Story Submission: Along the Lario
An old postcard depicting Moggio with the Grigna in the background, Lombardy, Italy.
Written by Mariacarla Bettocchi
Let me tell you the real story of Lake Como. They say that by the time the Romans crossed the prealps of Lombardy and came upon that valley, the Etruscans had already built a life for themselves there. Lario, they called it, meaning pond, or swamp.
Either way, they named it with the conviction that it was a stagnant body. But for me, it’s a place of freedom, where dreams come to one peacefully and hope seems easy to entertain.
Funny enough, the Lario is shaped like a wishing bone. At its crux lies a little comune named Bellagio.
If you happen to be there, you’re probably a tourist, and I doubt you’d want to go out of your way to do anything interesting. But if you do, and you pass by the station, take the train to Lecco. Make sure not to get off at Sondrio by accident. I always do that. And if you don’t have a ticket, try to get someone to let you know when the validator is passing through so that you can hide in the bathroom. If you can, sit in the corridor between the cars. It gives you the best view.
Once you get off the train, ask a local for directions to the heart of the valley of Valsassina. They’ll tell you to cross the path of the Grigna, and take the road past Pasturo into Moggio, and pass the soccer field, and the old real estate agency, walk up past my grandfather’s house and Mara’s gelato shop and find the ancient church on the hill.
Across the street you will see an old white building with wooden terraces lining the top. Downstairs is the arcade, but if you push past the pool tables and up the stone staircase, you’ll find 58,000 books crammed into shelves that reach the high ceiling. If you happen to find the Don sitting at the desk with his glasses low on his nose, tell him you’re a friend of mine, and he’ll let you borrow any of them.
Walk out onto the terrace and you’ll see more books and the Grigna. She is the towering mountain ahead of you, the steadfast mother of the valley.
Hundreds of years ago, the Holy Roman Empire employed German mercenaries to raid and ransack Northern Italy. The worst of their weapons was the Black Death. Everything was ravaged- even Bellagio, where you just were- but they couldn’t get past the Grigna.
And during the worst of the wars the Grigna kept the Partigiani safe in the folds of her rocky cloak. They were fighting against the fascists and the Nazis- fighting for what was right- but there were times when even the Grigna couldn’t hide this town from the outside world.
Walk back downstairs but go left this time and take the stone steps all the way down to the courtyard. Open the hatch to the big wooden door. Don’t pull too hard or it’ll make a loud creaking noise and old Giuseppe from next door will yell, even on Sundays. Walk down the cobblestone alley until you find a pretty gray house with grated windows.
If you knock on the door and tell him I sent you, the museum keeper will let you come in without an appointment. He’ll show you all the old tools the shepherds used and the beautiful needlework the many women of the village made over the years. He’ll show you the old sled in the corner and the glossy typewriter at the back of the room. The walls are covered in brown and black photographs. See if you can find the one of the Valsassina ski team. In the middle of the swarm of young, bewildered faces stands the Duce himself. Benito Mussolini called the champions down to Rome to congratulate them in 1933. That’s what I was talking about when I said the Grigna couldn’t protect this place from everything.
Soon enough, the museum keeper will mention Mosè Colombo. I’d have made this story all about me, but I wouldn’t be here without him. Mosè was a noble man and a wise one, not famous, but known. Most of the stuff in this museum was inherited from him. They called him the patriarch of the village and on his 100th birthday they threw a party that echoed across the valley into the night.
He was a role model in his demeanor, a lodestar for his many children and grandchildren. He lived to give his efforts to the old church on the hill and to his family. Everyone recognized him by his bicycle, a spindly little black thing with wiry wheels.
When he passed, Mosè was at peace. Even then he inspired us. Death came as a friend and held him gently.
There are a lot of photos of him on these walls, but the best one is near the door on your way out. Look at the way he leans on his bicycle and looks toward the camera. Look at the way he is laughing, and the way his eyes crinkle at the sides. Imagine what it would be like to live to a hundred.
You say goodbye and leave the museum. I guess you’ll be walking straight ahead that way, where the cobblestone turns into concrete, where you’ll wait at the blue plastic bus stop until you get back to Bellagio.
Me, I will walk back up the path and sit on the steps of the church on the hill. I’ll wait with my neighbors and friends and dream of Mosè’s bicycle, and try hard to remember what this town looked like before the cars swarmed the streets and they started building those ugly condominiums up the road. We’ll try and forget the boxes of books being thrown out, the English street signs, the dwindling numbers at the arcade. I’ll ignore the nagging feeling that this so-called progress is all chipping away at a part of me, a part of us. I’ll dream of a different time and pray on the wishing bone of the Lario that we may go back…
The egg sizzled. A drop of butter jumped out of the pan and landed on my hand. I jolted and lifted my head to look around. The sun was low now, and my kitchen was dimly lit, but part of me was still back there across the Atlantic. It would always be, with the Etruscan mountains and the Roman roads and the paths of the Partigiani.
I couldn’t wait to return, for the open skies above the Grigna, and for melting hazelnut ice cream, dusty marble, echoing prayers, the glint of life and light upon the Lario.
I couldn’t wait to see my grandma. Nonna, I will say, turning to her in the kitchen. Nonna, tell me the story of my great-grandfather again.
She will probably be holding a bottle of olive oil, and she’ll definitely smile. “He was a noble man, a wise one,” she’ll start, “Mosè was not famous, but known…”
Mariacarla Bettocchi is a high school student and co-founder of Rosebud. Her passions include Slavic studies, linguistics, cinema, literature, and listening to Houdou Nisbi by Ziad Rahbani for the thousandth time. As a proud Italo-Pole, she spends a lot of her free time trying to find the middle space between Federico Fellini and Andrzej Wajda. She can be contacted at mariacarla.bettocchi@gmail.com.