The Messina earthquake, the American mafia, the war, too much blood, and the too many deaths in so few years had worn him out.
He chose the quiet life of a farmer and decided to stay in San Giorgio.
There he began his second life.
A year after the end of the Great War, he met Nunzia and got married. Slowly, they began to cultivate the land, raise animals, and have children.
In November 1921, his first son, Ture, was born.
Ture was now 20 years old.
He was a bright and solid young man. As the eldest of the large family, he was, by right and by duty, the right-hand man of Zi Peppe Pileri, who had brought him up on hoe and bread from an early age.
Young Ture was meek, but not a few times he came home red with rage and fisticuffs. He never offended anyone, he was respectful towards his elders, and he didnt let anyone push him around.
His brothers were still little and only helped out on some occasions, such as during the harvest, the grape harvest, or the olive and hazelnut picking.
Ture, on the other hand, was already of an age to serve the family full-time. When he didnt go with his father, because there wasnt much work, he was hired by someone and walked home in the evening because there was only one mule in the family, used by Zi Peppe. If he had any luck, on the way back, there was a cart that would take him to San Basilio, and from there, he would continue along the mule track that connected the two villages. Sometimes, however, he had no luck and arrived in San Giorgio wet to the bone because, on the way, he had been caught in a gale and, in order to not remain in the dark, had walked without shelter under the pouring rain.
Since the beginning of the war, things had got worse for the family because the local farmers no longer hired Ture on a day-to-day basis. They seemed resentful because he had managed to be exempted from the military service, thanks to a recommendation his father had provided him with.
It was as if those men were complaining that Zi Peppe had not also recommended their sons. Strong arms were needed. The war was causing hunger and mourning for almost a year over those desolate lands of the Nebrodi mountains.
Zi Peppe knew well that some things were better done by himself and for himself, so he had pulled some strings only for his son Ture. Besides, he knew from experience that, if the situation were reversed, they would have provided only for their children so as not to lower the chance of saving them from the war.
He had succeeded, and he did not even feel guilty about it. He saw Ture working hard for his brothers and sisters and knew he had done the right thing.
Honest as he was, however, he did carry a little guilt inside: he had had to bow down to lord Marchiolo, a hardened fascist, who had rank and power at the Military District of Tortorici.
He had swallowed many bitter pills just for his son, to keep him with him in the fields and, above all, to save him from the horrors he had experienced on the Karst, and from almost certain death.
For this reason, when Gnura Mena had cast the evil eye on him, he had felt it all over him! It was not just the words of a charlatan, but a common feeling that had crept into the souls and minds of the other villagers: why were their sons at war, while Ture, young and strong, was still serving his father?
The war had taken many strong arms from their families, and this was the major gripe.
People were starving, and hunger claimed more victims than war. And it took no prisoners.
III
At first, Ture wanted nothing to do with going to war, hearing his fathers gruesome tales. As soon as he was exempted from military duties, he went back to his village, and the next day he set off to work in the fields.
Summer arrived.
With time, however, this privilege began to take its toll on him, as he felt the eyes of everyone, especially the families who had soldiers at the front.
His behaviour began to be affected: he withdrew into himself. He became more and more quarrelsome and grumpy. Sometimes, when people asked him why he wasnt at war, he would tell them stories he made up at the moment. He said he was waiting for being called to the front to some of them. Or that he was about to leave the following month. To others, that he was about to embark from Messina or that any more soldiers were needed. Time passed, and, at the end of July 1941, Ture was still in the fields harvesting with his father.
After a time, most people began to disbelieve these excuses, and many others, who learned the truth, accused him of being a coward, of bringing dishonour to their village. And even if they did not spit such contempt in his face for fear of getting a few punches in the jaw, they talked behind his back everywhere: at the mill, the haberdashery, the grain stores.
Ture would hear this chatter, and it would eat away at his pride, but when he got home in the evening, he would look his brothers and sisters in the eye, and the thought of these evil tongues soon disappeared. For this reason, he worked even harder. He felt that he owed to fate, then he busied himself with many more tasks than his father gave him daily.
August also arrived.
One evening, when he came back from the countryside a little earlier, he saw Concetta loaded down with some pitcher, intent on going to the trough near the river, and offered to help her.
Why are you in a rush to help me? His sister asked.
Usually you nod your head and say thank you in these cases, Ture replied.
Are you coming to help your poor sister or to see your cousin Lia?
Concettas question caught her brother off guard. Cousin Lia was nineteen years old. She was already shapely but not yet engaged. Ture had honestly never thought she could be anything more than a cousin.
Im not interested in Lia, and if you talk any more, you will go to the trough on your own!
No? Too bad...
Too bad, why?
Because Lia likes you!
Concetta, stop it! I dont have time to be engaged now and dont put ideas in our cousins head. Indeed tell her that your brother Ture doesnt want her, so shell make her peace!
Then you can tell it to her if we find her at the trough.
I dont have to tell her anything! Thats a lie you put in your head. Or maybe mum and dad want me to settle down with Lia? Tell me the truth!
Ture, worried that his parents wanted to arrange a marriage with his cousin, stopped suddenly, put down the pottery pitchers, and waited anxiously for his sisters reply. He had a debt of honour and gratitude to his father for the military service issue, but he did not want to settle it that way.
Brother, calm down! Nobody knows anything. Lia confided in me, and thats why I told you. If its not your will, then nothing will be done about it, his sister said, resuming her walk.
Ture took up the pitchers again and started walking towards the trough. His sisters reply had relieved him, and, with a slight grin, he continued the conversation: And you, how is it that at eighteen you are already a matchmaker? If you want, I can find a suitor for you, sister dear!
Stop it, you moron, I can look after myself all right, and when I get engaged, no one will know! One evening I would take him home suddenly, and the next morning I get married!
They burst into roaring laughter, and as they were close to the trough, they attracted the womens attention, who were also intent on collecting water in their pitchers.
There was Lia, who seemed to have been waiting for that moment all her life. Concettas face was enough to dispel any illusion.
They spent some time apart, and Tures sister confessed that her cousin was not interested in her.
Then Lia, feeling rejected, was filled with rage faster than the pitchers being filled. Then she began to taunt Ture, always on the story of the war, of the exemption, of Zi Peppe Pileris recommendation.
Ture didnt answer. He knew very well that these provocations came from a young woman whose pride was wounded, and he waited patiently for that trickle of water, now made feeble by the August heat, to fill the pitcher without uttering a word.
Suddenly, a young, witty voice broke the irritating blabber of Lia.
Shut up, lizard! On the other side of the big trough, Lias younger sister, Rosa, blurted out to the older one with such a scowl that Ture himself, who had not noticed her at first, was intrigued.
Lia suddenly became quiet. Although she was the eldest, she felt like those vain horses that suddenly, for nothing, become agitated and to which the master, to calm them, gives them a single well-aimed blow of the whip. She pulled a sheet out of the big straw basket and resumed her washing without looking at the onlookers.
Ture, on the other hand, had not ceased to stare at Rosa during all those brief moments of silence following her heated intervention, and when their eyes finally met, the young woman almost blushed with shame, and he nodded his head briefly in thanks.
Concetta exchanged a few more unclear words with poor Lia, who was venting her lingering anger on the sheet, now whiter than snow. Then she waved for her brother to start off for home, for the evening was already approaching.
Lizard! Concetta said when the trough was far away. From where did Rosa pull that?
It was a polite way of not saying snake to her, her brother retorted. But is it acceptable that she addresses me like that just for a no as an answer , to talk bullshit shed heard around? Forked lizard!
And what kind of animal is Rosa? Let's hear it
In a different mood and tone, Ture said: Rosa is a little dove!
Hahaha! A little dove sharp-tongued, though! Concetta retorted, with a smile on her lips. And if I didn't shake you, youd still be there, at her until dark! You see, Rosa isnt one of those little doves you can get your hand on!
Ture had the peculiar ability to imitate the dove sounds so well that those birds approached him without fear. Now and then, in quiet moments in the country, he would sit among the branches and attract the lovebirds with his cry.
You always know everything, Concettina, dont you? You feel like the sage of the house, the schoolteacher!
I dont know anything, but I saw you staring at the little dove!
Only because I hadnt seen her for a long time. Shes grown, thats all
The little dove is not easy to catch, dear brother! She doesnt fall under your lures.
Why not? What do you know about it?
Ture, are you nuts? Because she is a rogue little dove, and if you try to catch her
She flies... his brother continued. I know very well that, if you get too close, she gets scared, opens her wings... and flies.
IV
Ture carried the story of the little dove with him for days to come. He kept thinking about Rosa, how she had reprimanded her sister, and how she had shyly lowered her gaze in front of her cousins awe-struck eyes. This last image was upsetting his soul.
At the sweet thought of his cousin, suddenly, everything else paled in comparison: the anxiety about the war, the rumours in the village, the uncertainty about his future. How many times had he seen her? At least ten thousand, if he had bothered to count. But a few nights ago, at the river fountain, for the first time, he had looked at her with different eyes.
Without realising it, Ture Pileri was falling in love.
Throughout August, he had only seen Rosa a few more times and only briefly. However, since that day at the trough, he lost focus. His hands were always sweaty, and his hoe would almost slip from his grasp. If he was tending the herds, and some goats would escape down the slope, he did not even notice them, so much engrossed in thoughts of that young girl who had stunned his soul.
All this without Rosa ever saying a word to him.
For another two months, no one was seen there, in San Giorgio. The war seemed to have forgotten him, but Ture, on those autumn nights of 1941, thought only of Rosas voice, because in his head reverberated that shut up, lizard shot in her sisters face; he dreamed of sweet words in a time without hunger or need. Then, at dawn, he would wake up again in his world: the air was already beginning to get cold and sharp, half a bowl of milk and a piece of hard bread to dip in, and then work, the fields, the goats in the afternoon and nothing more.
In the moments of solitude, Tures twenty years of age all appeared before him.
What had he been up to all that time? He had served his family, had listened to his fathers advice, had gone, and still went to work under a master. He thought that, deep down, he had never done a thing on his own, never stepped out of line, never said a word more, and even the times he had gotten into fisticuffs, it had only been to defend himself.
It was All Souls Day, when Ture, looking after the goats in Santa Nicola, met his uncle, Zi Nunzio, Lia and Rosas father, whom everyone in San Basilio called Zi Duca.
A pleasant sun kissed the spring-like morning and warmed bones numb from the dreary season.
God bless you, Zi Duca. What are you doing here?
We are picking some asparagus. Your cousin Rosa is close by.
And Lia isnt here? Ture asked.
No, shes been in a foul mood lately and stayed at home. If you go down the road, and youll find her under the brick wall.
He didnt even have time to make sense of Zi Ducas answer when Rosa jumped out of a patch of broom.
In one hand, she was holding her apron full of wild asparagus, and in the other, an awl with which she was digging the earth. Her raven hair was in a braid, she wore a heavy pair of boots that were too big for her slender feet, and she had the dishevelled look of someone clinging to cliffs to tear up the precious vegetable with her bare hands.
She is beautiful!, Ture thought. Even more beautiful than that evening at the fountain.
Looking at her with different eyes now, he understood he had always loved her and was blind before. He figured out a way to get close to her and to talk to her without anxiety. He wanted to express this feeling without a shaking voice and sweating hands.
Ture Pileri had never been in love, and now, like a bolt of lightning, Rosa had arrived to change his thoughts and disrupt his days.
In the meantime, Zi Duca had picked up some shredded tobacco from his pocket and, while he chewed it, had settled down to rest.
Ture took the opportunity to trot over to Rosa, hoping to get a few moments alone with her. When he reached her, Rosa herself made the first move.
Cousin, how are you? Have you forgiven my sister Lia? Sometimes she gets caught up in the heat of the moment! Its been a lifetime since that evening, and Ive already forgotten about it, Ture replied. Then he let the most longspun moment of his life pass, drew a long breath, and declared: I cant forget you, Rosa!