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and the same old thick wooden door with the two solid brass ring knockers. My paternal grandparents' house stood completely abandoned in the Valle Vecchia section. The wine cellar was empty, the front door semi-opened did not allow entrance because the kitchen ceiling had fallen behind it. Through the slight opening I could see a few objects still on the fireplace shelf, as if ready to be used. I was glad that soon after my grandparents' death, my cousin had sent me the three fireplace implements from this house: the shovel (la palell); the pincer (la tenaglia); and the blower (lu zufflatur) which we still have. The most beautiful deep red roses of the village which filled my grandmother's terrace were no longer there. The old grapevine that climbed to the upper balcony was still there, with leaves still green and loaded with black grapes that no one would pick. As I went through the village, street corners and houses emerged with so many ghost-like memories. Most of the fields near the village, once carefully cultivated, had been abandoned and many of them had been overtaken by bushes. Some of the well trodden paths no longer existed and had been reclaimed by thorn bushes. Where once flourished my paternal grandfather's vineyard and orchard there was now a wooded lot. The little stone walled and thatched roof casetta, where he kept his tools |  |
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and which served as a shelter on rainy days, was now a pile of gray stones barely visible and hardly distinguishable from the other field stones. Fontemurata (fumbrat), the fountain at the outskirts of the village stood there still, but did not have any water, only patches of green moss could be seen here and there on the stone pavement. A couple of old springs that used to bubble clean and fresh from the ground, now trickled down from a steel pipe into a cement vat smudged by green algae; this all in the name of progress. The people seemed to have changed. Even those of my age or older, and who had shared with me the same world and life in the 30s' and 40s' did not rekindle for me any ties to that world so distant now. Was it because I remembered it as I left it forty seven years before and they had forgotten it as they continued to live in it? Suddenly I felt more representative of that world which I had left than they who had remained in it. Fallo had retained many of its old traits in spite of the beautiful innovations but I sadly felt a sense of alienation not only from the place but also from the people. Had I stayed longer or returned more often to visit or live in Fallo perhaps I would have felt or slowly regained a sense of belonging, or even a sense of continuity and acceptance of the "new Fallo", but this I will never know. Of one thing, however, I am sure: that |
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