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

they'd sink in their sharp lil' teeth, causing him to wake up screaming.  Cagliostro would then start uttering profanities, insulting every god invented by mankind, and he even added some, then saying that he damned the Holy Trinity to Hell and back, and that Satan was now his best friend.  Such blasphemy could not be tolerated, especially in those god-fearing times, and he got punished for it.  From then on, he was locked in the dungeon, where the only opening was a tiny hole carved in the cell's thick walls which gave out onto San Leo's cathedral.  Consequently, whenever he wanted to get a breath of fresh air, whether he liked it or not, he had to look at the cathedral's steeple.  But, still not phased, he continued to curse the Lord, along with the Holy Father, and particularly the Virgin Mary, saying that she wasn't at all a virgin.  That did it.  He got clubbed all over his body, till he thought that every one of his bones was smashed to a pulp, and till his tongue stood out like a dried flat sausage.  The Catholic church then had the same kind of religious fatwas that the Islamists apply today and it was no joke either.
“He was caned and beaten silly every other hour, for three solid days and three solid nights - in those times, the profession of torturer was at once highly feared and regarded - till he couldn't take it anymore, so, he finally begged the Virgin Mary to forgive him, repeating that yes, she was the most virgin of all the virgins, from down on our most sinful earth, all the way up to heaven, passing through the clouds and the black holes.  But the Holy Mother of God didn't heed him - she was probably terribly ashamed for having been reminded that she might not be a virgin, after all - remember too that Bernadette of Lourdes hadn't yet been born, with all her visions and stuff.  And he died, of course, for not even a rabid dog could take such beatings.  I suppose that his soul has rejoined Satan in Hell and low water.
“Count Cagliostro had become so famous and infamous that, many years after he had died, a Polish commander who was passing by San Leo, ordered his men to dig his skeleton out of the well, and invited them all to pour wine into his skull and to drink it for good luck.  God Almighty, if ever there is one," concluded Dalia, now flushed by all her talk, "what crazy weirdos!  Thank goodness you don't find this kind of madness nowadays."

That story, recounted with such verve and such flourish by my baby daughter, had us all in stitches, and it momentarily took my attention away from the surrounding rugged landscape, the sight of which had made me feel so nauseous.  
As he too calmed down and put up a more serious mien, Sandro told her that, not so long ago, the Nazis had used methods that were just as cruel, and, what's more, that they had been perpetrated on a much larger scale, which, he added, was unequaled in the history of humanity.  
Taking his cue from Sandro, her brother added:
"You know, dear, terrible things are happening right now in the hills of Burundi,  just a few kilometers away from our beloved capital, involving our Hutu and Tutsi brothers.  There have been horrendous massacres there, but I don't want to scare you by describing with what savagery they were and are still being committed.  Cagliostro, unfortunately, isn't an isolated case, and neither is he only an image from the past."
An oppressive silence settled all of a sudden in the comfortable cocoon of our car, until Astrid, who had just lowered the window on her side, to inhale the fresh mountain air, brought us back to a more concrete reality:
"Let's look for a nice little restaurant, since we have almost arrived.  I don't know about you, but this trip has made me ravenous. Oh," she exclaimed, a minute later, at the sight of the city's tallest building, "isn't that San Marino's Palazzo Pubblico  which I recognize from the picture in the guide?”        

Daviko's last remark lingered in my mind, carrying my thoughts back to Africa, the land of my birth, which had given me so much, both in joy and in sadness, but which I regarded mostly as a source of wisdom and of great happiness, a happiness which has been gradually removed from millions of its inhabitants, now that all those nations in which I had lived such a protected life, having relinquished their ties from their former colonial masters, had joined countries like Haiti and other so-called banana republics, ravaged by civil wars, famine and disease.  My God, did I ever live in such places, which have turned so hellish?  I sometimes ask myself when I get up every new morning here in Italy.  Could today's nightmare have replaced what I believed was once a paradise?  Or was it all an illusion?   
Yet, I can't deny that the country I grew up in offered me a sweet and carefree childhood and that my youth was a very pleasant one, even if we were far from being rich - my dad was a civil servant and my mom worked at Salisbury's main library. How many of us realize that to have a roof over one's head and enough to eat every day can no longer be taken for granted, even in our developed societies?
Our yearly vacations usually consisted of a mere week spent either at a friend's farm, near Umtali, or in Bulawayo, the country's second largest city, where a cousin of mine lived.  I remember spending a full day with her at a wonderful and buoyant fair in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the town's founding.  She also guided us through Bulawayo's outskirts and had us visit the gigantic boulders at the Matopo Hills, with Cecil Rhodes' tomb.  Another time, we explored the adjoining reserve and saw some of the area's most splendid wild animals, such as the impalas, the sable antelopes and the white rhinoceroses; we were once lucky enough to catch a glimpse of two beautiful adult leopards, dozing off on the highest branch of an acacia tree.
It goes without saying that, compared to the Shonas and to the Ndebeles (Rhodesia's two main original ethnic groups), Whites were privileged, even though, the former too had their schools, which were also free, and they benefited from a good medical system.  Nothing like today's dire conditions, with famine, political persecution, and the cholera and Aids pandemics, existed in my time, this has to be stressed.
It was only much later, when I started earning my own money, working at a tobacco plantation, outside of Salisbury, that I crossed the borders of Rhodesia for the first time, and went on vacation to Beira, a beach resort in neighboring Mozambique.  The following year, I pushed further south, to rejoin some of my friends in Capetown who had already been there before.  And from then on, every summer - January and February are the hot months here - I would drive down with a couple of girlfriends and spend two weeks on the bracing shores of the Cape peninsula.
The only time I went north was the time, a few years later, that I met Sandro in the Belgian Congo, where our fates were sealed.
Unlike my mother who longed for England, my father had planted his roots deeply into the Rhodesian soil, both in heart and in mind, and as the years went by, Britain meant less and less for him, to the extent that he had no wish to return there, even for a short period of time.  It was Africa that he now called home and where he intended to spend his entire life.  We, the children, all three of us born in Salisbury, were of the same opinion, at least until some of the neighboring countries became independent.      
My two brothers, Ronald and Jonathan, studied at Prince Edward's,  whereas I went to the Girls High School - there weren't co-educational institutions in those days.
Ronald, our eldest, had a magnificent baritone voice and sang in the school choir, while I had a strong disposition for the piano.  I was so much in love with the instrument that I worked for and obtained a scholarship, and then went on to get a degree from the Royal Academy of Music.
All the while I was working on the tobacco plantation, on weekends I would give concerts in town, along with other musicians.  I was also sometimes invited to play in Bulawayo, as well as in Umtali.  Thanks to the piano I was able to meet interesting people, even if I knew that my possibilities of becoming a professional musician were limited, unless I decided to pursue my vocation in England and settle there, but such a prospect didn't appeal to me.  I was perfectly content to perform for a public that I was familiar with.   In the meantime, Ronald had started to sing on the radio and he was so popular that he was invited to record three 78 rpm records, including opera arias, in both English and Italian, along with contemporary romantic tunes.  I still have one of each.
As for Jonathan, who was two years younger than me and with whom I felt the closest, he was an inveterate and inexhaustible joker.  He played such pranks, that little brother of ours, he should have joined his best friend who later became a famous stand-up comedian.  I was, of course, his favorite target and he loved to scare the wits out of me.  He would slide under my bed at night and wait till I switched off the light, producing strange and disquieting noises, which would progressively grow louder, I would then hear the hissing sound of a cobra or the muted roar of a lion, which would make me jump out of my sheets, waking up the household with my screams.  
Another time, he managed to put a bucket of water, filled to the brim, in equilibrium, on the top edge of the door that led to the W.C.  It was meant for me, but my father, who had a pressing need to relieve himself, preceded me and got the bucket on his head; he came out soaked from head to toe, and gave Jonathan the hiding of his life.  From then on my brother avoided every section of the house, except for my room, the rascal.

The first tragedy that befell our family was Ronald's sudden death, following a car accident.  He had been working for several years in a gents' garment factory that supplied, among other clothing, uniforms for bus drivers and for the local police.  To reward him for his excellent performance which had resulted in an increase in sales, his boss had just promoted him to the post of production manager.  We were overly happy for him, inasmuch as, a few days later, he told us he was getting engaged to Suzy Fields, who had attended the same class as Doris Lessing, the famous writer.  I myself vaguely remember the latter; she was a little older than me and kept to herself most of the time, so that we never really spoke to each other, except when we met casually at the movies or in a department store, nodding a quick “hello”.
The passing away of my big brother threw us all into a state of ineffable sadness while my mother sank into a deep and long lasting depression, from which she painfully emerged only two years later.
One of the consequences of this family drama was that I got closer to Suzy, the girl who should have become my