Gloria's Diary, Albert Russo [reading in the dark .TXT] 📗

the upper hand. 
Picking up strength, he addressed her this time with a more conciliatory tone:
"Do try to understand, Eva has always loathed the Nazi regime, and she doesn't want any more to do with the people who were involved with it, be they simple acquaintances, former friends of her parents, or even her own family.  And ... most important of all, we want to get married, start a family, and live, live like normal couples, like millions of couples around the world.  Is there any sin in that?"
"And he has the nerve to speak of sin!" Liliana bellowed, looking at me, the stranger, the Rhodesian Anglican!  In her blind fury she forgot where I had come from, and, calling upon me as a witness, she said: “She will bear his children. What will their faith be?  Christian, atheistic?  They might as well be bastards."
I didn't know where to put myself, and poor Sandro felt thus doubly insulted. Wasn't he unfairly taken to task?  He never demanded that I relinquish my faith to become Jewish, and what's more, he let me educate the girls in a Catholic school.  Then too, what could be said of Daviko who was a half-caste?
“That's not how we intend it to be!" countered Massimo, raising his voice again so that he could be heard by all of us.  "Eva wishes to convert to Judaism, she's the one who proposed it, not I, and she insists upon the fact that our future children should learn both Hebrew and the Torah, even if they go to a lay school.  Actually, she is against them frequenting a Christian institution, for she refuses that they be indoctrinated by some zealous priests or by Sisters.  I have not suggested any of this to her."
“So here we go again," exclaimed Liliana, "reverting back to the abominable Sippenschaft which the Boche have concocted so that they could hunt down the "Jewish vermin"!  This time, though, it is the other way round, for even those Jews who had converted to the Christian faith were caught in their grip - like Sister Edith Stein, whom the Church will probably want to sanctify one day - the Nazis traced suspects several generations back to search for a Jewish ancestor.  An eighth of the so-called poisoned blood was enough to send you to a concentration camp."
These conversations were weighing on me to such a point that, in order to avoid them, I pretended I was having a splitting headache.
The day of the cousins' departure was a huge relief for the whole family, in spite of the fact that Sandro's long and compassionate interventions had no positive effect on their predicament, and that brother and sister returned to Pisa, both exhausted and still at loggerheads with each other.  I felt sad for them, for I could empathize with Liliana, for whom her brother's announced marriage had revived terrible memories, and yet, I also understood Massimo's only too human desire to settle down with the woman he loved, much as he was torn between the two.  Destiny sometimes can be so ironical you would think it is a farce, only that in this case it pulled a family, or what was left of it,  apart, with tragic consequences.

On the eve of our return to Monza, we drove to the tiny and quaint mountain Republic of San Marino - which is independent from Italy - stopping  briefly in Rimini, the birthplace of the great baroque film director Federico Fellini.  The road was narrow and precipitous, snaking along hairpin curves to dangerous heights.  To avoid looking down into the ravines, I kept staring at the crest of the forest trees that brushed against the sky, but even that didn't spare me from motion sickness.  Seeing how I was blanching, and to liven up my spirits, Dalia, who had jotted down notes about the history of the region, began to recount anecdotes concerning some of the place's famous personalities, she did that in her usual comic fashion, twisting words and adding her salt, which, of course, put us into fits of laughter. 

"Not far from San Marino", she started, 'there is a small village perched on a rock, called San Leo, where an adventurer by the name of Capistrano was imprisoned.  He came from a poor Sicilian family, but since the guy felt too constricted on his mafioso island, and since, like some of his swashbuckling countrymen, he was a cunning and, apparently quite attractive, little devil, he traveled all the way to Rome with the intention of strutting his stuff, and making, by the same token, a buck or two.  Both a Latin lover and a charmer, he managed to sneak into the capital's high society and seduced a contessa - nothing less - convincing her to marry him.  The problem was, however, that our "hero" was not only a womanizer, but an incorrigible lady-killer, and that he collected mistresses like I used to collect stamps when I was 7 years old - I'm no longer interested in those little pieces of dented paper, nowadays I'd much rather buy myself audio cassettes and video games. 
When his wife, the countess, learned from his escapades, she went into a black rage and swore he would pay for it.  As a feminist, I agree with her!  It's amazing how people think it so normal that men go flirt and gallivant like there's no tomorrow, but when a lady (yes, and slut ain't the word here!) just looks at another guy in front of her husband, she's considered a sinner. 
As I was saying, the contessa vowed to take revenge and had her husband followed wherever he went, that is, to every nook and cranny, inn and shebeen, to be found in town - I protest here, the dictionary should rename such places hebeen- and - backside -, especially at night, when he believed that she was asleep.  She thus ordered her valet to coat the staircase leading to his bedroom with soap so that he would slip and turn black and blue before he could retire, also to mix rat poison with his food (not too much, just enough to cause a riot in his stomach till the wee wee hours of the morning), and lassie but no floozy, to spread itching powder inside his garments, so that he would go crazy scratching his skin.  But would you believe it, Cagliostro always managed to escape her stratagems - strata maybe, but gems they weren't, and even less, Stradivarius! - more probably, they came with germs in them.
She was so fed up trying to corner him and never succeeding, that she finally decided to summon up some of the bigwigs with whom she hobnobbed - hey what a booby trap of a word!  Can't the ladida's find something quainter?  So, thanks to the thou may's and the thou may not's, her hubby got shackled then chucked without further ado into a cell at the very top of the San Leo tower.  
You must admit that even today it helps to have high placed buddies; those fortunate dudes achieve their aims in a whisk, compared to us, poor regenerates (if that word doesn't exist, well, I've just invented it - note: I haven't said "degenerate", ok!), whether they want to make it on screen, on television or in politics.  The sons of sons of sons, well they reach the sun much faster than anyone else.  And what about their rich daughters, you might ask?  Well it's always a little more difficult, on account of "meow zoo genetics" ("misogyny" smacks too much of acid and disease).  Take for example her Majesty the Queen's chocolatiers, who serve her only by special appointment, or her Corgy dukes and duchesses, with such a long lineage behind them, that they can't see straight - they squint, haven't you noticed?  Look closer!  They even have a personal French cook and their daily menu is penned (yes in handwriting, no less, but lassie) in the tongue of Molière, whether their molars are strong enough or not to crack a moëlle osseuse (bone marrow).  
I sometimes ask myself if the French Revolution was really necessary, with all the killings that went on, guillotining people left, right and center, apart from poor Louis the Sixteenth and his fun-loving and jewel-bedecked Marie-Antoinette - when her subjects begged for a piece of bread, she'd answer, "Why don't they have some cake instead?" - because nowadays, as I said, the new aristocrats are the movie stars - oh Jimmy Dean! he's so cute, with that pout of his, and the mischievous winks he gives, and Marlon 'the fierce' Brando, did you notice what a fabulous torso he has?  and ... and ... Gregory Peck, OK he isn't that young anymore, but he's still Hollywood's most handsome gentleman.  Then there's all the sports heroes I pine for - the elegant ice-skating couples, pirouetting to classical music tunes, the brawny football players, competing for the world cup, or those adventurous and good-looking Formula One car racers, who come to Monza every year in September.
I do have an answer regarding the French Revolution: it was intended to be an example for all the dictators of the developing world who think they can eliminate, with impunity, all of their political opponents, and kill thousands of poor subjects who get in their way, while they drive around in bulletproof Rolls Royce's and Cadillacs.
Where was I?  Right, with the countess who had her husband chained and imprisoned in the tower of San Leo.  But did you know this? Being married to an aristocrat, he enjoyed preferential treatment as far as his food was concerned.  For breakfast he got either panettone with jam and milk or a bowl of hot chocolate, whereas for lunch, he could choose between minestrone (fresh vegetable soup), a grilled leg of lamb or two roasted baby pigeons - finger lickin' delicious, specially those I used to eat in Africa -, then parmesan or provolone cheese, and fruit.  In the evening he would be served cold cuts, followed by biscuits, or even tiramisu.  All his meals were accompanied by a large pitcher of Chianti wine, so that he could feel a little high and forget where he was - after downing three glasses, he would dream he was in jail, which is not the same as feeling that you are an actual prisoner.  But in spite of the fine cuisine and all the red booze, the count became more and more jumpy, specially when, after his hangovers, he realized that he WAS indeed in prison; and to express his wrath, he would scribble crazy things on the walls of his cell - he probably thought he was the inventor of the art of graffiti.  Convinced that he was Alexander the First, Great Master and Founder of the Egyptian Order, he wrote stuff like: 'sempronius semper fuit Sempronius Elion Melion Tetagrammaton" and other such nannities ("inanities" is for the thou's and thou shalt's).
When the warden confiscated his pencils, he would use scraps of wood, dunking them in his blood or even in his own piss, which he would collect in an empty bowl, and when he got even more furious, he dipped them into something else of his which is even more disgusting." 
"Come on, Dalia, stop fantasizing, he couldn't be that filthy, you really have a devilish imagination", quipped Astrid, unsure whether she should laugh or get annoyed at her sister.
"I'm not inventing this, I swear, it's written black on white in the book Italia strana e misteriosa," insisted Dalia, and she went on in the same breath, so as not to be interrupted again: “The poor scoundrel completely lost his wits, inasmuch as during the night, the rats came to nibble at his toes, often mistaking them for bits of gorgonzola cheese, and