X The Villaggio Regina Elena
“What did you think had happened?”
Caterina traced a cross with her bare brown toe in the dusty path of the campo santo: “Per Dio, Signora, we thought it was the Day of Judgment. Mamma, babbo and I were dressed, ready to go to work—we live here, my father is guardiano. My two brothers were in bed; they were killed. One still remains sotto le macerie; there is no way to get the body out. After the 28th of April no more may be moved on account of infection; it is finished.”
Caterina, daughter of the porter at the cemetery, a lovely girl of sixteen, was our guide. Smiling, she welcomed us, standing under a sculptured “Genius of Grief.”
“A strange guide for such a place!” said Patsy.
Strange indeed! Coffins everywhere, and babies in grandams’ arms—the new life pushing aside the old, as the green oak leaves come out beneath the brown.
As Caterina led the way up the sunny slope, between cypresses and roses, she pointed out the tottering and broken monuments; the earthquake had wrought strange havoc here. The chapel of the Cavallieri di Messina with its fine Ionic colonnade was a ruin; some of the tombs were wrenched open.
“Perhaps these dead, like ourselves, thought that the last day had come,” said Caterina.
A wine cart loaded with casks of wine, with a coffin lashed at the back, passed us. It was followed by two women with grim set faces—no tears, they were all shed long ago. Caterina paused by the grave of the patriot, La Farina, picked a red rose and handed it to me with a shy smile. From the upper terrace we looked down on a plain, furrowed as if for planting. A long line of men were digging a trench. Piles of plain unmarked wooden boxes—there must have been several hundreds—were stacked on the ground.
“These might be packing cases for dry-goods,” said Patsy. “There’s not the faintest suggestion of the human form, not even the sloping line of the shoulders, to show what they are!”
“Will there be no service, no benediction?” I asked Caterina.
“God has already given them benediction enough,” she replied.
Messina is like a battle-field; there is too much haste for funeral pomp; nothing remains to be done but get the poor human remains out of sight, under ground as soon as possible. From time to time the Archbishop visits the campo santo, blesses the dead en masse, and sprinkles holy water on the long brown mounds.
As we watched the men delving in the fosse, a gay little painted carretto passed, driven by a blond lad with a roguish face and a rose behind his ear. He sat upon two coffins, whistling merrily.
“Buon giorno, Caterina; what a fine day, if the sun would only stay!” He flourished his whip and flicked a fly off the mule’s ear.
Caterina looked at him adoringly and echoed his wish:
“Perhaps the rains are over,” she said. “Thou art well, Carlino?”
While they talked about the weather, their eyes also spoke of secrets unspeakable. It was easy to see how things stood between them. In that dreadful indescribable atmosphere, hazel eyes caught fire from blue. Death had become a commonplace to the lover and his lass; after so many months of familiarity they had grown callous to its ugliness. In the meeting of their eyes, life laughed at death.
In the upper, more aristocratic part of the campo santo, the dead lay in separate graves. Caterina stopped near two grave-diggers at work.
“Two metres deep,” she said sagely.
A pair of stone-masons were working here, directed by a tall eagle-faced man and a youth, evidently his son. One mason marked on a small white headstone letters and a date in black; then with a chisel, which he knocked only with his hand, chipped out the letters from the stone. It must have been soft as cheese, for by the time the grave was a metre deep, the name Domenica was neatly carved. The second mason was smoothing a little white cross that had been roughed out of the same soft stone. When the grave was two metres deep, cross and headstone were ready. The plain wooden coffin had a rude cross nailed on the lid. Without a flower or a tear, it was lowered into the grave and the earth filled in.
“Thou hast done well and quickly,” said the gentleman to the elder mason. “Here is the money as agreed.”
“The others the Signore spoke of?”
“Gone—there was some mistake. We have found only this, the youngest. Perhaps another has buried them, thinking them his own. I return to Rome tonight.”
Then I remembered: this was the man I had met with the fair young woman going from one survivor to another, asking for news of Messina.
An Italian officer and an Englishman passed, and stood looking down at those men digging in the long trench.
“What do you advise?” asked the officer. “She is tormented; here is her last letter. Nothing will satisfy her unless I find him. I have tried every way; there is no trace, no record. He may have been among those burned or carried out to sea the first days; he may be in that trench. What would you do?”
“Find him,” said the Englishman, “or another in his place, and put up a stone to him. Then she can have a place to lay her flowers and to weep; it’s not his bones, but his memory—” They passed out of earshot.
We moved to another part of the upper terrace and watched half a dozen men take up the flat stone covers of a row of tombs, sunk under the marble pavement.
“What are they doing?” Patsy asked.
“We must make room here, there, everywhere, for these new ones,” Caterina answered. “No one could have expected such a calamity; how could we be prepared?” She spoke with the anxiety of a hostess, who has not beds enough for her guests to sleep in. “These poor dead, they too must lie in sanctified ground; it is their turn.”
“Those buried here before?”
“The people who died of the last cholera.”
“Let us go,” said Patsy, “we’ve seen enough.”
Did he remember the story they tell in Florence? When the ancient city wall was taken down fifty years ago, the workmen died like sheep of a mysterious disease. An investigation was ordered. It was found that the old wall crossed the cemetery, where the victims of the great plague were buried in the fourteenth century; the plague germs were still alive, and the workmen had died of the plague that in Boccaccio’s time decimated Florence.
“Would you like a new dress, Caterina?” said Patsy, as we paused at the gate. Her ragged gown clung to her with the grace of classic drapery; it seemed a pity to change it for a stiff new dress. “Come to the Case Americane at two o’clock and ask for the Signora.”
“Si, Signorino!” She watched us go with dancing eyes; she was to have a new dress.
Carlino was waiting outside the gate. His cart was empty now; we stopped to look at the pretty turnout. The mule’s harness was superb, with a high pommel and headstall of crimson velvet embroidered in tinsel. The wooden axle was beautifully carved with grotesque heads at either end. The panels in sides and back of the cart were painted with different scenes from Sicilian history or literature. Many of the old legends are preserved in this way. In spite of the painting being rather poor, certain classic details are observed. The subject of each scene is stated so that there can be no doubt as to what the painter wishes to portray. On one panel of Carlino’s carretto the title is painted under a tragic mask:
“Eschylus gives a rehearsal of his play of Œdipus at Colonus at the Theatre of Dionysius.”
“That’s Eschylus,” Patsy pointed out, “you know him by the roll of manuscript in his hand—the play happens to be by Sophocles, a mere detail!”
The next panel represents English soldiers scouting in the desert.
“That’s an officer in khaki and a wide-awake hat on horseback, with an Arab in a bournous pointing out the way.”
“La prima lettera amorosa” occupies the third panel, a garden scene—a gentleman in Louis Quinze dress plays the harp to the heroine in pink satin, reading a letter; below the tail-board is a boldly carved dragon; in an under-panel a pair of sweethearts embracing. Carlino was proud of his cart, which was fresh, clean, and newly varnished.
“Not a bad carretto, is it?” he said, pleased at our attention. We left Carlino waiting, and singing as he waited an old song of the people:
“Mamma, mamma fò la preghiera
Tu non lo sai con quale ardore
Prego Iddio mattina e sera
Che dell’ amante mi serbi il core!”
We looked into the Giardino Mazzini, where the Calabresi family took refuge after the earthquake. The sign at the entrance was still intact: “The public is prayed not to touch the plants or to walk upon the grass.”
In the middle of the garden the calm face of Mazzini looks down upon a strange scene. Barracks and shanties have been knocked together anywhere, everywhere; one family is established in a gay little summer house. A clothes-line has been made fast to the pedestal that supports the patriot’s bust, a scarlet petticoat flaps behind his head; two women are washing at a tub; a man tends a fire in an open grate, built of stray bricks; in a gypsy kettle, hung on three sticks, something savory boils and bubbles. A swing has been put up across the broken iron railing; a tall girl is seated in the swing, her hair neatly tied with a green ribbon; with a bold foot she pushes the ground, and swings high, higher, under the palm trees where the dates are turning yellow. Three girls in an arbor are at work, making up a funeral wreath of laurel and pansies; one offers us flowers.
“Here,” said Patsy, giving the elder ten francs, “make a cross; take it to Caterina at the campo santo, ask her to put it on the grave where they buried Domenica an hour ago.”
“That’s the most encouraging sight that we have seen in Messina outside the Mosella,” he said, “people are beginning to buy flowers for their dead.”
Punctual to the minute, Caterina tapped on my door.
“Come in, cara mia, and choose your dress.”
Spread out on the sea-moss bed were several frocks; I hoped Caterina would like the blue dress, or the scarlet jacket and green skirt; she didn’t even look at them, but pointed to a black skirt and bodice, made by Sora Clara, seamstress late of Bagnara.
“Might it be this?” Then grown bold she asked for a dress for her mother’s sister.
“She has been more unfortunate than another, because she had more to lose! When Zia Maddalena went back to her house to get the money hidden in her mattress, it was gone. Poveretta!”
“Why didn’t Zia Maddalena keep her money in the bank, instead of that foolish place?”
“One must hide one’s money somewhere. Cousin Sofia had hers all in her pillow. She never forgot it but ran out with it under her arm.”
Immense sums of money were lost in this way. Sicilians distrust banks; the majority keep their money hidden in their houses. The thieves, knowing this habit, knew just where to look.
We chose a dress for Zia Maddalena and one for Cousin Sofia; then Caterina took us to call on her relations. We found them hard at work, building a little shack from what looked like American lumber. Zia Maddalena, a gay little old woman, with a load of boards on her back, scolded her two small grandsons.
“Do me the favor to work a little faster, Checco. The rain will begin before we have the roof on. Birbante! Are you not ashamed? You are slower than a sheep.”
Caterina made us known to aunt and cousin. Zia Maddalena welcomed us; Sofia, sitting on the ground, suckling her infant, smiled and nodded.
“I have lived on this spot for thirty-seven years,” the old woman began. “She was born here,” pointing to Sofia. “Do you think I would live anywhere else? Later we shall have one of the American barracks. The Signore will speak to the Sor Comandante of us?”
Sofia handed the baby to her mother, picked up a stone for a hammer and began to nail down the roof.
“That’s the little scamp who steals the nails from camp,” said Patsy, “a handful at a time. Look at the size of his fist!”
I gave Zia Maddalena the garments we had brought.
“Good!” she said, “so we shall have something decent for Pasqua, black too; are we not both widows? She lost her husband, I mine, but she saved her money. Well, what’s to be done about it? We are alive, that’s always something.”
Zia Maddalena was stout of heart; she had nothing but smiles for us.
“I hope they can have one of the barracks,” I said as we walked back to camp.
Patsy of course knew all about it.
“When the houses are finished,” he explained, “Belknap will turn them over to the local authorities. He’s been pestered for them already, especially by Messinesi who claim to be American citizens. The allotment of the houses won’t be an easy job for anybody; the municipality must tackle it. There’s a good fighting chance for our friends. The aunt of Caterina is the grandmother of Gasperone. She is officially connected with the camp, a person of influence!”
We were picking our way through almost impassable streets, climbing mountains of debris. At one place we found ourselves on a level with the second story of what had been a handsome bedroom. The front of the palace had fallen into the heap of ruins on which we were standing. Two white beds stood side by side. On the wall hung a costly mirror without even a crack. Near the door were two trunks and a valise with the labels of several fashionable continental hotels.
“The people who lived here?” I said.
“Under the ruins; they had just returned from their wedding journey,” said Caterina.
That afternoon J. took me to the Villaggio Regina Elena on the other side of Messina. Like our camp, it is beautifully situated on the edge of a torrente, facing the straits. As we drove over the fine road, I could hardly credit what J. told me, that both road and village had been built since the earthquake. We were met by two Italian officers; one carried J. off to look over the site for the American quarter here, the other offered to show me the Villaggio.
The butcher was just taking down his shutters, opening shop for the afternoon. The bakery stood opposite; the smell of fresh bread floated from the window. The baker’s wife sat sewing in the doorway; a baby, swaddled stiff as a papoose, lay in her lap.
“Enter, enter!” she said hospitably. “Will the Signora be pleased to see the oven?”
She threw open the iron door; a brushwood fire roared and crackled in the black cavern.
“He has made one baking already; see how light the bread is!” She broke a small loaf to show what good bread her husband made. The officer tasted a morsel.
“Va bene,” he nodded. “Tell Pietro I am content.”
As we walked about the village, the officer told me its brief history:
“Built for the Queen by the sailors of the battleship, Regina Elena, and the soldiers of the 19th Infantry. It has been an immense fatigue—that cannot be denied. O! the rain, rain, rain, that’s been the worst of it. The sailors had a change of clothes, it wasn’t so bad for them; our soldiers had but one uniform—when that was wet, there was no other to change. So many have died, some from exposure—they were poorly nourished, they gave half their rations to the starving women and children—some from blood-poisoning, poverini! If one had a little scratch, a mere nothing, on his hand when he went on duty, excavating the ruins, taking out the dead—bah! a pin-prick was enough!”
The houses are neat and comfortable, painted white and whitewashed over the paint, as double precaution against vermin. Each house has a porch and wooden steps. The village is under military control; a kindly control one saw that, as every man, woman, child we met had a smile for the Capitano.
“What is that building?” I asked; we were passing a small house with barred windows.
“Alas! Signora, it is a prison. Discipline is necessary—our men are good fellows but they are human—a firm hand is the kindest in the end.”
We passed through the Via Principessa Mafalda and the Piazza Giovanna, named for the little princesses, to the Piazza Emanuele, the center of the village life. The tiny church stands here, a tall flagpole with the national flag of Italy directly before the door.
“It has cost us more trouble to build this than all the rest,” laughed the Capitano. The chapel contains an altar, a confessional and a cupboard for the vestments, books and mass vessels. There is no room for the congregation; they must stand or sit outside for the service.
“It has been a little hard—during the deluge; that must come to an end; in general, as the Signora has heard, this is a fine climate!”
As a child keeps the biggest plum for the last, my officer had kept the school, the crowning glory of the Villaggio, for the end.
“Opened on the 7th of March, Signora, nearly a month ago, at her Majesty’s desire. She did not wish the children to lose a year’s schooling—they have not lost much time, these little ones, have they?”
School was over, the children scattered; the captain sent a lad for the schoolhouse key.
“Her Majesty sent all the books and furniture from Rome. See the nice little desks, the little chairs. Here are the copy-books. This belongs to the son of that woman you talked with, a fair hand for a nine-year-old, non è vero?”
He showed me the text-books, the maps, the teacher’s records, the sum in subtraction on the blackboard, the prancing horse a clever scholar had drawn below it.
“It’s one of the best equipped village schools I ever saw,” I exclaimed.
He glowed with pleasure—he loved the Villaggio as a man only loves the thing he has created. From the wall behind the teacher’s desk, the grave kind face of the young Queen looked down upon her school. We found J. still discussing the site of the American quarter with his officer.
“With respect, sir,” said J., “it’s my opinion that this is the best site—the view is incomparable.”
“Unquestionably true, but the ground slopes; to level it will cost immense trouble and fatigue. This other land behind here—“
“The trouble will not be counted, sir; for a hospital the higher ground, the better air, the prospect, surely are important. Her Majesty would, I feel sure, prefer the site that the Comandante Belknap finds most desirable—“
Both were earnest, polite, adamantine; but I knew that Captain Belknap’s site would carry the day!
I did not learn till later that my officer was Captain Bignami, an heroic figure in the drama of Messina. From first to last he was the staunch friend of the Americans. His name, like Captain Cagni’s at Reggio, is one that Italy will hear more of; it was never spoken in our camp without some word of praise.
It seems a poetical justice that sailors should have done so much for Messina, for it has always been a hospitable port for the ships of all nations, since the first Phoenician trader crept timidly along the African coast, made a dash across the straits, and felt his way into the harbor. It was one of the trysting places for the ships of the world. The sailors heard of its destruction with a shiver of regret; with a haunting memory of its lovely shores, splendid with pomegranates, golden oranges, dark glossy carob trees, silver olives; where the joyous notes of the tarantella echoed by day, the languid music of the serenade by night; where the air was cool with the kiss of snowy Etna; sweet with the perfume of many orange groves.