You, Naughty Mum!: And Other Tales

By Lucio Angelini

A truly varied and innovative collection, branded Lucio Angelini. Next to apparently traditional fairy tales, in which the author had fun practicing the so-called “reversal of the reader's expectations” (You, Naughty Mum!, for example, very enjoyable even by an adult audience), we find ironic reinterpretations of famous fairy tales (Whitedwarf and the Seven Snows) or fairy tales in which the real and the surreal intertwine in a particularly liberating mix (in Inside Oronzo’s Big Head, the child Oronzo takes revenge in a totally unpredictable way for the pedagogical sadism of his teacher). Particularly interesting are some “meta-tales”, in which the author does not hesitate to highlight typical “ingredients” or “clichés” or

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781647502621

Lucio Angelini

As he wrote in one of his Italian novels (Il fantasma di Andersen): “The most striking episode of my childhood was when the ghost of a tall, slouching boy with a big nose appeared to me: Hans Christian Andersen.” Born in Fano, Italy, but living in Venice, Lucio Angelini is a translator of novels and essays for major Italian publishers (Einaudi, Mondadori, Frassinelli, Fazi, and others) and a writer. He translated into Italian Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Gandhi, Einstein, Tobias Wolff, Lewis Carroll and others, including Patricia Cornwell’s Body of Evidence (Oggetti di reato, Mondadori). He also translated into Italian three novels by Hans Christian Andersen: Only a Fiddler, O.T. – A Danish Novel, The Two Baronesses. As a writer, he has written mainly short stories for children and young adults. His collection You, Naughty Mum! (And Other Tales)(Quella bruttacattiva della mamma!, Emme Edizioni) was translated into French with the title Méchante Maman (Flammarion). In 2013, he published in Italy The Chinese Gondolier (Il gondoliere cinese), an environmentalist noir for adults, in support of the campaign for the expulsion of giant cruise ships from the Venetian lagoon.

Book preview

A Tale by Calvino at Calvino

Prize for Unpublished Tales

The experiment of mediumistic writing was proving successful. The hand of the pale unpublished writer (years and years of rejected submissions, of stabs to the heart) was beginning to move in the dark.

It only wrote: "The ele," then stopped.

After a while, the pen started to quiver again. It added seven letters: phangel.

Yes, of course! The Elephangel.

How strange a title!

***

Two hours later, the script was there on the table, ready to be sent to the editorial office of L’Indice, Italo Calvino Prize. Author: Italo Calvino. Mediumistic executor: Vitalino Calò.

Vitalino Calò felt as though he was eviscerated, emotionally drained. Just look at what he had been compelled to do!

His face, in shadow, seemed like a mulberry sprinkled with flour. A sense of dullness, cold. His hand had become a fin. He switched on the light and read it a hundred times. More and more disconcerted, at the bizarre tale for children:

THE ELEPHANGEL

Once upon a time, there was a big grey elephant, which everybody called, with little imagination, Big Grey. He would spend all his time in the middle of a lawn, as immobile as a monument, in meditation.

One day, a child went near him with a bucketful of pink paint:

Hey, you, Big Grey, he said. May I paint you all pink? You are such a sad colour.

Big Grey thought it over for a minute, looked at the child as if he were mad, then, all of a sudden, clutched the bucket with his proboscis and without uttering a word, turned it upside down upon the child’s head.

The child went off disconsolately, dripping pink paint all the way home. But he didn’t give in.

The following day, while Big Grey was standing in the middle of the lawn, all rapt in meditation as was his habit, the child had another go. This time, he had brought with him a bucketful of yellow paint.

That pink colour of yesterday. Well, to say the truth, it wasn’t exactly fitting for a great big elephant like you, he muttered. A little feminine, among other things. But look at this yellow paint I’ve got here today. Isn’t it stupendous? A real marvel. Come on, then; let me have a try. Let me paint you all yellow, please.

Big Grey looked him up and down, more annoyed than the day before, and again, after stretching out his proboscis, he seized the bucket and poured its contents on the child’s head.

For about ten days, our little hero didn’t dare to show himself.

The elephant, deeply plunged into his usual meditations, didn’t move from the lawn even to go to the bathroom.

But on the morning of the eleventh day, the child reappeared.

This time, he was holding a bucketful of red-pink.

Big Grey, I beg you, he opened. Be good and let me have a try, at last. I’m sure you won’t regret it. You’ll look terribly smart, all painted red. You’ll resemble one of those elephants, which people only find in the comics.

His eyes were glittering so touchingly that Big Grey was moved. All in all, who cared a damn about colours?

OK, paint me red, he sighed. Since it seems of such importance to you!

The child set himself at work immediately. He diligently brushed over the elephant’s ears, back, proboscis, tail, big legs, and huge bottom. And the result was not at all disappointing. Big Grey had to admit it.

In the following days, on hearing about that big brilliant red beast standing perfectly still in the middle of that green lawn, people rushed to see him from every part of the city.

Though Big Grey pretended not to lose his composure, he felt inwardly pleased to arouse such a great interest.

One day, a very sad day, a terrible shower burst out. The rain poured cats and dogs on the back of the magnificent animal. How fresh is it! Big Grey repeated to himself from time to time, without moving an inch.

The rain was fresh, no doubt about it, but when it stopped, Big Grey discovered himself, to his own great surprise, to have lost every trace of red. He had become grey again, grey, grey, desolately grey.

At his foot, a red puddle.

I can’t see anything special in this elephant, he heard one little girl, who had just arrived there on purpose from another city, saying to another. I was told that he had well something ‘special’ on him, but now I see that he is an absolutely ordinary elephant. No marvellous colours at all! How silly of me to undertake such a long journey for so little!

Big Grey took it amiss. Ah, if my friend the painter might return! he thought. I’m so looking forward to seeing him again.

And fortunately for him, a few days later—lo and behold—the young painter reappeared.

My goodness, Big Grey! he exclaimed, opening his eyes wide. There’s not even the tiniest of red spots left on your skin. The rain must have washed away all the paint!

My goodness! Big Grey echoed, confidently.

The child understood and smiled at him.

Don’t worry, Big Grey. Just trust me and leave it to me.

He ran away and after an hour reappeared holding an enormous bucket of blue paint, in the exact shade of the sky.

I’ll paint you blue, he told him, this beautiful sky colour!

Big Grey let him do it amenably.

The big elephant was so blue, in the end, that he looked like a real bit of sky (and not too small a one, in truth).

Big Grey, the child exclaimed now, how magnificent you are! A real splendour! And do you want to know something? I also would like to fix a nice pair of wings on your flanks.

He went off like a streak of lightning, and about ten minutes later, he was back, holding two beautiful cardboard wings.

Big Grey let him fix them on his body without objecting.

That is not an elephant! the children would exclaim from that moment on, rushing in swarms to see him. He is an angel!

An angel? one of them said one day. We’d better say an ‘elephangel!’ An elephangel-shaped bit of sky!

All of a sudden and to everybody’s great surprise, Big Grey’s wings began to shake, to vibrate, then to lift him up, at first awkwardly, then more and more resolutely. In a few seconds—lo and behold—Big Grey was definitely taking off and flying!

Fareweeelll, Big Greeeyyy! the children cried, becoming smaller and smaller down there on the lawn under him, while he soared higher and higher, so very distant, now, above them. He was already mingling with the blue of the sky.

Fareweeelll, Big Greeeyyy!

Fareweeelll, childreeennn!

Soon, an indistinct dot was all that was left of him. Then, it too disappeared.

He had gone away, Big Grey, up there in the sky. Who might know where?

The first elephangel to have ever been seen.

***

Vitalino Calò was perplexed.

What if Calvino, as the big baby he was, had misunderstood everything?

What if he had mistaken that Turinese literary competition for the Andersen Prize?

Hum! Ah!

Just fancy!

Ugh!

To hell!

He folded his script and put it into the envelope on which he wrote an address: "Premio Italo Calvino 1989, Redazione de L’Indice, Via Andrea Doria, 14, 10123 Torino."

Suddenly Calvino’s "Six Memos for the Next Millennium" came to mind. The one about Lightness in particular.

Lightness. Lightness. The blue pachyderm rising in the sky.

He doubted no more.

You, Naughty Mum!

Phil was sure that he was the classical bad-mothered good boy. In the evenings, before falling asleep, he felt shivers running down his spine. I know only too well—he would moan—what this kind of sickness is. It’s mere lack of love.

His mother was very beautiful.

In the mornings, she would throw her fox jacket on her shoulders, drink three cups of coffee, slip a cigarette between her lips, and go away, leaving him all sad on the threshold, in his torn pyjamas (nobody cared about mending them), and he was disappointed that his mother, as usual, didn’t even give him half a smile.

She’s bad, she’s bad! Phil would repeat to himself in desperation.

He would go back to bed and cry until late in the morning, then, about eleven, after he had shed his last tear, a very little but very healthy suspicion would begin to surface from the bottom of his desperation. Maybe his mother, under her mysterious bark of evilness, was actually the sweetest of women! Maybe, when she held herself from looking at him, she was inwardly dying to hug him, kiss him, and pet him! Maybe she acted in those brusque and icy ways of hers only because of a strange form of… of… the devil knew what!

Comforted by this subterranean conviction, at last, Phil would decide to come off his bed and begin his day.

I must at all costs find out why my mum pretends not to love me, he would repeat to himself from time to time.

He would sweep the kitchen floor, make the beds, go and empty out the dustbin, and run to do the shopping (every morning, before leaving, his mother used to scribble a list of the things for him to buy), and in the end, still panting, he would concentrate on waiting for her to arrive.

His mother, usually, came home in a bad temper.

Phil, come here and take my boots off! she would command without even saying hello to him. She would drop into the couch and sleep for about ten minutes. Upon waking, she would find Phil punctually handing her a bowl of broth.

This is water! his mother complained each time, at the first spoonful. (That’s not true! You’re unjust! Phil wanted to cry. I’ve put two sticks of celery, two tomatoes, two carrots, two onions, a nice piece of beef, half potato, and then salt and pepper into it! It’s not water, it can’t be water. You’re unjust!)

I’m sorry, he would mutter instead, bending his head in disappointment.

His mother would skim nervously through the newspapers, put on her boots again, and then withdraw into the bathroom for a while: Phil would hear sounds of small bottles or brushes falling to the floor, together with his mother’s irritated curses, and he would long for the door to open again, in the hope that his mother, before going out, would notice him down there at the end of the corridor, his eyes shining, and give him at least a pinch on the cheeks.

On the contrary, his mother would shift him like an obstacle and go out almost running, having a cigarette between her lips.

Phil would then run to the bathroom, touch the brush with which his mother had just massaged her hair, turn off the tap which she left invariably running, dry the puddle around the shower basin and sigh, I must win her love! I must absolutely succeed in winning it!

He would scrutinise his own face in the mirror, give captivating smiles at himself, and then, for an instant, look confidently at his future.

Winter came.

Phil, already withered by his chronic lack of love, became seriously ill. He began to cough like a wolf-cub, swaying along the corridor; his ears reddened by fever.

What kind of broth is this? his mother protested one day, upon putting the spoon to her lips.

It’s water, Phil murmured in a low tone, bending in two because of his suffering.

His mother went to the window to look into her bowl in a better light.

It’s true. That’s water. Real water! she concluded in bewilderment. Real tap water!

She looked incredulously at Phil, now half-fainting over his chair and becoming exceedingly pale.

What sort of novelty is this? she exclaimed in amazement. Have you gone mad?

She ran to the bathroom, but as soon as she opened the door, she saw water everywhere.

Phil, you stupid ass! she began to cry. Look at the disaster you’ve caused over here, blast it!

Phil didn’t move a muscle.

Good for nothing! the woman added.

She grasped a couple of old newspapers and started to scatter them on the flooded floor. Then, while turning off the tap and exploding with anger, she perceived some words written with her lipstick on the mirror:

"Farewell, Mum.

I don’t know if I’ll ever come back to you.

You didn’t notice my presence.

Will you ever notice my absence?"

Phil was trembling all over in his chair. He hadn’t been able to run away, and now his mother must have read his message or, at least, would read it within a few seconds.

He stood there pricking his ears, waiting for a cry? A big scene?

Moments of silence. Then a sound of steps.

His mother was going to him?

Would she embrace him and press him to her breast, at last?

The silence grew deeper.

Phil began to be very uncomfortable, then almost afraid.

What if his mother, in the meanwhile, had died of heartbreak, there in the bathroom?

He got up and moved to check the place, walking like a beaten-up donkey, his tail between his legs. He opened the door in slow-motion: nobody was there.

He headed toward her bedroom, gave a slight knock at the door, then a stronger one, and waited a few seconds. At last, he opened it and poked his nose inside the room; nobody there, either.

He searched the apartment from top to bottom.

Nobody anywhere.

He went back to the bathroom and looked at the