A Sister’s Story by Donatella Di Pietrantonio

Author:Donatella Di Pietrantonio [Pietrantonio, Donatella Di]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2021-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

14.

My mother went to bed on a Sunday, near the end of that summer. In the morning she had shelled fresh beans and kneaded flour and water for taiaticci without any presentiment of what would happen. At noon, a little earlier than usual, she ladled the pasta onto my father’s plate and told him she wasn’t well. She withdrew into the bedroom and stayed there, going only to the bathroom, supporting herself on walls and doors. She stopped eating, but every so often she drank the juice of a cold peach from the refrigerator that my father brought her. He telephoned me, after three days like that. Every so often even now he repeats that his wife cooked him his favorite pasta with her last bit of strength.

With a lot of hesitations she confessed to me that for months she had been losing “blood down below.” I persuaded her to go to the hospital. The gynecologist was kind, but she emerged from his hands with her head lowered, as if violated. In fifty-six years only her husband and the town midwife had had anything to do with her intimate parts. In the hours that preceded the operation she seemed content, maybe all those doctors and nurses around gave her an unexpected sense of importance, at least there.

The head of the department took out her uterus and ovaries, the apparatus from which we six children were born.

“Have no illusions, it’s already progressed,” he said when they brought her back to her room, still asleep.

I remember precisely the smell of the first cup of broth that I brought to her lips after the operation. And the slightly frightened gaze of an aged child when she leaned forward to drink. She roused in me an inextricable knot of tenderness and revulsion. I had no familiarity with her body, when they uncovered her buttocks to give her shots I wanted to go out and the nurses kept me: “You can stay, you’re her daughter.” Her nudity, even partial, disturbed me. I moved my eyes away from the hair on her legs. But it was my mother. It was her, my mother. She had given me to another woman to bring up, and yet I had remained her daughter. I will be forever.

The traces of Adalgisa had slowly faded from my heart. She had given me my wedding dress, she telephoned at every birthday. I seldom thought of her.

My mother occupied me inside, true and fierce. She remained in large part unknown: I never penetrated the mystery of her hidden affection. I will close my accounts with her in my last hour.

The morning cleaners turned on the light at six, and began cleaning the room. I got up from the folding chair where I had spent the night, put it back in the bathroom. I combed my mother’s hair. Maybe I was looking for a nod of gratitude or at least of attention. The signs were contradictory and therefore indecipherable: for her my presence was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.