To Love A Wife Or A Mistress?
My parents passed away a year apart and their memory is still as vivid as the memories of my youth. My dad was a handsome man with the looks of a patriarch but had a tender side, although he rarely showed it. He flashed a faint smile here and there. He surely loved his kids: four daughters and one son...perhaps he was his privileged one giving him an opportunity to education but denied it to my sister Mary whom I called the poetess. She wrote a few Novels and had one published in Naples in 1967 a year after we immigrated to the United States of America. In her short story, Ortensia she confessed her love for Mario (a fictional name,) he was a handsome Neapolitan young man who loved Ortensia passionately and truthfully, unfortunately, the heroine of the story died leaving Mario in eternal pain. His loss was the loss of his own life. A year before the departure from Baiano, which was a lovely town surrounded by green hills and mountains, and by the Campanian lively landscape that Virgilio loved and admired. Baiano was a haven with great transportation, with a train station and a bus line that connected to Naples. I took this train every morning going to the nearby Nola for my training in an aviation faculty. I was stirred by the appearance of the grotesque Norman Castel of Avella groped on a barren hill, I was an admirer of History and wanted to know about it. My dream was to become a pilot and explore the beautiful skies of Italy. There was no dream more sublime than mine, it never could be realized and I regretted it immensely. Mary wanted to continue her education and become a songwriter and a vocalist, but her dream was suppressed by my dad who had an orthodox mentality. When her first song was recorded in Milan in nineteen-sixty-six, by Ermanna Melli a singer from Forli everybody loved her romantic song full of emotions and feelings. The song expressed the feeling of an innocent love when a girl falls in love for the first time with a man much older than her age. Nobody knew whom the song was written for, except me. I can reveal in this short story: he was a postman who delivered daily our mail around 11:00 a.m. A minor willing to marry an adult was prohibited by the Law: a teenager couldn't marry someone much older than herself, then she was only seventeen. I guess we all have feelings for someone even though they are platonic as they were for my sister Mary. I haven't revealed this secret to anyone, I am revealing it in this short story. I could see her expression on her excited face every time he handed her the mail. Did he notice she had a crush on him? Some teens fall in love too soon and start fantasizing filling up their heads with delusional dreams, not realizing the impossibility and the consequences of their platonic love.
A few years later was a turning point for all of us, we got a Visa from our grandfather Andrew, who resided in Mineola, New York, USA. We were the new immigrants to leave Italy, there was no mass immigration from our country; the only people who migrated were the Southerners who went up North to live in cities like Milan and Turin, but they paid a high price. They were mistreated by the Northerners and lived in small, cramped apartments. After World War II Naples was in ruin and people struggled daily to find anything for a comfortable living, so they were forced to migrate North, mostly were men while the women stayed home and took care of their children. I loved Italy, I had lots of friends and good neighbors who loved me, but the decision to leave wasn't mine to make. I played soccer after school in a small field right next to the church of Santo Stefano who was the first martyr of Christendom. I wondered often what awaited me behind the Atlantic Ocean, many crossed it for an escape from religious persecutions and poverty, and a chance to start that new life the old world couldn't offer them. I wasn't frightened and thought as Columbus did with an indomitable spirit, not knowing what that journey would have led me. The protagonist of this story is a fragile teenager so curious to know about life and what it had to offer, and sadly it didn't offer him what he had anticipated or expected with great excitement. I loved my father timorously, not in the way a father should be loved. He was strict, never hugged me, and made me feel loved as other kids of any age. I suffered for his lack of affection and insensitive character. How many times did I disobey him for his absurd demands and expectations of obedience when I was deprived of expressing myself with freedom and ingenuity? I didn't regret it a bit: it was parental cruelty to a teenager stepping into the world of exciting youth and deserving an equal chance to discover it with his own eyes of certainty, not of insecurity.
Going back to my adolescence and the peaceful town I lived in, flashes of happy and sad images appear to reconstruct that nostalgia-stirring emotion that can make a cold-hearted cry. I confess I have cried remembering the delights I experienced and the smiles of friendly people who always greeted me as a respectable and loving boy. They shaped my morale with their humbleness and graciousness of heart. How different would have been my life living among them and sharing days if contentment being part of a people showing a passion for life and a faith that the saints gave them for strength to avoid the tragedies of those who heed the voice of temptation, not that of conscience and morality that a priest shouts from the culprit!
My family seemed a spring of joy for the younger ones who were not aware of the drama behind the scenes. My sisters, Stephanie, Cathy, and Joanna showed more affection for my dad than I did, and there was a reason for me showing less. There was a very dark side in my father's character: he demanded respect and obedience casting me out of his life, doing what was immoral and unfair. His obsession for his mistress who lived in the same town, made me shiver from disgust. He had a wonderful wife with traits unequaled by others, her faithfulness to him lasted until death; while he was a daily recurrence of betrail. My mom didn't want to divorce him and separate us from him. She suffered in silence, suffocating her pain with an inconspicuous smile that gave us confidence and continuity for happiness that wouldn't have lasted for long. Who stood by her side when she held off her tears and embraced me for comfort? It's easy to guess that boy was me, giving away pieces of a heart already broken. We kept on believing that he would have changed and finally love us.
How did that affair start between dad and his mistress? Well, Giacomo, the Casanova, met this lady on the bus to Naples, and being a bus driver with his handsomeness drove ladies insane. He didn't reveal to them he was a married guy with five kids, and that his wife was an attractive woman, with fine features that made the mistress envious and hostile. Dad never wore his wedding ring and everybody assumed he was a single guy, but shrewdness caught up to him. The only person who knew he was married was Antoniette, the mistress who held a spell on him and didn't feel empathy for his wife and children living in the same town and saw them going to school every morning. How envious she was of them and of their features of a blue-blood ancestry of the Medieval times. I had a few slips of the tongue calling her witch and an ugly duckling; we weren't allowed to say nasty things to her, or we would have gotten slapped, and. whenever we met her by chance in the Municipal Square, or at the Bazaar in August, or at the Fair when merchants and venders all over Campania set up their tables with all kinds of goods and one could find almost anything at low prices. There were rides for the kids, and at night they held a concert in honor of Saint Stefan protector of the town of Baiano, people from the surrounding towns came and enjoyed the music of Verdi, of Scarlatti, of Beethoven, and other great composers. That Municipal Square echoed with the sumptuous notes of their melodies, people were spell-bound by their sound. That was a night of stellar splendor amid the magical music and the luminescent lights. I had read about the great composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but listening to their music played with skill and passion by those talented musicians made me more aware of their genius. If music is no part of your existence, let it enter your being: it will change your moodiness; if everybody loved music, they'd be living in a world of thrilling sounds that would turn monotony into harmony. Grab some sheet music of their compositions and explore their world! Mix them up and create your own music: it's an unforgettable journey!
Whenever mom sang Neapolitan or Italian songs while doing her chores, it made me stop and listen with attention to her musical tones without having taken any music lessons, singing comes naturally, especially to the Neapolitans you sing those songs out of stress or cheerfulness. We all know that Naples is famous for its classic songs they are sung all over the World from Caruso to Pavarotti, from Andrea Boccelli to Celine Dion and many other famous international performers who have come to love the music of Italy.
Those are sweet memories of a youngster looking for answers without answers, to witness lust for a mistress. I saw my dad leave after he got home from work and sneak out to spend a few hours of the night with Antonietta. Many times I ran to my balcony and saw him walking down our street devoid of emotion and guilt visible on his unrepenting face. I dismiss the notion of a magical spell by Antonietta, but I blame him for his transgression and make everybody suffer for his wrongful choice to love his wife and mistress obeying his commands and do as he pleased. His chauvinism mentality was if the medieval ages when were considered servants, not women speaking their minds but making concessions of mercy afraid of being tortured mentally and physically. This monster took over the life of our dad and estranged him from ours. I waited for him, cuddled in that corner of my room having missed him all evening, mom used to tell me, " Go to sleep, he's coming later. " I fell asleep with tears flowing.
As the years passed and bitterness grew, I detached from dad completely considering him an enemy, not a friend. He saw the rebellion in me and contested me with angry looks, never admitting he had caused all the grief in his son who heard other kids praise their dad...why couldn't he have been the ideal dad every kid dreams of? Why wouldn't he let go of his bastard attitude and treat me with affection and be proud he had a responsible son?
The only time he made me happy was during Christmastime. I got the gift I dreamed about: a sniper rifle, I couldn't contain my joy. I jumped and shouted making the living room shake...thinking I was a soldier on the battlefield! ". I wanted to be a soldier when growing up, not realizing the dangers of war and the horrors that come with it. That Christmas night has never faded from my memory and I treasure it as my happiest one! We don't have a recollection of happy moments short-lived, but they should be the ones that make the late stage of adolescence exciting that others think are meaningless and not worth remembering.
My only regret is that I didn't have a supportive father who encouraged me to lead the way and made me honor him; I only had respect, not love toward him. His unacceptable ways were based on discipline. I admired those dads who took interest in their sons' well-being, never leaving them on their own as stranded puppies, not remembering how to get home. I cursed him and he felt my wrath and wanted to punish me, but refrained knowing he was wrong. This was a rivalry between me and my dad...I wondered how could he love that mistress he used for sexual urges, not his pretty wife? When he got home from work, I was waiting for him by the front door and felt the cool draft and shivered. We lived in a building resembling a castle and it was owned by a prince who had horses' stables under each floor. I could hear horses gallops and their shoed pounding on the gravel-layered street and neighing they came to a halt. It was 1962 and Italy went through an economic boom, but the South remained exempt from the revolutionary economic boom due to lack of funds. The South was invaded by the bankrupt Savoia king and took away all the riches it owned. Dismantling the steel and textile factories transferring them up North. These textile factories were owned by the laborious Swiss who migrated with their families to Naples. Others became bankers and Campania prospered. Thanks to the Bourbons who governed the South with wisdom and fairness. The Southern never spoke Spanish as other conquered countries did, but adhered to the Neapolitan language that was mandatory through Southern Italy, unlikely other invaders who subjected them with violence and death. I heard about America and how prosperous it was, my dream was to stay in Italy and grow up Italian and extend my education. I loved poetry and music, I gave a shot at painting and made a couple of portraits, but nothing too extraordinary; I didn't take them with me on my flight to New York City, I left them there where they were hanging on the wall in the living room. I think about them once in a while: they are a part of my adolescence. I could have been another Giotto, but my vocation was for music and poetry. One must develop the gifts that God endows one with and nurture them with a passion to realize one's dreams.
That September night was a decisive night for me and my family leaving our adored Baiano. We bade goodbye to our neighbors and hugged them for the last time: commotion erupted and they started to cry...it was a sea of tears. They wished us luck in the New World awaiting us with welcoming, open arms, and from miles beneath the white clouds hovering over New York City Harbor, I spotted Lady Liberty who seemed to say, " Come to me: you are one of my children and in my arms, you will be protected. " I believed in her promise and made America my adoptive country. Can one love two countries and be loyal to both, not feeling betrayed by the concept of alliance? I have chosen America, but I still love Italy, more than anything I can imagine. They both live in me and they nourish and inspire me with their values of freedom and brotherhood. I belong to two flags flapping in the winds of Heaven. When I pass away, I wish to be remembered as the most humble person to have lived through moments that were both defeating and glorious.
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