Unto the Sons (24 page)

The king was born in the Italian town of Jesi, uphill from the Adriatic coastline, in 1194. His Norman mother, Queen Constance—whose forebears had invaded and conquered southern Italy more than a century before—had been traveling with her entourage toward Sicily from Germany, “when suddenly she was forced to delay the journey because of her birth pangs,” Don Achille explained, reading from his historical notes that he always brought with him on tours. She had been more than forty years old and childless at the time, and she knew there would be much skepticism in the gossipy courts of Europe about her capacity to have a child at her advanced age. This was an era in which women were frequently mothers at fifteen. And the queen was even more concerned that her sudden childbearing in the remote town be verified by numbers of witnesses and chronicles so that there would be no doubt about her offspring’s legitimate rights to inherit her royal domain, and that of his father, the German king Henry VI, whom she would conspire to poison fatally a few years later. So the queen decided to deliver her child in the public marketplace of Jesi, under a large tent, into which she invited all the town’s matrons. “They arrived in great numbers,” Don Achille continued, “and later they applauded the birth of the future king—who, in the early hours
of his existence, was carried outside into the crowded square by his barebreasted mother, who suckled him within view of hundreds of hushed men and women.”

The students were also hushed as they sat listening to the tale, and Joseph was embarrassed as well by the vision of the queen standing barebreasted in a public square. But without pausing, Don Achille continued to elaborate on the boyhood of the future king, explaining how Frederick grew up in the exotic surroundings of the Palermo court, where the walls were decorated with Norman shields and Oriental tapestries, and how as a young man he wandered through the teeming and dusty streets of the city, where he was attracted to the lute sounds of the Arab quarter, and to the dancing girls with snapping fingers, and to the elderly sages from whom he later learned to speak and read Arabic. Frederick also took long walks through the lush royal park that—once the pride of Moorish sultans, and still a Mediterranean preserve of rare African animals and birds—emitted the pungent aroma of citrus groves and bay trees and evergreen shrubs that sprouted blue-black berries and pink flowers.

In time the future King Frederick became a naturalist, as keen an observer of wildlife as he was an expert young horseman and jouster; and even after he had assumed his imperial responsibilities, and built on the Italian mainland such castles as still existed in southern Italy in 1911, he always journeyed in elaborate caravans that included birds and other animals, Arab dancers, and other reminders of his youth. Indeed, Frederick’s movements through the towns and villages of Italy, including Maida, recalled less the equipage and retinue of Europe’s most powerful king than the menagerie and grotesqueries of a traveling circus.

“First came the light cavalry on Arabian horses accompanied by Eastern music,” Don Achille elaborated sumptuously, referring to his notes, which he seemed to have memorized, “and then came the quick-stepping special breed of camels from Babylon; and then, balanced on poles that weighed on the shoulders of black eunuchs, were the palanquins in which lounged the silken figures of King Frederick’s harem. Several paces back, far enough to allow the road dust to settle, came the mounted procession of knights and courtiers, and behind them a jumbled assortment of court musicians and attendants, astrologers, magicians, dwarfs and other jesters. And then, more paces back, riding on a black charger, sitting upright but not rigidly, came the king himself. The crowds of roadside spectators never had trouble identifying Frederick because of the deferential treatment accorded him by all the other horsemen, and yet he called no attention to himself.

“His traveling attire was usually a modest brown belted huntsman’s outfit that fit snugly over his lean body; and his most distinguishing features, since he was beardless and rarely wore a hat, were his high forehead and auburn-colored hair and the almost hypnotic way in which he directed his blue eyes toward the objects of his concentration—a hawkish manner as natural to him as it was to the flock of his pampered falcons that followed him in the cavalcade, dozens of them strapped to the gloved wrists of tunic-uniformed pages, the falcons’ aerial fury grounded and contained under the leather hoods that King Frederick himself had designed. Walking behind the pages were Arab grooms guiding the horse-drawn wagons that carried cages of lions and lynxes, leopards and cheetahs, rare birds and the high-strung imperial hounds with coats made lustrous from attentive brushing. Then came the king’s imported African giraffe, the first such creature ever seen in Europe, followed by the lumbering imperial elephant, on which was seated, in a wooden tower, a mahout and two Arab crossbowmen.…”

Joseph was mesmerized by the recital, and when he returned home from the tour he could think of nothing but the king’s cavalcade, which passed through his dreams that night and the next. When Don Achille later described to the students Frederick’s sudden death of acute dysentery in 1250, a death that was foretold by the king’s astrologer, Joseph felt the event in an oddly personal way; and he had a lasting image of the majestic procession that had carried the king’s body through southern Italy in a purple porphyry coffin into the cathedral in Palermo, where it was dressed and buried in a gold-embroidered linen garment and a red robe decorated by brocaded imperial eagles and clasped by emerald adornments.

Within two generations of King Frederick’s death, Don Achille had told the students, the realm would follow him into extinction; the king’s sons were either undermined from within their own forces or were overwhelmed by elements invading Italy—and the fate of the king’s grandson Conradin was tragic in the extreme. Conradin was only sixteen when he tried to rally an army to regain the crown, and Joseph and his classmates identified with the struggling young prince as he battled against the superior legions led by Charles d’Anjou, a French nobleman and papal favorite who had been invited into Italy by the Pope to destroy the last legitimate male link to the often sacrilegious Frederick.

“Prince Conradin was a courageous youth but an inexperienced and naive military commander,” Don Achille explained. “And one day as Conradin and his aides were resting at their secret headquarters—the
prince was actually then engaged in a game of chess—their whereabouts were betrayed, and the French attacked, and soon Conradin was dragged off with his aides to face Charles d’Anjou, who had already gained control of Naples. Conradin and his friends were immediately tried and convicted of being enemies of the Holy Church and traitors to the ruling crown, and they were sentenced to die publicly in Naples next to the Church of the Carmelite Friars. Conradin protested to Charles d’Anjou that his friends were guiltless, and he begged that their lives be spared. But this appeal was dismissed. Conradin then asked that he be allowed to die first, so that he would not have to witness the execution of his friends. This request was also rejected.

“And so, days later,” Don Achille read somberly to his qualmish but attentive audience, “Conradin and his friends climbed the steps to the platform in the shadows of the church, where a large crowd of spectators had gathered. And there, one by one, Conradin’s friends were beheaded—and as each head fell, Conradin stopped to pick it up and kiss it. Finally, Conradin stepped forward to bend his own head toward the blade. But before he did so, he tossed his gloves in the air, out toward the gasping crowd—a farewell gesture from the last survivor of King Frederick’s dynasty in Italy.”

13.

T
he seven rows of students stood silently in the assembly hall, as Don Achille held the leather-bound registry in his hands and, peering through his pince-nez, began to call the roll in alphabetical order.

“Amendola?” he cried out in his deep baritone.

“Presente,”
responded the squeaky-voiced Vito Amendola, in the second row.

“Barone?”

“Presente,”
replied Nicola Barone, a taller youth of more mellow modulation.

“Cartolano?”

“Presente,”
said Franco Cartolano, the hefty son of a butcher, and a classmate of Joseph’s.

“D’Amico?”

“Presente.”

“Gentile?”

“Presente.”

“Giardino?”

“Presente.”

“Giglio?”

Silence.

“Giglio?” Don Achille repeated, looking up and squinting over his pince-nez. Many students turned immediately toward Joseph’s row, for Gino Giglio should have been there. Gino’s father was a construction worker in America, and Gino lived with his widowed grandfather, his mother, and her three younger children.

“Giglio has already been absent twice this week,” Don Achille said, seeming more disappointed than irritated. “He is probably ill,” the principal concluded, in a sympathetic tone. But then, as if not entirely convinced, Don Achille asked, “Has anyone seen Giglio around town in the last day or two?”

There was murmuring within the rows of students. But no one came forward to answer directly. Joseph kept his eyes downward. Earlier this morning, on his way to Cristiani’s, Joseph had seen Gino in his grandfather’s blacksmith shop. Gino had been energetically banging a hammer on an anvil, with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Many young boys openly smoked cigarettes, which were banned in school, once they decided to drop out and work full-time. Joseph’s brother Sebastian smoked. So did the first-born sons in most other families Joseph was acquainted with, especially those in which the father was laboring overseas and the mother was struggling economically in the village with several dependent children. Such a woman was inclined to favor a supportive son who worked full-time to one who, in advancing his education, neglected his family. School attendance beyond the third or fourth year was considered an unaffordable luxury by a majority of poorer families; and despite the spirited lobbying of such dedicated educators as Don Achille, the politicians in the national government had so far failed to repeal the antiquated education act of 1877 that made school attendance compulsory only until the age of ten.

“Giordano?” Don Achille resumed the roll call, after pausing to make a note in his registry.

“Presente.”

“Greco?”

“Presente.”

It took Don Achille about twenty minutes to complete the roll call. This chore could have been accomplished more rapidly had he divided it among the teachers, to be done before the start of their classroom sessions; but he seemed to relish the opportunity to appear in front of everyone in the assembly hall, exercising his prerogative as a principal who enjoyed large audiences and being the center of attention. He also liked the fact that his campaign against truancy was getting positive results. Smiling, he announced after the roll call that only six of the school’s fifty-seven registered students were absent today, and that the absentee rate had dropped this month to a record-low ten percent.

After descending from the platform, Don Achille strode into the corridor with his right hand extended, and paused momentarily while his history students lined up behind him; then they followed him through the wide corridor toward the room where he conducted his class. Similarly, the students in the other grades were summoned by their teachers—Don Bartolomeo and Don Fabrizio, Don Carmelo and Don Enrico, Don Nicola and two faculty assistants who taught reading and writing to the younger students. Soon all the students had been escorted through the corridor into various classrooms, passing along the way two holy-water fonts that had been dry for decades and a large wall plaque that had been hung long before in honor of the ascetic priest, Giovanni Cervadoro, who had converted this seventeenth-century monastery into Maida’s first school in 1820.

As Don Achille closed the classroom door, Joseph and his nine classmates sat in the wooden desks that faced the rostrum and, behind it, on an easel the oil painting of General Giuseppe Garibaldi. The painting, which was six feet by four feet and swayed slightly on the spindly legs of the easel, had been on display for more than a month, ever since Don Achille had begun lecturing on Garibaldi. It showed the bearded and plume-hatted general on horseback leading a battalion of red-shirted musketeers. Behind the portrait, the word “Risorgimento” was printed in large chalk letters across the blackboard.
Risorgimento
referred to the nineteenth-century revolution that Garibaldi had boldly personified, and which ultimately led to the unification of Italy in 1861. Now in Joseph’s class, as in schools throughout Italy during 1911—in accord with the wishes of the education minister in Rome—the Risorgimento was advocated as a subject for intense study, in the hope of cultivating a stronger nationalistic awareness among the young. This was, after all, the fiftieth anniversary of the unification. It was the Jubilee year in the life of a relatively new nation that had slowly evolved following centuries of chaos and decay after the
fall of the Roman Empire. And Don Achille, whose passion for his subject required no encouragement from the education minister, had exceeded himself this year in communicating to his class the colorful, almost operatic saga that constituted Italian history and lent itself so readily to his penchant for melodrama.

“Ready the horses, students, for our final ride with Garibaldi,” Don Achille began the morning session. “We shall gallop behind him through the hills and valleys of the south as he fights his way into the capital of Naples. We sense signs of melancholy in his mood, for the war is suddenly coming to an end. Up ahead, surrounded by royal guards, the king awaits his greeting. This is the king whom Garibaldi has fought for, but at this moment Garibaldi has doubts about his decision. Is this king worthy? Will this king be an improvement over the king Garibaldi has just driven off the Naples throne?… Oh, Garibaldi was a wise man,” Don Achille exclaimed softly. “Look into those sad and knowing eyes, and ponder that wisdom.”