Free Solitaria by Genni Gunn

her, then stood in rows, like crows on a wire.
    I hastened out, eyes downcast, because although I loved my teacher, I had been taught it was disrespectful to stare. I was barely five, and had learned how to read and write on my own. I took my place in the row with the smallest children, but searched anxiously for Aldo and Vito. All the children wore black uniforms and were virtually indistinguishable from each other, their skin browned, their hair black, cropped. Only a couple of minutes, and already they were fidgeting, hopping foot to foot. The sundial on the church tower read three minutes to the hour. Across the piazza, Mamma, Clarissa, and Papà stood in the shade of a holm oak.
    At precisely one o’clock, with the entire village now assembled, the tobacconist flicked the dial, and the Italian national anthem began amid static and the sound of soldiers marching. Everyone stood at attention. Mussolini’s voice boomed from the speakers.
    â€œ Blackshirts of the revolution! Men and women of all Italy! Italians spread throughout the world, beyond the mountains and beyond the seas! Hear me!
    â€œA solemn hour is about to sound in the history of the fatherland. At this moment twenty million men occupy the public squares of all Italy.
    â€œNever in the history of mankind has there been a more gigantic spectacle. Twenty million men, but one heart, one will, one resolve .”
    Mussolini paused, as if to let this thought reverberate. And sure enough, for a moment, everyone appeared enchanted by this idea, by the oratory powers of that human voice. Some of the women’s eyes welled with tears, which they wiped with the corner of their aprons.
    Mamma and Papà moved further into the shade. Mamma picked up Clarissa and held her in her arms. Papà scowled.
    â€œ This gathering must and does show the world that Italy and Fascism constitute a perfect, absolute, and unalterable identity.
    â€œFor many months the wheels of destiny have been moving toward their goal under the impulse of our calm determination… It is not only an army that strives toward its objectives but a whole people of 44 million souls against whom an attempt is being made to consummate the blackest of injustice — that of depriving us of some small place in the sun… ”
    Vito had managed to escape the watchful eye of the teacher and now stood at the far end of the piazza, his hair glossy and unruly. Perfectly still, he listened to Mussolini, his eyes dreamy. No doubt he was already imagining himself in Ethiopia, fighting injustices. He had told us that he would join, if only he were old enough. His chest swelled with imagined glories. He surveyed the villagers in the piazza. What fools he thought them all, peasants. He was determined not to become like them, torpid and ineffectual, like the mules and donkeys that walked the paths, their heads down in perpetual resignation. No, he would have a different life, he told us children. He would be rich and live in a city. He would have money to spend, and girls to choose from.
    He didn’t realize that Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia would cause international economic sanctions against Italy, that as food and fuel would become more scarce, so people would become more disenchanted with Mussolini. I’ve had years of understanding what was happening to us then. At the time, however, we children born after 1922 knew nothing of democracy. At school we were indoctrinated into believing that fascism was The Truth, and that we were to worship at its altar. We were told we must be proud to be fascist children, to wear our uniforms, to call ourselves Figli Della Lupa, Balillas and Giovane Italiane, to sing and dance and parade down the town’s streets together. We tried our best to fulfill these expectations, but what troubled us — and the boys in particular — was the lack of external things. Fascism, you see, is for the rich, not for the poor. We lived our