Memories Of Our Days

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?-