His sister Maria was
the only person ha was able to talk confidently with,quitting his
usual imperturbable mask.Theirs was not a loving relation,too
sceptical they both were to yield to tender feelings ,but it was
a firm,definite link: the only one,perhaps,of their proud lives.
His daughter Rita arrived , too. She used to accompany him after
the very young boy's death,caused by a sudden heart stroke,like
his mother.
George had lived that loss not only as a
sorrow but also as a wrong and injustice made to him,his father,who
would have liked to make some plans for that son,who promised so
well . Only his daughter was left for him,scorned by his destiny
he could expect nothing from her.
Fat dark and heavy,Rita looked older than
her thirty years of age,but in her soul she was still a girl,
loved sweets and dresses,was very lazy and undetermined.
Her father would gaze at her from his
haughty scepticism,sympathetically marked when she watched him
with her dark good eyes,to tell him little everyday stories in
her quiet voice.
When they were at home,in the evening,after
dinner,father and daughter sat still,silent,watching the
television,then a wonder, and following the thread of the events
on the small screen.
In these quiet moments George accepted
his reality and thought it was no use to look for another one.
He sometimes fell asleep and then
television stories were woven together with dreams,or with the
messy memories of a more or less far off past.
Rita used to follow his father in his
tours,and she never missed to pay Maria a visit.
The rumour among the cousins was that the
biggest share of the aunt's patrimony was destined to her:once
only this topic had been dealt with by George and his sister,and
no longer he wanted to consider it.
They both were aware of the fact that
owing to her ineptitude Rita would have wasted the patrimony,but
they knew,too, that nothing else was to be done: because they
loved that human being so different from them,as helpless and
frail as they were able of defence and aggression.
Even cousins Pio and Ciro,Paolina's sons,her
mother's sister,came to celebrate Maria's birthday.
Gentlemen at home,they felt themselves
low in comparison with their socially superior cousin.
Of the two brothers,the former,Pio,from
their ancestors had inherited a tall size and a solid harmonious
appearence but not the quite pale family complexion,as he was
dark in his eyes,skin and hair: his father,an enriched peasant's
heritage.The latter,Ciro,was of a singular ugliness: crisp raven
hair was a turban on his head, and underneath,his face was witty
and wild with slantwise eyes and a thin nose.
A postal clerk ,he got rid of the
frustration of his boring job,whence he got his bread,devoting
his leisure to a wittier more creative work:he built Christmas
cribs.He created characters,houses,landscapes and objects,invented
stories.
The family genious,which had through the
centuries appeared in some painter or poet,had its expression in
his singular activity,manual and imaginative.
A handmade crib piece ,finished in the
smallest details was his gift,and each birthday he enriched
cousin Maria's collection:even if it might have been more
suitable as a Christmas present.
That year Ciro brought a particularly
cute,small statue:a glassed and shirt sleeved shoemaker,sitting
at his multi-tooled desk around which tiny battered shoes had
been placed.
"How nice!"Maria said,on seeing
it."Really a little masterpiece!"
"It is the peasant handicraft
tradition,"cheerfully answered Ciro,"that has still
something to say".
Maria was not interested at all in the peasant handicraft
tradition,but she nonetheless smiled at her cousin.The reason is
that she was then in high spirits.