It was a court house of the late '800, plastered to the best, and it was always there that awaited us. It was just a hundred meters away from us and reflected the unique goal of our continual evasions. There was always something to go and ask Aunt Carmina or Nonna Maria. This is what the women of my childhood were called and with my mother they helped to create in my child's mind what would have been my female ideal. Women who are different from the ordinary because they are special to the eyes greedy for the knowledge of their grandchildren
Four strides to get there out of breath and with a smile on your face. The stripped and rusty iron gate was usually open to welcome but not to hold anyone back: it was a constant coming and going of aunts and relatives who went to say hello to the old family and left strictly with a souvenir of that ordinary visit. Usually the gifts of grandmother Maria were flowers: the fragrant hyacinths rose annually in the flower beds. Then in the middle of spring the scent changed and became even more important: lilies of the valley. My sister and I used to have fun in the secular pine to pick flowers and when we could no longer hold them in our hands it was time to enter the kitchen and wrap the stem in aluminum to preserve its freshness. Then in May came the apotheosis of the scent of roses. You could find all sorts of them. They were not particularly cured in appearance but those roses knew of love. So sometimes the aluminum foil also wrapped prickly twigs and we left with our precious load.
In summer then came the moment of the gladioli and so in every season that small garden reserved its surprises to every passing guest for a greeting and a glass of wine. No adult left without it. Aunt Carmìna drank her personal Lambrusco, as if to signal her independence from the large family with which she had always shared a house. Carmìna was the elder sister of grandfather Giuseppe, the first man to have a car in the country and I believe I am the only taxi driver in the area. She had never married Aunt Rosa, Carmìna, but she had actively contributed to the growth of five daughters and three sons of her beloved brother. Her small pension allowed her to buy daily her whims from the peddler: cooked ham, biscuit bread and a packet of chips for her granddaughters, as well as of course her Lambrusco.
He loved us in a special way, perhaps the beneficiaries of a special affection felt for our father, the youngest son of the family. The aunt took us to the rear exit on an excuse, away from the prying eyes of the sister-in-law, and gave us that little packet of paradise. Salted and crunchy fell into the mouth one after the other.
In the summer we had all day to have fun running in the chairs, under the big table, in and out of the house. In the end silence ... it was the hour of prayer. No talk or disturbance was allowed. Grandmother Maria and Aunt Carmina sat in their chairs side by side and opened Ave Maria and then other litanies, which I never remembered, and then again Ave Maria and still litanies ... so the moment of stories came. It was her aunt who took on the task of handing down the events that had marked their lives, but a more shy and reserved grandmother took care of the boiling pans and of the green beans to be harvested. He would have brought a full basket home from the garden and then others inside the properly knotted apron. Down everything above the table to indicate that we could also make ourselves useful by chatting.
So Aunt Carmìna told us stories of war, hunger, suffering and so much fear of planes loaded with bombs, so realistic as to inculcate that tension to the impressionable Cristina, my older sister, terrified at every step of the mighty Hercules landing at the nearby Dal Molin. They were dark, heavy, and as soon as he felt their presence, he slipped under the first shelter he found waiting for the area to clear. He was a bit ridiculous in his attitudes but he gave the feeling of what our ancestors had felt during the war. Power of identification! My aunt knew how to involve us in stories that dramatized and sufficed the marked sensitivity of my sister to make everything real. I could not help but desist from those fears, on the other hand there was already a sister under attack.
Now, at thirty, I look at the cycle of life through the curious gaze of my daughter who plays cards with her grandmother and the nostalgia for that passing house envelops me. I think back to those women who were so strong and special that they gave us so much and who asked for nothing but a bit of freshness for those swollen and tired legs, and a bit of joy for those eyes that had seen so much pain.