The Smile Of The Moon

We leave home with a bag that Karl puts on the backseat, the bag’s not too big and this makes me hope I’ll be back soon, it’s a slight chance but I gladly cling on it. We say goodbye to mum among tears, when I get in the car, I can’t 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, he’s not a chatterer but I know he too isn’t in the mood to talk much.

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

‘Where are we going in Bolzano? Are we going to grandma’s

place?’

‘We’re going to Bolzano, you’ll have to stay there now, your

father’s waiting for you.’

I’m quietly thinking: my father? I thought you were my father, Karl, if Barbara is my mother, oh but she’s 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, he’s 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 wouldn’t be fair to Karl, I could never do that.

I understand that this is the last time I’ll see him too if he’s going to drive away leaving me with strangers.

The nostalgia is smarting already, it feels like a lump in my throat, I’d 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:

‘There’s no-one home, a gardener has told me they’re all in

the fields, let’s go check there.’

We go through the fields, there’s plenty of trees full of yellow and red apples, so, so many, but I don’t 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 don’t want to get out, I’m frightened.

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

‘Hi grandma, finally we see each other, you haven’t come

around lately, did you have work to do?’

‘Yes darling, I couldn’t come to see you, but I knew we

would meet here now.’

Thank God she’s here, at least I have someone I can stay with, I don’t know any of these people.

Karl comes closer and says goodbye, he’s a mountain man and he doesn’t show many emotions, but even if he’s hiding it, I know he’s sorry he must leave me here and go back home alone.

He’s so good, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, he’s 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 grandma’s son, he’s 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 don’t really believe it, I already have Karl, now Remo too, two fathers, I don’t know… Everybody’s busy here, picking apples, apricots, plums, grandma’s picking many vegetables and there’s Remo’s partner as well.

She’s 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 I’m picking flowers for her and for Miriam.

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

We go back to my father and grandma’s 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 don’t know, it’s kind of endearing, it’s 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 can’t, I practically haven’t eaten anything, someone’s 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 who’s 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 can’t 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, it’s the first time we sleep together, if I end up remaining here I’d live in the same house as grandma, that’s 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, I’d like to talk and tell her so many things but I’m too tired, today’s 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 neighbours’ children are Martin and Klaus, their parents are farmers working in the fields and growing apples.

It’s in my destiny to be close to farmers’ families, grandma’s 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, it’s 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, it’s 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 others’ voices to know someone’s 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. Remo’s 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 can’t 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 ‘Pepa’, 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, it’s 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 Barbara’s house and the days on the Alpe di Siusi. The heat emanating from the window warms my face, it’s like a caress trying to ease the melancholy I have inside.