I’m running out of topics on Noli, but I don’t want to give up my usual weekly contribution on Trucioli.it.
by Massimo Germano
I consult with my grandchildren. ”Tell a little about us”, they suggest to me, ”for example of that time you did it shave nothing from Corrado….”. They’re big now, but when they were little they huddled around me on the couch, one on each side, the third curled up behind my back like a crown. Their grandfather talked about times gone by, when their mother was their age.
I remember a summer now far away in time, we are in 1971, my wife and I are doing the shopping in Via Colombo, in Noli. We turn around, Clear Where? Our first daughter is three years old, she was with us, but now we don’t see her anymore. Terror runs on the thread, perhaps she has decided to go to the beach alone, I immediately think of the Aurelia, of the dangerous crossing of her.
I shout to my wife to warn everyone and I go towards the beach. While I’m running I notice something strange, the news precedes me. The tom-tom spreads with mysterious rapidity, the newsagent warns me that he hasn’t seen any little girls, there is already a policeman on alert at the pedestrian crossing, my brother and my brother-in-law are searching the area, I see people in the shop doors .
I go back to the center, I run towards home, I don’t know what to do, it’s painful. I realize that everyone recognizes me, sometimes after so many years we hardly greet each other anymore, everyone has their own business, especially in the summer, but now the town has stopped. On the main street I meet my wife crying. Clear She’s not at home, she’s already gone to check, where on earth has she gone?
Meanwhile the tom-tom spreads, vague news begins to arrive, then more and more precise, from the railway station, at the time the train still passed through Noli. What did she go there to do? We run with our hearts in our throats, we bounce like tennis balls from one voice to another and finally we find it Pious Mothersnear the Church of San Paragorio.
Cheerful and smiling as ever, she is chatting with a nun who has blocked her and is holding her hand firmly. She is telling her that she is waiting for her grandparents, who have to arrive by train from Turin, and that they always bring her precious little gifts because she is very good and obedient. We hadn’t really thought about this.
Some time later I noticed that some of my wife’s beautiful hair had turned white.
Massimo Germano
