LA PRESANELLA
Sixteen-year-old Roseanna was having the time of her life that summer. While her father had stayed home to work, she, her mother and her two brothers had returned to Italy after nine years from emigrating to a little town in the Italian Alps called Vermiglio, in the Val de Sole, a few miles from the Swiss border, near Lugano. They were going to spend the summer in her mother’s native town where she grew up and Roseanna’s birthplace.
Roseanna has never forgotten the day in her seventh year when her parents announced that they were going to America. Her family’s excitement about that prospect had infected her too, and she had been filled with a sense of wonder, of marvelous possibilities lying before her. The next day she had awakened early and had stolen outdoors to look at the countryside around her. Her house was situated on a hill and she could see for miles, but that particular morning there had been a thick fog rolling over the land. Roseanna had stood and stared for a long while. She knew she was going to leave this place too soon, before she had the chance to solve its mysteries. On a picnic with her grandmother in the gloomy, deep woods surrounded by dark trees that seemed to hold secrets, she had wondered if witches lived there. And she was just too young to know that the big bonfire the townspeople held that year did not burn a real witch. She had already felt homesick for the lazy walk from school back up the hill, picking gooseberries in the summertime, the little boy, Severino, who promised to marry her when they grew up. Standing there on the hill with the fog pressing on her, she had sensed a timelessness then, as if she would always remember that moment. Years later, she had placed that moment as the dawn of her reasoning, as a revelation to her of what suffering meant, and she had felt both sad and wise.
When the bus left Trento to climb the winding mountain road to the village, while Roseanna was nonchalant, her mother could hardly contain herself because of her excitement over seeing her native town again. She kept getting up to open a window or move to another seat. “Oh, there’s the barn I used to play hide-and-seek in!” Roseanna’s mother would exclaim. “There’s the chapel!”
When they arrived in Vermiglio, there was a crowd of people gathered at the bus stop, which wasn’t a station but merely a widening along the main road that divided the cluster of old thick-stoned houses nestled on either side. Her mother started to cry upon seeing her brothers and sisters, and all her relatives. It was a real homecoming with much hugging and kissing and introducing of names for which Roseanna could hardly guess their English equivalents, names like Tulio, Cipriano, Renzo, Urbino, Adige, Scholastica.
Roseanna immediately fell in love with the town and its people. It was such a contrast to New York, like living in another world. Everything about it made her feel as if she were on some transcendent plane of existence. She thought the mountain air had something to do with it. Everything smelled fresh and clean. Every few hundred feet was another mountain stream gushing down the hillside and she swore she could even smell the rocks and pebbles. The town lay in a valley surrounded by farmers’ hay fields and scarlet fields of poppies, hence its name, Vermiglio. It had the distinction of being the highest town in elevation at 4,137 feet. Farther off were forested hills, some of them neatly shorn here and there, each family having its allotted measure of pine trees used for furniture and heating. The craggy mountains were behind the hills and farther still were snow-capped mountain peaks. Roseanna and her brothers delighted in wandering around the nooks and crannies of the cobblestoned streets. (Her Uncle Alberto was one of the masons that worked on those streets.) Upon seeing one of the communal fountains used by the women to do their laundry in former times, but still occasionally used for that purpose, a rush of her mother’s stories flooded Roseanna’s mind, and she remembered the one about a girl who fell in the fountain to retrieve her ring and found it opened onto a magical garden from which she had a hard time to find her way out.
Her older brother by a couple of years had taken to hanging around one of the goat herder boys, waking up at five in the morning and accompanying the boy and his flock up the mountainside, not to be seen again until supper. Her younger brother was interested in the farmers, working in the fields with them, loading hay. Her mother’s delight was to visit her friends and relatives, going from house to house whiling away the hours chatting and reminiscing about old times. Sometimes the four of them, and a cousin or two, would take off to the forests to hunt for wild mushrooms—the orange ones called “finferllis” and the white-capped ones called “brisas”—or to gather blueberries or wild flowers.
But Roseanna’s favorite haunt was the mountain lodge or refuge house. Rifugio Denza, it was called. This was a waystation for mountain climbers, built where the tree line ended, near the base of the snow-capped mountain peak called “Cima Presanella,” formally, and colloquially, “La Presanella.” It stood a thousand feet high from the base of the rifugio. There was a small lake nearby, and climbers gathered Edelweiss, or Stelle Alpine in Italian, along the crevices of craggy boulders that surrounded the place. It was said, in the town, that people had lost their lives attempting to retrieve bunches of Edelweiss that grew in precarious locations. The Presanella was a popular expedition among mountain climbers. Roseanna’s Uncle Alberto had a boarder who would make several trips to this mountain peak every summer. It was at the invitation of this guest that Roseanna and two of her cousins hiked up to the rifugio for the first time, taking about seven hours to reach it. There were a couple of tricky parts to navigate: first, climbers had to crawl through a tunnel that had been built during World War II for purposes of maneuvering troops by Alpine soldiers. They also had to go along a narrow path behind a waterfall, jumping between slippery rocks. Feeling the spray of the water, Roseanna felt exhilarated, and, once she had passed through it, relieved to be safe on the other side. From there on, the trees became sparse, and the land opened up to grassy hillocks where sheep and goats grazed. When the sheep were in the middle of the path, Roseanna had to forge her way through them, smacking them so they’d budge.
The last mile or so was a steep climb where the path led between boulders. The rifugio came into view the last quarter of a mile and was a welcome sight to every fatigued and panting traveler. Alongside it a stream gurgled and gushed with tremendous force because of the altitude. The rifugio, which was built of stone, had a kitchen and dining room downstairs, two large bedrooms upstairs with six narrow cots in each, and, attached in the back, an outhouse that recently installed modern plumbing. Surrounding the house, the land was nearly flat for about a hundred yards until it reached the lake, which lay at the foot of the Presanella.
It took real skill to climb Cima Presanella and heavy duty mountain equipment was required. Of course, Roseanna had no mountain climbing experience, but she was content to climb the boulders in the area and gather Alpine Stars. This was a real adventure to her, and sometimes she required the help of her more experienced cousins to get her out of some predicament.
But Roseanna had even a stronger infatuation with Marcello, the mountain guide to the Presanella who was a resident of the rifugio during the summer season. On meeting, the two of them had hit it off immediately. He was jovial and outgoing, and easily dissipated Roseanna’s shyness with his teasing banter about her mispronounced Italian words, giving her the nickname “Dicio,” because she’d say “dicio” instead of “dico” for “I say.” Despite his having a wife and three children, he would pretend to be in love with her, asking her to marry him and take him to America. All this amused Roseanna, and she gladly answered his questions about her life in the States while contemplating his rugged good looks. Never mind that he was about two decades older than her! Coming back home from one of these trips, she would daydream about him, fantasizing a romance. Sometimes, lying awake at night, she would idealize some scene with him, turning it over and over in her mind, working herself to a fever pitch, until she got it just to her satisfaction. It was an exercise in mental orgasm and her climax carried over into the day, for she was, as they said in those days, on cloud nine, happy and carefree as a lark.
#
One day, she met her cousin Bruno, who was the oldest of five brothers, and whose family was looked on with disfavor by the rest of her uncles and aunts. It seemed that uncle Pietro, Bruno’s father, was considered the black sheep of the family because he had a drinking problem. But Roseanna suspected that there was more to it than that, that it probably originated with some jealousy, some imagined putdown or other such nonsense that she had heard in passing from one of her mother’s conversations. Her cousin Matteo considered Bruno wild and unruly, relating to her a tale in which Bruno had tied the tails of two cats to each other and then let them fly around the room screeching at each other. When he told her another tale where Bruno supposedly tied the priest’s beard through the confessional grating, she doubted he was telling the truth and just liked to make up stories about Bruno.
Bruno was Roseanna’s age and they struck up a friendship immediately. He was somewhat shy like her, perhaps due to the fact that he was missing his right arm, which had been blown off by an abandoned explosive left over from the War. Her other cousins had implied that he had only himself to blame for the accident because he had been told not to play in certain areas. But Roseanna found him to be easy to talk to. “Did you really tie those poor cats’ tails together?” she questioned him.
“Yes, I used to be very cruel to animals when I was younger. Then after the accident and I was older, I took revenge on people.”
“Don’t tell me that tale about tying the priest’s beard is true!” Roseanna exclaimed.
Bruno hung his head down. “Yes, it’s true. He didn’t even know it until I got out and he started to yell and call for help. I went back, pretending I just arrived, and cut the knots off with my knife. To this day he’s never mentioned it. I think he’s too embarrassed to let anyone know.”
“Oh, Bruno, that is so awful. I hope you’ve outgrown those kinds of pranks,” Roseanna admonished, while giving a little chuckle at the thought of the poor priest and his knotted beard. She told him the biggest adventure she ever had was to gather Edelweiss at the rifugio. When he expressed a desire to go there with her, she asked, “But how could you, with your arm!”
“That’s no problem. Don’t you see how easily I get around? You want to see me jump over this fence?” And without waiting for an answer, he walked a few feet away, and with a running start easily jumped the post-and-rail fence they had been sitting on. “Besides, I’ve been up there by myself numerous times. Only within view of it, before anybody could see me, then I’d come back down.”
“All in one day?!” Roseanna was shocked to hear that he could reach the rifugio in about four hours and come back in another three, when it took her at least seven hours just to reach it. “But why don’t you go all the way?” she asked.
“I guess I’m too shy to go there by myself. You know, there’s always a bunch of travelers around.”
Without giving it a second thought, Rosanna asked, “Do you want to come with me and Matteo and Caterina? We’re planning to go tomorrow.”
“They might not want me to come along…” Bruno hesitated.
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’ll tell them I invited you and they can’t do anything about it.”
“They might refuse to go. And then Uncle Alberto and Aunt Elsa won’t let you go with just me.”
“No, they won’t. I want you to go. It’ll be so much fun with you there. Please say you’ll come.”
“All right, if you want me to,” Bruno said, giving a little smile.
Roseanna was elated. This was just the chance he needed to prove to them that he wasn’t an outcast and that he was really likable.
That evening, Roseanna burst in upon her family and relatives gathered at the kitchen table with the news, “I’ve invited Bruno to come to the rifugio tomorrow and he said he accepted.”
There was a dead silence for about a half a minute. Her cousin Matteo broke it with, “Are you crazy? Bruno can’t go up there. How’s he going to crawl through the tunnel and get around that waterfall?”
“He’s done it already numerous times. He told me. He’s been up there by himself!”
“You can’t believe him. And if he did go alone, that just shows you how crazy he is to take a chance like that,” Uncle Alberto said.
“Just like he did when he was ten,” Aunt Elsa chimed in. “Going off into those minefields and coming back with his arm blown off. I’m sorry, Roseanna, but we’re responsible for you since your mother’s visiting the next town, you have to tell him that we will not permit you to go with him.”
“Not permit! But he’s already looking forward to it. I can’t tell him. I just can’t. And anyway, if his parents allow him to go with me, how can you stop him?”
Roseanna’s aunt and uncle looked at each other. In the few weeks Roseanna lived with them she had come to love them dearly for their simple ways, their singlemindedness in raising their six children. They were a close knit family and if there ever was a prime example of the old adage, “A family that prays together stays together,” they were it. They truly thought as one unit. Roseanna knew from the look her uncle and aunt gave each other that they were in agreement. Then her uncle got up from his chair, came around to where Roseanna was sitting, and putting his hand on her shoulder said, “Roseanna, I’ll go and speak to his parents.” Giving her a little pat, he added, “I know you don’t like this, but try to see it from our point of view.” Then he left.
Roseanna got up and, without a word to anyone, went to her room, that is, the room she shared with her three female cousins. In the middle of her crying, she sat up and thought, “I know! I just won’t go myself. That’ll show them! That’ll prove to them that they’re wrong!” immediately feeling relieved. Now she could go to sleep, but before she did so, she went into her favorite reverie, daydreaming about Marcello. She pictured herself climbing the Presanella with him, just the two of them with ropes tied to their waists and spikes on their boots. He led and she followed about a hundred feet behind. They would come to a narrow pass about two feet wide and ten feet long and nothing on each side for hundreds of feet. He would cross it easily and turn to see her still standing there on the other side. He’d come back and tell her to sit down with her legs hanging over each side and he’d pull her. But the ice was rough and would hurt her in a sensitive area, so he’d have to chip some of the ice smooth. He would do all this just for her. Then finally, when they had reached the peak and all the world was below them, he’d kiss her.
The next morning, bright and early, her cousin Caterina woke her with, “C’mon Roseanna, we’ve got to get up so we can get a head start.” Ordinarily, on any day planned for the rifugio, Roseanna would have been the first to wake. This morning she felt disoriented, and unsure of what she wanted to do. At breakfast, her uncle told her the outcome of his talk with Bruno’s parents. They had agreed with him.
“Was Bruno there?” Roseanna asked him.
“No, but his mother assured me she would tell him.”
“Excuse me, I have to see him. I’ll be right back,” Roseanna said as she rushed out of the house.
She saw her Aunt Pasquina, Bruno’s mother, through the kitchen window and waved to her before she entered the foyer. Off to one corner was a drawn curtain partly revealing the bed where Bruno slept. When she entered she saw that he had turned to the other side so that he wouldn’t face her. She thought she heard a muffled sound. She entered the kitchen and greeted her aunt.
“How nice of you to come, Roseanna. Bruno’s sleeping. I know you’re here about the trip. Your uncle
“Aunt Pasquina, I didn’t have anything to do with my uncle’s decision. I’m really sorry. I wish I could—”
“Don’t worry, Roseanna, I know. Bruno feels bad, but he’ll get over it. He understands it’s not your fault.”
Roseanna faced the floor, the cold stone floor, and she saw herself when she must have been two years old, sitting on her potty, sucking one end of her handkerchief with her thumb, and her bare feet on the cold stone floor.
“Aunt Pasquina, please tell Bruno I came by and that I’ll see him later. I’m sorry about this. I’ve got to go.”
#
Roseanna was standing on top of a boulder with a bunch of Edelweiss in her hand. She looked down and contemplated whether she should jump about ten feet to the ledge below or slide down when suddenly Bruno’s head popped up just above the ledge. “Bruno!” she exclaimed, “You came up anyway!”
“Surprised to see me?” he laughed. “I’ll bet you’re glad I showed up just now. You look like you’re having a problem getting down. Here, just sit on the rock and put your feet on my shoulders. I’ll ease you down to this landing.”
Roseanna hesitated but did as she was told, grateful for Bruno’s strength. As soon as she landed she said, “Bruno, I’m so glad you came. Now you can come to the rifugio and show the others that—”
“Oh no, I didn’t come for that. If they don’t want me on their own, I’m not going to run to them. I came to give you this.” He took out from his pocket a flattened Edelweiss as big as her palm.
“Why, it’s the biggest one I ever saw! Did you just find it? Thank you. I’ll treasure it always.”
“No, I got it the last time I came up here, but I wanted to give it to you now because I won’t have a chance to see you again before you leave. You see, I’m going to Trento in a couple of days to start my course in architecture.”
“I’m really glad you came. But Bruno you’ve got to meet them halfway if you want to be friends with them. Why don’t you come to the rifugio with me now and stop carrying a chip on your shoulder.”
Bruno looked at Roseanna long and hard. “Roseanna, it’s not them I want to be friends with, it’s you. You could have told your cousins you were coming with me instead. But I think you’re so caught up with your infatuation with Marcello, that you didn’t want to risk the chance of not seeing him again.”
Roseanna was shocked. She knew that her flirtation with Marcello was common knowledge. Once, when Marcello had driven into town on his motorcycle, Roseanna’s mother had stopped him and had jokingly said to him, “So you’re the one who seduced my daughter.”
But whereas everyone else regarded their relationship as an innocent adolescent crush on Roseanna’s part and simply a good-natured indulgence on Marcello’s part, Bruno had guessed the truth. She didn’t know what to say to him. She felt bewildered because she hadn’t meant any harm, yet Bruno was blaming her for his hurt. She knew that trying to explain that it was her uncle and aunt who forbade her to go with him was going to be of no use.
A week later, Roseanna was on the bus heading towards Trento, eyes glued to the passing scenery, and with her heart aching. She hated to leave. She wanted to imprint on her mind every detail, every stream, every black and white marker posting the road miles. But most of all, she fixed her eyes on the Presanella. It loomed before her, now and again, as the bus wove in and out of the mountainside. She knew precisely the spot where she would see it for the last time. Too soon, it came upon her and her eyes welled up.
Marcello had kissed her that last trip and she still felt the warmth of it. At the rifugio, knowing Marcello would get an early start to take any tourists up the peak and knowing she was to leave before he came back, she had risen early to catch him alone. She was making coffee in the kitchen when Marcello came up behind her and said, “My Dicio,” and turned her around to face him. To squelch her tears that had started to well up, she flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. He raised her chin and looked at her and then kissed her very tenderly on her mouth. She had murmured, “We shouldn’t.” He sighed and said, “There’s nothing wrong with a good-bye kiss.”
Roseanna knew she would never forget that summer. And just as surely, she knew she would always remember something else, a regret rising from deep within her, showing its dark contours and spoiling her memories so that they would turn bittersweet. She had hurt one person, she had to admit it, and that remorse would stay with her forever.
Bio:
Marie MacBryde’s short story, “In the Negev Desert,” appeared in Oyster River Pages, and “The Inner Circle” was published in Adelaide Literary Magazine. She has stories in four anthologies, The Penheads,Colors, Stories in 5 Shades; Elements, Tales from the Substratum; Smoke, Tales Between Dark and Light; and Hunger Stories of Desire, Discovery, and Dissatisfaction. She is now working on a coming-of-age novel entitled High above the River, on a Lofty Hill.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 