A Lesson In...

A Lesson In Italian History.

Robert Porter dished out the pasta Bolognese onto the plates and called through to his wife that dinner was ready. As she joined him at the dining table, the Italian music was in full swing. The kitchen was soon filled with instrumental traditional Italian music and the aromas of the wonderful pasta dish. Louise tried the food, and nodded to her husband.

‘Rob, this is so good.’ She said.

‘It’s in my genes. Only someone of Italian heritage can really cook pasta. You can’t teach this stuff.’ He said.

The story went that Robert’s great-grandmother was from Naples, or Napoli, as he insisted on calling it. He was so proud of his links to Italy and followed the country’s team in the football World Cup. When they’d first met, while they were getting to know each other, Robert had explained excitedly about his Italian heritage. He had enthused about his passion for all things Italian, the music, the culture, the language. Louise understood his love of the country and its culture. They was something intoxicating, seductive about the country. She had been to Rome and Florence on holiday and had fallen in love with the country herself. 

As they ate their pasta, Robert spoke.

‘You know how my uncle Brendan died last month? I’ve told my mother I’d help clear the house out. I said I’d make a start at weekend.’

‘I’ll give you a hand. We’ll get up early on Saturday and get cracking.’

‘Deal. Thanks, love.’

By nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Robert and Louise were unlocking the front door to the terraced house on Rock Street. They had a quick look around, scoping for how much work they had clearing the place. There would be skips to be hired, maybe even transit vans to do tip runs. Some of Rob’s friends could be roped in to help with the bulkier items. They would get there in the end but would be a slog. 

The downstairs of the house had the usual set up, three piece suite furniture, television, and the kitchen with its cooker and washing machine. The house had a dated feel to it. His uncle had still used his video recorder, and had a selection of tapes in a cabinet and in the kitchen, the cooker had an eye-level grill and looked like it dated back to the 1970s. They built things to last in those days, Rob thought. Rob had been in their house for fifteen years, and they were already on their second oven and third washing machine. In his uncle’s day things came with a life-time guarantee and would last for decades. 

Going upstairs was like stepping into a museum of modern history. The bedroom was clear, but the two spare rooms were crammed full.  While his uncle Brendan hadn’t been exactly a hoarder, over the years, he had collected a lot of things. There were plastic boxes stuffed with all sorts of items. He gave Louise a knowing grin. She stared in shock at the life-time’s worth of items. Uncle Brendan had been into all sorts, judging from the items gathering dust in the spare rooms. There was all kinds of items, from a dozen ukuleles, to Martial Arts uniforms, and hundreds of vinyl records. While his wife saw a collection of tatt, Robert was thinking differently. 

‘Some of this might be worth something, you know.’ Robert said. ‘I’ll have a word with a few of my friends. We could sell some of this lot online.’

‘Excellent. Let’s have a good look through, so we know what we’re dealing with. Your mum will be delighted if we can get a few quid to go towards the funeral costs.’

‘I’m taking her food shopping this afternoon, so I’ll fill her in then.’ Robert said.

While Robert took his mother to the supermarket, Louise went through the boxes and boxes of stuff. There was hundreds of back-issue copies of a long-defunct music magazines. Would anyone really want to buy those? Surely not, but who knew what people collected. Maybe the fact that the magazine had stopped being published in the late 1990s would make them worth something to somebody.

The next box she opened contained a thick file. She opened the file and gasped. Now we were getting to the good stuff, she thought. It appeared that Robert’s uncle had been researching their family tree. This was fascinating. Forgetting about the rest of the boxes, she took the file downstairs and made herself comfortable on the sofa to delve through her husband’s family tree. 

That evening, back home, as they curled up in front of the television, Louise mentioned her discovery.

‘I found a file at Brendan’s today. Your uncle had been researching your family history.’ She said.

‘No way. That’s so cool. I wouldn’t know where to start with any of that.’ Robert said.

‘He actually made a fair bit of progress. He managed to track your family back for several generations.’

‘To my great-grandmother? My grandmother’s mother?’

‘Yes, and even further.’ Louise said.

‘So you discovered the Italian connection? Whereabouts in Italy was she from? Was it Naples? Am I of Napolitan descent? Or am I descended from Rome?’ Robert asked, eagerly.

This was it, he was about to find out exactly where his Italian heritage came from. Maybe they could even visit the town his great-grandmother hailed from. This would be fantastic, like he was on one of those family history television shows.

‘That’s the interesting thing.’ Louise continued. ‘There’s no mention of Italy. Going back hundreds and hundreds of years, your family is from the North West of UK. The furthest away was Yorkshire.’

‘Yorkshire? Not Italy?’ 

‘I’m afraid not.’ 

She was shocked to see tears filling his eyes, devastation on his face. 

‘I can’t believe this. The story has been in my family for years. How could it not be true about Italy?’ He said. 

‘There could be lots of reasons. Somebody could have made it up, and the story stuck, or maybe someone got the wrong end of the stick. My grandad was in Italy during WW2. He was a mechanic, and would go out drinking with the locals. Maybe it was something like that. Family stories are like Chinese Whispers, the tales always get embellished at the re-telling.’

His bottom lip trembled as the realisation of his lack of Italian heritage sank in. Louise slapped him playfully on the thigh. 

‘Just kidding! Sorry, love, it was a joke. I thought it would be funny to make out that you weren’t Italian after all.’

Robert sighed in relief.

‘So I am Italian then?’ 

‘Yes, love, of course you are. From what Brendan discovered, your great-grandmother was from a small village just outside Naples.’

‘I knew it. He said. I just knew it. Italy is in my blood. I had a feeling. I’ve always known.’

‘Fancy a brew?’ Louise asked.

‘Oh yes, I’d love a cappuccino.’

Louise went to put the kettle on to make his coffee and a tea for herself. She felt bad about lying to her husband. She knew she really shouldn’t have lied, but if it made him happy to think that he had Italian heritage, then who was she to deprive him of that. Only she knew the truth, that he was as Italian as anyone else from the North West of England. As far as she was concerned, it didn’t really matter if he had Italian blood or not. He could enjoy the Italian culture, language and cuisine, without being descended from that country. For him, though, part of the thrill seemed to be that he was connected to the country, and who was she to rob him of that, regardless of what the truth was? All she had to do now was get rid of the evidence. 

The next morning, on the way to work, she stopped off at Brendan’s house. She moved quickly, she had an important task to do. She had to get rid of the evidence. Once Louise destroyed the file containing her husband’s very English family history, then there would be no proof that Robert had no Italian heritage. He could happily continue to immerse himself in the Italian culture despite being, in reality, about as Italian as a Yorkshire pudding. 

She went through to the living room. The file was where she’d left it, on the sofa. The file, crammed with family tree charts and copy birth, marriage and death certificates and other bits, had to be destroyed. Nobody would know the truth. As she picked up the file, something fell from the folder and floated down to the floor. It was a photograph. She picked it up and studied it. The black and white photo was of a woman in her forties. The stern-looking woman was standing on the steps of a church, half-smiling to the camera. The backdrop of the photo didn’t look like England. She turned the photo over. On the back of the photo there was writing. In the hand-writing of his uncle Brendan were the words, Auntie Carla Palazini, Naples 1919.

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom