way of speaking she was from our area … ” ” You are well settled! A luxury palace… really… ” “ Thank God! They gave me a concierge, an uncle from Stimigliano who left his job because he was retiring ” ” Ah! I thought it was your home … ” ” Are you crazy? In your opinion, if I could buy a house in Milan I was here? … But do you know how much the houses cost in Milan? In a palace like this?

I live in a small apartment on the ground floor that the condominiums, the owners of the building, have left for use at the concierge, practically, as long as I work here, I live here, but when I retire I will have to leave it to someone else as did my uncle who luckily left it to me ” ” But you don’t pay the rent … do you think that’s nothing? ” “No, I told you: it’s in use at the porter’s lodge”.  “A little luck …” “Well, that’s true … and who could have afforded to pay a rent in Milan? … in a building like this one …”.

Alfio had stopped and so were we. He went to a door and rang the bell. Shortly after, a shutter opened and Iole peeped out: “Alfio, what is it?” “There is a lady who is looking for you, she says to be your sister … Come down, I left the reception unattended … I have to hurry to go back … if someone is looking for me …” Iole leaned out a little from the window to see. “Oh! San Lanno martyr! Oh! My most holy Madonna! Firmina! And what are you doing in Milan? Who brought you here? ” Without giving me time to answer, she closed the shutter, and, two minutes later, she got out and opened the door. I thanked Alfio who hurried back.

My sister led us up some stairs worn by the going up and down of the tenants. It seemed to me never to arrive. She finally stopped in front of a gray door, opened it and let us in.

The house was completely a novelty: you did not immediately enter the kitchen as in almost all the houses of my village, but there was a small entrance with a coat rack, an umbrella stand and a mirror. From there opened even five doors, all of them gray in color. The kitchen was cramped and uncomfortable but there was a gas stove and even a refrigerator, the sink was small and chipped and the table was the size of the one I kept on my house balcony. Then she took us to the dining room where there was a regular-sized table, a cupboard with the top part of the glass doors filled with glasses, cups and mugs and the three doors lower part, entirely made of wood. Against a wall, there was a sofa covered with a faded and slightly worn flowered fabric … but a sofa! I had never had it, I would not even have the idea of buying it … Who knows how much the sofas cost! On the ceiling there was a chandelier with three lights but two bulb lamps of it were turned off for economy reasons. Three lights, yes, not the only light bulb I had! At the back of the room there was a French door that opened onto the balcony but Iole did not open it because we would have made noise and you could not make noises in the evening in Milan, we were in the city! Strange, however, because from the street below came a din of cars, an indistinct and continuous buzz … were not those noises? … The bedroom had polished wooden furniture. That one too was a quite small room but certainly the furniture had to be of value to be so shiny … There was also another smaller bedroom with two beds next to each other and a wardrobe along the opposite wall.

“By the way, Iò, we should go to the toilet … a little longer and we will piss ourselves…” The bathroom was a real surprise: there was the toilet bowl and another cup that I understood only a few days later what it was used for, a sink, a mirror, a plastic curtain that you pulled to take a shower and wonder of wonders a washing machine! I could not hold back an exclamation of amazement: “My Madonna, you also have a washing machine!” “The lady where I work in service gave it to me, when she bought a new one because this one no longer heated the water and she had already had it repaired two or three times … she wanted to throw it away… think … and then I … stupid … think… if she hadn’t offered it to me, I wouldn’t even have had the courage to ask her … it only washes cold, but if you only knew how comfortable it is! ” “But are the clothes okay? Because… one thing is to wash them by hand and another thing is a washing  machine, I think…” “Listen to me Firmì, don’t think, … what is better is better, trust me …! ” I honestly stayed with my opinion, even if with the benefit of proof. Sure a machine that washes! Not having to load the “bagnarolona” (as we call the big plastic tub for the laundry) on the head and not having to go to the washplace two or three times a week! When in the summer… the fresh water, the chat with the other women, the kids playing around … but in the winter … the cold water, so cold that it breaks your hands, the wet apron and the cold reaching your soul, your shoes soaked, the crying cold children who, poor things, do not even want to run and play … And that lady who worried because the washing machine washed with frozen water … and who was throwing it away! Did a washing machine feel cold? Bah! Certainly it had been lucky for Iole! If people had known it in the village! There, only three families of gentlemen had it: the doctor, a large brick merchant and a family that had once been rich, very rich but that now were having a bad time and no one pities them because they had squandered their wealth. Inconceivable misdeed to the eyes of those who worked hard every day to create a minimum of well-being.

Raphal Olbinski, Grand Master of Lesser Ceremony

Meanwhile, Iole had made us sit in the dining room, her husband and brother-in-law had returned home from work and were not a little surprised to find us there: “And… why this visit?” The words did not come out of my mouth, I was so dazed and tired… anyway I had to give an explanation, even though I was sure everyone already knew the reason, the proof was the fact that Iole, although amazed to see us, did not asked for anything. I lifted my skirt slightly, then pulled up the sleeve of my shirt. The men silently nodded. “This is nothing! I can’t show you the worst! The fact is that I don’t want to go back: I’m tired of being beaten at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ve worked all my life as a slave, worse as a beast and I‘ve only taken kicks, pushes, punches, slaps … lately, he no longer uses his hands, that pig, but everything he get hold. He hit me so hard with the spade that I thought I was going to die … and then with the rope … if I show you my back … you don’t even believe it … and then the kicks … everywhere … ” I was saying things that those present already knew, things of which everyone really knew, and for a long time. Men, as belonging to the same gender, got involved. … ”What a pig! What a son of…” It was dead sure! Certainly there was no talk of a gentleman, but of a violent, a bully, a rough and ignorant man who felt himself great only with his clenched fists, who did not know the strength of an open hand in the caress …

In the meantime my sister had gone into the kitchen and, from the noise of pots, I knew she was preparing something. I got up to tell her: “Don’t worry about us, Silvia has fallen asleep and I’m not really hungry, let the men eat, also you, eat. By the way, the children? Where are your children? Sorry, I didn’t even ask you …  how are you? I’m so upset… it’s as if my head was empty, I can’t explain to you, maybe all those hours around, we got up early this morning, at five o’ clock… Silvia will have died of fatigue… ” “ Now have dinner and then rest, don’t worry! My children, aren’t there these days. You and Silvia can sleep in the bedroom and my brother-in-law will sleep on the sofa, you’ll see that in one way or another we’ll settle down, there’s some soup, eat, it will warms your stomach.

Now, we’ll take the child in our arms and immediately put her to bed, she’s already asleep … otherwise she will end up feeling strange, poor creature! ” We dined almost in silence, we were all tired. Iole did not want me to help her cleaning up the kitchen and sent me to the bedroom. I took off my clothes, in my slip I stretched out on the bed next to my sleeping child. From the closed shutters filtered the light of the street lamps and the continuous noise of the traffic rose up there on the fifth floor. Despite the fatigue, I could not close my eyes: I was so agitated … thoughts crowded my mind and the future seemed terrible to me, everything seemed uncertain, insurmountable.

I think I fell asleep for an hour or two around dawn. Noises in the house woke me up. The men had risen and Iole was preparing breakfast for them. I got up too and went directly to the kitchen. “Why did you get up?” “And who can sleep? …  I always get up early .. ” ” You don’t have to go anywhere … Nobody will touch you here. Go back to bed, then we’ll talk… ” I went back to the bedroom and lay down again next to Silvia, not to sleep but to avoid bothering in the kitchen.

At home, at that time I was already up for a while! You get up in the dark to prepare something to eat for breakfast and something else to be taken to the countryside for lunch and then you leave to arrive in the field as soon as the break of day. My husband on the donkey cart and I walking behind … so that when you arrived, you are already so tired that you would need to rest … and then all day, head down, bent over the ground: to hoe, to dig… he on one side and I on the other one of the row… you never end, never… Then, when it gets dark, you go home. He always on the cart and I always on foot. And when you return, he, who is tired, lies down on the bed while waiting for the supper that I, more tired, have to prepare. And shut up. Besides, what do you want to talk about? And then … there is always the risk of making a mistake, of saying something he does not like and of taking other blows, as if the ones he gives you for every futile, stupid thing were not enough … After washing the dishes you go to bed and there he falls asleep exhausted not before having fulfilled his “conjugal duty”. Yes, because it is nothing more than an obligation, perhaps the heaviest even if accomplished lying down on the bed: one-sided and exclusive satisfaction of a purely bestial instinct: without love, without kisses, without hugs, without caresses, without pleasure … Five, ten interminable minutes during which you just wait for everything to end soon, indeed you do your best to help him achieving his pleasure so that he can finally turn away and you finally rest. With a disgusted soul, you hear him snoring calmly, satisfied. The love? But what does he know about love? What does he know about women? What does he know about you? The rough and heavy speeches of other, rough like him, men: “To women? Fuck and punches every day! “. I think this is the reason why every time I bring him lunch in the field, the rare times I do not leave in the morning with him, before letting me go home he pretends to “satisfy me”. It does not matter where or how: in the small tool shed or in the ditch or behind the cart… lying or standing… nothing matters if not the certainty of his corrupt thinking, that a woman “satisfied” by her husband would not sought elsewhere.

As soon as I heard the door close, I got up again. The men had gone out and Iole, in front of the sink, was rinsing the dishes they had used for breakfast. “You could have slept!” she said without turning around. “Since I’m awoken, what can I do?” “Nothing, you and the child have breakfast, I’m going to work in a little while, you wait for Silvia to wake up, then you can do what you want, go out or stay here, whatever you like …” “I don’t want to give annoyance, I want to look for a job and find a place to stay in, Silvia and I, for now … then I also want to bring up Stefania. I have left with my mother at the moment … I thank you for everything: for the welcome … for everything … but I see that you are too crowded… when are your children coming back? There is no place for everyone … ” I had not even expected her to answer my question, I had answered myself so much the situation was obvious. “Now calm down! When I’ll come back we will talk! We will find a solution, do not be so agitated, Milan is a big city, there is to work … you will see that we will fix everything. The important thing is not to go off your head … listen to me … you will see … ” My sister’s words were like hot soup on a winter evening: they made me feel at ease with the whole world. Ah! The family! A sister!

Iole went out, I remained there sitting on the kitchen chair… stupid… as if I was drunk… I tried to collect my thoughts but I could not, it was like unraveling a tangled skein: everything was confused, I was unable to reason. I had thought so much in the past few days that now it was as if my brain refused to work. I got up and looked out the window, then I remembered that in the living room there was a French door that opened onto a balcony, I opened it. My heart skipped a beat, I slowly approached the iron railing: I had never looked out from such a height. From below, a swarming of cars and people and an incessant buzz that rose up there to the fifth floor. Would I have been able to come back home if I went out? Or would I get lost in that sea of people and traffic? Better to wait for Iole. I padded back into the bedroom to see if Silvia was still sleeping.

As soon as I got to the door she turned to me: “Mom, where are we? May I get up? I need to pee.” Poor Silvia, she was awake and did not know what to do.

Raphal Olbinski, nocturne flat major

The light that penetrated through the slits of the shutters brightened the little room enough to make her understand she was not at home but was so scared that she had not dared to move. Maybe she was so tired the night before that she did not even realize where she was. “We are in Milan, at Aunt Iole’s house, don’t you remember yesterday? The train? The travel? … Did you sleep, huh?… ” The little girl got up and I walked her to the bathroom. “Where do I do it here or there?” “Do it where you want, the one with the largest hole is for poop, the other for pee, in my opinion.” I turned on the water tap and I let ran it a little, to rinse. At home we did not have running water and a toilet yet: we did our physiological needs in a bucket behind a door. Early, every morning I went to empty it in a place called “ripa” which was practically a steep ravine under which a ditch ran. The smell, especially in summer, was nauseating as almost the entire neighborhood, except a select few ones, used that place as an open sewer and as a public toilet in a broad sense of the term: anyone who needed to urinate or to evacuate during the day, would go to that place where, among clouds of buzzing flies and without any privacy, he would get rid of emergencies.

A bathroom: a luxury beyond belief!

Raphal Olbinski, Texture Of Casual Desire

The water, every day, several times a day, I went to get it from the fountain. I returned home with the full bucket, balanced on my head, resting on a twisted rag. That water was used for drinking, for cooking, for washing dishes. Dirty clothes were not washed at home as the saying goes, but at public fountains. There was also a certain choice: Sant’Angelo, close to home but with only three seats, the Slayer, which I did not like because it was indoors and also a little dark: an old fountain next to a slaughterhouse with two central rows of fountains, the Fontana di Sotto, which made a certain impression on me because the pools were deep and there was so much water everywhere, the Tunnel, a fountain under a kind of bridge and others because it can be said that the whole town washed in the fountains.

We went to the kitchen, I opened some cupboards, then the fridge. I took out a bottle of milk, found some bread in a container, and prepared a frugal breakfast for my girl. I was not hungry, it was as if my stomach refused everything. In the end I ate what little bread and milk Silvia had left in the cup. I rearranged the kitchen. Silvia had dressed now and was following me like a little dog while I was making a reconnaissance tour of the house. The night before I was so tired, agitated and confused that it was as if I had not seen anything.

The house, which was more than modest, looked like a palace to me. The fact of living in Milan … what luck … lucky them! …

There was no “bucket”, the water flowed from the tap, there was the gas stove and the washing machine and, on a piece of furniture, which I had not even seen the night before because it was located in a corner of the dining room, even a television!

The television! How I liked it! In my village the families who had it could be counted on the fingers of one hand: the doctor, a brick merchant, a lawyer who lived in the historical center of the village, and a farmer who lived right next to my house. Actually an exception, because although there were wealthy families, television at home was considered a truly extraordinary luxury. That gentleman who lived near me, even if certainly not rich, had bought it: the villagers, at first, considered him almost a deranged one, one who had thrown his money, the so much sweaty money, out of the window. Then, little by little, invited to his house for any reason, they were fascinated by that black box cheering up the evenings of their fellow citizen and were deeply envious of it.

Emilio, as he was called, was so satisfied with his purchase that he was rarely seen at the bar in the square the after dinner, a well-established habit among most of the men in the village who, in the evenings, before going to bed, spent an hour or two sitting at the café tables talking more or less always about the usual things: the countryside (the work to be done, the harvest, the sowing …), the animals (the pets that each family owned in proportion to their well-being), the weather (would it rain or would it be sunny the next day?) and women (those of others, obviously).

As the months went by, Emilio found himself every evening with the house full of guests, especially women who, some of them with an excuse, some with another, took the opportunity to watch movies or quizzes on the famous television of the home owner. The thing had such a development that, at a certain point, since it was summer and with all those people in the house you could not even breathe, Emilio put the device on the door, as far as the electric wires allowed, and the whole neighborhood, each of them with his own chair, brought from home, placed himself in front of the small screen occupying the whole square.

I had never gone there. In the afternoon, back from the countryside, with the windows open and the shutters closed because of the heat, I listened to the neighbors sitting in the shade and talking about what they had seen the previous evening. In the end, I knew the development of serial novels almost as much as they did… “God! Tonight I didn’t even fall asleep … What a rascal man … after he put the horns on her, even the blows … and those creatures … the cries I made … what a pain … ” At the beginning I had thought: could they be talking about me? No, I was no longer in the news: “a murmuring seven days lasts …” my mother said when I told her I was ashamed of the scenes my husband was making to me. She was right: my situation, in the eyes of the whole country, had now become normal. The neighbors talked about the plots of the novels or films they watched on television, I had not been in the news for quite a while!

Actually, I went out very little. Very early in the morning to empty the famous “bucket”, immediately afterwards to the countryside until evening. Once a week I made bread and took it to be baked in the public oven. With the board over my head, the loaves divided from each other by a rolled up raw linen cloth, I went straight to the oven where the owner put them into the huge red-hot mouth one after the other with a long wooden shovel. If there was a long time to wait, I would return home to take advantage of dinner and, at the appointed time, I would return to take them back cooked, hot and fragrant, with a crisp, brown crust and a scent of bread, of real bread that only those who have made it with their own hands know. If the oven was free, I waited there for them to cook because, between going home and returning to get them, it would take more or less the same time. That scarce hour was a diversion from the monotonous cadence of my days: the women who arrived later and had to wait certainly did not return home but stopped to chat, dedicating that little space of time to strengthening friendships and shamelessly gossiping.

Raphal Olbinski, Calendar of yesterday wishes

It was there that I learned of what was happening in the village: Tizio got married, Gaius died, Sempronio got sick … and then they went down hard on the women: that one was a slut… that other had been seen in that place with that one and, just to change the subject, that other one would put horns on her husband … The thing I sorrowfully noticed, was that women were more cruel to other women than to men: the woman who was cheating was a whore, the man a “quick”, “one who knew how to do it”. Surely all this was part of the eternal rivalry between members of the same sex.

The girls waited all week for the “day of bread” as we called it … for them it was a celebration … a novelty that was repeated … on a weekly basis. The same day, when I could, I also made pizza for dinner and cookies for the whole week. My husband, who always found the bread ready, even sliced on the table, always had something to object: either it was overcooked, or it was too raw, or it was too high ( too leavened) or too low (slightly leavened). It generally depended on cooking but I certainly couldn’t get into controversy with the owner of the only oven in the town and when I told him it, he replied that I was stupid, that she certainly only for me cooked it badly because you could see, from a distance a kilometer, I was a fool… So, in order to avoid further offenses, I patiently accepted the criticisms, the observations, the alleged advice, given by who had never made bread during his life, on how to improve … that bread that we others, liked so much as it was!

Raphal Olbinski, Fruits

I took a look around the house looking for if there was something to do in the belief I could repay, somehow, the hospitality they had been forced to offer me. I was afraid of being too intrusive so I tidied up the room where we had slept  and went to the bathroom to freshen up. It did not seem real to me: to open the tap and see the water gush out, to pull a chain and hear a splash of water taking everything away …

It was early, what would I do until evening? Where could I have gone? In the kitchen I opened the cupboard then the fridge. I found a container with some boiled chickpeas: they were too few for a second course… I would have prepared a soup, a hot soup that, I hoped, everyone would have liked coming back tired in the fresh evening. In the small room I easily found all the necessary ingredients and while the soup was simmering, I found some flour and, between the wall and the sink, the pastry board. I put on an apron and started making dumplings for the soup with chickpeas. The scent of food spread throughout the house. When, in my village, I put my nose out the door, the neighbors immediately asked me: “Ehi Firmì, what are you cooking? What is this delicious smell of food? What do you put in it … ?” Actually, there was a secret ingredient: the love for my girls, the hope that a hot dish, cooked with love, would somehow soothe the wounds inflicted on them day after day and, to be sincere, a few pinches of well-dosed wild and selected herbs that gave a different and particular flavor to the dishes.

Somehow the hours passed, I found some socks with holes and mended them, some hanging laundry that I carefully collected and folded, and so on all those little things that are part of the daily household. Silvia was trotting around me, so in order not to make her bored I gave her a rag and made her dust off the few poor furniture of the house. She was happy when, to get rid of the dust, she went out on the balcony to shake it. She looked around in amazement and admiration … at a certain point she came back and said to me: “Mom, we won’t go home anymore, will we?” I did not know what to answer: “Do you like staying here? ” “Sure, a “very lot”! Everything is beautiful! Look how many cars, how many houses! ” “So if you like it, we’ll stay here.” “Swear it! Swear me we’ll stay with Aunt Iole forever! ” “Well, at aunt’s house we can only stay for a while until her children will come back, but we’ll find something for us, you’ll see, you’ll see, don’t worry … be a good girl… dust well, please eh …” “And Stefania, she’s coming too, you true? When?” Not knowing what to say, I replied: “Yes, yes. Dust and shut up, come on! “.

Inside of me I was anguished and worried: what would we do? Where would we go? Would I have found a job?

In the evening, around seven, I put the pot back on the stove and waited for my sister and the two men to come back home. As soon as they arrived I threw the dumplings into the saucepan and while all of them, in turn, had a wash in the bathroom I put the tablecloth, set the table and served the steaming soup. “Good uhmm …” “You guessed right … hot soup! … it’s cold outside …” “What did you put in? It’s really special! ” “ehi! Iole, your sister is better than you at cooking…” Oh no! Oh no! This must not to be said! I felt sorry for Iole. Certainly her men did not realize that she came in the evening with them and while they were watching television in the room she bustled about as she could in the kitchen with the few ingredients and above all with the limited available time … they were men: in one way or another they had to hurt … My sister was good at cooking, she was good at everything, as my mother used to say: “She even knew how to do the chicks’ eyes…” to say that anything, even the most complicated, she would start doing, she succeeded to perfection. Certainly for her too, in some way, life had not been easy: moving so far from the country, living in an unknown city, working until the evening and at the same time taking care of her men, her children and of the house … No… even with all its comforts, it shouldn’t have been easy … After the frugal dinner, Iole and I cleared the table and, while the men were watching television, we cleaned up the kitchen.

“Jole, what do you think, could I do?” “What about it? I’ve been thinking about it all day … I asked where I work but they told me a lot of factories had to fire someone because the job decreased …

Raphal Olbinski,  Interpretation of Habits  

What can I tell you? In any case, you’re not in the middle of the road! If I had known you were coming I would have bustled about it, but so suddenly… Tomorrow I’m going to ask somewhere else … We will surely find something, don’t worry! ” “Yes, but I wouldn’t like to bother … two people …” “Listen to me, let’s go bed now, I already told you, tomorrow I’ll try somewhere else …”

The next morning, before going out, she left me a bunch of keys: “Front door, downstairs main door, post box … if you go out close well and, above all, don’t lose them! “But where am I going? I’m not familiar with the place, I’m afraid of getting lost … ” ” No, you don’t get lost, you don’t have to go through all Milan! Go around a little, if you like you can go and ask for work in some shop, try it! Be careful of the cars and of the little girl, hold her hand, I’m sure you’ll like it … “.

To like to me? I was so confused and scared… I slept two or three hours and then stood there with my wide open eyes to rack my brains. Silvia, poor creature, slept satisfied, convinced that in any case we would remain in Milan, this beautiful city she liked so much without having seen it.

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