Four Days in an Italian Village
written by: P.A. O’Neil
Tuesday
“Please, won’t someone help me!” The old woman leaned out of the upstairs window, her breasts pushing over the plants in the ceramic pots on the minuscule balcony, as she strained to attract a passerby.
It was mid-morning, and the narrow streets of the quiet Italian village were empty. It really did not matter, though, as the street was as empty as it had been the morning and evening before.
“There’s no use in crying out, Signora Rizzuto, there’s nobody coming.” The voice was that of a woman, below the window but out of sight. “You heard the poliziotti, yesterday when they drove through the streets, ‘By order of the Magistrato, shelter in place.’
“None of us can leave our homes. If we need food, a van will make its rounds to see that food is left at the door.”
“But you don’t understand, Signora San Filippo, it’s my husband, my Carlo, he is terribly sick, he needs a medico.” But there was no answer from the landlady downstairs, as she had already turned away from her open window.
“Lara, Lara…” the raspy voice from behind her called her back into the small flat. Lying on the old double bed, her husband of almost forty years. His arms reach out before him.
“Carlo, you shouldn’t try to get up.” She felt his feverous brow as she tried to press him back onto the pillows. “Let me get you a fresh cloth.” She picked up the wet rag, now warm from the transfer of the heat from his head.
Signor Rizzuto raised his chin, tilting his head back, and began coughing. Each spasm shook his upper body so that his chest would rise off the bed and throw him back so violently, he barely had time to recover before the next would lift him again.
Signora Rizzuto returned with the rag, now saturated with cool water, just in time to catch him from slipping off the bed as he had turned, trying not to choke on the phlegm clogging his throat. She wiped his mouth, readjusted him on his pillows, and then refolded the rag before placing it on his forehead.
“Pray for me, amore mio, I haven’t long to live.” His voice was weak, and every few words were prefaced with a gasp for breath as he strained to speak.
“Oh, Carlo, you don’t need prayer, you need help.”
As her husband seemed to quiet down, the sound of a motor driving away pulled her attention back to the window. “No, no, no! Come back, please!” A white van with the crest of the town magistrate was already down the street and turning the corner. Signora Rizzuto pulled herself back in from the window, her shoulders sagging as she leaned against the shutter.
“Signora Rizzuto, Signora Rizzuto…” A knocking came from her front door. She looked at her husband, who lay still, breath labored, and moaning. Running to the door, she opened it to find her landlady, Signora San Filippo, back against the opposite wall, a mask covering her face.
“I collected a box of food for you and your husband. It’s not much, just some wine, bread, and cheese. They said it should last a couple of days.” She looked down at the cardboard box at her feet.
“Thank you, that was kind of you. Did you tell them my husband was sick? When will they be back?”
Signora San Filippo backed away, placing more distance between her boarder and herself. “They said everyone was to stay inside. I don’t know if they’ll be back tomorrow.” Her last words trailed off as she turned down the stairs, no longer wanting to talk.
Signora Rizzuto watched the woman flee, then looked down at the box. She whispered her thanks and bent down to bring in food she did not feel like eating.
Wednesday
“Agente di polizia…” Signora Rizzuto furiously waved a red scarf while she yelled, hoping to catch the attention of the young officer on the other side of the street.
“Signora, we must remain calm,” he yelled back as he crossed the street to stand under her balcony.
“Signor, my husband, my Carlo, he has died. Please, I need someone to come and take his body to be buried.”
The officer was taken aback by the woman’s request. He looked down and shook his head. He sighed and looked back up. “I’m sorry, signora, but the Magistrato says we are to follow the nazionale guidelines for prevention of the plague. No one is to leave their domicilio, and if there is a death, the body must remain for no less than two days until the chance of infezione has passed.”
Signora Rizzuto placed her hands on her cheeks. “No, no, I cannot stay with a dead body for two days. Please, you have to help me.”
“Signora, it is beyond my control. I will report the death and return in two days to claim the body of your husband. Until then, do you have enough food?” Signora Rizzuto nodded her reply, too numb to speak. She lifted one hand to acknowledge his departure.
Downstairs, Signora San Filippo, nodded to the policeman as he caught sight of her before he turned to leave. She shuddered, crossed herself, and closed the door.
Thursday
Signore Rizzuto sat by the open window overlooking the street. It was the middle of the night, but no one would know she was there as the room was dark.
After the policeman left, she had sat in her kitchen for hours, looking at the shell that had been her husband. Two days. After two days, the body will begin to corrupt, she thought. She spent the rest of the day cleaning up the remnants of his illness. She washed the rags she had bathed him with and sterilized the basin that had received his discharge.
Finally, she pulled out his old blue suit, and with the newly cleaned rags and basin, she stripped his body and, with the tenderness of a new mother, bathed and dressed his dead body in preparation for anticipated burial. She combed his greying hair and draped a light blanket over his body. After washing the rags and basin a second time, she returned to her bedroom, and kneeling along the far side of the bed, began to pray her rosary.
That had been several hours ago, and now she sat in the dark, occasionally looking at the night sky, or admiring the way the moonlight played off the flowers she had forgotten to water—anyplace but back into the bedroom at the draped figure lying where her husband used to sleep.
“Thank you for preparing my body, amore mio, you didn’t have to do that.”
The voice was male and recognizable, although absent was the gasping for breath, the strain to speak without coughing.
Signora Rizzuto never took her eyes off the twinkle of the heavens. “I did it for myself as much as for you, anything to help put off the stench of decay.”
“Really, Lara, ‘stench of decay,’ now where is the romance in that?”
Signora Rizzuto turned her head with a measured stillness, into the bedroom at the visage of her dead husband, only not dead, grey hair combed and dressed in his blue suit. Her eyes looked past the man standing by her side of the bed, to verify there was still a form under the blanket. “Two days living with a dead man, I’m sure, is never pleasant, so excuse me if my choice of words offends you.”
“Now, amore mio, is that any way to talk to your husband?”
“My dead husband?”
“Dead, yes, but still your husband. Did we not take vows together; ‘in sickness and in health, etcetera?’”
“Yes, we did.” Signora Rizzuto raised herself off the floor to speak face-to-face with the phantasm. “But the vows were ended with, ‘till death do us part.’”
The man smiled and gave a small snicker. “You always were the pragmatist, Lara.”
“What is it you want, Carlo? Why haven’t you moved on?”
“I’m lonely, Lara, come with me. We can be together for eternity.”
Signora Rizzuto tilted her head down and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath of rapidly fouling air and looked up at him, pointing her finger as she spoke. “No, Carlo, no! For almost forty years, I have lived by your side, and now another two days by your death. I must say no, I choose to live.”
Friday
“Oh, thank you for coming. The smell is becoming more than I can live with.”
Signora San Filippo opened her door to a police officer and two associates in white coveralls, all wearing masks.
“Yes, signora, are you the woman with the dead husband?”
“No, no, that is Signora Rizzuto, she lives upstairs. It’s Signor Rizzuto who passed away. If you’ll come with me.” With a dishrag covering her nose and mouth, she led them up the stairwell to the neighbor’s flat.
The policeman knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked one more time. “Signora Rizzuto, it’s the Polizia, we’ve come for Signor Rizzuto.” There was still no answer, not even the sound of anyone coming to the door.
“Signora…”
She lowered the dishrag. “San Filippo.”
“Si, Signora San Filippo, do you have a key to this flat?”
“Si, si, I’ll go get it…”
“Never mind, it’s unlocked. Please stay out here, signora.”
Taking all caution, he opened the door to the small flat only to be met with the beginnings of putrefaction and the sound of a motor from the street below coming through the open bedroom window. The three men looked between the four small rooms; the only evidence of recent inhabitants was a cardboard box of unopened food on the kitchen table. In the bedroom, the policeman lifted the blanket off the face of the corpse. “Call that woman in, but stay close in case she faints.”
Signora San Filippo, escorted by one of the men in the white suits, peeked in from the kitchen, not daring to cross the threshold to the death room.
“Signora, do you know this man?” He raised the drape again but lowered it as soon as she began to nod.
“Si, that is my neighbor, Carlo Rizzuto, but where is his wife?”
“You tell me. Did you hear her leave the house against orders?”
The woman shook her head in rapid succession. “No, no, the only exit is past my door, and I would’ve heard her, even at night. I am a light sleeper. She has to be here.”
“Take Signora San Filippo downstairs and come back up.” When she had gone, the policeman signaled for the other man to check the wardrobe, while he went to the window. He stood looking down at the street, remembering where he had stood when he spoke with the woman.
“This is full of clothing, both male and female. You don’t think she jumped out the window, do you?”
“No, a woman of her age, wouldn’t have made the jump. Besides, these plants haven’t been disturbed, you would expect that, if she crawled out this small balcony, they would’ve been tipped over.” He joined the other two men. “Bag this man and take him to the van.”
“Aren’t we going to go looking for his wife?”
“What for?”
“Well, she might’ve killed him?”
“An old woman might have killed her husband, then told the world he is dead, only to be told she has to remain alone with his body for two days? No, I’d say she has suffered enough. Besides, we’ve other places to be.”
- Interview Q&A With P.A. O’Neil - November 18, 2025
- Four Days in an Italian Village - October 23, 2025
- Bus Stop Therapy - April 28, 2025
