Little Italian World

Let me tell you a Mediterranean story no one has written yet.

It is about Alba, a little girl. According to Italian language she shares her name with the sunrise. But Alba’s childhood, perhaps her whole life, with the Sun has much more in common. It almost depends on it, not only because Alba enjoyed spending her time in the sun, biking across the bending roads of the village she lived in with her family. She knew by heart the Latin names of each wild species of animals and plants breeding and growing in the valley crossed by two rivers (not Tigris and Euphrates as you may think, but Tanagro and Sele) where her village stood. She also collected wild plants and animals’ stickers, to complete the album.

Not exactely the kind of girl who collected Barbie’s stickers, but this is not the point, or maybe it is. Everything can make a point. Certainly the spot where to debate the argument is not here.

The true point among all points is that ‘Count Bear’s village’ stood on the top of a green hill, in south of Italy. As it often happens, hill’s settlements are towered by a castle opening into a square, into the heart of the village, into ‘la piazza,’ as Italians would say and Giuseppe Garibaldi, the most Italian among Italians, would not disagree.

‘Piazza Garibaldi’ was indeed the heart of 'Count Bear’s village,’ the place where Alba and her little friends used to play hide and seek in the sun or under the moon, when summer extended its days across the starry night.

 On one of those long sunny afternoons, in the middle of a hide and seek game, no one could find Alba anymore.

“She must have found a very hidden place to hide herself,” her little friends decided.

A very hidden place. 

A very dark place.

‘Hidden,’ ‘dark.' These are unknown words to the dictionaries of rural areas. No matter how skillful in the lexicon you might be, you will more often hear words like ‘nice,’ ‘picturesque,’ ‘charming’ and their synonyms. Antonyms are not welcome.

And here it comes another point.

In the village where people assumed to know everything and everyone, the list of the ‘unknown’ and ‘not charming’ labels started to grow. Besides the fact that Alba had left ‘Garibaldi’s Square’ alone, no one knew that her destination was Tanagro’s riverbank, the place where extraordinary creatures like Mr. Faunus Lupercus (a half goat-man) and her fiancée Melusine (a half fish-woman) lived in secrecy together with other ‘creatures.’

I have said Alba left ‘Garibaldi’s Square’ alone. This is wrong. She was not alone. Her bike, a white Bianchi, was with her as it always used to be. No way it could have left her beloved owner just the afternoon of the disappearance, on one of those rare days marked by a name and a noble-double surname: Summer Solstice, 1989, June 21^st.

If the bike could speak it would tell of the eight-year-old-boy waiting at the riverbank. Waiting for Alba to come.

A three lamb’s shepherd. He introduced himself as Usils, whose name’s meaning is more then a serendipity.

“It means ‘The Sun’s Son,’ he said.

No lie in the translation to English, no attempt to show off made up by a little boy in order to impress a pretty little girl.

But let me explain one thing. Actually, what Usils wanted was to impress Alba. Because she was the girl come with the Summer Solstice, the girl supposed to help him.

The eight-year-old-girl known by everyone as the youngest biker of the village; the girl playing truant from primary school to run after lizards and wild boars, screaming their Latin names to the four winds; that girl was now supposed to help Usils.

Said in this way the whole picture does not sound as it should.

Let us hear the rest of story by him, by Usils, and you will understand the point, the true point.

“The Sun’s Son,’ he said. “I am cursed,” he went on lowering his head, not leaving his sparkling black eyes from the three lambs grazing the grass.

“I am Alba,” she said ignoring that the boy knew her very well. “What curse do you have?” She asked.

“I am cursed to live forever in this place. Alone. I can go out only after the sunset, and I m tired of it. I want to join my family, my people." His little head turned left and right, looking for something. "We lived there, in the City on the River, until it was flooded and everybody died; everybody except me.”-

“The City on the R_?” was about to say Alba but she could not.

There was no city on the riverbank, never been. And yet there was. Before her eyes stood the ruins of a dwelling that could have jumped out from her ‘Ancient History Handbook.’ ‘Etruscans,’ her schoolteacher had told her only a few months ago.

Hmm, an unknown ancient settlement nearby the ‘Count Bear’s village.’

It goes without any saying that here the point is not too much in the ‘antiquity,’ neither in the ‘dwelling/settlement.’ The true point is the unknown. How can something be unknown to a village, where everybody knows everyone and everything?

Well, the ratio between questions and answers is not always satisfying, and this is one of the ‘not always’ situations.

But let us go back to the true point. Let us hear what Alba and Usils have to say in their pragmatic children’s language.

“I want to help you. Just tell me how, Usils.”-

“Tell my story to the children of your village. Let them know about their ancient ancestries. Tell your schoolteacher to speak about my language and my wisdom, my science and my magic. Tell all adults of the village to bring their children to the riverbank, to smell the early morning scent of the wildflowers. Please, do it.”-

“Only this?” Alba asked.

“Only this,” Usils said.

He added other things. He added that the source of his coursing had wanted to delete the memory of his people from the world, sparing him from death only by mistake. Cursing him as a revenge.

“I knew you would come.”-

“How?” Alba asked.

“Sooner or later the Sun’s Son will meet its Sunrise.”