Sicilians « baroquesicily.com – Sicily Stories and Travel Tips from Jann Huizenga

Sicily, Still Haunted by World War II

December 5, 2011

Giuseppe is peering at the Gazzetta del Sud in the doorway of the circolo for war veterans in Monterosso Almo. He invites me in.

“Guess my age.”

The inevitable question asked by every Sicilian over the age of 70. “I don’t know, signore. Seventy?”

“Eighty-eight. I was a soldier in the Italian army in the Second World War. I was in prison in North Africa.”

I don’t ask him who imprisoned him. I think I know. George Patton during the North African campaign.

“For how long?”

“Six months.”

What do you say to someone who, almost 70 years after a war, is still haunted by it?

Giuseppe suddenly starts talking English.

“I learn English in prison, and later in England. A commander he take me to England. Then I come back in Sicily in 1945.”

Our conversation is interrupted by a new arrival. I say goodbye, so sorry there is no time to ask the many questions on my mind.

***

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A Man and a Priest in Sicily

November 11, 2011

“Signora!” called out a red-faced man in baroque Scicli. “Come here!”

I sauntered over, and he beckoned a young priest to his side.

“Please take our picture.”

I obliged.

Afterwards the man said, “Do you know why I asked you to take our picture?”

“No, why?”

“Because,” the man beamed, his face reddening even more, “this priest, he is my son.”

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Enzo the Fisherman

October 30, 2011

Here comes the fisherman.

L’America! he crows at me.

Enzo has intermittent teeth and eyes to warm your heart. He’s taking his holiday here in Ragusa Ibla, 16 kilometers inland from his home.

He is staying in a convent, a retreat for anziani, old people. “Because I’m sixty,” he says.

“Sixty is not old!”

“In Sicily, sixty is old.”

I tell him to go to America, where he’d be middle-aged.

“I have relatives in New Jersey. They tell me, ‘Enzo, you should come to America!’ But I’m scared of flying. I like to be on the sea. I spend the whole day alone, fishing in my 7-meter boat. There aren’t many fish, though, because the fishermen in big boats throw their nets further out than mine, and they catch most of them.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Yes, but in Sicily, that’s how it works. No one controls the lawless. But I love my job. I eat lunch on my boat. Raw fish. Just like the Japanese. It’s good.”

He pats his stomach and smiles his quirky smile.

***

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