Seasons in Basilicata (36 page)

And it didn't seem to bother them one bit. The hardscrabble life they'd lived, the fickle fortune of harvests, the same meager diet of pasta and homemade tomato sauce for years on end, the searing summer heat, and those frigid winters had given them few, if any, personal choices. And yet, as one of them explained with a broad grin, their “freedom from choices” had given them great pride in “
tengo una famiglia
” (“I support a family”), a tight and loyal circle of friends, the joy of grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, a village they loved to live in, and enough resources—given the more generous government support nowadays—to live in reasonable comfort in their own homes, surrounded by all the things they loved and treasured. Oh, and one of them said, “…and a place already picked out for my final rest in the village cemetery, with views across this beautiful land, this
'stro paese
(place of true rurality) I've known and walked on and worked in since birth.”

Another joined in, “Could anyone even with all the ‘freedom' and ‘choices' in the world ask for much more than that?”

A third decided to bring the whole discussion to an end with an appropriate Italian aphorism, which, in Alianese dialect, was almost incomprehensible. But I remember reading it somewhere:
Chi si accontenta, gode,
which translates roughly as, “He who accepts, enjoys.”

Of course Carlo Levi saw it all a little differently. He regarded the feudal-like conditions back in the 1930s and the hard and endless servitude of the
terroni
as an insult to the essence of humanity in each individual. He saw what appeared to be the ever-constricting cycles of power and control perpetuated by almost instinctive fear at all levels. He perceived how the fear of mortality and the cruel vicissitudes of fortune among the peasants had led to the creation of ever more oppressive systems of church, state, and landowner control. And as such systems became more dominant and signs of revolt were perceived among the peasants, the systems themselves felt fear and tightened their rules, laws, and punishments…which in turn created even more fear among the peasants, and on and on: a doomward spiral for which mass revolution and total reformation were, according to Levi at least, the only solutions. Others in the village had similar views, too, and one man in particular seemed to enjoy expounding eloquently on Levi's themes, along with an enticing array of other matters of local import.

Banks, Butterflies, and Bewitchings

“Well, I certainly think he's still there!” Giuseppe D'Elia said with a little bank manager's chuckle, which was most appropriate because that's what this open-faced, polite, and witty gentleman was: the
Direttore della Succursale
(branch manager)
del Banco Popolare del Materano
in Aliano, which is hidden away, for some odd reason, up in the narrow alleys near the school.

“Who?” I asked. Our conversation had taken so many intriguing twists and turns, thankfully in English, that I wasn't sure exactly which of my questions he was now answering.

“Christ!” he said. “He's still stuck in Eboli! I don't think he ever really reached down here.” he said, and chuckled again. His bright lemon tie, decorated with tiny blue butterflies, bobbed about as his large chest bounced happily. I couldn't help laughing at his gentle blasphemy.

“I'm not sure Don Pierino would agree,” Anne said.

“Ah, the good Don Pierino. A fine man. He really cares for the Alianese. He loves them.”

“And tries to bring about changes, too,” I suggested. “It's not just pomp and prestige with him. His new olive mill, for example…”

“Yes, yes, very true.” Giuseppe nodded enthusiastically, his butterflies fluttering again. “But he has a hard job. Things change so very slowly here. All the old things, the strange things, are still around, you know.”

“You mean Levi's tales of witchcrafts and werewolves?”

“Oh, yes, very much so. Levi was not making these things up. He was recording fact, everything accurate and…” He paused in mid-sentence and seemed to be considering the efficacy of his next remark. “And, well, we still have one. Here.”

“One what?”

“A
strega,
a witch.” He followed this announcement with a quick
corno,
that curled “horned fist” with outstretched index and little finger used so often by superstitious southerners to ward off evil.

“A real witch! Are you joking? I've heard stories, but I thought people were just exaggerating.”

“No, no. Not about that kind of thing. They are serious. I'm serious. Her name is Maria. A little elderly lady. She lives just around the corner. I have talked with her many times, and she's quite happy to tell you that she's a witch. That's what she told me the first time I met her. ‘Welcome to Aliano,' she said to me when I arrived here. ‘I'm a witch.'”

We didn't know whether to laugh. But we decided to play along. “So, could you introduce her to us?”

“Of course I will, if you wish. She would be very happy, I think,” he said, chuckling again.

“We would like that,” I said. Anne smiled and discreetly rolled her eyes.

“How about…Wednesday?”

“Fine. But why Wednesday?”

“I think that's her day off from witching.” He burst out laughing again, and this time his butterflies almost seemed to be flying off his tie.

“Ah, you're joking,” Anne said.

“No, I'm sorry. No. Truly. I think you might both find her very interesting. I will arrange this for you. If you come around midday. That should be a good time, I think.”

“Well, thanks,” I said hesitantly, thinking, ‘Well, let's see how far he wants to carry this.' “And now back to the economy…”

Despite the fact that we knew he had at least two other clients waiting to see him, we chatted away for another half hour about the Alianese economy (“Very depressing. No young people stay here. They all want
stracittà
[city life]. They don't like the old
nostro paese
[rural life]); the Mezzogiorno economy (“What economy? Where are all the promises? Where is all the money?”); the changes since Carlo Levi's book (“I don't think so. Not too much”); the difference between the North and South (“Two very different places. In the South we are different culture. Many invasions. A mix of many peoples. Two separate countries. We are considered ‘black.' Too many small towns and a bourbon and feudal mentality”); Aliano's isolation from other towns (“Very alone. ‘The solitary man is not a man,' and Aliano is very much solitude. All we have here is
passatella
and card games to pass the time”).

We enjoyed talking to Giuseppe. He combined humor with intelligence and a deep empathy for the problems of the South. “I think about it a lot,” he said, “when I drive to and from work every day.”

“You live where? In Stigliano?” Anne asked.

“Oh, no! In Salerno.”

“Salerno! But that's hours away.”

“Almost two hours,” he said. “Each way.” He shrugged. “But it is only for a short time, I think. The director told me only for one year.”

“And how long have you been here?”

“Almost two years.”

“So when…?”

Giuseppe gave one of those shrugs of bureaucratic resignation. “I hope very soon, but maybe not.”

“What else do you think about on your long journeys home?”

“Ah, well, I learn things—lessons—on cassette tapes. Also I play good music…and I think of pasta!”

“Pasta?”

“Yes. I am what you might call a pasta-nut, a true
pastasciuttaro!
” More chuckles and butterflies flying.

“So, which are your favorite kinds?” Anne asked, curious about the scores of different shapes and sizes of pasta we kept seeing in the local stores. “Other than the normal spaghetti and rigatoni and fettuccine?”

“Ah, well, that is very difficult. You see it all depends on the accompaniment. Each pasta, I think, has its own perfect accompaniment. You have to balance the two, even though pasta is basically the same mixture of flour and water and sometimes eggs. Each one ‘tastes' different. It's very strange but logical. Would you drink wine from an egg cup? Or whiskey from a beer glass? Each type of pasta must be balanced differently or it does not taste right.”

“Well, tell us a few of your favorites.”

I was glad I had the tape running, because what we got was the most amazing encyclopedic recitation of pasta names and descriptions we'd ever had from anyone in Italy. The man was a walking menu. When we transcribed the tape we counted descriptions of at least thirty variants. Here is just a sampling of some of the more obscure ones:

“Okay, there's
rosmarini,
like long, thin rice;
corallini
and
paternostini lisci,
very small macaroni;
tempestine,
like Moroccan couscous;
stelline,
like little stars;
angelini,
like tiny halos;
fiocchetti,
very small
orecchiette; cocciolini,
like small
gnocchi; lumachini,
like tiny snail shells;
casarecce,
like hand-twisted strips;
tripoline
and
mafal-dine,
strands with frilly edges like sheets of lasagna; and—definitely
one of my favorites to eat with rich sauces—
pipe rigate,
like little cups. Is that enough, do you think?”

“Amazing!” I said. “I don't think I've heard of any of those!”

“Ah, there are so many more,” he said, chuckling and salivating at the thought of all those multitudinous varieties. “Like,” and then he started again, “
semi di mellone, acini di pepe, mezzani, elicoidali, gomiti, liste, trofie…
”

“Okay! I believe you. I'm convinced. You're definitely an expert pasta-nut, Giuseppe. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” he said. And I think he was genuinely pleased at the compliment.

“So,” I said. “We will see you on Wednesday and meet your witch.”

“Yes. That will be very excellent.”

“And maybe you would join Anne and me for dinner that evening before your long drive home.”

He paused and consulted his diary. “Yes. Thank you. I would very much enjoy that.”

And that's how we left things. Until the day of the witch, the following Wednesday.

 

O
NLY THINGS DIDN'T
quite work out that way.

Giuseppe was not around on the following Wednesday. The bank teller mumbled some garbled response to my query, which I didn't understand, but I sensed that something urgent had taken my newfound friend, and link to the darker world of Aliano witches and other things, far away from the bank.

Smiling at the teller to suggest I understood completely, I left a note for Giuseppe asking him to call me whenever convenient so we could arrange to continue our explorations together.

But he never called. For weeks there was silence, so we let the matter fade, until one strange night, the night of…

The Curse

Now I'm not suggesting this odd occurrence was in any way related to Maria or our plans to be introduced to her by Giuseppe the bank manager. But, still, it made us wonder. And although there's something sinister in the elderly, wizened widows of Aliano, shrouded completely in black, day after day and year after year, they seemed no different from any other “black widows” I'd noticed in the hill towns all around Aliano. They went about their daily rounds, doing whatever they did, scurrying hither and thither, carrying little bags or large objects (often on their heads), rarely pausing to talk to anyone, and certainly not to the men. Occasionally I would see two or three by a doorway whispering and glancing around as if constantly seeking affirmation of whatever dark, intrigue-filled tales they told one another in their secretive huddles. In church they would sit together too, in tight, black, rooklike clusters, on specific, carefully guarded pews. But mostly they seemed to prefer their solitude and the silence of the shadows.

Until the
vipera
(viper) spirit strikes…

Late one dark evening I was returning home from the bakery (our vital village resource that often stayed open until ten o'clock) and had just placed the key in the lock when a spine-clutching shriek echoed up an adjoining alley. A black cat by my doorway heard it and rocketed off in the opposite direction, as if chased by one of those ferociously fanged shepherd dogs. I looked around. The few octos who were still gesticulating and orating at one another on the benches down by the Bar Capriccio seemed not to have heard anything. Maybe, I thought, it's just another poor animal being booted out of the house. (Pets were usually banned from the houses and left to fend for themselves on the chilly streets.)

But it was not an animal. At least, not any animal species I recognized, although the sounds that came up the dark alley could
hardly be called human either. They consisted of hissings and grunts and a fusillade of vicious, high-pitched words that rattled like machine-gun fire against the cold stone walls.

I tiptoed as quietly as I could on the cobbles down to the corner and very slowly peered around into an even narrower and darker cul-de-sac. And at the far end, barely illuminated by the dim light of a half-open door, stood one of the village's old black-shrouded women. She was very bent but was using her cane not as a support but rather as a sword, or even a witch's stick, as she spat and hissed in a venomous manner—her neck extended, her left arm outstretched with all her fingers spread apart—at the head of a half-visible figure crouched behind a door.