The Smile Of The Moon

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.

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