Klaus Zambiasi

Table of contents

1  Title

2  Index

3  Dedication

4  The news

5  Our small house

6  Surprise visit

7  What you donât expectâ¦

8  Portobello

9  Smells like home

10  The longest night

11  The force of habit

12  The Campsite

13  Cavalleria rusticana

14  Sunday morningâ¦

15  Weekend in the province

16  Magical Nights

17  The Nineties

Title

The smile of the moon

based on a true story

Klaus Zambiasi

translated from âIl sorriso della lunaâ

by

Giacomo LilliÃ¹

www.traduzionelibri.it

Index

Dedication

The news

Our small house

Surprise visit

What you donât expectâ¦

Portobello

Smells like home

The longest night

The force of habit

The Campsite

Cavalleria rusticana

Sunday morningâ¦

Weekend in the province

Magical Nights

The Nineties

Dedication

Your idea, your idea

Donât give up, defend your idea!

Do you remember when you used to give birth to a song

And when hope had your eyes?

Youâll win, if you want to

But donât let your years fool you!

Now thereâs a reason why the sky is blue

Stop love, donât let it go awayâ¦

âLa tua ideaâ (1) â Renato Zero

I invoke the stars, eyes fixed up above

But everything has ran away, in the river of us

My desire is your image

The sweet countryside that once bloomed

Sitting in the middle of the night, I wish I could implore you

I trace your name on the earth, in your glow

Weâll love each other forever, even after weâre goneâ¦

Sitting in the middle of the night, and the nature here

To remind me about love, adolescent upon me

Weâll love each other forever, even after weâre gone

Your body is thought, even after weâre goneâ¦

Dedicated to my grandmother

1 TN (Translatorâs note): âYour Ideaâ. The original Italian lyrics are as follow: âLa tua idea, la tua idea / Non mollare, ma difendi la tua idea! / Ricordi quando ti nasceva una canzone / E quando la speranza aveva gli occhi tuoi? / Vincerai, se lo vuoi / Ma non farti fregare gli anni tuoi! / Il blu del cielo forse adesso ha una ragione / Ferma lâamore, non lasciarlo andar via...â

The news

Itâs 8.03 pm on an April evening in 1970.The black and white TV atop the fridge in the townâs bar is broadcasting the national news on the first channel.

Paul McCartney, in the middle of an endless array of microphones, has just announced during a press conference that the Beatles are officially splitting up, shocking millions of fans across the world and throwing them into a turmoil.

Itâs the first story of every national and international news, the scenes alternating between teenagers, young girls and ladies of any age, all desperate for the end of their idolsâ band.

The bar is dominated by cigarette smoke, with a couple of classical still lives hanging on the wall.

Thereâs an old man, white-bearded and pipe in hand, looking like a sailor, and seeing him here, in a small town in the middle of the Dolomites, feels somewhat odd. Heâs celebrating the latest victory of Gigi Rivaâs Cagliari, about to win its first ever football championship. The âloyal regularsâ are playing cards and drinking red at their usual tables.

An abstract and unexpected sensation sweeps through the air, some family men go back to their homes.

The 8 oâclock news is also reporting about the American space shuttle Apollo 13, which has just taken off from the space station in Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to the moon. While orbiting in space, during the attempted moon landing, some technical problems hinder its arrival. The event is broadcasted across the world, keeping the viewers waiting with baited breath. Apparently, the three astronauts on board wonât be able to come back.

They risk an awful end on live TV, unless they manage to repair their malfunctions and return in time, landing safe and sound on the Pacific Ocean.

There must have been some strange and particularly hostile conjunction of stars these days in the April skies.

Thatâs probably what Mr Remo also thought when they told him what happened at his house.

He was there at the bar playing cards as usual; in theory, come dinner time, a good husband should be home with his family.

But we all know how these things go, one more game, letâs play another, the rematch, the finalâ¦ and so on, time flies. He fit in that context, at least until the news, the shocking news, reached him.

He doesnât even have the strength or the courage to go back home â Remo can neither know nor imagine whatâs waiting for him there.

A dear friend of his offers to put him up for that night, and the following too, should he need to. Remo gladly accepts: after all, friends are often an essential anchor one can cling onto for a little comfort at painful times like these.

Not far from there thereâs a great bustle, some commotion, itâs hard to understand whatâs happening, blue and red lights in the night. A white cloak blends into the crowd, almost like a spectator, staying and watching the scene and not knowing whether to vanish or to give up to their own conscience.

An elderly mother, incredulous and desperate, is trying to take care of her own young daughter, while a life is ending.

Four years and ninety days laterâ¦

Our small house

Tears are shooting stars, fallen from a most hidden universe also known as our soul.

We seldom cry with joy, more often with sadness, in any case always emanating a strong emotion from ourselves.

Sometimes Iâd do two opposite things at the same time, crying and feeling like laughing, unable to stop the tears even if I wanted to, the need to cry getting stronger and stronger. I wanted to explain to my childhood friends that nothing had happened, but in-between sobs I still felt like laughing.

Iâm Joe, the youngest of the family, and Iâm just four years old. Sitting on the balcony of the house, Iâm keenly observing the stars in the August sky, dressed in intensely luminous cobalt blue.

Here in the mountains, three thousand feet in the air, this kind of landscape is charming, the stars are so bright I could almost grab them with my hands. The full moonâs shine softly kissing the Sciliar(2), a light but constant breeze blowing under my nose, scented by mown field grass dried by the scorching sun of the day. A magical trail tasting like freedom and wilderness. I believe this scent has both a relaxing and regenerating effect, in my case even therapeutic.

Up on the left, the belfry rises with its big onion dome, the symbol of our town, its lights inviting me in the distance, the country fair music diffusing in the darkness, mixing itself with the cricketsâ and the cicadasâ call in the fields below.

I love the cricketsâ chirp-chirp in the fields during summer evenings and especially nights, it makes me feel serene and peaceful. Itâs almost like an open-air concert, like nature telling us it lives in harmony, and so do we within it.

Itâs an indefinite sense of freedom and adventure that makes me wish I could sleep in the fields under the stars. But Iâm afraid Iâll still have to wait for this wish of mine to come trueâ¦

I hear mamma Barbaraâs feet coming, anticipated by the creaking of the dry, worn-out balcony woodâ¦

âCome inside, itâs time to go to sleep.â

âAll right, five more minutes, letâs watch the moon and the

stars together.â

âCome sit on my kneesâ

and we tightly hug, my cheek onto her soft cheek.

Mamma Barbara is a sweet and caring mother, her cheeks are as soft as grandmaâs. She really loves children and has a special touch with them, she impersonates motherly love, it fits her to a t. When Iâm in her arms I feel enveloped in a blanket in which I find all I need. A hug often works better than most words or medicines, it can shake you and give you a sense of inner calm, itâs all a matter of your state of mind, of what your soul needs.

I live with my family in a small mountain farm at the feet of the Sciliar. We have various animals, cows, sheep, two horses, rabbits, chickens giving us what we need to live, and theyâre looked after mainly by our father, Karl. Here in Castelrotto, life flows regularly, in full symbiosis with nature dictating its rhythm to the days. In the morning the sun rises caressing the tops of the Sciliar and hiding behind them, finally revealing itself in all its glory above the whole valley. In the evening, sunsets last for quite a lot, until the sun goes to sleep behind the distant mountain chains standing out in the skies of Bolzano and Merano.

I also have a brother, Oswald, who is seven, and a sister, Waltraud, who is ten, sheâs the eldest. When my brother Oswald and my sister Waltraud come back from school and finish their homework we often play together, heâs like my guardian brother, Waltraud looks after me like a second mum, sheâs of great help to mamma Barbara with the housework, just like Oswald is to papa Karl with the cattle in the stable.

2 TN: Italian name of the Schlern.

To be fair I too lend them a hand, obviously itâs nothing more than a game for me, I ask a lot of questions, Iâm very curious and fascinated by this rural world. Some days ago, while helping Oswald throwing hay from the barn to the stable below through the square hole which opens directly next to the trough, I fell into it, finding myself close to the cows munching their hay and looking bewildered at me.

In the summer months, like now in August, we spend entire days in the fields gathering hay. I mostly have fun, running and jumping across the rows of hay like a prancing colt. I often play with small frogs, sometimes I even manage to catch them and carry them in our home garden, but they always find a way to escape. I really like going with Karl on the motorized lawnmower, imitating the noise and the gestures and enjoying the smell of petrol which is an orange mixture looking just like orange juice syrup. Mamma Barbara soon runs out of patience at my imitations:

âHow much more are you going to last with that ânyu nyu,

nyu nyuâ? Stop it please.â

And Iâm sad Iâve annoyed her, so I keep doing it quietly or I simply mime it.

Our small house is simple, somewhat old but itâs just like a fairy tale house, HÃ¤nsel and Gretel, that kind of stuff.

With a balcony opening onto the perfumed fields below, the house is placed close to a tiny church and a small crossroads of tight streets, which could be called the townâs centre or square.

For us children, itâs the courtyard where we meet and play with the gang, since almost all of the inhabited houses are there. Some of our neighbours even have seven or eight children, we must be about thirty kids in total.

The barn and the stable are five hundred yards from there, and nearby we also have a small vegetable garden with beautiful flowers and a lot of sunflowers cared for by mamma Barbara, I obviously give her a hand, well, at least kind of. Thereâs also a creek which is a hoot to splash around in, every time I pass it by I want to drink all that fresh water and dive headlong from the small wooden bridge.

We can even hear its sound when the windows are open, and itâs a pleasing presence for the ears and the nose when I deeply breathe that fresh air at morning and at sundown.

And watching the thin mist lifting from the valley at the feet of the Sciliar when the sun is rising, like a theatre curtain at the beginning of a play.

A place like this offers an infinity of spaces for playing, arousing and developing your imagination and tickling creativity.

Like our belfry, which we consider some sort of headquarters: it has long been in disuse, but that isnât a problem for us. We can climb to the top and enjoy the view on our territory from there or we can hide in it when we need to.

We are quite poor, but we get by, producing milk and selling a couple of animals every now and then. But money is never enough to provide for everyone, so mamma Barbara supplements our income by fostering children of all ages at home for periods between a couple of weeks and some months, often during summer.

Children in need of temporary accommodation or of a summer stay, many of them with problems at home, in their family, or with no family at all. Here they all can find shelter and especially love, which is what they need the most, waiting for their own situations to get better or to end up who knows where.

One could also imagine it as a parking lot, or a warehouse where lost parcels wait for a destination.

I remember a blond girl, Eva, who last year stayed with us for some time, she was so sweet, she had a problem with her hands. Her maternal grandmother had drinking issues, and once, sitting drunk in front of the stove, she had tried to warm Evaâs hands by putting them on the piping-hot plate, burning her palms.

So last year they took her here in the mountains to recover and escape from that situation.

Poor thing, she was my playmate at that time, we used to go play in the square, I had my favourite car, a pale-yellow beetle, and she had her dolls.

One morning we were sitting on the ground playing in the courtyard, we looked at each other and at a certain point our faces got nearer and nearer and we gave each other a kiss, innocent but full of affection, I remember it so well, I mustâve fallen in love.

The day after I realized Iâd left my beetle on the courtyard floor: a car had run over it and squashed it, turning it into a convertible.

Some days later the girl had to leave, a woman and a man had come to take her away, I got very sad, I remember I thought âIâve just got engaged, and sheâs already gone.â

I hoped sheâd come back one day, every day Iâd go back and play with my beetle in that same spot, even if it was beaten-up it reminded me of the time we spent together.

Unfortunately, Iâve neither seen her nor heard from her since, I hope sheâs all right now. Itâd be nice to see her again one day, probably far away from here. You never know, so I kept hoping.

When one of our âsiblings in adventureâ must leave to go back to their original family or somewhere else, itâs usually a sad moment for us. The longer they stay, the more we bond, and especially for mamma Barbara itâs hard to say goodbye to these unlucky children and let them go. She suffers a lot and she frequently cries, if it were for her she would keep everyone with her.

When that happens, I try to comfort her, it breaks my heart to see her cry, I can partly cheer her up, because we love each other. To be honest I must admit that even though itâs kind of tragic, I still see it in a positive light, at least I can remain here with her and our family.

To make sure thatâs true I often ask her:

âIsnât it true that I can stay here with you and the others forever? Iâll cheer you up whenever you need, and youâll do the same.â

She smiles melancholily, and replies:

âYes darling, what are we going to do around here if you leave too?â

Sometimes itâs also hard to share everything with the other kids, jealousies and envies spring up every now and then, but I think thatâs normal, itâs a way to learn the rules of living together.

These places are so beautiful, I could never imagine having to leave someday. This thought really worries me, I often have a strange feeling, and when I think about it Iâm afraid that, by mistake or just for a laugh, someone may come here and take me away, like in a nightmare.

But now Iâm tired, Iâve got drowsy in mamma Barbaraâs arms and Iâve fallen asleep on her knees and I no longer see the stars in the sky, Iâve taken them with me in my sleep together with mamma Barbaraâs tender smile.

Surprise visit

The following morningâ¦

Oswald got up early this morning, he and Karl must have gone to the fields to make hay, I could tell from his empty bed, we sleep in the same room.

Waltraud, now a young woman, sleeps in her own room instead.

Mamma Barbara comes to wake me up, but Iâm already awake and canât wait to get up, I donât know why but in summer as soon as I see a ray of light Iâve got to get up and go outside.

Normally Iâm not a sleepyhead, I toss and turn before getting up, just like our football teams when they try to stall the game at the end of the first half.

In my mind, I can see mamma Barbaraâs breakfast perfectly: a large, huge, white, crunchy, thickly sliced loaf of freshly baked bread, nice and soft, with butter and homemade jam, and obviously our cowsâ fresh milk with some Ovaltine.

Itâs a bright sunny day, the viewâs spectacular, the August sky as clear as it can be, maybe weâre getting close to the end of the month, the first days of September are approaching.

Barbara cheerfully says to me:

âGrandmaâs coming to see us today, Iâve waited until now to

tell you, I wanted to make sure it was a surprise.â

âReally? Thatâs amazing, grandmaâs visiting from Bolzano, I

knew it was going to be a great day, I could tell when I

peeked out of my eyes and saw the sunrays shine as far as

the bedroom.â

I wasnât expecting that, itâs a real surprise, usually when grandma comes they tell me some days in advance, while this timeâ¦

About every fourteen days, often on a Sunday, but also during the week, on Tuesdays for example, our house and my heart are decked to their best, as soon as I finish breakfast I run to the bus stop to hug her as soon as I can.

If sheâs on time, she arrives at 10 in the morning, I always look forward to this moment. I see the bus arriving, I jump up and down impatiently, it gets closer to the stop, it stops, a friendly and intriguing noise, a whistle from the opening doors tgssschhhh and then they shut tgssschhhh toc.

The bus struggles a bit to start up again with a big smoke, suddenly grandmaâs silver hair appears and her sweet and charming smile wins me over as if it was a loverâs, itâs a childlike joy.

She always brings something for me, but she herself is the best present possible. When we return home, I help her carrying her bag and I fill her in with the latest news. We climb a mild slope, and after the first bend we can already see our house. Itâs so beautiful to walk hand in hand on the dirt road while Mamma Barbara waves at us in the distance.

When Iâm between them both and I hear them discuss or talk about me, about the pranks I pull with Oswald and the other kids, I feel like in a circle of sensations and pathos, coming to a close in that very moment Iâm experiencing.

Grandma and mamma Barbara have become very close friends. Barbara always says every time grandma comes to visit us itâs like a holiday for her too, she wonât do anything for the whole day apart from spending time with me and her.

During the week thereâs a lot of work to do here between the house, the family and the stable, but at least for a day she can rest for a bit and take a break from the country life routine.

For grandmaâs arrival, Mamma Barbara always cooks some traditional Alto Adige dishes which are so good, as well as traditional desserts such as strudel. They talk for hours on end, they have so many things to share with each other, itâs as if they are in a confessional. I believe having the chance to speak with a trustworthy and understanding friend such as grandma also works as a safety valve for mamma Barbara. After all, grandma has lived through both World Wars and seen it all. Her stories and anecdotes, which she describes with enjoyable intensity and emphasis, intrigue me too, I have a hunch Iâll be hearing these tales again and again.

Looking at them with attention while they speak, I notice they have the same soft cheeks and the same sweet smile, kind of hardened by their intense lives. Some faces are like books, you can almost read a personâs impressions and characteristics without a word from them, but for a child itâs better to hear adult people calmly talking all around them, itâs like music.

It gives you a certain sense of security, itâs like an invisible blanket wrapping you inside, itâs like love, you unconsciously record the voices and the many undefinable sensations.

I feel like thereâs a strong bond with grandma, itâs as if sheâs my guide, a channel between two worlds, the first is mamma Barbaraâs, the second is grandma Annaâs, who for four years now has been coming up to see me every two weeks.

At my age of four Iâve never asked myself whose mother she was, if sheâs my paternal grandmother orâ¦ she certainly canât be my maternal grandmother, since Barbaraâs not her daughter.

Papa Karl has his own mother, sheâs already almost ninety and she lives near us in the town, she looks after the chickens and the many cats we have.

Our holiday slowly draws to a close and starts getting tinged with melancholy, as soon as evening arrives grandma must go back home to Bolzano.

Iâd never want to hand her cloak, if only I could stop her from leaving:

âCouldnât you just stay over for some more days?'

âIâd gladly stay here with you, but you know I have work to

do in my fields and in my garden and my son is waiting for

me too. Just wait and see, Iâll be back soon, two weeks will

fly by.â

As I walk with her at the bus stop I receive her last advice and I tell her some of my wishes for our next encounter.

Now I give her a small kiss and I hug her long and hard, she slowly walks up the busâs steps while I follow her with my gaze, half amused, half blue. As if in slow motion, I enjoy every instant of her departure, then she sits next to the window and I wave her goodbye. The bus starts up with its usual black smoke, but now itâs going downhill. I wait until I see the bus disappear between the hairpin turns and the tunnels, and I stay motionless, listening to the busâs rumble disappear in the distance.

With that clumsy noise still in my ears I head home full of hope for her next visit, and at any rate happy since Iâm running back to mamma Barbara.

Happy times always pass the fastest, as soon as you start enjoying them theyâre already over. When I open the garden gate the smell of tomatoes freshly watered by mamma Barbara envelops me. The sunflowers are all turned towards the end of the valley, where the sunâs already set, all of them looking towards Bolzano as if they were also following grandmaâs homecoming.

In the kitchen the cakesâ smell is still hovering and tickling my appetite, the toy grandma brought me is on the table, I pick it up carefully and take it to my room. Iâm hungry and the soupâs already on the table and we eat supper together.

The following days pass by tranquilly, the usual routine, until the weekend, Saturday that is.

Some people have come to visit us, an elegant lady, Giuseppina, accompanied by two equally elegant men. They must be mamma Barbaraâs friends, even though it doesnât look like she knows them, the encounterâs very informal.

Anyway, theyâre nice and pleasant, especially one of the two men whoâs very cheerful and tells lots of jokes, it must be his thing. The ladyâs brought me a beautiful present, a battery locomotive that is now running fast across the living room, itâs got a light on the front making a sound like uhhhhhuuuuuu uhhhhuuuuuu.

Itâs as if itâs mad with joy, when it touches an obstacle it turns around and carries on regardless, I like it, Iâm so fascinated by this toy that I almost canât stop listening to its sound.

Theyâre drinking coffee with mamma Barbara, and theyâre talking, about me as well, after all Iâm the youngest in the family. The lady often smiles at me and I smile back, sheâs kind of mysterious, itâs almost like at some point her eyes are going to reveal a secret to me.

When these nice hours in the company of our guests are over, itâs time to say goodbye to them, the lady almost starts to cry, maybe itâs because she felt nice here with us.

Sheâs sorry to leave, as lots of people have been time and time again around here. When theyâve left, Mamma Barbara hugs me tight and kisses me on the forehead, sheâs also happy theyâve come to visit us.

âYou know, Iâm always happy when someone pays us a visit

us and I can offer them something good and we can have

some company. That lady already came once, you know,

with her brother and a friend.â

I couldnât remember them obviously, I must have been too young, so Barbara takes out some photographs in which we are together, the elegant lady is holding me in her arms. In another picture Iâm sitting on a small red pedal tractor, with a little red coat and a white woollen hat.

Then she shows me some more photographs, in which Iâm walking with a smartly dressed gentleman, weâre going hand in hand on a dirt road in the middle of the fields.

I know that place, itâs near home, on the hill full of walnut trees and the wild pears that taste sour when you eat them, like wood. If they arenât ripe and they have no âred cheeksâ theyâre impossible to eat.

In another picture Iâm in the middle of the field, Iâm picking flowers with a nice lady, sheâs smartly dressed, her hair styled.

Barbara explains to me that:

âThis ladyâs nameâs Miriam, sheâs come to visit you with her

husband Remo. You picked flowers for her and then you

brought some for me too, do you remember?â

âYes, vaguely, but I canât remember much.â

On the border of the photograph thereâs a date, âJuly 1973â, theyâd come to celebrate my birthday, I was only three then, now Iâm four already.

It was summer, itâs clear from the brightness and the light emanating from the photograph, typical of the month of July, and also from the fields full of grass and in bloom.

In yet another photo Iâm sitting on a bench under a walnut tree as Iâm taking a picture with a toy camera of the photographer, who mustâve been either Miriam or Remo.

I must say I feel lucky, the older I get the more the people who pay us visits bring me presents, even though I donât know any of them apart from grandma Anna.

There was only this one time, I remember it was last year, when grandma and a man had come to visit us in his car, a beige Fiat 127. I didnât know who the man was, his clothes were nice, he was kind of thin, they wanted to take me for a ride with them. I didnât want to, I refused to get in the car, it was too hot, it felt like an oven, I was afraid they would take me away. I started puking and crying and who knows what else, poor grandma. She was sitting on the front seat and she was keeping me in her arms, so she had to endure all the eventual consequences. She tried to cheer me up but who knows what she mustâve thought, the man bought me a toy rifle to make me feel better.

Luckily it was a toy, otherwise I could well have gone on a killing spree, then they sat me down on the back seat, at least there was some more space, the heat made it all sticky.

Iâll always remember the black plastic seatâs sunburned smell, I was in my shorts and I was sweating, whenever I tried to stand up I could feel the seatâs lining pasted on my back, as if theyâd glued me onto it.

The little trip had shaken me a little, perhaps because grandma usually came alone, while that time sheâd arrived with that man in his car. Ringing like an alarm bell, I had the feeling theyâd come to take me away, it would have been an awful shock.

Yet, later that afternoon weâd come back home to Barbara instead, I got off the car with my rifle in hand, then we said goodbye to grandma and the man. When I saw them leave in the beige Fiat 127, I felt nostalgic, I was sorry I had puked in the car and cried so much, after all theyâd just come for a visit. In the end I was happy, but the doubt they were trying to take me away was still present in me.

In a short time, I met many different new people, always good and kind to me and Barbara, they must really like me, even though I donât know them at all.

When youâre little, adults always think that many things go unnoticed or stay apparently insignificant, but actually a child is like a sponge, it absorbs everything, sometimes even subconsciously. All the perceived information and intuitions get pieced together, adding up to a mosaic which is almost never going to be truly completed.

What you donât expectâ¦

Playing in the town with the other kids, I often realize Iâm somewhat too protected, as if I was living in a surreal world. Oswald and Waltraud seem more at home, theyâre more accepted by the others, I feel a bit different, like a beloved guest.

A couple of days ago, while we were in the street discussing rules on how to play or setting down a plan, I and Oswald mentioned âBarbara, our mumâ.

One of the others randomly pops up and almost mockingly says:

âWhat are you talking about, sheâs not your mother.â

At first I didnât register that sentence, I thought he was joking. Maybe he didnât mean to be nasty, children often unwillingly say the truth, he may have simply wanted to correct me.

I pretended to play along, as if I already knew, as if it had always been clear to me. Oswald got annoyed and after a while we went back home, it was late for dinner as well, the sun had long set.

Sometimes, when Iâm sad and feeling down, and to be honest that doesnât happen very often, but when it does I become even more sensitive and insecure.

So I look for mamma Barbaraâs affection, and trying not to be too direct, I ask her:

âYou love me mum, right? Youâre my only mother, I donât

have any other mums, do I? I want to stay with you

whatever happens.â

âYes, I love you too sweetheart, we all love you here, donât

worry, I wonât send you away for sure.â

To me Barbara is my mum, sheâs even more than a mum, all my family here, my places, all the kids that have shared this âfamilyâ of ours with me. Now theyâve all left, Iâve been here forever, with Oswald and Waltraud, I hope Iâll be able to remain here for a very long time.

I now live with the fact that probably Iâm not Karl and Barbaraâs natural son, they could have adopted me, or I may have been left in their care like the others, who knows?

And who knows where my natural parents are, who they areâ¦ Actually, I donât want to know, this is my family, end of the story.

I perceived hints every now and then, Iâm lost in a crowd of questions but I donât lose heart, I try to behave as if nothing happened. All my familyâs love helps me not to think about it.

Almost every Sunday we all go on the Alpe di Siusi1 with Karlâs car, a yellow Opel Kadett, it looks like a flan, even more so when the engine bonnetâs warm and it really feels like itâs just out of the oven.

The Alpe di Siusi is beautiful, I like the Haflinger horses with their white mane, and seeing the cows and horses in the wild gives me a sense of freedom. Horses are my favourite animals, with their melancholy eyes. It feels good to see them having fun on the mountain in the summer, after all itâs sort of their holiday.

Here itâs full of nice cabins and huts, fields and hills, endless rises and slopes, we can see the Sciliarâs Santner peak, weâre about five thousand feet above sea level.

We go on long walks from one cabin to another. Karl often meets people he knows and friends with whom he stops to chat.

I, Waltraud and mamma Barbara sit on the grass for an afternoon snack, Oswald smells the cheese and the salamis and joins us.

What surprises me about the Alpe di Siusi are the many bends you need to go through to get here, but in the end the prize is worth it. You get on the plateau and it looks like thereâs a green carpet everywhere, with a thin, healthy air, you feel like you could fly.

3 TN: Italian name of the Seiser Alm.

Back home from our trip, after a whole day in the outdoors, a quick dinner and then to bed, at least for me. Karl and Barbara watch some TV, Oswald and Waltraud finish their school homework. Luckily I donât have to go to school yet, I wouldnât like to stay closed in a room for hours with an artificial light on my head. But in a couple of year itâll be my turn as well.

In the night a loud siren wakes us up, and I donât mean a fish woman, wooooooooo woooooooo woooooooo, it goes on and on, it must be 2 in the morning.

Itâs the firefightersâ siren, we all go on the balcony to see if we can find anything in the dark of the night.

Thereâs an acrid smell in the air, a fine soot is floating in the air, dancing and settling right in front of us, on the balconyâs railings.

The fire is close, very close, too close, we can feel the heatwave. Looking left, we see the extremely tall flames rising almost to the sky, mercilessly and glowingly burning down the wood, I can hear the beams creaking and cracking like bones.

Itâs our barn thatâs getting incinerated, the firefightersâ wailing sirens and flashing lights come to our aid, roads all around the valley get coloured in blue, yellow and red.

Itâs almost like a pinball, or a club with multicoloured lights, our greatest concern is to save the cattle in the adjacent stable from the flames.

The stable and the animals are how we earn our bread, theyâre how we make a living, without them weâre finished.

Luckily it starts to rain hard, itâs like a divine help from heaven, at least people are not in danger.

I get so anxious looking at all those blue lights come to help us, I get emotional, I look at our faces and I canât hold my tears.

At first glance, it could look like a spectacle in nature, like the eruption of a volcano in the deepest of the night. I, Barbara and Waltraud stay at home, Karl and Oswald go with the firefighters to see the state of whatâs left and examine whatâs happened.

After a few hours, the fireâs put out, but thereâs a persistent, unforgettable smell penetrating into the house, even though we made sure to shut everything. Poor Karl, after so many sacrifices it must be sad for him to see part of his work go up in smoke in less than an hour. Theyâve come back inside in the morning, so they can rest a little and recover from the shock, luckily I managed to fall asleep again for a few hours.

Itâs morning now, itâs not raining anymore, thereâs a little sunshine trying to cheer us up, showing us all thatâs left of our barn.

In the afternoon mamma Barbara asks me to bring Karl and Oswald some newspapers and food. Theyâre busy on the disaster site with some professionals.

Iâd prefer not to go because Iâm a little scared after all that fire in the night, what if itâs still there, what if it starts again when I arrive.

But on the other hand my sense of adventure incites me to go see for myself what happened, if the cows and the sheep are still in one piece or if theyâve been roasted as in a country fair.

As I cautiously get nearer, Oswald comes towards me, I give him the newspapers and the food, he must be hungry.

I still havenât understood what the newspapers are for, actually they donât look like newspapers, theyâre more like magazines I think.

I look up towards the roof which doesnât exist anymore, thereâs nothing left but the skeleton of the larger wooden beams, pitch-black and eaten-up, looking like a coal structure made by an eccentric and misunderstood artist.

Waterdrops are still hanging here and there, undecided whether to fall to their doom or not, as if afraid of heights. The acrid smell of varnished, burnt, wet woodâs still very much present in the air, itâs a smell Iâll remember forever.

This has certainly been the most shocking event of my short life, itâs waken us in the middle of the night. Days go slowly by, I donât know what theyâve decided to do, whether they want to build a new barn, or if they have another solution. Next time grandma comes Iâll surely have something to talk about.

Itâs been two weeks already since grandma Annaâs last visit, but now sheâs probably slightly postponed her next trip because of the fire.

Days and weeks pass, but no news from grandma yet, and this worries me, so I ask mamma Barbara:

âWhen will grandma come? She hasnât come in a long while.â

âI really donât know, I havenât heard from her yet, we

happened to have a chat some time ago, but she couldnât

tell me when she was going to come.â

âI hope nothing bad happened in the meanwhile.â

âAs soon as I hear something Iâll let you know, donât worry,

she mustâve been busy with the fields, the crop.â

The kids that were with us in the summer have all left, as usual theyâve only stayed for two or three weeks at most, Oswald and Waltraud are at school from morning till early afternoon. Karlâs busy the whole day with the stable, in the afternoon he takes a nap for a few hours on the sofa.

So in the morning itâs always just me and Barbara, either at home or, when sheâs got work to do, in the garden. The sunflowersâ heads are down now, the seeds are all ripe in their circles, embedded within the pale-yellow petals.

I often go play outside in the morning, sometimes I go snooping around our house. One of our neighbours has a beautiful garden, where I enjoy going for walks and smelling the scents of the various plants and flowers that grow there.

The owner lets me in whenever I like, the entrance is a black wrought-iron gate, full of strange ornaments, spirals, roses and other flowers.

A narrow pathway marked by thousands of white pebbles leads me around, there are iron arcs all along the way, covered by vines and big roses of many different colours, red, pink, white, yellow. As I pass by them they give off an inebriating scent, itâs like a journey across various fragrances, there are also exotic plants and palms.

On the sides, every now and then, I encounter tiny statues, cheerful dwarves, chalk fawns, little fountains and water features. I feel like in a fairy tale, I wish I could stay here forever, I sit on a bench swinging my legs for a bit, and I think again about the possible reasons why grandma hasnât come yet.

Usually, Saturdayâs the day Barbara gives me a full bath, in a plastic tub on the kitchen table.

Todayâs Monday, and itâs morning, I know we donât have to go anywhere in particular. I leave the fairy garden, I try to shut the gate but the handle doesnât work well.

Maybe itâs because the owner has put too much varnish on it, so it gets stuck a little and canât go all the way, so I simply push it back against the frame and leave it unlocked.

Iâve even managed not to get dirty, Iâve only gone for a walk and Iâve sat on the clean bench for a while, so I donât even need to wash.

I call Barbara to tell her Iâve arrived:

âMum, Iâm coming, is lunch ready?â

I canât hear her reply, I enter by the gate, I close it calmly, it too doesnât shut too well, itâs a little rusty. I open the front door and I get in, I take off my shoes, mamma Barbara comes towards me from the kitchen, she kneels down and hugs me.

She takes me in her arms and kisses me again and again:

âI know you love me, but is something wrong?â

âIâm just happy to hug you, Iâll always love you.â

It has kind of taken me by surprise, Iâve gone out in the courtyard to play for a while, I could feel in her hug that something was off.

In her cheeks I can see a concern for something sad and melancholy, she can hardly hold her tears, she smiles at me:

âNow, letâs eat something, then weâll get dressed. You must

go with Karl, heâll drive you to a place.â

âAnd where is that, I want to stay here, I donât have to go

anywhere, are we driving to the ice-cream shop?â

âYes, you could get an ice-cream, but I donât know about

later.â

I donât eat much and neither does she, we arenât hungry anymore, she clears the table and gets the bath tub.

Things are getting serious, itâs not even Saturday, Iâm not dirty, and sheâs preparing the tub on the table for a bath.

Iâm scared, itâs fishy to put it mildly, I try to act normal and say to her:

Mum, Iâm going out to play again, Iâm not hungry anymore.â

Everything starts looking misty and blurry, no, itâs not raining outside, itâs raining on my face, big, warm teardrops as big as peanuts.

I can hardly speak among sobs, she replies:

âNo, you canât go out now, youâll be late, Iâve got to wash you and dress you up now, Karlâs going to take you to Bolzano.â

We hug tightly without letting go, her tears are wetting my shoulders, theyâre getting soaked with a motherâs love.

Sitting in the yellow tub, Barbara scrubs my shoulders with a sponge. She takes it on my face and on my eyes too, to clear the tears away, she manages to smile at me, her every move over me is a caress saying goodbye.

I canât understand whatâs in store for me yet, but Iâm sure itâs nothing good, I think that sad moment I never wanted to face has finally arrived.

I must leave what for me is my family, my whole world.

Itâs clear to me that, like the other small children, Iâve been here in their foster care for almost five years, and now the time has come to go to Bolzano or who knows where.

We leave home with a bag that Karl puts on the backseat, the bagâs not too big and this makes me hope Iâll be back soon, itâs a slight chance but I gladly cling on it. We say goodbye to mum among tears, when I get in the car, I canât look at our little house anymore.

I spend the entire trip to Bolzano harbouring the wish I can stay away only for the day and come back home with Karl in the evening.

During the trip, both I and Karl stay mostly silent, some sparse words every now and then, heâs not a chatterer but I know he too isnât in the mood to talk much.

When I manage to catch some breath, I ask him some explanations:

âWhere are we going in Bolzano? Are we going to grandmaâs

place?â

âWeâre going to Bolzano, youâll have to stay there now, your

fatherâs waiting for you.â

Iâm quietly thinking: my father? I thought you were my father, Karl, if Barbara is my mother, oh but sheâs not, is she?

We arrive in a small town near Bolzano, we go down a lateral lane, Karl parks his yellow Opel Kadett on the left of the lane.

He tells me to wait in the car, heâs going to ring the house bell which can be glimpsed among the branches of a tall fir.

I think to myself that it would be a good occasion to run away back home, but that wouldnât be fair to Karl, I could never do that.

I understand that this is the last time Iâll see him too if heâs going to drive away leaving me with strangers.

The nostalgia is smarting already, it feels like a lump in my throat, Iâd really like to run, I could open the car door and hide in the boot, so that Karl, unable to find me, would take me back home with him.

There he is, he leaves through the gate and gets back in the car:

âThereâs no-one home, a gardener has told me theyâre all in

the fields, letâs go check there.â

We go through the fields, thereâs plenty of trees full of yellow and red apples, so, so many, but I donât really care about them now.

We turn to the left, we slowly proceed on a road full of holes and mud, we stop the Opel Kadett. Karl takes my bag from the backseat, I donât want to get out, Iâm frightened.

Karl says hello to a man, grandmaâs smile appears behind him, she hugs me and strokes me.

âHi grandma, finally we see each other, you havenât come

around lately, did you have work to do?â

âYes darling, I couldnât come to see you, but I knew we

would meet here now.â

Thank God sheâs here, at least I have someone I can stay with, I donât know any of these people.

Karl comes closer and says goodbye, heâs a mountain man and he doesnât show many emotions, but even if heâs hiding it, I know heâs sorry he must leave me here and go back home alone.

Heâs so good, he wouldnât hurt a fly, heâs always so calm, it breaks my heart to see him start up the car and drive off.

I shy away the whole day, always keeping aside and close to grandma. Sitting on the ground, I watch her picking carrots, aubergines and tomatoes.

This distracts me a little bit and makes me feel less abandoned next to her, the man who has greeted us is grandmaâs son, heâs the owner of the beige Fiat 127. Now I remember, I recognize the car next to the cabin, this must mean mister Remo is my father.

I donât really believe it, I already have Karl, now Remo too, two fathers, I donât knowâ¦ Everybodyâs busy here, picking apples, apricots, plums, grandmaâs picking many vegetables and thereâs Remoâs partner as well.

Sheâs Miriam, the beautiful woman with the nice hair who had come to see me with Remo for my third birthday, when they brought me a toy camera. The photos Barbara showed me, where Iâm picking flowers for her and for Miriam.

Evening comes, the sunâs been set for some time now, I feel a cool breeze on my legs, Iâm still in my shorts, and Iâm dirty with soil. How I wish I could take a bath in Barbaraâs tub, I already miss it so much. I think Iâll have to stay here for a while, if that man, Remo, really is my father, then thatâs exactly what this all means. Iâll never return to Barbara and my family again. Tonight, when everyoneâs asleep, Iâll convince grandma to take me somewhere else or Iâll run away alone, Iâm not sure yet.

We go back to my father and grandmaâs home with the beige Fiat 127, and I come to think about the day they came to take me for a quick trip. I knew something was off that day, I could feel it, and here I am again in the same car where I puked.

This time it looks nicer though, I donât know, itâs kind of endearing, itâs like me, what with that beige colour, the metal bumpers, the poor, black plastic cover torn here and there.

We arrive at the house, we enter in a large courtyard surrounded by rose beds, there is also a vineyard with a table and two benches under the arbour.

I want to cry and I feel like puking, but I canât, I practically havenât eaten anything, someoneâs holding me with my face in his shoulders. I cry so hard my head hurts, I hide in the shoulders of my carrier. Sometimes I take a peek with my wet eye at whoâs around us and where we are.

I see other curious children trying to cheer me up, some adults pass by to caress me.

We mount some light-coloured marble stairs, we stop on the first floor in front of a brown door, we have arrived, we enter in a small flat, quite cosy, but I really canât appreciate that now.

At least we eat something with grandma, then we quickly brush our teeth and we go to sleep, I stay with grandma in a double bed. This gives me a little relief, itâs the first time we sleep together, if I end up remaining here Iâd live in the same house as grandma, thatâs the only good aspect of this new situation for the moment.

I fall asleep almost immediately, hand in hand with grandma on that big, large, tall bed, Iâd like to talk and tell her so many things but Iâm too tired, todayâs been a very hard, stressful and difficult day for me. From now on, this is going to be my new family, a new arrangement I must get used to and adapt to, bit by bit.

Portobello

In the following weeks I start meeting other kids, some older, some younger. Our floor neighboursâ children are Martin and Klaus, their parents are farmers working in the fields and growing apples.

Itâs in my destiny to be close to farmersâ families, grandmaâs patch of land is not very large but in a sense we also are small farmers.

There are six houses in this street, each with at least two children, itâs quite a numerous group altogether. When we gather in the courtyard we are about twenty. The place we always meet is under the lamppost dominating half of the street, along a low brown porphyry wall, absorbing so much heat in the hot summer days that in the evening, after dinner, itâs still warm. On the asphalted ground, the flying ants hover around us attracted by the light.

The lamppost is a strategic choice, we can all see it from our own houses, so all it takes is peeping out of the window for a second or hear the othersâ voices to know someoneâs around.

But now that days are getting shorter, it gets dark sooner, in the evening is also cooler and we spend more time at home. Remoâs wife, Miriam that is, is good at cooking lunch, and grandma often takes pleasure in baking pies and strudel.

What I prefer the most though are dinners, when we prepare omelettes with delicious jams made from the plums and apricots of our field, I canât resist. I can eat three, four, once I even got to six in a row. I also like rice with milk, powdered cinnamon and cocoa. Out of the dishes made by grandma, the âPepaâ, an ancient specialty of the Val di Non, is my absolute favourite.

A dough is poured in a baking pan and put in an oven for about half an hour, itâs really funny to check it swell from the little oven window. Slowly, it gets bigger and brown-toned. The humps rise like mountains lightly covered with a chocolate snow, they remind me of the mountains around Barbaraâs house and the days on the Alpe di Siusi. The heat emanating from the window warms my face, itâs like a caress trying to ease the melancholy I have inside.

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