BIANCANEVE

In the beginning, then, there was the nido, then Zia, though Zia will never be entirely eclipsed, and finally the scuola materna, a sort of second-level nursery for three to six year olds, still optional, but much more widely used than the nido since here one only pays for the food. It's in the scuola materna that they start to teach the children things, including, though you may opt out, religion (Catholic, vocational), but if you do opt out, your child will be alone, unless perhaps there is an extra-comunitario, meaning a little black boy who is a moslem. Or another way of putting it would be to say that if you opt out—have your children opt out—you are yourself a moslem, a term that can be used to describe anyone beyond the pale. Not that the majority in the village are “staunch” Catholics, or bigoted, or even, in most cases, remotely interested in matters religious, merely that they would no more dream of opting out of the catechism than of not greeting their parents with the appropriate, time-honored embraces. Catholicism is still the default setting for those without preference in a supremely hedonistic Italy.

I asked the woman who was Michele's and later Stefi's teacher at the scuola materna what they actually did during the so-called ora di religione, the hour of religion (which, when you investigate, turns out to be two hours). Immediately, she began to apologize and to say that they hadn't yet been granted a specific teacher for religion, so they found it difficult to cover the whole program, established apparently in liaison with the church and including every major issue of faith. They found it difficult, she said, to teach the little children everything they were supposed to. I smiled to think that this slim, gaunt woman, who likes to wear a stooped, professional, worried look, had imagined that I, protestant by birth and sentiment, atheist by conviction, was one of those who worried that the children weren't getting enough religion. At the parents’ meeting there are always one or two mothers who fuss that the tiny tots don't know their catechism yet. Somebody's dear boy hadn't even realized that Jesus was the son of God! Though the thing the mothers most complain about is the wonderful food. At one meeting I went to a woman wondered why the children couldn't have salmon from time to time. The others present did not laugh. Nor did anyone mention that we were paying only fifty thousand lire a month (thirty-five dollars) for twenty meals and snacks.

Outside the nursery school every morning, first Michele and then Stefi would insist on stopping with the mothers to have me read, and later read themselves with furrowed brow, the little board where someone writes out the day's menu in black felt-tip. Pasta with tomato-sauce, boiled beef, and polenta. Fruit. Not risotto, grazie a Dio! At four years old, Stefi seems to know the cook very well and waves to her and calls her by her name. She always asks for second helpings and always complains that they give her too much. Michele, on the other hand, can never remember what he's eaten and sometimes will ask if dinner's ready only ten minutes after he's finished it. Or he will wake up and ask, “Have I had my breakfast yet?”

Beside the menu there are other notices. Something typed and official looking today. The headed paper shows that it's from the Commissione per la pubblica istruzione della VII Circoscrizione, the committee of the local authority responsible for education. I ask Stefi if she can read it. She's at that wonderful stage where children pronounce each letter then syllable before putting the word together. Fortunately, Italian spelling and phonetics is such that this is possible. There are no grimly chaotic words, like “thoroughly” or “mightn't” to deal with. The note says:

Protocol code: a/2473

Re. Gratitude

Having convened in open session on 5 April 1991 and having been apprised of the donation of no. 1 swing to the Monte d'Oro Council Nursery School, the Local Authority Education Committee extends its most heartfelt gratitude to the Parents Committee of the aforementioned school for their interest and generosity.

Beneath is the kind of signature one might expect from a committee: a bumpy line tugging in various directions. Still, I can't deny feeling pleased on reading this notice, since I was one of those at the parents’ meeting that first suggested the donation. Then when am I ever going to see “Re. Gratitude” at the top of a memo again? Stefi, who spelled the thing out, understood nothing. Nor seems unduly concerned. An important step.

The parents’ meetings are less formal at the scuola materna than at the nido and are held class by class so that you get to know the other parents, which is nice. Or I should say you get to know the other mothers, since I am the only father who ever, occasionally, goes, not out of virtue, but pure curiosity.

First the teacher explains the theme of the year to which everything they are teaching is linked. This year it is difference: difference between colors, tastes, smells, measurements, difference between languages, and difference between opposites, big-small, sick-healthy, black-white (the little moslem boy?), girl-boy, child-adult. Listening to the gaunt teacher expound this, I can't work out whether the intention is to be politically correct (aware of all the different kinds of persons) or dangerously honest (people are not “equal") or merely informative.

In any event, the story they have chosen to anchor their theme around is “Biancaneve e i sette nani,” Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, an excellent choice offering the whole gamut of human emotions and inequalities in just those seven names, Grumpy, Dopey, Happy . . . which, whatever the language—Brontolo, Pisolo, Gongolo—one can never remember quite all of. As if to remind us that difference is endless, beyond our grasp.

Warming to her idea, explaining how the Mirror-mirror-on-the-wall bit will allow them to introduce the idea of comparatives and gradations of difference (who is the fairest of them all?), Irma, the gaunt teacher with long thin arms and knotty elbows, guides our attention to the walls (we're sitting on embarrassingly small seats again, creating all kinds of problems for those in dresses and skirts), where there are scores of children's drawings depicting moments in the Biancaneve story, including the part where the woodsman takes back a deer's heart instead of Snow White's. On each drawing the teacher has written such appropriate things as, Tall-Small, Beautiful-Ugly, Cruel-Kind, Rich-Poor, Fat-Slim, Animal-Human. It's fascinating reflecting how these simple contrasts must fill the children's minds, establish all sorts of conditioning, moral and aesthetic, that they can then swim with or fight against (certainly, Stefi always has second helpings because she likes eating, but then says they gave her too much because she is aware that it is wrong to be fat).

The parents, however, or rather, the mothers, apart from their preoccupation with keeping their legs tightly closed, seem very little interested in all this, as if any teaching to four and five year olds were a hopeless gimmick, especially if it drags in old Disney movies like “Biancaneve.” As people begin to chat or gaze out of the window at our no. 1 new swing, I feel a yearning to cheer up poor Irma with some expression of appreciation. Difference and its distinction, I might say from my tiny chair, is at the basis of all human learning and always to be distinguished from discrimination. It's what travel books are about. I keep my mouth shut.

But now “Biancaneve” and the year's curriculum are behind us. It's complaints time. One mother is concerned that the climbing frame (floor smothered with mattresses beneath) is not being properly supervised. Then Righetti's wife, Monica, says she feels that the transition in the morning from the calm of the family to the shrieking mass of children tearing around the play area before they split into classes is proving traumatic for her little Lauretta. Other mothers nod in sage agreement. One morning, Monica says, when she just heard the noise, when she just realized how loud everybody was screaming there in the play area, she turned back and took the girl to her grandparents. Carefully, Irma remarks that she will do what she can, though she has never actually noticed Lauretta looking upset. Now, however, she says, we must hurry on with the agenda. For the main and truly serious business at this first parents’ meeting of the new year is the election, by secret ballot, of our class representative, that vital person who will liaise with the teacher on behalf of the parents whenever anything crops up.

Here is an experience: the election of the Monte d'Oro Nursery School's Second-Year Class Representative. A secret ballot, of course, implies the need for a properly democratic contest, implies that without secrecy there would be attempts to sway the voters’ decisions, difficulty in expressing one's true desires, corruption. A secret ballot is an essential precaution where much is at stake. It guarantees that something is being taken seriously. Thus the rules for electing the class representatives in schools, and even nurseries, form part of that complex machinery that Italians have righteously put in place (the endless graduatorie) precisely because experience tells them that things are normally decided by personal influence and favoritism, though it is common knowledge that such machinery very often becomes little more than a cover for what it was designed to eliminate. Pilotato is a favorite word in the Italian press. It refers to the way some decision-making process may be secretly manipulated—piloted—by those with personal interests, a sort of sophisticated technical euphemism for the more brutal English “fix.”

Was this true in the case of the Monte d'Oro Nursery School election for our class representative? Was this election fixed for ulterior motives? Not exactly, and yet. . .

The first thing that must be said is that one of the many implications of a secret ballot is that there be at least two candidates, that there be competition. Without competition, who needs secrecy? And it was here that the election of the class representative differed (something to be taught to the children?) and differed radically (gradations of difference) from your average political election.

Unsurprisingly, indeed reassuringly, none of those who had turned up for the meeting were eager to take on a thankless role that mainly involves collecting money to buy materials for the children's end-of-term spettacolo, and then, even worse, getting everybody to agree on the choice of, and again collect money for, an end-of-year present for the teacher, something that may well cost in the region of a hundred pounds, so important a figure and so capable of influencing the life of one's child is the teacher perceived to be.

Irma, whose long legs, sensibly trousered, seem to stretch meters from her tiny chair, announces, with great formality, that she will now absent herself from the room while we select our candidates, since it is important, she reminds us, that the teacher not be thought of as influencing the choice of the person she will have to liaise with (is she afraid we might otherwise suspect her of attempting to increase the value of her end-of-year present?). So Irma leaves, closing the door on total silence. We all sit on our infant chairs surrounded by those pictures of the ugly old witch offering the poisoned apple. And nobody wants to bite. Nobody wants to be the class representative. Everybody has quite enough work to do at home with dwarves various. Though nobody, you can feel sure, has seven.

“Well, somebody will have to volunteer,” a small woman says, but in a tone that makes it perfectly clear that that somebody will not be her. Indeed, exactly in announcing that harsh reality, she has excluded herself. The pressure grows. It's not unlike those games where you stare at each other waiting to see who will be the first to break down and laugh, or worse still those open prayer meetings I went to as a child where everyone would wait for everyone else to make a contribution. Finally, a bright blonde brittle woman breaks down and confesses that she is willing to do the job, but only, and she is suddenly quite adamant about this (as if having earned the right to be), only if she has another person as an assistant, someone who can help her or even take over for her if things get to be too much. Upon which, another mother, perhaps already regretting that she had not been the first to volunteer (the blonde woman is certainly getting some very warm smiles), announces that she is willing to be the assistant.

Ecco! Settled. There is a huge and understandable sigh of relief, and at the same time I notice that one method Irma is using to teach the concept of difference is that of getting the children to draw a circle, probably round the base of a tin, and then a small figure either inside it or out. Then on these drawings she has written, “Me inside the circle” and “Me outside the circle.” Very ominous. Though I'm pleased to reflect that class representative is one little circle I have always managed to keep out of.

With everybody now feeling happy and relaxed and talkative (we have a candidate we can now, secretly, of course, all vote for!), Irma is invited back in. The blonde woman, who has assumed the authority of a spokeswoman, announces our decision. But Irma frowns. It's her I-take-things-desperately-seriously frown, as when I quizzed her about what was taught in the religious instruction lesson. She then informs us that the class representative is an official, legally recognized position and that the school's statute makes no provision for the role of an assistant. This will not do.

There is something wonderful about watching people coming to grips with rules that are totally inappropriate to the situation at hand, as when one observes a gaggle of Germans waiting in pouring rain for the green pedestrian light that will allow them to cross a road where there is absolutely no traffic nor any sign of traffic. As the rain dribbles from their umbrellas to their shoulders, or bounces off the pavement onto their sensible shoes, you can see them hesitating, growing tense, and wondering whether for just once in their lives they mightn't cross a road (but it's such a big road!) with the light on red. Which is illegal! Until at last the light changes anyway, and they are relieved of this terrible dilemma, yet at the same time perhaps annoyed that they didn't make up their own minds first, that they didn't make that gesture of awful daring . . .

There was very little hesitation, however, when it came to Italian Montecchio and the Monte d'Oro's second-year class representative. People are not so respectful of authority here. Nevertheless, it is remarkable to see quite how far some will go to get round a rule without actually breaking it. For cunning lies not in ignoring rules, breaking boundaries, but moving as it were in a different dimension, where they become irrelevant. I wish Stefano had come along.

What if, somebody said, the vote for the representative was a perfect tie? What would happen then? Surely, the two candidates would have to share the job, either alternating, or one operating as the other's assistant?

Irma was unsure. Perhaps in that case . . .

A tie was impossible, I pointed out, given that there were eleven of us and . . .

One vote gets wasted on a third candidate, I was quickly enlightened. My own most probably. How could I ever have imagined this was a problem?

We thus, in the absence of any known provisions for an exact tie, proceed as follows: Half of us, and that is Miriam, Cristina, Anna, Silvia, and Orietta, will vote for the first candidate, the blonde (fake blonde, I now realize) Cristina; while the other half, Monica, Mariuccia, Paola, Mariella, and Daniela, will vote for the second candidate, the minute and nervous Paola; and I, and only I, will vote for a candidate of convenience. Who? Why not Daniela, a very dark young mother, whom I find rather attractive? But to vote we must know the respective surnames, while the candidates themselves have to fill in the inevitable form giving particulars. Memories of childbirth. Still a lot to do . . .

We are in a hurry now, because apparently the teachers leading the various class meetings want to leave. Dinner time beckons. There is much busy laughter and joking but also a lot of serious casting about for pens and jotting down of names and surnames on scraps of paper, and “Who am I voting for? Cristina?” “No, Paola.” “But I thought . . . .” “It's Paola's surname that is Preti, not Cristina's. Cristina is Chieppe.” Organized at last, all quite sure now who they and everybody else are voting for, our teacher herds us out into the big open area between the classrooms where our children have been playing during the meeting, rolling about on big cylindrical cushions and falling off the climbing frame on purpose to plunge onto the mattresses below. We then cross to the kitchens, where three very serious ballot boxes are lined up on a big wooden-topped table full of chopping marks. The plump cook hands us our ballot papers, and in great secrecy each scribbles down his, or rather her, decision, everybody now assuming exactly that formal hesitant concern people have as they make their way into polling booths. The papers are folded against possible intrusion and posted in the black box.

What would happen, I wonder, as I'm about to scribble down Daniela's surname, Nerozzi, what would happen if I exercised my legal right to put down a different name than that agreed on, to jot down Cristina Chieppe, for example, and saddle the poor woman with the entire and onerous responsibility of being our rappresentante di classe? The problem is that if I break trust, the others would know who had done the deed (there would be no vote for Daniela), whereas if any of the others decided to upset our arrangements, there would be the secrecy of being one of a group. How could anybody know who had voted for Chieppe instead of Preti? Or vice versa. On the other hand, I am the only one in a position to “favor” either candidate.

On reflection, this is the most interesting election I have ever taken part in. And the most harmless.

Meanwhile, the children have gathered round, very impressed by this ritual of making a sign (different signs, children) on a piece of paper, hiding it, putting it in a box. At what age, one wonders, will they realize what a farce it is? For the moment, the teachers will have their work cut out explaining the difference between Bashful and Dopey, between the variously poisoned apples, between the resurrection of Snow White and that of Our Lord—if they have time to get to that part of their program this year.