The Smile Of The Moon

What you don’t expect…

Playing in the town with the other kids, I often realize I’m somewhat too protected, as if I was living in a surreal world. Oswald and Waltraud seem more at home, they’re more accepted by the others, I feel a bit different, like a beloved guest.

A couple of days ago, while we were in the street discussing rules on how to play or setting down a plan, I and Oswald mentioned ‘Barbara, our mum’.

One of the others randomly pops up and almost mockingly says:

‘What are you talking about, she’s not your mother.’

At first I didn’t register that sentence, I thought he was joking. Maybe he didn’t mean to be nasty, children often unwillingly say the truth, he may have simply wanted to correct me.

I pretended to play along, as if I already knew, as if it had always been clear to me. Oswald got annoyed and after a while we went back home, it was late for dinner as well, the sun had long set.

Sometimes, when I’m sad and feeling down, and to be honest that doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I become even more sensitive and insecure.

So I look for mamma Barbara’s affection, and trying not to be too direct, I ask her:

‘You love me mum, right? You’re my only mother, I don’t

have any other mums, do I? I want to stay with you

whatever happens.’

‘Yes, I love you too sweetheart, we all love you here, don’t

worry, I won’t send you away for sure.’

To me Barbara is my mum, she’s even more than a mum, all my family here, my places, all the kids that have shared this ‘family’ of ours with me. Now they’ve all left, I’ve been here forever, with Oswald and Waltraud, I hope I’ll be able to remain here for a very long time.

I now live with the fact that probably I’m not Karl and Barbara’s natural son, they could have adopted me, or I may have been left in their care like the others, who knows?

And who knows where my natural parents are, who they are… Actually, I don’t want to know, this is my family, end of the story.

I perceived hints every now and then, I’m lost in a crowd of questions but I don’t lose heart, I try to behave as if nothing happened. All my family’s love helps me not to think about it.

Almost every Sunday we all go on the Alpe di Siusi1 with Karl’s car, a yellow Opel Kadett, it looks like a flan, even more so when the engine bonnet’s warm and it really feels like it’s just out of the oven.

The Alpe di Siusi is beautiful, I like the Haflinger horses with their white mane, and seeing the cows and horses in the wild gives me a sense of freedom. Horses are my favourite animals, with their melancholy eyes. It feels good to see them having fun on the mountain in the summer, after all it’s sort of their holiday.

Here it’s full of nice cabins and huts, fields and hills, endless rises and slopes, we can see the Sciliar’s Santner peak, we’re about five thousand feet above sea level.

We go on long walks from one cabin to another. Karl often meets people he knows and friends with whom he stops to chat.

I, Waltraud and mamma Barbara sit on the grass for an afternoon snack, Oswald smells the cheese and the salamis and joins us.

What surprises me about the Alpe di Siusi are the many bends you need to go through to get here, but in the end the prize is worth it. You get on the plateau and it looks like there’s a green carpet everywhere, with a thin, healthy air, you feel like you could fly.

3 TN: Italian name of the Seiser Alm.

Back home from our trip, after a whole day in the outdoors, a quick dinner and then to bed, at least for me. Karl and Barbara watch some TV, Oswald and Waltraud finish their school homework. Luckily I don’t have to go to school yet, I wouldn’t like to stay closed in a room for hours with an artificial light on my head. But in a couple of year it’ll be my turn as well.

In the night a loud siren wakes us up, and I don’t mean a fish woman, wooooooooo woooooooo woooooooo, it goes on and on, it must be 2 in the morning.

It’s the firefighters’ siren, we all go on the balcony to see if we can find anything in the dark of the night.

There’s an acrid smell in the air, a fine soot is floating in the air, dancing and settling right in front of us, on the balcony’s railings.

The fire is close, very close, too close, we can feel the heatwave. Looking left, we see the extremely tall flames rising almost to the sky, mercilessly and glowingly burning down the wood, I can hear the beams creaking and cracking like bones.

It’s our barn that’s getting incinerated, the firefighters’ wailing sirens and flashing lights come to our aid, roads all around the valley get coloured in blue, yellow and red.

It’s almost like a pinball, or a club with multicoloured lights, our greatest concern is to save the cattle in the adjacent stable from the flames.

The stable and the animals are how we earn our bread, they’re how we make a living, without them we’re finished.

Luckily it starts to rain hard, it’s like a divine help from heaven, at least people are not in danger.

I get so anxious looking at all those blue lights come to help us, I get emotional, I look at our faces and I can’t hold my tears.

At first glance, it could look like a spectacle in nature, like the eruption of a volcano in the deepest of the night. I, Barbara and Waltraud stay at home, Karl and Oswald go with the firefighters to see the state of what’s left and examine what’s happened.

After a few hours, the fire’s put out, but there’s a persistent, unforgettable smell penetrating into the house, even though we made sure to shut everything. Poor Karl, after so many sacrifices it must be sad for him to see part of his work go up in smoke in less than an hour. They’ve come back inside in the morning, so they can rest a little and recover from the shock, luckily I managed to fall asleep again for a few hours.

It’s morning now, it’s not raining anymore, there’s a little sunshine trying to cheer us up, showing us all that’s left of our barn.

In the afternoon mamma Barbara asks me to bring Karl and Oswald some newspapers and food. They’re busy on the disaster site with some professionals.

I’d prefer not to go because I’m a little scared after all that fire in the night, what if it’s still there, what if it starts again when I arrive.

But on the other hand my sense of adventure incites me to go see for myself what happened, if the cows and the sheep are still in one piece or if they’ve been roasted as in a country fair.

As I cautiously get nearer, Oswald comes towards me, I give him the newspapers and the food, he must be hungry.

I still haven’t understood what the newspapers are for, actually they don’t look like newspapers, they’re more like magazines I think.

I look up towards the roof which doesn’t exist anymore, there’s nothing left but the skeleton of the larger wooden beams, pitch-black and eaten-up, looking like a coal structure made by an eccentric and misunderstood artist.

Waterdrops are still hanging here and there, undecided whether to fall to their doom or not, as if afraid of heights. The acrid smell of varnished, burnt, wet wood’s still very much present in the air, it’s a smell I’ll remember forever.

This has certainly been the most shocking event of my short life, it’s waken us in the middle of the night. Days go slowly by, I don’t know what they’ve decided to do, whether they want to build a new barn, or if they have another solution. Next time grandma comes I’ll surely have something to talk about.

It’s been two weeks already since grandma Anna’s last visit, but now she’s probably slightly postponed her next trip because of the fire.

Days and weeks pass, but no news from grandma yet, and this worries me, so I ask mamma Barbara:

‘When will grandma come? She hasn’t come in a long while.’

‘I really don’t know, I haven’t heard from her yet, we

happened to have a chat some time ago, but she couldn’t

tell me when she was going to come.’

‘I hope nothing bad happened in the meanwhile.’

‘As soon as I hear something I’ll let you know, don’t worry,

she must’ve been busy with the fields, the crop.’

The kids that were with us in the summer have all left, as usual they’ve only stayed for two or three weeks at most, Oswald and Waltraud are at school from morning till early afternoon. Karl’s busy the whole day with the stable, in the afternoon he takes a nap for a few hours on the sofa.

So in the morning it’s always just me and Barbara, either at home or, when she’s got work to do, in the garden. The sunflowers’ heads are down now, the seeds are all ripe in their circles, embedded within the pale-yellow petals.

I often go play outside in the morning, sometimes I go snooping around our house. One of our neighbours has a beautiful garden, where I enjoy going for walks and smelling the scents of the various plants and flowers that grow there.

The owner lets me in whenever I like, the entrance is a black wrought-iron gate, full of strange ornaments, spirals, roses and other flowers.

A narrow pathway marked by thousands of white pebbles leads me around, there are iron arcs all along the way, covered by vines and big roses of many different colours, red, pink, white, yellow. As I pass by them they give off an inebriating scent, it’s like a journey across various fragrances, there are also exotic plants and palms.

On the sides, every now and then, I encounter tiny statues, cheerful dwarves, chalk fawns, little fountains and water features. I feel like in a fairy tale, I wish I could stay here forever, I sit on a bench swinging my legs for a bit, and I think again about the possible reasons why grandma hasn’t come yet.

Usually, Saturday’s the day Barbara gives me a full bath, in a plastic tub on the kitchen table.

Today’s Monday, and it’s morning, I know we don’t have to go anywhere in particular. I leave the fairy garden, I try to shut the gate but the handle doesn’t work well.

Maybe it’s because the owner has put too much varnish on it, so it gets stuck a little and can’t go all the way, so I simply push it back against the frame and leave it unlocked.

I’ve even managed not to get dirty, I’ve only gone for a walk and I’ve sat on the clean bench for a while, so I don’t even need to wash.

I call Barbara to tell her I’ve arrived:

‘Mum, I’m coming, is lunch ready?’

I can’t hear her reply, I enter by the gate, I close it calmly, it too doesn’t shut too well, it’s a little rusty. I open the front door and I get in, I take off my shoes, mamma Barbara comes towards me from the kitchen, she kneels down and hugs me.

She takes me in her arms and kisses me again and again:

‘I know you love me, but is something wrong?’

‘I’m just happy to hug you, I’ll always love you.’

It has kind of taken me by surprise, I’ve gone out in the courtyard to play for a while, I could feel in her hug that something was off.

In her cheeks I can see a concern for something sad and melancholy, she can hardly hold her tears, she smiles at me:

‘Now, let’s eat something, then we’ll get dressed. You must

go with Karl, he’ll drive you to a place.’

‘And where is that, I want to stay here, I don’t have to go

anywhere, are we driving to the ice-cream shop?’

‘Yes, you could get an ice-cream, but I don’t know about

later.’

I don’t eat much and neither does she, we aren’t hungry anymore, she clears the table and gets the bath tub.

Things are getting serious, it’s not even Saturday, I’m not dirty, and she’s preparing the tub on the table for a bath.

I’m scared, it’s fishy to put it mildly, I try to act normal and say to her:

Mum, I’m going out to play again, I’m not hungry anymore.’

Everything starts looking misty and blurry, no, it’s not raining outside, it’s raining on my face, big, warm teardrops as big as peanuts.

I can hardly speak among sobs, she replies:

‘No, you can’t go out now, you’ll be late, I’ve got to wash you and dress you up now, Karl’s going to take you to Bolzano.’

We hug tightly without letting go, her tears are wetting my shoulders, they’re getting soaked with a mother’s love.

Sitting in the yellow tub, Barbara scrubs my shoulders with a sponge. She takes it on my face and on my eyes too, to clear the tears away, she manages to smile at me, her every move over me is a caress saying goodbye.

I can’t understand what’s in store for me yet, but I’m sure it’s nothing good, I think that sad moment I never wanted to face has finally arrived.

I must leave what for me is my family, my whole world.

It’s clear to me that, like the other small children, I’ve been here in their foster care for almost five years, and now the time has come to go to Bolzano or who knows where.

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.

Once taken out of the oven, the cake is overturned and cut in six square portions, then you spread jam over them and eat them with your hands.

The reason why so many humps form is a secret, I still can’t wrap my head around it, it’s almost like magic, I wish I’ll be able to make it as well one day.

On the top of my personal chart there also are Knödel with stewed plums, covered with crispy breadcrumbs and powdered cinnamon.

They are so crunchy, but when you cut them in half with your fork the moist dough inside opens up and mixes with the stewed plums’ juice oozing out, and a wonderful smell rushes straight to your face.

Yes, I’ll admit it, at least now that I’m little I prefer sweets, I’m a sucker for them.

Sometimes, when I go to sleep, I feel puffy because of how much I’ve eaten, as grandma says:

‘Eh, your eyes are bigger than your stomach.’

‘Yes, you’re right, next time I’ll try to eat less, but they’re so

good, and I’m such a glutton.’

Today’s Friday, in the room I share with grandma we have a small white television with two retractable aerials. The screen’s in black and white. By pressing on two metal bars, we can change the various channels, we have six programmed at the moment.

Grandma usually watches the news, while in the afternoon I watch my favourite cartoons, such as ‘UFO Robot Grendizer’, ‘Captain Harlock’, ‘Steel Jeeg’, ‘Babel II’, ‘Rocky Joe’, ‘Mazinger Z’, ‘Blocker Corps IV’, ‘Candy Candy’ and ‘Nobody’s Boy:

Remi’(4). Yes, Remi, a series about a young orphan wandering around the world in search of his mother, not knowing who she is or if she even exists.

Also Candy’s story, an orphan growing up in the ‘Pony’s Home’ orphanage, is very moving and engrossing.

I can see myself in Remi, sometimes the similarities seem incredible, for instance the first mother who adopted him is called Barbara, just like mine.

At least I understand that this all has also happened to others, I follow every episode anxious to know how it will continue and if one day he will be able to meet his true mother.

Grandma also bought me Remi’s novel (5) , I treasure it jealously, it’s a huge, heavy book, it barely fits on the shelf above the bed.

Every Friday evening, we watch the second channel after dinner, it’s become a must for me and grandma. We get on the big bed and we watch Portobello, a show presented by Enzo Tortora.

In the studio there is a beautiful speaking parrot called ‘Portobello’, and some of the show’s guests must try to get it say its own name.

It hasn’t happened yet, it’s weird to hear an animal speak, on TV no less.

The programme invites common people to go on the show and offer inventions they created, exhibiting them and explaining how they work, then interested acquirers can call from home to buy them at the end.

The section I like the most is the ‘Fiori d’arancio’ (6) one, there are people who go there to meet someone and get married, I’ve always thought I’d personally never go on TV for such a thing.

Almost at the end of the show there’s another interesting section, also grandma’s favourite.

It’s called ‘Dove sei?’ (7), it allows people to tell their stories and look for someone dear they’ve lost track of.

Enzo Tortora, the host, is like a wizard, sometimes he can make people meet who haven’t seen each other for fifty or more years.

It often is so emotional and moving that I and grandma both burst into tears, sometimes I think that I could well write a letter too to see little Eva again, the girl with the blond curls whom I once kissed. Or to meet mamma Barbara again, should we not see each other for a long time.

Watching this last bit is often a battle against sleep: after a while it just comes over me, so sometimes I miss the end.

When that happens, in the morning I ask grandma to tell me how it all finished as soon as I get up.

If I fall asleep in the first half of the episode instead, I wake up in time for the end and I’m able to catch everything, including the black and white credits, rolling upwards on a grey backdrop to the tune of Ricchi e Poveri’s ‘Come vorrei’ (8), then hand in hand with grandma I fall asleep again.

Sometimes Miriam gets up and turns off the TV, which in the meantime has started showing strange twirling shapes or a fixed image with small squares and circles.

Mrs Miriam is my father Remo’s wife, I’m getting used to the fact I have another father, my natural one.

4 TN: Italian-dubbed runs of these Japanese cartoons (more properly known as anime) were broadcasted during the 70s and 80s, and became immensely popular among kids and teenagers, so much so that nowadays they can be considered part of the Italian collective imagination.

5 TN: the book that inspired the anime is Hector Malot’s Sans Famille, commonly known in English as ‘Nobody’s Boy’.

6 TN: ‘Orange Blossoms’.

7 TN: ‘Where Are You?’.

8 TN: ‘I Wish I Could’.

Therefore, since Miriam is married to my father, she must be my natural mother, that’s what I thought, yes, I’m getting used to this all.

I think she cares for me, she’s a good mum, my father doesn’t speak much with me, he also works night shifts. This means we don’t see much of each other, when I go to sleep he goes to work, and sleeps during the day, so we have to try not to talk too loud in the house. They often scold me because my voice is too high and I make too much noise, but I can’t speak lower, it doesn’t come natural to me.

Winter whiles away calm and regular, until Christmas, which is very nice here. With mamma Miriam we decorate the Christmas tree in the kitchen, and I make the nativity scene all by myself, as I have a certain familiarity with animals. The sheep are like Oswald and Karl’s, time and time again I find myself thinking about how much I miss them, it would be great if we could all live together under the same roof.

We also have guests, aunt Ida and uncle Bruno. They come over and bring a lot of presents for me, they’re big, huge, I never know which one I should open first.

I also like to see the table prepared for the festivities, with the long red candles lighted and a white tablecloth studded with golden straw stars. Miriam is very good with this stuff, she makes everything herself, even the straw decorations, as well as lots of cookies she bakes with passion. I’ve rarely seen my father as happy and cheerful as in these occasions, and apart from me, everybody drinks excellent sparkling wine. I settle for diluted raspberry juice, or for some orangeade with grandma.

There’s a nice harmony in the house, I wish everyday was Christmas, even without gifts. Yes, it’s true, they’re nice and it’s exciting to unwrap them, but the atmosphere around the table as well as my aunt and uncle’s company is a beautiful vibe of love and well-being.

When my aunt and uncle leave at the end of the evening I’m very sorry, I can’t wait for them to come back, perhaps next time they won’t wait until Christmas.

Mamma Miriam has put on some weight recently, maybe it’s because of all those Christmas cookies she made and which we ate together, around the holidays you eat a lot more.

She also has a nice round tummy, it can’t be just the cookies. I see now, she’s expecting a baby girl, I’m going to have a sister.

That’s wonderful, I can’t wait to see her, finally I won’t be the youngest one, when I was with Oswald and Waltraud I was the runt of the litter.

I miss everyone and everything so much, my blossoming green fields, the cows, the cats. I ask grandma many times to take me back there in the mountains, where my home is, I feel at home here too, but the nostalgia is too strong. In everyday life the lack of affection is often underestimated, one should study and observe animals, they teach it as a natural instinct.

Every now and then, I get a rainbow bracelet, it’s a lucky charm, I often imagine the knot tying the two small ropes is a transceiver, like those in ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Steel Jeeg’, and I pretend I’m speaking with Oswald via radio.