A Place To Call Home

MODERN LIFE SHORT STORY BY JULIE BLAHO

Leaving the countryside was never going to be an option for Ottavio…

The rickety garden chair wobbled precariously as Ottavio rocked back and balanced it against the sun-warmed wall.

Everything was a balancing act these days.

He sighed and caressed the straw hat in his lap.

It still held its shape after all this time, probably because he only wore it on special occasions.

Not that today was special. Across the piazza, a small crowd gathered like a swarm of hornets, invading his village for the harvest festival.

Horrid bunch of relatives.

They had no right to come sweeping in from the city like they belonged.

Like that daughter of his.

Who did she think she was, towering over him and giving out directives?

Even though her voice matched the velvety smoothness of her dress, he wasn’t fooled.

“I’m old, Viola. Not helpless. I’m not leaving.”

He shoved the hat on his head and fumbled a cigarette from his breast pocket.

“I didn’t come all this way to argue, Papa,” Viola said.

She slapped her hand against the front door and disappeared inside, her ridiculous heels snapping against the terracotta floor.

“You’re moving in with us before the first snow.”

Her head reappeared as she leaned back out like her mother used to. The end-of-discussion pose.

“Winters don’t scare us mountain folk.” Ottavio raised his voice. “That city of yours has turned you into a mewling kitten.”

She’d better stop hissing and listen. This was home.

He was the stone schoolhouse across the piazza, standing irremovable through war and fleeing generations, while she was that fancy gelato cart that disappeared at the first sign of clouds.

They’d always butted heads, but without Gabriella to smooth things out, they’d got their horns in a tangle.

Joints creaking, he rose and followed her into the kitchen.

He pinched out the newly lit cigarette with blackened fingertips that no longer felt the sting of heat.

He knocked off the ash over the sink, then stuffed the butt into his trousers pocket for safekeeping.

He took his time.

Viola whirled in a huff, her ponytail swooshing by his face, then stomped out of the door.

Just like he planned.

If she saw the tremor when he took the tray, there would be no end to it.

With a longing glance at his muddy work boots by the kitchen door, he grabbed the remaining tray and shuffled across the empty piazza. Everyone must have gone inside.

The school’s lunchroom was plenty big for the harvest festival nowadays.

Back when it was a real festival – the pay-off after a year’s work – the jumble of shuttered windows had held pale violet crocuses.

The empty stone homes crafted by some long-forgotten scarpellino – stone carver – had festive burgundy flags hanging from every balcony, and warm welcomes soared across cobblestoned streets.

Now, there was no harvest. No young men to perform the autumn dance while carrying a barrel of wine on their shoulders.

No-one to play tambourines and no stands full of straw baskets and woven hats to sell.

No reason to celebrate.

A blast of heat and the aroma of broth welcomed Ottavio into the school kitchen, where the few remaining local women chopped and stirred.

Primalda tutted at him and took the tray.

“Grazie. But you, too. Out of my kitchen.”

He hurried to join the local men banded together around a long table.

City folk, with their noisy kids, took up the rest of the small cafeteria.

He snagged a slice of fresh bread from one of the straw baskets and sat.

“Ciao, Ottavio. Red wine?” Corrado asked.

“Not that stuff you pushed on me last year, I hope,” Ottavio joked.

Instead of reaching for the bottle, he slid his glass over for Corrado to fill and nodded his thanks.

Wouldn’t do if any of the city folk noticed the tremor.

In a town this small, Viola would hear the news before the wine had warmed him.

Visiting grandchildren chased each other around the tables, their laughter drawing affectionate looks.

But not from him.

The gaiety they offered was an illusion. A farce.

Descendants pretending their roots were still sunk into the mountainside.

Tomorrow, they’d go back to their cities, leaving winter to shroud the town with isolation and abandonment.

One of Viola’s two sons ran up to the table.

“Nonno, can I see your hat?” he asked.

Ottavio removed it from his head and beckoned him closer.

“I used to wear it to church on Sundays with your nonna,” he said.

“Can I try it on?”

Ottavio studied the boy.

“Are your hands sticky, Lorenzo?” he asked.

The boy giggled.

“It’s Logan, not Lorenzo!” he told his grandad.

American names were all the rage, but Ottavio didn’t have to like it.

As one of 12 children, Ottavio’s parents had lacked time for creativity.

With so many to name and care for, they had given numbers for names.

Then his own generation had named their children for saints and flowers.

He sighed. Those simple days were gone.

Logan stared at him expectantly, sky-blue eyes identical to his own.

Better not get too fond of the boy, though.

Viola would see his weakness and use it to convince him to leave the only home he’d ever known.

He shook his head.

“No. My hat isn’t a toy,” he told Logan.

“I know.”

Off to his left, Viola crossed her arms and frowned.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” Ottavio relented, placing the hat over Logan’s dark curls.

Logan giggled as the hat slid over his eyes.

“It’s too big, Nonno. Will you make me one my size?”

He handed the hat back.

Ottavio scratched his beard. How many hats had he made for Viola and the others. What had she done with hers? Probably thrown it away.

“You need long stalks of wheat if you fancy making a hat like this,” he said. “Wheat is too short and flimsy nowadays.

And no-one has planted this kind of wheat for so long that it has disappeared.

He fluttered a hand in the air.

“Gone.”

“Perché?” Logan asked. Because . . .?

“Papa, speak in Italian. I don’t want Logan speaking in dialect,” Viola told her father.

“It’s his heritage – not something to be ashamed of.” Ottavio glared at her, then continued to address Logan. “Some new-fangled wheat came along that had higher yields or something.

“Hey, Corrado, what was the name of that wheat our parents planted when we were kids?” he called out to his brother.

Corrado shrugged.

“I remember that we would plant it at this time of year, though,” he replied. “It seemed strange to be planting right before winter.

“Remember how we’d plait it in braids until we were ready to make hats?”

A heavy silence fell around the table.

Ottavio swallowed and fixed Logan with a small smile.

“You can have my hat, Lorenzo.”

Gabriella would be proud of him. He’d always left the coddling to her.

“Lo-gan.” Logan pronounced his name slowly, a part of the name game they played, and reached for the hat, but Ottavio snatched his hand away.

Laying the hat over his heart, he scowled.

“Promise to take good care of it?” Ottavio asked. “Your nonna made it for me before we married. That’s how I knew she was sweet on me.”

Gabriella had cracked his armour, and he’d softened every time she walked into the room, even after more than 40 years.

Logan nodded, eyes wide, then placed the hat on his head and ran off.

Tortellini in a capon broth was set before Ottavio and he thanked Primalda.

City folk didn’t know what they were missing.

Tagliatelle with a porcini mushroom sauce was next.

He and Corrado had searched up and down the mountain to gather enough for today’s festival.

With a full stomach, his eyelids grew heavy, and the conversation dimmed as he drifted to a time when his sweet Gabriella worked beside him in golden fields.

A tug on his sweater jerked Ottavio to attention.

Logan again. And the boy wasn’t alone.

A group of children stood before him, expectant smiles on their faces.

“Look what we found upstairs, Nonno.”

The boy grasped woven stalks of wheat in his hand.

Above the woven stalks, long, stiff extensions swayed like a head full of hair.

A head or two containing grain kernels nestled inside the extensions.

“Look here,” Ottavio said.

I’d say this is the missing wheat our fathers planted some fifty years ago.

He took the intricately woven stems, his hands twitching with braiding motions not practised in years.

A strand of straw cracked under his gentle touch.

“Sorry, son,” Ottavio told Logan. “These stalks are too old and brittle – they’d crumble if we tried to bend them new ways.”

“Please!” Logan’s shoulders slumped and the hat slid back over his eyes.

He had Gabriella’s charm.

Ottavio scratched his head.

“It’s mighty rare to find a young one who’s interested in anything but playing on those phones. How about we see if any of these seeds are fit for planting? Hold out your hand.”

Logan cupped his hands and drew close as Ottavio pried the kernels free.

One by one, he dropped the meagre offering into the boy’s hands.

“How many?” Ottavio asked.

“Eight,” Logan replied. “Just like your name. Let’s plant them right now.”

What had he got himself into?

Looking into the children’s hopeful faces, Ottavio shrugged.

There was no harm in it.

The kids would be gone tomorrow, and the fate of the seeds forgotten.

“Logan, take your friends to the vegetable garden –”

Logan launched into Ottavio’s lap, his fist tightly closed around the seeds.

“You got my name right,” he said.

Ottavio hugged the boy and bent to whisper in his ear.

“You’ve got a fine name,” he said. “Now, how about digging us up that pail of dirt?”

Ottavio had long given up his fields and country house to join the other town folk in the tangle of cobblestone streets, but every self-respecting villager boasted a terraced plot carved into the hillside.

“I love that you’re involving yourself with one of Logan’s projects, Papa,” Viola said.

Strands of Viola’s hair had worked free, giving her a softer look.

“See, you’ll have fun in the city with us,” she added.

Ottavio snorted.

Logan was unique, though. Look at the way the town folk jumped up to search for a planter.

The way they argued which one would be best to house eight tiny seeds.

And the way Logan tilted the hat up every time it slid over his eyes instead of taking it off.

Let’s give them names like our grandpas

Logan said.

Ha. Wasn’t that fitting?

Ottavio grimaced as the children buried the first seed and named it Primo. Then came Secondo.

They counted until they reached the eighth seed, named for himself.

Viola touched his elbow and beamed.

A grin stretched on his face before he could stop it. What was he getting so excited about?

Kids were kids, but he should know better.

He hadn’t heard so much laughter and joking in goodness knows how long.

Primalda found a spot by the window for the seeds.

“When I was your age, we would plait baskets for the harvest festival to sell.

“My baskets were always the best ones,” she bragged.

Corrado raised his hand.

“Mine were sturdier,” he argued. “A basket is supposed to carry things. Pretty isn’t enough.”

“Funny how I always sold more bowls and baskets,” Primalda rebutted.

“Can you teach us to plait so we can have a market, too?” Logan asked.

An engaging smile appeared on her face.

“Go and grab that length of cord outside.

By summer you’ll all be making hats better than I ever did.

Yesterday, Ottavio had found Primalda’s toothless smile repelling.

The enthusiasm in the room must be getting to him.

The town folk no longer sat and watched as outsiders in their own home, but helped them braid the cords.

Wrinkled faces bent close to small heads.

Ottavio pushed away the guilt. There was no chance those seeds were still good, but that wasn’t his fault.

People were getting their hopes up for nothing.

He turned to find Viola watching from across the room.

She strode around tables, never taking her eyes from him.

She was a force of nature herself. He’d been wrong to lump her in with the city folk.

He took her hand when she marched up to him.

She twitched in surprise, but didn’t pull away.

“Viola,” Ottavio began. “I know that you mean well, but I am not made for the city.

“None of us like that our town is dying, but we stay because leaving would be like ripping out our hearts.

“Those of us that could do it have already left.”

As speeches go, it wasn’t much, but it was more words than he was used to speaking all day, especially since Gabriella passed.

Viola tilted her head.

“Papa,” she began. “When the snow comes howling down the mountain and cuts off the electricity for days, how will you get wood for the kitchen stove?

“How will you shovel with those hands? With Mamma gone, you can’t stay here alone.”

Ottavio yanked his hand away.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said.

But he couldn’t meet her gaze. Talk about pulling the hat over his eyes.

Gabriella would have called him a stubborn old fool.

Viola stared at him in silence, then exhaled.

“OK, Papa. We will do it your way . . .” she conceded.

He grunted. Where was that fighting spirit that he loved?

“. . . for now,” she finished, straightening up over him.

He could swear her eyes sparkled with the same hard-headedness he saw every time he peered into a mirror.

And he almost smiled.

Each morning, the sun peeked from behind the mountain range a little later.

No-one would be out yet, which was why Ottavio had chosen this time of day.

Ottavio snuck across the cobbled street and let himself into the stone schoolhouse, but he wasn’t alone.

“Buon giorno, Corrado,” he murmured, tipping his everyday straw hat. “You water those seeds already?”

“I sure did,” Corrado replied. “They’re as dry as the Moroccan desert. I am not sure that they will germinate.”

Ottavio snorted.

“Don’t I know it?” he replied. “I was just going through the motions so as to not let the kids down.”

But the air hummed with poorly concealed expectancy.

He himself hadn’t smiled so much since he grew his first beard.

On the seventh day, Ottavio, Primalda and Corrado unlocked the school door and entered.

Ottavio would have preferred to deal with the bad news without the others.

In silence, they drew near the window, and his breath hitched.

Nothing had changed. The seeds should have sprouted by now.

Corrado shuffled his feet and Ottavio stared out the window.

The spark of hope that had fired died, leaving his heart colder than before.

Primalda pushed him gently out of the way as she sprinkled water into the planter.

He turned at her gasp.

Tiny whitish-green buds rose from the flattened dirt.

He grabbed at the glasses dangling from the cord around his neck.

Sure enough, the red seeds had sprouted. A miracle!

Primalda grasped his arm, eyes shining.

Corrado grunted. Or was he clearing his throat?

Visions of his beloved town once again bustling with tourists buying straw hats and bowls from colourful stalls at the open market waltzed in his head.

Next year he’d help organise the festival, show those visitors how much his town had to offer and put the locals once more in charge of their future.

His fingers tightened around his glasses.

He’d been keeping his heart and his hat in a dark closet until Logan had touched both.

Maybe three months in the city wouldn’t be so bad.It would be three months spent with family.

Come spring, the town would bloom once more – from eight ancient seeds.

“Soft red winter wheat,” he murmured.

The name came to him as if it had never left, as clear and as simple as the tear rolling down his cheek.

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