Snapshots: Strawberry SweeTarts by Matilda Colarossi

Strawberry SweeTarts

Matilda Colarossi

She stood before the old man head down. She counted all the scratches on the dirty linoleum counter that separated them. Her dark eyes ran along the shiny edge dotted with tiny nails that held the counter top in place and then lower to the glass shelves. She looked at all the one-cent candy jars. Green mint juleps, red licorice whips, wax lips, an assortment of jujubes and jaw-breakers, and, her favourite, strawberry SweeTarts. She clenched the pennies in her hand. She could have eaten all the candies, especially the SweeTarts, which she loved so much.
She liked the sour-sweet as it melted in her mouth making her tongue and lips red. Her mother never gave her money for candies. Never.
She looked around the shop. It smelled of old wood and candy. The shelves were lined in snacks, snacks she had never tasted because her mother fed her only home-made cookies and cakes.
The wrappers, blue and pink and green, seemed to call out to her. She knew the sound they made when they were being opened. She had sat beside numerous friends who ate them at lunch. She had seen them appear from within numerous lunch boxes. She knew exactly what they smelled like.
“Well?” asked the old man.
“One pencil, p…please”, she stammered stretching out her hand and placing the pennies on the counter.
Old mister Kuzma eyed her suspiciously. He didn’t like foreigners, didn’t trust them. She was one, he was sure. He looked her up and down before turning to the shelf on which he kept the pencils in a tatty old peanut tin, dangerously sharp lead tips pointed upwards. His back to her for only a second, but enough for the one little strawberry SweeTart to slip from the jar into her tiny fingers.
“Where you from, kid?” he asked bluntly as he turned around to face her again.
The child stared up at his hostile face and stammered incomprehensibly.
“What’d you say?” he barked.
“Down the block,” she replied raising her voice.
“I don’t mean here. I mean where you from? Where your people from?”
She looked up at him quizzically. She lived just down the block. She had no idea what he was talking about. She squeezed the strawberry candy in her fingers. She could feel the scratchy sugar coating sticking to her palms.
“I live down the block, sir”.
“Your folks,” he said with force, “where are they from? Are you stupid or what?”
She thought about being stupid. She felt certain she was because she really didn’t understand what the man wanted from her. She only knew that the stolen candy was melting in her hand and that it felt good. It was justice in a way that she would never be able to taste the sour-sweet pillow melting in her mouth. It was stolen, after all, and that was a sin. The nuns in her school had taught her so. It wasn’t right to benefit from something so wrong. She squeezed her little hand more. She wanted to squeeze the life out of the stolen candy. She wanted the colouring to seep through her fingers like blood and cleanse her. She wanted to eradicate the guilt that had been building up inside her ever since she had clasped that one tiny soft red marshmallow coated in sugar. She wanted to purge her soul of the wrongness. She wondered how many Hail Maries it would take, how much time she would have to stay on her knees, how many cracks on her knuckles the nuns would inflict.
“You stupid, or what?” he repeated.
“My parents live down the block, too, sir”.
He shook his head at this, put the pencil in a tiny white paper bag and handed it over the counter to her.
The little girl reached her red stained hand out to clasp the bag.
“What you got there?” shouted Mr. Kuzma.
The girl went white.
“Open your hand! Open it!”
The little girl opened her fingers one at a time. What was once a lovely little marshmallow coated in sugar lay in her tainted palm, spittle.
“That’s one cent,” he barked.
The little girl looked down at her open hand. Tears welled up in her eyes. And yet she felt relieved, saved somehow.
“Well, do you have the penny, or what?”
She shook her head. Silent tears ran down her cheeks.
“Can’t give you the pencil then. Five cents minus the penny for the candy makes four. You can count, can’t you? If you’re old enough to steal, you’re old enough to count. Four is not enough for the pencil. You’ll have to take your business elsewhere.”
He took the pencil out of the bag and dropped it back in the peanut tin. The sound was deafening.
She stood there for a while, waiting. She wanted him to lash out at her, punish her, shout, but he only looked down at her with disgust.
“Go on. Get out of here.”
She moved towards the door. The little bell above it rang as she pulled it open.
“Damn foreigners,” he sentenced banging his clenched fist on the filthy counter top.
The hostility in his voice thrust her out of the shop and into the sunshine.
She looked down at her hand. In the sun, the specks of sugar twinkled in her red-stained palm. She licked them away. The sour sweet taste of strawberry lingered in her mouth.
She loved strawberry SweeTarts.

Strawberry SweeTarts

Matilda Colarossi

Dritta di fronte al vecchio signore, a testa bassa, contava i graffi sullo sporco bancone di linoleum che li separava. I suoi occhi scuri scorsero veloci lungo il bordo lucido costellato di piccoli chiodi e da lì più in basso, ai ripiani in vetro. Osservò i barattoli di caramelle da un centesimo. Caramelle verdi alla menta, stringhe di liquirizia rosse, labbra di cera, un assortimento di caramelle gommose e “spaccamascella” e infine, le sue preferite, le SweeTarts alla fragola. Strinse forte le monetine nel palmo della mano. Avrebbe potute mangiarsele tutte. In particolare le SweetTarts, di cui andava matta.
Adorava il gusto dolce ed aspro che le si sprigionava in bocca mentre si scioglievano tingendo di rosso lingua e labbra. Sua madre non le dava mai soldi per le caramelle. Mai.
Dette uno sguardo al negozio. Profumava di legno antico e caramelle. I ripiani erano colmi di merendine, merendine che non aveva mai potuto assaggiare perché per lei c’erano soltanto biscotti e torte fatti in casa dalla madre.
Gli involucri, blu e rosa e verdi, sembravano chiamarla. Conosceva il suono che facevano quando venivano scartate. Molti dei suoi amici a mensa gliele avevano mangiate accanto. Le aveva viste apparire da molti cestini. Conosceva perfettamente i loro odori.
“Beh?” chiese il vecchio signore.
“Un lapis, p…per favore”, balbettò allungando la mano per posare i centesimini sul bancone.
Il vecchio signor Kuzma la guardò di sottecchi. Non gli piacevano gli stranieri, non si fidava. E lei era una di loro, ne era certo. La scrutò attentamente prima di girarsi verso la mensola, verso una vecchia e ammaccata lattina di noccioline dove le matite, con mine appuntitissime, puntavano pericolose verso l’alto. Le dette le spalle per un solo istante, ma quanto bastava perché una piccola SweetTart alla fragola scivolasse dal barattolo tra le sue piccole dita.
“Da dove vieni, bimba?” le chiese brusco mentre si girava di nuovo verso di lei.
La bambina fissò la sua faccia ostile e balbettò incomprensibilmente.
“C’hai detto?”, sbraitò lui.
“Da in fondo alla strada”, rispose lei più forte.
“Non intendo qui. Intendo da dove vieni? Da dove viene la tua gente?”
Lo guardò confusa. Abitava giusto in fondo alla strada. Non aveva idea di che cosa lui stesse parlando. Strizzò la caramella alla fragola tra le dita. Poteva sentire i granelli di zucchero incollarsi sul palmo della mano.
“Vivo in fondo alla strada, signore”.
“La tua gente”, ribadì duro, “da dove vengono? Sei stupida o cosa?”.
Pensò di essere stupida. Ne era certa perché davvero non capiva che cosa volesse l’uomo da lei. Sapeva soltanto che la caramella rubata le si scioglieva lentamente in mano e ne era felice. Era una qualche forma di giustizia, dopo tutto, non poter assaporare quel fagottino dolce e aspro. Era rubata dopo tutto, e si trattava di un peccato. Le suore alla sua scuola glielo avevano insegnato. Non era giusto godere di qualcosa di così sbagliato. Strinse ancora più forte il pugno. Voleva stritolare quella caramella rubata. Voleva che il colore scorresse tra le sue dita come sangue e che la purificasse. Voleva sradicare il senso di colpa che la pervadeva da quando aveva afferrato quel soffice piccolo marshmallow rosso ricoperto di zucchero. Si chiese quante Ave Maria le sarebbero servite, per quanto tempo avrebbe dovuto inginocchiarsi, quante bacchettate sulle nocche le suore le avrebbero inflitto.
“Sei stupida o cosa?”, ripeté lui.
“I miei genitori abitano in fondo alla strada anche loro, signore”.
Lui scosse la testa. Mise la matita in un piccolo sacchetto di carta e gliela allungò sopra al bancone.
La piccola bambina allungo la mano macchiata per afferrare il sacchetto.
“Che hai lì?”, le urlò il signor Kuzma.
La bambina impallidì.
“Apri la mano! Aprila”
La piccola bambina aprì le dita, una dopo l’altra.
L’ adorabile piccolo marshmallow coperto di zucchero giaceva ora come sputo nella mano tinta di rosso.
La piccola si guardò la mano aperta. Le lacrime le riempirono gli occhi. Eppure provò sollievo, in qualche modo redenta.
“Beh ce l’hai un centesimo o no?”.
Scosse la testa. Lacrime silenziose le bagnarono le gote.
“Allora non posso darti la matita. Cinque centesimi meno uno per la caramella fa quattro. Sai contare, no? Se sei abbastanza grande per rubare allora sei grande abbastanza per contare. Va a fare compere da qualche altra parte.”
Tolse la matita dal sacchetto e la ributtò nel barattolo. Il suono fu assordante.
La bambina rimase lì per un po’, in attesa. Voleva che lui inveisse contro di lei, che la punisse, che urlasse, ma invece la guardò dall’alto verso il basso, con disprezzo.
“Vattene. Fuori di qui!”
La bambina s’incammino verso l’uscita. La campanella sopra la porta tintinnò mentre lei la apriva.
“Maledetti stranieri”, sentenziò il vecchio battendo il pugno sul bancone sudicio.
L’ostilità della sua voce la spinse fuori dal negozio, sotto il sole.
Guardò la sua mano. Alla luce i granelli di zucchero scintillavano sul palmo tinto di rosso. Li leccò via. In bocca si sprigionò un sapore dolce ed aspro di fragola.
Lei amava le SweetTarts alla fragola.

Translation ©Leslie Giovacchini 2024

The short story “Strawberry SweeTarts” was first published in the online magazine Stanza 251 in April 2012, here. It is one of a series of short stories I wrote and published over twenty years ago. I have always referred to them as “Snapshots” because they are moments, captured as if in photo, of life. Some changes were made to the original 2012 version: the little girl with the lisp never existed; she spoke, as her mother told her often enough, “che pareva una macchinetta“.

This short story holds within it a theme I find particularly distressing: the fact that we live in a world that likes to divide people in “us and them”, which is and has always been a way to create differences where no differences exist. I have been that “foreigner” in both my first and second home. This is about my first. – M.C.

Image: grade 1(in a class full, or almost, of “foreigners” from all over the world).

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0