The eye of the lion

The brown eyes she saw reflected in the mirror in the small bathroom, framed by a pale countenance which had once been rosy, seemed sad and melancholy.

She took a little make-up and powder out of her bag and tried to liven up that face as best she could. Although she knew that where she was no-one would notice, she liked to look the best she could for people. She did it out of habit.

That custom had left her during the period of her life when she was a cashier in the grocery store, before her life had gone down the drain.

That had been last year.

But now everything was going well. With the money she was being paid here, she could finally sort her life out, change it completely, be happy.

She looked at herself once more in the mirror. Suddenly she realized with an almost child-like curiosity that her hands were caressing her belly covered with the sunflower-print dress she was wearing, and without intending to, she smiled.

She knew he was still too small for her to feel him move, but over the past two days she had entertained herself by pretending that he was kicking her, and she had even sung to him hoping that she already felt something for him, even without knowing him.

She took her bag and went from the bathroom into the bedroom, and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at the bare white walls. Her mind began to drift, to lure her far away from her present reality, and before she realized it she was thinking about her father and about Tuscany.

Her name was Marina. Marina Ciampi. She was Italian and she had lived almost her whole life in Tuscany, in a town where her father, Pietro Ciampi, was the postman. Her mother had died from alcohol poisoning when she was four, and her father had raised her with a love that seemed to want to fill the roles of father and mother at the same time.

Her infancy had been hard and impoverished, but Pietro had made sure that Marina didn’t lack what she needed, and could also complete first grade.

She had always been a shy, reserved child, with a helpless air and an innocent character, which made her an easy target for her peers, much more sly than her, who took great pleasure in putting dead animals between her exercise books for the pleasure

of seeing her cry when she found them, which she did more out of pain and sadness for the poor creatures than out of fear or repulsion as everyone thought.

As the years went by, many years of hard work - the necessity of taking on the household duties alone, and nursing her father through the illnesses he was starting to suffer from - changed her personality, making her more sure of herself, more open, but she retained the same naïve, timid, happy nature that the whole village knew.

She became an attractive adolescent, fine and willowy, with a natural beauty and an aura of innocent sensuality that started to worry her father and gave the village a lot to talk about.

Marina and her father lived a simple, poor life, but it never lacked special moments that they could share together in that humble yet welcoming abode.

At the end of a hard day’s work, Pietro used to bring home the odd magazine that his boss Don Vinicio Castella, the old school master, sent for from Rome, and Pietro asked Marina to read the articles aloud to him. She did it with pleasure, not because her father couldn’t read, but simply because he loved the melodious tone of her voice and the way she sometimes read a word in English or French with a charming, funny accent which made them both burst out laughing.

Those were times that she would always remember as some of the happiest moments of her life.

Nothing could have prepared her for the terrible day that her life was shattered, that everything she hoped for from the world was lost for ever in disgrace.

It was an October morning. It was a beautiful day and she got up at five like she did every day and prepared her father’s breakfast, serving him, as always, with a smile on her face.

After her father had left, she cleaned the house, and by eight o’clock she had almost finished washing the clothes. That was when she realized that the bar of soap had run out and she decided to go to Doña Romana’s shop to buy another one.

As she left the house and crossed the road, Marina saw two boys sitting on a rickety VW sedan convertible, staring at her. There were very few cars in the village, and fewer still that looked that broken-down, so she shot it a long curious look before turning the corner. When she returned five minutes later, only one of the boys was in the car, looking at her craftily, with a cynical smile on his pale scrawny face.

She ignored him and went home. No sooner had she entered the house, than the other boy threw himself on her violently and knocked her to the floor.

Marina was strong, and her fear - or rather the courage that

came from being attacked in her own home - gave her strength, but the intruder was bigger and his fear, mixed with excitement, prevailed. The boy grasped her around the neck with his forearm, hurting her carelessly, and started to rip her clothes off with his free hand.

As fate would have it, Pietro Ciampi was opening the patio gate just as Maria started to scream. The post bag flew towards the street and all the letters scattered over the road. Pietro entered the house slamming the door with force that would have appeared remarkable for a man of his age and constitution. His weak mind only needed a single glance to understand what was going on.

He picked up the thick plank that they barred the door with at night, and hollering like an animal, he set upon the one who was abusing the reason for his existence.

He beat him so much, and so hard, that the plank broke. He left him on the floor, as though dead, covered in blood. And he would have killed him if Marina had not held him back with all her strength and almost dragged him, shouting, into the street.

Ciampi the postman’s arrest was the news of the year in the town and more than half its inhabitants were infuriated when they found out. The other half were surprised that Pietro Ciampi

hadn’t known, or wouldn’t have cared even if he had known, that the boy he beat up with his door plank was the son of the recently nominated town Mayor.

That was when it dawned on Marina that her life would never be the same. Ever again.

Pietro was imprisoned for attempted murder. The Mayor and his friend the judge simply ignored Marina’s accusations against the Mayor’s son, arguing that there was a lack of witnesses to the event.

Marina tried in vain to convince her neighbors to testify to what they had seen and heard - they feared retaliation if they dared to testify against the Mayor’s son. Desperate, she went to her father’s boss, Don Vinicio, to ask him to plead on behalf of the man who had been a faithful and reliable employee for more than thirty years; or to do him the favor of lending him the money to pay the fine that the judge had determined.

The old school master and postman wept, mourned and cursed the Mayor’s son of a bitch, but in the end he accepted that, just like the rest of the town, he too was afraid of the Mayor and lacked the economic means to help her.

Marina thought she would go crazy with despair. She paced around the jail trying to see her father and crying, not knowing how to help him. The town felt sorry for her but they feared

the “law” too much to be able to do anything for the distressed girl. The news that her lecherous attacker would never walk again didn’t help the situation much.

One morning, as she sat at the table looking gloomily at her breakfast without touching it, there was a knock at the door. When she opened it, she saw a portly man in a worn-out suit, carrying a battered leather briefcase.

The man handed her a business card with his information on it, telling her that he was a lawyer and that one of the neighbors, apparently Doña Romana, the one from the grocery store on the corner, had told him about the problems Marina was suffering and he, despite being an extremely busy man, had, out of the kindness of his heart, agreed to take on her case.

Marina almost kissed him for sheer joy. She thanked him many times over and asked him if he wouldn’t stay for breakfast while she told him everything that had happened. The man said he had already eaten, but that, so as not to offend her, he would have a little something to eat while she explained it all. So, while Marina talked, the lawyer put away six eggs with bacon and half a goat’s cheese, washing it all down with three cups of coffee.

Once he had conscientiously cleaned his plate, and very discreetly let out a belch which scared the cat, he proceeded to talk about his modest fees. He was willing to help Pietro, almost entirely selflessly, for a scant thousand Euros.

Marina froze. The most she had ever seen at one time in her life was the twenty-five Euros her father had received as a Christmas bonus last year. She was overwhelmed by a profound sense of disappointment, but the lawyer told her with a paternal smile that she didn’t have to worry. He was a kind-hearted man and a devote Christian, and he would help her. She could pay the thousand Euros in instalments while he exercised his influence in Tuscany, and even in Rome, in order to get Pietro Ciampi out of jail.

Marina felt relieved at first, but her relief soon gave way to frustration as she realized that she had no way of obtaining the two hundred Euros the lawyer asked of her as a down-payment, and that the only way of doing it would be to get a job, which was impossible in her town.

This was how it began, an epic journey that Marina never thought she would embark on. She sold everything she could (including the cat) and with the money, and a reference from Padre Tomassino the parish Priest, she found herself on a train bound for Rome. Once there, she planned to stay in a boarding

house run by the nuns of Pilar in that city, while she tried to find work.

Before she left, for the sum of two Euros she succeeded in getting a guard to pass a letter to her father in secret, explaining her plans. After that, she walked straight to the train station.

Two months later, after numerous hardships and problems, having almost exhausted the abundant patience of the sisters of Pilar, who despite everything loved her dearly for her sweetness and decency, she ran home one evening, her eyes bright with emotion, despite her appearance which was gaunt from her troubles, and announced triumphantly:

“I’ve got a job. I start tomorrow!”

The sisters congratulated her sincerely, not so much because she would finally be able to pay her board and lodging, but because it filled them with joy to see her so radiant and happy. They asked her what her new job was to be and she answered proudly,

“I’m going to be a cashier in a supermarket.”

The sisters congratulated her again, smiling, but once Marina had contentedly left the kitchen and returned to her room, their expressions became pitying and they shook their heads sadly.

Hardly had a week passed in her new job, that Marina realized that her rejoicing had been premature.

The work was very tiring, even for a woman used to hard work like she was, and she had found it very hard to learn how to use the electronic cash register, which at first scared her constantly.

She had to get up very early, travel across almost the entire city, chilled to the bone, and put up with a pair of hypocritical cashiers who, jealous of her beauty and of the preference the clients were starting to show for her, made her life a misery all day long.

To make her day even worse, Mr. Donelli, the branch owner, a short, fat guy with an ample double chin, didn’t pass up any opportunity to flirt with her, eyeing her lewdly.

She had to stay on her feet for several hours, with only one hour’s lunch-break, in which she could hardly manage a mouthful to keep body and soul together, and at the end of the day she felt exhausted and hungry, but happy to have advanced a little on the road towards her beloved father’s liberation.

Finally, the long-awaited day arrived: pay-day.

Mr. Donelli called her into his office and with a suggestive smile he handed her the envelope containing her money, asking her to sign for it. Marina did so, her heart thundering in her

chest, and left the office without excusing herself. She did not want to open the envelope that contained the first pay-check of her life, until she was in the privacy of her room in the boarding-house.

The journey home seemed an eternity to her, but she couldn’t stop smiling despite her weariness. Once she was alone, she opened the envelope with trembling hands. There was exactly fifty-two Euros.

She spent the night weeping softly under the covers, considering with a heavy heart that she would have to work more than a year, without spending a single cent, in order to pay for her father’s freedom.

The following morning, she went to work with red, swollen eyes, much to the delight of the middle-aged gossips, and at lunch-time, she went to the telegraph office, six blocks from her work, and sent forty-five Euros to the lawyer in a giro, explaining that that was all she could pay him for the two weeks.

By the time summer came around, six months later, she was very thin. She had become solemn and reserved. She didn’t smile at the clients any more and she had become sullen towards the sisters at the boarding-house. In six months she had not received a single word of reply from the lawyer, to whom she had already sent five hundred and forty Euros at enormous cost. She

felt empty, alone and cheated. She prayed to God fervently every night, but it seemed that He wasn’t listening to her.

One morning she exploded.

As she came out of the ladies’ bathroom, Donelli intercepted her tapping his watch and asking her curtly how she could possibly have spent more than twenty minutes in the rest-room. She looked at him without uttering a word, feeling the heat rise up her face from shame and rage. She wanted to leave without saying anything to avoid a confrontation, and as she did so, it happened. The little man shamelessly patted her rear.

One second later, a red imprint of Marina’s right hand appeared on the man’s cheek, accompanied by a noise like the crack of a whip that made the ears ring. The fat man, stunned, could only look at her stupidly.

Half an hour later, Marina left the supermarket with her redundancy pay in her hand and she sat down to cry, disconsolate, on a bench in a near-by park.

God had abandoned her.