La Casina a Salice

I travel to my birthplace, Salice, in the Peloritan Hills of Sicily often. In reality, I have visited my village three times since moving to Boston, Massachusetts. On all three occasions, like Luigi Pirandello in 'Six Characters in Search of an Author,' I searched to reconnect with characters. They were there. The same was true of the setting. However, there weren't any plots.

In contrast, the plots come alive when I somehow transport myself back in time to Salice. Then, I just sit back and watch stories rewind and unravel themselves.

In his “View from the Bridge, Arthur Miller was correct when making references to Sicilian panoramas. One can sit there and be nourished with the views for hours and hours, but cannot cook the view.

If one grows up in a village like mine, one needs to find some form of activity. In the absence of antagonists and conflicts, the setting becomes the plot.

My action was mental. When I travelled by bus to the city with my mom for some unusual shopping, what attracted my attention were the billboards along the way. After World War II, in the early 1950s, Italy fell in love with advertising, and billboards inundated all the travelable provincial roads. I couldn't take my eyes off them. They were the only innovation along the way, the distraction that kept my brain sizzling.

As early as four years old, I focused on each vowel —A, E, I, O, and U— and as many consonants as possible. On the next bus trip, seeing the same billboard, I would put all the vowels and consonants together to recognize the words. The pictures gave away their meaning. That's how I learned to read before entering kindergarten.

The bus travelled along SP51, a shortcut through the Peloritan mountains, to my village. However, if villagers wanted to relax by singing Modugno's “Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu” and were fortunate enough to be the proprietors of their own four-wheel transportation—a Cinquecento—they circumvented the SP51. Instead, they navigated SS113, along the Ionian shoreline, and then along the Tyrrhenian Sea toward Marmora, my villagers' favorite and closest beach.

Once at Marmora, only the villagers turned left onto SP51 up the hill. It was a long haul, but worth the time and the extra money spent on gasoline. When traveling along SS113, I was mesmerized by the vessels slowly disappearing where the sea and the sky briefly met. I could imagine a journey past the Strait of Gibraltar, across the Atlantic, and to the shores of North America. It was as if I were traveling into the future, and I felt at peace with myself.

The entrance to Salice from the northwest or southeast of SS113 was dangerous. When people took a turn, they prayed not to get hit by automobiles speeding on the SS113. I imagined Dante's admonishment to the gates of Hell painted all over a giant billboard, “Abandon all hope, all who enter here.” Yet, once past those gates, one could feel as if one were in Paradise, with time neither advancing nor receding. Once nestled in the hills, one felt no desire to travel, and hiding in the village was the thing to do.

There is always a reason for hiding, and you are probably thinking that I did something wrong to be pushed into hiding in a chicken coop. Well, I hid because I was scared. I felt that the carabinieri had come to my village to take me to a juvenile detention center. Did I really do something wrong? And, if I did, did I really deserve to be punished? I'll let you be the judge, hoping that you'll understand my predicament.

My village, nestled in the hills of Sicily, was tiny, and news there traveled very quickly. In those days, you found out what went on from what you heard from neighbors, friends, and, of course, gossip. From eavesdropping one evening after dinner time in my neighborhood, I heard that a young boy had died from complications at the city hospital. As soon as I listened to that, I ran away as fast as I could and hid in the family's chicken coop located on the outskirts of the village. As I ran, I thought, “Oh! My God! The police will come to arrest me.”

The day before, I was playing with my friends in the countryside. We really weren't doing much. We were hanging around saying silly things to each other, and maybe we were too bored to think of something constructive to do. Amongst us, this boy was visiting from a nearby village. I really don't remember his name. It doesn't matter what his real name is, but I do remember what happened as if it happened yesterday. I was chatting with friends, and BOY, I'll call him BOY as if it were his first name, approached me, saying, “I don't like you!” The BOY was taller and more muscular. Then, pointing his finger at me, he commanded with a resolute voice, “I want to challenge you to a fight.” I didn't have a chance to say anything, and, before you know it, he put his arms around my chest and started twisting me around like a spinning top.

You must know that I was, and still am, a 'pacifist,' someone who loves making friends and living in peace. I didn't want to fight, but I was forced into it. As we tumbled and tumbled, with no clear victor in sight, we came to a rolling hill. With everyone watching in stupefied silence, we started rolling down. Rolling, we ended up at the bottom of the small hill. Did we stop? No! But a sharp rock stopped us. It could have been me first, but it was BOY who hit the rock. He hit his head, and blood started pouring as if it were water from a running faucet.

We couldn't stop the bleeding. Scared, we brought the BOY to the nearest village house. The 'mom' who happened to help us couldn't stop the bleeding. She proceeded to say that the BOY needed to be transported to the city hospital to stop the bleeding. She also told us that it was best for all of us to go back home. At the dinner table that evening, I kept the day's events to myself, but my mom looked suspiciously at me. 

After dinner, I stepped outside to play with my friends as I usually did. Neighborhood ladies were sitting by their front doors chatting. It was typically gossip and light talk, and most of the time, they laughed their way into the summer sunset. But this time, I noticed that they were not laughing. They were earnest. As I walked by, I overheard that a boy had died at the city hospital.

I ran as fast as I could. I hid in my family's chicken coop, so as not to be found. My life was over before I even started. For sure, I was going to spend my life in jail. But I am here to share my fright, so it did not happen the way I had thought. The following day, when my mom found me, having put two and two together, she hurled, “Silly boy! The boy you had a rumble with is doing fine. His mom was giving birth, and the child, an infant boy, died during labor. Let's go home. I'll cook you some eggs.”

My mom's smile, the thought of having fresh eggs for breakfast, and the fact that I wouldn't be put in jail gave me the best feeling of my life. I thought to myself, 'Life is good after all.' I declared to myself that I would do good deeds for the rest of my life and never harm others.

Those were not the best of times, but they were also a time when I truly felt alive. Sensing that I was tired of picking olives, my father would let me wander freely. I climbed the stone terraces, mesmerized by what seemed to be a serpent, but was only the skin it had left behind on its way to rejuvenation. I jumped down the stone terraces to reach a small valley, where I could quench my thirst with the limpid waters of a stream, hidden from view. In the olive groves, I hid in a stone hut, imagining that it would become my permanent home. Surrounded by silence, interrupted only by the rustling of the wind, I stood still and took in all that energy. In stillness, I realized I was not alone. It was as if an invisible entity was having a meaningful conversation with me.  I was really listening, capturing the lesson with all my senses.

In those days,  to make ends meet, my father would take me to my mom's inherited olive groves on the outskirts of our village to pick olives. We laid sheets, shook the branches, and, on our knees, bunched up the olives. Before sunset, we put them in bags to carry on our backs on the narrow paths back to the village. I was proud to be useful, but after a while, the bag started to wear me down. With tender encouragement (and my father would carry two bags instead of one), a few stops, and an immeasurable desire not to fail, we made it back to the frantoio before dark, where the olives would be crushed into a couple of liters of oil.

Beyond this everlasting lesson, I watched my mom set an example of how to love.  Pushed aside as a child and growing up without a father and mother at the tender age of 8, she never gave up on love. Friends, neighbors, visitors, and strangers were all embraced by her immense capacity to open her heart. The beauty of it was that she did not expect anything in return. 

She once shared with me, “Tu sei stato la prima cosa bella della mia vita,” which translates to, “You have been the first beautiful thing of my life!” 

But I must also have been overly possessive.  She retold me  a story that made her laugh. When I saw my younger sibling cuddling with her, I forcefully uttered in Sicilian dialect, “Vattinni babbu, jo accucciu a mamma!” “Go away, you fool, I cuddle with mom!”

Via Principe Umberto 33 was the house where I was born. I remember, as if it were yesterday, that the old house door had a window without glass, and by opening it, one could reach the menagerie, slide it open, and enter. If one wanted, any villager could come in and go at any time of day or night. No one ever did it without knocking.

Entering planet Earth with immeasurable love, I almost didn’t make it. My mom confided, 'You were very lucky! When you were six months old, you almost died. When Dr. Occhipinti saw you, he immediately recognized your condition, and with the right medications, he saved your life.” It was a parasitic disease from which many children died after the Second World War in my village. Fortunately, I survived.

The street where I was born looked westward. If the house had been located fifty meters further out, I would have had the privilege of overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, positioned a couple of kilometers to the north of the town. But, instead of the image of the Aeolian Islands in my mind, before me lay a small, verdant plain that gradually advanced and lowered towards a hidden valley. Beyond the valley, the silhouette of the next village hid the promontories that reached the Strait of Messina. I often wondered what kind of life people lived beyond those hills.  I typically dreamt that I would one day leave my village to seek a new life.

On this street, Via Principe Umberto, there was always a wanderer from the village, and when they passed my house, even if they didn't see my mother (assuming she was at home), they would shout, “Good morning, Mrs. Grazia!” 'Good evening, Grace!” Always cordial greetings as a mark of respect for my mother, who had grown up on that parentless street from the tender age of six.

Via Principe Umberto was also a road where cars rarely passed through. The few vehicles in my village belonged to the wealthy landowners, who invested in olive oil and wine, earning incomes that exceeded the poverty line. Every morning, when I went to school, I would throw myself down the stairs instead of walking down. With the front door always open, I usually emerged in the middle of the street. If it hadn't been for the promptness of the drivers, on one specific occasion, I would have been under the wheels of a car.

In the afternoon, my street, which runs south to north, was always in the shade. With neighborhood boys, after school, I would always kick something: a stone, a rolled-up piece of paper, or a Coke cap, since we couldn't find any soccer balls.

When I was alone and saw some female classmates appearing in the distance, I climbed the very narrow wall that divided the road from the small plain. I balanced myself with one foot in front of the other to show off. I really thought that I was doing something unique and felt like a hero. 

Via Principe Umberto was my paradise. After all, how does one imagine heaven? Quiet people sitting in the shade, chatting with friends and watching the children play football without getting hurt. Day after day without end. Isn't that what heaven is supposed to be like?

My birthplace, at 33 Via Principe Umberto, was built in the twelfth century along with other homes on a Peloritan hill, hidden by a promontory. They were built simply to hide from the plundering of the Saracens' ships that frequently roamed the Mediterranean Sea. 

The protruding eastern and western walls of my house were constructed from limestone extracted from the surrounding hills and valleys. These walls were shared with the neighbors on either side, creating in my mind a sense of unity, community, and coexistence. 

The northern and southern walls of my birthplace overlooked the cultivated countryside, which was owned by landowners who lived on the same road but in larger homes. Their gardens were usually full of orange and mandarin foliage. These fruit-bearing trees, imported during the Arab rule in Sicily, surrounded the landowners’ opulent homes and cooled them from the fierce Sicilian sun.

The stones on the front of the houses were covered with stucco and painted in shades of white, yellowish, or orange. Orange was reserved for the largest houses, yellow for medium-sized ones, and white for the smaller ones to differentiate the socio-economic classes.

My mother's house had two floors, and we lived on the second. To get in, you'd just push open the small window on the door accessing the outside. The only thing you had to do was to reach in and turn a straight latch, climb a dozen stairs, and turn left into a single room that served all the family's needs:  living room, dining room, and bedroom.

In the center of the room, under a lightbulb that always seemed to flicker intermittently until we went to bed, was a table where we all sat for every meal, talked, and performed our daily chores. To the left of the room, there was a cot where my brother and I slept head to toe. A window with chestnut shutters looked out over the northern countryside, flooding the room with warm sun until late afternoon. 

In addition to this room, there was the master bedroom where my parents slept and a long, narrow room that had been converted into a small kitchen with a gas cylinder.

It was in front of this tiny kitchen that I watched my mother prepare a hen. She would kill it with a quick and sudden, twisting blow to the neck to prevent it from suffering before its last breath. After tedious plucking and boiling, the hen would be ready for a meal, providing the necessary protein for healthy growth and development. Unfortunately, nothing was ever thrown away, and I was forced to eat the hen's skin. I never succeeded. Not only the taste, but also its smell, made my stomach turn. My mom, even though she pretended to push me to eat the boiled hen in front of my father, always found a way to remove the plate, which remained almost untouched on the table. Later, in secret, she would shell two boiled eggs for me, which I ate with infinite delight.

I also knew where my mother kept the hen house.  When my stomach would be rumbling from hunger, I would take the warm eggs from under the hen, and using an improvised tool made from reeds, I would poke two almost invisible holes in them. I'd then enjoy the flavor of the yolk that slid lightly over my tongue and warmed my body.

It was from the master bedroom window, which looked out over the northern countryside, that I would watch nature's continuous changes. I recognized in the different colors the plants took on day after day, as if it were a constantly changing rainbow.

The main room was my favorite room. That's where I spent most of my time, from the day I was born to the day we moved closer to the city, so I could attend the Luigi Pirandello Middle School. I particularly enjoyed the winter days when we all sat around a brazier handmade by my father after dinner. Sitting there for an hour or two before retiring to bed, we would have neighbors visiting. The beauty of it is that each visitor told different, unique stories, and I never stopped being fascinated by them. 

Within these few square meters of my mother's house, I felt in charge of the world. Sitting at my little desk—an old breakfast table propped up on two wooden crates for my books and notebooks—I'd let my mind fantasize beyond the walls, beyond the hills, and to all the wonders of the world. I would imagine boarding a ship across the Tyrrhenian Sea, ready to face countless adventures. 

In my mother's house, I learned how to be alone and how to entertain myself. I felt like a prince and in command of my actions. In my mother's house, I learned that you don't need much to be happy. All you require is to connect with all that surrounds you with passion, fantasy, and endless curiosity.