Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions Read Free Page B

substituting “Poldi” for “Gloria”. You might say it became a kind of anthem.
    Strangely enough, the neighbours never complained. Strangely enough, they took to Poldi from day one, toted her shopping home for her, carried out minor repairs in the house, accompanied her on her visits to officialdom and invited her to play cards. No matter what had gone wrong in my aunt’s life, everyone felt good in her company. The neighbours called her simply “Donna Poldina”.
    The neighbours: Signora Anzalone and her husband on the left, both elderly. The house on the right belonged to a Dottore Branciforti, a tax consultant from Catania, but he only came on weekends with his mistress or during the summer months with his wife and children, if at all. At the end of the street lived Elio Bussacca, who owned the tabacchi on the corner and eventually found Valentino for my aunt.
    For the first few weeks after Poldi’s move, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Having installed her old furniture, the peasant cupboards, her father’s collection of antique weapons, her ebony African idols and her china knick-knacks, she raised a glass to the sea and the volcano in turn. Before toasting Etna, she always paid tribute to the mighty smoker by firing up an MS – a morto sicuro , or “certain death”, as the Italians call that brand of cigarettes – to go with her brandy.
    The heat seemed to drip off her like dew off a lotus leaf, although the sweat trickled down from under her wig.
    Ah, that wig.
    She had worn one for as long as I could remember. A huge black monster variously dressed in accordance with the prevailing fashion, it loomed above her head like a storm cloud. According to family legend, no one had ever seen what lay hidden beneath it. Even my Uncle Peppe had been vague on the subject. I suspect that Vito Montana was later privileged to peek beneath that holiest of holies, but he too preserved a discreet silence.
    On the very first Sunday after moving in, Poldi invited the aunts, my cousins and me, still recovering in the attic guest room from our drive, to lunch. Roast pork with beer gravy, dumplings and red cabbage. In mid-July. In Sicily. We were welcomed with tumblerfuls of a dry Martini strong enough to send a Finnish seaman into a coma. While Poldi was inside thickening the gravy, alternately adding beer and drinking some herself, we huddled together under the only awning in the little inner courtyard like penguins in a storm. Still, lunch already smelt delicious. When Poldi finally emerged with a monstrous great leg of roast pork, bathed in sweat and explosively red in the face, I jumped to my feet in a panic.
    â€œFor goodness’ sake come into the shade, Poldi.”
    But my Auntie Poldi merely – as so often – gazed at me pityingly. “You think I came to Sicily to sit in the shade? I want sun, proper sun, sun with some oomph to it. Il sole . The sun is masculine in Italy, like the sea and the volcano, and they’re what I came here for, so sit down, all of you. I’ll go and get the dumplings.”
    It really was a poem, that roast pork – la fine del mondo , even in a temperature of forty degrees. My cousins, who regarded German cuisine with a certain scepticism, were hesitant at first, but after the first polite mouthful they tucked in. They still wouldn’t touch the red cabbage, but no one was deterred by the heat.
    â€œHey,” my Auntie Poldi said, out of the blue, “how are you getting back to Germany?”
    I shrugged. “You can book me a flight any time soon.”
    She shook her head as if I’d said something extremely stupid.
    â€œDon’t you like it up there in the guest room?”
    â€œEr, yes, of course.”
    â€œDoing any writing?”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œCan I read some of it?”
    The last question I wanted.
    â€œWell, not at the moment, Poldi. It’s still in a state of