As a little girl, I was the mildest lamb ever: goodmanners and smiles were my daily bread. Not enough for the sisters at my convent school, which opened its greedy "portone" on the timid slope of Saint Sebastianello, opposite - in philosophy and shape - to the grand staircases of Piazza di Spagna, that were at a stonethrow, yet as near as heaven to hell...
Sister Saint Thomas, a silvery beauty, with haunted black eyes that never smiled, was the principal. She tamed us, the pupils, in misery and humility and kept the school going thanks to her firm grip. I never liked her cold ways, her boxing looks, and even her bautiful face and smart, slim body, scorned me. All the opposite, in my memory, Sister Francis: she was round and white and sweet and had pockets that sung in mistery. I would have given two bars of chocolate to my worst enemy, the Strada girl, to know what was in those dingling, dangling, dancing holes, silver bells hidden under the black and blue habit... Sister Francis tought us english. Long poems, and never ending bits of pure shakesperian poetry. She fought against the italian way of saying "de" instead of "the" and "dis" instead of "This" and had eyes only for one of us who had had her father, long before, in the school and had left his shadow in her heart.
When Sister Saint Thomas entered the classroom, we all stood up and firm and said: "Goodmorning sister!", as chorus line girls. One day, she opened the door, came in, everybody except me (I was lost in my bumble bee thoughts...), jumped on the seat and up in the sky. She glanced around, spotted me and said, pointing and index finger that stang: "You are superb!". That day I went home crying. My mother had no ears for me. her stern glance told me that life was hard and one had to survive and no crying please. Only my brother Marco asked me what had happened. I burst into tears and said: "What does superb mean?" But he too did not know.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento