Not For Self: A Sicilian Life and Death in Marion
Legas Press, New York
CHAPTER I
BURGIO, SICILY
The Valenti Family
The castle stood, what was left of it, at the comuné’s edge. Built, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed by Arabs and Normans over centuries of warfare. A lookout tower cast a jagged shadow over the castle, the tower’s name becoming the hamlet’s name, first in Arabic, burg, then Sicilian burgiu. In the sprawling valley below the town, on swatches of land that ribboned in and out and around hillocks, the grassy fields were adorned with a verdant richness. But, just below the alluring green veneer were layers of gravel, stone, clay, limestone waiting to curse those who would expose them to the scorching Sicilian sun. Once disturbed, the earth was defiant and resistant to intentions, to necessities—to being cultivated. Peasant farmers labored and coaxed the fields to produce, while breezes, when there, whispered past sunburnt ears in demons’ breaths, “Give up.”
Michele Valenti, a viddanu, a farmer, planted crops and raised animals on land that was not his. In his daily walk across the fields, peering down past a wide brush moustache, labored steps carried him across rows and furrows, his body bent over forever, he examined the soil; the seeding; the crops; and intoned, through parched lips, whispered prayers. He was after all, a sharecropper, obligated to his family and to his landlord to produce. Whatever produced, he would keep 40% and give 60% to the landowner, the patruni, who hired a foreman to assess and collect. Michele’s patruni was the Catholic archdiocese, deeded large estates by ruling governments in return for the church’s control of unruly peasant-souls in this life and the hereafter. The church’s acting foreman was Father Bartolomeo, a short, round priest who swayed back and forth in a lumbering trudge over the uneven terrain, wiping his sweaty face with one hand and holding his libretto colonico at his chest with the other. The black accounting book held the church’s expenses for providing seeds, animals, and farm equipment, and the priest’s estimation of what was owed. Michele wanted to hide at the sight of Father Bartolomeo, but he could not, so he pretended not to notice him.
“Ahmm,” coughed the priest, “All right Michele, let’s look at the books here,” he said in his high-pitched voice, a melodic tenor, a bit hoarse, possibly from the morning chants. His wide-brim straw hat, too big, drooped over his ears. He nudged it back to uncover his eyes.
Michele was a peasant. He labored in the fields while the wealthy were schooled. They could read. He could not. The priest knew this.
“We recorded here that you needed us to replace a couple of shovels and hoes and a broken wagon wheel. You planted all the seed we gave you?”
“Yes, Father, we planted everything. But you didn’t replace any broken shovels and hoes. Me and my sons made our own handles for those tools, and we fixed the wheel.”
“What did you use to fix them?”
“We found wood in the back. Been there since we came. We used that.”
“Well that’s the archdiocese’s wood we use for repairs at the church and monastery. You’re going to have to pay for that wood.”
“But your holiness, our agreement is that the church give us the tools to do the work.”
“Michele. The church did give you the tools, but you broke them and then used the church’s wood to fix them. You should be charged for the wood.” Father Bartolomeo continued, “Now we gave you a couple of sacks of seed. We’re going to need a few sacks of corn and a few bushels of vegetables for the monastery and enough eggs to last us for the month. I’ll come back in a couple of months to tell what we’re going to need further.”
“Your Eminence, the corn didn’t make too much this year and the drought we had caused the peas and beans to stop growing. We would like to keep some of what we grew to sell in the market.”
“Michele. My son,” the priest gently patted Michele’s cheek. He leaned in to whisper, his breath smelling of altar wine and garlic, “We have an agreement that you give us what we need from your farm. If you can’t do that, you can send your wife and daughters to work in the monastery to clean the church. Your boys can cut the hedges and prune some of the fruit trees on the grounds. We’ll have work for them to make up what you owe. Remember: You pay no rent for living on our land and are using it to make a living. We expect you to share your issue with us. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes father.”
“You know Don Randazzo on those estates over there requires his renters to send a family member to jail until they pay what they own him. I don’t wish to do this, but the church must get what it is owed. You see that don’t you?”
“Yes, father.” Michele whispered.
“Good.Then you’ll send over what I asked for.” The priest made the sign of the cross in the air in front of Michele.
Michele bowed.
Michele farmed the Catholic archdiosese’s land along with his wife, Giulia, and their seven children. Brothers Gaetano and Gioacchino Valenti were the youngest of five boys and two girls and were twins. They were of medium height, gaunt bodies; but, similarities ended there. Gioacchino was the patient one, deliberative, accepting of his fate. Gaetano—younger by minutes—was a reactionary, claiming he had been cursed by fate, disavowing unwanted outcomes and fiercely determining to bend them back his way. Though identical, their temperaments altered their appearances. Gioacchino was neat, careful of his looks, and even in the fields, he was clean-shaven, eschewing a growth as soon as it became noticeable. Each morning, he combed his wavy black hair, aware that the rigors of the farm work and hot Sicilian winds would soon undo the coif. A rope belt held his thick coarse pants in place and he carefully tucked it at the waist for neatness and for the element of safety. It would not do to get loose clothing caught in equipment. And, at breaks, as the men drank from a spring fed spigot, Gioacchino would splash his face to remove the dust and sweat of the morning, his hazel eyes piercing through the dripping water, accented all the more by his leathery tan against the brightness of the day. His twin Gaetano had little time for personal hygiene and little regard for how he looked. His mind was often hours ahead of his present. Beneath his coarse and patchy stubble, Gaetano’s face did not look tan, but rowdy and sunburned, partly from unwashed irritants, but most likely the result of hypertension. His hair lay matted, colored by what stayed in it, as though it were graying. Gaetano’s life was a collection of days to endure. He could never be convinced that his looks, personal hygiene, or his way of keeping his trousers up had any bearing on his life.
In a section of unplanted field, the earth dry, the rows’ surfaces crusty and compacted, the twins stood on each side of the family’s mule, Bábbu. The morning hours brought little respite from a sun that beat down on them without mercy while it benevolently blessed the soil with warmth. Gioacchino was minimally aggravated when the mule displayed its typical obstinate behavior by walking over the rows rather than between them, undoubtedly wanting to get back to the shade of a shelter. Gaetano was not so patient. On this day of especially searing heat where the earth sent its hotness up through his pants, he would have none of the mule’s contrariness. This patch of sod needed to be busted and planted as quickly as possible; and he was determined to get this done, he too wanting shade and a drink of cool water. He swore relentlessly at Bábbu growling his lexicon of Sicilian curse-phrases, mixing and matching those already spent to form new curses; but the animal remained unmoved by any of it. It fixed its stance, arched its back, its long grey ears, scarred and torn by brambles, low branches, rope halters, switches, brazenly pointed toward the back, insulting its tormentor. It was a granite statue with a fixed gaze forward, regal in its pose, admirable in its resolute demeanor under a grueling circumstance. Gioacchino left the mule to Gaetano and moved on to the far end of the field to begin hoeing a neglected patch, never getting so far away where he could not hear Gaetano’s invectives. In one moment he looked up, hoping his brother had convinced the animal to do the right thing, but he saw that Gaetano had removed the rope from the plow and was now using it to strike at the mule’s rear flanks with renewed rants. Bábbu stood stoically in place, impervious to the brute swats, but when Gaetano began kicking its back leg in sequence to the lashes, the creature having enough, bolted for the opened fields. The sudden dash quickly tightened the rope around Gaetano’s wrist, making it impossible to get free. He was indecorously dragged over the busted mounds of adjacent fields, a rag doll hopelessly flopping and crashing into the rows, his wrathful curses coming at each meeting with the sod. Older brother Vito had just arrived and witnessed the field drama. He gave chase after the two adversaries, never thinking to drop the shovel he had with him. Meanwhile Gioacchino was able to head off the animal and cause him to run toward Vito who quickly grabbed the crude rope halter, instinctively jabbing the shovel into a nearby mound. The rescued Gaetano quickly jumped up, made no attempt to dust off or take an inventory of injuries, but rather ran for the shovel like the mad man he was. He was determined to chop the mule’s head off as expediently as could be done with such a tool.
Vito interceded, “Eh, pazzu, siettiti, siettiti. We need this animal.” He clasped Gaetano’s wrist to take the shovel and bloodied his own hand. “You’re bleeding Gaetano. Look at your wrist.”
True to the words, Gaetano’s wrist was bloody. The rope had cut into it, pulling away some of his flesh. The sight of his bleeding was distraction enough to calm the situation somewhat. He stomped off the field to care for his wound, turning every third step to glare at the accursed animal. His brothers, Vito and Gioacchino led Bábbu out of the field, giving the mule what it wanted to begin with: a rest under a shady roof. Gaetano would have a scar on his wrist for the rest of his life. Year’s later, when the identifying mark was duly documented as a scar on the passenger’s list at Ellis Island, Gaetano would be reminded of that fateful day’s encounter and resume cursing the mule.
NOT FOR SELF
REVIEW
Jake Valenti cause of death: By gunshot wounds by the hands of Cliff H. Justifiable Homicide.
The whole of a life compressed into two sentences.
Author Joseph L. Cacibauda came across this death certificate while researching for a different novel. Jake Valenti was his distant cousin, an immigrant from Sicily, coming to America in the early 1900’s. Perhaps if the death was listed as natural causes, Cacibauda would have moved on with his research. But there was something about gunshot wounds and the word justifiable that sent him searching for Jake.
The 1920’s were turbulent times in America. Jake settled in Marion, Illinois, lured by the promise of work in the coal mines and the hope of purchasing farming land. He lived in a time of conflict: unions against mine owners, prohibition sidestepped by bootleggers, morality espoused and enforced by the Ku Klux Klan. It was not a clear cut line between hoodlum and innocent.
Not for Self is a highly researched historical dig into the cross-fire of ideologies, greed, and anti-immigrant sentiments. It is the personalized story of an America that enticed immigrant labor with a glossy vision for a better future. For Jake this vision ended in his murder. But was he an innocent?
With Not for Self, it’s as if Cacibauda has taken a series of sepia photographs of the past, colorized them and brought them to unforgettable life. Historical fiction at it’s best.
Laura Newman is a Reno, Nevada writer. Her book Parallel to Paradise, a collection of short stories about drug addiction and relationships, has won a number of literary awards. She is currently working on a new book, Tourettes of the Heart.
CHAPTER I - BURGIO, SICILY: The Valenti Family
The castle stood, what was left of it, at the comune’s edge. Built, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed by Arabs and Normans over centuries of warfare. A lookout tower cast a jagged shadow over the castle, the tower’s name becoming the hamlet’s name, first in Arabic, burg, then Sicilian burgiu. In the sprawling valley below the town, on swatches of land that ribboned in and out and around hillocks, the grassy fields were adorned with a verdant richness. But, just below the alluring green veneer were layers of gravel, stone, clay, limestone waiting to curse those who would expose them to the scorching Sicilian sun. Once disturbed, the earth was defiant and resistant to intentions, to necessities—to being cultivated. Peasant farmers labored and coaxed the fields to produce, while breezes, when there, whispered past sunburnt ears in demons’ breaths, “Give up.”
Michele Valenti, a viddanu, a farmer, planted crops and raised animals on land that was not his. In his daily walk across the fields, peering down past a wide brush moustache, labored steps carried him across rows and furrows, his body bent over forever, he examined the soil; the seeding; the crops; and intoned, through parched lips, whispered prayers. He was after all, a sharecropper, obligated to his family and to his landlord to produce. Whatever produced, he would keep 40% and give 60% to the landowner, the patruni, who hired a foreman to assess and collect. Michele’s patruni was the Catholic archdiocese, deeded large estates by ruling governments in return for the church’s control of unruly peasant-souls in this life and the hereafter. The church’s acting foreman was Father Bartolomeo, a short, round priest who swayed back and forth in a lumbering trudge over the uneven terrain, wiping his sweaty face with one hand and holding his libretto colonico at his chest with the other. The black accounting book held the church’s expenses for providing seeds, animals, and farm equipment, and the priest’s estimation of what was owed. Michele wanted to hide at the sight of Father Bartolomeo, but he could not, so he pretended not to notice him.
“Ahmm,” coughed the priest, “All right Michele, let’s look at the books here,” he said in his high-pitched voice, a melodic tenor, a bit hoarse, possibly from the morning chants. His wide-brim straw hat, too big, drooped over his ears. He nudged it back to uncover his eyes.
Michele was a peasant. He labored in the fields while the wealthy were schooled. They could read. He could not. The priest knew this.
“We recorded here that you needed us to replace a couple of shovels and hoes and a broken wagon wheel. You planted all the seed we gave you?”
“Yes, Father, we planted everything. But you didn’t replace any broken shovels and hoes. Me and my sons made our own handles for those tools, and, we fixed the wheel.”
“What did you use to fix them?”
“We found wood in the back. Been there since we came. We used that.”
“Well that’s the archdiocese’s wood we use for repairs at the church and monastery. You’re going to have to pay for that wood.”
“But your holiness, our agreement is that the church give us the tools to do the work.”
“Michele. The church did give you the tools, but you broke them and then used the church’s wood to fix them. You should be charged for the wood.” Father Bartolomeo continued, “Now we gave you a couple of sacks of seed. We’re going to need a few sacks of corn and a few bushels of vegetables for the monastery and enough eggs to last us for the month. I’ll come back in a couple of months to tell what we’re going to need further.”
“Your Eminence, the corn didn’t make too much this year and the drought we had caused the peas and beans to stop growing. We would like to keep some of what we grew to sell in the market.”
“Michele. My son,” the priest gently patted Michele’s cheek. He leaned in to whisper, his breath smelling of altar wine and garlic, “We have an agreement that you give us what we need from your farm. If you can’t do that, you can send your wife and daughters to work in the monastery to clean the church. Your boys can cut the hedges, and prune some of the fruit trees on the grounds. We’ll have work for them to make up what you owe. Remember: You pay no rent for living on our land and are using it to make a living. We expect you to share your issue with us. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes father.”
“You know Don Randazzo on those estates over there requires his renters to send a family member to jail until they pay what they own him. I don’t wish to do this, but the church must get what it is owed. You see that don’t you?”
“Yes, father.” Michele whispered.
“Good.Then you’ll send over what I asked for.” The priest made the sign of the cross in the air in front of Michele.
Michele bowed.
Brothers Gaetano and Gioacchino Valenti, Michele’s sons, were the youngest of nine children and also twins. They were of medium height, gaunt bodies—similarities ended there. Gioacchino was the patient one, deliberative, accepting of his fate. Gaetano—younger by minutes—was a reactionary, claiming he had been cursed by fate, disavowing unwanted outcomes and fiercely determining to bend them back his way. Though identical, their temperaments altered their appearances. Gioacchino was neat, careful of his looks, and even in the fields, he was clean-shaven, eschewing a growth as soon as it became noticeable. Each morning, he combed his wavy black hair, aware that the rigors of the farm work and hot Sicilian winds would soon undo the coif. He dutifully tucked in the ends of his coarse rope belt at his waist for neatness and for the element of safety. It would not do to get loose clothing caught in equipment. And, at breaks, as the men drank from a spring fed spigot, Gioacchino would splash his face to remove the dust and sweat of the morning, his hazel eyes piercing through the dripping water, accented all the more by his leathery tan against the brightness of the day. His twin Gaetano had little time for personal hygiene and little regard for how he looked. His mind was often hours ahead of his present. Beneath his coarse and patchy stubble, Gaetano’s face did not look tan, but rowdy and sunburned, partly from unwashed irritants, but most likely the result of hypertension. His hair lay matted, colored by what stayed in it, as though it were graying. Gaetano’s life was a collection of days to endure. He could never be convinced that his looks, personal hygiene, or his way of keeping his trousers up had any bearing on his life.
In a section of unplanted field, the earth dry, the rows’ surfaces crusty and compacted, the twins stood on each side of the family’s mule, Bábbu. The morning hours brought little respite from a sun that beat down on them without mercy while it benevolently blessed the soil with warmth. Gioacchino was minimally aggravated when the beast displayed its typical obstinate behavior by walking over the rows rather than between them, undoubtedly wanting to get back to the shade of a shelter. Gaetano was not so patient. On this day of especially searing heat where the earth sent its hotness up through his pants, he would have none of the mule’s contrariness. This patch of sod needed to be busted and planted as quickly as possible; and he was determined to get this done, he too wanting shade and a drink of cool water. He swore relentlessly at Bábbu growling his lexicon of Sicilian curse-phrases, mixing and matching those already spent to form new curses; but the animal remained unmoved by any of it. It fixed its stance, arched its back, its long grey ears, scarred and torn by brambles, low branches, rope halters, switches, brazenly pointed toward the back, insulting its tormentor. It was a granite statue gazing ahead, regal in its pose, admirable in its resolute demeanor under a grueling circumstance. Gioacchino left the mule to Gaetano and moved on to the far end of the field to begin hoeing a neglected patch, never getting so far away where he could not hear Gaetano’s invectives. In one moment he looked up, hoping his brother had convinced the animal to do the right thing, but he saw that Gaetano had removed the rope from the plow and was now using it to strike at the its rear flanks with renewed rants. Bábbu stood stoically in place, impervious to the brute lashes, but when Gaetano began kicking the mule’s back leg in sequence to the swats, the creature having enough, bolted for the opened fields. The sudden dash quickly tightened the rope around Gaetano’s wrist, making it impossible to get free. He was indecorously dragged over the busted mounds of adjacent fields, a rag doll hopelessly flopping and crashing into the rows, his wrathful curses coming at each meeting with the sod. Older brother Vito had just arrived and witnessed the field drama. He gave chase after the two adversaries, never thinking to drop the shovel he had with him. Meanwhile Gioacchino was able to head off the animal and cause him to run toward Vito who quickly grabbed the crude rope halter, instinctively jabbing the shovel into a nearby mound. The rescued Gaetano quickly jumped up, made no attempt to dust off or take an inventory of injuries, but rather ran for the shovel like the mad man he was. He was determined to chop the mule’s head off as expediently as could be done with such a tool.
Vito interceded, “Eh, pazzu, siettiti, siettiti. We need this animal.” He clasped Gaetano’s wrist to take the shovel and bloodied his own hand. “You’re bleeding Gaetano. Look at your wrist.”
True to the words, Gaetano’s wrist was bloody. The rope had cut into it, pulling away some of his flesh. The sight of his bleeding was distraction enough to calm the situation somewhat. He stomped off the field to care for his wound, turning every third step to glare at the accursed animal. His brothers, Vito and Gioacchino led Bábbu out of the field, giving the mule what it wanted to begin with: a rest under a shady roof. Gaetano would have a scar on his wrist for the rest of his life. Year’s later, when the identifying mark was duly documented as a scar on the passenger’s list at Ellis Island, Gaetano was sorely reminded of that fateful day’s encounter and resumed cursing the mule.
In October, at the beginning of olive harvesting, Michele’s older three sons, Vito, Giuseppe, and Salvatore left for America, with the shroud of their parents’ blessings. In those months before they left, the talks in the piazza and at home, amongst the family, was of leaving for America to work in the coal mines there. None of the sons would consider marrying before they left. That would come after they were settled in the new country. Only then would they find wives, or send for those to whom they were betrothed in the old country. With his sons gone and fewer hands to work the church’s property, Michele began looking to move to another plot. He had learned that an uncle needed help on his property outside of Burgio. Ziu Liborio was old and had no living children—all lost from accidents or fatal sicknesses. His wife, Onofria, had long passed away. A cut while preparing a chicken for dinner had turned to blood poison. Ziu was independent, proud. Still, neighbors had not seen him in the fields for three days, so they looked in on him and found him bedridden, delirious, malnourished, nearly dead. Michele, his nearest known relative, was alerted and he volunteered to take his uncle Liborio into the Valenti home in Burgio. Michele assured the sick uncle that he and his sons would continue working his fields.
Ziu Liborio moved into Michele’s household, fed, nursed, helped to get better and to gain back his strength. If his three sons had not left for America, Michele would not have been able to take in Ziu. The family’s house was very small, set among the many peasant farmers’ dwellings in the village outside of the growing fields. Michele owned the home that was made of rough white stones, randomly shaped, illogically placed, but miraculously kept in place with thick clay mortar. The structure sat among similar houses; the jagged rows looking like poorly lined dice. The composite dwellings formed grids of narrow lanes the width of two donkey-carts, an Arab design to hold the cool air of night and keep out the cold winds of winter. The buildings mirrored the meekness of the class, their small sizes, paisani complained, were due to the weakness of their prayers; but realistically, were built according to the scope of their means. In the house’s one, twelve-foot–square room, every inch was dedicated. An overhang to the back formed a loft wide enough for straw mattresses for the boys. A ladder lead up to it. The loft formed a cove under which parents Michele and Giulia’s bed was placed, hidden night and day in a perpetual shadow. Linens, clothes, pots, pans, dishes, picture albums were all kept under the bed, or stacked in the dark corners. Hats, purses, scarves, hung from nails along the walls. To the front was the flat stone hearth, the fucularu, the family’s gathering place near the door to let out smoke. The area around it was used for eating, then cleared for the girl’s bedroom. Ziu Liborio slept on the opposite side of the house where animals were sometimes kept, especially those that were sick or ready to give birth. Fading images of St. Joseph and St. Rosalia looked on from the walls, protecting everyone, the unframed pictures splitting and curling slightly at the edges.
Ziu Liborio rued each day he could not work as one more unproductive day. He questioned his own esteem because of his inability to contribute to the work in the field. In the mornings as the men went out, he placed a chair just outside the casa. There, he would sit for most of the day shelling fava beans, or shucking corn, or cleaning and cutting vegetables and fruits. When there was no more of this work, he would whittle wood or corn cobs, or repair a broken chair, pot handle, kitchen utensil. In the course of the day, his figure—a basket in his lap, hunched, leaning to expose white scalp just beneath wispy patches of gray hair—reminded his neighbors of their loved and departed old ones, lu vecchiu, and cast him as a beloved elder. Passersby would interrupt his naps with questions. He freely answered what he knew, hypothesized what he didn’t, always ending with sage advice. Then, in the night, when supper was done, and cleanup completed, the family quietly gathered around the hearth to listen while Ziu told his stories.
Ziu Liborio would sit quietly and look at everyone, summoning his memory, collecting his words. Throughout the comune, townsfolk had settled; the streets were quiet. The night’s cool air crept into the casa’s opened opened door. The soft glow of a waning fire cast dull silhouettes into a smoky haze and onto the walls and ceiling of the small room. As he told his stories, Ziu leaned into the hearth. His thick rough hands were a blur, they flew in all directions, accentuating his points like a symphony conductor defines his beats. The motions were as necessary as his words. Ziu Liborio’s stories were of his youth, heavy with history, laden with habitual struggles failed revolts, unkept promises and political betrayals. As a young man, he had been part of the 1840’s riots in Palermo. While others destroyed and looted their own communities to protest King Ferdinand II, Liborio and his brother Giuseppe were raiding repositories and removing tax records and land titles. Peasant lands and properties were often confiscated using tax liens. Sicily’s unworked fields were sitting in weeds, owned by wealthy landowners from far away. The brothers naively reasoned, Liborio confessed, that missing tax records or land deeds would allow those properties to be the spoils of the revolt and result in redistribution of lands.
“We had the weapons and the men, and we won the fights,” Liborio recounted, his guttural voice not angry, but resigned, “But once we declared our sovereignty, and once we shouted our demands, we had no leaders strong enough to bring the land reforms we needed. That’s how it works here carusi; the land gives up nothing without a fight. You remember that.” As a reflex, Ziu would sweep a fine strand of grayed hair from his forehead and continue in the melodic cadence of the dialect, a song of lament. “We didn’t win anything for long. Soon King Ferdinand’s army began rounding up rioters, putting them in prison and shooting those who resisted. And that’s when me and my brother Giuseppe, God rest his soul,” Ziu quickly formed the cross, “packed all of our belongings onto two mules and left the comune in the middle of the night.”
Ziu Liborio told of walking all night and into noon the next day before coming to Corleone.
There they saw men working in the fields, braccianti, itinerant workers.
“You men come to work?” a thin, tall, young man approached them, wiping his face with his shirtsleeve. He walked slowly, leaning to the right. Sharp jawbones defined his thin-leathered face, and his eyes, surrounded by dark shadows, peered ahead through a weary squint. As he spoke, his large Adam’s apple jumped comically, but the broken frame before them bode little humor. He removed his sweat-stained fedora to quickly fan himself, then replaced it.
“We’re headed toward Burgio,” Giuseppe said.
“You can work here just as well as work in Burgio,” the man said, his speech quick and brassy.
“You sharecropping this land?” Liborio asked.
“No. We’re just here to clear the weeds, bust the sod, and plow for planting. We’ll be here for a couple of months, then we get to go home.”
“Where’s home?” asked Giuseppe.
“Some of us from Bisacquino, some from Poggioreale, some from Palermo.”
“We’re hoping to find some abandoned land around Burgio to settle on.”
“There’s a lot of that in Sicily, but that’s risky business. You clean the land, plant seeds, buy a few animals and are working the farm when the owner shows up. Then si sfurtunatu, you’re out of luck.”
“You seem too young to know such things,” Liborio said.
“It’s happened already to relatives. Friends. My own kinfolk.”
“We’ll see,” Liborio said.
The man grunted and turned to go back to work.
Liborio’s narrative continue to tell about the two brothers eating bread and onions under the shade of a large fig tree with the smell of newly cut wild grasses and freshly turned soil, a meal before he and his brother were to leave for Burgio 25 miles further south.
“We settled on the land you’re working now, Michele,” Ziu said. “I worked it for ten years and was able to bribe an official to give me a deed to the place in case anybody showed up to claim it. They never did.”
After Ziu had told his stories for a year and a half, he died. The sitting men in the piazza all concurred: when he could no longer work, he could no longer live. All along, Gaetano thoughtfully listen to his tellings. He didn’t view them as mere stories—tales to wile away evenings or time spent to humor an infirmed uncle. He intently listened while visualizing and deeply internalizing their gist, and comparing his uncles past futilities to his own present ones. He harkened to the old men in the piazza intoning gloomily: Non si ietta na rita unni non ci sunnu pisci/You don’t cast a net where there are no fish. Gaetano reasoned that even in the best years of productions, with the hardest of labors, the fields only yielded enough to keep families from starvingHe didn’t view them as mere stories—tales to wile away evenings or humor an infirmed, aging unc. But the island continually tricked men into casting nets. His father, his Uncle Liborio, his neighbors; all aged and broken men who succumbed to the land’s siren moans, cooing the virtues of land ownership and whispering promises of bountiful yields: murmured assurances of better days ahead, and yet, every man still falling under the island’s dizzying spell—the beguiling wide smile of the blue Sicilian sky hypnotizing them into the resignation: Com’e pussibili lassari sta terra?/How is it possible to leave this land? Gaetano was wise to these lullabies. He would not allow the sea breezes and the ubiquitous sun to lull him into the stupor of false hopes. Nor would he be audience to the arid wind’s decietful hymns: Ma si resti, travagghia, chiu forti, e la vita avi a migghiurari/If you but stay, work harder, life will improve. Powerful forces—land owners, churches, politicians, and feckless peasants—would always trump efforts to improve conditions, to get ahead. The old men in the piazza intoned: La liggi e contra la populu/The law works against the people. Ziu’s stories told of insurrections to liberate his fellow countrymen from unscrupulous landowners, serfdom to the church, and treacherous politicians, only to be, himself, considered a criminal, hunted by the regime he helped bring to power. Gaetano had never needed convincing, he would have left the island long before his brothers, but it had not been his time, nor was it his time now. For the time being, he owed loyalty to the family.
In coming months, the Valenti sisters Giuseppina and Vincenza were both married, one would move to Sciacca and the other to Bivona. Michele had saved for their dowries, so he was ready to give their husbands the money needed to complete this commitment. The girl’s mother, Giulia Valenti, was frail and thin, her graying brown hair pulled tightly back formed a helmet atop her oval face. Thin mottled skin hung loosely over her arms barely covering her bones. Her narrow neck was roped with throat and neck muscles that flowed past her protruding clavicles. She had struggled valiantly to help her daughters with their weddings by helping in any way she could, but her declining health would not permit it. Brown eyes once bright with happiness and contentment now held a teary haze of painful endurance. She summoned the strength to see both daughters married. Then, complaining of feeling heavy and weak, her arms and legs began swelling. She took to the bed on a Sunday morning, and by Saturday, she was dead. The doctor called it dropsy. She was buried in the small hillside cemetery to the back, outside the comune, two graves away from Ziu Liborio, amid ancestors.
Eventually a letter arrived from their brother Vito in America calling for the twins to begin arranging to leave the old country. Vito’s letters, in the handwriting of an Italian friend, told of a region called the Midwest, named Illinois. Many Italians were already there working in the mines; and, the farmland was much better than Sicily’s. Before the twins could leave, their father Michele would arrange their marriages. He must have some of his sons married to carry on the name, to take over the house, to honor their ancestors. He was having talks with Serafino Miceli about marriage between Gaetano and Serafino’s daughter, Antonina. He had completed similar meetings in behalf of Gioacchino. His marriage to Rosalia Agualino had already been announced.
Rosalia Aqualino was of the comune. She knew Gioacchino, but had considered him of another generation, never a suitor, and certainly never a husband. Gioacchino was indeed ten years older, but such an age gap was never an issue in arranged marriages. Rosalia was 16, her body the petiteness of a still developing youth. Thin lips defined her delicate face and her large hazel eyes gazed ahead full of questions. Her long auburn hair was usually combed to one side so it dropped down into curls, just below her ears, never spilling over her brow. Despite her young age and slight frame, Rosalia was strong in body and determined in will. She would have to stay in Burgio after the marriage, she knew and accepted it, and Gioacchino would go to America to meet his brothers, work in the mines for a year, then send for her. Then Gaetano would go with her to America, leaving Antonina in Burgio to stay with her parents. He would work in the mines, and then, having earned the money for her ticket, he would send for his wife to come over to America. This was the plan.
Raimondo Aqualino, Rosalia’s father, was not wealthy by any means, yet he was able to pay a generous dowry to Gioacchino for marrying his daughter. He might have given him a mule, or a dozen lambs if the couple had planned to stay in Burgio. The wedding was set for June, never May—the month for venerating Santa Maria—or certainly never August, the unluckiest month for Sicilians. On his wedding day, Gioacchino, according to the Sicilian superstitions of his family, stood at the altar in the Church of San’ Giuseppe with a nail in his back pocket, iron to insulate him from the evil eye--malocchiu; his bride wore a veil covering her face to keep out the same eye. Afterward, the gathering spilled out of the church into the piazza with shouts of cent’anni, and smashing emptied glasses, the shattered pieces were the years of happy marriage. Gaetano toasted, and shattered his glass, but not with the exuberance of the others. His marriage plans were on hold. Serafino Miceli was not able to pay the dowry. Without it, the wedding could not be planned. After all, Gaetano would be relieving him of a responsibility, agreeing to accept his daughter to feed, to cloth, to give her a place to live, and to take care of her for the rest of her life. A dowry was necessary to go on.
The dowry issue embarrassed Antonina Miceli, causing her to feel all the more subservient to her future husband. She knew Gaetano, she had seen him often in the comune. They never talked before, but she knew who he was. When their parents had begun planning their wedding, Gaetano and she began speaking. At one of their meetings, just at the base of the piazza’s fountain, the common water source for the hamlet, Gaetano told her that once they were married, he planned to go to America to work in the coal mines for at least a year, then he would send for her. She began crying. Burgio was all she knew. She could not imagine what life might be somewhere else in a far away land of strangers. Gaetano watched her sob, unmoved by a grief he did not understand. With no comforting words to give, he said nothing. They would not speak again for six months, until at last her father declared he had the money for a dowry. Twin Gioacchino had already boarded a train to Palermo, taken a ship called S.S. Liguria to New York, and arrived by train in Marion, Williamson County, Illinois. In Burgio, Michele Valenti was aging, his stamina diminishing. He was relieved that Gaetano was staying to help do the work his waning strength would not allow him to do. Rosalia was now part of the Valenti family, and she too would help Michele keep house until Gioacchino sent for her.
Rosalia waited to hear from Gioacchino. Anything that would let her know he was alive and planning to send for her. She heard nothing. In the year since Gioacchino’s leaving, his twin brother Gaetano and Antonina were married. They also stayed in Michele’s casa, taking over the bed under the alcove. Rosalia slept in the front room near the hearth, and Michele slept near the manger, too unstable to climb the ladder to the overhang. When a letter did arrive, Rosalia hurried to the municipio to have a clerk read it to her.
My Dear R,
I wish you were here with me, but it is not possible now. I am saving money and I hope it won’t be too much longer for you to come. My brothers are talking about leaving America and going to South America. They are making more money than they could ever make in Burgio, but they tell me the work is dangerous, dirty, very hard, and not dependable. I also have been working in the mines and have already seen five accidents. They want me to stay on the farm land they bought, and they want to sell it to me. This I want to do, but I’m going to have to work more to get the money. Did Gaetano get married yet? I don’t hear from anyone without being able to write. It’s hard. How is my father? Is he well? He looked sad and broken when I left for Palermo. Please say a novena for him and for me to be able to stay in this country without starving. I pray to Sant Antonio every night that I will have the money to send you to come. Well good-bye, and I will write again when my Italian miner friend will do the writing for me. I embrace you,
Gioacchino
Rosalia tucked the letter away, and although she could not read it, she often removed it from the envelope carefully, smoothed it flat on her bedding, and tracked under each word with her finger attempting to recall the words once read to her. The paper’s crispness disappeared with two years of handling, becoming limp and faded like a flimsy dish rag. The words had all but left the page and were faint smudges of characters not unlike her memory of them. She retained their sentiment, and this bolstered her strength and belief that Gioacchino was working hard and had not forgotten her. And while she caressed the letter, and traced its writing, her care of her father-in-law Michele intensified as his health got worse. He had begun coughing in the last few months, first a few short outbursts, then longer and longer episodes of uncontrollable hacks. His health had so declined that he was not strong enough to walk out to the fields or finish any work once he arrived. As the days went by, his violent coughs weakened his legs and strained his abdomen. His vocal chords over-taxed, he began to spit bloody sputum onto the cobble stone street as he forced his bent legs to carry him to a chair just outside his door. Gaetano assumed the control for working Liborio’s property. His wife Antonina had given birth to a girl, Giulia, named after his mother.
The postman, a wiry boy, sweaty shirt, his hat askance and fitted to allow his curly blond locks to escape, hastily leaned his bicycle against the white walls of the neighbor’s house and haltingly moved as someone lost. It was true street names were etched in corner houses, high up under the roof’s overhang, but, individual addresses were not so marked. He called out, “Signura Aqualino Rosalia. Signura Aqualino Rosalia, na littra pi vui.”
Neighbors leaned from doors, pointing, “Ddocu. ddocu, c’e a casa.”
The postman stood at her door and called in, “Signura Aqualino Rosalia.”
Rosalia came to the door holding a broom, “Si, I’m Rosalia Aqualino.”
“There is a special letter for you from America.” He handed her the envelope.
Rosalia’s eyes were trained on him while she tentatively pinched the letter between her thumb and forefinger, a questioning look prepared for a consequence: Would she need to give it back? Would she need to read it in front of the young boy? Would she need to pay? The other letters were always delivered by someone else, a friend, a relative. This was the first time a postman sought her out to directly hand her the post. This difference alarmed her.
The postman smiled and slightly bowed to her. His body jauntily swayed left to right as he whistled nothing recognizable on his way back to his bike.
Rosalia continued to stand in the doorway, lost in fearful thought. Antonina, baby in arms, roused her calling her name. “Rosalia. Chi e? It must be from Giaochinno. Go on, open it!”
Rosalia worked her finger under the flap and carefully unsealed it. She slowly removed a sheet of lined paper dense with writing and folded over two tickets. She would not know the meaning of any it, the writing, the tickets, until she could get to the municipio’s clerk.
The clerk read:
My Dear R.,
I am so sorry I did not write to you for so long, but I been working hard in the mines and in the field planting vegetables. The tickets are for you and Gaetano to go to New York. The next time I send a letter I will have some money for you and Gaetano to take the train from New York to Marion. Come as soon as you can.
Many embraces,
Gioacchino.
Michele Valenti was dying, his eyes were weepy, the skin around them loose and sagging to show the pink tissue inside his bottom lids. He tried sitting up on the side of his bed, his knees and elbows protruded from his skeletal legs and arms. He could only sit upright for a minute, then he lay back, fighting for each next breath. Rosalie took care of him as much as she could while she gathered belongings, visited her family, helped with their health issues, and began to make plans to leave. Antonina also watched over him, but she was now in the middle of a new pregnancy, taking care of a two-year old child while carrying on the household duties of cooking, cleaning, and mending. Gaetano continued working in the fields, tending the farm animals, hunting for food, and going to market to sell eggs, rabbits and goats, all to earn money for his trip. As everybody nursed him, Michele’s condition worsened the moment they left his bed. The last person to sit at his side was Gaetano.
Gaetano pulled the chair as close to the bed as possible and spoke crisply about family matters and legal papers. Had his father ever recieved the deed from Uncle Liborio that would show Ziu owned the land Gaetano was still farming? What would happen to the house he wanted to know once everyone had left for America? Should he allow others to live in it? Should he abandon it until someone returned from America. The reality of the situation dictated that Gaetano make these decisions, but it was the honorable way to get the patriarch’s blessings first. Michele’s jaw hung low, his tongue licked his bottom lip and stayed in that position. He tried to talk without having to move his mouth, but his words voiced no initial consonant sounds, only vowel endings. Gaetano seemed to know what he was saying and continued to ask questions, until it was apparent Michele had reached his limit by turning his head away. As he stood to leave, Gaetano gently grasped his father’s arms so they would not hang limply over the bedside, and placed them on his torso. Antonina found him in that death position.
Vito had decided to return when he heard his father was dying, though he had vowed to stay only a short time before returning to America. The whole comune attended the funeral. They spoke good words about Michele, his life, his work, and his kindness. Afterwards, a slow procession, a meandering line of dark raiment, streamed up to the hillside. Father Anzalone walked just behind the wagon, occasionally swinging a golden censer that caught the sun, its reflected rays flittered over the coffin. Michele was interred in the whitewashed Valenti family vault, his casket placed atop Giulia’s.
After the burial, Vito accompanied Rosalia back to New York. He had spent much of his time preparing Gaetano to take the trip alone, telling him what he might expect at Ellis Island, and what to be wary of in America. Because he would not leave right away, Gaetano held on to the ticket Vito had sent, hoping to use it when he did leave. A second child named, Frances, after Antonina’s mother was born to them. His father gone, his brothers all in America, there would be nothing else to do but send Antonina back to her parental home where she would need to wait until her could send for her and the girls. Antonina cried again. She worried whether the money he might leave with her would last until he sent for her. She knew she would be seen as a widow, pitied but avoided by friends who wished to keep husbands at a distance from a young, lonely woman. She was fearful Gaetano would leave for good and never send for them. She knew the hardship it would create for her aging parents and her infant children when they became confined to all living in a smaller casa. Gaetano offered no comfort. He knew he must leave for l’merica and with no appoligies, or rationales, he went ahead with plans to do so.
Gathering a few belongings in a small wooden trunk after booking passage on the steamer San Giorgio, he adorned a black vest from Ziu’s wardrobe and a white shirt from his father’s closet. He tucked the shirt into heavy woolen pants held up by slightly frayed suspenders, rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and boarded the train to Palermo. His face was cleanly shaven, his hair, washed and combed, showed off his bountiful crest of black wavy hair. He had a reason to groom, to dust and wash off the soil of the paisi. He was an emigrant now, and his fealty to Sicily, his peasant farmer image, his life, his ways of thinking, he resolved, would all be laid to rest like the flowers atop his parents’coffin, disappearing to dust.
The castle stood, what was left of it, at the comune’s edge. Built, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed by Arabs and Normans over centuries of warfare. A lookout tower cast a jagged shadow over the castle, the tower’s name becoming the hamlet’s name, first in Arabic, burg, then Sicilian burgiu. In the sprawling valley below the town, on swatches of land that ribboned in and out and around hillocks, the grassy fields were adorned with a verdant richness. But, just below the alluring green veneer were layers of gravel, stone, clay, limestone waiting to curse those who would expose them to the scorching Sicilian sun. Once disturbed, the earth was defiant and resistant to intentions, to necessities—to being cultivated. Peasant farmers labored and coaxed the fields to produce, while breezes, when there, whispered past sunburnt ears in demons’ breaths, “Give up.”
Michele Valenti, a viddanu, a farmer, planted crops and raised animals on land that was not his. In his daily walk across the fields, peering down past a wide brush moustache, labored steps carried him across rows and furrows, his body bent over forever, he examined the soil; the seeding; the crops; and intoned, through parched lips, whispered prayers. He was after all, a sharecropper, obligated to his family and to his landlord to produce. Whatever produced, he would keep 40% and give 60% to the landowner, the patruni, who hired a foreman to assess and collect. Michele’s patruni was the Catholic archdiocese, deeded large estates by ruling governments in return for the church’s control of unruly peasant-souls in this life and the hereafter. The church’s acting foreman was Father Bartolomeo, a short, round priest who swayed back and forth in a lumbering trudge over the uneven terrain, wiping his sweaty face with one hand and holding his libretto colonico at his chest with the other. The black accounting book held the church’s expenses for providing seeds, animals, and farm equipment, and the priest’s estimation of what was owed. Michele wanted to hide at the sight of Father Bartolomeo, but he could not, so he pretended not to notice him.
“Ahmm,” coughed the priest, “All right Michele, let’s look at the books here,” he said in his high-pitched voice, a melodic tenor, a bit hoarse, possibly from the morning chants. His wide-brim straw hat, too big, drooped over his ears. He nudged it back to uncover his eyes.
Michele was a peasant. He labored in the fields while the wealthy were schooled. They could read. He could not. The priest knew this.
“We recorded here that you needed us to replace a couple of shovels and hoes and a broken wagon wheel. You planted all the seed we gave you?”
“Yes, Father, we planted everything. But you didn’t replace any broken shovels and hoes. Me and my sons made our own handles for those tools, and, we fixed the wheel.”
“What did you use to fix them?”
“We found wood in the back. Been there since we came. We used that.”
“Well that’s the archdiocese’s wood we use for repairs at the church and monastery. You’re going to have to pay for that wood.”
“But your holiness, our agreement is that the church give us the tools to do the work.”
“Michele. The church did give you the tools, but you broke them and then used the church’s wood to fix them. You should be charged for the wood.” Father Bartolomeo continued, “Now we gave you a couple of sacks of seed. We’re going to need a few sacks of corn and a few bushels of vegetables for the monastery and enough eggs to last us for the month. I’ll come back in a couple of months to tell what we’re going to need further.”
“Your Eminence, the corn didn’t make too much this year and the drought we had caused the peas and beans to stop growing. We would like to keep some of what we grew to sell in the market.”
“Michele. My son,” the priest gently patted Michele’s cheek. He leaned in to whisper, his breath smelling of altar wine and garlic, “We have an agreement that you give us what we need from your farm. If you can’t do that, you can send your wife and daughters to work in the monastery to clean the church. Your boys can cut the hedges, and prune some of the fruit trees on the grounds. We’ll have work for them to make up what you owe. Remember: You pay no rent for living on our land and are using it to make a living. We expect you to share your issue with us. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes father.”
“You know Don Randazzo on those estates over there requires his renters to send a family member to jail until they pay what they own him. I don’t wish to do this, but the church must get what it is owed. You see that don’t you?”
“Yes, father.” Michele whispered.
“Good.Then you’ll send over what I asked for.” The priest made the sign of the cross in the air in front of Michele.
Michele bowed.
Brothers Gaetano and Gioacchino Valenti, Michele’s sons, were the youngest of nine children and also twins. They were of medium height, gaunt bodies—similarities ended there. Gioacchino was the patient one, deliberative, accepting of his fate. Gaetano—younger by minutes—was a reactionary, claiming he had been cursed by fate, disavowing unwanted outcomes and fiercely determining to bend them back his way. Though identical, their temperaments altered their appearances. Gioacchino was neat, careful of his looks, and even in the fields, he was clean-shaven, eschewing a growth as soon as it became noticeable. Each morning, he combed his wavy black hair, aware that the rigors of the farm work and hot Sicilian winds would soon undo the coif. He dutifully tucked in the ends of his coarse rope belt at his waist for neatness and for the element of safety. It would not do to get loose clothing caught in equipment. And, at breaks, as the men drank from a spring fed spigot, Gioacchino would splash his face to remove the dust and sweat of the morning, his hazel eyes piercing through the dripping water, accented all the more by his leathery tan against the brightness of the day. His twin Gaetano had little time for personal hygiene and little regard for how he looked. His mind was often hours ahead of his present. Beneath his coarse and patchy stubble, Gaetano’s face did not look tan, but rowdy and sunburned, partly from unwashed irritants, but most likely the result of hypertension. His hair lay matted, colored by what stayed in it, as though it were graying. Gaetano’s life was a collection of days to endure. He could never be convinced that his looks, personal hygiene, or his way of keeping his trousers up had any bearing on his life.
In a section of unplanted field, the earth dry, the rows’ surfaces crusty and compacted, the twins stood on each side of the family’s mule, Bábbu. The morning hours brought little respite from a sun that beat down on them without mercy while it benevolently blessed the soil with warmth. Gioacchino was minimally aggravated when the beast displayed its typical obstinate behavior by walking over the rows rather than between them, undoubtedly wanting to get back to the shade of a shelter. Gaetano was not so patient. On this day of especially searing heat where the earth sent its hotness up through his pants, he would have none of the mule’s contrariness. This patch of sod needed to be busted and planted as quickly as possible; and he was determined to get this done, he too wanting shade and a drink of cool water. He swore relentlessly at Bábbu growling his lexicon of Sicilian curse-phrases, mixing and matching those already spent to form new curses; but the animal remained unmoved by any of it. It fixed its stance, arched its back, its long grey ears, scarred and torn by brambles, low branches, rope halters, switches, brazenly pointed toward the back, insulting its tormentor. It was a granite statue gazing ahead, regal in its pose, admirable in its resolute demeanor under a grueling circumstance. Gioacchino left the mule to Gaetano and moved on to the far end of the field to begin hoeing a neglected patch, never getting so far away where he could not hear Gaetano’s invectives. In one moment he looked up, hoping his brother had convinced the animal to do the right thing, but he saw that Gaetano had removed the rope from the plow and was now using it to strike at the its rear flanks with renewed rants. Bábbu stood stoically in place, impervious to the brute lashes, but when Gaetano began kicking the mule’s back leg in sequence to the swats, the creature having enough, bolted for the opened fields. The sudden dash quickly tightened the rope around Gaetano’s wrist, making it impossible to get free. He was indecorously dragged over the busted mounds of adjacent fields, a rag doll hopelessly flopping and crashing into the rows, his wrathful curses coming at each meeting with the sod. Older brother Vito had just arrived and witnessed the field drama. He gave chase after the two adversaries, never thinking to drop the shovel he had with him. Meanwhile Gioacchino was able to head off the animal and cause him to run toward Vito who quickly grabbed the crude rope halter, instinctively jabbing the shovel into a nearby mound. The rescued Gaetano quickly jumped up, made no attempt to dust off or take an inventory of injuries, but rather ran for the shovel like the mad man he was. He was determined to chop the mule’s head off as expediently as could be done with such a tool.
Vito interceded, “Eh, pazzu, siettiti, siettiti. We need this animal.” He clasped Gaetano’s wrist to take the shovel and bloodied his own hand. “You’re bleeding Gaetano. Look at your wrist.”
True to the words, Gaetano’s wrist was bloody. The rope had cut into it, pulling away some of his flesh. The sight of his bleeding was distraction enough to calm the situation somewhat. He stomped off the field to care for his wound, turning every third step to glare at the accursed animal. His brothers, Vito and Gioacchino led Bábbu out of the field, giving the mule what it wanted to begin with: a rest under a shady roof. Gaetano would have a scar on his wrist for the rest of his life. Year’s later, when the identifying mark was duly documented as a scar on the passenger’s list at Ellis Island, Gaetano was sorely reminded of that fateful day’s encounter and resumed cursing the mule.
In October, at the beginning of olive harvesting, Michele’s older three sons, Vito, Giuseppe, and Salvatore left for America, with the shroud of their parents’ blessings. In those months before they left, the talks in the piazza and at home, amongst the family, was of leaving for America to work in the coal mines there. None of the sons would consider marrying before they left. That would come after they were settled in the new country. Only then would they find wives, or send for those to whom they were betrothed in the old country. With his sons gone and fewer hands to work the church’s property, Michele began looking to move to another plot. He had learned that an uncle needed help on his property outside of Burgio. Ziu Liborio was old and had no living children—all lost from accidents or fatal sicknesses. His wife, Onofria, had long passed away. A cut while preparing a chicken for dinner had turned to blood poison. Ziu was independent, proud. Still, neighbors had not seen him in the fields for three days, so they looked in on him and found him bedridden, delirious, malnourished, nearly dead. Michele, his nearest known relative, was alerted and he volunteered to take his uncle Liborio into the Valenti home in Burgio. Michele assured the sick uncle that he and his sons would continue working his fields.
Ziu Liborio moved into Michele’s household, fed, nursed, helped to get better and to gain back his strength. If his three sons had not left for America, Michele would not have been able to take in Ziu. The family’s house was very small, set among the many peasant farmers’ dwellings in the village outside of the growing fields. Michele owned the home that was made of rough white stones, randomly shaped, illogically placed, but miraculously kept in place with thick clay mortar. The structure sat among similar houses; the jagged rows looking like poorly lined dice. The composite dwellings formed grids of narrow lanes the width of two donkey-carts, an Arab design to hold the cool air of night and keep out the cold winds of winter. The buildings mirrored the meekness of the class, their small sizes, paisani complained, were due to the weakness of their prayers; but realistically, were built according to the scope of their means. In the house’s one, twelve-foot–square room, every inch was dedicated. An overhang to the back formed a loft wide enough for straw mattresses for the boys. A ladder lead up to it. The loft formed a cove under which parents Michele and Giulia’s bed was placed, hidden night and day in a perpetual shadow. Linens, clothes, pots, pans, dishes, picture albums were all kept under the bed, or stacked in the dark corners. Hats, purses, scarves, hung from nails along the walls. To the front was the flat stone hearth, the fucularu, the family’s gathering place near the door to let out smoke. The area around it was used for eating, then cleared for the girl’s bedroom. Ziu Liborio slept on the opposite side of the house where animals were sometimes kept, especially those that were sick or ready to give birth. Fading images of St. Joseph and St. Rosalia looked on from the walls, protecting everyone, the unframed pictures splitting and curling slightly at the edges.
Ziu Liborio rued each day he could not work as one more unproductive day. He questioned his own esteem because of his inability to contribute to the work in the field. In the mornings as the men went out, he placed a chair just outside the casa. There, he would sit for most of the day shelling fava beans, or shucking corn, or cleaning and cutting vegetables and fruits. When there was no more of this work, he would whittle wood or corn cobs, or repair a broken chair, pot handle, kitchen utensil. In the course of the day, his figure—a basket in his lap, hunched, leaning to expose white scalp just beneath wispy patches of gray hair—reminded his neighbors of their loved and departed old ones, lu vecchiu, and cast him as a beloved elder. Passersby would interrupt his naps with questions. He freely answered what he knew, hypothesized what he didn’t, always ending with sage advice. Then, in the night, when supper was done, and cleanup completed, the family quietly gathered around the hearth to listen while Ziu told his stories.
Ziu Liborio would sit quietly and look at everyone, summoning his memory, collecting his words. Throughout the comune, townsfolk had settled; the streets were quiet. The night’s cool air crept into the casa’s opened opened door. The soft glow of a waning fire cast dull silhouettes into a smoky haze and onto the walls and ceiling of the small room. As he told his stories, Ziu leaned into the hearth. His thick rough hands were a blur, they flew in all directions, accentuating his points like a symphony conductor defines his beats. The motions were as necessary as his words. Ziu Liborio’s stories were of his youth, heavy with history, laden with habitual struggles failed revolts, unkept promises and political betrayals. As a young man, he had been part of the 1840’s riots in Palermo. While others destroyed and looted their own communities to protest King Ferdinand II, Liborio and his brother Giuseppe were raiding repositories and removing tax records and land titles. Peasant lands and properties were often confiscated using tax liens. Sicily’s unworked fields were sitting in weeds, owned by wealthy landowners from far away. The brothers naively reasoned, Liborio confessed, that missing tax records or land deeds would allow those properties to be the spoils of the revolt and result in redistribution of lands.
“We had the weapons and the men, and we won the fights,” Liborio recounted, his guttural voice not angry, but resigned, “But once we declared our sovereignty, and once we shouted our demands, we had no leaders strong enough to bring the land reforms we needed. That’s how it works here carusi; the land gives up nothing without a fight. You remember that.” As a reflex, Ziu would sweep a fine strand of grayed hair from his forehead and continue in the melodic cadence of the dialect, a song of lament. “We didn’t win anything for long. Soon King Ferdinand’s army began rounding up rioters, putting them in prison and shooting those who resisted. And that’s when me and my brother Giuseppe, God rest his soul,” Ziu quickly formed the cross, “packed all of our belongings onto two mules and left the comune in the middle of the night.”
Ziu Liborio told of walking all night and into noon the next day before coming to Corleone.
There they saw men working in the fields, braccianti, itinerant workers.
“You men come to work?” a thin, tall, young man approached them, wiping his face with his shirtsleeve. He walked slowly, leaning to the right. Sharp jawbones defined his thin-leathered face, and his eyes, surrounded by dark shadows, peered ahead through a weary squint. As he spoke, his large Adam’s apple jumped comically, but the broken frame before them bode little humor. He removed his sweat-stained fedora to quickly fan himself, then replaced it.
“We’re headed toward Burgio,” Giuseppe said.
“You can work here just as well as work in Burgio,” the man said, his speech quick and brassy.
“You sharecropping this land?” Liborio asked.
“No. We’re just here to clear the weeds, bust the sod, and plow for planting. We’ll be here for a couple of months, then we get to go home.”
“Where’s home?” asked Giuseppe.
“Some of us from Bisacquino, some from Poggioreale, some from Palermo.”
“We’re hoping to find some abandoned land around Burgio to settle on.”
“There’s a lot of that in Sicily, but that’s risky business. You clean the land, plant seeds, buy a few animals and are working the farm when the owner shows up. Then si sfurtunatu, you’re out of luck.”
“You seem too young to know such things,” Liborio said.
“It’s happened already to relatives. Friends. My own kinfolk.”
“We’ll see,” Liborio said.
The man grunted and turned to go back to work.
Liborio’s narrative continue to tell about the two brothers eating bread and onions under the shade of a large fig tree with the smell of newly cut wild grasses and freshly turned soil, a meal before he and his brother were to leave for Burgio 25 miles further south.
“We settled on the land you’re working now, Michele,” Ziu said. “I worked it for ten years and was able to bribe an official to give me a deed to the place in case anybody showed up to claim it. They never did.”
After Ziu had told his stories for a year and a half, he died. The sitting men in the piazza all concurred: when he could no longer work, he could no longer live. All along, Gaetano thoughtfully listen to his tellings. He didn’t view them as mere stories—tales to wile away evenings or time spent to humor an infirmed uncle. He intently listened while visualizing and deeply internalizing their gist, and comparing his uncles past futilities to his own present ones. He harkened to the old men in the piazza intoning gloomily: Non si ietta na rita unni non ci sunnu pisci/You don’t cast a net where there are no fish. Gaetano reasoned that even in the best years of productions, with the hardest of labors, the fields only yielded enough to keep families from starvingHe didn’t view them as mere stories—tales to wile away evenings or humor an infirmed, aging unc. But the island continually tricked men into casting nets. His father, his Uncle Liborio, his neighbors; all aged and broken men who succumbed to the land’s siren moans, cooing the virtues of land ownership and whispering promises of bountiful yields: murmured assurances of better days ahead, and yet, every man still falling under the island’s dizzying spell—the beguiling wide smile of the blue Sicilian sky hypnotizing them into the resignation: Com’e pussibili lassari sta terra?/How is it possible to leave this land? Gaetano was wise to these lullabies. He would not allow the sea breezes and the ubiquitous sun to lull him into the stupor of false hopes. Nor would he be audience to the arid wind’s decietful hymns: Ma si resti, travagghia, chiu forti, e la vita avi a migghiurari/If you but stay, work harder, life will improve. Powerful forces—land owners, churches, politicians, and feckless peasants—would always trump efforts to improve conditions, to get ahead. The old men in the piazza intoned: La liggi e contra la populu/The law works against the people. Ziu’s stories told of insurrections to liberate his fellow countrymen from unscrupulous landowners, serfdom to the church, and treacherous politicians, only to be, himself, considered a criminal, hunted by the regime he helped bring to power. Gaetano had never needed convincing, he would have left the island long before his brothers, but it had not been his time, nor was it his time now. For the time being, he owed loyalty to the family.
In coming months, the Valenti sisters Giuseppina and Vincenza were both married, one would move to Sciacca and the other to Bivona. Michele had saved for their dowries, so he was ready to give their husbands the money needed to complete this commitment. The girl’s mother, Giulia Valenti, was frail and thin, her graying brown hair pulled tightly back formed a helmet atop her oval face. Thin mottled skin hung loosely over her arms barely covering her bones. Her narrow neck was roped with throat and neck muscles that flowed past her protruding clavicles. She had struggled valiantly to help her daughters with their weddings by helping in any way she could, but her declining health would not permit it. Brown eyes once bright with happiness and contentment now held a teary haze of painful endurance. She summoned the strength to see both daughters married. Then, complaining of feeling heavy and weak, her arms and legs began swelling. She took to the bed on a Sunday morning, and by Saturday, she was dead. The doctor called it dropsy. She was buried in the small hillside cemetery to the back, outside the comune, two graves away from Ziu Liborio, amid ancestors.
Eventually a letter arrived from their brother Vito in America calling for the twins to begin arranging to leave the old country. Vito’s letters, in the handwriting of an Italian friend, told of a region called the Midwest, named Illinois. Many Italians were already there working in the mines; and, the farmland was much better than Sicily’s. Before the twins could leave, their father Michele would arrange their marriages. He must have some of his sons married to carry on the name, to take over the house, to honor their ancestors. He was having talks with Serafino Miceli about marriage between Gaetano and Serafino’s daughter, Antonina. He had completed similar meetings in behalf of Gioacchino. His marriage to Rosalia Agualino had already been announced.
Rosalia Aqualino was of the comune. She knew Gioacchino, but had considered him of another generation, never a suitor, and certainly never a husband. Gioacchino was indeed ten years older, but such an age gap was never an issue in arranged marriages. Rosalia was 16, her body the petiteness of a still developing youth. Thin lips defined her delicate face and her large hazel eyes gazed ahead full of questions. Her long auburn hair was usually combed to one side so it dropped down into curls, just below her ears, never spilling over her brow. Despite her young age and slight frame, Rosalia was strong in body and determined in will. She would have to stay in Burgio after the marriage, she knew and accepted it, and Gioacchino would go to America to meet his brothers, work in the mines for a year, then send for her. Then Gaetano would go with her to America, leaving Antonina in Burgio to stay with her parents. He would work in the mines, and then, having earned the money for her ticket, he would send for his wife to come over to America. This was the plan.
Raimondo Aqualino, Rosalia’s father, was not wealthy by any means, yet he was able to pay a generous dowry to Gioacchino for marrying his daughter. He might have given him a mule, or a dozen lambs if the couple had planned to stay in Burgio. The wedding was set for June, never May—the month for venerating Santa Maria—or certainly never August, the unluckiest month for Sicilians. On his wedding day, Gioacchino, according to the Sicilian superstitions of his family, stood at the altar in the Church of San’ Giuseppe with a nail in his back pocket, iron to insulate him from the evil eye--malocchiu; his bride wore a veil covering her face to keep out the same eye. Afterward, the gathering spilled out of the church into the piazza with shouts of cent’anni, and smashing emptied glasses, the shattered pieces were the years of happy marriage. Gaetano toasted, and shattered his glass, but not with the exuberance of the others. His marriage plans were on hold. Serafino Miceli was not able to pay the dowry. Without it, the wedding could not be planned. After all, Gaetano would be relieving him of a responsibility, agreeing to accept his daughter to feed, to cloth, to give her a place to live, and to take care of her for the rest of her life. A dowry was necessary to go on.
The dowry issue embarrassed Antonina Miceli, causing her to feel all the more subservient to her future husband. She knew Gaetano, she had seen him often in the comune. They never talked before, but she knew who he was. When their parents had begun planning their wedding, Gaetano and she began speaking. At one of their meetings, just at the base of the piazza’s fountain, the common water source for the hamlet, Gaetano told her that once they were married, he planned to go to America to work in the coal mines for at least a year, then he would send for her. She began crying. Burgio was all she knew. She could not imagine what life might be somewhere else in a far away land of strangers. Gaetano watched her sob, unmoved by a grief he did not understand. With no comforting words to give, he said nothing. They would not speak again for six months, until at last her father declared he had the money for a dowry. Twin Gioacchino had already boarded a train to Palermo, taken a ship called S.S. Liguria to New York, and arrived by train in Marion, Williamson County, Illinois. In Burgio, Michele Valenti was aging, his stamina diminishing. He was relieved that Gaetano was staying to help do the work his waning strength would not allow him to do. Rosalia was now part of the Valenti family, and she too would help Michele keep house until Gioacchino sent for her.
Rosalia waited to hear from Gioacchino. Anything that would let her know he was alive and planning to send for her. She heard nothing. In the year since Gioacchino’s leaving, his twin brother Gaetano and Antonina were married. They also stayed in Michele’s casa, taking over the bed under the alcove. Rosalia slept in the front room near the hearth, and Michele slept near the manger, too unstable to climb the ladder to the overhang. When a letter did arrive, Rosalia hurried to the municipio to have a clerk read it to her.
My Dear R,
I wish you were here with me, but it is not possible now. I am saving money and I hope it won’t be too much longer for you to come. My brothers are talking about leaving America and going to South America. They are making more money than they could ever make in Burgio, but they tell me the work is dangerous, dirty, very hard, and not dependable. I also have been working in the mines and have already seen five accidents. They want me to stay on the farm land they bought, and they want to sell it to me. This I want to do, but I’m going to have to work more to get the money. Did Gaetano get married yet? I don’t hear from anyone without being able to write. It’s hard. How is my father? Is he well? He looked sad and broken when I left for Palermo. Please say a novena for him and for me to be able to stay in this country without starving. I pray to Sant Antonio every night that I will have the money to send you to come. Well good-bye, and I will write again when my Italian miner friend will do the writing for me. I embrace you,
Gioacchino
Rosalia tucked the letter away, and although she could not read it, she often removed it from the envelope carefully, smoothed it flat on her bedding, and tracked under each word with her finger attempting to recall the words once read to her. The paper’s crispness disappeared with two years of handling, becoming limp and faded like a flimsy dish rag. The words had all but left the page and were faint smudges of characters not unlike her memory of them. She retained their sentiment, and this bolstered her strength and belief that Gioacchino was working hard and had not forgotten her. And while she caressed the letter, and traced its writing, her care of her father-in-law Michele intensified as his health got worse. He had begun coughing in the last few months, first a few short outbursts, then longer and longer episodes of uncontrollable hacks. His health had so declined that he was not strong enough to walk out to the fields or finish any work once he arrived. As the days went by, his violent coughs weakened his legs and strained his abdomen. His vocal chords over-taxed, he began to spit bloody sputum onto the cobble stone street as he forced his bent legs to carry him to a chair just outside his door. Gaetano assumed the control for working Liborio’s property. His wife Antonina had given birth to a girl, Giulia, named after his mother.
The postman, a wiry boy, sweaty shirt, his hat askance and fitted to allow his curly blond locks to escape, hastily leaned his bicycle against the white walls of the neighbor’s house and haltingly moved as someone lost. It was true street names were etched in corner houses, high up under the roof’s overhang, but, individual addresses were not so marked. He called out, “Signura Aqualino Rosalia. Signura Aqualino Rosalia, na littra pi vui.”
Neighbors leaned from doors, pointing, “Ddocu. ddocu, c’e a casa.”
The postman stood at her door and called in, “Signura Aqualino Rosalia.”
Rosalia came to the door holding a broom, “Si, I’m Rosalia Aqualino.”
“There is a special letter for you from America.” He handed her the envelope.
Rosalia’s eyes were trained on him while she tentatively pinched the letter between her thumb and forefinger, a questioning look prepared for a consequence: Would she need to give it back? Would she need to read it in front of the young boy? Would she need to pay? The other letters were always delivered by someone else, a friend, a relative. This was the first time a postman sought her out to directly hand her the post. This difference alarmed her.
The postman smiled and slightly bowed to her. His body jauntily swayed left to right as he whistled nothing recognizable on his way back to his bike.
Rosalia continued to stand in the doorway, lost in fearful thought. Antonina, baby in arms, roused her calling her name. “Rosalia. Chi e? It must be from Giaochinno. Go on, open it!”
Rosalia worked her finger under the flap and carefully unsealed it. She slowly removed a sheet of lined paper dense with writing and folded over two tickets. She would not know the meaning of any it, the writing, the tickets, until she could get to the municipio’s clerk.
The clerk read:
My Dear R.,
I am so sorry I did not write to you for so long, but I been working hard in the mines and in the field planting vegetables. The tickets are for you and Gaetano to go to New York. The next time I send a letter I will have some money for you and Gaetano to take the train from New York to Marion. Come as soon as you can.
Many embraces,
Gioacchino.
Michele Valenti was dying, his eyes were weepy, the skin around them loose and sagging to show the pink tissue inside his bottom lids. He tried sitting up on the side of his bed, his knees and elbows protruded from his skeletal legs and arms. He could only sit upright for a minute, then he lay back, fighting for each next breath. Rosalie took care of him as much as she could while she gathered belongings, visited her family, helped with their health issues, and began to make plans to leave. Antonina also watched over him, but she was now in the middle of a new pregnancy, taking care of a two-year old child while carrying on the household duties of cooking, cleaning, and mending. Gaetano continued working in the fields, tending the farm animals, hunting for food, and going to market to sell eggs, rabbits and goats, all to earn money for his trip. As everybody nursed him, Michele’s condition worsened the moment they left his bed. The last person to sit at his side was Gaetano.
Gaetano pulled the chair as close to the bed as possible and spoke crisply about family matters and legal papers. Had his father ever recieved the deed from Uncle Liborio that would show Ziu owned the land Gaetano was still farming? What would happen to the house he wanted to know once everyone had left for America? Should he allow others to live in it? Should he abandon it until someone returned from America. The reality of the situation dictated that Gaetano make these decisions, but it was the honorable way to get the patriarch’s blessings first. Michele’s jaw hung low, his tongue licked his bottom lip and stayed in that position. He tried to talk without having to move his mouth, but his words voiced no initial consonant sounds, only vowel endings. Gaetano seemed to know what he was saying and continued to ask questions, until it was apparent Michele had reached his limit by turning his head away. As he stood to leave, Gaetano gently grasped his father’s arms so they would not hang limply over the bedside, and placed them on his torso. Antonina found him in that death position.
Vito had decided to return when he heard his father was dying, though he had vowed to stay only a short time before returning to America. The whole comune attended the funeral. They spoke good words about Michele, his life, his work, and his kindness. Afterwards, a slow procession, a meandering line of dark raiment, streamed up to the hillside. Father Anzalone walked just behind the wagon, occasionally swinging a golden censer that caught the sun, its reflected rays flittered over the coffin. Michele was interred in the whitewashed Valenti family vault, his casket placed atop Giulia’s.
After the burial, Vito accompanied Rosalia back to New York. He had spent much of his time preparing Gaetano to take the trip alone, telling him what he might expect at Ellis Island, and what to be wary of in America. Because he would not leave right away, Gaetano held on to the ticket Vito had sent, hoping to use it when he did leave. A second child named, Frances, after Antonina’s mother was born to them. His father gone, his brothers all in America, there would be nothing else to do but send Antonina back to her parental home where she would need to wait until her could send for her and the girls. Antonina cried again. She worried whether the money he might leave with her would last until he sent for her. She knew she would be seen as a widow, pitied but avoided by friends who wished to keep husbands at a distance from a young, lonely woman. She was fearful Gaetano would leave for good and never send for them. She knew the hardship it would create for her aging parents and her infant children when they became confined to all living in a smaller casa. Gaetano offered no comfort. He knew he must leave for l’merica and with no appoligies, or rationales, he went ahead with plans to do so.
Gathering a few belongings in a small wooden trunk after booking passage on the steamer San Giorgio, he adorned a black vest from Ziu’s wardrobe and a white shirt from his father’s closet. He tucked the shirt into heavy woolen pants held up by slightly frayed suspenders, rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and boarded the train to Palermo. His face was cleanly shaven, his hair, washed and combed, showed off his bountiful crest of black wavy hair. He had a reason to groom, to dust and wash off the soil of the paisi. He was an emigrant now, and his fealty to Sicily, his peasant farmer image, his life, his ways of thinking, he resolved, would all be laid to rest like the flowers atop his parents’coffin, disappearing to dust.