Friday Feature: Jae Broderick
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Jae Broderick is an award-winning lyricist, librettist, composer, and the author of DeConstructing Criticism and Or You Could Just Not. When she isn’t working, Jae can be found practicing her backhand or on a plane to somewhere amazing because, um, “writers need to experience things.” Documenti is excerpted from her forthcoming novel, A Few Good Years.
Documenti
Puglia. 2025.
Zia said it was because of the grapes. That the flies infecting every corner of the città were drawn south by the fertilizer i contadini used to sweeten the soil. Acres and acres of vines laden with fruit were slowly ripening under the Mediterranean sun, too bitter to eat but perfect for wine. The farmers covered the vines to avoid the many enemies that lay waiting to spoil the crop. Rain, wind, rot and pests.
But the flies were patient. Persistent. They seemed ambivalent about the grapes and chose instead to cosplay mosquitoes. Hovering, circling, dodging, disappearing just long enough to be forgotten, then reappearing as a barely perceptible touch on bare skin that vanishes long before flailing hands fanned the air where they had been. They did not bite. They only bothered. There was no peace.
At the Ministero della Giustizia, where we waited outside the guard’s window, there were no flies. There, in that blessed stillness, Zia was trying to convince the guards to allow me, an American, to visit my Italian cousin in prigione. The guard began shaking her head almost as soon as Zia started.
“Mia nipote vive a New York e non…”
Shake shake shake…the guard looked towards her colleague.
“Per favore, è solo per un’ora…”
Shake shake shake…then rapid Italian no amount of duolingo could help me understand. Zia was working hard to get me into prison.
Please let her in this prison.
Please let her see her family.
Per favore.
Something about Zia’s pleading made my stomach turn. The irony was too much.
When my plane took off from JFK, I’d felt relief in leaving America and her chaos behind. The country was trapped in a death spiral and we all knew it. Some watched mournfully. Others cheered. It was as though the civil war had never ended. Perhaps it had not. I’d envisioned spending the next month bouncing between the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, making side trips to Spain and Switzerland, basking in the glory of Rome and vino vino vino. But instead of escaping a prison, I found myself outside one.
Per favore.
The guards wanted documenti. I offered my passport but it wasn’t enough. They needed something to prove that Zia and I were family. Such a document did not exist.
Zia was an outside baby. My father’s father had an affair with Zia’s teenage mother and promptly discarded her when she fell pregnant. Zia moved to England with her mother, then to Italy on her own. It wasn’t until 40 years later that Zia learned she had a brother. They enjoyed a mostly joyous decade-long reunion until he died suddenly. Between them there had been remembrance and resemblance, but no documenti.
I shrugged to let Zia know that it was ok to give up. Her eyes apologized. I smiled my thanks and went outside.
The prigione lies mere steps from the seaside. What cruel irony is this? To smell the sea but never feel it. I sit on a bench, close my eyes, and listen to trickling water. Not of the sea but the fountain before me. It is a monument built to commemorate soldiers lost in World War II. Their names etched in stone and remembered for posterity. I felt a sudden anger rising.
Where are our monuments?
What is posterity without documenti?
Where is our proof of life?
Opening my passport, I stared at the face it held. Lineage remembered in my mother's nose, my grandmother’s cheekbones, my father's eyes.
My great-grandmother was born in St. Mary, Jamaica, just two generations out of slavery. Birth announcements came by word of mouth in conversations between neighbors going to and from the river.
My grandmother was born in Oracabessa under a British flag. She remembers waving to European tourists as they passed through on their way to parts of the island she would never see. Her birth certificate says she was born in January, but her mother told her she was born in July, and since she is far more Leo than Capricorn, they chose a day and celebrate her in the summer. Among her generation, few know their real birthdays.
My mother was born in Jack’s River eight years before the island gained its independence. In those days, births were registered in government offices a day’s journey away. If a friend of a friend were traveling to the city, they may be so kind as to register your child’s birth for you. And if in the chaotic swirl of buses, trains, dust, and a hot sun, they forgot the name you’d requested, you said thank you and accepted the name that was given.
All but one of my grandmother’s six children migrated. They took what documenti they had and spread across the globe like so many before them. Europe, England, Canada, America, but not Africa. Although they came from distinct cultures, they were dismayed to find the world had merged their histories into a tribe called Hue, and that their experiences would differ in accent but not in meaning. There were rules.
Assimilate
Know your place
Love yourself in theory
Derive specialness from your isolation
Celebrate their goodness
Forgive them their silences
Marry them
Smile at their jokes
Glide over subtext
Demur
Hate your hair
Defer
Revel in being the only
Demote your language
Embrace theirs
Never forget you’re not protected
Last night, as the bells rang out in the square, I had observed with delight the ancient rituals. Nonna and her sisters huddled together nodding and speaking at once, children playing football under a full moon, and old men surveying the scene in a synchronized passeggiata. Zia moved through all of it like a swan. Hips softly swaying, Hermes scarf slung across her shoulders, high heels barely touching the cobblestoned streets, eyes gazing at nothing in particular, her gait an armor designed to protect from the silence that hung in the air after her unanswered buona seras.
No one sees how furiously the swan kicks beneath the surface just to keep going. That glide comes with a cost. We who know, know.
I was born in a hospital. I am only five generations out of slavery, and my documenti will not save me.
Zia emerged from the Ministero della Giustizia, her eyes haunted by what I had not seen.
“How is Cousin?” I asked.
“She’s depressed. She wants to come home.” Zia said.
I’ve been in Italy for a week and I still don’t know what Cousin did. Zia has a way of talking in circles, then changing the subject to food. Works every time.
I link my arms with Zia’s and we walk together. Family.
A light breeze blows as we head towards the parking lot followed by a halo of flies.
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