The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna

by Juliet Grames

the Calabrese are a tough people. It is what we are known for, being stubborn beyond any reason and without any care for self or well-being. For so many centuries of our history we had so little we were able to fight for that this instinct is irrepressible: when we have set our mind on something, the force of our will is greater than the threat of disorder, disgrace, or death.

There is evidence of the conquerors’ passing in the faces of the Calabresi, a many-colored people, in their languages and their cuisine. The landscape is studded with Norman castles as well as the ruins of Greek temples built three centuries before the birth of Christ.

The Calabresi carry on, unmoved, among these remnants of past conquerors, for they have never been masters of their own homeland.

The mal’oicch’, as it’s called in Calabrese, the Evil Eye, is the bad atmosphere generated by suppressed resentments, jealousy with the power to wound, ruin, craze, or even kill. The mal’oicch’ is particularly dangerous for blessed or beautiful or wealthy people, who often seem to have the best and worst luck because of all the accumulated jealousy, invidia, around them. The truly good among us may experience no distress at the good fortune of our loved ones, but for the rest of us jealousy is shameful, secret, and poisonous.