Frank Polizzi - Somewhere in the Stars

After almost driving past his grandfather’s place, Nick hit the brakes. He could barely notice the farm cottage at the far end of an overgrown footpath. The sound of cicadas intensified, as he approached his nannu’s home. He heard the sound of metal screeching over a stone wheel. A man with a shock of white hair and a bushy moustache sharpened a long knife, using his foot to propel the mechanism. Nick could see through the open door that the octogenarian busied himself at his task and didn’t even bother to raise his head when Nick’s shadow fell on him.

He called out: “Nannu?”

The old man stopped pedaling and turned around, but still held the knife in his hand.

“Cu è stu scanusciutu Americanu?

“Sugnu Nicolo Spataro .”

Nannu plunged the knife into a wood block. He looked the young man up and down and shouted: “ Vai , vai, American stranger!” Nick stood his ground but felt anxious that he had found the wrong person. “Speak in English, if you wish. I know many languages.”

“I am Nick Spataro. I’m looking…”

“You want to take my land away! Vai !”

“I’m not interested in your land.”

“So why do you call me Nannu ?”

“I’m your grandson with the same name. Gaetano and Lucia’s son from San Francisco!”

“Si. Come closer, so I can see you better.” He touched Nick’s face with his calloused hand. The old man’s blue eyes glowed and Nick kissed him on both cheeks.

“How did you find me, Nicolo ?”

“The barista in town. He wasn’t too friendly.”

“Quella fascista! He spreads rumors about me. That I am a spy for the enemy. He is like the fool Giufà, but not likeable at all.” He leaned back to get a better look at Nick. “You looka like my son when he left with me for America. The same nose, the same eyes.” Nannu laughed with joy. He got up from his bench and went over to table that had rows of unlabeled bottles of red wine and some short water glasses. “Come and sit here with me and drink my wine.” He poured two glasses. “It has been many years since I left figghiu miu after your Nanna died.” He raised his arms to the ceiling. “My sons and daughter wanted to stay in America. Make their fortune.” All of a sudden, Nannu’s face darkened with a frown. “Sicilia has had so many invaders over the centuries, everyone has lost count. Why do you wear the uniform of an invader?”

“I was born in America. I am an American.”

“You speaka with your head, but not from the heart. Why you fighting against the Italians?” Nannu pressed his fingertips together as if in prayer and rocked them, as if to say: ‘Why in God’s name did you do it?’

“I’m fighting Fascists, not Italians,” he responded, a mantra he had to keep repeating to himself.

“Fascists, communists, socialists, liberals, conservatives. They all the same to me. All you need is country air, fresh food and a woman to share it with, maybe some children to help you with the harvesting and passing on our name. What does it matter what kind of government we have?” He stuck his chin out. “Minchia! The greedy always find a way to keep everything for themselves, throwing breadcrumbs to everyone who can’t sense how the world works.” Nannu’s eyes became fiery and he waved his fist. “Allura, Sicily will endure, despite all the invasions, the Greeks and Phoenicians, Romans, Saracens and Normans, Angevins, Spanish Bourbons, even this one.” Nannu’s eyes gleamed then chuckled. “Ma è veru, I am happy the Americans and British have come to kick the Germans and the fasciste out. Ma i mafiosi di cosa nostra … these so-called men of honor,” he spit on the ground, “will soon be let loose from prisons and their towns of exile, all over Sicilia …” Nick read the exasperation in Nannu’s face as he paused to catch his breath. “Lika packs of rats running down a rope dock line at every port.” Nannu’s eyes widened and he tapped his grandson’s face. “ Me niputi bellu! You are a good boy, I can tell.” He held the bottle of wine up in celebration and refilled the glasses to the brim.

“Tell me some stories about my father. When he was a child.”

“Do you like my homemade wine?”

“ Si, moltu bonu !”

“ Bravu . I will stop telling them only when you must go back to your war.” He gulped some wine down and wiped his lips with a palm. “When your father was ten years old, we left the life of a cuntadinu in lu Baglio to become fishers of the sea, piscaturi . At first mi figgli were unhappy to leave the countryside, but your father, Gaetano, took to the water like a dolphin to the sea. His older brothers made fun of him, but one day when we set out to lay out our nets, Gaetano cried and cried to come with us, while his brothers laughed. He jumped into the water and followed our boat all the way out of the port. Then I yelled, Basta! Basta! And my oldest son, Rodolfo, turned the boat around. Pocu Gaetano waded into one of our nets that we had flung out when we were near enough and pulled him aboard. From that day on, we allowed your father to act as our cabin boy.”

“Bravu Nannu, tell me more.”

“One day I heard about our paisani from Sciacca who went to a place in America. North End, Boston! Chi sacciu? What do I know of such a place? What about Brooklyn? Alluru, we saved our money to land where money grows on trees.”

“ Nannu , did you really believe that?”

Nannu laughed and filled the glasses once more. “When you are poor, miu carinu Nicolo, you will believe anything, no matter how pazzu. Bivi lu vinu di Nannu !” They drank the red wine in two gulps and Nannu refilled the glasses, as he continued his family narrative.

“ Alluru , in Ameriga we found a home on Elizabetha Street. Ancora we save our money, worka in the tunnels of New Yorka, where there is no sun and Nanna does piece work in the apartment. Dig and sweat all day long. We had dreams of fishing again in our own boats. Ma, things happened in Ameriga, and la famigghia split up. My two oldest boys, Rodolfo and Rocco, they fisha out of Boston. All the Sciaccese are there, they say to me, cosi why be among scanusciuti ? My daughter, Antonina, she marry a barber and stay in Brooklyn. At least he was a Sicilianu and not a Calabrese or even a Napolitana .”

“I never met my uncles and aunts in Boston and Brooklyn. Mamma says it’s too expensive to travel so far.”

“We are scattered like l’ebbraiica genti.”

“Like the Jews from The Holy Bible, Nannu ?”

“Si. Cosi, that’s is why I returned to our homeland after Nanna died. There must be some trace of the Spatoro in Sicilia .”

“So how did Papà and you wind up in San Francisco? North Beach instead of North End.”

“You ask questions, bravu . You are like miu Gaetano, always questions, questions, while his brothers are silent and looka like Fata Morgana will casta a spell on them at any moment.” Nannu laughed at his own joke. “Everyone in the world wanted to go to California to strike it rich. Cosi, I take my youngest son with me. When I left him and Lucia, they started to change sardines into gold. Ma without Nanna, I could not stay and did not want to be a burden to figghiu miu. It was too bad that you had not been born.” Nannu rubbed his hands across Nick’s cheeks and kissed him on the forehead.