Invictus. Cristiano Parafioriti

woman who had lost her husband in the WWI and, since then, bitter for this harsh fate, she was said to cast the evil eye on other women’s husbands and children.

      Everyone feared her.

      That evening Zi Peppe Pileri thought he had dodged her, but he was wrong.

      ‘Gnura Mena was lurking at the edge of the trough, on the other side of the road, and he couldn’t avoid her.

      “Peppe, is the day over?” the woman asked. “Yes, Mena, I’m retiring before it gets dark,” he cut in. “You know they still call a lot of boys to fighting in the war...” “I’ve already been to war with your dearly departed husband, Caliddo. They can’t call me anymore, Mena!” Zi Peppe said.

      “Not you, but your son Ture can be!” “It will be God’s will, and God’s will will be done. Good night, Mena.” “God has forgotten us, Peppe,” was the harsh reply.

      Zi Peppe digested the bitter words of the woman, but when the roofs of Bolo disappeared behind him, he stopped the mule and touched the iron under the hoof for good luck.

      Damn witch, she is trying to jinx my son Ture!

      When he arrived in San Giorgio, he put the beast back in the stable and went home for dinner. He wearily said hello to his family, ready for the evening meal, and sank into his chair, waiting for one of his daughters to come and serve him.

      Concetta arrived. She was eighteen years old and already looked like a grown-up woman. She immediately became upset.

      “You are stubborn, father! I told you that you should take off your boots full of mud outside the door!” Zi Peppe lowered his eyes. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he had forgotten to take them off.

      He apologized with a tired gesture of his fingers and brought a basin of hot water to clean at least his hands with a pumice stone because they were still dirty.

      Concetta came back with a jug, filled the basin again, and with vigour, washed her father from the feet up to the knees, then dried him with a cotton cloth, put on his woollen socks, and began to prepare the table for dinner.

      Before eating his soup, Zi Peppe grabbed the bread to cut it. He wanted to dunk a few pieces into the steaming broth, but while he was about to swallow the first bite, his wife, Za Nunzia, scolded him back:

      “Peppe, you forgot to mark the bread with the cross before cutting it! What’s wrong with you? You’ve gone off the deep end! Don’t forget that the daily bread is God’s blessing!”

      Zi Peppe sank the dripping spoon into his plate and looked up at Nunzia. “That old goat of Mena of Bolo cast the evil eye on me!”

      “I can’t believe it... do you still believe in curses?”

      “Shit, Nunzia, you still believe in priests, don’t you? And I believe in curses!”

      “Don’t swear in front of the kids, and don’t insult the Church, as usual! And what curse did that poor woman cast to you? Let’s hear it…”

      “She told me they’re calling soldiers to the war and that Ture might be…”

      “That motherfu–” Nunzia winced, covering her mouth before uttering other insults.

      “Tomorrow, if I see her at the trough, I’ll tell her off! She must leave my son Ture alone!”

      Zi Peppe appeased her, and they both ate the last meal of the day in silence. It was a great relief that, at least for that evening, at the table, Ture was not there. He had gone to work for a week in Bronte.

      After dinner, the whole family said a Hail Mary and prepared to rest.

      Nunzia picked up a blanket hanging over the fire pit, laid it on their children’s bed to give them some warmth, and then returned to her husband. They chatted and promised each other not to pay too much attention to Mena’s words.

      It was past midnight, but Zi Peppe could not sleep. He heard everything: the barking of Zi Dimonio’s dogs, the creaking gate of Zi Natale Sponzio’s henhouse, and, almost, even the river slowly flowing downstream. Above all, the words of Mena were still in his mind. Maybe the woman had never forgiven him for having survived her husband, who had also been on the Karst during the First World War. He turned towards Nunzia, seeking comfort from her body beside him. But in the pitch dark, even his wife’s eyes shone like stars.

      That night, the Pileri could not sleep.

II

      Zi Peppe Pileri often repeated that he had already lived two lives. About his first life, he told little and reluctantly. He referred to his harsh childhood, the troubles of his adolescence, and the subsequent tumultuous events that had involved him.

      Of all of them, the memory that troubled him most was when, as a conscript, he was on patrol at the Camaro Infantry Regiment on 28 December 1908.

      At dawn on that day, Messina was destroyed by an earthquake and seaquake. He survived by a miracle. The barracks had imploded in a few moments, and the ammunition storage area had blown up. As luck would have it, he was on patrol along the outer perimeter and was thrown twenty metres by the shock wave. He had been deaf in one ear for fifteen days but could not benefit from any recovery because he was needed to shovel through the rubble of the devastated city.

      After that event, he spent a month and a half among the corpses, and the memory of those few survivors being pulled out alive from the ruins of the massacre still made him flinch. At the time, the Command had taken care to send a dispatch only to the families of the dead soldiers; there was no news of the living. Moreover, Zi Peppe hadn’t heard anything about his family, whether the earthquake had affected the villages in the Nebrodi mountains.

      Only in March 1909, when he had finished his military service, he returned to San Giorgio.

      He had not even had time to rejoice at the safe return of his loved ones when hunger and the crisis forced his father to embark him for America in May of that year.

      After 29 days spent between Messina, Naples, and the Atlantic Ocean, he arrived in New York on 26 June 1909.

      He was 20 years old and, arrived in the New Continent, had been admitted to the quarantine area of the Ellis Island Immigrant Reception Centre for a month because of suspected bronchopneumonia.

      During those long days as a prisoner-sick man, he had met some shady Sicilian emigrants, who had hired him for some ‘special commissions’.

      A few revolver shots he had dodged, a few others he had fired, and he had thus created a ‘respectable reputation’ for himself, thanks to his charisma and cleverness in smuggling whisky.

      After six years, he was called up as a soldier in Italy because of the Great War. If he had stayed in America, he would have been considered a deserter and couldn’t have returned to Sicily any more.

      Therefore, he had decided to return home, and, soon, young Peppe, from the charming and dangerous New York, found himself in the Cavalry Regiment Savoia on the Isonzo front.

      He saw more dead people killed in one day on the Karst than in six years in New York!

      When he returned, he carried the signs of war with him, and, suddenly, the American dream had vanished completely. The mere thought of returning to the Wild West that was America in the early 1900s made him shudder.

      The Messina earthquake, the American mafia, the war, too much blood, and the too many deaths in so few years had worn him out.

      He chose the quiet life of a farmer and decided to stay in San Giorgio.

      There he began his second life.

      A year after the end of the Great War, he met Nunzia and got married. Slowly, they began to cultivate the land, raise animals, and have children.

      In November 1921, his first son, Ture, was born.

      Ture was now 20 years old.

      He