Elena Of Sicilian Soil

• Amy Teakle, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2017

Rita’s flat was situated above a Shoemaker's shop on a corner street in Greenwich village. The shop was owned by a trio of Italian immigrants, all of whom were brothers. Rita had lived there for almost two years and was still yet to know their names. She distinguished them through childish sobriquets; the eldest, that seldom smiled and had sickly yellow completion, was called ‘Mal’, because he reminded her of a poor little boy with polio in her eighth grade class, the shortest and possibly the youngest, she called ‘Pug’ because of his wide face and bloated figure, and the other brother, whose age was yet to determined, she called ‘Gee’ because her tongue couldn’t shape his multisyllabic name. ‘Rita’ flowed off their tongues like milk and honey and was amongst the few anglicised words the brothers knew. Most mornings, the three brothers would take a few minutes to glance outside the shop window to watch Rita, in her beige overcoat, walk across to Hyde St then slowly disappear into the morning fog. None of them ever admitted they did this, each thought they were the only one. But there was nothing perverse in their admiration for Rita, merely a brotherly affection, a past sentiment that belonged to their beloved sister Elena, who died during childbirth at the age of seventeen. They both shared the same soft-footed angelic presence and gentleness that was difficult to find following the war. Most women would nod out of politeness if you smiled at them, or on rarer occasions snub you, but Elena was the sort of girl who’d smile back ten times wider and ten times harder. It was the gift to watch the sides of her mouth spring upwards in one energic flee, in syndication with those bright copper eyes. Elena. Now buried under eight feet of Sicilian soil. The thought of her shrivelled, fleshless body, alone in a wooden box was too much to bare, but sadly, the three brothers thought of this often. “Guglielmo!” yelled Mal, over the meek hunched body of his youngest body, slaving over a disassembled leather boot.
Mal simply showed him the remains of ladies vinyl slipper. Gee merely shrugged and, Mal, subjected to his own rage, flung the shoe at the back of his brother’s neck. Gee fell off his shoemaker's chair and looked up at his brother completely dumbstruck. Pug’s eyes turned heavenward as he muttered the Nichen’s creed in dialect while clinging his fat fist on the Rosary beads around his neck. Mal scolded Guillermo until his forehead was ripe with pulsating vines. The rage ended as abruptly as it started, and Mal calmly left the room, leaving Guillermo cowering in the corner. Pug looked at his youngest brother through the corner of his eye, pretending he was unaware of the confrontation that took place. Guillermo trailed his fingertips down his cheek to wipe off Mal’s saliva. He clumsily heaved himself up by the fallen chair and left the shop through the back door. Mal only needed to hear the bell of the shop door to know that his brother was gone.