Lianna, our Sicilian friend, a friendship started long ago at the Sacro Cuore in Palermo, where one of my sisters went to school for a year to learn Italian, became close to the whole family as we did with hers. There was much coming and going over the years. For us it was the beginning of a love story with Sicily and a friendship that has endured so many ups and downs in our lives.
She eventually married an admiral and they had one son. Edmondo was a quiet dignified man who tried to bring order to her life. She brought glamour and friends and warmth. They entertained musicians, opera singers, the great and the good who landed in Catania. But also Signor Salvatore and his wife who sold olives at the mercato. And many hairdressers, One could not predict who was going to be on the same table at lunch or dinner.
Upon their marriage they had moved from her family home, in Pallavicino, just outside Palermo and went to live in Catania where he was Capitano di Porto. Every time we passed through the portone there were at least two sailors who saluted us and we were driven everywhere.
I last saw her two years ago, before Covid struck. I joined my young one and family for a break in a rented villa in the shadow of Mount Etna. We made it a point to go and see Zia Lianna, now in her middle 70s, in Catania. We knew she was unwell and being cared for at home. There was much kissing and hugging when we arrived in her huge duplex in the middle of Via Umberto, which from some windows had a full view of Etna and where the creaking lift often did not work. After looking back on our lives we went out for lunch at a nearby trattoria. She could barely walk there. The vivacious and energetic Lianna, always so full of plans, was no more. After lunch, once back to her home she immediately lay on her bed and lit a cigarette. Her carer sat on a chair, at the bottom of the bed and there was a nebulizer machine. I sat down and we talked, just like old times. Why was she still smoking which had very obviously ruined her once robust health? She had no proper reply. 'E così'. We were there for a couple of hours and I could sense that perhaps, we would not be seeing each other again. Speaking on the phone, yes. So, I had no intention of sitting there and preaching to her. She knew it all anyway and that it was too late now. Doctors had come in and out of their home over the years, as friends or professionals. She had been warned and not just once. You must give up your cigarettes, everyone urged. But she forever seemed to be wreathed in smoke.
As we left I felt a certain tristesse.
She had read for a Ph.D. in English and that is what she taught. My sisters and myself were L'Inglesine and no amount of protests would change her mind or that of her family. She insisted on speaking English, especially if she had an audience. She liked showing it off. Not many could speak it in Catania in those days.
She was always such fun. I can still hear her voice "Quante risate ragazze. Ricordate quando...." And then she would relate in the most exaggerated manner one of our innocent "avventure" of long ago. Too long ago. The memories fill me with heartache.
We rarely exchanged letters but there were plenty of telefonate and we exchanged cards wherever we travelled. I have always slipped postcards and notes in one of our books and lately I came across one of hers: "Aspetto vostre notizie... ci vediamo in Settembre... bacioni per tutti." Always so warm.
While my family's fatal attraction is to chocolate hers was to cigarettes, if possible duty free ones and when necessary, all caution was thrown to the wind and we'd finish going to some unlikely place for smuggled ones of which there was no shortage in Sicily.
I remember going with her one afternoon, to a place in the bowels of Palermo. "Dov' andiamo Lian?" "Now you will see...." We entered a poor dwelling. There lying on a bed was a handicapped child. I was wondering what we were doing there. Then in total silence the mother came, lifted the child and the mattress and there was a hoard of cigarettes. Lianna was given two cartons, money was exchanged and we went away as quietly as we had arrived. I didn't ask any questions. This was Sicily of the 60s. Danilo Dolci had written a moving book Poverty in Sicily; Carlo Levi Christo si e fermato a Eboli. It was all there, in black and white and who was I to question how poor people managed to put bread on their table.
In the summer months, which is usually when we spent long holidays together, either in Malta or in Sicily, she displayed absolute devotion to indolence. Next to good coffee, the cinema and operetta at the Teatro di Verdure, her favourite pastime was lying on her bed, or on a comfortable sofa, a packet of fags and a huge ashtray nearby. She held court from there and whoever was about came and sat somewhere as we exchanged conversation and many risate. She had a wonderful time just doing nothing. In this she saw eye to eye with our youngest sister. It was never my cup of tea. After about half an hour when stories started to be repeated I would quietly disappear and go and visit some place I had not seen before or go to the garden and read.
At about 4pm Zija Maria would come with a strong espresso. It was a ritual which was followed for the many years of friendship that we enjoyed.
When she stayed with us Lianna loved tea as we all sat round our big kitchen table with a marble top and my mother would produce a teapot and either a jam tart or a homemake cake. If she had had no time to make something then one of us would go up to Luzar, the grocer and bring back some doughnuts or those pasti with shocking pink icing on top. And there was toast and in summer, hobs biz-zejt. Lianna simply loved the whole English ritual of tea.
She is now gone forever from our lives. The comforts and attachments which we take for granted are very fragile but we remember her and her family with great affection. I doubt I shall ever go to Sicily again. Although we have other friends there however, Sicily means Lianna and since she has gone what is the point of going? As Audrey Hepburn famously declared, "Paris is always a good idea." Yes, but death certainly isn't.
When I told one of my nephews who lives abroad of her death he wrote back: "I will remember the drama that was Via Umberto, with great fondness. The characters that used to pass through, or seemingly hang about forever! The food, the food... you ate nowhere better..."
Indeed.
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