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Giulia met him at the door.
-Rudi..you got back in time…-
Giulia…-
They held each other tight, in silence, and for a moment she thought that he was not the young man who left a few years before.
-I brought Fosco with me… I was in his house…the headquarters told me the news while I was there…I had given them his address…-
-Very good… we did not know how to contact you and…-
-Giovanni…-Rudi went over to his brother-in-law who was coming down the stairs of the bedrooms and their handshake was so meaningful that no words needed to be spoken.
-Are the children and Maria well?-
-Yes, they are fine – Giulia replied- They have already gone to the church. We did not want them to see ….-
- Good idea, much better this way…Sorry Giovanni, I have not introduced Fosco Frizmajer to you yet….
Slightly aside Fosco was watching the scene as a viewer waiting to be a part of. All wrapped up in his long black coat looked taller and thinner. The handshake with his bony hand while they were being introduced seemed strong and sincere to Giovanni. Giulia sensed his enquiring look when he bend down to greet her.
In the church the nieces and nephews would have wanted to go to Rudi and Antonino smiled and a sudden joy went through his eyes. His auntie’s look was quite enough to discourage him to do anything.
In the evening they all sat around the table. The children went straight to bed because they were exhausted with all the grief and the toil of a long day. The three men sat down to talk while Giulia and Maria tidied up the kitchen.
Fosco had been quiet during most of the dinner, almost sorry to have slipped in that private situation of family grieving. However, Rudi and Giovanni managed to involve him in their conversation and just then Giulia had stopped to analyse him. During the meal she felt a bit embarrassed every time she felt he was staring at each of them, unintentional violation of the family intimacy. She did not sense a superficial curiosity of a stranger but the desire to get down into each of them, almost as if he wanted to get a confirmation of a previous belief.
Maria had an ashen complexion and her black dress highlighted the paleness of her face. She shut herself away, isolated from the others, searching her sister-in-law with her eyes to get instructions as what needed to be done. Nothing that was being said forced its way through her pain.
-We’ll go upstairs, if you don’t mind- Giulia spoke for the two of them. Fosco stood up to greet them and everybody wished good night, after days of hard work.
As soon as the men were left alone in the big kitchen now quiet, the tone of their conversation changed, as if up to that moment they wanted to shelter the women from all their worries.
After a moment of silence, Giovanni said almost under his breath
-What do people say in Milan about this armistice?-
-Well… at the moment people are just enthusiastic about the end of the war- Rudi replied.
-Yes, that’s right. At Villa Giusti a long nightmare has ended-
-We should get ready for big changes – Fosco said.
-What do you mean? What changes? Haven’t we experienced enough of them? - Giovanni turned to the young man who suddenly looked more alert and austere.
-We won’t be the same any longer. I am not talking about us who experienced the war in the barricades, but about the whole society-
-I was actually thinking we were liberating Trento and Trieste… - Rudi spoke softly
-Many other young men thought the same as you- Giovanni replied, almost as if he was trying to comfort him.
-Nobody, whether they wanted the war or not, would have ever thought that it was going to be so huge. That has never been one in history. Millions of dead people….millions…you know, millions of dead people and disabled people- Fosco seemed to be talking to himself- The United States which entered a European war with all their economic power…such different worlds that come close. I wonder what consequences there will be…-
-And what about what happened in Russia? What a great revolution we experienced!- Rudi added
-The truth is that not just three years went by, but a century…-
-This big upheaval will change the way people saw the world, it will change our lives ..maybe you are not so aware here in the village…for you life has stayed the same and the war has only brought sorrows, without changing things too much. In the cities however it was very different. Many women did men’s jobs and we can’t go back. This and much more will get our values and habits to change…-
Giovanni listened quietly. The two young men seemed to understand that that was only the beginning of a new world, new and full of unfamiliar situations. He felt almost old. Not so much old but he felt he was holding on to a time that was not going to be the same and would have easily got out of his hands. He saw his children in an unknown future and, like every father, he was afraid he could not protect them as he would have wanted.
Rudi and Fosco left again after a few days. Rudi had now decided to move to Milano. Fosco would help him get a job for his newspaper.
1 Chapter XII
1919
Fosco’s flat was small and always untidy. Plates and glasses would easily fill up suddenly the kitchen, which you could access climbing two steps. The desk was packed with pieces of papers, it was huge as compared to the rest of the furniture, it had been moved under the window of the sitting room and now the bed for the new guest had taken its place. Fosco insisted on giving him the only bedroom because he did not sleep that much
-You see, with all the mess that’s around here, you are running the risk that during the night, in the darkness, I can fall on top of you. You are safer there. -
Rudi did not accept.
As a matter of fact, Fosco did sleep very little. During the hottest evenings he would look outside the window for hours smoking, watching the night life in Milan where now and again a drunkard would fall down to the ground quietly by a lamp post and tried hard to get back up mumbling meaningless sentences. Women with flashy clothes showing a low-cut neckline would pass by laughing far too merrily, wrapped around men of any age who would stop to hug them with lust and kiss them on the neck. To Fosco was enough a gesture, a word pronounced in the quietness of the night to be able to imagine the lives of unknown passers-by, follow their thoughts and their habits to the squalor of their houses or to the respectable routine of a bourgeois life.
The whispers of the city at night, mixed with the dampness, would get into the room and would fill it with a strange sadness which blended with the smoke of the cigarettes. That went on until the malaise that took over him was almost unbearable. He then closed the window to keep it outside.
Only at daybreak the city started to change. The doors of the house opened and closed quietly. Men and women would go out lazily to go to work, doing one another’s chores which could not even thought of before the war. People who knew one another greeted with a nod of their heads, the others would pass by without looking at one another, still thinking about their bed and their sleep. Often that was the time when Fosco would go to bed, and then wake up a short time after, rested as if he had slept all night. Sometimes dawn would come all of a sudden, as by surprise, and he was busy writing.
Rudi got to know him and did have the intention to get him to change his habits. That’s why they decided to bring another table in the bedroom so that it could be Fosco’s new desk, where to spend his long sleepless nights.
Fosco did not have to insist too much to get his friend employed by the same newspaper. It was necessary to have young people willing to follow the fast events which were troubling the city. Rudi introduced himself as a young man suitable to follow the city news section. He was out and about with the new job. In the evening, when he got home they commented together on the daily events, more and more concerned about the feeling of distress which could be felt in the city
-Today I saw a group of women who were demonstrating outside a bakery. They were screaming that the bread can’t be four times more expensive than a few months ago. The baker got scared and locked up the shop-.
-Since the end of the war, life has become more difficult. After the peace, life has not gone back to normal as we hoped. Too much discontent, too many promised that have not been kept. I fear that this situation will lead to the worse-
-No matter where you go, there are groups of people who talk about wages going down, the cost of living has gone up enormously, new taxes on the way and those who are back from the front after a long time do not have a job anymore-
-We must expect many and new social changes, Rudi, many and new-
-Yesterday I went past the headquarters of that new movement.
-Which one?-
-The Italian fascist movement-
-Have you seen anything unusual?-
-No, but I had the impression that contrapositions between different movements will not fail to show up soon-
-If acceptable solutions for everyone are not found soon, if this discontentment is underestimated, I am afraid that there will be serious consequences to face-
In Milan, industry and agricultural workers along with retailers would get together more and more often to express their difficulties that the government seemed to ignore. Virtually every day there were riots which were more or less violent among groups of nationalist and socialist rioters. There were numerous parades and political meetings which easily ended up violently and the population, from the richest to the poorest, lived in a state of great distress, in the cities as well as all over Italy.
Fosco and Rudi got up early. The mid -April light was just about peeping through the windows. It was going to be a long and busy day. That morning a general strike was scheduled by the Socialist Party after the riots with the police occurred two days before. A worker died and a few others had got injured.
Fosco was standing beside the cooker making a very strong coffee, the first one of a long series.
-I am concerned- Rudi said – All it takes is for the wrong bunch of people to join the parade for everything to degenerate.-
-With what is going on daily in the city, it is really very worrying- Fosco replied tightening too much the coffee maker. He managed to find a bagful of real coffee, instead of that stuff that people had been using for years now. The morning preparation was very accurate, virtually meticulous. To They kept silent, deep in their thoughts, listening to the sound of the water that was starting to boil. Fosco accurately turned the coffee maker around. Rudi smiled at his great commitment. A lovely smell of coffee all over the kitchen.
-Do you think that the nationalists will give up their demonstration against the official one?
-I don’t think so- Fosco replied – the parade was cancelled but I fear that not everybody is in agreement. I bel someone will demonstrate anyway. It won’t be easy to keep under control the most riotous ones among the socialists-
More silence in the room. Staring at the empty cups, the two friends sat still deep in their thoughts.
Fosco was the first one to break his inner monologue
-Where is the newsroom sending you today?- he asked
-I’ll be in the city centre keeping an eye on people’s state of mind …what about you?-
-I’m going to the Arena to a political meeting-
-Shall we meet up at the newsroom headquarters tonight?-
-We’ll stay up till late tonight…-
-Yes, we’ll stay up till late tonight- Rudi replied.
1 Chapter XIII
At the newsroom
What Fosco and Rudi feared was true.
Despite the speakers pleading to end the political meeting peacefully, an extremist fringe had headed off to the city centre.
Rudi was at Piazza del Duomo when the first nationalists arrived. They were mainly young students and army cadets who were getting agitated trying to understand what they could do. The police was keeping an eye on them trying to avoid aggressive actions. The group went ahead. Rudi followed it all along the way. At Piazza Cavour other protesters joined in. The most rowdy people were shouting –To the Duomo , to the Duomo- and all the people were restless not knowing exactly what was going on.
One of his colleagues got scared by what was happening and warned him that a group of socialist protesters was about to get there too.
-They are coming, they are coming- he shouted all excited.
-Who?-
-The other ones, the other ones…-
-Where?-
-Over there, over there, from Via Mercanti…-
It was happening what Rudi feared. The police themselves, despite all their efforts, did not manage to break up the protesters. The clash was inevitable .
Truncheons, rocks and gunshots left several wounded and a dead person on the ground. Rudi was trying to keep at a distance without missing out the events.
At the end of the toughest clashes, the nationalists won but people were not satisfied and the bustling crowd headed off this time to the newsroom headquarters Rudi and Fosco worked for.
What happened inside and outside the newsroom headquarters was just horrible. Journalists found it difficult themselves to report what happened.
Only the day after the two young men realised the dreadful mess that they had made: they used the clubs and flammable liquids to destroy everything.
Back at home Giovanni read the news on the newspaper. Before breaking it to the family, he tried to get in touch with Rudi. That was the only way to reassure Giulia completely.
Rudi himself contacted him on a public phone. After reassuring him that he was fine, they agreed that he would have written a letter explaining all the events he had witnessed.
The series of news that referred daily to these kinds of events started to worry Giovanni.
In the village too there were some small groups of people with a different views that were expressing their dissatisfaction but the disagreements never went beyond the mere oral level. After Ada’s death, the family life got its routine made of daily events related to work and some little worries. Violent riots like what happened in Milan did not predict anything good. The worries about the future for everyone added onto the distress of everyday life.
Rudi’s letter arrived. He wrote about the newsroom headquarters could carry on its work among many difficulties, about how worried he was about the events happening in the city where the Arditi* formation of the shock troops, led by Benito Mussolini, was becoming more and more popular..
*Note: Arditi was the name adopted by the Royal Italian Army elite special force of WW1
1 Chapter XIV
1925
Giulia up before dawn and was busy around the kitchen trying to be as quiet as possible. Everybody was still asleep. It was Sunday and there was no school for the children. They could stay in bed for a couple of hours.
School.
She was smiling thinking about how Antonino put up with it. In a few months’ time he was going to sit his final diploma exam and his torture would be over. The high school years had been really hard for him, he carried out his duty only because he knew he had to and he did not dare to rebel against it but he would grab any chance he had to get away from it. She saw him coming down from his room with an angry face every time he had spent time just to do his homework and come back cheerful and full of energy from a day at the land, doing the heady jobs of the adults. She would have liked to lift him from that commitment forced on him by the family. Every time he would go up the stairs, with a long face, with his books and copy books to lock himself into his room to study, she would find any excuse to go in and talk to him or bring him a piece of cake.
Clara seemed to be bothered by her rare intrusions. School had always been a pastime for her. She learnt quickly and she was able to carry out any task quickly and at the best of her abilities. Giulia went up with an excuse just to check on her, to see how she spent her time.
Every time she went into her room, she was reading the books that she borrowed from the school library and she would ask the same question every time:
-Clara, would you like anything?- and the same answer followed
-No, thank you, I’ll be down in a minute.-
Their relationship had not improved. Giulia saw her grow up with the pride of a mother for her daughter who was more beautiful every day and with the worry that there was this invisible obstacle which did not let her and nobody else get in to get to the bottom of her thoughts. The relationship with her father was her favourite like when she was small but Giovanni’s look had changed too. She was sixteen now and Clara was too big now for the complicity they had when she was a child. He wanted to protect her still, he would look at her when she was not looking and was overwhelmed by fear and jealousy for her. Antonino now would make her often laugh with his spontaneity. He had kept with her, and with everybody else, a cheerful and straightforward he relationship. Given the fact that he was older and stronger, when he was close to her, he would tease her with little punches and gentle pushes which would make her sway, and then he would whisper in her ear:
-Can you write the composition for me for tomorrow?-
