Story: Silenzio
Jan. 10th, 2023 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nsfwordsInspired by "The Silent Hero" square of my January Public Domain Day Bingo card and the picture of an ancient Roman road in Spain posted at the end of the story. At 561 words this is not set in any of my current series.
Silenzio
Tacito passed through town twice a year, once on his way North every spring headed towards France or perhaps Spain and then again on the return trip South in autumn to where he overwintered near Arezzo, Italy. He’d stay a week, working odd jobs in the farmer’s fields and orchards to make enough money to fund the next leg of his wandering. He’d put up in the haybarns or stables of the families that hired him, and would graciously accept any food or clothing offered to him in charity with a bright wide smile.
No one in town knew where Tacito originally hailed from. Perhaps his people were from down in Italy near Arezzo where he stayed the coldest months of winter, or maybe he was visiting family every summer in Spain. His warm weathered skin and dark curly hair could have come from either of those regions. The nosiest of townsfolk had asked, all at different time, in different years, but Tacito would just shake his head and walk on if pressed about home and relatives. What the town did know was that he first came through in 1919 wearing tattered combat boots, a ragged military backpack, and simple laborers clothes.
Tacito never spoke. He communicated with the farmer’s using a notebook already full of the most common questions and answers he’d need. “Are you hiring for today?” “Can I sleep in the barn?” “Does your church offer hospitality?” No, I won’t steal. No, I’ll find my own meals. Yes. Thank you. And if he needed to answer a new question Tacito had an elegant hand to write out his response, but only if provided with paper. He would sadly refuse to use any of the few remaining pages in his battered notebook.
The first few trips Tacito took through the town fueled rampant speculation about his history; was he a criminal, a war hero, a simpleton, maybe something else divine or disastrous. But no one seemed prepared to ask, or more likely, weren’t sure they wanted to see Tacito’s neatly penned answer and learn something horrendous. It took until the spring of 1921 for Signora Gattuso, the retired primary school teacher, to get overcome with curiosity. She offered Tacito her son’s old bedroll from the Regio Esercito to replace the ragged one strapped to the bottom of his pack and a writing slate with nubs of chalk from her last classroom. In return he spent an entire afternoon in her company answering many questions and politely dodging a few.
Afterwards, the story that Signora Gattuso told the town was of a farmer’s son, enlisting with the Regio Esercito before the Great War, and coming out of the war barely alive. He wouldn’t tell her how he’d lost his voice, why he wandered, nor the fate of his family. But she felt the town should be reassured that Tacito was merely a harmless oddity and wouldn’t hear any more talk of a fugitive on the run, or any other rumors that painted him a dark figure.
“He is just a sad man, unable to stay still and face the cost he paid in the Great War, and we should simply let him wash in and out of our lives, gentle as the tide,” was Signora Gattuso’s final word after the chalk had been wiped clean from her old teacher’s slate.
Silenzio
Tacito passed through town twice a year, once on his way North every spring headed towards France or perhaps Spain and then again on the return trip South in autumn to where he overwintered near Arezzo, Italy. He’d stay a week, working odd jobs in the farmer’s fields and orchards to make enough money to fund the next leg of his wandering. He’d put up in the haybarns or stables of the families that hired him, and would graciously accept any food or clothing offered to him in charity with a bright wide smile.
No one in town knew where Tacito originally hailed from. Perhaps his people were from down in Italy near Arezzo where he stayed the coldest months of winter, or maybe he was visiting family every summer in Spain. His warm weathered skin and dark curly hair could have come from either of those regions. The nosiest of townsfolk had asked, all at different time, in different years, but Tacito would just shake his head and walk on if pressed about home and relatives. What the town did know was that he first came through in 1919 wearing tattered combat boots, a ragged military backpack, and simple laborers clothes.
Tacito never spoke. He communicated with the farmer’s using a notebook already full of the most common questions and answers he’d need. “Are you hiring for today?” “Can I sleep in the barn?” “Does your church offer hospitality?” No, I won’t steal. No, I’ll find my own meals. Yes. Thank you. And if he needed to answer a new question Tacito had an elegant hand to write out his response, but only if provided with paper. He would sadly refuse to use any of the few remaining pages in his battered notebook.
The first few trips Tacito took through the town fueled rampant speculation about his history; was he a criminal, a war hero, a simpleton, maybe something else divine or disastrous. But no one seemed prepared to ask, or more likely, weren’t sure they wanted to see Tacito’s neatly penned answer and learn something horrendous. It took until the spring of 1921 for Signora Gattuso, the retired primary school teacher, to get overcome with curiosity. She offered Tacito her son’s old bedroll from the Regio Esercito to replace the ragged one strapped to the bottom of his pack and a writing slate with nubs of chalk from her last classroom. In return he spent an entire afternoon in her company answering many questions and politely dodging a few.
Afterwards, the story that Signora Gattuso told the town was of a farmer’s son, enlisting with the Regio Esercito before the Great War, and coming out of the war barely alive. He wouldn’t tell her how he’d lost his voice, why he wandered, nor the fate of his family. But she felt the town should be reassured that Tacito was merely a harmless oddity and wouldn’t hear any more talk of a fugitive on the run, or any other rumors that painted him a dark figure.
“He is just a sad man, unable to stay still and face the cost he paid in the Great War, and we should simply let him wash in and out of our lives, gentle as the tide,” was Signora Gattuso’s final word after the chalk had been wiped clean from her old teacher’s slate.
A section of surviving Roman road near Cirauqui in northern Spain.
Wikipedia User: Jaume (CC BY-SA)
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