Under the Bent Tree

By Anne Burke

Chiara is an eighteen-year-old Italian woman who moves alone to South Africa in 1970, catapulted by love and circumstances into a foreign land five thousand miles away from home. In her brief initial stay in South Africa, she experiences a turmoil of emotional events, the inebriating happiness for having rejoined her boyfriend, now husband, the elation of true friendship, but also homesickness, hate, abuse, and finally mourning. All embedded in her own unforeseen yet hastened call for growth and maturity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798885053143

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

XXIII

XXIV

XXV

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

cover.jpg

Under the Bent Tree

Anne Burke

Copyright © 2024 Anne Burke

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88505-313-6 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88505-314-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To my parents.

I

The South African sky on this Mother's Day in 1970 was a spotless, richly creamy blue.

Chiara stared into the wide-open, distant horizon from her Alitalia Airlines window seat. She felt both its immensity and her immanent boundaries.

Rust-red earth, flat land, edge-free spaces, all was so different from the city she had left behind only hours earlier and now thousands of miles away, her hometown of Savognola, in Central Italy. Its regal crown of mountains that so majestically encircled it, the narrow streets, the original medieval churches facing each a sprawling square—thirty-seven according to tradition—the crisp, fresh air, all had molded her safe cocoon.

Chiara was born and raised there, her family and friends lived there, all her familiar sounds and faces and places. She had left them all behind.

Barely a month had passed since her eighteenth birthday.

Sharp images crowded her mind: her mother's calming and heartfelt smile at the front door. Fai buon viaggio e che Dio ti benedica! (Have a safe trip and may God bless you), Signora Rosa had told her, trying to keep still a slightly trembling chin. Her older sister's, Laura's, quiet weeping as the two girls hugged their last goodbyes. Her father waving his right hand at Chiara while she walked away from the metal fence that separated visitors from passengers at Rome's Fiumicino airport.

Signor Antonio's sad eyes welled up with tears he was unable to fight back. His daughter was leaving a homeland nobody in his family had ever gone away from before, embarking on a journey as distant as it was uncertain, to a foreign country where Giovanni, her new husband, was now waiting.

Stai attenta! (Be careful) were Signor Antonio's last words to Chiara, his voice shaky.

The drive from Savognola to Rome's Fiumicino airport had been tedious that early morning, three hours of winding roads through Central Italy's Apennine Mountains, via Rieti and Amatrice. It had always made Chiara carsick as a child, when visiting relatives in Rome with her parents. The autostrada to Rome that would shorten the drive by two hours through numerous tunnels and majestic elevated bridges was still under construction.

Again, she felt woozy the whole ride to Rome.

In her father's new Fiat 850, no one was willing to chat.

Driving along to Rome's airport with Chiara and her father was Giovanni's mother, Signora Patrizia, a pleasant and affable yet strong-willed and practical lady, who ran her own haberdashery shop in town and firmly knew the value of money.

My older brother went to Africa with Mussolini in '36, she said. He made quite a good living there. In Abyssinia. She turned to look at Chiara, who smiled back. Signora Patrizia's brother had indeed volunteered to join the Italian army in the Un posto al sole military campaign, Italy's place in the sun conquest of an African colony in 1936. A devout Fascist himself, like many Italian men at the time, he had answered the call from Mussolini and left for Eastern Africa at barely nineteen.

He was imprisoned there during the war. The British, you know! Signora Patrizia continued, hinting at a sigh of disapproval.

Chiara stared outside the car window. She felt somewhat uneasy at the image of suffering and the fear Signora Patrizia's memory inevitably elicited. The ensuing silence in the car was again interrupted by the lady's voice.

You are a lucky girl, Chiara! You are soon to be with my son! I wish I could come along with you! Signora Patrizia said, attempting a smile.

Signora Patrizia had a soft spot for Giovanni, her firstborn, who could do no wrong and made her feel that he, the oldest and biggest and strongest of her four children, was the one most in need of her protection and undivided attention.

It was he, Giovanni, who now waited for Chiara, his new bride, to arrive at Benoberg, South Africa, where he had lived for the past four months, working for an Anglo-American corporation as an assistant electrical engineer.

It fell to Signora Patrizia to keep the conversation going on the narrow mountain drive from Savognola to Rome, while Chiara's father kept his eyes fixed on the road as the dark of night slowly lifted and the early dawn light pierced through trees and hills.

Chiara kept quiet, immersed in her thoughts.

The image of her high school friends came to mind. She had bid them farewell a couple of weeks earlier at a tea party her mother, Signora Rosa, hosted at home one afternoon so Chiara could see her friends before leaving Italy. And they came, Francesca, Maria Giovanna, Gabriella, Tina, Isabella, and brought her gifts they thought she could use in her new home in South Africa: an iron, a toaster, an embroidered bath towel. There was an air of excitement, curiosity, uncertainty. They only knew that Chiara was getting married, leaving her school and town, and going far away. She had never openly told them why this was happening so suddenly and wished she could offer precious details. So much mystery to be kept, in the name of discretion.

The sweet girls loved Chiara, their bright, accessible, generous, good-natured friend. They were the offspring of families respectful of tradition, manners, loyalty. Maria Giovanna was the talkative one. Tina looked at Chiara as if she had turned into a circus oddity. Isabella smiled, but Francesca and Gabriella kept quiet.

Chiara looked at Francesca, her closest friend of all, and the sadness she read in her eyes hurt her deeply. She was keeping her new, exciting secret from Francesca, withholding her inner life from her dearest friend, unwillingly risking shredding the trust they had always held in each other. Was Chiara disappointing Francesca? Beneath Francesca's pensive look and concerned smile, Chiara could feel her best friend's deep affection, the unconditional love cemented by innocent complicity the two girls had shared since first grade.

Chiara glanced at her father. She thought about his first, absolute denial of what life had thrown at his young family. He had eventually acquiesced after his initial hurtful disapproval. He had had no choice but to let her go, his obstinate little girl, armed solely with the will and courage of her teenage love and an unshakeable determination to join her now husband-by-proxy.

The Alitalia plane began its descent, the wide, spread-out eagle wings slowly swaying over Johannesburg. In Rome, it had taken off to the tune of Arrivederci Roma playing over the public announcement system; Chiara could not recognize the new songs now inundating the cabin.

The other passengers were all too busy concentrating on their last preparations before landing, eagerly focused on their families or businesses awaiting them. They could not possibly imagine how their self-absorption left Chiara feeling stranded up there, in a cloud of loneliness, apprehensively floating in the air.

From her window seat, curiosity was pulling her to look down at the view below. But fear of the unknown threatened to ground her there, buckled up, and indifferent to future wants or needs.

The plane safely landed at Jan Smuts Airport on a runway near the terminal.

Chiara and her fellow passengers descended the airplane's tall staircase onto the open airfield, where uniformed airport personnel were to escort them for the short walk to the terminal, and into the baggage claim area. Upon exiting the plane, Johannesburg's daylight, brilliant in its golden glow, immediately struck Chiara's eyes. Squinting, she reached for her sunglasses in the large red leather travel bag she carried over her shoulder, to no avail, as passengers behind graciously motioned her to move on.

As she walked toward the three-story terminal, a square modern building, she suddenly stopped and turned around for a glance at the only remaining physical contact with Italy she had held dear throughout her voyage and up to that moment. The winged metal object with green, white, and red stripes on its tail was everything safe and comforting she could still relate to in this foreign, flat, utterly luminous land.

Che Dio mi aiuti! (God help me), she thought, a bit anxious.

The airy, neutral-colored airport terminal swarmed with people. So many new and different faces, sounds, and languages Chiara had never heard before.

Someone directed her to the conveyor, where porters unloaded the luggage. She did not have to wait long for the two suitcases her father had loaded onto his Fiat 850 when she left Savognola. The other passengers grabbed their bags and quickly left the area.

Everything went fast and smoothly.

She did not see Giovanni.

Where is he? Chiara wondered worriedly.

She turned around, again and again, standing with her luggage next to the conveyor, her large red leather bag over her shoulder, a travel trench coat on her arm, her heart pounding. The only face she would recognize among thousands was not there. She felt lost.

What if he is not coming? What if he did not receive my last letter with the flight information and arrival time?

On the plane, she had befriended a young Italian businessman who sat next to her. He volunteered some information on the capital, Pretoria, where he lived, about its mild weather, the wide boulevards covered by a contiguous canopy of Jacarandas, its streets blanketed in the embroidered mantle of purple flowers shed by the blooming trees in the summer. Chiara told him she was going to live in Benoberg in the Transvaal region. Nell'Highveld, he told her in Italian, on the Highveld.

Cos'e' l'Highveld? she asked the young gentleman, thinking there was yet another name for the region.

"Highveld is a South African word, I suppose, for the plateau where Benoberg lies, he answered Chiara. It's a highland, an altopiano."

Chiara learned she was moving to a place two thousand meters high. Higher than Savognola, she thought.

Although curious about the area, Chiara felt reticent about addressing further questions to someone she did not know. She would have loved to ask the young man about the new land awaiting her, about the highland. Was it woodsy? Did it have special plants and flowers, different from those in Italy? And how did cities look besides Pretoria? Were people friendly? Would they make her feel welcome? But she kept quiet, grateful for what she had just heard, and for not sitting all by herself on such a long flight, her first ever.

She had not asked for his name before landing and was now too embarrassed to turn to him for help as she saw him swiftly carry his suitcase away, heading for customs.

That was when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She immediately turned, and there, tall and muscular, with the build of a rugby player, standing in front of Chiara was the subject of her every thought, her infinite love, her now husband.

Ciao, Giovanni said, smiling, looking a bit nonchalant as if they had just seen each other an hour earlier. Was he perhaps teasing her?

Giovanni! she whispered, excited.

He hugged her tightly.

Is this your luggage? he asked, pointing at her suitcases. The factory driver is waiting for us.

He looked heavier; a lock of light-brown hair parked on his spacious forehead.

He seemed to be in a hurry.

Yes, these are my suitcases, Chiara said. Couldn't bring more.

The sight of him filled her heart with joy and purpose and complete elation.

There he was, next to her after four immensurable months of longing and waiting!

We have to rush, he said. The driver has to get back to Benoberg by four o'clock. Chiara sensed his urgency and readily picked up the beauty case she had carried along on the plane, now sitting on top of her suitcases. She was about to grab the handle of one when Giovanni motioned her not to. Aspetta! (Wait) he said.

A tall, handsome black man in a navy-blue uniform and wearing a midway driver's cap walked toward them and stopped in front of Chiara's two suitcases. She quickly turned to Giovanni, who nodded. He is our driver, he told her.

The man bowed his head to Chiara, who whispered Buongiorno, uncertain he would understand Italian. His face was grave and formal. He kindly pointed at the beauty case still in Chiara's hand, which she gave him, and he put under one arm. He reached for the large and heavy red shoulder bag that she was closely guarding, but Chiara stopped him with a sudden and firm No, shaking her head. He then picked up the two suitcases. With her beauty case under one arm, he walked the young couple to the customs area, where two officers briefly asked for Chiara's Italian passport, looked at Giovanni and their driver, and let them exit.

This was all Chiara possessed: two suitcases, a beauty case, and a large red leather bag, her only belongings on the first day of a new life 8,000 kilometers away from home. That, and, carefully tucked inside her wallet, 250 South African rands that her father had given her before leaving Italy. Chiara's hand-embroidered, fine bed linens and elegant tablecloths, the new home's fineries, so dutifully packed with her sister's help, had been left behind in Italy. It was the dowry Chiara was raised to believe a young bride ought to bring into a marriage, the leverage her mother had saved since both her daughters were little girls.

I will ship them to you! Signora Rosa had reassured Chiara about the two massive and full trunks.

Chiara had so wished to be a regular bride! The rushed proxy wedding, packing her luggage with all that could fit, letting go of the world that had nurtured her, had been a whirlwind of accelerated steps toward a journey to a place she knew only by name, Africa.

She was barely able to reckon with it all.

The car awaiting them was a navy blue, long, and spacious American make. The Nicholson Coal and Steel Corp. of Benoberg, Transvaal, had graciously made it available for the young assistant electrical engineer to fetch his bride from Italy.

The driver gently opened the back seat door for Chiara, who felt slightly embarrassed by such courtesy, while Giovanni climbed in from the other side. They sat on the plush limo seats, both feeling they could finally relax in each other's presence and enjoy their long-awaited reunion, and in such a comfortable setting.

Chiara glanced out of the car window as the driver loaded her luggage into the trunk. The sunlight was powerful, a brightness she had never experienced before. She reached into her large red leather bag for the smaller purse in it with her wallet, passport, and a new sunglass case. She grabbed the case and took out the elegant tortoiseshell sunglasses her father had given her. You'll be in Africa, he had said with a smile, and you'll need to protect your eyes from plenty of sunlight! Next to the small purse, she felt the hard leather case of the loaded Voigtländer camera Signor Antonio had given her for her eighteenth birthday the month before. Take as many pictures as you can and send them to us, he had told her.

The scenery around her was so new. Under the bright sunlight, a highway ran straight into a flat, parsimonious terrain. No trees bordered the road, just a few bushes and some lonely plants scattered on the horizon toward low hills forlorn in the distance.

A man she did not know was driving her where she had never been before. Not a word spoken around her upon arrival had she understood. Her Italian world was becoming ever more remote.

Yet after four interminable months away from Giovanni, nothing mattered to the young bride but being with him, her fiancé and now husband. He was there, finally sitting next to her, holding her left hand tight inside his.

That was all she had longed for and dreamed of day and night since he left Italy in mid-January. To be with him, to feel his touch, to see him glance at her with that complicit smile he now showed, confirming time had ultimately come for the two of them to be the couple they had always dreamed they would become.

II

Chiara! said Giovanni softly, calling her name as he caressed her long and wavy, lush dark-brown hair now resting like a mantle on her shoulders and covering part of her delicately shaped face, her high cheekbones, the cutely dimpled cheeks.

She briskly turned to him and removed her sunglasses.

His large green-blue eyes met Chiara's hazel ones in a tender embrace till they both smiled. Chiara closed her eyes to savor the moment fully, a tangible moment next to him, not a dream.

She rested her head on his shoulder. He was hers again.

How's the baby? he asked her.

Feel it, she said and guided his hand onto her belly.

Chiara's figure was as slender as ever, beautiful in its youthful, elegant sway that characterized her walking, her moving, and even her sitting, straight but delicate. The light-purple fine jersey travel suit with the yellow silk blouse her mother had bought her for the trip fit her just as her teenage clothes still did, to perfection. The recent months of gestation had not affected her weight. Indeed, her violent morning sickness that lasted through the day had kept her so slim only a sharp eye would have taken the slight swelling of her belly as a sign of a five-month pregnancy.

Kind of small, eh? Giovanni said, looking at her belly frowning, somewhat puzzled.

Yes, Chiara had to admit.

Affected by his remark, she changed the subject. I brought you my bouquet.

Out of the red bag, she took her small bridal bouquet of white and pink baby roses, clinging to life inside their cellophane wrap. On board, one of the Alitalia flight attendants had stored it in a refrigerator to keep it from withering further. I wanted you to see it. Your mother asked me what flowers I wanted for the church ceremony, and I said baby roses. They are eighteen, like me. She bought them for me, Chiara said, smiling. It's been two weeks since we were married and—

Who came to the church? Giovanni interrupted her, suddenly curious about the event that had allowed them to officially become a legitimate couple but from which he had been an absent protagonist.

Your parents, mine, my sister, your twin brothers, and your sister, Giorgia. Your friend Pietro was there, as your best man, as we had planned. Your father got emotional when the priest declared us married. He started crying. Chiara was not sure she ought to fully share with Giovanni an episode that occurred in the church. At the most salient moment of her intimate church wedding ceremony, Signor Amerigo, Giovanni's father, folded at the altar. He slumped on the wooden bench where they both stood and cried uncontrollably. Chiara felt his pain having to represent a son so far away, not the ideal wedding he had certainly envisioned for his firstborn, although neither had it been one for Chiara's mother and father. Signor Amerigo's instinctive gesture of unacceptable failure, perhaps of his own, as a father or, more likely, on behalf of a son who always got his way, deeply hurt the young bride standing there by herself, the carrier of such an unplanned destiny. Signor Amerigo's gesture made Chiara feel somehow rejected rather than welcomed into her new family.

How are they? Giovanni asked, his forehead furrowed.

Your parents?

Yes, and Giorgia and the twins. There was eagerness in his voice.

They are fine, Chiara reassured him. Ezio and Lello were so sweet in their new jacket your mother bought them for the occasion. They smiled at me both, with their teenage, slightly awkward, shy smile. Everyone else seemed a bit sad though, you know. And they were sad still when I left, your family and mine. Your sister took me to a florist in town yesterday to order hortensias for my mother, to be delivered today. I had asked her to, and Giorgia was so kind and willing to come along. I just wanted to surprise my mother after I left. The flowers were hopefully delivered this morning, after breakfast, while I was flying over Africa! Giorgia said she was going to do the same in your name for your mother. It's Mother's Day today! They smiled at each other.

Your mother drove to Rome with me and my father this morning, Chiara went on, and she was the only one talking, to break up the tension, I suppose. I think she misses you a lot, Chiara said, aware of the strong connection between mother and son.

Giovanni seemed to dismiss Chiara's last words.

Mi sei mancata tantissimo! (I missed you so much!), he said, looking straight into Chiara's eyes.

Saying goodbye in January was horrible, he said. I haven't written you too many details. I didn't want you to be worried. But when my father drove me to Fiumicino to leave for South Africa in January, all I could think of was you, and I felt this knot inside my throat, and I kept seeing your eyes and your tears and almost did not want to go.

I am here, she whispered, almost choking with emotion.

You understand me perfectly. Giovanni was again caressing Chiara's hair. You are such a part of me. I thought I was not going to make it without you. But yes, you are here now.

He kissed her, a soft kiss on her lips, wary of the driver's presence in front.

That was all Chiara wished to hear, the tenderness and comfort of his words. She felt reassured that he still loved her as deeply as she loved him, that he had missed her more than his letters from South Africa had expressed.

He took her hand to his lips and held it,