| Home Page | Links | ||||
|
Il Figlioccio By Anel Viz © Anel Viz 2009 After she had thrown two logs on the fire of her open-hearth brick oven and stoked the glowing embers beneath them, Mama Corleone stood up, pressed her hands to either side of her spine and stretched backwards. “Gesumaria, che vecchia!” she sighed. Then she turned to face the table, wiped her brow with the sleeve of her black dress, and sprinkled flour on the dough she had cut in four and would now pat into balls and roll out. “It’s your lumbago bothering you again, isn’t it, Mama?” Tonio said. “That and my swollen ankles, carino.” “Sit down, Mama. The dough can wait a few minutes.” “The dough can wait, but our customers won’t. Four orders, and how I’ll fit them all in the oven I don’t know.” “Two will stay warm on the stones in front while the others are baking.” “And when you deliver them all four will be ice cold. How do people eat cold pizza? It’s an unnatural act.” “They heat them up in their own ovens, Mama. You know that.” “Reheated pizza is never as good. I don’t understand why they buy from me.” “Your pizzas reheated are better than what they could make themselves.” That was true enough. He did not add that if it weren’t for their padrino they would have fewer customers. “They don’t make pizza the same here as we do in the south. They don’t know how.” “You see?” She had taken her rolling pin and was flattening the balls of dough. “It embarrasses me that they only get to taste my pizzas reheated. They don’t know how a good a cook I am.” “Believe me, Mama. They know. What toppings have they asked for tonight? I’ll get them from the pantry. The boxes, too. All large?” When the pizzas were done and still piping hot, Tonio slid them into their boxes, wrapped them together in a thick blanket, and tied them to the back of his bicycle. “Be very careful of the cars on the road,” Mama Corleone told him. “I’ll be careful.” “And come straight home. You’re always back long after I expect you, and I worry.” “Not always, Mama.” He kissed her goodbye and set out, not on the road, but by the footpaths that crisscrossed the fields. The land was flat. He always took this shortcut except when the narrow, straight road between the villages was the shortest route. If he didn’t, he’d have got home much later. It was a clear night except for the thick line of late autumn mist over the faraway canal. He rode to Signore Cozzone’s first, although it meant zigzagging and added some fifteen minutes to his route. Alfredo Cozzone was a strikingly handsome young man in his twenties who lived alone. He inevitably asked Tonio into his house - “It’s a cold night. Let me give you something hot to drink.” - and having more pizzas to deliver was an excuse not to come in. He knew what Cozzone had in mind. However much a quickie with the man tempted him, Tonio knew he would regret it afterward. Besides, he couldn’t spare the time. Business before pleasure, as they say. This evening Cozzone said, “Come inside where it’s warm while I get your money, Tonio.” “Grazie, signore. I’ll wait here.” “Please, why won’t you call me Alfredo?” “It wouldn’t be right, signore. It’s impolite.” Tonio pocketed the money and set off on the dirt path that would bring him to the Strazios’ farm. Their daughter, the devout, big-breasted Prudenza, would answer the door. She also had designs on him, but with her parents in the house even a hasty kiss was impossible, so he’d have no trouble getting away. Luckily, Signora Pettegolo had not recovered from her laryngitis and did not keep him nodding amicably on her doorstep while she inquired about his mother’s health and how his married sister liked living in Naples and rattled off everything she had heard about everyone who lived within a twenty-kilometer radius. Only one pizza more to deliver; he’d have unloaded all four in less than an hour and a half. Then, before he headed home, he’d circle round to the canal, bike along the levee, then cut across the pasture to see if the lantern was lit in the abandoned grange, which meant that his friend Gianni was waiting there for him with a blanket and frantic, clinging kisses.
|