Women behind bars from Alfonsina to Sophia Loren E-Book

Liliana De Cristoforo

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Protagonists of the book are twelve women who tell their personal stories and their dramas from their jails. They were compelled to fight against me, who had betrayed or disappointed them, against social injustices or against hardship of life. From their words, their sad existential events come up, of which there had been protagonists. The resulting picture is a deep humanity. Some of these women had made serious crimes, while others had met the evil, but all of them can be considered victims of society, of prejudices, of misery. Their tragic stories touch the heart and come deep into the soul of the reader. A different chapter is the story of Sophia Loren’s detention, who, in 1982, was prisoned in the jail of Caserta for seventeen days, because of tax evasion. The media hype, rose up by our special guest, brought a spot of colour inside the grey life of the jail.

Leseprobe

Indice

ALFONSINA

CONCETTA

OLGA

ROSA

CLAUDIA

TERESA

ANNA

SAMIRA

TERRY

ELISA

MARIKA

SOFIA LOREN

Liliana De Cristoforo

Women Behind Bars

Titolo | Liliana De Cristoforo

Autore | Women Behind Bars

ISBN | 978-88-31696-91-3

© 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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Introduction

In this book, I tell the experiences acquired during my long job activity, which let me know many women’s lives. Very different women, for their age and culture, but joined by their jail experiences, by their sufferance, by the hope in redemption and by the anxiety in recovering their roped dignity.

I had collected witnessed, confidences, confessions dealing with events, which had overwhelmed their lives, leading them to make crimes.

Their lives shifted among ancient problems, as honour killing, prostitution, rope, but also the modern ones, as clandestine immigration, drug addiction, and transsexuality. They are stories of undergone violence, of betrayed love, disillusioned expectations.

Women’s tales, victims of men, of society, of prejudices, of bad life circumstances, trapped in complex psychological situations, in which ancient fears, burning frustrations and spirit of revenge found the place.

Inside their souls love gives ground on hate, the hope undergoes to desperation.

Alfonsina is a farmer coming from Irpinia (a place in Campania, in the south of Italy) who, after she had lost her lover in war, was compelled by her family to marry a man, who submitted her to incredible oppressions and humiliations, so that she reacted with crushing consequences. Then Concetta, victim of prejudices and betrayed by her lover. Moreover, Rosa, forever signed by a roping, endured when she was a teenager. Samira, driven by misery, comes in Italy from Nigeria and ends in the hands of a prostitution criminal organization. Elisa did not accept her husband’s rules of Mafia, and Teresa, Anna, Olga, and more…

Among them, in 1982 even Sophia Loren was imprisoned for seventeen days in the prison of Caserta, for tax fraud. Her detention had such a big wide appeal, giving raise to paradoxes and grotesque events. However, a part from media gossip and from the curiosity which her arrival gave birth in the other prisoners, she was an out of rich star of the cinema even there, covered by the air of charm and mystery.

Crossing by the protagonists’ events, the reader is driven into the discovery of the most hidden sides of a world never completely explored of women’s soul. This book is the revisited and expanded edition of Women, gates and crimes. Tales from prison.

ALFONSINA

“Many are surprised by my energy, but do you know how old am I?” The woman, who was talking to me, near the flowerbed she had to take care, showed an old age. Her withered and wrinkled skin, her already grey and thin hair, her almost all teeth lacking mouth, her curved and tired shoulders, witnesses of a painful and troubled life, all led her got the name of “grandma” by her fellows.

To the say the truth, this “grandma” was only fifty-one. She looked at me by her good-natured gentle eyes, almost asking for approval of her job, while I was admiring the beautiful flowers, where spring sunshine exalted their vivid colours. “They are gorgeous”, I was compelled to tell her, “and well handled!”

“Do you know?” she said pleased, “I was born surrounded by plants. I had spent my life taking care of animals and farming. You cannot imagine how much dirt I had down. This one is only a joke for me, now.”

Alfonsina P. came from a little rural village near Lioni, a lost little agglomerate on Irpinia Mountains, in which people of that time were linked to old life-style and to a basic farming economy. She had three children, adults by now, and many grandchildren. She liked to define herself a farming woman, almost lacking of experiences, except for those dealing with farming and hardship of life. However, difficulties, sacrifices and humiliations she had suffered, never turned up her, as often happens, into a malicious or distrustful woman. Alfonsina had kept her gaiety without malice, as in the past thirty years she showed cleverness and a strong craving for knowledge, always testing new things.

“Love for farming was passed down to me by my father. He was tall, thin, and strong, with black waved hair. He looked like an actor who often appears in movies, that actor…. I don’t remember the name…Anyway he looked like an actor.” He taught me how to take care of plants and farming, to seed, to fertilize, to trim, to understand the weather changes from wind direction, to foresee the rainfall or dry periods. My father loved me. As a child, when he held me in his arms, I felt sure, safe. I felt nothing could happen to me. I remember he used to take me walking during summertime, through the narrow and steep mountains paths. By his confident and determined step, and by my jumping pace, we used to walk together, until the river. We used to sit on the little wall of the riverbank, admiring the endless never stop- flowing of water. I liked that clear water that uninterrupted movement, that relaxing rustle. Of course, that river is not always calm. Sometimes its strong frenzy and unruly, wild power, threaten to crush everything around, but when I saw it impressive and calm, I could feel joy and peace. My father used to tell me several things: fables, fair tails, legends, old stories about our inhabitants or nearest people; he argued me about human being and world creation, about the birth of things and of existing animals on the earth.

“The river Ofanto, he said, was born from Appennino Mountains, running for many kilometres along Irpinia territories and flowing into Adriatic Sea”. “What is sea?” I asked. “It is an enormous expanse of salt water”. He answered. I wished I could see the sea, I could not imagine how a huge extended expanse of salt water was. In my life, I have seen only mountains. I have never supposed that one day, inside a prison, I could have seen the sea throughout the window of a jail. My father was loved, estimated by everyone and always ready to help people with their troubles. He was a wise and generous man, deeply devoted to his family. He was an important unique reference point for my mother. If he had lived in this age, he would surely have studied and he would have become a teacher, because of his cleverness and intelligence. His family was wealthy, with some economic trouble after the world war, the first of course. Grandpa handled and nurtured personally his lands. Therefore, he was a farmer, as we say today. After grandpa’s death, we inherited a big vineyard and the house where he had lived, in the suburb of the village. It was not big, but in good conditions, with a stall for animals. We were not rich, but we could live in a respectable way. Childhood was the only peaceful period of all my life. My father had never hit me, maybe because I was the only female. He wanted me well behaved and hard working. Moreover, I know he was glad and satisfied of me, because I have always been wise, without flights and fancy in my mind. If he had been with me, my life would surely have been so different.

On the contrary, unfortunately, he passed away. A pneumonia disease brought him away in few days. He had come back from the fields under a violent rainfall; He was soaking wet with cold shivers. He went to bed and he had back up nevermore. I remember the doctor who came at home twice a day. He visited him shaking his head powerless and worried about him. I remember my mother, pale and scared, always next to the bed day and night, as a ghost. I remember the silence, the dark and the gloomy atmosphere, plenty of anxiety. Every day I went to the church, praying for the Holy Virgin Mary. I looked at her motionless, with her light blue mantle and sweet face and I spoke with her, crying, asking…

“Ask and you’ll get, knock and you’ll be opened” is written inside the Holy Gospel. I had asked, I had knocked many times, but I had always found a locked door. I often listen to something like” God gave me grace!” and sometimes God has nothing to do with it. Anyway, I could never tell it. “God wants to test you” my mother repeated me. “Don’t let him down”. But why He pretends all those tests to me?” After my father’s death, nothing was like before. I had to work hard to manage my family. My brothers were still young and they could do little. I took care of lands; I nurtured animals, keeping on housework. I had no stops and at night, I felt wasted out by hard working and effort. My mother recovered nevermore. I could see her becoming bowed, almost crushed, under the weight of a bitter and heavy existence. She was a fragile and vulnerable creature, to be protected on whom I could not trust. Nevertheless, she, poor woman, she had been just worn out by another terrible loss, happened years before, my brother Vincenzo’s death.

He was a nice boy, cheerful, lively, sharp, always going around and playing with his friends. My mother chased him in the streets, to get him back to school. My parents wished him got his primary school education, at least, but he did not like studying at all.

Conversely, I have never been at school, I am illiterate. In my little village, women did not use to study. However, I would have liked to learn reading and writing; I would like to know History, Geography, and Maths. Being ignorant is bad; it’s bad when you cannot write a letter, or speak correctly or when you don’t understand cultured people speaking. I don’t like that. Surely, if my father could, he would let me study, but studying was not a habit in that time. In our little mountain village there is a strange way of thinking. You cannot do what you really want, because of people’s rumours. You cannot decide anything without taking into account others’ opinion; even your dress or hairdressing can cause rumours. You are not free in that village: everyone knows all of everyone. I understood these things when I firstly came here. At the beginning they seemed to me normal, ‘cause I thought everywhere things were the same. Here, listening to my fellows speaking, I have found that, in other places, everyone can do what he wants. Nowadays, even inside the prison, something is changed, you know. Progress has come; TV shows us what is happening in the world, emigrants had come back home and brought news, Youngers go studying abroad, and today they can do what yesterday they could not.

One day Vincenzino got ill. He had high temperature; the doctor thought about a flu, whereas it was tetanus. Vincenzino had injured himself by a plow, while he was playing. He said nothing, worried about a punishment. He put a bandage on the wound made by rags and hid it under the cloths. It was late when my mother realized it and nothing could be done. He was only seven. He was my elder brother. I remember the little white coffin, covered on by flowers at the base of the altar, my mother and my father’s despair, all citizens’ sorrow, the silent and distressed funeral procession. Since then, my mother had been dressed in black being in mourning, and she had given it back nevermore.

When my father had reached Vincenzino in the same grave, I used to go often the cemetery, leaving flowers I collected in the fields. I was used to speak to my father, telling him about troubles at home, my worries. It was a way to feel him alive and next to me, since I had nobody to let in on. It seemed to me he could still listen to and help me.

A summer mourning, when I was fifteen, while I was going out of the cemetery, thinking about my thoughts, someone suddenly barred my way on, holding my arm. It was Raffaele Salieri, a young man I had always hated, since my childhood, because of his cruelty and insolence. Something in his ambivalent, deceptive glance disgusted me; that’s why I had always avoided him. My repulsion got him angry, and when he met me, he looked at me hostile and mocking. That day he strongly caught my arm as in an iron grips and he dragged me on, towards the cemetery keeper’s empty hovel, without saying a word. The street was desert and silent; at that hour everyone was working in the fields or was busy in their things. Only the creaking of the gravel under our shoes could be heard, in addition to my scared and painful grooms. Fear paralyzed me. I did not completely understand what he wanted; I was only an ingenue girl, but I found the strength to react using the other arm, punching him. I could hear his heavy breath and see his sweaty getting wet his forehead, trying to win my endurance. He had almost managed to get me into the hovel when I could hear the noise of clatter hooves, maybe a donkey or a mule, and somebody’s voice who was riding it, spurring it to go faster. By all the breath I had, I could give a high-pitched scream, which had surprised Raffaele. Taking advantage of his temporary uncertainty, I kicked his leg. I saw him bending over, feeling his slackening off my arm. By a violent jerk, I could get and run out. I run as a damned along the street, even if I realized He wasn’t following me. I got home in a panic, breathless, with my heart in my throat, but I did not tell anything to anyone. That fact upset me. The days later, thinking back on it, I shivered frightened and for the avoided danger. I had lost my bravery in going out alone and I prayed God not to meet him anymore on my path. Maybe He was interested on me and he was angry for my repulsion. I was not ugly, do you know? Of course, I am old now and in bad way, but I was not so bad. I was little, but I had straight legs, delicate features, curly long hair as my grandma Alfonsina, my father’s mother, who gave me her name, as it was used in my village.

She was a special woman clever and learned: she knew how to count and maybe she could read. Not just because she went to school, of course, but also because she had a great deal of initiative. She managed her own general store, the only one in Lioni. One of those shops in which you can find everything: the farming tools, cookware, cloths, cough drops. In other words everything, even toys. When I was a child, she sometimes gave me one of the toys she sold. They were very simple: a rag doll, a toy wood train, a Jump rope, but they seemed to me precious and luxury gifts. My grandma knew a lot of things. She had travelled a lot. She had been in places around, as Avellino and even in Naples. She told me the buildings in the cities were big and high, with many floors and there were very large and crowded streets, were coaches, cars and other means of transports on railways, called cable cars went around. I would have liked to visit Naples. Life is so strange! I had seen Naples when I first came into prison, just me that I had never moved from Lioni. I had seen very little of it, of course, only what I could have seen from the windows of the police car, when they brought me here and when they escorted me to the Assize Court for the trial, but it was enough for me. What a chaos, a confusion, what a difference with my little and calm village. Well, who Knows if my little village is really so calm or instead, if it hides a secret hell into deep.

As the time passed, my mother became more and more listless. Little and thin, in her black faded dress, whit her suffering expression and her eyes, consumed by tears, she spent her days praying in front of my Dad and Vincenzino’s pics. Nothing changed for me. I had been still farming, housekeeping and feeding animals. My brothers started helping me, by their growing up. At the age of seventeen, I became a little woman who had no sureness of the future. At the village, families often organized weddings and my father’s death had prevented any plan on me. I could see my peers already engaged, who were going to get married and I felt sad for my future, which had no encouraging expectations. It was just in that period that I felt in love with Andrea, Margherita’s son, my godmother.

Godparent’s ties were a sort of kinsfolk. Godparents are people to be respected, to whom you have to give presents at Christmas and you have to invite to families parties. Mrs Margherita was a farmer, too. She helped her husband Ettore, taking care of her family with great dignity. Everyone in my village knew and appreciated her kindness and goodness. Andrea was very similar. He was 4 year older than I was. He was handsome and nice, always smiling, kind and gentle with everyone. He had large shoulders, straight back, blonde eyes and hair. Yes, even his eyes were blonde, golden, just like the stone with which some necklace are made; …amber, yes his eyes were amber colour. We had been friends since childhood, and we often met when our families met, but I had never seen him by loved eyes. One evening after a working day, tired and gloomy for my useless and hard life, I looked out of my kitchen window in the street. It was October and the air was getting cooler. Winter starts soon in my country, and it is very freezing, but the sky was clear and full of stars, with a brighten Moon, shining on roofs, streets and fields. Andrea was coming back from the country after the grape harvest. He was walking slowly and weary. When he arrived under the window he saw me, he smiled me and said: “What are you doing? “. “I am looking at stars,” I answered with a voice broken by the emotion. He had a moment of hesitation, as he was thinking about something else, while he was looking at me. Then, he said: “Will you come to the grape party next Sunday?” In the meanwhile, his father, his brothers and workers with honkeys and coaches reached him, coming back from vineyard. I had only the time to nod. Then He went away with the others. I saw him moving away through the narrow streets and disappeared over the houses. My heart beat strong, I felt growing inside my soul a strong feeling which made me happy. A sudden feeling for a person I had always known. I went to sleep fantasying.