Traditional tastes from South Tyrol SELVA: THE MEMORIES OF OUR GRANDPARENTS

SELVA: THE MEMORIES OF OUR GRANDPARENTS

We lived in Milan, and I still recall the first air raid si rens warning us of the bombardment which would wreak destruction on half the city. The year was 1940, the very start of the war, and that was why - to get as far away from it as possible - my parents bou ght a house in Selva, in a magnificent location on the road leading to the Rifugio Firenze mountain hut, not far from the village centre. I was in Primary 2 at the time and went to the local school while my father was

I am the oldest child in the photo, beside my father

fighting in Dalmatia, where my fa mily came from originally. We stayed in Selva until 1943, after which we went to live with my grandmother, who had a villa on Lake Como. We returned in 1946 and from then on, we opened the house up again the moment school broke up in win ter and summer … every year until 1965, when it was sold. We made the journey to Selva on a puffing, wheezing train that took a loop tour of the meadows surroun ding the church en-route to the station. Rosy-cheeked children waved at the passengers, who waved back through the windows. The war, with all of its turmoil and destruction, was a world away. It was the 40s of the last century and Selva was, to my mind, a magical land of peace waiting to be explored. The people spoke Ladino, a mysterious langua ge, and their lives had for centuries remained identical to that of their forebears. The land provided rye, turnips and hay for the animals. In the evenings, the cattle, goats and

sheep would return from the marvellous Vallunga in a symphony of bells and whipcracks, and each one instinctively found its own stall. In autumn, the carrion crows took fli ght and the thwack of the threshing flail echoed throughout the valleys. And when a storm broke out and the thunderclaps ricocheted and redoubled off the rocks of the Sella, Anselmo the sacristan would run to the church at any time of day or ni ght to ring out the bells that would “protect” the village from lightning. The school was on the second floor, above the town hall. There were two classrooms: one for the first three classes, and the second for years four and five. Affixed to the wall alongsi de the crucifix there were portraits of King Victor Emmanuel III in gene ral’s uniform adorned with medals, Mussolini with outthrust chin, and an enigmatic Pope Pius XII, white zuccotto atop his head. The school day began with a unison rendition of horrible Fascist songs the likes of Vincere, vincere, vincere! (“Win, win, win!”) and Fischia il sasso, il nome squilla, dell’intrepido Balilla (“The stone whistles, the name resounds, of the intrepid Balilla”). The teacher checked to see if our hands were clean, and if they weren’t we were sent to wash them at the fountain in front of the church in freezing water, replete with icicles in winter. My school friend was Corrado Seno ner; in later life he went on to become a priest, then the parish priest of Santa Cristina and subsequently of a

village above Salorno. I walked home with him. We exchanged insults in Ladino: “tën la musa pitl mut” which roughly translates to “shush, child” – a mild rebuke indeed, even for those days. Corrado was the third child of Cristiano and Elisabetta. His father didn’t have many teeth in his mouth, and spoke mainly of the weather: “… fine weather today…yesh…yesh” or “nasty weather today…yesh… yesh”. His mother had dental difficulties of her own, but was somewhat more loquacious. We got our milk from them. They lived at the top of the hill, right behind our house. Bread, sugar, pasta, coffee and meat were all rationed, and to buy them we had to use the ration book distributed by the local council, with coupons which the shopkeeper cut off one by one. The hay was cut in June and Sep

tember. On every field, the men moved slowly forwards with their scythes, while the women followed behind with forks to wuffle the hay. The smell of freshly-cut hay and the whistling of the scythes filled the air. When the bells rang out the men stopped work and took their hats off, and the women made the sign of the cross. The children, and I was one of them, ran to greet the train which drew exhaustedly into the station where the passengers di sembarked and it got its breath back for the final stretch towards Plan, the end of the line. Antonio Mussner and Battista De metz, true lords of the snow, were my skiing instructors in the imme diate post-war years. In summer they returned to their regular jobs: the former was a wood sculptor, and the latter took his cattle up to sum mer pasture in the Chedul Valley. For their authenticity, their kind ness and their affectionate patience, they are two indelible pillars in my memory. And alongside them in my mind’s eye, I still see the images of the mountains, the Sassolungo, the Sella, the Pizzes da Cir… at dusk, when they were bathed in a brea thtaking pink that, slowly but surely, vanished into the violet.