The Smile Of The Moon. Klaus Zambiasi

colt. I often play with small frogs, sometimes I even manage to catch them and carry them in our home garden, but they always find a way to escape. I really like going with Karl on the motorized lawnmower, imitating the noise and the gestures and enjoying the smell of petrol which is an orange mixture looking just like orange juice syrup. Mamma Barbara soon runs out of patience at my imitations:

      â€˜How much more are you going to last with that “nyu nyu,

      nyu nyu”? Stop it please.’

      And I’m sad I’ve annoyed her, so I keep doing it quietly or I simply mime it.

      Our small house is simple, somewhat old but it’s just like a fairy tale house, Hänsel and Gretel, that kind of stuff.

      With a balcony opening onto the perfumed fields below, the house is placed close to a tiny church and a small crossroads of tight streets, which could be called the town’s centre or square.

      For us children, it’s the courtyard where we meet and play with the gang, since almost all of the inhabited houses are there. Some of our neighbours even have seven or eight children, we must be about thirty kids in total.

      The barn and the stable are five hundred yards from there, and nearby we also have a small vegetable garden with beautiful flowers and a lot of sunflowers cared for by mamma Barbara, I obviously give her a hand, well, at least kind of. There’s also a creek which is a hoot to splash around in, every time I pass it by I want to drink all that fresh water and dive headlong from the small wooden bridge.

      We can even hear its sound when the windows are open, and it’s a pleasing presence for the ears and the nose when I deeply breathe that fresh air at morning and at sundown.

      And watching the thin mist lifting from the valley at the feet of the Sciliar when the sun is rising, like a theatre curtain at the beginning of a play.

      A place like this offers an infinity of spaces for playing, arousing and developing your imagination and tickling creativity.

      Like our belfry, which we consider some sort of headquarters: it has long been in disuse, but that isn’t a problem for us. We can climb to the top and enjoy the view on our territory from there or we can hide in it when we need to.

      We are quite poor, but we get by, producing milk and selling a couple of animals every now and then. But money is never enough to provide for everyone, so mamma Barbara supplements our income by fostering children of all ages at home for periods between a couple of weeks and some months, often during summer.

      Children in need of temporary accommodation or of a summer stay, many of them with problems at home, in their family, or with no family at all. Here they all can find shelter and especially love, which is what they need the most, waiting for their own situations to get better or to end up who knows where.

      One could also imagine it as a parking lot, or a warehouse where lost parcels wait for a destination.

      I remember a blond girl, Eva, who last year stayed with us for some time, she was so sweet, she had a problem with her hands. Her maternal grandmother had drinking issues, and once, sitting drunk in front of the stove, she had tried to warm Eva’s hands by putting them on the piping-hot plate, burning her palms.

      So last year they took her here in the mountains to recover and escape from that situation.

      Poor thing, she was my playmate at that time, we used to go play in the square, I had my favourite car, a pale-yellow beetle, and she had her dolls.

      One morning we were sitting on the ground playing in the courtyard, we looked at each other and at a certain point our faces got nearer and nearer and we gave each other a kiss, innocent but full of affection, I remember it so well, I must’ve fallen in love.

      The day after I realized I’d left my beetle on the courtyard floor: a car had run over it and squashed it, turning it into a convertible.

      Some days later the girl had to leave, a woman and a man had come to take her away, I got very sad, I remember I thought ‘I’ve just got engaged, and she’s already gone.’

      I hoped she’d come back one day, every day I’d go back and play with my beetle in that same spot, even if it was beaten-up it reminded me of the time we spent together.

      Unfortunately, I’ve neither seen her nor heard from her since, I hope she’s all right now. It’d be nice to see her again one day, probably far away from here. You never know, so I kept hoping.

      When one of our ‘siblings in adventure’ must leave to go back to their original family or somewhere else, it’s usually a sad moment for us. The longer they stay, the more we bond, and especially for mamma Barbara it’s hard to say goodbye to these unlucky children and let them go. She suffers a lot and she frequently cries, if it were for her she would keep everyone with her.

      When that happens, I try to comfort her, it breaks my heart to see her cry, I can partly cheer her up, because we love each other. To be honest I must admit that even though it’s kind of tragic, I still see it in a positive light, at least I can remain here with her and our family.

       To make sure that’s true I often ask her:

       ‘Isn’t it true that I can stay here with you and the others forever? I’ll cheer you up whenever you need, and you’ll do the same.’

       She smiles melancholily, and replies:

       ‘Yes darling, what are we going to do around here if you leave too?’

      Sometimes it’s also hard to share everything with the other kids, jealousies and envies spring up every now and then, but I think that’s normal, it’s a way to learn the rules of living together.

      These places are so beautiful, I could never imagine having to leave someday. This thought really worries me, I often have a strange feeling, and when I think about it I’m afraid that, by mistake or just for a laugh, someone may come here and take me away, like in a nightmare.

      But now I’m tired, I’ve got drowsy in mamma Barbara’s arms and I’ve fallen asleep on her knees and I no longer see the stars in the sky, I’ve taken them with me in my sleep together with mamma Barbara’s tender smile.

      

      

      Surprise visit

      

      

       The following morning…

      

      

      Oswald got up early this morning, he and Karl must have gone to the fields to make hay, I could tell from his empty bed, we sleep in the same room.

      Waltraud, now a young woman, sleeps in her own room instead.

      Mamma Barbara comes to wake me up, but I’m already awake and can’t wait to get up, I don’t know why but in summer as soon as I see a ray of light I’ve got to get up and go outside.

      Normally I’m not a sleepyhead, I toss and turn before getting up, just like our football teams when they try to stall the game at the end of the first half.

      In my mind, I can see mamma Barbara’s breakfast perfectly: a large, huge, white, crunchy, thickly sliced loaf of freshly baked bread, nice and soft, with butter and homemade jam, and obviously our cows’ fresh milk with some Ovaltine.

      It’s a bright sunny day, the view’s spectacular, the August sky as clear as it can be, maybe we’re getting close to the end of the month, the first days of September are approaching.

      Barbara cheerfully says to me:

      â€˜Grandma’s coming to see us today, I’ve waited until now to

      tell