DEVOTION

DEVOTION              

Ten years almost to the day since Stefano and Giovanna first set eyes on each other, they agreed to take a walk together in the piazza. Perhaps it was the fine spring evening, laced with a hint of jasmine, a glimpse of swallows nesting in the eaves that brought them to this important decision.

            Their families’ houses were directly opposite one another: identical, whitewashed buildings, garnished with geraniums, looking down on one of Castellana Grotte’s narrow sloping streets. An arm stretched to its fullest extent, from the balcony of one house could almost touch the hand of someone who stretched out from the other balcony. But of course, Stefano and Giovanna had never dreamt of doing anything so rash.

            In Castellane Grotte long betrothals were the rule.

            “Time to get together a decent bottom drawer,” as Giovanna’s Granny Galeano put it.

            “Time to know whether you are making the biggest mistake of your life,” Granny Calvi, Stefano’s grandmother, added more cynically. 

            Even so this courtship was becoming wearisome. For the first five years not even a word had passed between them. One day, emerging onto their respective balconies at the same moment, their eyes had met. One glance led to another until over time they developed the flirtatious language of the coquette.

            This deepened into sincere regard for each other and an almost mystical knowledge of when the other would appear, to water the geraniums or take a breath of air, so they could pass ten minutes, twenty, even thirty exchanging secret glances, smiles and the occasional sigh. 

            Then one evening, very like the one in question, Giovanna had giggled causing Stefano to call across:

            “What’s so funny, Signorina Giovanna?”

            “They’re speaking to each other,” gloated Granny Galeano.

            “About time, too,” retorted Granny Calvi.

            Five years on, Stefano glanced at the lilac sky so special to Puglia, followed the forked dart of swallows wheeling against it, cleared his throat and said:

            “Good evening, Signorina Giovanna.”

            “O, good evening Signor Stefano.”

            “How very pleasant it is.”

            “Do you know, I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

            “Just the evening for a stroll. I wonder do you feel like taking a few steps with me around the piazza?”

            Piazza Garibaldi was a modest provincial square with a few stunted trees and seats for the elderly. Not even a fountain, unlike its’ affluent cousins in the big cities. But the water pump was functional and there was always Diana, beloved of everybody in Castellana Grotte, who followed the dead to the cemetery, her tail drooping respectfully.

            The piazza was where everything was discussed.  Nino’s almost fatal bronchitis and his miraculous cure because of his mother’s prayers to the Madonna, the price of fish or the failure of Mario’s vines. How many months Angelica was ‘gone’ that was to say whether her father had forced Andrea to marry her.

            Walking out together across Piazza Garibaldi was quite an undertaking. You could liken it to stepping on stage and into a full spotlight. No wonder Giovanna prayed to her patron saint before she said ‘yes’

            They strolled up and down, up and down, gazing in the windows of the tabaccheria, the travel agent and the perfumery shop, pausing to take a glass of almond milk at the bar before Stefano escorted Giovanna to her door, shook her hand and said goodnight.

            “Well!”  Said Granny Galeano. “Romance at last.”

            “If you can call it that” retorted the sterner Granny Calvi.

            “I always advised my children not to get married too young but these two will soon be past their prime.”

Having made their debut in Piazza Garibaldi, the young couple became quite bold. Giovanna was reported to have shopped for two new dresses in order to ring the changes for their nightly passagiata and Stefano was seen regularly at the barber’s having his splendid black hair shampooed and blown dry.

            The piazza gossip began: how well they went together even if they were somewhat ill matched in appearance. Giovanna was robusta. She was tall and well made with a large round face and short dark hair. In spite of her height and size, she often wore white. Many of the local women were well built; beautiful when young but child bearing and cooking two large meals a day soon took their toll. . Giovanna, then well into her twenties, continued to look like a graceful amazon. 

            Stefano was shorter and wiry. He was proud of his physique, claiming to have inherited it from his grandfather who had accompanied Professor Anelli when he climbed down into the caves of Castellana for the first time and discovered a subterranean paradise.

            Probably because they had no houses to maintain, children to rear, no friction from someone else’s constant company, they both looked much younger than their years. The romance stayed as fresh as the first day they exchanged glances. 

            Stefano would say good night to his beloved Giovanna and go home to dream of her. Her waking thoughts would be of him, eager for the evening when they would meet and take their walk together.

            This aroused envy in Castellana Grotte. Dining in the Trattoria del Posto, they leant their elbows on the table and talked for hours while Anna Maria Grimaldi would glare at her husband shoveling spaghetti into his mouth, gulping his wine as if he couldn’t wait for the meal to be finished, and mutter: 

            “Why can’t we have a romantic evening? Talk to me the way Stefano talks to Giovanna?”

            “Him?” Mario would shoot a contemptuous glance at the couple. “Stefano! Too comfortable at home with his Mum waiting on him, that’s his trouble.”

            Anna Maria, gazing at her husband’s swollen belly which looked seven months pregnant, his bristly chin that scratched if he kissed her (which wasn’t often, these days) grunted:

            “And you’re not comfortable? I don't look after you like a mother?”

            “What more do you want, woman?” he retorted. “I take you out for a meal now and again, don’t I?”

            Meanwhile Stefano was recounting, yet again, the story of the famous caves.

            “Thousands of years ago, people were scared stiff of this enormous hole in the ground. No one knew what lay at the bottom. They called it ‘Bocca d’Inferno’ the Mouth of Hell and used it as a giant rubbish tip. Then my grandfather, Vito, who was small and wiry, just like me, clambered down a rope ladder with Professor Anelli. It was very dark. They wore lamps on their heads like miners. And they found themselves in this splendid cavern, large enough to hold a cathedral. You see the water dripping down through the porous limestone over millennia had created fantastic sculptures: the stalactites and stalagmites which have made Castellana Grotte famous.”

            After another year or so, Giovanna finally agreed to descend into the caves with Stefano. The grand mothers had their spy, Giuseppe, who worked the lifts that whizzed you up and down in seconds. But even though they plunged into the furthermost cave, the exquisite ‘Grotta Bianca’ to wonder at the pure white crystal ‘flowers’ shining out of the gloom, there was not one moment of impropriety. True, Stefano took Giovanna’s hand to help her over a particularly rocky stretch of ground but the difficult terrain he let go.   

            “Sad, sad, oh so sad,” moaned Granny Calvi, “Diana will follow me in my coffin before I know the end of this story.”

            The two old ladies did witness the first kiss, chaste as it was. Stefano, having accomplished twenty-five years of service to his company, was awarded a party and, in front of everyone they smiled at one another and kissed.

            “Madonna!” croaked the now ancient Granny Galeano, “After so many years, is that all they can manage?”

            It was the final straw and, not long after, she died peacefully in her sleep.

            Granny Calvi having no one to grumble to followed. Even Diana seemed tired of it all and stayed in the piazza, following neither cortege. 

Piazza Garibaldi thronged with a new generation taking the evening stroll, drinking a glass of almond milk, and becoming engaged to be married. Among them were the eighteen-year-old Gino, and his betrothed, Serafina.

            On another of those beautiful lilac evenings Stefano and Giovanna walked towards the seat where Gino and Serafina sat discussing - quite heatedly - which washing machine to buy.

            “Excuse me,” said Giovanna filling the dusk with her Rubens beauty “We wanted to know what you would like as a wedding present.”

            Serafina winked at Gino.

            “If you really want to know what we’d like, most of all, we want to see you two married. Hey, why don't we have a double wedding? You’re missing such a lot,” said Serafina. “Think about it.”

            Over the next days, Giovanna brooded on the vision of what might have been: herself a young bride, misty eyed beneath her veil, soon pregnant then pushing a pram with a chubby baby boy in it. 

            For the first time in all the years they had known each other, she and Stefano quarrelled.

            Stefano gazing at his beloved Giovanna in his eyes the young girl he had always adored, said:

            “Oh Giovanna, Giovanna! Think of the years it took for those beautiful stalagmites to form, and think of their perfection. All our romantic years when we’ve never ceased to be thrilled a the thought we will see each other, every day, desolate to part each night are like that.   What a grand amore. Our love story will never end. Maybe when we are so old we can no longer walk across the piazza, well then we’ll get married.”

            Giovanna remembered Professor Anelli’s discovery. She and Stefano had stumbled across a subterranean paradise. They knew romantic love is fragile and fugitive,  banal when it comes to washing socks and paying the bills.

            “Darling Stefano, how right you are. Until then we’ll go on exactly as we are.”

            And they lived happily ever after. 

                                                -ENDS-