One Summer in Italy. Sue Moorcroft
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even before he answered.
‘At first,’ Ernesto sighed. ‘But there were difficulties.’
‘Difficulties?’
Ernesto hesitated. Then said, ‘In not so many years your mother became ill and passed away. I think Aldo had much on his mind, many worries and griefs. Grief upon grief. When your grandparents died I think he finally left Italy behind and embraced England.’
‘But when he became very ill he talked about Montelibertà constantly. He asked me to come here. We spoke Italian almost all the time.’ Eyes prickling, she grabbed a paper napkin to blow her nose.
Ernesto’s eyebrows quirked. ‘Ah! Parli Italiano?’
At first Sofia only managed a strangled ‘Si.’ But when she’d swallowed her tears she told him, in Italian, how much her father had loved his country, even if he’d never been able to return. How she’d once wanted to take a degree in Italian but Aldo’s health had never permitted such a commitment. ‘My secret wish was to come to Italy to study, but it was so impossible that I never mentioned it to him. Maybe I’ll do it some day.’
Ernesto gave his moustache a thorough wipe as if needing time to compose himself. But when he looked up, his eyes were smiling again. ‘And you not only speak our language but with the accent of Montelibertà! Now, shall we walk to the cemetery? Or I can fetch my car.’
Sofia jumped up. ‘Let’s walk. Dad wanted me to take flowers.’
Ernesto made an expansive gesture. ‘There is a little cart at the cemetery gates. There you can buy.’ They left behind the aroma of coffee and set off diagonally across the piazza.
On leaving the square they took the shady side of a street that snaked uphill in the opposite direction to Casa Felice. Sofia broached the other subject on her mind. ‘I noticed you didn’t mention my father’s brother, Gianni Bianchi. Did you know him too?’
For several seconds, Ernesto was silent. Then he said, ‘I know him still. He lives here in Montelibertà.’
Promise #5: Drink Orvieto Classico in Montelibertà.
Sofia stopped short in excitement. ‘He still lives here? I know so little about him. For a long time the only family members Dad mentioned were his grandparents. Then one day he was feeling melancholy and said, “I should tell you about your Uncle Gianni.”’
Ernesto turned to wait for her, great eyebrows lifting. ‘And what did he tell you?’
Sofia’s breath came quicker as the slope steepened. ‘Just that Gianni existed, really. I was intrigued – I suppose I’d always assumed he would have mentioned siblings long ago if he had any. I asked a lot of questions but he just said Gianni was younger than him.’
‘Si. Two years, I think.’
‘Two years isn’t much. I thought it would be a lot more, that maybe they hadn’t kept in touch because they had nothing in common.’
‘They had much.’ Then Ernesto began to comment on the streets they were passing through, slanting ever upward. ‘In summer the town is full of sun. In winter, full of snow. This hill, like all the hills, becomes very difficult. We are surrounded by the mountain with only one piece going down. In the past, it was easy to defend. It is an old town, Montelibertà. We have less than ten thousand residents.’
‘But lots of tourists? You’re about midway between the airports at Perugia and Rome here, aren’t you?’
He nodded. ‘Many tourists, but often for short visits or day trips. There is not so much—’ He paused, clicking his fingers as if to summon up a word. ‘Entertainment,’ he selected, in the end.
Sofia replied in Italian to give him a break from speaking English and his smiles became ever more frequent as he chatted about the town with the knowledge and affection that came from lifelong citizenship. It was half an hour before they reached a cemetery so steep that the gravestones looked as if they had ranked to watch over the town, but to Sofia it seemed to whizz by.
She bought a bunch of yellow roses at the gates and Ernesto led her up several pathways until they reached a particular marker set in the floor. ‘This row, plot E54. We must search because the lines are long and the marks are old.’
He was right. It took them a good fifteen minutes of following row E, which wavered and wandered around trees and occasional outcroppings of rock, before they met with success.
In the end, it was Sofia’s eye that was caught by the sight of her own surname on a small squared-off column of black marble with a white marble angel on top. ‘Agnello Francesco Ricardo Bianchi, nato Dicembre 2 1938, morto Aprile 29 1997. Maria Vittoria Bianchi, nata Gennaio 21 1940, morta Aprile 29 1997,’ she read. Agnello born in December, Maria in January, and they’d died together in their fifties.
She lowered herself before the column, not as a mark of respect but because her knees felt as if someone had whipped them away.
There were two ovals of porcelain affixed to the column and on them were photos of her grandparents.
To suddenly know what her grandparents looked like gave her a strange, fizzing feeling. Aldo hadn’t brought family photographs away from Italy with him, and if anybody had sent him any Sofia had never seen them.
She gazed at the ceramic likenesses. Agnello’s strong straight nose reminded her of her father’s – and for that matter of her own, though she was glad to have a more ladylike, less beaky version. Maria’s face bore a smile both mischievous and sweet, a smile Aldo had inherited. Instead of merely being names, her grandparents became people. People she would have known as Nonno and Nonna … if she’d known them. But if they’d wanted to know her, wouldn’t they have travelled to the UK even if Aldo had been unable or unwilling to travel here?
Finally, becoming aware of minutes passing and Ernesto waiting in silence, Sofia glanced uncertainly at the flowers in her hands. There was a pot at the base of the black marble column containing a collection of crumbling lavender spikes. Would she cause offence to someone – perhaps her uncle Gianni – if her roses supplanted them? Finally deciding she’d cross that bridge if she ever reached it, she removed the dying spikes and, fingers trembling, arranged the roses in their stead.
Then, clearing her throat, she spoke to the photos. ‘Aldo was a very good man,’ she said in Italian. ‘He looked after me and I looked after him. At the end of his life he was sorry he’d lost you before he could rebuild your relationship, but he always loved you.’
She stood up and dusted off her hands, sending Ernesto a tentative smile. ‘Do you think that was OK?’
He made a movement of his fulsome eyebrows and the moustache twitched. ‘Perfetto.’ Perfect.
They ambled back down the hill together, Sofia beginning to wish she’d brought a bottle of water. At least the view as they trekked back down provided distraction. She could see clearly how Montelibertà lay in a bowl on three sides, the fourth plunging down to the valley. The distant peaks rising beyond were like giants wearing lilac bonnets and cloaks of grey-green woodland.
Shifting her gaze to the town, Sofia picked out Casa Felice and the roof of the church of Santa Lucia. Ernesto pointed out a couple of smaller churches, the library and the town hall. Skyscrapers had never come to the historic town and she saw not a single ugly building amongst the orange-brown roofs and shuttered windows.
Now she could tick off one promise from her list, but another was crowding to the forefront of her mind. ‘If you know my Uncle Gianni, do you know whether he has children? Cousins of mine?’
‘Yes, you have a cousin. I do not remember her name. And you have an aunt, of course – Gianni’s wife is called