Belinda was a warm-hearted woman, very generous and open to others. She loved her land because it was very similar to her own temperament: sunny, but prone to anger; in an instant, she could ignite like her volcano. Her red and untamed hair seemed to say the same thing. They were the sign of a passion that could light up an entire room or reduce it to ashes.
On a night of sharp cold, in the depths of winter, Belinda dreamed. The scene was vivid and warm, a stark contrast to the icy air of the room: she saw a distant relative, her grandfather Giovanni's brother, whom she had always affectionately called Uncle Carmelo. The uncle lived permanently in Rome and only came to Sicily for the summer holidays, an unchangeable ritual. He owned a house near the town square, not far from her grandfather Giovanni's summer villa.
In the afternoon, when the summer heat began to subside and the sun neared five o'clock, Uncle Carmelo would set off. He would reach his brother Giovanni on foot, accompanied by an elegant, intricately carved wooden cane, more of a flourish than a necessity. The uncle, despite his advanced age, was a handsome man, tall and always impeccably dressed, with a bearing that Rome had conferred upon him. He would descend the iron stairs of a little bridge that faced the square and, with a slight limp, would reach the red iron railings of the gates, which were always closed, in front of his brother's house.
Her grandfather would have him sit down in the garden. Belinda remembered those moments when the uncle arrived at the villa and she and her brother were still children, playing among the flowerbeds. They were bored and sun-drenched afternoons, marked by the buzz of cicadas. They spent them playing in that small patch of land when their mother, Caterina, didn't feel like taking them to the sea, offering the most varied excuses: it was too hot, there was too much wind, or simply she didn't feel like it. Caterina didn't like the sea; she liked to fish instead, but only at night. Grandfather Giovanni's villa was right across from the seafront; one only needed to cross the road and go down the steps that led to the beach for a swim, but that privilege was rarely granted.
So the two siblings would sit and listen to the waves, watching the sea in front of them, intoxicated by the scent of flowers that had been expertly planted by their grandmother Linda, nicknamed "green thumb." In the center of the garden was a small mandarin tree, and having a snack under its laden branches was a true delight.
Belinda was too young to understand the adults' conversations. Children had a naive and peaceful view of the adult world. Belinda saw Uncle Carmelo as a man of mild temperament, almost a slow caryatid, who smiled often and spoke in a gentle, tranquil manner. He was the exact opposite of her grandfather.
Grandfather Giovanni was always the same: he never laughed except to sneer or to ridicule someone. He was a man of financial successes and human failures, and even today Belinda couldn't explain why Uncle Carmelo, such a sweet soul, persisted in visiting him. The gentle Uncle Carmelo was an easy target for the grandfather, and Giovanni was always ready to criticize him.
One afternoon, the veil of Belinda's innocence was torn.
Uncle Carmelo had just finished recounting, with a veiled sadness in his voice, how he had been forced to sell his house in Rome. He hadn't been able to manage it after his wife's death, and the costs were suffocating him. He had tried to salvage something from it, but the price had been meagre and the negotiation exhausting.
Grandfather Giovanni interrupted him, not with a word of comfort, but with a curt question, a sword thrust: "And tell me, Carmelo, did you at least learn that you don't give charity to good-for-nothings?"
The uncle's face darkened, and his eyes clouded over. "Giovanni, what are you saying... I did my best. It was the only thing I could do."
"Your best!" the grandfather hissed, slamming his teacup onto the iron table. "It's your usual, Carmelo! You trust everyone, you don't know how to defend your assets, you always have your head in the clouds. You gave away years of sacrifice to the four jackals that stood before you. If you had listened to me twenty years ago, you would be here enjoying your pension, instead of being plucked clean in Rome. You are a sixty-year-old man, but you are still a naive little boy!"
Uncle Carmelo took the blow. He didn't answer. He brought his handkerchief to his mouth, squeezing it. A small sigh shook his shoulders.
Belinda, who was sitting on the entrance steps with her brother, stopped playing. She saw the uncle's tall, well-dressed figure slump, and a solitary tear ran down his cheek, immediately followed by others. The uncle cried silently, wiping away the tears with quick, almost shameful gestures, right next to Grandfather Giovanni, who instead sneered with satisfaction, a look of icy superiority painted on his face.
In that instant, Uncle Carmelo momentarily met Belinda's gaze. He said nothing, but that eye contact was a bridge: their souls united in instant understanding. Belinda felt a burning compassion, a silent rage at seeing a kind, elderly man humiliated like that, and she understood that true strength was not in deriding, but in enduring pain with dignity. She understood that her grandfather was not a strong man, but merely a cruel one.
After that humiliating episode, Uncle Carmelo never returned to Sicily for the holidays. For years, Belinda had received sporadic news of him from Grandmother Linda, who kept up a correspondence with Rome.
One night, Belinda dreamed of Uncle Carmelo again.
The uncle was standing on the doorstep of the grandparents' house. In the dream, he was well-dressed, as he always was in reality, but he looked strange: in his hand, he did not have the elegant cane, but an old brown cardboard suitcase, one of those used for moving. He didn't enter the house; he remained on the threshold, motionless between the interior light and the darkness of the Sicilian night.
Belinda approached him and asked: "Uncle, why are you here? It's not summer; are you not well in Rome?"
He answered gently, with his sweet smile, the same wounded smile he had given her years before: "I came to see you one last time. I bring you greetings, but I cannot come in."
Belinda woke up with a start. She was drenched in sweat and already crying. The scent of mandarin seemed to linger in the cold air. The dream, for her, was clear and undeniable: Uncle Carmelo was no longer among the living.
The phone call arrived shortly thereafter, in the early morning. It was the uncle's son, announcing his father's passing due to cardiac arrest in the middle of the night, precisely at the hour Belinda had dreamed of him.
Belinda said nothing to the son about her premonition, she only thanked him and then asked where they would bury him. Since Uncle Carmelo loved his bitter land, he had left precise testamentary instructions: he wanted to be relocated to his hometown. And the irony of fate manifested in its full power: Uncle Carmelo was interred in the family crypt, beneath his brother Giovanni's tomb. The naive soft-hearted man had returned home, but even in death, the man who had mocked him was literally standing over him. Roots, Belinda understood, are not chosen. They are accepted, even when they are made of rock and shadow.