The Tears of Monterini by Amanda Weinberg

Author:Amanda Weinberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RedDoor Press
Published: 2020-06-22T13:56:48+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Italy entered the war and the hammering began. Almost immediately battles were lost, territories relinquished. Jealous spasms seized il Duce’s heart. Hitler, his one-time protégé, was busy annexing countries, winning battles and igniting Mussolini’s desire to be as great a conqueror as the German leader.

All over the country people continued their lives as best they could, suffering the injustice of a war most did not want. Rumours of starvation trickled through town to village. Losses mounted up one by one. News that the British had destroyed Rodolfo Graziani’s troops in the Cyrenaica area of Libya silenced the jubilant fascists, as did the Greek army’s victory on the Albanian border, squashing Italian soldiers as if they were ants on a hot day.

In Monterini they survived, reminding each other it was worse in the south where whole villages were invaded by their German ‘friends’, or in the north where the communists reigned. News of hunger in Rome sent shivers coursing through veins. At least, in Monterini, fields heaving with crops surrounded them. It was business as usual at the blacksmiths, the bakeries and the bookshops. The Monterinesi continued to pray in the churches. To the joy of Don Philippe, weekday mass became almost as fashionable as the Sunday variety.

All men between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five were called up to fight alongside Hitler’s troops. Like feathers from hens on Saint days, husbands and sons were plucked from fields and shipped off to join Mussolini’s soldiers. One by one they disappeared, Pino Petri, Paolo Zerulli, even old Gino from Naples.

Monterini was empty. Vuoto. A sfratto without dates. Those that were left clung to each other as if with every passing breath they would be swept off the tufo cliff and buried in the Etruscan remains below. Women joined new ranks within the furrows of the fields, tilling, pruning, harvesting; doing what up till now had always been considered the work of men. They climbed ladders, collected olives, carried buckets of grapes to be harvested, sinking their bare feet into barrels of purple juice. Even the sweet melody of female voices could be heard rising above the rows of vines in Angelo’s vineyard.

And the grapes prospered.

Due to a minor wound inflicted on his tibia during the Great War, Angelo, with the help of Dottore Mazzola, was kept out of the enrolment. He continued to work on his land, producing cheese and olive oil, selling the meat of his animals and some stock when he needed extra money. There was a plentiful supply of vegetables to keep the family and neighbours alive. The harvest of 1940 was a good one and Angelo’s wine, considered not a luxury by the Monterinesi but a necessity, continued to be drunk for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Vino degli Angeli was the best loved wine in the area of Salone and profits increased.

Jacobo’s bookshop suffered but survived. There was little money, but books were still sold and when necessary so was the odd candlestick or silver kiddush cup.

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