To Find a Mountain

To Find a Mountain - By Dani Amore


Prologue

Estero, Florida, 2011

My name is Benedetta. In Italian, in the dialect spoken around Casalveri where I’m from, it means “blessed.” Can I say my God-given name was a wise choice, that my mother and father had any idea of the life that I would lead? Yes and no. I have known great joy as well as great tragedy.

I know that I have six beautiful children. Children who grew up in a household full of love, where there was always plenty of food, good food, on the table, and lots of laughter. Some pain, too, but that is unavoidable. Your life cannot be full without pain.

I know that I have lived a long life. I consider that a very blessed thing, for I have known too many people, people I have loved, that did not make it nearly as far.

Today I laid my husband of fifty-one years to rest. He took good care of me and our children. I will miss him. The priest talked about the duty of the living to carry on the memory of the dead. I do that every day. I have done that every day of my life.

It is late now. The sun is dropping behind the Estero River, sinking like a giant orange stone. The warm breeze is making small ripples in the water. A boat putts up the river, its driver looking at the houses that line the river’s banks. He occasionally turns his head back to see where he’s going. He should be more careful. There are many stumps in this stretch of the river, stumps that can rip a hole in the hull of a small boat. It’s a sound the big river alligators look forward to.

The driver of the boat looks at my house but registers no expression. He probably sees the pool on the lower level of the screened-in porch, and most likely does not see the old woman sitting on the upper balcony, a small cup of espresso next to her, as she scribbles in the small, leather-bound journal.

My children are asleep, and so are their children. We are all tired from the exhaustion of the funeral, the crying, chasing after the younger children who did not realize the meaning of the occasion that has brought us all together for the first time in many years. As I watched my children try to explain to my grandchildren the concept of death, it hurt me. We should all try to put off learning what death is for as long as possible.

A significant part of me died with my husband. I believe that whenever someone you love dies, a part of you goes with them. I also think that every time someone new is brought into your life, a part of you is reborn. The circle of life and death is a balancing act, God’s way of making things even.

I have six children and eleven grandchildren now. From the looks in the eyes of my children and their spouses at the funeral, I’m sure there will be more on the way. There is something about a funeral that makes people remember the fragile nature of life, and in turn makes them want to create life again.

It was that way after the war in Italy. Entire towns laid to waste. Families destroyed. Dreams shredded by bullets and shrapnel. My children know very little of what happened to me during that time. The parts I have told them are the truth, but I have not told them everything.

They know that their father and mother met during the war. I was just a girl then, barely sixteen, and their father was only a year older. My children know that their parents fell in love during that time, and although they think they know all the details, they don’t. They will learn here for the first time, all of the incredible, painful, unforgettable truths that I now feel it is time for them to learn.

They do not know how close to death I came. They do not know how close to death their father came. They do not know how close to death my entire village came — all because of the events that took place in my house the year the Germans came.

My children will learn, perhaps for the first time, that wars are not just fought on the front lines, but in the dirt streets of poverty-stricken towns like Casalveri, Italy.

They will learn that their mother killed a man during the war.

That is the purpose of this journal. I first want to get everything on paper, bring it out from the dusty parts of my brain. Once it is organized, I will let them read it for themselves.

I loved my husband with all my heart, and there is an emptiness now inside me that will forever prevent me from being whole again. And that is the way it should be. I look around my house and I see him. His eyes. His smile. His voice. I can hear him calling my name.

When my children scatter tomorrow, the silence in the house will be difficult, no matter how much I make myself busy.

It is late. The memories are already coming back to me. The sounds of machine guns, airplanes and bombs dropping from the sky. The thoughts make me feel both old and young, the way I felt so many years ago, when the Second World War came home to all of us in Casalveri.