Free On Earth as It Is in Heaven by Davide Enia Page A

time.
    He was going to war.
    Destination: Africa.
    How big a place could that be: Africa?
    People said that there were no such things as shadows in Africa.
    They said that all the savagery in the world was there, lions, snakes, negroes, in Africa.
    His friend Nenè would have liked it.
    â€œCome on, Nèglia , come drink the first glass with us.”
    One of the harvesters brought my grandfather a glass full of wine. My grandfather opened his hand to take the glass.
    â€œLook, La Nèglia is moving,” said one.
    â€œWhen it’s time to drink, even the stones start to move,” opined another.
    â€œ Nèglia , drink it or I’ll cut your throat,” chimed in Melino Miceli.
    In the silence that came in the wake of the threat, the rock decided to prove to the world that it was made of flesh and blood, and therefore capable of motion. It turned its head, it opened its eyes, and it tipped the glass, pouring the wine out onto the dirt.
    Melino Miceli decided that the time had come to show why he and no one else was the row boss. Cursing a blue streak, he walked over to Rosario, turned to face him, and without a word of warning raised one arm. Silhouetted against the blue of the sky was a wooden club, gnarled and stout. A shadow fell over my grandfather’s face. Even then, he remained motionless.
    â€œStill, this Melino Miceli, he was trouble. But why were you lying out in the sun?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œFor the same reason you wouldn’t drink.”
    â€œExactly. I was doing what you do every day.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI was training.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œTo withstand heat and thirst.”
    The gnarled dark wooden club was swinging down from above to strike La Nèglia when a gleam of light illuminated the September air. The glass tumbler had already been tossed straight up by Rosario’s hand. The movement was so fast that none of the grape harvesters even saw it happen. The silence that ensued was dictated more by amazement than by dismay. The glass struck the row boss square in the face, tearing his forehead wide open. Melino Miceli lost his balance and the swinging club, deflected, just grazed my grandfather. On the ground, shards of glass glittered amid drops of blood and scattered grapes. Rosario put on his clothes, walked away from the grape harvest, went back home, and told them that he was being shipped out to Africa.
    They set sail from the port of Trapani in mid-September 1942. There were 208 Sicilians. Nearly all the draftees were virtually illiterate, young men more accustomed to building roads than pushing pencils. They were scheduled to come home thirteen months later. They would actually return in the fall of 1945, after the war was over. The ship that brought them back to Sicily sailed from Alexandria, Egypt, and docked in the harbor of Palermo, where the surviving Sicilians debarked.
    Two men walked down the gangplank.
    One was a peasant.
    The other was my grandfather Rosario.
    La Nèglia .

    The place my family chose to go to the beach was Cape Gallo, the promontory that protects Palermo to the north. A small sandy beach surrounded on all sides by rocky cliffs, excellent for diving and perfect for catching sea urchins. When my mamma was a girl, she collected pretty stones here to take home; my grandfather spent days at a time staring out at the horizon; my grandmother came here to study; and my father trained by running as far as the lighthouse and then all the way back home. All of them had a relationship with the sea that was predicated on silent, complicit contemplation. Not Umbertino. He was first and foremost tactile, and the instant he saw salt water, he dived into it, without stopping to think. Strip down and swim, to the brink of exhaustion, no matter what month it was, no matter the weather.
    â€œCome on, a nice swim never hurt anyone.”
    â€œUncle, it’s April.”
    â€œJump in, scaredy-cat. Or