Grandma Emma was a 'white widow'. Her husband Leo after the triumphs with his Nazareno on the Tuscan stages and the financial bankruptcy because the administrator had disappeared with the proceeds, had once again embraced a military career.
Cavalry captain had gone to Eritrea in 1935 with Mussolini's colonization program and said he had bought a 'farm' where the whole family would move. Then in 39 the war broke out.
Grandma Emma was now dedicating herself full-time to that grandson, Lalli, who seemed to give her more satisfaction than her three children.
One afternoon a week Grandma Emma went to pray in the mortuary of the Hospital of the Santissima Annunziata, where the anonymous dead of Florentine misery were stacked. To those who asked her why she did it, she replied: "It will also be necessary for someone to remember them, poor people ...".
Until the war had degenerated with the carpet bombings of the allies, life in Florence had managed to maintain its daily rhythm, even in the midst of so many difficulties.
Grandma Emma occasionally allowed herself, as she put it, "an exception to the rule".
Holding that few years old nephew by the hand she walked through Borgo Pinti, crossed via dell'Oriolo, and immersed herself in the vault of San Piero, better known as the arch of San Pierino.
On the other side there was the 'pizzicagnolo' with its famous mortadella, stockfish, cheeses, as well as fresh pasta rolled out by his wife with a rolling pin in view for all.
In the shop of the 'buzzurro' they prepared 'pattona', chestnut flour polenta, in addition to chestnuts of course, ballotte (boiled chestnuts) and burnt (roasted ones).
Grandma Emma would indulge in a glass of Alchermes at the wine shop where the chronic drunks of the area perennially stayed, embracing those fiascos of bulk wine that were said to be genuine and good. And if every now and then someone tried to pull out the knife there were immediately the young men from the bar jumping on him, "because there is no mess here!".
Then came the bombs dropped by American planes that were supposed to hit the railway junction, instead, coincidentally, they were disintegrating entire neighborhoods of the ancient city.
Florence had found itself gripped in the so-called "emergency", with the allied troops who did not decide to cross the Arno river either because the Germans had blown up all the bridges except the Ponte Vecchio which cannot be crossed by heavy vehicles, or because the Germanic units that still resisted on this side of the Arno kept the allies under precise fire.
The Florentine population was dying of hunger which all in all is a harder way to die than being pulped by the splinters of some bomb.
There was nothing left to eat and what profiteers could sell at very high prices was becoming less and less available because their stocks were running out and even the patience of the hungry was running out. In some cases they had been overwhelmed by exasperated people.
Then finally the partisan brigades had opened the way followed by the British who had set up a Bailey bridge and were hunting down the fast retreating German contingent.
For a few days Florence had been liberated but it was still impossible to find something to eat also because it was very dangerous to venture into the central streets due to the suicidal presence of the snipers of the Republic of Salò who nailed men and women to the asphalt in search of something to put under teeth.
The word of mouth that evening became insistent with a single phrase drumming: "The bread, the bread ...! Tomorrow at the Arco di San Piero, at 10 ..."
Long before 10 in the small square of San Piero, several hundred people had gathered and passed each other animatedly pieces of information often conflicting with each other.
Grandma Emma was there with Lalli who couldn't understand what was happening.
Then some partisans or members of the 'idonotknow' committee arrived, you know, who gave the most accredited version of what was happening: "The Americans have reopened all the ovens of the bakeries in the city. So soon a limited quantity will be distributed to each family of bread ... Don't worry, avoid confusion because there will be bread for everyone ... "
In fact, the bakery in the square that had been closed for days due to the lack of flour (at least so the owners of that shop said, but they certainly had many bags hidden in the cellar) had now been reopened and you could see and feel that they were working inside.
Two American soldiers stood outside the main door of the bakery, with rifles on their hands.
Finally, it must have been noon, that blessed door of the bakery opened and the workers began to come out carrying the baskets with the loaves that had just been removed from the oven.
And the distribution began.
"My Madonna, folck look how white this bread is ...!" they said to each other, nibbling pieces of that blessed bread that had just been distributed.
The bread was actually very white because the flour that had been distributed to the baker was mainly made of rice flour.
A peculiarity of the public relations of the armed occupation forces to take hold of the hungry population who have come out of months of suffering.
But who cared about the PR techniques that the Americans had introduced in their manuals for the management of the liberated territories.
The important thing was to eat that blessed bread so white, Madonna how white it is!
Today in place of that bakery is a large pizzeria, a favorite meeting place for hundreds of young American students who attend Florida State University and mingle late in the day with the Masons who come out in black robes from their meetings held in the temple also in Borgo degli Albizi.
Borgo degli Albizi opens into the small square of San Piero.
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The flat in Borgo Pinti 31, on the mezzanine, in which Lalli lived with his grandmother Emma and aunt Lea, with its windows overlooked the garden of the Geddes da Filicaia counts who had granted the families of the apartments that overlooked it to go down to breathe some fresh air and have a chat.
The majority of the people who met on those flower beds were mainly made up of young and old women; the men were at the front or they had been captured by the Germans and sent to Germany. Go find out where. There were also some old men most of whom were dying both from lack of food and from illnesses, best assisted by some relatives who were also angry about that fucking chore.
Under the mezzanine terrace several boys and girls gathered to play.
Lalli spent hours sitting with his legs dangling from the balcony gazing at those kids who were having so much fun.
"But why don't you come down to play too?" Emanuela had told him, who was a nine-year-old blonde who Lalli doted on.
Thus, at the risk of getting very badly hurt, this boy had studied how to descend from the terrace.
When his grandmother and aunt had noticed it, they were close to a stroke.
Aunt Lea was always around, poor woman, looking for something to eat. But now nothing could be found. One day she came home with a bundle of newspaper.
"Mom, this is all that the butcher who shut down managed to put me aside ..."
"What is it, what is this stuff?" grumbled to ask Grandma Emma.
"It's a piece of an ox's c..k, mom! There's nothing else to eat ... Cook it very well, please ..."
Lalli was a frail boy. The filth that Aunt Lea was able to find somehow had triggered a strong dysentery. He was in bed despite the heat and he was in pain because he could hear the boys below having fun with their games and he could not participate.
But now the din of the boys' screams was covered by a great chatter of the dozens of women who were in the garden-courtyard of the Geddes da Filicaia counts.
There was a great noise of an engine, as of one accelerating a car.
From the main gate of the palace appeared a vehicle that would have been too much to call a car. A strange yellow-green thing driven by an American military. The back seat of that vehicle called the Jeep was covered in boxes and military food rations.
The soldier was visibly drunk and once he got out of that Martian vehicle he turned to one side and vomited up most of the red wine that he must have gulped down at some previous stop.
Surrounded by dozens of women, he began to bargain by exchanging food for something that could be resold by him to some fellow countryman.
Grandma Emma asked for help from the ground floor tenant who was trying to make herself understood with what little school English she remembered.
"He says he'll give you a can of meat if you drop something important with him," said the young woman downstairs.
Grandma Emma put a precious Burano tablecloth in the basket.
"Tell him, Adriana, that this is a very precious thing and he can make a lot of money ... Now put the box of meat inside the basket, the big one, please, Adriana!"
It was a mega pack of meat in a trapezoidal box. Grandma Emma tried to see how that metal box could be opened, she saw that there was a key attached and this could be inserted into a tab. The grandmother began to turn this key and managed to uncover the box which she then placed inside the cupboard before going out to fetch some vegetables from the greengrocer.
Lalli got up and went to the cupboard, took out that metal package of strange-smelling meat and began to eat it, grabbing it with his hand.
Despite his acute dysentery, that flesh put him back on his feet.
Today, after so many decades, if you want to give old Lalli a gift, buy him a box of corned beef.
No caviar, please.
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Caro Oscar,I love this story. Thank you so much for sharing it. My nonna came from Terracina, just south of Rome. My cousins still live there. My late great-aunt, Maria Teresa, told me many stories of hardship and starvation dring the war - she was just a little girl. She died in January of COVID.
I think it is so important to remember these stories and the struggles our ancestors survived so that we can live such a good life.
Grazie tante,
Kathleen (Locatelli) Dunn
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