When my up-stairs neighbour finds an article she thinks I can’t live without reading, she tapes it to a packaged merendina snack and throws it at my head as I pass under her window. Not a photocopy, the original. Signora Norma never worries about keeping information for herself.
The first article that hit me claimed that there are two types of women in the world. Some women have ‘apple-shaped’ bodies and others are ‘pear-shaped’. “See,” she told me afterwards, “I am an Apple, and you are a Pear.” That was before Italy had taught me not to be to hypersensitive when people compare you to fruit. Since then though, I’ve never been able think of another way to describe my neighbour. She has slim legs, and a strong, full upper body. Everything about Norma is wide, round, and firm. Even her gray hair must have been red once.
“L’Italia è una razza morente, Italy is a dying race,” Norma called to me the other morning as she leaned out to drop me her newest find. “They blame money and late marriages, but if no one’s having babies now, it’s still il Duce’s fault.”
Normally I would love to stop and chat with elderly ladies about Mussolini’s guilty conscience, but that day I was late even by Italian standards. “I’ll read the article,” I called, “but now I have to run. Ora devo proprio scappare!”
Italian journalists write about demographics a lot these days. Maybe because Italy boasts the lowest birth-rate in the world and it makes sense to no one. We are, after all, talking about a traditionally Catholic and infamously family-oriented society. Nonetheless, the eighties saw the Italian birth-rate slide below zero. And although the figure has continued to fight its way forward, most affirm that the gain is primarily due to immigration rather than Italian births.
According to Norma’s article, Italy’s low birth-rate is the result of urbanization in the 1950’s. It was then that children stopped being a resource and started being an expense. In the cramped quarters of city living, bambini started to mean more mouths to feed and less free air to breath. These days, most couples call “lack of money” the primary cause for “lack of children.” The article made no mention at all of Mussolini and left me wondering what Norma had meant.
Certainly, il Duce has been blamed for many things. But now it seemed that his ghost was somehow guilty too. I knocked on her door that afternoon, intent on getting her point straight. Once comfortably settled in her best chair, I had to drink a Crodino and eat three pieces of her Spanish marzipan before she would explain.
Mussolini related child-birth with military power and fertility with national virility. According to his program, Italy’s position in the world depended, first and foremost, on the amount of patriots its women bore and raised. During the Fascist regime, Motherhood was the most complete form of female patriotism. “Mussolini gave women worth through child-birth,” Norma explained. “Pregnant ladies would parade in front of his balcony and yell, ‘E’ tuo Duce, this child is yours.’ Mussolini needed children to fight his wars. He gave gold medals to women with many children. Mothers kept the babies in their bellies, but once delivered they belonged to the State.” Norma shook her head, “Eh, si, Madre vuol dire martire. It was true in those days. Mother meant martyr.”
“My mother got her medal, too, because there were eight of us. And il Duce sent us strong black cloth so she could make us school smocks.” She smiled sadly from the memory, “Poi ci ha mandato buoni per comprare fagioli, farina, e zoccoli da indossare. And he sent us coupons to buy beans, cornmeal, and clogs to wear. None of us in the country had shoes then. With clogs, my people felt like gentlemen. He tricked us that way. Nothing to eat, but something to cover our feet with, you know?”
No, Norma. There is so much I don’t know. Still, she was willing to share a piece of history with me and, most importantly, find the knot that tied it to today. With the Fascists, women had babies as a political favour to their leader. And with the Party’s fall, people stopped having children, per dispetto, out of spite. If many babies had been patriotic symbol, then few babies quickly became a sign of protest. “Do you see?” Norma asked anxiously, “first seven children, now just one in an effort to undo il Duce. He is why we are una razza morente,” she grinned, happy to have solved the mystery for me.
I smiled back at her. My elderly apple-shaped neighbour was beautiful and I couldn’t wait to see the next piece of news that would fly from her open window.
