Chapter 32 Rafaella
Rafaella
‘Basta!’ she called, standing by the desk as the bell rang and the children noisily sorted themselves into a line at the door. She waited for them to fall quiet, which they quickly did. They had worked out the formula with Signora Giannelli: obedience equalled release.
She nodded, smiling at the earnest faces now arranged in orderly fashion, and they burst out of the classroom, immediately erupting into chatter and squeals of laughter again.
‘Nico, remember your lines for tomorrow, please!’ she called sternly.
‘Si, signora,’ he replied, already halfway out the door. Term ended the day after tomorrow, and if he wanted to matriculate to the next year … But the children’s excitement for the summer break was reaching fever pitch and it was like herding cats, getting them to do what needed to be done.
Peace settled in the room for the first time in three hours and she wiped the blackboard clear of the sums they had been practising, plumes of chalk dust billowing.
The large clock ticked on the far wall as she gathered the exercise books into her bag to mark at home later.
She too was looking forward to the summer break.
She walked out into the long corridor. Maddalena, who taught the other class, was just ahead of her and she turned at the sound of Rafaella’s footsteps.
‘It sounded like you had your hands full today,’ Maddalena smiled, waiting for her to catch up.
‘Oh, always.’ Rafaella rolled her eyes. ‘Some of the boys thought it would be funny to keep a frog in their pockets.’
‘That explains the screaming,’ Maddalena grinned. ‘… It is pretty funny.’
‘Yes, but they must never know that,’ she whispered with a laugh as they walked down the stairs and outside.
The school fronted onto Piazza Castello right beside the monumental Aragonese Castle, replete with moat and battlements which encircled the historic town centre.
The morning market sellers were closing up for riposo but there were still people everywhere.
She said goodbye to Maddalena and wove her way through the bodies, wending a well-worn path through Otranto’s narrow cobbled streets.
She moved like a native now but it had taken her a while to adjust to living in a big town.
The historic port attracted tourists on a grand scale – unlike in Tricase, they even visited out of season – and she still struggled with the lack of trees and the blinding whiteness of the buildings.
For a girl who had grown up on an olive grove in a tiny, richly coloured port, it had been a culture shock, even if she now lived only twenty-five kilometres away.
She passed tiny boutiques selling hand-painted tiles and ceramics; a deli that sold her father’s olive oil; cats sleeping on narrow steps; lines of laundry strung between balconies.
Eventually she came out into the piazza.
The cathedral itself was a monumental but simple eleventh-century building, made of warm Lecce stone with granite pillars, its west wall dominated by a single, huge rose window.
On the north side was the seminary adjoining the cathedral.
It was an austere three-storey building with narrow windows along one side through which faces could occasionally be glimpsed.
Rafaella stopped on the south side of Piazza Basilica, outside a wide stone villa with a noble aspect.
It had large green double carriage doors centred onto the street and, on the level above, green-slatted shutters on the windows and French doors with Juliet balconies.
The villa was dwarfed by the ecclesiastical buildings on the opposite side of the square, but it was double the size of anything else in the area. It had once been the mayor’s residence.
She opened the pedestrian door inset in the carriage doors and stepped into the large courtyard beyond.
The tourists walking right past would have been amazed by the oasis hidden within.
A majestic pomegranate tree stood at the centre with a table and chairs set below; fig trees were trained up the inner walls, their leaves splayed like hands against the stone; lemon trees stood in planters and water tinkled lightly from a fountain set into a niche.
A small red tricycle was lying on its side, a leather ball wedged under the rim of a plant pot, a watering can left by the door.
The door to the house was open, as ever, and Rafaella walked straight in and up the gracious stone staircase.
‘Gina?’ she called, kicking off her shoes at the top step and immediately enjoying the coolness of the stone beneath her hot bare feet. It was still only June but already so hot; August was going to be unbearable if temperatures continued to rise at this rate.
‘In here.’
Gina was in the kitchen, making orecchiette her mother’s way. Dozens of dirty pots and pans were stacked on the counter. Little Lorenzo sat at the table with an empty plate and tomato sauce all over his chin.
‘Zia Rafa!’ he cried, throwing his arms up in excitement as she set down her bag and kissed his cheeks.
‘What a state you are!’ she laughed, reaching for his napkin and wiping him clean. ‘That’s better …’ She kissed the tip of his nose. He reached for a drawing on the table in front of him. ‘Is that for me?’ she asked, pointing to the indistinct crayon scribbles.
‘Si! Guess what it is!’
‘Is it a … tricycle?’ He had been given one for his second birthday and had scrawled its likeness at least a dozen times. Rafaella had five other copies of this taped to her kitchen wall at home. They were treasure to her, every last one. She loved him like he was her own.
‘Si!’
‘I love it,’ she said, clutching him to her tightly for a moment and wishing she could hold onto him for longer, but he was already wriggling, his attention moving to the next thing. ‘Have you finished eating? Has Mamma said you can get down?’
Gina nodded her assent and Rafaella pulled out his chair. ‘Stay in the garden!’ his mother called as he darted from sight. ‘… He’s obsessed with that bike.’
‘I know.’ Rafaella walked over to the sink and washed her hands, finding yet more dirty dishes there. ‘Gina, what’s going on? Are you feeding the ten thousand?’
Gina shot her a weary look. ‘He’s got the councillors coming tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ This meant Fon would be going too, but there had been no mention of it this morning.
‘A last-minute thing. They got word of a dignitary visiting in the area.’
Rafaella looked over at her friend as she dried her hands – her feet were swelling up and she looked drained, her hairline beaded with sweat.
‘I guess I should count myself lucky he gave me an afternoon’s notice,’ Gina said wryly, pressing a forearm to mop her brow but only succeeding in putting flour all over her face.
‘Go and get a drink and sit down, I’ll finish up here. You’ve been doing all this plus running around after Lorenzo.’ She gently barged her friend out of the way and began pulling up her hair into a messy bun, securing it with a toy drumstick left on the side.
Gina’s hand went to her rounded stomach.
She was due in just over two months but it had already been a long and testing pregnancy – her body had swelled dramatically, her sensational curves swamped.
Even with another trimester to go, she was struggling with swollen ankles and heavy legs.
The doctor said something about carrying more fluid and to take more rest, but of course she had paid him no heed.
She could easily afford a housekeeper but, like Rafaella, she didn’t want someone else washing her underwear or ‘spying’ on her in her own home.
They were products of their upbringing, too rooted in doing things themselves to feel comfortable with delegation and sitting around.
‘You’ve got flour on your face,’ Rafaella said as Gina walked to the refrigerator and brought out a jug of lemonade. She poured them each a glass.
‘You’ve got chalk dust in your hair,’ Gina shrugged back, collapsing into her son’s abandoned chair.
Rafaella began rolling and pinching the flour into little ears.
The pastry table was overlaid with a blue enamel top that stayed cold no matter how long they worked.
She liked the feeling of her hands in the flour, the steady repetition of the work.
It reminded her of home and of her mother.
Of a time before this, when they’d had freedom and not known it.
‘So is this meeting to do with the new apartment block on Via Faccolli?’ she asked Gina.
Modern flats were springing up all over the town, set outside the thick fort walls; Fon kept telling her no one wanted to live in the historic centre anymore – it was impossible to bring cars down the narrow, winding streets; it was difficult to dig the drains for better sewage …
Gina threw her hands up in the air. ‘Who knows? Who cares?’
‘Do we have to be there?’
‘No. Men only.’
‘Well then, that’s something.’
She finished up the last of the dough and set the orecchiette in a large flat-bottomed dish, covering it with a damp cloth.
Their lunch was already plated up on the side – burrata, tomatoes, basil, some prosciutto and sliced peaches – and she brought it over to the kitchen table.
They ate together most days, without formality, their bare feet up on the chairs and hair twisted back, skirts pulled up to bare their thighs to catch what little cooling breeze they could.
In this kitchen they could go back to being the creatures of their girlhood, but on the other side of the shutters, they could only be seen as the Giannelli wives: polished, elegant and rich, representatives of their husbands’ success.