To Find a Mountain

Chapter Five

I left Lauretta’s house and walked along the outer edge of Casalveri, the part of the village that hugged the side of the mountain. I walked past houses where people waved to me, wearing apprehensive expressions that told me they were carrying on because that’s all they knew how to do.

I looked down to the valley below. Normally a peaceful, sleepy view, now clouds of dust wafted to and from, and I could hear the sound of machinery, tanks and jeeps as they went about their business, destroying everything in their path on the way to Mt. Cassino.

Men had been fighting over this land for thousands of years. These rocks, this dirt, all of it would still be here long after the blood from these men had been covered in dust. Only their bones would survive, and those too would be buried for eternity in the dank tomb of the soil, while the trees and the rocks would feel the warmth of the sun thousands of years from now.

A breeze blew around me, taking the edge from the sun’s hot rays off my shoulders.

My foot kicked a small pebble and it rolled in front of me, going down a small hill before trickling off to the side of the path. I circled the village, saw my own house in the distance, then walked farther up the mountain, veering off the path to a small plateau, a shelf with a small grove of trees and flowers.

An iron gate marked the entrance to the cemetery.

Thick oak fencing, falling down in some places, encircled the rows of tombstones and crude markers. The first headstones to greet visitors were the oldest; they were uneven, some sat high, others were sunken as the ground continued to shift over the years. These stones marked the village’s ancestors, some going back hundreds of years.

The farther you walked in, the more recent the dates on the headstones became.

My mother’s grave was on the last row.

Next to her was an empty space; probably for my father. On the other side of her were the two Vito children, twins, who had died last year of food poisoning. The entire village had turned out for their funeral, even the weak, old and crippled.

Whenever I visited my mother, I wondered if she was taking care of the Vito twins in Heaven. Probably. If there were children who needed to be taken care of, I was sure she would be the one to step in and give them what they needed. One time, in an old book about animals, I saw an illustration of some kind of bird who was ripping chunks of flesh off her own body to feed her children. That was Mama.

On the walk over, I had picked a flower for her and now I placed it next to her headstone. It was a modest marker, plain granite with simple block letters carved into the stone. Sofía Carlessimo. 1901-1941.

Mama was born in a small town, about ten miles away called Agavita. Her family had been farmers and at a festival put on by all of the churches of the area, she had met my father. My mother was a year away from being of proper age, so they courted and then married on her birthday.

She listened now, I’m sure, as I told her all about the arrival of the Germanesí. Sometimes I said the words out loud, more often than not I sent the thoughts to her from my mind as opposed to through the air. She heard about my fear for Papa, my anxiety over what they would do to us if they ever left Casalveri. Or if they stayed too long.

I traced the grass over her grave with my hand, imagining our hands connecting through the many feet of dirt and rock. I wanted her strength to rise up and flow through me.

Instead, a wave of anger, fear and confusion washed over me. Like the sea in a rising storm, it grew in intensity. A cold sweat broke out along my brow and the cemetery began to spin around me. I could feel my heart beating quickly, my breath was shallow. I clenched my fists, felt cold dampness on my palms, like wrung-out dishrags.

From my mouth came a sound, not a scream but a twisted, guttural moan that rose and passed along the back of my throat.

Slowly, I felt the tension pass, and then my body sagged, fatigued and spent. The experience was not new to me; I’d been having them on and off since Mama passed away, but I told no one.

A twig snapped behind me and I twirled, expecting to see a German soldier coming at me. But nothing was there; just granite witnesses watching me impassively.

A bush rustled to my left and I looked, but saw nothing. Then I heard, or thought I heard, the sound of boots on the dirt path receding farther away from me. The trees behind the last row of headstones swayed gently with a breeze and I looked at their leaves fluttering gently. In order to fit the next row of headstones, those trees would need to be cleared.

I wondered if after all this was done, after the Germans were done with us, if there would be enough room even with all of the trees cleared to fit the many new headstones that would need to go here.

Maybe even mine.