A woman looked at her and said to Nino the cart driver, who was passing by, “Gna’ Lidda seems disoriented today. She’s walking like a body without a soul.”

A wind was blowing that cut to the bone. Buscardo was completely gray, and the water was frozen. There was no one washing because everyone had been frightened off by the cold. But gna’ Lidda felt nothing. With a rock she broke the frozen water and began to do the wash. Her hands grew numb, and she didn’t feel it. She stayed there bent over the smooth rock, without washing the wet clothing.

She thought: now she no longer needed to work, now that the little one was on the steamship, in her new shawl. Who knew if compare Tano was looking after him properly…. She had not reminded him about that….

Toward evening Nino was returning in his cart with his head wrapped in a shawl, whipping his mule so he wouldn’t freeze. Passing by Buscardo, he happened to look toward the shore where he saw something that looked like a human lying there. Shocked and curious, he went to take a closer look, making the sign of the cross as he recognized the figure of gna’ Lidda, face down and stiff on the smooth rock.

America 1918

America 1918

La Mèrica

Whether that Petrù was ever coming back was something Venera hadn’t thought about for quite some time. On Saint Michael’s Day it had been eight years, and eight years is a long time. When summer passes and winter passes, Christmas passes, and then another comes, you even forget about the dead.

Before … oh! Before, she thought she’d die because of it. She’d wept, railed, gone without eating for days on end, as though mourning someone in the house. Poor and abandoned, she’d expected nothing but sickness and death. Instead, she’d taken ill but didn’t die. Spring found her with fevers and the sun inviting her to sit out on the doorstep.

A life of hardship! Petrù wrote once a month, each time sending her a few lire. He’d left with the idea of becoming rich and, without ever mentioning his return, ended every letter with the same words: “I’m fine and hope you are, too. Am working like an animal, thinking always of home, and there are moments when I wish I had wings to come back.”

“Wings!” repeated Venera, annoyed. “Does it really take wings? Does he forget that his wife is wasting the best of her youth waiting for him? Or doesn’t he know that a woman can’t support herself on twenty-five lire a month?”