March 22, 1958

Segavecchia

          Mamá says the oranges come all the way from Sicily where it’s springtime all year long, but I don’t like them. Papà says that I should be a very happy little girl, because when he was a little boy a long, long time ago, the only thing La Befana put in his stocking for Epiphany, was a lot of confetti, a coin, and a big red Tarrocco orange. And he says he was happier to get the orange than the coin. But I still don’t like them. Tati makes me eat them after dinner. She says they‘re good for me. But I don’t like them at all. They’re all red inside and scary.

          On the table in the room where we eat, there’s a big white bowl filled with those oranges. Even Mamá doesn’t like to eat them now. Mamá and Tati had a fight yesterday.

         “Fruit?”

         “Yes, Tati. Please bring the fruit in.”

         “Flora shall I peel the oranges for the children?”

         “Tati, the children and I asked you to buy bananas for today.”

         “Bananas are too expensive. And….”

         “Tati, where are the bananas? I asked you…”

         “Here Flora. Eat one of these Tarrocchi. They’re best at…”

         “NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! NO MORE! NO MORE GODDAMNED ORANGES! DO I MAKE MYSELF UNDERSTOOD?”

          “But the Tarrocchi…”

          “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THOSE ORANGES! It’s been nothing but oranges since Christmas! Oranges for Epiphany and all through Carnival! No more oranges! I’ve had just about enough. Now, take the bowl, take the fruit, and go into the kitchen, and throw the goddamned oranges OUT!”

          “As long as it’s winter Flora, these oranges remain on the table. You know, that ever since you were a little girl, I’ve always kept a bowl of Tarrocchi on the dining room table for the whole winter. And they’ll stay there.”

          “Tati, I’ve had enough. You’re not my wet nurse any more. I’m a grown woman, with two children, and this is my house, not yours. And things will be done in my house as I say.”

          “Your house? We won’t even discuss that. The oranges stay on the table. They will stay there, and that is that.”

          Mamá stood up, picked up the bowl with the oranges and threw it on the floor. It broke into a hundred pieces and oranges rolled everywhere. When I got down from the chair, I stepped on one of them. It made a big red squish on the carpet. Tati was very mad, and Mamá yelled. She spanked me and told me to go to bed.

          Tati came into my room later and brought me an orange. She said the old Befana woman in the black dress had come to the kitchen window and left it for me, and that I should eat it because it would make the spank hurt go away. My fanny didn’t feel too good, so I ate it. Tati kissed me and said “Good night, Little Snowflake. And may all your dreams be golden like the oranges from Sicily where it's Springtime all year long.”

          After Tati left, Mamá came in. She was very happy and gave me a big hug, and talked about going to the sea this summer. Then she saw a big red squish on the covers and asked me where did it come from, and I told her. Then Mamá told me never to eat in bed again and screamed for Tati. Tati came in and Mamá yelled some more. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. Then I fell asleep.

         In the morning, there was a white bowl on the table in the room where we eat, and there were oranges in the bowl. Mamá was mad in her face, but she didn’t say anything. Tati put her arms on her stomach and everyone was very quiet.

         Pasquale went to school. Papà went to the office and Mamá went shopping for strange things. Everyone left, and I stayed at home with Tati. She told me to go to my room, and not to dance, but that playing was all right. I’m not supposed to dance now, because it’s Lent. I danced and danced for Carnival, but Carnival’s over now. It’s Lent. And I’m not supposed to eat chocolate until Easter, but that’s all right. I really don’t like chocolate anyway. But I do like to dance.

          “Nieves, we must go shopping. Come to the hall and let’s put your coat on.”

         The shops are warm and smell a lot. Some smell good. I don’t like the meat store. It’s red and white and cold, but the meat man is very nice. He always talks to me and Tati. I think Tati likes him, but she won’t let him kiss her. Ever since Mardi Gras she won’t go to his store, even if Mamá asks for a steak for Papà. Tati just won’t go.

          The fish man isn’t as nice, and his shop smells bad bad bad. We go there every day.

         “Emidoro, I want a big fresh John Dory, and a pound and a half of mussels.”

         “Annunziata, if it’s muscles you want, you’d best go to the butcher’s. Romano has one just for you, and it’s even got your name on it. He’s got a new tattoo.”

          “Emidoro, I’m an old woman. My sparking days have been over longer than I can remember, and I don’t like the way Romano puts you up to his blasphemous courting. He’s divorced.”

         “Tati, what does divorced mean?”

         “Little Snowflake, uhm, uhr Emidoro, I’m sorry that you can’t supply me with my victuals. I’ll have to shop somewhere else. The way you talk in front of the S-M-A-L-L- S-I-G-N-O-R-I-N-A is not very considerating of her age. Good day.”

         “Tati, what does divorced mean?”

          “Nieves, be quiet. I’ve got to think about the shopping, and haven’t time for your sass.”

         Tati got all red in the face and swirled me around before she pushed me out onto the sidewalk.

         We went to the bread store, the soap and cookies store, and then went to a bar for a cup of coffee for Tati and a glass of orange juice for me. Papà came in too, and kissed me and talked to Tati.

          “Annunziata, we’ve got the perfect place for you on the float this year. The Grandmother reading the tale of Pinocchio to the children.”

         “Moh, moh, moh. Me on a float for Spring Carnival? And a grandmother? Moh, moh, moh. And I’m not even married. The Signore is very kind to ask, but I’m afraid it’s too cold. The weather is still too cold for an old woman like me to sit out in the open air.”

          “Annunziata, don’t be ridiculous. We have a nice warm costume, and you can put on all the warm clothing you want, underneath it. And besides…”

         “There is no need for the Signore to waste his breath. The answer is …”

         “Good day, Annunziata. Good-bye little Snowflake.”

         “Tati, what’s Spring Carnival?”

         “Nieves, we must go get the fruit. And the greens. I will tell you on the way.”

         “So, therefore Nieves, Spring Carnival is a one great big of excuse for people who can’t make it through Lent. There’s a big parade in the square, which your Papà is organizing this year. Everyone gets dressed up just like at Carnival, and dance and sing and throw confetti.”

        “And you can dance?”

        “Yes, but only that day and only in the square.”

        “When is it, Tati?”

        “The last day of winter or the first of Spring, whichever comes closest to Sunday. Nieves, come in the store.”

        This store was full of vegetables and fruit. There was a big woman doll sitting in one corner. She had a broom and a big nose and long white hair. The bumps on her chest were down over her tummy and she had an ugly smile.

        "Minghina, I want two pounds of chicory, herbs for ragù, and a half dozen eggs, and…”

         “Oranges, Tati?”

         “Nieves, ain’t no need to remind Nunzié here about oranges. We been doin’ business for more than forty years, well let’s call it fifty, and Tina’s always bought a good five pounds of oranges every week what they didn’t cost more than a dozen eggs. She never gets tired of ‘em either, that is until the Sega Vecia.”

         “What’s Sega Vecia, Tati?”

         “It’s another name for Spring Carnival, little Snowflake.”

         “And that’s her up there on the wall. See that female scarecrow? Why, that’s the Vecia. And at Spring Carnival, the men make a great big Vecia scarecrow and parade her all over the city. Then…”

        “Minghina, stop jabbering and get me my vegetables.”

        “All right, Nunzié, here you go. And take these too. In honor of the Vecia.”

         Minghina gave Tati a small bag, and Tati showed me the inside. There were raisins, and prunes, and lots of dried brown stuff.

         They were all wrinkled up, like the face of the scarecrow. Tati smiled.

         “Little Snowflake, do you see those sweets?”

          “Oh Tati, they aren’t sweets, it’s just nuts and old fruit that’s all dry and hard.”

          “Here, try this, it’s called a sugar plum.”

          “A sugar plum, Tati? It’s just a old prune.”

          “Eat and do as you are told when your elders talk. These sweets, old dried up fruit as you call it, is the winter fruit that I ate when I was a little girl like you. Do you know why we ate these?”

          “Because you got tired of the oranges?”

          “No little snowflake. When I was a little girl, oranges were very expensive, because they had to come all the way from Sicily, so oranges were very very special. Your Mamá remembers when they were special because when she was a little girl, they still cost very much. But your Tati, who is also your Mother’s Tati, always made a special point of keeping them in a white bowl on the dining room table, because I know that your Mother likes them very much.”

          “But, Tati, Mamá doesn’t like them any more. She said so.”

          “Your mother can be very foolish sometimes, and she doesn’t like to remember the past. Oranges are still special. When I was a little girl, we didn’t have them except on very special occasions, so we had to eat these dried figs and almonds and dates and chestnuts and raisins and hazelnuts. Now, the only time we eat them is for the Sega Vecia to remind us that Winter is just about over. The winter fruit is all wrinkled and brown, look. Like the face of the Vecia. Like the vines in January. Like wintertime itself, Nieves.”

          “Look, Tati. There’s Pasquale.”

          Pasquale was standing behind the small house where they sell newspapers, with a girl that was a lot bigger than him. He had his hand under her dress, and they were both smiling a lot. They were having a good time.

          Tati got very red and turned angry over her face.

         “Pasquale!”

          Now Pasquale got very red. The girl laughed and ran away.

          “Pasquale. What do you think you are doing out of school and with Civetta? Come here this instant.”

           Tati walked over to him, grabbed his ear, and gave him a big slap on the face. It made a loud noise and Pasquale started to scream.

          “Enough! Leave me alone, you old witch!”

          Tati gave Pasquale another slap on his face. It made a big noise, again. Pasquale kicked her in her legs and ran away.

           “Wait until your father hears about this! Just wait!”

           But Pasquale was already gone.

           When we got home, Tati sent me to my room to play. Mamá came home and she started to scream and yell again.

          “What? Oranges again! Tati, I really can’t take this…”

          “Just a moment Flora. There’s something more important than fruit to talk about. On the way home I caught Pasquale with Civetta.”

          “And what were they doing?”

         “I couldn’t exactly see, but…”

          “Oh I saw everything Mamá. Pasquale was playing with Civetta under her dress. Or maybe his hands were just cold.”

         “Did Nieves see all this?”

         "I’m afraid so, Flora.”

          “This does not concern me. This is for Augusto to take care of. Nieves, go back to your room this instant.”

          “Now Tati, I hope you did not buy just oranges.”

          “No, Flora. There is also a bag of winter fruit.”

          “Winter fruit? Dates, prunes…”

          “Sugar plums, Flora.”

          “They’re not sugar plums, Tati, they’re prunes. We’re not living in the nineteenth century any longer. Winter fruit. Ughh! I’ve had enough. I’m going out right now and buy the biggest, yellowest bunch of bananas that I can find.”

          “And you will eat them in your room in private. I don’t want to see you eating bananas at the table. It’s vulgar.”

          “Vulgar! Good God, what has gotten into you lately? Vulgar! Vulgar! I can’t take this any longer. I’m fed up with you and your goddamned winter fruit and your antiquated ways. I’m sick and tired of it all: the cold-grey-wet weather, skiing, freezing in the car, and coming home to find I can’t live just a little. I can’t stand it any more! Either you change, or you will leave this household.”

          “I will not do anything of the kind. This house is entrusted to me and not to you: at least your Mother had some sense. I’m not leaving. You can’t make me. And someone has to take care of the children. You certainly don’t.”

          Mamá left. Papà came home. Tati talked to Papà very quietly and then Pasquale came home. Papà went into Pasquale’s room which is right next to mine.

          “Pasquale, now what were you doing behind the newsstand with Civetta this morning?”

          “That’s none of your business.”

          I heard Papà slap Pasquale’s face as loud as Tati did.

          “Don’t you talk to me like that. You’re only twelve years old, and you can fight me, but you won’t win. Now, what were you doing?”

          “Nothing. Civetta was just showing me her underwear. She said she had a pair of fur knickers, and since she couldn’t pull up her dress in public, she wanted me to feel them.”

          “Fur knickers?”

          "But Papà, there weren’t no knickers at all. There was a lot of fur, but no knickers. She was naked; I liked it.”

          Papà laughed.

         “Well, son, I can’t blame you for liking it, and I can’t blame you for doing it. I did the same thing at your age. Women don’t remember what a young boy is capable of. But you have to be careful. I don’t want to hear of your being seen with Civetta again; her reputation is based on her diseases. Just be careful; as long as you are careful and secretive about these things, no one will bother you.”

          “Then, what I did wasn’t wrong?”

          “Not exactly. What was wrong was getting caught, and in public.”

          “Then why did Tati slap me?”

          “Tati’s an old woman who never got married, and just between you and me and the walls, I think she was just plain envious.”

          Papà and Pasquale laughed with their noses.

          “Dinner!”

          “As you all know, I’m in charge of the parade for Spring Carnival this year, and I’ve got choice spots for all of you on the floats this years. Pass the oil please, Flora. Pasquale, you are going to be Pinocchio at the Inn of the Red Shrimp. Mamá will be the Mistress of Ceremonies and Nieves, you will be on the float of the grandmother with your Tati.”

          Tati was taking the plates off the table and dropped a fork.

          “The Signore has already heard my decision this morning. I will not be on any float for any reason.”

         “Oh Tati, do be a dear and help Augusto. We’re all taking part this year; we need your help and you’re perfect.”

        “The answer is no. No.”

        “Tati, you’re just being crochety and ridiculous. You’re going to be on that float, now aren’t you?”    

          “I certainly will not. And that’s that. No.”

          Tati left the room. Papà started to talk to Mamá.

          “She’s absolutely  impossible. Can’t we get her to be more reasonable?”

          “I’m afraid not. And we can’t get her to leave the house either. Mother’s will.”

          “Papà, what do I have to do to be Pinocchio?”

          “It’s very simple. You have to smile and wave at the people and throw as much confetti as hard as you can at the people in the crowd. It’s all fun.”

          “Will there be any girls on the float?”

          “Maybe one or two. The fox and the cat.”

          “And me Papà?”

          “My little snowflake, the only thing you have to do is sit and listen to a grandmother tell the tale of Pinocchio. We’ll make you a pretty pink dress, and plait your hair in long braid.”

          “Tati, the fruit please.”

          Tati brought in the dried brown stuff on a plate, and peeled the oranges. Everybody ate, and didn’t talk.

          Then Mamá pulled out a big box of chocolates.

          “Flora, not only is it Lent, it’s even Friday! There will be no chocolates in this house until Easter. You’re setting a bad example for the children.”

          “Tati, leave me alone, please. I am tired of Lent, and winter and your interfering. Easter is a month off. I can’t wait.”

          Tati grabbed the box of chocolates.

          “Then, you‘ll wait at least until Spring Carnival. You can do without chocolates for another two weeks. Your Redeemer fasted in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, for all your sins. I will let you eat them for Spring Carnival, and not a day before.”

          “Augusto, I can’t take it any more.”

          Mamá put her face in her hands and started to cry. Papà got very mad.

          “Annunziata, we have all had enough of your antiquated ways. I will not tolerate them in my home any longer.”

          “You most certainly will tolerate them. I do not like to, but I will remind the Signore, that this is my house, and not his. The Signore may pay the bills around here, but I have the deed to the property.”

           “Then Annunziata, count one plate less for all the meals. If anyone is looking for me, I can be found at the Inn of the Stag for dinner, and for supper. Good day.”

           Papà left. Mamá cried. Tati stood with her arms on her stomach. Pasquale and I went to our rooms.

          Papà didn’t eat with us anymore. Mamá and Pasquale and me ate our food quietly, and we always ate those oranges. Tati made me a pretty pink dress for Spring Carnival, and she made Pasquale a green suit. We were very beautiful in our Spring Carnival clothes.

          It was a long time before the parade, but it finally got here. Like Christmas. Mamá left early in the morning, and Tati dressed us and took us to the place where the floats were. We got on, and then waited a long time.

         Tati is here near me. Romano the meat man comes up and puts his hand on Tati’s fanny.

         “Romano, in front of the signorina!”

          Tati slaps him. It makes a big noise.

          “Nunzié, why won’t you marry me? Please. I’m tired of being old and all alone. I don’t want to die without someone near me. Nunzié, I need you. And you need me. Please, marry me.”

         He takes out a small black box and opens it. There is a pretty ring with red diamonds. Tati turns red just like the diamonds.

          “Romano, I already have my life with Flora and the children. I’m not afraid of dying all alone. I didn’t forget that marriage is an eternal sacrament, like you did. And even if I could forget it, I’m an old woman, Romano. I cannot have children, I do not want to try. My life is already taken care of.”

          "But Nunzié, I can give you a new life. Marry me – I’ll do anything you want. I’ve been trying to get to you for the last three weeks, but you keep dodging me. Marry me. I need you.”

         “Romano, stop this foolishness this instant. We’re in front of the children, and in public. It’s not right.”

         “Nunzié…”

          “Romano, no more talk about marriage. What are you doing here anyway?”

          “I’m in charge of the Vecia. Taking good care of her too. Just as I’ll do with you. Just as I’m going to do with you as soon as I get the chance, now that I know the way things stand. See here she is, behind the float with the grandmother. Come on, stay with me inside the float where it’s warm.”

          “You’re nuts. I’m not that much of a fool. I’m going home.”

          “Tati, won’t you stay and watch me please?”

          “Oh little snowflake, I’ll see you for the first go round, and then go home. I’m too old to take winter any more and there’s too much of it left on this, the first day of Spring.”

         “Oh Nunzié, stay for the whole parade here with me. It’s the Sega Vecia, winter is over today.”

          “No, no thank you.”

          “But Nunzié, you have to wait at least until we take the Vecia into the square, take off her necklace and start to saw…”

* * * * *

          The patient screamed.

          “Nieves, Nieves, it’s all right. Here, calm down, look at me. Here, look, everything’s OK.”

           Nieves sobbed hysterically and writhed on the couch.

The crucial moment had arrived at last. The trauma had now been unearthed, but it was hidden from the psychiatrist’s awareness by Nieves’s childish curtain of terror. The doctor began to pull Nieves out of her past into the present reality, slowly making her recognize objects in the room: the lamp, the desk, the window, the pictures. He didn’t hazard mentioning the bowl of oranges he had received from a friend in Israel. In fact, he stood up so as to block Nieves’s view.

          A sedative was necessary, however, and when she later returned to her adult self completely, the doctor attempted to get Nieves to remember the scene. She only vaguely recalled it, and she had no recollection of her nurse Tati, not even a shared memory with her brother or parents. Only after the doctor started to recall Nieves’s more recent past did the truth begin to unfold.

         A simple country festival in the middle of March had found Nieves stretched on the pavement in a stupor, her eyes wide open in a grimace of terror. In the ambulance, they thought she had been trampled, but that was not the case. There were no bruises on her body, and though her mouth hung open, she refused to talk, and refused to move. After a week it became clear that she needed to be institutionalised.

          The doctor had been attempting to get Nieves to talk for weeks on end, to no avail, until that morning when she saw the white bowl with the oranges. But the doctor knew it wasn’t the oranges which had provoked her state; it was the festival, or something she had seen at the festival.

          "Nieves, why don’t you tell me something about the parade you went to see?”

          “Are you talking about Spring Carnival?”

          “Yes, that’s it. The parade you saw in Forlimpopoli.”

          “Spring Carnival, or Sega Vecia, as it’s called in the local dialect, is a festival held on the last day of winter, or the first of spring, or is it halfway through Lent? It’s a very old tradition, at any rate. It’s a procession of floats and dancers or mummers that wind their way through the city, singing and dancing and fighting with the spectators.”

           “Fighting?”

           “Well, yes fighting. Not with their fists, but they throw things at each other.”

          “What do they throw?”

          “Winter fruit is what they traditionally used to throw. Along with confetti, and now they mostly throw confetti, since dried fruit has gotten to be expensive to waste. It’s not at all dangerous, or anything like that, but people can be a little harsh about it sometime, you know, rough country folks and a little excitement.”

          “Getting to the centre where the floats are is the most difficult part of the festival. Elbowing my way through the press of the crowd and an occasional hail of magenta confetti, I got to the main square blocked with wooden barricades and packed with people, pushing at the outside perimeter of the fence. They were all screaming and dancing and yelling and joking and cursing in their thick gallic dialect. Everyone was singing and revelling in the streets, churning and groaning, the crowd moved up and down and back and forth.”

          “Above the wall of people appeared the first of the floats. King Arthur’s Court, the flower of chivalry rendered in heavy papier mache parody. The witches, Morgana obscenely buxom chasing or being chased by spindly-legged knights in and out and around the towers as King Arthur and Guinevere laugh and launch huge crowns filled with confetti onto the babbling crowd. Their court of small boys in tights pick at their crotches with their free hands, as the desire to urinate is augmented by the tattoo and the thump of the crowd and the music. Bits of grey fur and pasteboard crowns with cheap rhinestones and powerless sceptres all wave back and forth as the crowd jumps and retrieves the confetti thrown at them.

          “Next arrives the Ship of Fools, striped and mad, its sailors passing out cups of hot mulled wine to an impatient crowd from their landbound boat, along with varnished butts of oyster shells mounted on rough hewn wood, EAT AT TONINO'S TRATTORIA – SPECIALTY FISH. Their large black cannon is trained up over the crowd and every so often it shoots forth a suffocating charge of pristine white confetti onto an inattentive and distracted by-stander.

          “An enormous round swan follows, topped with tiny girls in tinier tulle tutus spinning and pirhouetting to their little hearts’ desire on the small floor placed at the summit of the swan’s back.

           “Closing the gap behind, blackface Carnival in Rio dancers swing their hips and grind to the beat as chunky cross-dressed men slap their thighs together and their arms apart, cheap plastic hoops in fluorescent colors swinging on their ears and lewd smiles of forbidden pleasures rippling across their faces while their wives and girlfriends stare in amazed stupor and hilarity. The pulsating pareos rhumba themselves into the false steps of Pinocchio’s initiation into the ways of the world, the Blue Fairy who laughs as his nose grows longer and longer and the bird’s nest appears on its end; the humiliation of the lie found out, the humiliation of the loss of bodily control as the Blue Fairy laughs and patient Geppetto carves him out of wood, blowing eggs hollow to make the joints. In the square, the Coccolia All Girl Marching Band, stomp cheesecake gams up and down and to the side in the cooling last afternoon of winter while their tassels spin and the trombones slide back and forth. A small child nearby begins to cry.

        “Where’s Tati? Where’s my Mamá? Where’s my Papà?”

          She’s dressed in pink. The crowd succeeds only in retrieving her first name, for she does not know or cannot recall her surname, as a row of mansized carrots brings forth a tempting new diversion and the child is carried up and away by a ten foot celery stalk while the onions and radishes goose old ladies who are frustrated at having nothing to slap, and no way to recognize their mashers.

          “I want my Tati!”

          An old woman is attempting to reach out to the girl, but each time the woman nears the girl the crowd involuntarily pushes them apart though the little girl is now aware of the woman trying to get to her, until a zoo of gilded cages with boy bears and girl gorillas inundates the confused faces once more with a sea of confetti whose riptide and breakers make the effort to choose any direction futile, as the lions and tigers hurl, jets of confetti against the crowd, who now respond, scooping up the flattened mounds of colored paper off the streets and into their hands and aim it back at the floats and then at their fellow bystanders on the street until the limits are finally broken down and the people become the parade, and the parade becomes the rites, and thus, yes now the ritual is complete, the participation in the mystery, the dark float of half-starved women dressed in black with lunar circles above and below the eye’s orbits, menacing the crowd with a black hail of confetti and spiders on fishing poles that climb and crawl across the heads of the crowd as it nears utter folly.

           Pinocchio transforms from wood to flesh, stopping at the Inn of the Red Shrimp.

         “Pasquale, Pasquale” they scream, Civetta is dressed as the fox, through no plan of his father’s, and Pinocchio and the fox adjourn to rest inside the plywood shack, the old woman sees all and moans and wails but her sorry cries are buried and drowned out by the guffaws of the crowd, at the Inn of the Red Shrimp and its rites of passage where he tells lies and he grows asses’s ears and makes the plunge into the whale’s remote gullet to emerge a real boy, much to his father’s delight.

         The crowd becomes anxious as this last short winter afternoon chills, the little girl is picked up and sent forward looking for her Tati, her mother, her father, anyone, lost and all alone and hungry and cold, until the float of the grandmother comes along, the reassuring old woman bent in genteel candour as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming bow to the crowd behind her back throwing gentle puffs of pastel confetti as the children sit and listen to the entry of the Wicked Queen, and behind all of the floats here comes the Vecia.

         A float all to herself, twenty-five feet tall on a rustic lazy susan, hidden from view by tempera colored clothing, her big print skirt in corrugated cardboard, she whirls her way through the crowd, her broom poised and twirling overhead, the wispy strands of her hair afloat above her sagged breasts, rolling about her waistline while a vulgar necklace of orange beads swoops across her curved chest. Under a dark headscarf, the face, long, sloping, high cheekbones, a hooked nose and protruding chin, and the huge, Byzantine eyes which define the Romagnol profile in a state of utter disbelief and disdain and despair.

          The children begin to scream, “Ségala, Ségala, Ségala. Se…”

          “Tati, Tati, where’s my Tati?”

          Romano, the meat man comes up standing next to me and bends over to take my hand. Then I see Tati on the other side of the street.

          “Tati! I’m not lost anymore!”

          Romano gives my hand to a strange man with a grey hat.

          “Excuse me, Sir. This little girl is called Nieves Mazzotti. Her mother is the MC, if you wouldn’t mind taking Nieves up there to the Town Hall please. I need to tend to the Old Woman. Thank you.”

          “But my Tati…”

          “Don’t worry little girl, I’m taking you right to your mother.”

          Tati comes up behind the meat man and tries to call me, but he stops her. I try to get back to her, but the strange man is strong, and pulls me the other way.

          “Tati!”

          “Nieves! My little snowflake!

          I keep looking at Tati, standing there with the meat man. He is hugging her tight, and Tati doesn’t like it. But then, he lifts the bottom of the Vecia’s dress and they go under the skirt of the Vecia. The skirt swirls around. Pasquale is still inside the Inn.

          The man with the grey hat takes me inside a long building with big, white stairs. We go up the stairs and walk out onto a balcony. There is Mamá.

          “Mamá, Mamá, I’m not lost any more!”

         Mamá is mad.         

         “Shut up and be still. The parade is almost over and I have to continue the commentary.”

          “I’ll be quiet Mamá.”

          “And here she comes! The Vecia has at last decided to come sweep out the square.”

          The rough wooden barricades lining the square are drooling with children, as the broom twirls high above the vacant, horrified state of the Vecia’s incredulous eyes, scanning the crowd. The MC bursts out over the “That’s her alright. The Vecia, the Old Woman, the spirit of winter and all the things that are dead. Down with winter! Down with Lent! Ségala! Ségala!”

          The crowd begins to chant, “Ségala, ségala, ségala…” Flora gives up trying to speak over the crowd’s vocal frenzy.

          She’s just like the Vecia in the store, only bigger and uglier.

          “This is the Vecia, isn’t it, Mamá?”

          “That’s right, Nieves. And do you see Papà down there in the square beside Romano?” They are getting ready for the big moment. The moment we’ve all been waiting for.”

          “What are they going to do?”

          “See, right now they are going to take off her beads.”

The ladder leans up against her puddling breasts and permits the butcher to cut the strand of orange beads with a knife. The necklace drops and rolls over her belly and skirt to the ground.

“Mamá, they aren’t beads. They are oranges.”

          “Little snowflake, it’s fruit we eat in the winter: the Vecia is wintertime. And so her necklace is winter jewellery. Like Tati’s garnet beads.”

          As the oranges plummet to ground, hordes of uncontrollable children spill out of every corner of the square to the hem of the Vecia’s skirt, vying for the booty of the big red Tarrocchi from Sicily. The winter fruit of their modern era. And as soon as they pick up the oranges, they start to hurl them at the Vecia.

          “Tati would just love this scene, wouldn’t she little snowflake?”

          “I don’t like it at all. The oranges are making long red squishes all over the woman’s pretty skirt.”

          “Oh, but Nieves, she’s only made of cardboard. And besides, they’re going to burn her, anyway.”

          “Burn her? They can’t burn her. Tati is inside.”

          “Shut up. Don’t be silly. Tati is at home, warming her poor old bones in front of the oven.”

          “But no Mamá, she’s…”

          “I said, Shut up!”

           Mamá smacks me and I start to cry.

          Down in the square the Vecia’s blouse is covered with long red stains from the hearts of the Tarrocchi. Stains ooze down over the lumpy, shapeless dress. Romano, the butcher, climbs the ladder leaning on her skirt as the crowd continues its chant:

          “SÉGALA, SÉGALA, SÉGALA, SÉGALA, SÉGALA… “

          Romano arrives at the top of the ladder with one hand, the other holding a big new double saw. On the other side of the Vecia’s neck, Papà grabs the varnished handle and together they start to saw away at the neck of the Vecia. Everyone’s cries are muffled by those of the person next to him. Total confusion reigns. The red stains continue to drip down the sagging poitrine as the as the saw cuts deeper and deeper into the old woman’s neck.

          “SÉGALA, SÉGALA, SAW HER UGLY HEAD OFF,”

and sure enough as the saw bites through the last layer of papier mache, the head like the oranges, tumbles down the length of the body until it is caught by its own rope and the ghastly, painted eyes hang upside down in horror as the flaxen hair gently drifts in the breeze, the bun coming undone and the men dragging faggots of wood, arrange them around the base of the skirt, then douse it with gasoline. Romano smiles as he lights it.

          The flames slowly lick their way up the incendiary effigy and eat the the layer of cardboard and papier mache, exposing an underlying structure of crudely lashed logs, and branches, and sticks, making the children scream with glee. The wisps of bleached flax floating hair catch the yellow flower of flame that blooms across the visage, blackening its painted eyes, crooked nose, and jutting chin, which burn and turn to acrid smoke, until the entire outside of the Vecia is consumed in flame revealing the central pole , rude but effective, that spun the body around and around, a flaming log ascending from the base under the skirt. Instead descending from the neck of the decpaitated body, with arms lashed to the sides of conical thoracic cavity, a long, blazing ash hangs directly over the log. It burns in the center of the Vecia’s body until the weight strains the burning ropes too much, and then a hesitant jerk, and then another and another provide the prelude to a well-orchestrated concentric collapse of the flaming effigy into a raging bonfire spurting sparks to burn away the last grey winter afternoon. Romano kicks the flaming head into the center of the flames.

          An old man with a new, plastic-wrapped baby doll and a young boy distract attention as they clamber over the barricades with a large, red weather balloon, and move toward the center of the square. Flora can use the microphone again, now that everyone has stopped chanting.

          “Ladies and Gentlemen, to celebrate the death of winter and proclaim the glory of Forlimpopoli which brings springtime to the rest of Italy each year, the town council of Forlimpopoli will let fly this brand-new, extra deluxe Inge doll to announce the arrival of the Romagnol springtime, to some lucky girl in another part of our fatherland. Last year the balloon arrived in Sardinia where it was found…”

          “I know that Tati is inside the Vecia. She must hurt awful bad, because it’s all burned up now. I hope she didn’t cry too much. I hope she gets home before we do. I want her to peel me an orange.”

          The old man passes the balloon and the doll to the young boy in knickers and argyle socks. The crowd has calmed but is neither quiet or noisy. Everyone is satisfied with the day’s events, but the children’s lungs have begun to get chilled and raspy in this first breath of springtime. The little boy with the balloon and the doll looks up into the early sunset, and lifting his arms, he lets loose the offering for the spring to come.

          The plastic glints in the late afternoon sun, and slowly rising above the vaporized breath of the crowd, the balloon lifts Inge and her augury of Spring and farewell to Winter into the paling sky. The eyes in the crowd follow the red spot until it drifts up above the forgotten bonfire and buildings, and passing between the evening star and a softly smoking chimney, Inge disappears from human sight and recognition.