PREFACE
few months before his death in 1987 at the ripe age of ninety-eight , my grandmother Ernesta, showed me torn the cover of a book by now devoid of its pages, it was the diary that my grandfather had written Furio in Africa, during his mission in Cyrenaica, as an officer in the Italian Military Aviation.
From the time my grandmother gave me this diary, like a precious relic, I felt encouraged to ask all those questions until then I had never done. I was informed of the events which had been implicitly considered inviolable secret from my family, and above all, knew the truth about their storia.Oggi beautiful and sad, as I recall, I feel the same vibrating emotion that she was able to arouse in me in those moments .
My grandparents had known thanks to Italo Balbo, Minister of the Italian Air Force during the fascist period, also known abroad thanks to a successful flight across the Atlantic that had earned him a reputation equal to that of Linderberg (*).
Grandma Ernesta, not yet thirty , recently became his assistant, an event quite unique, as a woman and, moreover, of humble origins. His parents, who were simple grocery Vigevano, did not hesitate to take on to make sacrifices to become a teacher. Despite the burden of his studies for the family, his skills and his personal success, were a flower and a rival all'ochiello against their sense of misery.
Ernesta grandmother, as well as intelligent, was very ambitious and determined despite the limitations and prejudices of his country.
The first occasion was the important meeting when he had his first teaching post in Milan, has always been the city of his dreams! Cities large and full of opportunity, represented for her the ideal place to continue to grow professionally and culturally. In Milan, then met and married the love.
Unfortunately, his joy was very short: she was widowed twice, and still very young she found herself alone with two very small daughters to raise. Tragedy unexpectedly softened by the enthusiasm of a new challenge: work in Rome alongside Italo Balbo.
Quite different was that there was my grandfather's Furio, a handsome aviator officer with a strong personality and original. Her royal privileges and had bestowed unusual opportunity it needed to take a life dedicated to art and adventure.
His relationship with Italo Balbo was based on a shared passion for flying, politics, culture, beautiful women, but, and the figure of Giuseppe Mazzini. Italo Balbo, a Republican and Mazzini, he graduated with a thesis on Mazzini and Unity of Italy, my grandfather as well as being Republican and Mazzini, was in the second degree cousin of the hero of the Risorgimento.
My grandparents were poles apart, not only in social backgrounds, but especially for the modus vivendi. His grandmother, with a strict self-discipline, he never took anything lightly. Since very young in fact, had learned to treasure every opportunity that life could offer. The loving grandfather of excitement D'Annunzio, its high altitude, even outside of his plane, was almost exclusively concerned to satisfy his innate sense of aesthetics.
When by chance or by fate, they met, was - as my grandfather used to say - "a coup de foudre", and from that moment on, their lives were inexorably transformed. The grandmother began to daydream, to live love with the fullness of a woman eager to be reborn, while his grandfather began to appreciate the bonds of a deeper bond and sincere.
This strong love, and unexpected, was soon to bear fruit. A few months later my grandmother was pregnant with my mother Ernesta Fury. The grandparents were very much in love and wanted to start a family in Rome, but the political climate did not allow their long-term programs. Italo Balbo in 1933 was exiled by Benito Mussolini who with honor, just to get rid of a charismatic and antagonistic germanophobe well as profoundly anti-racist offered him the government of Libya
In 1933 my grandmother, after Balbo traveling to Africa, and now close to term, had the early break of water, was forced to interrupt their journey in the vicinity of a small Calabrian village to give birth to my mother. Still, in Belvedere, which is the name of the country, there are some very old people who remember the day when a young woman with a big belly was left at the station and then transported to arms by a group of strong and generous young men up to 'nearest hospital, which is still located uphill, several kilometers away from the station.
The situation was extremely dramatic: over the difficult political conditions, the weight of responsibility that soon after he took two girls to raise, the total lack of milk, Ernesta grandmother led my mother to entrust the care of a baby nurse who had nursed many children of the place: Filipina grandmother.
Grandma Ernesta, had assurances from the Mayor of Belvedere that her child would be safe to lookout while she was in Africa trying to create a better future for themselves and their families. In his heart he hoped that people could live away from Italy in more humane conditions without fear every day of their lives and the lives of loved ones.
In Tripoli, my grandparents and my aunts lived in a government building, so basically their apartment was located in the workplace. One day, while my grandmother and my aunts were studying music, were interrupted by invading a terrified young, an anti-fascist who had managed to escape the control of its guardians.
White as a corpse, he begged my grandmother to save him and, without thinking, she did hide behind a curtain. Suddenly it seemed that she had forgotten to be a fascist, that her children were extremely vulnerable, and that he was putting his life at stake as well as that of his family.
The Blackshirts burst into the room, chasing their terrified prisoner, and my grandmother, as much as the young man behind the curtain, had the presence to say, "Do not disturb, we are studying." The guards are not suspicious On his authority, and so the boy saved his life.
Meanwhile, the quality of life in Tripoli degenerating day by day: the alliance with the Germans opened the door to all kinds of abuse and violence, while my grandparents, along with Balbo, began to conspire with British and American to prevent the entry of Italy in the Second World War, the conflict that would soon burst.
My grandmother used to say that his liver trouble had been born in those years, because of the fear suffered during secret missions in which the grandfather was involved over the Channel. So, when Italo Balbo's plane was shot down by friendly fire in the skies Tobruk, she had no confidence in the official version of the facts, and it was not the only one. So many, including the wife of Balbo, to suspect that the principal was just Benito Mussolini, soon after my grandfather also died piloting his plane.
Invisa by the fascists, for his collaboration with Balbo, my grandmother returned to Vigevano with a broken heart for his own tragedy and a war that had tried with all his might to avoid. Newly single, widowed and poor, with three daughters to raise. As if all this were not enough, at the end of the war was falsely imprisoned along with my aunts in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.
certainly not spared the violence: a day after his captors were shaved and beaten to the duty, was knocked unconscious; could die, but he recovered, he met with surprise and two beautiful blue eyes that looked with pity. The boy, who some years earlier she had saved in Tripoli, was now standing in front of her, no longer persecuted victim, but the winner and executioner, but a human winner, good memory and above all capable of gratitude. It was thanks to that chance meeting, my grandmother and my aunts managed to return safely at home.
My grandmother had a long life, intense and certainly not without pain: he has always paid first-choice independent living and authentic. While believing in love said to me often: "Love with your whole self, but do not let anyone tell you how you have to be man. Always be able to take care of yourself with dignity. "
was small in stature, and when I hugged his head against my chest like a child in need of love, but his stature was immense.
Before he died, he took my face between his hands and eyes in her eyes told me: "Do not cry, death does not separate those who love each other, we are one, do not ever forget it!" And then, as it was used to do, he added:
"And do not forget what Plato said, 'The wise speak when they have something to say, fools talk because they have to say'.
hope I'm not disappointed her.
Antonella Iurilli Duhamel, 2006
* Charles Augustus Lindbergh
: first fly across the Atlantic solo non-stop he made the crossing starting May 20, 1927 from New York, landed at Le Bourget near Champs de Paris after 33 hours of flight.
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