A letter from Fiorella

A few years ago while in Switzerland I received a rather soiled and and crumpled envelope in my mail. The chop indicated it was posted many months before from Italy. It must have gone astray and finally found its destination (I won't comment on the infamous Italian mail!).

The letter was from a young lady named Fiorella de Natale. She was the only child of Antonio, whom I recruited as our office guard in Rome in 1982. Fiorella wrote that she had finished her studies and was understudying to be a lawyer, and that her mother often spoke about me and that I was kind to her family and often visited and had meals with them.

I then remembered that some years earlier I had received a letter from her mother Maria-Antonietta, sadly announcing Antonio's death and enclosing a black and white portrait photo of Antonio and a prayer.

I was touched to be remembered out of the blues by this young lady who I only knew as a child. She left a phone number and I called but only managed to speak to her mother. We had a good, long chat (my rusty Italian came flurrying back and I knew I made a million grammar mistakes!) and it was such a warm feeling to reconnect with Maria-Antonietta.

Antonio married Maria-Antonietta, his childhood sweetheart a few months after I recruited him. I was invited to the very elegant wedding in one of Rome's oldest churches in Nomentana quite close to our office. They were a very handsome couple and despite our stations we became close and I was often invited to Maria-Antonietta's family home in Mentana, outside Rome for long summer lunches and dinners. These occasions in their villa overlooking a beautiful valley of vineyards were always pleasant and wonderful. Her parents were warm and generous, father Signor Neri was very handsome and aristocratic and Signora Neri cheerful and motherly and an excellent cook, (ooo all those home-made egg pastas drooling with mushroom or artichoke sauce...and she would also proudly show me the hand-sewn dresses she was making for the Laura Biagiotti fashion house!).

Later Antonio and Maria-Antonietta built their own house across the road from her father's and they had a child they named Fiorella (little flower). I was invited to meet the new-born and I watched the child grew, a precious gem for the doting grandparents.

I left that wonderful eternal city of Rome in Summer 1985 after a 52 months of incredibly wonderful and dizzy stay (I USED to say it was the best place I ever lived in and the happiest time of my life BUT I am more philosophical about it now). But I would return to it at least once a year for a holiday for several years after that. Antonio left our office after I left and got a job in a government ministry. He somehow did not fit in as a guard and the other guards and Italian staff would refer to him as 'Il signor' (the gentleman) because of his elegant look and demeanour.

During these annual visits of mine Antonio would always ensure I visited their family and have a meal at the family villa. I think it was while I was in Peru that I received Maria-Antonietta's announcement of Antonio's sadly early departure. May he rest in peace.

I wonder when I'll get another surprise letter from the 'Little Flower'.....