My mother looked like Ingrid Bergman when she was young.
Was she aware of her beauty? I don’t really think so.
In her old black and white pictures she always looks elegant, poised.
A beautiful girl who was growing in the Italy of the economical boom after the horror of the Second World War.
She was beautiful but she always looks as separated, like an invisible wall was keeping her aside from the rest of the world..
She could have been surprised by the camera while smiling in her group of chattering girlfriends, or cheering with my uncle’s friends at some water polo game.
But even so she would give you the sensation that she wasn’t really there. She seemed being somewhere else.
After all, why am I surprised? This is how she has always been in my memories too.
I think of her as a gracious host who feeds you and makes you comfortable and relaxed but then leaves you in the living room, drinking and eating and complimenting her succulent dishes, while she- unseen and unheard- slips inside the house and herself.
This is what my mother has been during my childhood. A distant, elegant figure, constantly on the verge of disappearing. Or worst, leaving me.
She must have been different though.
I have indeed glimpses of her, that beautiful face of her relaxed, and almost happy. At least I can remember a laughing face.
But as much as I strain my memory muscles I don’t have any memories of her with me. I mean, really with me. Not close to me or doing something together. I am talking of that intimacy, that bond, that deep connection any mother should be able to express while with her daughter.
But I don’t remember one single hug from her.
I can’t recall one kiss on the cheeks, a pat on my head, no look of pride toward me, her middle child who was trying so hard to have her attention.
So I have these pictures of her with me. But even in them she always looks somewhere else.
During my Catholic confirmation she is there... caught by the photographer, side by side with my father, standing in the crowded church.
They are looking at me, I guess. She doesn’t smile though. She doesn’t look like intent in absorbing the solemnity of the moment either. She simply stands there. Perfectly and elegantly, fashionably dressed. Like the people was expecting her to be, I guess.
But again, somewhere else.
Yet, there is a picture in which she is with me and she seems happy.
Were you really happy, mom?
The picture is from a Ferragosto of many years ago.
She is on the front seat of my father’s motorboat, and I seat in the back,
For as for long as I recall....that day was a happy one for that little girl. A chubby little girl, I have to confess.
I had wondered later one in my life if my mother, so thin and tall and classy, must have cringed anytime she was observing me, rolling clumsily at her side.
In Italy we have a saying “E’ tutta salute” meaning “Its all health”.
The chubbiest the kid, the happier. You have to give it to our Italian old generations.... they didn’t raise flocks of desperate anorexic girls. They happily embraced their fat and their lasagna and celebrated it with pride. The roundness of the cheeks, the soft rolls of the little bellies.......these were all signs of well being, solidity, prosperity, good Fortune.
After all, Giunone, or Era as the Ancient Greek called her, Earth’s Mother, was a plump lady, majestic in her ample figure, like a woman in a Botero’s paintings. Tiziano and Raffaello painted these women like white clouds of fat. “Giunonica” in Italian is an adjective that is associated not only to a full figure woman but it also implies being rich, powerful, imposing. You have to love these Romans...:-).
So I was impatiently holding my floating, oh, so impatient to go. We were heading to another beach, distant one hour from there.
It was early morning but it was already hot.
Everybody knew that Ferragosto is not a day for wimpy kids.
It’s a hot and sweaty day, and you had to be ready for a long day of swimming, eating cold cannelloni, or panini con la frittata, o panini con la fettina impanata, deliciously napping under the beach umbrellas, drinking homemade lemonade, catching crabs and getting even stung by some stupid jellyfish, building the highest sand castle possible.
The motorboat where we are seating was a beautiful, fast Riva, a sleek ’50 model. The jewel and pride of my father that he had bought that same winter. He was eager to sprint in the waves pushing its powerful engines.
Its wood is shining in the morning rays. The air smells of salt and the plastic of my floating.
My face’s reflection dances on the still water of the Sailing club beach.
Finally my mother arrives at the pier.
She is a vision of classic beauty: short light brown waved hair cut just like Grace Kelly (she was her favorite actress...I see why), black cat-eye shaped sunglasses. She wears Capri white pants on her long thin legs with a pair of flat cotton espadrilles and a white sleeveless top with a square neck.
A foulard is around her neck. She carries two plastic bags full of food.
Now, we didn’t have any fancy Glade thingie at that time. Our mothers had to be extremely inventive while stacking the normal kitchen’s plates with the food. The usual way was to wrap around them a big kitchen towel and make an extremely tied knot to keep them steady.
So she is loading her bags on the boat. And at the same time my friend Daniela is arriving too, running barefoot on the pier planks. Her parents are walking behind. They are friends of my parents. Daniela is my best friend at that time. She is so much prettier than me, I believed.
She is smaller, thinner, blonde and just cute as a pie. She has two lovely dimples on her cheeks too.
Daniela and I were born the same day and we had been living the first 6 years of our life in almost adjacent homes. I have a picture of her hugging me tight on the terrazza of her parent’s house. She hugs me tight and smiles with her eyes closed. A sweet first girlfriend.
Ferragosto is starting its engines now.
Just like my father who is letting the Riva emitting its first roar. Soon the familiar smell arrives.
I liked the smell of the gasoline mixed with the one coming from the drying sea weeds. It’s a very particular one. Intoxicating, almost.
Still now I love that smell. I can close my eyes when I am at some gas station and relive the pungent sniff coming from the gas released in the water.
I can see the translucent, multicolored patch of the gasoline floating on the still water. I can even see the fishes underneath it. I can see myself running from the back of pier, screaming “Spacca cocomero” “Cracked watermelon” and then jumping in the water with a sound splash.
I am chatting with Daniela. I know i am happy.
And then, before we can finally leave the pier, her father takes the picture.
It’s us forever.
In this picture I am forever frozen in that smile. My eyes are almost close because they got lost in those cute chubby cheeks so much that they used to call me “Cinesina” “Little Chinese girl”.
Daniela is stopped forever in her laughter while she looks at me, her head tilted slightly back. My father and Daniela’ mother are not in this shot.
But my mother is.
She is forever preserved in that bright light.
She is seated in the front seat. Her foulard is already tied around her hair. She has her arms stretched to hold the boat to the pier and this time, for a miracle, created by that special Ferragosto, she looks directly at the camera.
And she smiles.
She smiles.
One smile is enough, sometimes.
