There’s something precious about a friendship first formed in childhood, before we can become judgmental. These early bonds often need nothing more than an common interest in simple pleasures, a walk in the woods, a dip in the water. As the days, weeks, months, and years go by, a history is written, one that can be saved and referenced throughout a lifetime.
Francisco Veleno first meets Claudia Fanelli at school in Martina Franca, a town in Puglia, Italy. With her flaming red hair and eyes of two different colors, light brown and blue green, Claudia is hard to miss and she quickly attracts the attention of many boys. Francisco is immediately smitten, but she ignores him. Worse, one day another girl approaches him.”Stay away from Claudia, she hates you,” he’s told.
Spatriati, from the Italian verb spatriare, means to go away or to be expelled from a homeland. In Puglia, it’s also used to describe someone who is odd, shiftless, or an orphan. With two working parents – a father who was a physical ed instructor, and a mother a nurse – Francisco often felt like an orphan. “All I had to eat was bread dipped in water with tomato and salt, my supper when my mother had the night shift and my father disappeared on his ambiguous errands.” Having fallen asleep one evening on the sofa, he woke to find a note from his mother on the kitchen table asking to meet her at the hospital. “We will be apart, but only for a little while, we need some space.” She had left his father.
The next day, Claudia approaches him. “What are you mother’s tits like?” Francisco is taken back. She asks how his father is doing, adding that her mother is not doing well. Then drops the bombshell: “My father is a surgeon at the hospital where your mother works, and now they’ve gone off to live together.” Because Elisa Veleno and Enrico Fanelli never marry, Francisco and Claudia never become actual step siblings. Yet the break up of their families has tied them together and that union will last for decades.
The two young people are polar opposite – Francisco introverted and shy, Claudia outgoing, one might even say outrageously so, and a risk taker. While Francisco loves Claudia, she toys with his emotions, even though she cares about him. For the many years they are together, he will be an observer in her life, watching as she takes up with lovers, some men, some women, and begins to experiment himself.
She deals with her parents’ separation by moving to Milano for university. Francisco goes to a local college, but drops out after less than a year, unable to concentrate on his studies. Eventually he follows her to Milano, and then to Berlin. The two live together, often with a lover that they share. Between Francisco and Claudia, there are kisses and snuggles, but never actual sex. The one man Francisco falls in love with, Andria, ends up leaving without explanation. Claudia berates Francisco for not asking Andria to marry him. But could he truly commit to another when the pull to be with Claudia remains?
At the end of the book, Claudia and Francisco are in their forties, members of Generation X, the cohort dubbed the “latchkey generation,” returning from school to empty homes at a time when the divorce rate soared. Mario Desiati perfectly captures a generation that seeks to be worldly, but is unable to leave behind their original home with all its baggage. Coming from two broken families, Claudia and Francisco attempted to find security elsewhere, but that emotional support keeps slipping away. Translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore, Desiati’s words will resonate and perhaps sound an alarm to a cross section of generations.
Spatriati
Mario Desiati
Translated by Michael F. Moore
Top Bigstock Photo: Church of St. Domenico. Martina Franca. Puglia. Italy.
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