Champagne waiter, that’s the first thing that comes to mind, dear Feltri. Actually, no. The first thing that comes to mind is anger. Because, if I find your comparison of Salis to the waitresses of Catanzaro miserable and squalid, I feel even more bitter in remembering that Catanzaro has rediscovered itself, after the European elections 20 days ago, as the most Northern League city in Italy. Something doesn’t add up. A lot of indignation, I think, is a bit vain and a bit cowardly. Dear Feltri, you see, it’s not your comment about the clothing that bothered me, or the offensive comparison that, with lacerating recurrence, you have once again produced. What I can’t stomach is the lack of respect towards the waitresses. Whether they are from Catanzaro or Novedrate doesn’t matter. And do you know why, dear Director? Because the first waitress I remember had for me only the stigma – yes, the stigma so decisive was she for my life – of an oracle. She had white and silver hair, a ruined smile and furrows on her hands, Petruzza. She was from Campagnella, a neighborhood south of Catanzaro that looks to the East.
For a few years he helped my mother with the housekeeping. My mother, a citizen of Palermo, found in her the concreteness and dignity, the courage and pragmatism of someone who was educated in life by the best teacher, the countryside. She hadn’t studied, yet she had a culture all her own to flay people and read inside her. When I had breakfast, our conversations were different, her words were as many and heavy as her name. They were stones, or rather small stones, which don’t hurt, but go down to the bottom. She had great intuition and great practical sense. And, above all, the ability to understand the path. At the time, I was convinced that I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. Petruzza, no. You like the word. You were born to be a lawyer. He refuted with grace and conviction. Even then, she was right. I don’t know if Petruzza had in mind the very modest lawyer I later became. Certainly, Petruzza had discovered the love for the word, as a country mother, in the courtyard of my immature years. Of soup, bread and milk. Certainly, dear Feltri, Petruzza – who, unfortunately, has long since crossed the threshold of the invisible – will have already forgiven him, and also on behalf of all the waitresses of Catanzaro. Because she loved the word. What she no longer governs for some time. And this is what, even today, makes even a petruzza feel sorry for him.
