The Funeral¹

Osvaldo Zappa

THE SUN WAS HIGH ABOVE us when we finally came out of the shop and set off along the stony path still caked with cow dung. Stables and haylofts lined the way. There was an eerie quietness in the square, now empty of people. With the exception of stray dogs, only Rosa’s hog ventured outdoors in the heat. Rosa would let the pig out to wallow in the mud from the fountain’s run-off, where it would lie on its side snorting away. Despite the stables, the air smelled of drying hay and wild juniper from the surrounding hills and the wild mint from the fields and small garden plots. Like two thieves smuggling booty out of town, we carried the casket to the house some distance away.

When we reached the house, two men, both dressed in black wool suits, were already there waiting for us. My uncle and I put down the empty casket, greeted the two men and, turning to me, uncle signalled for me to wait outside while he and the others entered the squalid hut. I was relieved that I did not have to enter that house and watch them put the body in the coffin. I feared getting more lice on me. Taking measurements of the deceased was one thing but, having to lift up the poor soul infested with lice, oh, no, I wanted none of that! I would much rather stay outside. From just outside the doorway I could hear the old lady’s mournful sobs. Until now I did not think the old woman capable of crying. Perhaps for the first time she understood that her dear companion was gone.

The task to move the body to the lower floor proved to be challenging for the three men. Because of the steep angle of the wooden stairs and the restricted opening of the trap door into the room, the men resorted to tying ropes around the heavy coffin. Then holding on to the ropes from above, they slowly lowered the casket while my uncle guided it down the steps until it reached the floor below.

As I waited I was distracted by the swallows building clay nests under the eaves of the old house just above the small window of the upstairs bedroom where the old man died. The temptation was too great to resist. Often my classmates and I would see who could hit these nests first with our slingshots. I gathered a few small stones for my weapon, which I often kept in the pocket of my shorts, and began shooting at the nests. I considered myself a pretty good shot of sorts. Sooner or later I was sure I would hit one. After trying a few times with the slingshot and missing, I switched to throwing larger stones.

Then I picked up a shard of a roofing tile that seemed just right and hurled it with all my childish might towards one of the nests. Voilà, bull’s eye!

A handful of dirt cascaded down, mostly on my head. Looking down at my feet I noticed a small pile of feathers and caked mud as well as two whitish, featherless little chicks, stunned from the fall. Gently I picked one up. It was still moving but was too young to fly away or to keep. I put it down beside the other one that lay very still. It was dead. In a vain attempt to protect their young, two very angry swallows zoomed down on me, spoiling my small victory. Then a rather strange feeling of guilt came over me. Feeling foolish and stupid, I picked up the live chick and in an attempt to set it free, I hurled it on the roof of a low lying shed on the opposite side of the old woman’s house. The little bird landed, albeit, with a thud. A tingling breeze touched my face. I thought I felt the tip of an angry swift’s wing, as if in retribution for my cowardly act. In my right hand tiny drops of blood were already drying up.

Two more men, also dressed in black, soon arrived on the scene. They also waited by the door. While they waited, Don Francesco, the priest in his black cassock, appeared at the top of the cobbled street. He seemed in a hurry and determined while a young boy behind him struggled to keep pace. As soon as he reached the house, the midday lull was broken by the slow and rhythmic knell of the church bell, which, however, displaced dozens of pigeons lodging in the rafters of the bell tower. A whole swarm of them, flying in formation, swooped down on rooftops cutting the morning sky like razors. The tolling of the bell summoned the villagers to the funeral of one of their own.

Three elderly women in long black dresses, their heads covered in white headscarves and hands folded, arrived to join in the funeral procession as the four scrawny men bronzed by the sun, the boy in shorts and the priest in black entered the house. I remained outside looking in through a small window.

The priest put on a white chasuble and draped a black sash around his neck. Beside him, the boy held a candle in one hand and holy water in the other. The priest hurried through the short prayers, sprinkling holy water on the dead man in the open coffin. Later uncle said there were many lice moving all over the dead man’s black suit.

Soon after my uncle partly nailed the coffin down and the men carried it outside. The priest then read from the prayer book and the men heaved the coffin to their shoulders and started their slow march to the burial site. Two steps behind the priest the boy followed with the holy water and behind him the old women. Wearing our black armbands, uncle and I formed the rear of the cortege. Too frail and still too much in shock to follow, the widow stayed behind. Proceeding slowly, the priest recited verses from the lectionary, to which the women responded monotonously: “Santa Maria ora pro nobis...” Here the boy stepped in front of the priest, swinging the incense-burning turibolo like a pendulum, sending up a small plume of white smoke. The heat was stifling and the flies persistent under the hot blue sky.

On the way to the cemetery, along the street that smelled of the stables, only a handful of people came out to pay their last respects to the dead man. It was customary at that time to request, for a small fee payable to the priest, that the casket be set down in front of peoples’ homes along the way in memory of the dead and out of respect for the family. In this case there were no requests so the small cortege proceeded directly to the cemetery. My uncle, still wearing paint and glue-stained overalls and carrying a hammer and screwdriver in his side strap, kept behind at a slower pace and I still slower. This was, on my part, a futile attempt to distance myself from the funeral procession, to be seen only as the carpenter’s helper.

A strange scraggy stray dog appeared out of nowhere and joined the funeral cortege, walking by my side and stubbornly refusing to move away. “Maybe it belongs to the dead man,” I thought. It is said that a pet senses the loss of its master and reacts in almost human fashion to this. But with the dog and the dung-smells, there were flies buzzing around.

“Gee,” I thought, “this dog really wants to pay his last respects to his master!” Nevertheless, I tried shooing it away. It wouldn’t go, so I resorted to kicking it, trying to force it away. Nothing seemed to work. My uncle had to grab me by the scruff of the neck to bring me back to the solemnity of the affair.

When we passed the school, the children were still in the classrooms. Appearing from behind the shuttered windows that had been left ajar because of the heat, my schoolmates were jostling for a better view. They probably envied me for missing class that day and for walking in the cortege. For children, any cortege or procession, be it happy or sad, is a sort of a parade and a cheerful event.

Along the way, here and there, windows adorned with black draperies were left open as a reverent farewell to the dead man. Women appeared momentarily, sad faced, crossing themselves but soon withdrawing into the shadows of their houses. Meanwhile, the heavy bell continued tolling loudly and steadily, reverberating in the warm and gentle breeze, reminding us all of man’s brief time here on earth. Within hearing, workers in the fields put down their farming implements, paused, made the sign of the cross and then resumed their tasks.

A donkey, laden with firewood, came up from a side street, almost blocking the cortege, prodded by its owner with a long willow staff.

The man pulled hard on the bridle, stopped, then crossed himself in reverence.

Sitting on the circular steps of the stone cross in the middle of the piazza, the old deaf-mute crossed himself also as the cortege passed by. He was the tailor who stitched together the black suit the dead man was wearing. He too worked all night to have the garment ready for next day. Although no one would see his work, he was pleased nevertheless.

By the monument to the Fallen Soldier, old Caterina, on her way to fetch water from the fountain, stopped briefly to allow the funeral procession to go by. An old saying in the village goes like this: “Never come across the path of someone going to his eternal resting-place. It will slow down his entrance into Purgatory.”

“This funeral was the poorest of poor funerals,” my uncle told me later. “But, at least, no one can say that not even a dog attended.” He laughed sardonically. Remo well knew that there would be no money for him at the end of the day. Nor would the priest expect a fee in kind for his services; there was no grain in the old man’s granary to give and none of the town’s folks had contributed in kind. And, the pallbearers? Well, one day it would be their turn to be carried away to the cemetery by some other good souls of the village. The villagers understood this ancient code of behaviour. You attend someone’s funeral in the expectation that one day it will be others assisting in yours. These four men and the three old women were, perhaps, the last on a list, unwritten, of good deeds required of one on earth. It was their turn to serve. It is certain that the old man did his part in his lifetime. The end comes for all. No one deserves humiliation and ignominy in death.

The pace picked up along Via Delle Aie, finally arriving at the cemetery, located away from town near the threshing grounds used at harvest time. The route to the burial place passed by a terraced slope flanked by slender, deep-green cypresses. The smell of pines was everywhere and the cicadas’ song filled the air. We slowly climbed the steep grade, especially hard for the pallbearers carrying the heavy coffin. Inside the walled enclosure small flocks of sheep and goats were feeding among the headstones. They scattered as soon as the cortege appeared. A girl tending them quickly herded them outside.

The priest performed a final hurried service, blessing the casket with holy water. He removed the sash around his neck and bent down to remove nits on his black cassock, departing soon after. The men placed the coffin on two wooden trestles; Uncle Remo approached it and, with a few quick strokes of the hammer, sealed the casket forever. He unscrewed and removed the brass handles from the sides and handed them to me to carry away in my wicker basket. The men lowered the casket slowly into the open grave with ropes. The lone graveyard digger soon covered it with earth.

As we were leaving the grounds the distant bell fell silent. The pigeons and the swifts reclaimed their nesting places in the airy lofts of the bell tower and another soul ascended to the heights beyond.