Kitabı oku: «Under a Sardinian Sky», sayfa 3
Floating through these memories now felt like a half-remembered dream. Her thoughts hovered in the narrow space between sleep and waking. It was nearly impossible to know if any of them had happened at all. Perhaps Franco had only been that sixteen-year-old for one day. Perhaps it had taken all these seasons since for Carmela to realize that he might never have been that boy at all. Like her aunts always said, “Sun and fruit remove sight.”
She had felt as if he once had the power to offer her something different from the certainty of small-town life. But as the days passed, it became harder to ignore the little voice in her head whispering that this was little more than her own brittle illusion, stitching made in haste without a knot at the end of the thread. Over time, his ambition had begun to curdle into a stubbornness of someone beyond his years. His excitement about the future ebbed into a subtle paranoia that he may not have the responsibility and riches gifted to him. There were other siblings whom his father adored more. In place of his breezy swagger germinated the near imperceptible seeds of bitterness and jealousy. He was a slightly bruised cherry—altered but little, yet marred nonetheless. Carmela wiped a tiny wisp of hair from her face with the back of her hand, and with that these fruitless shoots of thoughts.
Lucia rolled the last squeeze of dough into a final gnocchetto. Her impatient hands rested for a moment, till the one that wasn’t cradling the baby swirled through the air to punctuate her speech. “One good thing about milking—I don’t have to put up with the curse every month.”
Maria looked up from the pan. Her cheeks had returned to their vanilla white.
“Tit’s out again!” Peppe exclaimed, striding in to fill a glass with water from a terra-cotta jug.
“Just jealous it’s not for you,” Lucia answered, without missing a beat.
“They’re the mismatched mountains of the North.”
“You and me, more like!”
Carmela watched her aunt and uncle chuckle, wondering if she too would dance around her husband like this after six children and uneven, milk-laden breasts. Is this the kind of wife she would be? It was hard to imagine Franco teasing her like this, almost as hard as it was to picture him stamping his feet over rotting teeth. Carmela took her sudden impatience to know where her life would take her as another painful reminder of her immaturity. A wise woman like her mother never let her thoughts race headlong into anything.
Another wave of energy bubbled up inside. She dropped a second mold into the whey, dipping her hands into white warmth. As she lifted it out of the pan, Carmela felt the liquid streak down her forearms. All her simmering thoughts evaporated into the milky air.
The sun began to hit the height of afternoon when the clatter of a vehicle brought everyone out from the back of the house, where lunch was drawing to a reluctant close. It wasn’t a sound any of them were accustomed to hearing there. A cloud of dust rose from the dirt track leading to the farm, which was set back almost a kilometer from the main road. The family would travel the three kilometers from town on foot or in Lucia’s fruit truck. The brothers paused to scrutinize, squinting into the near distance. As the vehicle reached the rusted gate, it stopped.
The engine fell silent.
Tomas marched over to the driver.
The family’s distrustful Sardinian glares scissored across the scorched earth. A serviceman got out of the jeep with one lithe jump. Nothing about the crisp white of his shirt, or sweat-free brow, suggested he had traveled from the base in a roofless vehicle under the unforgiving August heat. Tomas shook his hand and gave him a welcome pat on his back. Everyone shifted.
“L’Americano! Venite! Gather round!” Tomas called out, as the two turned and began their walk toward the group.
“And that,” Lucia muttered under her breath to Carmela, “is what tourists call a breathtaking view.”
Carmela flashed her aunt a disapproving frown.
“What? You don’t make babies sitting on the back pew.”
“This,” Tomas announced, “is Lieutenant Joe Kavanagh. He’s from the base.” He gestured to the mob. “Got a bit up here,” he said, tapping his temple. The officer flushed.
“He’s promised to help me get my hands on some equipment. Wants to see how we do things.”
The bashful lieutenant smiled as if he had understood every word of Tomas’s Italian. Although he appeared to hold substantial rank, judging by the appendages on his jacket, there was something about the way his knowing eyes swept over the land that suggested he was no stranger to farming. Carmela glanced at the faces around her but gathered little from their inscrutable, unblinking expressions. Tomas reached a warm arm around the soldier. “Is this how you treat a guest?” he called out to everyone. “Pour the man a drink!”
Maria, Lucia, and Carmela hurried back to the house as the men joined Tomas. Maria covered a tin tray with ridotto glasses and a green bottle of garnet-colored wine. Carmela placed a slab of pecorino onto a chopping board, uneven and scarred with scratches from years of use. Then she filled a basket with roughly torn strips of pane fino, the large circular flat bread for which the town was famous, along with a handful of small paniotte rolls she and her mother had baked that morning.
Tomas led the visitor toward the long wooden table under the shade of a gnarled vine canopy at the back of the cottage. Its legs were made from two wide oak trunks, a rugged altar at which feeders worshipped Maria’s cooking.
“This is the man you told me about?” Peppe whispered to his brother, as they sat down.
A handful of local young men, hired for extra help that week, straggled behind like a pack of dogs salivating for a treat.
“Play our cards right and we could do very well,” Tomas replied.
Tomas gestured for the American to sit. Carmela noted the lieutenant’s posture. He seemed so at ease, or else created an impeccable performance to that effect, even among this group of strangers intent on force-feeding him and making him drink into a fog. The men took their places on the benches and thrust a glass into Kavanagh’s hand, filling it to the rim with Tomas’s wine. Their glasses raised skyward. “Saludu!” Tomas called out.
“Salute,” the lieutenant replied.
That silken voice unlocked a memory.
Carmela stood by the door that led into the house, hovering between participation and service, the chopping board and basket still in either hand. She watched as the men coerced him into drinking in one gulp so they could refill. Peppe signaled to Carmela to pass the pecorino, made from their own sheep’s milk. She walked over to him and placed both board and basket before him, allowing him the honor of slicing the cheese. He carved out a generous slab, wrapped pane fino around it like a blanket, and bellowed across the table, “Tieni! Take it, Americano. God bless our sheep! God bless America!”
The men clinked to America and long life. Kavanagh was fed a sample of their ricotta too, and several slices of their homemade sausage, fragrant with fennel and thyme, balanced with just the right amount of salt. The group made easy work of polishing off three of them. When four bottles stood empty and the lieutenant still appeared intact, Tomas called down to Maria at the other end of the table. “Got ourselves a professional, Mari’. Bring out the hard stuff!”
She disappeared into the house, followed by Carmela and Lucia.
“Going to take more than wine to make this one dizzy,” Lucia whispered, frisky. “I’m going nowhere until that collar is undone and I get myself a look at more skin than just a neck. And those eyes, no? Clear like the Chia coves.”
Maria reached into the bottom of the wooden dresser and shook her head with a reluctant smile. She passed up glass bottles of homemade liquor to Carmela, for the tray; aqua vitae and Tomas’s fragrant mirto, an aromatic, potent after-dinner drink made from their native myrtle berry.
“Give it here!” Lucia exclaimed. “I’ll do the pass with the mirto, Mari’, get me a closer look!” With that she whisked the bottles out of Carmela’s hands before she could get them onto the tray. Carmela followed Lucia as she flew back out of the door, laying out fresh ridotto glasses before each man.
“Oh, here she goes,” Peppe said, as Lucia sidled up to the table. “Why must you always nosey about the men, woman? You stay in there and I’ll stay out here, and we’ll all go home happy!”
“Someone’s got to protect her beautiful nieces from you lot!” she replied, flashing Kavanagh a toothy grin.
The men laughed at the couple’s familiar repartee, which accompanied the end of most meals. Peppe fidgeted in his seat.
“Americano! Which one for you?” Lucia asked.
“Mirto, per piacere.”
A stunned pause fell over the merry group. His Italian impressed them. Mumbled surprise rumbled into clinking glasses. The men slurred wishes of good health as the initiation fast approached completion. The afternoon trickled through another bottle of each digestif, alongside plentiful servings of Maria’s seadas, thin pastry-encased slices of cheese, pan fried till crispy on the outside and oozing on the inside, topped with a drizzle of the neighbor’s acacia honey.
The setting sun cast its ruby glow over the men as they cajoled in a soup of half languages that everyone appeared to understand. The Americano started to gesticulate in Sardinian. Carmela noticed his hands were worn, those of a man accustomed to hard physical work. The way they moved smoothly through the air, however, was more akin to an artist describing a new work than that of a worker discussing the fluctuating prices of milk and cheese. His sleeves were rolled up now, exposing his muscular forearms, much to Lucia’s delight.
Tomas looked over to his daughter and signaled for her to bring out yet another bottle. She moved to clear the empty ones first, when her father took her hand. “Americano!” He hiccupped. “You’ll forgive me, I haven’t introduced you to my daughter. This is my eldest, Carmela. Not just a pretty picture—inherited my brains too!”
Kavanagh’s eyes widened, his head cocked slightly. “Actually,” he replied in English, stretching out his hand, “I think we’ve already had the pleasure.”
Carmela flashed a brief half smile in return and gave his hand a perfunctory shake.
“She speaks English too, you know?” Tomas began.
Carmela stiffened. She was no stranger to being put on the spot by her father after he had drunk too much. Her face reddened in spite of herself.
“Go on, Carmela, say something!” Tomas cried, swinging his arm up like a ringmaster announcing the headlining act.
Carmela felt the glare of a dozen eyes. What was this fixation with her knowledge of English? It was a skill, but she was not an acrobat who lived to hear applause for her tricks. Carmela had a heightened sense for when her father would perform such turns and now berated herself for failing to escape in time.
“Attenzione, everyone!” Tomas called out, “My firstborn is going to speak like an English!”
The blood thumped in her ears.
“Please, don’t put yourself on the spot on my account,” the lieutenant said, undoing the top button of his collar. The blue of his eyes deepened. Carmela would have liked the warmth that shone in them to relax her, but it only made her unease swell. Her eyes darted up and down the table, scanning the remnants of the food, a gourmet graveyard. She raced around in her mind for something simple to say, but it was like a bare white room. Her eyes lifted. They met her mother’s, reminding Carmela it would be no great pain to humor her father. She found her voice.
Carmela muttered something about welcoming the lieutenant to Sardinia and the Chirigoni farm, but the applause drowned out the end of her sentiment. Her eyes flitted over a sea of sun-cracked smiles. Kavanagh flashed her a grin, as warm and wide as hers was taut.
She beat a swift retreat inside.
The cicadas serenaded a fat moon by the time the group bid each other reluctant good nights. Carmela stood in the shadows of a cork oak beyond the house, scraping food off the plates and into a trough for the pigs. She looked up as her father and Peppe creaked the gate shut. The lieutenant strolled to his jeep, jacket swung over his shoulder, a satisfied sway to his walk.
She watched his taillights zigzag into the blackness of the hills.
CHAPTER 3
The long windowpanes of Yolanda’s dressmaking studio reached up to fresco ceilings, but its clouds were cracked, and the sanguine putti—happy harp-playing angels—now had several bare plaster patches where rosy cheeks once grinned or chubby thighs bent into flying arabesques. The business took up the entire third floor of Palazzo Grixoni. The building ran almost the length of the narrow street, Via Santa Lucia, a brutal incline from the main Piazza Cantareddu ending at Fontana Grixoni. This marked the center of town. From here, Simius sprawled up and around like a funnel. The icy mountain water gushed out of the marble lions’ mouths, ensuring Simiuns had access to fresh water, unlike some of the neighboring villages. Its Victorian black-and-white marble base, topped with busts of the Grixoni family, who had commissioned it, flanked Palazzo Grixoni. In the halcyon days of the mid-nineteenth century, when the valley had been christened with the proud title of Logudoro, land of gold, Palazzo Grixoni had been home to the wealthy merchant family of the same name. Now, as Simius blew away the ashes of war, buildings like these had been divided and rented out as separate quarters.
Carmela sat at her worktop by the farthest window from the entrance and lifted her eyes from her stitching. Her gaze drifted out toward the fountain. She watched the women below as they swayed, balancing long, terra-cotta jugs upon their heads filled from the flowing faucets. Yolanda insisted on keeping the shutters closed against the heat, especially at this time of the morning, but today there was intricate work to be finished and the girls worked better in natural light. Besides, any money she might save on electricity would result in increased profits.
Carmela unpicked her stitching for the third time. Yolanda walked over to her. “You feeling all right, Carme’?” she asked, leaning on the worn wood of the worktop.
“Yes, of course.”
“Look at me, tesoro.” Yolanda lifted Carmela’s chin with a gentle hand. “You’re distracted today, my darling. Your skin is almost white.” As Carmela’s godmother, Yolanda reserved this tone for her alone; all the other girls worked in fear of her biting tongue and fierce intolerance for careless mistakes. This was the place every woman with taste traveled to from along the entire coast. Sometimes customers even came up from as far as the capital city Cagliari, half a day away on the south of the island. Carmela’s deft hand and incisive eye for cut and current trends owed much to the business’s success.
“Your London lady from the villa has made an appointment for today,” Yolanda said, trying to appear relaxed. “I need you to be at your best.”
Carmela, of course, was aware that her godmother had a feral sixth sense for when her thoughts were drifting. In truth, she hadn’t been able to concentrate since Piera told her that posters announcing her official engagement to Franco were plastered on the walls of the houses by the cathedral. She’d spent most of the morning trying, and failing, to contain her excitement over the fact that her name was in large black letters for all to see, only steps from here. At the same time, Carmela knew how important Mrs. Curwin’s appointment could be. The wealthy family from London would pay double that of the locals. Mrs. Curwin bought most of her attire from the dressmakers of New Bond Street, central London, a place she described with broad brushstrokes but that remained a misty picture of a faraway land in Carmela’s mind.
Yolanda rallied. “Do your magic and she may order an entire wardrobe. Good news for this young woman who’ll be standing in my shoes one day, no?” Yolanda reached into the leather pouch hanging from her belt, beside her coiled tape measure, and pulled out three coins. “Take these lire and buy yourself a spremuta at Bar Svizzero. Tell Antonio to give you magnesia too, yes? Then come back looking like the Carmela with the bright eyes and fast hands.”
She was more than ready to heed her advice. Her legs ached to race her down the street and take a swift glance at her temporal fame. The dry heat, toasting the cobbles outside, beckoned. She looked up at the sharp face of her godmother. It was crease free despite her fifty years, with feline eyes that rose ever so slightly up toward her temples, imbuing her with a permanent air of sage curiosity. Carmela struggled to picture herself even half as shrewd. The studio’s success lay in the perfect balance between Carmela’s artistry and her godmother’s quick head for figures and unfaltering leadership. Over the past few months Yolanda mentioned Carmela’s inheritance of the business more than usual. It filled Carmela with a rush of excitement and ideas, but if she was destined to take over one day, how would she summon the steel to captain all these seamstress girls, so happy to smile to your face, then sending daggers at you from behind closed doors? She reached up for Yolanda’s coins, thanked her, and left the room, knowing the kindness did not go unnoticed by the other young seamstresses.
Carmela wound down the darkened staircase. Suffused light shafted through, in ornate patterns, from the decorative metal grate above the main double doors. Behind the wooden banister, the paint looked as if it had been dragged downward by a powerful force, streaking the wall where it had clawed to try to remain attached. Her footsteps echoed off the marble steps. They were wide enough to show off the dazzling ball gowns of the original owners, not the worn shoes of a seamstress.
The white sun beyond the heavy door blinded her.
“Congratulations, Carme’!” a woman called down to her from the fountain. “Just read about the soon-to-be-newlyweds in the piazza. Not every day you get your name posted on the wall, you know!”
“Thank you! I’m going to see it now!” Her voice bubbled like an overexcited adolescent.
“It’s next to Ignazia Cau’s death notice,” another chimed, hoisting a jug up onto her head. “God rest her soul. . . .”
The women muttered a blessing and set off in opposite directions. Carmela stood and listened to the water as if the sound itself might cool her down, but she knew that even the unforgiving ice of February would not have that effect on a special day like today.
The pitter-patter feet of her youngest sister, Vittoria, drew Carmela round.
“Aren’t we in a hurry?” Carmela called out to her.
“Nonna made me say the rosary twice!” Vittoria said without slowing her trot. “She’s angry because Zia Rosa is late home. And now I’m late for the sisters!” Her candlestick legs propelled her downhill. With a quick turn she disappeared into a narrow viccolo that led to the back entrance of the cathedral, where the summer session of the children’s church group was held. Vittoria had been in the Cherubs for several years. Last night, as Carmela had tucked her into the bed Vittoria shared with Gianetta, she had, with much exhilaration, relayed that the nuns had finally graduated her to the Angel’s class. Then, Vittoria had carried on, without pausing for breath or punctuation, that if her dream to become as good a seamstress as Carmela failed, she would follow her second calling to the convent.
Carmela watched Vittoria’s dress flap as she ran and made a mental note to add a trim from some of the off cuts back at Yolanda’s. A flamboyant woman from the next town had ordered an elaborate floral pattern for a light overcoat. Carmela could patch together the scraps and make her sister the happiest ten-year-old on the street.
Carmela continued on down to Piazza Cantareddu, passing a slew of tzilleri. The pungent smell of damp barrels and wine-stained stone floors wafted out from those darkened cantinas, while outside men stood around sniffing their ridotto glasses, arguing over everything and nothing. A voice called out to her.
“There’s my bride!” Franco swung in beside her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I can think of a nicer way to greet your fiancé—only we don’t want to shock these old men.”
“Sorry, I’ve only got a little while—”
“We made the wall, Carmela. You should walk around town like you own it. Which you will, in a few months.”
He took both her hands in his and turned her to face him, “Not so bad for a farm girl, no?”
Her mind flitted to the stack of embroidery to complete at the studio. His phrase grated. He used it often, and always as an expression of endearment; after all, their first tentative trysts were under the cover of her father’s vineyard. There was no shame in being a farm girl. That very earth had borne their love, in every sense. Carmela and Franco were grafted together there, twisting around each other like new vines. She looked into him. The sun shone into the darkness of his eyes, picking out the hidden chestnut flecks, invisible in all light but that of the blinding midmorning beams. He took her elbow and drew her over toward one of the upturned barrels, where several men she didn’t recognize stood, sipping wine.
“This is my fiancée, Carmela.”
She nodded. From the look of their shirts, Carmela hazarded a guess they were men of some influence.
“These signori are here from the council in Tula. I’m showing them our sights.”
Carmela flashed Franco a quizzical look. Why would men from a town thirty kilometers away be in Simius for sightseeing?
“You are welcome to use Carmela’s English however you see fit, gentlemen.” Franco’s face unfolded into one of his winning smiles, which few people could resist.
“Yes, Signorina,” the oldest of the three men said, his cheeks red with sun and wine, “your fiancé has promised us that you can be our interpreter in future meetings between us and the Americani.”
Carmela tried to rein in her confused frown before it creased her forehead, and failed. Franco never cared about her English. To him it seemed little more than a puzzling pastime. Now he was peddling her basic knowledge of it?
“We’ve heard they’re about to start looking for land,” a second man, shorter and rounder than his colleagues, piped in. “They’ve got some rockets they want to shoot up into the sky. My cousin’s son works at the base sometimes. People are talking. They’re going to fly planes and play war games. Plenty of dollars to give us landowners in return.”
Carmela opened her mouth, hoping something half intelligent might come out, but before she could speak, the last man, the silent of the three, wrapped his fingers around the plate loaded with cubed cheese and sliced smoked lard. He lifted it and offered it to her. A lazy fly heaved itself off the side of one of the rinds and landed on his knuckle, long enough for Carmela to note the black under his nail.
“Thank you, gentlemen, it all sounds very interesting, but if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been sent on an errand to Bar Svizzero for my godmother, and I really ought to get along.”
“Piacere,” the first man said, holding out his thick hand. Carmela shook it, out of courtesy, wishing she didn’t feel that it bound her to him in some way. Then she turned to Franco and kissed each cheek. His eyes drifted past her on the second kiss. She had disappointed him. These men must be more powerful than she had guessed. It would have been polite to partake in some food at least. A sweaty piece of cheese or a tiny nibble of greasy lard wouldn’t have been such a great sacrifice in order to place Franco in a favorable light.
Bar Svizzero became a welcome oasis on the other side of the piazza. Carmela headed straight for it—the poster would have to wait till after work. A couple of ladies eating dainty balls of gelato out of glass cups looked up and gave her a polite nod, then readjusted their hats. She smiled back, having the vague sense they had been into Yolanda’s several times for small alterations. What must it be like to have the biggest choices in your day be which hat to wear or whether to try the local honeyed nougat or toasted hazelnut gelato?
Franco was holding court at Bar Nazionale, where men played cards and smoked. He felt most comfortable doing his business there. Bar Svizzero, in contrast, prided itself on attracting the wealthier female clientele—wives of traveling merchants, landowners, or fallen aristocrats with Savoyard money left over from the days when Sardinia was its own kingdom. The owner, Antonio, had once spent a summer in Switzerland with a distant aunt. On his return he had changed his bar’s name, ordered an ornate counter from Turin, and doubled his profits. The valley wasn’t called Logudoro for nothing, after all.
“Buon giorno, Carme’.” Antonio smiled as Carmela entered the cool of his bar. The low vaulted ceilings gave the impression the room had been chiseled into the rock.
“Caffè?” he offered. His crisp white jacket was spot free even though he was the only one manning his barely tamed, highly polished chrome espresso machine.
“No, Anto’, I’ll take a spremuta, per piacere. And some magnesia.”
“Wedding jitters already?”
Carmela smirked. He was almost convinced.
“My sister was the same,” he said, reaching for three lemons from the basket on top of the empty glass display cabinet where Antonio kept the fresh breakfast pastries. The scent of vanilla sugar still powdered the air, alongside the toasted nutty caramel from the morning’s roaring espresso trade.
“Lost ten kilos before the big day,” he said.
“She was a beautiful bride, Antonio.”
“Thanks to you. No one else could have made her look half her width and twice her height!” He sliced the fruit in half on a pristine marble chopping board and twisted the lemons on a glass juicer. “Mother was lucky to get her married off when she did.”
The fresh smell of citrus had the desired effect.
“There you are, Signorina.” He poured the juice into a flute, then stirred two generous spoonfuls of sugar into it with a long, slim metal spoon, and finally topped it with sparkling water and a tiny spiral of rind. “I’ll run next door for some more magnesia. I’m clean out.” With that he parted the bead curtain. Carmela watched them tip-tap to stillness.
She took a sip of spremuta and her tongue tingled sour and sweet. She emptied the flute and glanced over the rainbow of cordials behind the counter. Their labels fascinated her, intricate works of art, embellished in gold, with elaborate, decorative lettering. All that pomp and polish for alcohol. It was beautiful, maybe a little frivolous? Across the piazza, men were pouring wine out of plain green bottles. Would her father’s gruff concoctions taste better if they were decanted into one of these bottles?
From where she sat, she could just about see Franco’s tiny head through Antonio’s delicate lace curtains. She watched him holding court. She and her fiancé existed in different, yet parallel, worlds. What of it? This was a good thing. A strong couple was not a marriage of similarities. Would she have wanted Franco to sit by her and admire Antonio’s collection of liquor? Discuss her morning or Mrs. Curwin’s appointment later that day? Did he wish Carmela had stayed by his side for the rest of that meeting with those three shirts? Even though the answer to all of the questions starting to swirl in her mind was a resounding no, Carmela took more than a moment to shake off the brief wave of uncertainty that swelled. She berated herself for letting a careless faux pas affect her longer than necessary. She watched Franco reach out his hands to the men. He looked happy, as did they. What harm she thought she may have done was already forgotten. Her etiquette was not going to clinch or lose a deal after all. There was comfort in that, at least. And plenty of time to hone the art of being a wife to one of the most influential men in town.
Dressing the many women who came through Yolanda’s doors was the exaltation of God-given gifts. To some, it was deemed simple, sinful vanity. But to Carmela, the presentation of anything revealed the respect a person had for it. A dirty plate with cheese and lard slapped on in haste offered less physical and spiritual nourishment than a simple basket laid with a few homemade bread knots upon a starched square of linen. One revealed and revered the time and effort of preparation, where the other displayed a scant respect. A perfectly cut skirt, suit, or wedding gown exulted the wearer and gave permission for the onlooker to feel uplifted too. There had to be power and purpose in beauty. Why else was the earth strewn with breathtaking sights? What could be the purpose of the penetrating azure of her island’s sea, the fire red of May’s poppies, the intoxicating fuchsia of a prickly pear’s fruit, if not to exhilarate a soul?
Antonio prided himself on importing obscure concoctions from far corners of the continent, especially Paris. Though so far, by the look of the unopened bottle, no one in Simius had acquired a taste for violet liqueur. Did Antonio’s love of all things foreign reveal a worldly attitude? His curiosity about life beyond the parameters of their small town was something she respected. No one gossiped about the fact that he still lived with his mother. If he had been a woman, he would have been labeled a spinster, an unwanted, an unlovable. But as a man in his early forties, he had simply earned a mixture of respect and pity from his peers, having sacrificed his own life to take care of his mamma.
