Born for surviving E-Book

Peter Walkers

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Un romanzo – neorealismo – in cui il dato autobiografico dell’autore (che pure traspare evidente nella dettagliata e partecipe descrizione dei personaggi, dei costumi e dei luoghi) traspare in un autonomo flusso narrativo dove il vissuto individuale assurge a dato universale. Una intensa storia d’amore che coinvolgerà il lettore dall’inizio alla fine. Il periodo di riferimento dal dopoguerra al primo lockdown del coronavirus. A novel - neorealism - in which the author's autobiographical data shines through in an autonomous narrative flow where the individual experience rises to a universal data. An intense love story that will involve the reader from start to finish. The reference period from the postwar period to the first coronavirus lockdown.

Leseprobe

INDEX

Chapter one The birth

Chapter two Nello

Chapter three Pellegrino

Chapter four Beginning 1947

Chapter five Mario

Chapter six en years later

Chapter seven Middle School

Chapter eight Prof Leonardi

Chapter nine A funny event at “Masullo”

Chapter ten High School Farewell

Chapter eleven The departure

Chapter twelve Antonio and Isabella

Chapter thirteen Witham

Chapter fourteen After four years

Chapter fifteen London

Chapter sixteen Anthony

Chapter seventeen Anthony return home

Chapter eighteen The turniong point

Chapter nineteen Recollection

Chapter twenty Homecoming

Chapter twentyone Pomigliano d’Arco

Chapter twentytwo Clara

Chapter twentythree Federico II°

Chapter twentyfour Luca leaves ITC

Chapter twentysfive The Golden Fishing Co.

Chapter twentysix The Mysteious Closure

Chapter twentyseven Exams never end

Chapter twentyeight Luca leaves ASP SRL

Chapter twentynine A pleasant memory

Chapter thirty ALFASHION SPA

Chapter thirtyone Nice dreams’ fall

Chapter thirtytwo Tangentopoli

Chapter thirtythree New Year

Chapter thirtyfour Luca goes on

Chapter thirtyfive Author’s vein

Chapter thirtysix Pat

Chapter thirtyseven Anthony again

Chapter thirtyeight Coronavirus

Chapter thirtynine European Union

Chapter fourty Pat’s victory

B o r n

f o r

s u r v i v i n g

(Historia Docet)

By Peter Walkers

Titolo | Born for surviving

Autore | Pietro Sgambati

ISBN | 9791220302975

© 2020 - Tutti i diritti riservati all’Autore

Questa opera è pubblicata direttamente dall'Autore tramite la piattaforma di selfpublishing Youcanprint e l'Autore detiene ogni diritto della stessa in maniera esclusiva. Nessuna parte di questo libro può essere pertanto riprodotta senza il preventivo assenso dell'Autore.

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IN GOOD WE TRUST

Names and facts in this Fiction Story seemingly to

a biography are to be considered all invented

and

any reference to reality and/or circumstances

Introduction

Peter Walkers is my Pseudonym. My real name is Pietro Sgambati and I decided to try my hand at a novel directly in English language and I hope not to disappoint the reader. It is about telling a love story between Clara and Luca considering the paths that pertain to my history and the vicissitudes that have happened to me; either by my choice or by chance or better by the will of fate. As usual I will use a simple and fluent language because I want to put the booklover at his ease so that, in addition to finding interesting what I tell, he will have at the same time a way to relax himself.

Reading the book, as far as I'm concerned, has two main purposes. Be attracted to the content as one goes on reading and at the same time find pleasure in appraisal. By the age of 75, I would have treasured many experiences, both personally and collectively. So it is not difficult for me to collect material to put on paper. My main attention will be not to go on rhetoric but to let my memories flow like a river that, even if sometimes dragging defective material, goes limpidly towards the sea without polluting it. I am a believer though I feel many perplexities about religions - secular and/or theological - biblical information which I nevertheless respect with sincere esteem. I think that man, through his perennial experience, perhaps one day will meet God – admitting and hoping that He exists - and will find himself in one only Church, in one only State, without conflict and in common well-being. And then, if I will be there, I will certainly say:

This is my religion

P A R T O N E

From Lower Irpinia to Anglo-Saxon’s Land

CHAPTER ONE

The birth

Among the green hills of Lower Irpinia, about 600 meters above sea level, there is a small village that on 1944 didn’t reach a thousand souls. The winters were harsh and the summers rather torrid, while spring was and still is paradise of flowers with the countryside in full bloom. Autumn brought mainly rainy days, alternated as usual, by Saint Martin's shining days.

Towards the middle of the village, a few steps from the Catholic parish, in the Vico Vinella there is a house of two floors from which one hears a cry of a child, just come to light. It is a Saturday morning around ten when a new life, on September 2nd, rises in Quadrelle.

Filomena holds her baby in her arms while the family doctor assures her, smiling sweetly, that the birth was perfect.

Stefano, her peasant husband, forty years old, is with his helpers in the countryside to handle the late summer jobs. Occasionally he stops, with the hoe in his hands, wondering whether Luca had been born.

“He must have been born by now” he mumbles to himself while his manual country workers smile at him.

"We have to congratulate with Stefano for the newly baby" the team leader recommends to the other helpers labourers.

It is almost noon and Filomena will not come to bring them the usual lunch. They will have to feed for themselves today. When the bell strikes announce twelve o'clock, they leave the tools in place and head to the country cottage. Then, they sit on the stone seats in front of the rustic accommodation and open the backpacks to take the snack that their wives have duly prepared for them. Stefano does the same and offers them red wine, produced with the grapes of his plot of land. Once lunch is over, they lie on the ground for a refreshing nap.

They resume work after two hours of rest. Most of them slept. Others entertained talking with each other.

In the height of summer, the nap is longer. Before dusk, they leave the agricultural land to return to their homes in the village. Stefano is the last to leave. He is so anxious to see the newborn.

The dwelling is about a kilometer from the countryside but it takes a few minutes to reach it as Stefano makes use of the donkey that carries him on its back alongside the stream. Arrived at the village, he leaves the animal in the stable located in an enclosed space, a few steps from the fountain which is in the center of the small square. He passed said square and quickly turn to the alley to reach the house.

As entered, he look at the boy with joy.

He is the fifth in the family but at the moment he has the feeling of being in front of the firstborn. The other children are three boys and one girl. The oldest is sixteen while the girl is only four. Only Pellegrino, the second child of the family, helps his dad with the field work. The other two, the eldest is looking for a better job while Mario attends elementary school. Pellegrino left the school after obtaining the elementary school certificate.

The same fate is also for others, including Luca. Perhaps the four years old girl, Isabella, the female of the brood, will manage to have a better life, in the sense that she will devote herself to embroidery.

In those days, the dreams of the peasants stopped at the conquest of existential goods to ensure a decent life for their offspring. They did not go beyond this goal.

The agriculture and the breeding of small livestock such as one or, at most, two cows, a pig, fowl, rabbits and other small animals that offered eggs and meat constituted the maximum of their prosperity.

The standard of living depended on the quantity of these resources. Their occupation, therefore, was mainly the agricultural activity which consisted in the sowing and harvesting of wheat, potatoes and other kinds of the same species. Fruit trees, table grapes and for the production of wine and vegetables varieties.

Agricultural and other products were mainly used for family needs since peasant families were mostly numerous. What was in advance such as eggs, milk, wheat, potatoes etc. etc. was used for the sale to obtain some money destined for the purchase of primary goods for the use of their lifestyles.

Stefano was a sharecropper who cultivated a land that had also an old house which consisted of a ground floor with three rooms. One was used as a little store of fresh crops which were then gradually brought to a small warehouse, located in an alley, in Quadrelle, behind Piazza Fontana, not far from Vico Vinella.

The second room contained old furniture in which food was stored for cooking, a rudimentary table and some chairs.

The last room was for the donkey who often stayed outside in a space a little distant from the threshing floor and near the stream. There was also a small a stable for the mule and just outside, next to the entrance, a small angle place for cooking. On the sides of the farmhouse there was another large stable for the cow and, occasionally, the calf. When the cow was about to give birth it was led to Quadrelle in the aforementioned warehouse which also had a space used as a stable and a manger. This happened in the winter season. The milk was used, after breastfeeding the calf, for the family needs and the extra for the sale made house by house by Stefano's wife and subsequently by the sister-in-law after the death of the first wife.

The roof was formed by an open little space which was reached by a few steps through a slightly rising lateral furrow, next to the stable. Said space was used to beat the ears of wheat during the summer and to dry the tomatoes.

This was roughly Stefano’s situation at the beginning of our tale.

CHAPTER TWO

Nello,

Stefano’s, eldest son, did not hate the countryside but rather loved it. He dawdled, ecstatic, in front of the spring meadow, during the season that he considered the finest of Nature, covered with frost in the early morning in autumn and with a white blanket of snow during the winter. The summer, then, it was the height of joy. He admired summer and adored it for the fruits and other harvests, from the wheat to the bunches of grapes that adorned the cultivated land.

And the trees, from the large oak to the saint Peter’s fig plant located at the end of the farm lot, to the vine that towered the canopy full of bunches of grapes. Under which Stefano and the labourers - and the same Nello – enjoyed the midday meal that Filomena used to bring to them.

“The farm work is hateful. It’s only hard work and gives very little revenue” shouted Nello while Stefano reproached him with a sidelong glance.

“You have no respect and gratitude for what Mother Nature provides you" with a reprehensible tone with which his dad, used to answer him in rhyme.

Nello would have liked to reiterate his good reasons for wanting to move away from the countryside, from Quadrelle, in search of a better future. He preferred to silence rather than injure the distressed people of the whole peasant class. He had not complained towards country work, but on low remuneration that was obtained from the hard work throughout the year. Sometimes even sacrificing the Sundays that he would have preferred to spend exclusively with his girlfriend.

He could not wait to come of age, obtain a passport and go to Germany with the blessing of mom and dad. With the consent of his father-in-law he would have married Angelica and left with her for a more satisfying life in the land of the Germans. He looked forward and panted for all this. It was hard for him to keep all this inside.

He felt the need to let off steam and at the same time he suffered when Stefano became angry and irritated.

At the time, although bitter about his father, he kept that intent to himself but was determined to make his dream come true.

“In the end, daddy will be happy. Parents hinder the ambitions of their sons who leave the Village. When everything has passed, they bend before reality. They even feel sorry for having opposed the legitimate wishes of their offspring”.

He was sure of this solution. He had learned to trust only himself. At most he confided in Angelica even though she understood little when talking about dreams. But she loved him and that was enough to indulge her boyfriend's confidences.

Nello loved his little village which was shaped like a gun. The green hills above which, naturally, without the intervention of the farmer, offered chestnuts and other edible fruits and healthy water that flowed from healthy springs. And lumber that was used both for the sale from which to make profits and to fuel the fire in the houses during the cold winter season.

He himself often boasted of being born and raised in Quadrelle among good people, humble and intelligent although mostly poor and who found it hard to put the dish on the table.

He wanted to go away only to free himself from the nightmare of misery. To create a future that he could offer his children, once he started a family.

Italy, after the war, was struggling to rise. And the South was in the worst conditions. Progress seemed light years away because southern politicians, different from Northern, paid particular attention to agricultural dominion and not to industrialization.

The southern men were condemned to be tied to the hard work of the rural area. The future was in the hands of the bourgeoisie to whom a better standard of living was destined.

He would never have denied his origins. And at the same time he wanted to free himself from the miserable condition in which he was born.

That's why, for him, it was existential to go away

And, he did go away!

CHAPTER THREE

Pellegrino,

Stefano second son, was 14 years old at the age of the beginning of the novel. Only two years younger than Nello. He loved the countryside and its work. He didn’t find it hard. On the contrary, downright pleasant.

It wasn't a problem. He would not even have imagined leaving his father, his village, or the fiancée he still did not dream of. He was so tied to the origins that the future was there; the very same present.

Stefano loved him. He could count on him. He would have been his successor in the fields, in his late age. He praised Pellegrino and believed Nello to be a slacker; a deluded teenager with a brand new fantasy.

"It would have changed with growing, in front of the reality of the facts" he was convinced. They were a peasant family and would remain so. His father Aniello had been a farmer and a country people. So, they all would also have been in the times to come.

Pellegrino too had obtained his elementary school diploma, just as Stefano had done many years ago. Attendant to the Head of the Battalion, during military service, he could have remained and make a career. No, he had preferred to go back to Quadrelle. To follow dad Aniello and continue to enjoy the amenities of the hills, the green of the meadows, the pleasant touch of the Chapel bells celebrating the village Patron, St. John Baptist.

Nothing would have been better than his homeland, except, the home hearth. Yes, only the family had priority over everything. All this was accepted by Pellegrino and he considered himself, with upright reason, the heir of the father.

“However, my children must possess a minimum of culture, in order not to disfigure in front of the primary needs of the community” Stefano proudly stated often in front of his labourers, many of whom, almost analphabets, were barely able to make their own signature.

I insist, and I repeat, that Pellegrino snubs the girls and yet the girls looked at him with admiration. Each one of them dreaming of being his girlfriend.

Riding the donkey, on his way to the countryside, passing in front of them, he used to joke rubbing the poor beast and making it gallop along the narrow lane, on the sides of the stream. Just when he was passing in front of the girls.

The donkey ran emitting farts while the girls burst into loud laughter. This often occurred because Pellegrino did it like a normal joke.

It was a very funny joke.

So he often took them too lightly; however, at the same time, he liked to be revered.

Pellegrino was certainly the mildest of Stefano's children, yet very open to others, more than appearances didn't show. His love for the environment and his attachment to his father were not mere closeness but were part of his intimate, that is, of those social feeling he had inside.

Yes, it is incredible and sensational: he had these qualities since he was a child. Perhaps he had inherited them from some great-grandfather.

Sometimes we make the trivial and even frequent mistake of not studying the past to understand the present!

This was Pellegrino. Humble, thoughtful and self-confident as well amusing. Sometimes even shy.

And paradoxically proud.

Strange but true!

CHAPTER FOUR

Beginning 1944.

The armistice had been signed by General Badoglio and the war was considered to have ended although substantial German troops still remained on Italian soil.

There were severe clashes and other victims. Casualties already underwent were not enough. They had had to suffered even further losses due to civil battles between fascist further cruelties as well as relentless partisans. When Luca was born, thank God, it was all over.

Filomena often wandered if she had married Stefano solely for her contingent economic situations or there was something else that had pushed her through the groom's arms. She had lost during the terrible war both her parents and two brothers. The first ones for old age ailments and the poisonous air that entered the lungs due to the recrudescent bombings. The brothers, who both fell in the first two years of armed conflict. Orphaned at the age of twenty-five, the last offspring of the Esposito house, she had succumbed to Stefano's first advances and was tumbled in a wedding before the end of the war that seemed would never ceased.

Stefano had lost his first wife in giving birth to Isabella and had never remarried or tried to find a woman at least for his closest and most natural needs. His unmarried sister-in-law Rosanna, took care of the child and also looked after the growth of the other grandchildren.

She had never been interested in having a complete relationship with a man and did not feel like taking the place of her late sister. At first glance, he had reservations about Filomena. Then he began to look at her with more interest.

Afterwards, she was convinced that the new arrival, that is Filomena, had done well to chance and it was she herself who promoted their marriage. The relationship between Filomena and Rosanna, in a short time, had grown to a wonder.

And she had been very happy when the union between Filomena and Stefano became actual.

"I want to baptize him, even though I'm a single woman," she eagerly had said.

The spouses agreed with immense joy.

Rosanna continued to attend the new family as she believed that Filomena had a great burden in carrying forward a family made up of children acquired from Stefano's first marriage, besides her own child.

When, with the passage of time, he had the certain sensation that Filomena was enough able to do it by herself, gradually she detached, returning to her own affair.

For the only reason: so as not to appear the intruder in family relations between the two spouses.

Filomena understood the noble intentions of the acquired sister-in-law. She thanked her for the great support she received and made her promise not to abandon her Luca.

She had stated 'his Luca' because Rosanna, after all, was and always must remain the godmother of the child.

"Certainly" she had sworn.

"He is and will be my Luca, for ever and more " Rosanna solemnly had promised.

CHAPTER FIVE

Mario

He was the youngest son, after completed compulsory school studies, licence in hand, had followed his older brother in the peasant hard work.

Only a few months sufficed to build a strong and affective bond with Pellegrino. Of which, Stefano, naturally, was greatly delighted.

"If the slacker of Nello had been also of the same stuff, we could carry on the country work with only our same family" Stefano had reflected.

"Regrettably it is not like that. We have had the necessity of other labourers' help that we have to pay".

"Patience, who knows, might probably give us better outcomes".

Actually Nello was busy to catch a better chance although, because of the limited work prospects, it was not easy to realize a hoped choice.

Mario bitterly suffered from mother's loss and for a certain period hated his little sister believing her guilty of Filomena's1 death. Attempts by the father and the maiden aunt had not produced any effects on the boy's mind in the first months following the family mourning.

Both the doctor from the Baiano district and the old parish priest of the village recommended the whole family not to worry too much because, growing up, Mario would better understand about the sense of life and would turn his disgust into love towards his little Isabella.

The tender age and the sudden misfortune occurred to his mother were considered the main roots of the mood of the boy and his reluctance to accept what had happened.

In fact, he had refused to go to kindergarten, in the early days, but after a few weeks, the master went to Stefano's home and as an authentic sociologist and a very good psychologist, persuaded little Mario to attend school.

The kids of his age, nursery friends, by their love and comprehension had completed the miracle.

It happened the happy moment in which Mario had approached Isabella smiled at him whenever he saw him come near to her.

Isabella became the joy of the house because with her graces she gathered everyone around her and spread that sense of happiness of life that Stefano and offspring seemed to have lost.

Mario turned into a wonderful little being, full of life and desire to become a good person like dad and Pellegrino. He had no particular inclination towards Nello. Not because he didn't love him or anything else. Simply because his big brother (so he called him) spent very little time at home, running after his girlfriend Angelica and looking for a concrete and worthwhile job that had satisfied him, abundantly.

Since the early years of primary school, in the afternoon and after lunch, he desired to be taken to the countryside and help his father and greater brother. He would do his homework in the evening after dinner. He used to call Pellegrino greater brother, which for him had a special meaning.

___________________

1 Stefano’s first wife had same name.

CHAPTER SIX

Ten years after.

I°

Don Nicola, the old parish priest, had been removed since four years from his sacred office. Accused of being a pro-Communist, the mayor of Quadrelle, Alfrediano, a Christian Democratic fanatic, had interfered at the Nola Episcopal Body delivering a report signed by a good number of citizens who accused the pastor of doing politics instead of preaching Christ's teaching.

It is true that the aforementioned reverend had complained about the political authorities who did not take enough steps to remedy poverty and indigence, however he had never voiced a phrase in favour of the revolutionary Marxian theory.

On the contrary, if some citizen spoke to him about communism, Don Nicola had immediately made it clear that he did not approve both the atheism and the dictatorship contained in it.

He openly distanced himself from the new and irritant socialism.

To be the pastor of all, regardless of politics, he sympathized with those who claimed social justice but underlining the use of democratic instruments that the existing Constitution offered; then there was no need to resort to violence and/or by other means that he himself considered social danger.

Perhaps he was unpleasant to the mayor who probably wanted the clerical man to make propaganda, though indirectly, for him and for the Christian Democrats. He refused to serve any politician.

He was loved by the people but this was not enough for the mayor of Quadrelle.

His successor was a priest from Cicciano, a small town of the province of Naples. Don Nicola, instead, was from Baiano, a small town only a two kilometres from Quadrelle, whose district included few villages among which the same Quadrelle.

Don Gerolamo, he took possession of the parish amid the perplexities of the parishioners. Briefly, however, perhaps endorsed by the mayor and his followers, he managed to conquer the people of the village, make himself loved and respected. He took up residence of his predecessor, few steps from the Church, together with an older sister, who had remained a spinster at the age of forty.

At the time of this change of pastor, Luca was six years old and had started elementary studies in a school that was in the same old building as the Town Hall, on two levels: the ground and first floors.

The administrative offices were all on the second floor, with a general secretary, a tall man with a dry physique and aquiline nose. He wore glasses, so large that they covered half his face. Sent by the Prefect of Avellino. Anxious and not very welcoming towards citizenship due mainly to his apprehension; because after all he wasn't as bad as his appearances.

His family, coming from Monteforte with his wife and a three year old son, had been welcomed by Quadrelle citizenship. They settled in an apartment rented on Piazza Ponte next to the Torrente2. From the first day his wife, Donna Teresa, adapted to the new environment but Giorgio, that’s he, had continued to maintain a reluctant attitude towards the population of Quadrelle. Ordinary and simple people don't pay particular attention to certain attitudes that are not appropriate, especially if they come from foreigners.

They know time will reveal the newcomer’s real qualities.

II°

"Good morning," said Don Gerolamo while Stefano stood at the door of his home. He was about to go out and reach the rustic field.

"Good morning," he answered quickly.

He seemed to be late and didn't want to waste any more time but it regarded unfitting to him not to stop and pay attention to the fair Reverend.

"It is a pity that Luca does not continue his studies after elementary school. I have noticed that he is good both as an altar boy and the way he expresses himself when sometimes we talk about any social topics”.

"As well as school themes" he added.

"I had the opportunity to talk about the case of your son" the parish priest went on "with the teacher who confirmed to me the good impressions that I myself have and that I just am telling you right now".

"The Latin" had then he continued "Would not be a problem for Pietro3. He shall love it".

Stefano's attitude suddenly underwent a positive change. He was no longer in a hurry to leave as if he were dealing with an interesting problem to which proper attention had to be paid. He did not know at the moment what to answer. He used to handle these cases back to the attention of the wife, younger than he, certainly more sensitive and wiser above all in deals regarding the needs of the offspring.

"Well, I'll talk to Filomena about it" he stammered not being sure to make a decision on his own. At that instant he found it difficult to imagine a son who could have a future different from his own; from his ancestors, from the same other older members of the family.

For Isabella, there was no problem: the women had to think exclusively of housework and grow at best and trusting for a good husband who would give her security and protection.

"For the exams of admission to the middle school I can give him a hand in the training although I am convinced that he does not need it so much" had added Don Gerolamo. He was certain of Luca's prospects, having noticed his ability to learn during the catechism and the comments he made on the constant readings on the sacred texts that the reverend himself lent or donated him according to the case. Strongly impressed by the conversations on historical topics that Luca had read in the School subsidiary book. Given his dedication to religious services, Don Gerolamo perhaps dreamed of a future in a religious career for the boy. He could have become a bishop. But he had refrained from going further. He had had experience of colleagues at the seminar who, despite having entered with a clear conviction, after a few years of study, had abandoned the sacred garment.

III°

"Don Gerolamo speaks very well of our son" Stefano began, that night, as soon as dinner was over and sitting by the fireplace. Filomena, by the way, had gone on tiding all up as if she didn't care about that information, more than necessary . Often their dialogues were trivial.

"He's serious," replied Stefano, "says that Luca could have a better future and would be a sin if he didn't continue his studies".

Filomena strained her ears then. After all, it was his carnal son.

Actually, she had also and always bestowed the same commitment to his stepchildren. But, mama's heart, due to a natural instinct, it beats more and more for own son. A pure reality that no human being can escape even though a just and correct woman could be loyal to all God’s commandments.

“If the Reverend thinks so, he will have his sanctified reasons" Filomena approved, hiding her wonderful emotions. She had prayed to the Lord for Luca to have a future, different from his father. It wasn't any kind of selfishness form. Merely a dream of a mother. She would have wished the same to anybody who were born in a poor family.

Stefano pretended not to notice. He knew she was pleased.

Winter had come. The wind howled outside like a damned. The snow was falling slowly with flakes covering the all roads with a path likewise a long white blanket. Fragments of snow slid along the shutters of the windows.

The bell called the faithful for the vespers. Luca was already there with the priest for the evening service. Punctual as usual. He looked like Marcelino together with the convent friar. He recited the prayers, absorbed in an enchanting aether. Similar to an angel.

"He can become a good priest" Don Gerolamo thought. He was certain and at the same time he doubted. He had noticed the way by which Pietro looked at young girls almost of his same age.

"Let's not hurry," the reverend said to himself "Time is gentleman. The coming days will tell whether roses will bloom”.

Immediately at the end of the evening ceremony, while the faithful busied themselves to leave the churchyard because of the cold, Don Gerolamo hold back Luca to give him the good news. He told him that his parents acquiesced that he could proceed with further studies and he himself would have helped him in the due preparation for the entrance exams. Luca thanked him and said that he had already been informed about the program of exams and had no doubts of being able to pass them by himself, without any help. He spoke with extreme security and the parish priest didn't feel surprised. He was naturally delighted. Don Gerolamo liked the boy's determination. Seemingly shy, the growing boy was aware of his aptitudes and had full trust in his capacities. They said goodbye to each other.

Each came back home. Both satisfied to have spent a good day, heedless of the cold that was continuing to threatening the entire community. The all Baiano district. Most probably all Avellino province.

Just arrived home, the adolescent hastily had dinner and went up to the first floor to re-read the exam schedule. It was similar to that of elementary school examination. With the exceptions for Italian and mathematics which were basically the actual exam tests for the admission. He found nothing too difficult, although certain features had been introduced; very few topics that had not been taught in elementary school.

When Filomena and Stefano climbed the stairs to go to their bedroom, they found Luca sleeping, hunched over the desk, without having worn his nightshirt. He was still with the day clothes on. He had been taken from sleep without realizing it. Filomena woke him cautiously and helped him undress, wear the pyjamas and put him again to bed. While Luca had fallen peacefully asleep.

Filomena and her husband stayed for another half an hour. It seemed as if they had to take point of another situation. There was very little, perhaps nothing else, to add to what had been said. Outside the snow was continuing to fall slowly. The wind's fury had subsided. Only a light draft that slightly corrected the trajectory of the snowflakes.

“I am glad Luca goes on with studying” Stefano recommenced, the evening after, just to say something. Filomena, thoughtlessly, seemed not to have heard what her husband had told her.

"Let’s go to sleep" she could only say. They finally put out the last embers of fire and went upstairs to their bedroom.

“Tomorrow will be another day” she said to herself before falling sleep.

___________________

2 Creek

3 Luca’s second name

CHAPTER SEVEN

Middle school

I°

Luca followed all subjects diligently in middle school. The professors who had attracted him the most were three: De Judicibus, De Angelis and Mrs. Leonardi. The first two teachers of Physical Education and Mathematics; the third a lady teacher of Italian and Latin.

In spite of his advanced age, the physical education professor De Judicibus, next to retirement, was quick in his movements and ventured himself with demonstration tests before urging the students to try some rather challenging exercises. Luca liked the high jump, overcoming the obstacle of the meter and fifty and the exercise with double and triple long jump. He also preferred the difficult exercise with the somersault above the easel. He also loved French lessons and quite often put some words of French language into the family correspondence with Nello who had managed to make his dream come true. He was working in a textile factory on the outskirts of Strasbourg with the prospects of becoming part of the skilled workers by means of a specific technical training.

Nello once wrote that he was already earning a fair salary which he would almost double in three years when he would be entirely specialized.

Then he would come to Italy only to marry Angelica and return with her to France where he would place a family without any economic problems. Life was full of sacrifices and he was too enthusiastic to do any efforts for conquering a secure future on French land.

"My French children are going to study in France and start a proper family here." He often had repeated.

"We will not be nostalgic for our country" he added almost proudly, considering himself unfortunate to have been born in Italy.

"It will pass to him," Stefano used to tell Luca.

"He will be longing for Quadrelle, for Italy and for the people he has left behind" Stefano had assured.

"One cannot regret one's origins" he had asserted.

"They are within us and the traces remain even if we really should never return" at the end Stefano had firmly stated.

II°

Mathematics was the subject that excited him most. He had spent whole hours solving problems of algebra and geometry. Also and especially the mixed ones. What Luca enjoyed most were the simplifications of complex algebraic expressions in a result of a single digit or letter. He loved De Angelis because he was an brilliant professor. Great patience for students who had great learning difficulties. At the end of the third year of middle school everyone got promoted.

Almost all the boys had found difficulties in both Italian and Latin. Even Luca, despite was after all among the best ones. In an area where dialect was mainly spoken, both at home and in public, large gaps in Dante's language were to be expected. Even the family doctor, the neighbourhood pharmacist, rarely used a good grammatical idiom. Likewise, the priest outside the church and the school teacher at the bar or during common conversation with students.

Only in church or at school or on institutional occasions, then they used to speak in good Italian.

Nobody would have imagined that in the space of fifty years everything would change. The new and growing generations always bring about changes. Someone had spoken of revolution. Luca thought they were mainly Mother Nature interventions. When he heard speak communists and socialists, chatting about political dreams, he said to himself: It is Nature that changes us.

The Nature, according to Luca thinking, had produced changes in the environment and other places all over the Planet Earth. Of course we put also our own capacities, discovering and introducing novelties that improve only apparently our living. For often to ruin the environment rather than improve it.

Whenever Filomena contacted the professors, that of Italian said: "he is good and diligent, however, he finds it problematic to express himself well".

To comfort parents Mrs. Leonardis then added: "it is a general shortage of the whole class".

And Filomena had related everything to Don Gerolamo. It was superfluous to talk about it to her husband. The reverend could give some help to his son.

"Your parents bought you a nice vocabulary," Don Gerolamo said at the end of Sunday mass. They were in the sacristy. Luca hurried to put things right before leaving. He was no longer attended the parish as once. That was because he had homework to perform.

"Well, use it, my boy" he added, referring to the vocabulary.

Don Gerolamo had noticed the boy's change and his old plan to see him, one day, a priest was by now faltered. To show gratitude, Luca had made his presence during the Christmas and Easter holidays. He spent most of the summer holidays attending the parish assiduously and serving mass reciting his Latin. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even to be thrown away. He had to first improve in Italian syntax if he really wanted to have success also in Cicero's language.

He had made a commitment in order to practise the recommendations and advice of Don Gerolamo who, day after day, saw him move away from the house of God. He had obtained a good result in the third and last year of Middle School exams. He then had acquired all the credentials to go to classical high school. After all, it was one of the best students. Everybody could see Luca's excellent votes, exposed on the bulletin board.

III°

Most of boys of his age had stopped at the end of elementary school. And others after the Middle School.

For Luca there were the conditions to continue to high school.

“My son, I cannot guarantee you a university education. We are not poor, however, not well enough to support you for a long time," Filomena said lovingly. She did not want to break his son's expectations and at the same time she feared to disappoint him if he dared beyond what the family could afford him.

Having had a strong attraction for the Homer's Iliad and odyssey as well as for Latin, despite not being so much excellent, Luca would have liked to go to classical high school. Meanwhile his mother had reason to dissuade him and it was not impossible for him to desist. He liked Phaedrus' fables. Anxious to read Plato and Aristotle and other well-known authors of the Greek and Latin world. Those studies would have helped him to grow a lot in understanding life; to better face the paths of his destiny, as his teacher often said to all students of his classroom.

"I can do it separately" he said to himself "In my spare time".

Marianna, the girl who sat next to him in elementary school, and Giulia in middle school who had attracted him, were soon forgotten. Technical and economics High school was serious and one had to work hard. There were no Latin and Greek to study, however, law, economics and languages were fundamental in these institutes.

Luca had to obtain excellent results to ensure a future. The family couldn't do much. Everything depended on his personal sacrifices. He was 14 years old, old enough to understand these fundamental concepts.

Digressions were not more allowed. He could continue the game of football with his friends; go to the cinema on Sunday with his trusted friends but the main commitment was the school. He could not afford further distractions. Don Gerolamo gradually withdrew from his path. He would have pedalled alone.

From this moment forward everything depended on him and his abilities. Her father, her mother told him these fundamental life lessons, several times.

“It’s all depends on you” Don Gerolamo had articulated him. Like his parents, while he was leading him to Nola for enrolment in the first year of accounting at the “Masullo” high school.

Nola still is one of the most attractive town of the province of Naples. Around sixty thousand inhabitants. The largest town of the Agro Nolano (a large zone which includes the Lower Irpinia and some municipalities in the province of Naples, bordering the province of Avellino). At that time, it was the main commercial landmark. Much more than the district of Baiano and Cicciano town.

Luca, as usual he paid deep attention to the counsels of the reverend. He regretted not being able to attend the parish like the old days. To serve the Mass and syllabise his Latin particularly during ceremonies of great recurrence. He carefully listened to Don Gerolamo who talked to him and at the same time was well-focused on driving the Fiat 600, bought in the first year of his assignment in Quadrelle. The reverend behaved as if he were conversing in a living room. Actually he was driving a car!

And Luca had the wise habit of making silence when the priest spoke to him, aware of receiving and learning excellent advice.

IV °

In the meantime, Luca continued to attend the parish, although not with the assiduity of the past. He was a believer and remained a practicing Catholic. Christ's teachings remained fixed in his mind and also in his heart. The word of Christ was impressed on him throughout his life, especially in difficult times.

"The plant has grown well," said the Reverend to Stefano one day, who feared a possible heeling of his son as going to high school he could have learned some strange ideas of thinkers who led students to abandon those old and wise schemes that were always been at the base of the peasant world. Stefano was not an acculturated but had heard of European philosophers who had influenced the minds of young people. But in the worst and not in the best, in Stefano's opinion.

In fact, Luca had heard and read about Marx and Engel from last year's high school students. He followed them because he was curious to know in advance what he would study in the following years.

He had also, as a boy, listened attentively to the stories and wisdoms of the elderly workers who had served his father. The sense of knowledge attracted him. He followed the teachings given to them by those who had more experience.

In addition, he lent his ears to college students who were about to graduate. This needed him to grow better and faster. Indeed, he was a young boy; therefore he was troubled by the anxiety of knowledge which nevertheless did not make him suffer. On the contrary, it fascinated him and they certainly had a beneficial effect on him.

On the way back, by train, for Baiano, Luca noticed a girl with a light face and blond hair who was glancing at him while talking with a friend sitting next to her. He had noticed her, at the same seat and same friend before but had hesitated to make an opinion of it. He was reading a Dostoyevsky novel (Humbled and offended) at that moment. Maybe it was the reading Luca was involved in that pushed the girl to stare at him with admiration. Or was there more?

We will find out later.

"Clara ...." screamed her companion when the train was about to arrive at the Cicciano station.

Pietro barely raised his eyes from the book. It was at that moment his only interest nevertheless he glanced at the two girls hurrying down.

After the passengers had disembarked, the train slowly started on again and then speeded directly towards the Baiano terminus.

The Circumvesuviana, as many tourists know since one of its lines leads to Sorrento, a marine place of strong attraction, was and still is a privately managed railway network. The line that Luca used for Nola was called Napoli – Baiano while the one with the highest traffic was Naples – Sorrento. In addition to Neapolitan commuters and visitors, for work and businesses as well as various leisure, it was used by many other passengers from all over Italy and those who came from abroad both by plane and/or by state railway. There was a comfortable passage linking the Circumvesuviana private line and the state central line called Naples Central Station.

"Luca! Move. We're about to arrive," the student next to him said.

Luca hadn't pose any problems. It was the terminus and there was no risk of going any further. Her brain wandered between reading and mental vision regarding Clara. That little glimpse had been enough to rebuild that it was a pretty girl. Several times he had been in contact with young girls, more or less of his age, but it was the very first time that he remained impressed. It was really the very first time , in addition to the book reading, the woman took flight and attracted his attention.

"Let's go downstairs," murmured Luigi.

The train had stopped definitively and even the technician to the drive, rearranging his things, was preparing to get off for the momentary break.

When they got off the train, the two school friends headed for the short cut that led to Quadrelle. It was an uphill road, stony, dusty during the summer and sometimes muddy in the autumn, mostly in winter when the snow melted. The difference in sea level between Baiano and Quadrelle was and should be around two hundred meters. We will not linger on these subtleties.

The story has well other things to convey.