Lead Petals

  31

  Dear Lucy, who has written you it is Pietro Troise: your grandfather. I know from uncle Ciro that your mother has never spoken to you of me, rather you/he/she has always told you, that was dead as your father. Among few days you will perform eighteen years and my lawyer can finally deliver you this letter. In the preceding pages there was the book of my life. I have told you all of my history, that of your mother and of your father, putting us my emotions and imagining as has gone for the others. I have done him because you have the right to know the truth. You have the right to know why don't have a father and because you have never known your grandfather. I have written this history in third person, as if the Pietro Troise of these pages I was not me. I have done him because I tell you, in truth, to still be ashamed of that Pietro Troise blinded by the anger. That man perhaps I was not me holy Christ! You didn't know him/it but I/you/they have always been in contact with uncle Ciro. One recent photo of yours has sent me: you have the same red hair that it had your father and you are beautiful as your mother. You also resemble to the buonanima of Barbaric grandmother. Of me, uncle Ciro tells me, you have taken only the definite character. You don't know how many nights I have dreamt you to run after the butterflies in the green fields of the farm of Caserta. I still feel me with the sergeant Matteo Podda that it informs me on the facts of Montevecchio. The doctor Saints it is dead four years ago of heart attack. Luigi and Lella are married and now they have three children: Stephen, Gabriele and Adelia. Luigi's mother, tzia Adelia, is dead in the sleep after the war. Mrs Loi lives in our house; the care waiting for my reentry. That house one day will be yours. Phillip Minghetti alive to Rome and you/he/she has made road in politics. His/her wife is always the usual London duchess. Of Daniel Minghetti nobody has ever known void. There is who swears to have seen to wander him/it the night in the wood as it was Lucio and his/her children they tremble for the legend of the monster of Montevecchio. Emilio has become another person: now it always smiles and group leader has been named. His/her child Franco studies engineering with good results. From the evil that I have done, at least some good you/he/she has come.

  Here in the jail I divide the cell with an intellectual that has unjustly been accused of homicide. Thanks to him I read so much and I have learned the value of the writing. But here I have also known people without scruples that you/he/she has been able to kill in cold blood his/her own children. Once, a prisoner, that I had made to arrest when I directed the barracks of Terralba, you/he/she has recognized me and you/he/she has tried to thrust me a spoon in throat. Luckily you/he/she has missed me. I have killed for not stopping loving and to be beloved holy Christ! That day was Emilio to shoot, but of he there was only the presence. The eyes that you/they took the aim and the finger that you/he/she has pressed the trigger were mine and of Daniel Minghetti. I wonder me every stramaledetto day if, when they will play the trumpets of the angels, God will reserve for me the same treatment of my companions of jail, that you/they have killed for pure to like to do him/it.

  In two years I will end to discount my punishment and I will come to look for you, if you will want him/it. I would like to bring you to Montevecchio and to make to see you where your mother has lived, where your father has lived, where you have been conceived and where I have completed that misfortune. I would like that you felt that odors that noises, that I/you saw the marvelous colors of the sea and those rough some mountain. I would like that I belonged to that world. I would like that I saw the earth that the heart has bewitched me. I would like that I put a flower in the grave of your father. I have been wrong and your mother has cancelled me from your existence. I cannot blame her/it. You are my daughter and I would give the life to be able to still embrace her/it. I am afraid of the divine judgment, but I would swap gladly the certainty to be forgiven from you want with the possibility to be forgiven by God. Once dead I will have the whole time that I want for convincing the Lord to have been wrong only for love of my daughter.

  Be maddish! I have never seen you but I feel me as if I knew for a long time yourself. Small my, this is your grandfather: a man that has killed your father and he/she now asks your forgiveness. When I will go out I will have made twenty years of jail. Now I almost have sessantacinque years, the white hair and so many wrinkles. But the thing most important it is that I/you/they are changed. The jail and its loneliness have taught me to listen to myself. You/they have taught me to reflect. You/they have taught me to take the correct decisions and to recognize my errors. Uncle Ciro tells that you are a convinced and practising believer. Christianity professes the pardon. After twenty years of jail you will be able of to forgive to have killed me your father?

  I send you an enormous kiss and I would like to tighten you strong among my braccias. To dir the truth I would tighten strong also your mother if it were here with me. I wish me that you will be able of to accept the excuses of a grown foolish old man. The only idea that you can do him/it me riempie the heart of joy.

  Talk to you soon my small nephew, grandfather there has been always and if you will want him/it there will be still. Grandfather Pietro Troise.

  Geneva and Lucy cried with the leaned head the one on the other. They embraced. Lucy closed again the letter and inserted her/it in the envelope together with the other pages. Its red hair perfumed of lavender and it was false that it didn't resemble at all to Pietro: it had the same look. «Therefore is dad dead so?» churches, fixing the sad eyes of his/her mother.

  Geneva was waited for that question. You/he/she was fought in the mind. «Yes! It is what there is written in the letter!»

  «Because you have never told me this history? Because you have never told me that I had a grandfather?» There was no grudge in his/her eyes.

  Geneva he allowed to escape a hiccup. Lucy saw his/her ready mother to collapse and regretted to have asked her those questions.

  «You are calm, mother. I know that you have hidden only me everything for my his/her own good.»

  Geneva smiled in turn. It was fierce to have such a thoughtful daughter, just as you/he/she had been Lucio.

  Lucy serious ridivenne. «I can answer to his/her/their grandfather?»

  Geneva started. From eighteen years it didn't have anything anymore to whether to do with his/her father. "You/he/she had done well"?, he/she wondered. «Some that you are able, Lucy. We will send together our letters» he/she answered sobbing. Lucy still embraced her/it.

  Geneva leaned out from the window and saw the wind that rippled the fields of wheat. It remembered the sea of yellow oil in the summer that the countries of Montevecchio had been. It saw the face of Lucio again. It saw his/her father that poured the warm water in the bathtub bleached by the foam again. You/he/she was crossed by a shiver and it felt him happy. Realize to have forgiven him/it.