Antonietta Pagliaga: I am from Orsera, a paradise in Istria

Protagonist: Antoinette Pagliaga
Author: Antoinette Pagliaga

These pages speak of a life full of love. The grateful love of the Slavic peasants towards my father who had turned out to be a good and just man. Filial love towards a mother with her struggle to get by. Love for myself, increased by such a special birth, full of omens of well-being and unshakable optimism. Fortunately, he is able to live through difficult moments without anxiety, considering them almost as an opportunity for new opportunities. Love for the city known as a child in its most suggestive corners. The friendly love of talking to each other beyond a curtain, the admiring love towards a teacher who knew how to open the doors of knowledge. The precise love for my work. Passionate love. At night I would like bats, in the morning to wake up to the rooster's crowing, to run remembering the moment I saw the light on that distant Sunday in June. I am from Vrsar, a paradise in Istria, where my family, uncles, grandparents have lived as long as anyone can remember. I felt that the bunches of grapes were bending the vines more than they should, the hazelnuts were producing very large fruit, the figs smelled of honey and would burst if they were not picked in time. Along the coast lived Italians who, like my relatives, worked the land, with the help of Slavic laborers from the interior, all this in harmony. Meneghetta, an old midwife of the village, found herself one day (28-6-1942) having to deal with a more difficult birth than usual; she looked for the doctor at home, but could not find him. The labor was laborious, he encouraged himself with a sip, in that case, maybe two. Finally the baby was born and she was surprised to find herself in front of a screaming little being, wearing something that made her emit exclamations of surprise, of wonder, and finally of joy. For her, the woman giving birth no longer existed: “She was born with a caul, look, look,” she repeated to herself. He didn't realize that he had no answer to his exclamations. At this point we must explain what happened: my mother, Maria, could not tell me exactly what the camisetta was, because she could not see it, being more on the other side than on this side after giving birth. The camisetta is part of a membrane that is found inside the amniotic sac; due to the rarity of the case that the baby at birth carries part of this membrane, popular legends give this a value of good luck, that is, of fortune, hence the saying: born with a shirt. We have to think that the person who explained it to me is, for many mothers in Trieste, the most authoritative person in delivering children, whether due to years of experience or passion for her profession, a well-known midwife. Meneghetta, on the other hand, worked in a small town, where children were not always born; I couldn't say if she was a midwife or if she had started this job out of love. We can imagine how she reacted to this fact: she was at the end of her career, and on top of that, she was a simple woman and therefore superstitious. A neighbor, Maria de Salvatore, so called, also adding her husband's name to hers, to distinguish her from the other Maries, arrived, first to help the mother, then because of the exclamations that Meneghetta could not hold back, it was summer, in the village the doors were kept open. He immediately noticed the paleness of the woman giving birth and noticed how my mother was bleeding to death. Everything became hectic, except for the woman who continued to take care of the little girl, who despite everything was still the center of her attention, because according to her she had seen so many dying women. Maria de Salvatore ran screaming out of the house, down the little road that leads to the sea. “The doctor, look for the doctor!” she shouted in despair: “Maria is dying!” Some old women came running, attracted by that shouting that distracted them from their usual and quiet Sunday midday chores, while their old husbands lingered at the tavern chatting and joking, waiting for lunch time, while their children and grandchildren enjoyed their just reward, basking in the sun, splashing in the transparent waters of that still much vaunted sea. Someone thought of going down to the beach. He was there enjoying that day, whose midday sun still provided a warm caress, before July arrived and the heat that comes with it, he remained in his bathing suit - there was no time to get dressed - he ran to the house, finding the woman exhausted and soaked in his blood. It was all a struggle to keep her in this world (I don't know how to describe how it all happened, I only know that my mother had a serious hemorrhage due to uterine atony; a midwife would have known how to behave, from this I deduce that Meneghetta was only an aid). Finally the doctor breathed a sigh of relief, my mother was out of danger, and this allowed her to show everyone the baby, still with the membrane on, even the doctor was surprised, it was his first experience too, since as a doctor in the village he took care of everything, from delivering babies to removing a nail. Meneghetta was finally able to devote herself peacefully to the little girl, who with her coming into the world had caused all that chaos. He spent an infinite amount of time cleaning me, in that moment I was only his. “This little girl was born with a caul, and on a Sunday at noon,” she repeated almost to herself (although I never understood what she meant by this Sunday at noon): both facts are auspicious in popular belief. The doctor, relieved, replied jokingly to the woman: in fact, your fortune began today, I had to go to Trieste, you found me by chance. Thus began my life, confident that nothing bad could happen to me; so my mother raised me with little apprehension, which she did not do with my brothers, infected by those prophecies full of optimism. My father, Innocente, born in 1900, was the youngest of 6 siblings (Francesco, the firstborn, Silvio, Elia, Maria and Giovanna); they had only made him study up to high school, at the seminary in Capodistria, because he would have had to, being el caganil, that is, the last, stay at home to take care of the land, of his two unmarried sisters, who would never work and of his old grandmother Antonia, a widow. My mother, Maria, was born in Polcenigo, in Friuli, in 1911; she had four siblings (Lisa, Gigia, Gigi and Fiore, the youngest and the favorite of all). My parents met in Trieste, in a wealthy family, where my mother, since she was a child, lived as a lady-in-waiting to the lady; she had been chosen for her courtesy and refinement, qualities noted by acquaintances of the family in question, who went to Polcenigo, to have shoes made by my grandfather, whose mastery was known as far as Milan; he taught his trade to apprentices with great patience. Their marriage, celebrated in 1933 in Trieste, was always opposed by their father's two unmarried sisters, who perhaps feared losing their youngest brother, their only source of income at the time, as the elders lived in Trieste due to their professions. He loved the countryside, even if he always repeated that the land is low, I understand him well, he didn't hoe, others did that, he took care of more important things, cutting the vines and getting the men to agree, in this he was special, he was always respected in his life, even later, he was called: the mayor of Gretta, for the affection and sympathy he inspired. We were left in '42, at the time of my birth; we are now in '44 or so, I don't know exactly the right month, we began to feel a sense of precariousness, my father decided to take us away from Orsera, he sent us to Polcenigo, my mother's home town, the choice was wise. I was two years old at the time, my sister Liliana was 10, he reassured us by promising to join us as soon as possible. We didn't hear from him for many months. In the village there was a need to requisition meat for the army, they called him back, in spite of himself he had to wear the uniform; he was assigned the task of going to the Slavic peasants, who when they were not busy on the coast lived off cattle, take a cow and then have it slaughtered. It was a thankless task, which he carried out as fairly as possible, trying not to deprive the poorest of their only livelihood. THIS SAVED HIS LIFE! Things weren't bad in Polcenigo, there was also Uncle Fiore, my mother's younger brother who had recently arrived and adored me. During the last days of the war, he was lured into the surrounding mountains by a trap, and was killed there in an ambush by a stray bullet: this was the official theory, when his body was handed over to his desperate family. The dynamics of his death were never clarified, for his mother and grandmother, it was mourning forever in their hearts. Of that time, I speak of our arrival in the village, I have vague, faded memories: I was very small, my memory is Liliana, my sister, who I consult continuously, to understand the story well; the mother, still lucid and independent at 90 years old, has a memory still lively but confused for the dates. Grandfather's large house was located in the center, with a small courtyard in front of the door; its foundations were built on the Gorgazzo, a small river that cut the town in two. Its source could be reached by going up towards the town of the same name. A spectacular spring for its beauty: the water gushed from under a sort of rocky peak, which in August filled with cyclamens, the smell was inebriating; all this made the body of water even more suggestive, a funnel, which in a few meters became very deep, and the water, which became an incredible blue so intense was it. The curiosity that this miracle of nature creates still claims new victims among speleologists and divers, who do not resign themselves to its impregnability, from which various legends are born. I have always been fascinated by beauty, I loved looking at all the photos and paintings of churches since I was a child; imagine when I learned that they had rented a small room on the ground floor of a nearby house to a young photographer. I then planned to have a nice photograph taken. I went to visit him every day. He was poor, he had nothing to keep warm, so it was winter, or almost; in the little room there was a brazier that was always empty and so I pestered my mother to give me some embers, from our always lit fireplace and every day I brought them to him, tirelessly, until he rewarded my perseverance: "Let's take a nice photograph, what do you say?" I ran home out of breath, had my clothes dressed, my hair done and that's how I got the photo I had longed for.