Memories Of Our Days

-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?-