Lucia day in Ghedi
By
Francesco Lolli
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Annita Bascialla (11/07/1922, 01/04/2010)
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Copyright Francesco Lolli 2011
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Cover design by F. Lolli
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I have to thank Diego Franciotta, my reader and judge and Gloria for the tolerance in my hours of writing.
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Ghedi was only a small town at the time, known only for his big military airport. The district is that of Brescia, in the plans of the north of Italy. My father in that year is the second officer of the Italian part of the airport, coordinated with the Americans. My mother is the director of the elementary schools, and I am in my second year of school . We live in small house within the airport at the border of the town, hostel to officer’s families. The area is known for the fog so strong to impede many activities during winter. To us, kids, in that winter it is more important that we w,ill celebrate soon Saint Lucia, the 13th of December. Santa Lucia is an early Christian martyr, much venerated all other Europe. In Scandinavia the celebration is during the night, and a girl dress as the young Lucia bring candles on the head as a crown. In Latin the name of Lucia (Lux) mean light; so she offer light to the followers and protect the blinds. In Italy, the celebration is very varied. Only in a few cities, usually in the extreme north or sought, the cult of Lucia is vivid. In the area of Brescia and Mantova, the cult of Lucia is very strong. In the morning, while the kids are still sleeping, she will brings us the presents we have asked, usually through a written letter delivered by our parents. I never wrote such a letter to Lucia. What is the meaning to write a letter to a Saint? Saints certainly know my desires through their connection with God. The procedure was completed in our home without all of the consultation that the “Befana”, the witch of the 12th night, apparently does with the families, in particular with my mother, while waiting for the epiphany. The 6th of January the witch will also bring us new presents or coal bits, or both, to judge your behavior during the year. For the kids in Brescia, she is no more that an ugly copy of Lucia. That nasty witch always brought me dresses as presents, and a few coal bits marked always that I couldn’t be entirely a good kid. Each year, with specific individual reasons, I had my faults marked. I recognized a marked sense of duty close to that of my parents.
I never saw such a package. It was tall as me, tighten with a waxed blue paper. The joy was more that the anticipation to know what it was inside. I was instructed by my mother to open saving the nice and expensive package, but my hands were so small and clumsy. I ran to the kitchen to collect the scissors and then opened the box in front of my father and mother, looking unusually silent, in our biggest room. It is a cowboy costume! There was a large black hat, the dress was a jeopardy pattern in black and red. The shoes were not included, but there were wicked wheel spurs to be added to simpler shoes. I felt the hart pulsation in my throat when my mother dress me. Miraculously the costume fitted me. It was an American costume, coming from USA through American families of the airport officers, the size larger than the Italians . I was much bigger then my age, but certainly Lucia knew my size better than my mother. I was so happy, and shouted for the joy. With my mother and my father, we are lingering some more time home. I cannot breath for the joy. It’s school time and I dared to ask to go to school with my new costume. I knew of course that it was not possible. My mother helped me to change rapidly to my usual black school uniform with the promise to dress me again in the afternoon.
I remember exactly the moment in which I opened the house door. I did carefully. I expected something extraordinary. The door opened in our small garden and we never had a garden later moving to Florence. I knew already that the fog was at the extreme of not seeing the other side of the street. I noticed that there were no take-off in the airport, the visibility certainly was not enough. A line of linden trees along the street accompanied me to school. I moved forward jumping in the run from tree to tree, without really seeing the direction, in a playfield field that we kids used for football in the summer. I reach the pedestrian crossing behind the school. There, we must wait the policeman for help in crossing the street, an order by my parents. The air look like milk in days such as this in Ghedi, when the fog resist even a relatively strong winter sun. My school is in the confronting border of town, the entrance is a wide passage; 3 marble steps enter in the center, the ground floor has a large room and it does not look like a school entrance. The classes are on the first and second floor. The day is special. Usually my classmates are taken here from the large farms nearby early in the morning. They had to help in milking the cows from the earliest hours, and you could feel it from their smell. Usually they are so sleepy, but not today. Like little soldiers in black uniforms we are taken to the class and stand in a line. All our faces are a single smile. Talking too much is impossible, but all have to exchange which were our Lucia presents. My closest mate said he has received a dog. He would take him home in the afternoon, and he will be probably allowed to take the dog within the house. I understood that that his present was better than mine, but I knew that pets were not allowed in my home. I described all the details of my cowboy dress. The master initiates a talk and dictation about Lucia. We really don’t know how Lucia could come, as promised. In the night she bring the presents, during the day she is materialized looking as a human. She would slowly walk from street, moving with great attention as every blind do. She will hold her removed eyes in a little disk, as she does it in the scary paintings of the church. She shows us this way the pain she had offered God for us. Our eyes, should be entirely closed while she will bring us the holy spirit, as the punishment for seeing Lucia would be blindness. Even the “Befana” does not request a task so difficult. We are all sitting nervously. An hour has already passed. May be Lucia had too many presents to deliver to other kids in the world, and she will not come.
Suddenly we heard something moving in the milky air outside the school. Then silence again, some adults were talking slowly, the time was stopped. Slowly 3 steps marked somebody entering the school. The movements were accompanied by the ring of a little bell, very gentle and argentine. All noise was cancelled to listen. It would certainly be Lucia. Out teacher will tell us when Lucia will be directly close to our class. We are in the first floor. For a long time in the floor only the silence. Minutes looking like hours pass in preoccupation, with just the murmur of the heart beats. With a mounting concern, we then heard small, heavy steps on the staircase. How Lucia has found our ways in blindness is out of the question. The steps of Lucia were soon in line with our door, the rings insignificantly stronger. Our door is finally open with a sway. I try to squeeze my eye as strong as I can. For so long, we felt the suffering of Lucia confronting each one of us. Our little throbbing is nothing to compare to her suffering. I was in one of the first lines. To me it was like I will finally faint. Unconscious, I will surely have no risk to open the eye. The sight of Lucia looks like the X-ray we learnt from the notes of sciences and are used by the doctors. The door was closed at the end of some minutes. We immediately open the eyes, the milking fog outside was looking even whiter, the sun will take Lucia and the fog now slowly away again. Our presents are waiting at home and we will have to wait an whole year to confront Lucia again. The whole thing may look irrational, we all knew that Lucia already came to our houses during our sleep. What is the reason to appear again? To comfort our sight and brings hope for the future? We will never understand it clear.
I knew it all, long before I was told. I can see it clearly now just closing eyes. That morning my mother while I was sleeping collected the little silver bell that still is in our family cupboard, wrapping the bell in a paper to silence it. Going to school, she had already organized all the play. She moved out of the house looking at her frozen roses, she knew how difficult will be for us to have a garden in the city. The house is full of flowers, presents for the approaching of Christmas. She was collected by car or drove to the main school. A few years before she finally received from Lucia her present, a painful and dangerous motherhood. Her step are slow, a severe venous thrombosis left swollen legs and pain. She had some preoccupation for the day and for our future. From the main building of the school, a few kilometers away, she was a severe commander of secretaries and masters in the small town. At the planned time she came taken to our building, approaching the area walking from some distance, to have no one to note cars approaching. Then, with her slow steps at the side of the linden, she would have come in front. All is ready within the building; we are all waiting within the classes. My master would let her in from outside. The little bell started a sound so gentle that only the silence would allow us to hear. Slowly she passed the three steps to enter the school. She started visiting the classes, but, if the day is for all, her mind would be concentrated only in me. The steps to my class in the first floor were the most painful. She did knock at the door while moving the bell at a faster pace, to prepare each one of the kids. The door was gently opened, and slowly she browsed the eyes of every kid. While pointing to my eyes, she would have conceded only a few second more, taking the time for one of her indecipherable, pearly-white, half- smiles. Only I could have noted a hint of preoccupation for the future, and for her duty of mother. You did not tell me of how much pain you suffered already for me, mother Lucia, and for how long we will have to stand sufferance. Mother, do not worry, she would have read in my face. The days of my passion are so distant and I don’t know how many years have forward. Luckily, you probably will not see my demise. In the room, in the time of these second, no one could have read our two minds, while she would have moved to look into the eyes of each kid in the class, as Lucia would have done. At the exit of our class, a rapid hidden tear would have passed walking away, her steps becaming even shorter at the end of the visit.
Every December, the Lucia day passes unnoticed here in Florence. The house of my parents is closed and empty. None lives there, but I can still hear a gentle bell ring in that morning. I will sell our home this year. That sound will not stop, as I will be nearby. I hope to last to the age of my retirement, still 20 years away. In my last lessons, teaching neurology, I will be worried for not being in the University for the next examinations in the summer. That is the last mark to a change to come for professors, and only schooling has to be larger than life in my family. In my head, I will wear a large cowboy hat, but no one would note it. I had his shadow to protect my head for all these years, and no one has yet noticed it. The spurs for the shoes were immediately broken, and I could not fix it any longer, even in my mind. I will still hate coal bits though, as today. In the afternoon, I would go to collect a dog, my first, and I will wait the end of the time for studying. Mother, look how are open my eyes now; I had no fear of you or anything else later. Lucia, thanks for my best present.
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