Solleone Years 60

Marzano

SOLLEON YEARS '60

Mythical years, dramatic stories

Mythical years, dramatic stories

di Mario Marzano

This novel was set in Castellana Grotte (BA) and Giovinazzo (BA), but it is a fancy piece. The characters and circumstances described are inventions by the author and are intended to give truth to the narration. Any analogy with facts, places and people, alive or defective, is purely random.

© 2012 Albatros Group The Filo S.r.l., Rome

www.gruppoalbatrosilfilo.it – Editore Cartaceo

Editore Ebook – Mario Marzano

ISBN 978-88-567-5546-6

The March 2012 edition

Printed at Andersen Spa, Borgomanero (NO)

Translator: Francesca Barile

SOLLEONE YEARS '60

Mythical years, dramatic stories

To my family

PART ONE

The ORPHANAGE

My father died at the age of forty years due to a serious operative error on a frustrating August day, leaving my mother, my disabled brother and the writer in my pain and misery.

From that day my life changed radically its presumable path; Also my character in formation changed; In fact, if before my father's death I was a child of playful and sociable character, I became intolerant to every order and taciturn. Perhaps all this happened because there was no help from a child psychologist; But at that time, it was 1959, there was no chance of obtaining a good psychological support for a child in my economic socio-economic conditions.

In fact, in this regard, I clearly remember that the last time I would extricate all of my potential as a child, who could also take the career of comedian actor, was the night after Dad's death. My mother thought it appropriate for me and my brother Angel, at least that night, to be housed in Aunt Annina's home and uncle Giacomo. For almost the whole night I did nothing but sing comical and sad songs, recite all the poems I taught at school and tell tales invented for my brother and my cousins.

Instead, in the few months spent in the family after that absurdly carefree night, before I was admitted to the orphanage, I combined many of those marachelle, which, after a really big, my mother was forced to punish by binding my hands and feet near a Well, to frighten me and give me a lesson to say the least.

My mother, Emma, a woman of low stature, had a slightly irregular face, her smooth and black hair almost always tied to her neckline with her hairpins, her eyes dark brown, her eyebrows well-drawn, her nose a bit flat and long, Wide and fleshy lips. He was a believing and God-fearing woman. From my father's death day, he was dressed in black in public, but he was still in the habit of wearing high-heeled, elegant shoes. They were the only luxury that could be afforded because my dad's craft was the shoemaker and those were the only gifts she did.

On the day of November when I first entered the orphanage of a small village in the province of Bari, I do not remember much. But I remember very well the metallic gate noise as I crossed the threshold with her close hand to the maternal one, and we were getting ready to reach the stone building at the end of a large rectangular courtyard. I also remember the sound of his heels on the stone floor. The square was longitudinally divided by a portic consisting of six stone columns on top of which there were arches, in support of a rectangular terrace. To the left, looking at the porch from the entrance of the courtyard, there was a small fountain with a concrete bath.

Throughout the courtyard, we went into the building. To welcome us there was a lovely face-line, who presented himself by calling himself Sister Rosaria, the orphanage's social assistant. He was dressed in a black tunic and a very wide dagger, dangling white, on his shoulders, wearing the usual black headgear.

Sister Rosaria, in a fuss-free manner, practically making no noise, made us into a square-shaped office, which was at the beginning of a small dark corridor. It was furnished with two large brown leather sofas and three solid chairs in the nineteenth-century style, and almost in the middle of the room there was a large walnut desk.

Above it, stacked with order, there were many books, at a corner it was a beautiful photo of a silver frame, where a beautiful lady and three children were portrayed.

At the walls of the room there were paintings depicting the garibaldine epic, behind the desk a plaque reminding us that in the referendum for the choice between the monarchy and the republic, most of the people who voted there chose the monarchy. To the right there was a large window in a beautiful garden, surrounded by an antique pink curtain, and another door to the left.

I noticed the gazebo illuminated the room very well, despite the brisk autumn afternoon.

There was a man wearing a gray double-breasted suit with a blue shirt and a light cross-tie tie. He could have been about forty years old, well brought and was not very tall. That presence, I must confess, gave me a mood that I had not tried before; I was obviously suggesting the moment, which represented the traumatic detachment of my mother. The gentleman in front of me was having a hairy and shiny hair divided by a line to the left of his head, well-designed eyebrows, his dark eyes from his alert, sharp expression, his olive-colored skin, his long, pointed nose, The thin lips that, when tightening their mouth, formed an almost straight line.

He presented himself as the censor, ie the deputy director, Rodolfo Vallicella. He first spoke with my mother, speaking to him in words of circumstance, then turned to me and scrutinized me carefully, he told me confidently, too confident to calm me: So you call me Giuliano Giuliani, you are nine years old and do the fourth elementary. But tell me, where are you from? Where and when were you born?

I answered without hesitation, almost like an automaton: Sir, I was born in Bari on October 27, 1950, I reside in Castellana Grotte, via Plebiscito 51.

Ah ah! Dressed in Castellana, the city famous for its beautiful caves. But tell me, did you ever visit her?

Yes, sir, only once.

Me too; Is a beautiful experience to repeat many times in life.

After hearing these words, I suddenly came back to my mind many details about the geological conformation of our caves. In fact, I remember very well some of their features because after visiting them together with my classmates, the teacher had a theme on what we had observed visiting the caves of Castellana; For this reason, for example, I remembered very well as they were made: the cave of the lupa, the monumental cavern, the corridor of the angel, the cave of the owl, the serpent's cavern, that of the crib, the cave of the precipice and finally the Famous white cave. While I was trying to conceal the meningos to remember other details of our beautiful caves, an operation that maybe at that moment needed me to get away from the ugly reality that came to me to live at that moment, or rather to say the terrible reality, I noticed that My interlocutor was watching me how to do with a rare object, and suddenly he began to say, I see you're a bit small and gracilin, but if you stay a long time with us, we'll make you grow tall and robust.

This affirmation makes me still amazed, since I have remained low and lean.

Then she turned to my mother once more, smiling and giving her a well-cared right hand: Well, Mrs. Giuliani, we salute you, do not worry, your son is in good hands, and since he is already a little man, he will act, I'm sure, very good.

My mother embraced me, and with a kiss on my cheek, he recommended me to behave well. And while he was saying, he was crying. He looked at me again, and with a handkerchief he had taken from his bag, he left the room followed as a shadow by Sister Rosaria.

When the two women came out of the office, she came from the side door, a very young woman, tall and thin, with an elegant lifestyle. His long black and black hair was loose on his shoulders, his oval face, some pimples on the rose-colored glasses, his black eyes like coal, his nose regular and slightly up, his mouth small but well-designed. She wore a blue shirt, which held her breasts up.

The censor entrusted to her, giving her a smile of understanding. The beautiful stranger took my suitcase, carried there by my mother, and taking me by the hand came out of the office, greeted the censor with one: Hello, let's see you later.

Get out of the building, at We crossed half a yard to enter another building with a long corridor nestled in the shade. Only then would I realize that that corridor represented the division between the two departments of the Institute. One hosted children attending elementary school classes, the other, much larger, was used to accommodate the children attending vocational schools and art and craft schools. At that time, the Media School and Classical high schools were mostly reserved for the well-to-do children, who were then destined to become the ruling class of the country. It was evident that this was not our case, in fact, just the impossibility of attending the high school, he did, in any case, regardless of our real aptitudes, we had to form the subordinate class, which was to serve to perform humble duties Because in order to attend some high schools, after graduating from a professional start-up diploma, very strict admission tests had to be made to access them, and this was not always the case. Naturally, there could be exceptional cases that, however, confirmed the rule. For example, after a few years of entering the orphanage, through friendship with the spiritual assistant, I discovered that in order to overcome this initial handicap, it was enough to enter a seminary for priests, attend high schools and then declare that He no longer had the vocation to undertake the religious mission. At this point of cultural formation, if you had the attitudes you were ready to undertake the university studies; But the family of the boy who had chosen this path was inaccurate, from that moment on, if he was really poor, he had to be ready to face sacrifices that could be enlisted so that their partner could get to graduate. Along the path I did in the company of the beautiful girl I did not meet a living soul. Yet the journey was long enough, in fact, we crossed the hallway in the dark, until we reached another courtyard, much smaller than the first square and the red brick floor. The architectural complex was similar to a convent cloister, with the classic arcade surrounding the yard perfectly. We passed it longitudinally to reach a stone staircase, which was in one of the four corners of the porch, at the end of a small corridor. I was introduced into a rectangular room, where there were twenty beds, next to each other, with as many painted bedside tables as pale blue as the bedspreads. At the bottom of the room there was a large pale pink separation, and in front of the loungers four windows that barely lighted the environment, surrounded by creamy curtains. We stopped by the number one bed on which the girl put the suitcase. Then he turned to me and said, My name is Carmen, I know how you call and where you are, from now on I'll be your assistant, I will be with you when you do not go to school and almost every night. At that point, obviously, he had noticed my concern and the uneasiness I felt in the new environment, even because he had not addressed me until then. He still said to me, smiling: Giuliano, do not worry, you will see that we will soon become good friends and we will trust many things because I am very sympathetic.

She opened the suitcase where my intimate garments were on top, but immediately beneath me I noticed the presence of every god of god to eat.

Carmen, always smiling, said to me, You can not keep these things in the bedside table with your robes and slippers, you have to hand it over to Sister Judith, and I will soon be present with all your new companions.

He looked again at my worried face, screaming at the words to appear as convincing as possible and said, Be quiet, you will give Sister Judith every day at lunchtime.

So I did, but it turned out to be a mistake, because surely of all those very good stuff I could eat only half, the other, was seized without notice from the ineffable Sister Judith.

We put the stuff in the bedside table and we stabbed the stairs with the suitcase, took a few steps into the porch and went into a rectangular room, much smaller than the bedroom, but of the same width. On the left side of the glass door was the chair next to a chalkboard, there were a few books over the chair, and a solid line of wood stood in the center. Seated in a chair there was an elderly nun, dressed in the usual black tunic, but the bib was turned on the shorter side, and it was almost gray, so dirty. She had a round face, with circular goggles with golden grips, her eyes waxy, her flat and large nose, her chin under her chin. Facing the chair there were four rows of benches, where my new companions of misfortune sat.

The things that remained most impressed at that moment were the silence and order that reigned in the classroom. Then I did not understand, but later I would have understood this too. The religious rose, was fat and lazy, smiled at me, showing a brand-new denture and said, Welcome to us, Giuliano Giuliani. Then she turned to the benches and exclaimed: Greetings.

A chorus of hello rose to which I simply replied: Good day to all.

The nun then said, Go and sit there, pointing with the right finger of the left hand the only free seat that was in the front row, on the side of the entrance. Then she turned to Carmen and said, Leave me the suitcase and when we finish the after school, you will accompany this beautiful young man to the laundry, give him the uniform. Finally, she smiled satisfied, like the one who gave her what she knew.

The small uniform consisted of a blue woolen sweater and a pair of shorts of dark gray color that made us suffer the pungent cold on his legs during the winter days.

Of that period of pain, which lasted less than two years, the time to attend the fourth and fifth grade, I remember very little; But I still have not forgotten the salty flavor of tears poured during the long sleepy night. By day I did not cry, because I feared to suffer punishments of every kind inflicted by Sister Judith and the derision of her companions.

I also remember the tinkling of a bell that dictated the time of my life: the awakening in the morning, the hours of prayer, the beginning and the end of breakfast, lunch and dinner, the beginning of the night rest. Even our games were marked by the energetic sound of the bell.

There is a very important fact to note, which would have consequences for my training. For as long as I stayed with Sister Judith and Carmen, I could not have contacts with outside people, nor with the boys and the instructors of the big department. Only my mother came to see me almost every week and carried me the usual good things that needed to supplement the meager meal that was served in the institute. Sometimes I was in the library of the orphanage Don Giovanni, the spiritual head of the institute. With him I had long discussions about why I was there in the least suitable place for me, far from my family, and if God wanted my brother Angelo to live with my mother. Another point was to ask the religious, the deep meaning and ultimate purpose of the premature death of my poor father. There was only one time the priest found the right words, I did not say to convince me, but at least to comfort me. I always used to say plain words that any person would have told me, or he invited me to pray prayers for good, morning, noon, and evening, and ask the Lord to protect all the people I loved because only He had the power to provide To all, we had to accept His will.

Then when he came to invite me to pray, I stubbornly did not ask and ask for a thousand explanations that never came. I had to understand after a few years, at my own expense, that the people working in the orphanage were willing to give a few explanations; Of course there were instructors who did not act like that, but were exceptions that confirmed the rule. In short, they were accustomed to commanding and obeying the good or better still with the bad ones.

On the other hand I did long afternoon and evening walks with her hand under Carmen's arm, along the porch of the square square. The opportunity to systematically put a hand under my guardian angel's armpit revealed for a long time the beginning of my first sexual itching. Because when I was about to finish the fifth grade, Carmen found with a lot of malice a way to create a hole in the shirt, almost under the armpit, which allowed me to reach the big breast with a hand and shake it for good. However, to tell the truth, I did not realize why