L'Annunziata

L’Annunziata

I hadn’t wanted to go.
Signor Rossi was on the television. I liked Signor Rossi; his round face and bowtie reminded me of my Nonno is faraway Rome. I had even named one of the stray dogs in our village Gastone, after Signor Rossi’s dog- even though this dog was a girl and everyone else called her Luna. She was just a knotted spool of dirty rope, but I loved her immensely and considered her to be my dog. I used to try and sneak her in to watch TV with me, lifting her mucky body up to lie on my lap. She didn’t seem to mind me rechristening her. My mother minded, and used to shout whenever she found ‘Gastone’ in the house. What I liked best about Signor Rossi was that he had some really great friends. He had a witch friend who would grant him wishes. I was desperate for a wish. Wishes usually come in threes, but I figured that I only really needed one.
I didn’t want to go.
“Come on, Ale…Alessio, move it! They are waiting!” my mother said, emerging from her bedroom in a dress that was too tight and too much for a village like Cermignano. She bent forward to put on her shoes. Large violet flowers grew across her bosom and I frowned at her. Her too-tight dress had been expensive too, coming from a boutique in Teramo and not just the market stall. If she was spending all that money, why didn’t it fit? I asked myself, brow wrinkled. No one was ever unkind to my mother, but she had not grown up here and she never really allowed people to forget that. I had heard people call her La Romana behind her back, even some of the other children at my school. Before I was born, or before my father died, she must have enjoyed the feeling of being exotic and making other women in the town feel drab. But who was she dressing up for now?
“But Mamma, Signor Rossi…”
“Bah, Signor Rossi. That red fool. Don’t you spend all day watching TV? The one night, the one night some culture comes to this place and you want to watch Signor Rossi?” She straightened up, now a giantess in her heels. I stomped my feet in their buckled blue leather.
“I don’t want to go!”
She looked at me and smiled at me, her red lipstick making her mouth like a slice of watermelon. She bent down and raked her long fingers too roughly through my hair.
“Ow.”
“Caro, you will like it. I promise you. A beautiful lady is going to sing for us and it will be the sweetest thing you ever hear.”
“I won’t like it.” I was her child after all, and as stubborn as a goat.
She pulled out her fingers.
“Whether you like it or not we are going. Come on, hup. Giacinta will be wondering where I am.” She took my hand her own and pulled me gently out of the house. Our house was pale pink and sat like a rose bon-bon against the thorny vines that climbed from next door’s balcony. Across the street, Signora di Martino was beginning to hobble down towards the square.
“Sara, hurry. You will be late!” She gave me a special smile. Her wrinkled face was like a kindly fig. I grinned back, despite myself.
“See, Alessio!” said my mother, as we begin to trundle down the hill. “We’re going to be late.”
We were not late.

An hour later, my legs were swinging to and fro and rubbing hard against the rough plastic of my Coca-Cola chair. A hundred of them had been set out before a small stage that was currently empty. The square was full of people and noise and smells. I didn’t know who had organised the event, but our little piazza boasted only the War Memorial, a few benches, and perhaps some old men playing Cassino on an ordinary night. Sometimes I liked to run down to the square and walk along by the railings, looking to the panoramic view of the Gran Sasso mountains behind, to see if I could spy what I called ‘Mucca Mountain’- the one that looked like the head of a cow. I didn’t get to do that often though; Mamma liked me to stay indoors.
Tonight was different though. The noise, despite the fact the concert had not yet begun, was overwhelming. The chatter was effervescent, and people who went nowhere new and saw nobody new still had so much to discuss. Those who couldn’t find a seat were lined up against the walls of the houses that neighboured the squares, or sat upon the balconies. There was the stage and there were two bars, selling wines from local cantinas for a meagre 1000 lire and long spears of fresh arrosticini. The hot thickness of the smell roasted my nostrils- I loved those meaty lollipops so but I knew better than to ask my mother for one. She was on her third plastic cup of red wine and gossiping with Giacinta.
All around me, the other children of the village and the other villages nearby were having a wonderful time. Some were trying to valiantly climb upon the stage; one was successful and enjoyed the gratifying noise of his sandals flapping against the wooden floor. Signore Buonasorte tried to bat him away gently with a concert programme. Some others were playing a jumping game on the Memorial. Others were chasing their way through the legs of their gabbling parents, threading their way through the crowds. I physically ached to be playing with them, to be tripping through the warm night as part of their cheerful cohort. I swung my legs backwards and forwards, harder and harder. Red lines were beginning to show.
“Sara, let the boy go play,” urged Giacinta, noticing my boredom.
“No, Gia. Alessio is to stay with me.”
“All the other kids are running around and having fun.” My mother sloshed her white cup in defiance.
“Gia, I don’t want my boy running around like a scabby pup. He’s going to sit here by me and learn to be civilised.” She paused, and took another drink. She then laughed. “Dio, when did I become my mother?” Giacinta laughed. I sensed an opportunity.
“Please, Mamma?” I looked over longingly to where a group of my classmates were climbing on the railings.
“No, Alessio! Sit there like a good boy. The soprano will begin soon.”
I sat there, but I wasn’t sure if I was being a good boy. I tried to distract myself by thinking of Signor Rossi, and wondering where in the world I could find a witch. I need that one wish badly.
I have discovered throughout my travels that Italians are known the world over for a lack of punctuality. I cannot say if that reputation is universally merited, but I know that in Cermignano very little happened when planned. An hour and a half later, Signore Buonasorte stood up on the stage and finally announced that the soprano was ready for us. Everyone clapped politely, but kept talking.
Then she was there upon the stage and she was lovely. Bigger by far than Mamma, she was round and plump and crowned with thick blonde hair that was too bright to be natural and must be angelic. It contrasted with the dull brown tops of everyone else gathered there. Her face was sweet and lipsticked, and her dress was black but smattered with sequins that sprinkled light whenever they were caught by the tawny glow of the street lamps.
“Signora Pavarotti,” whispered my slender mother.
“We are so very proud to welcome this famous lady to our village!” declared Signore Buonasorte. Everyone seemed to be in agreement. Around her, a small group of musicians were readying themselves.
“Welcome, L’Annunziata, star of La Scala and the best opera houses of Europe! Welcome Alcina, Gilda, Lucia, Violetta! Welcome singer to the Pope and to Presidents!”
Everyone around me was clapping. I didn’t, I was too busy staring at her. She seemed serene and ready, smiling modestly as Signore Buonasorte listed the highlights of her career. I wanted to climb up onto the stage and fall against her soft weight.
“She’s going to be good,” my mother whispered to me. “The fat ones always are.”
I felt my clammy hands gripping the Coca-Cola chair as L’Annnunziata’s pink lips parted, ready to sing.
The noise that came forth was not what I expected though. As her mouth opened, from behind me came a ratchety howl.
“Mamma! MAMMA!”
The screaming was guttural and intense. It was the kind of noise that can only be evinced through the twisting of a soul.
“Mamma, Mamma!”
I looked over and could not see. There was an exodus from the audience as they rushed over to the far wall of a sandy coloured house. A crowd had gathered almost immediately, but whoever was crying out could still be heard over the unbelievable din.
My mother turned to Giacinta.
“What the devil?”
“Can I go and see?” I asked.
“Don’t be stupid, Alessio. Stay by me,” she said. I looked up to the stage.
L’Annunziata’s mouth was firmly closed now, and she was getting down from the stage. The orchestra of the crowd below were atonal, and playing some hellish chords. Something twisted within my soul. I got up from my Coca-Cola chair and followed the curving spine of the crowd moving to encircle the screamer. I tried not to hear my mother calling me back. Instead, I threaded through the anxious mass, gathered round to spectate and to aid.
Through legs slender and stout, I crawled. I had to see. I had to know what the screaming was. I could no longer sit still, and it was if my frozen limbs had suddenly been taken over by some frenzy.
“Oi!” exclaimed an old man as I pushed past him, and another tried to hold me back but I wriggled from his grip. Eventually I made my way to the front of the throbbing crowd.
An old woman was lying on her back on the flagstones. I did not know her, but I knew the woman who was been screaming. Her name was Luisa; she sometimes came to our house for coffee of an evening. Her husband had left her for a woman in Chieti. This, I inferred, was her mother. The old lady wasn’t moving. She was a silent lump of black, her floral pinny ruched and dusty from her fall.
“Mamma, Mamma, Mamma,” wept Luisa, beating the ground beside her silent mother. Her face was grotesque, like the gargoyles my mother had once shown me in a book. Tears combed her face like mountain streams. She looked up.
It was unfortunate that I was right in front of her. Her eyes were wet but flaming and she did not look at the rest of the crowd pulsing around her. She only looked at me. Her eyes were full of hate.
“What are you looking at?” she spat, her screams stopping at last. The same old man who had tried to pull me away before, tried again but lightning quick, Luisa’s hand bolted out to grab my other shoulder.
“I said, what are you looking at?” Her free hand shot out and slapped me hard across the fact. I winced, and let the old man pull me away, back into the body of the crowd. Her sobbing, her screaming started anew. Tears streaming down my own face, I begin to mumble in harmony with her calling. “Mamma. Mamma. Mamma.”
“Oh, Alessio,” said my mother, as she knelt down to look at me.
“She hit me, Mamma.”
“I know, caro. But when we are sad and frightened, we do these things. You remember when your Papa died?”
I closed my eyes. I tried not to think of my father, stony still in white sheets. My mother stroked my face, forcing my eyes open.
“Amore, I wanted to hit everyone then. I still do sometimes. We do crazy things when we are scared of losing the ones we love.”
I don’t remember what I said to her next. I just remember her pulling me into her arms and crying against her. I remember the smell of her, as if it was the first time she had held me.
“My prince,” she told me, and the stinging of my wet cheeks seemed to ebb. The screaming had stopped.
As L’Annunziata took the stage for the second time, Luisa’s mother was being led away from the square on a stretcher. She was awake and conscious. Luisa held her hand tightly as they walked to the ambulance. As L’Annunziata smiled out across to the reassembled crowd, hungrier now more than ever for their performance, I rested against my mother’s chest. I was on her lap now, no longer sitting on the hard plastic. And as L’Annunziata finally began to sing, I learned that angels do exist, even if wish-giving witches do not. It was perfect and sweet, and rose high up into the foothills round Cermignano, then into the mountains and beyond to the heavens.