[attach id=439210 size="medium"][/attach]

Alfred Massa: Weraq tal-Ħarifa. Bronk Publication, 2014. 204 pp.

This new novel opens at a specific point in time: the present, in November, on All Souls Day, thus in autumn.

The two main characters are the elderly Salvu and Vanda, his second wife. There are times when, in flashbacks, Salvina also features quite importantly, having been Salvu’s first love and wife.

Later on, the spotlight moves onto Salvu’s link with his mother, as well as with his two friends Valent and Karmenu, the latter helping the man to heal his psycho-emotional wound.

The flashbacks take off in the second chapter, after Salvu meets a nurse in hospital who strongly reminds him of his first wife, Salvina. Then, Massa takes us back in time.

The author resorts to the spatial limits of a typical Maltese village: church, market, village square, local cemetery, grocer, wine-bar… Later on he moves further out to Sliema, Qawra and beyond the Maltese shores to Germany.

Massa’s Maltese is very readable and simple, the everyday language, interspersed with idioms and Maltese adages, with the occasional English one thrown in for effect.

As he has done in his previous novels, Massa often introduces his own personal comments in narrative form, touching various subjects such as freedom, libertinage, infatuation and true love itself. Here also, as in previous novels, Massa dwells on the word ‘fate’. Another characteristic, as in the other novels, is the author’s love of the traditional and other aspects which are strictly related to the past, such as the strina.

As a narrator, Massa reflects on new fads among the present generations, such as tattoos, and highlights various social initiatives for the benefits of the ageing population. Then onto the extant problems of burglaries, drugs and the vulnerability of old people.

There are times when the author resorts to inter-textual references, as when he quotes some of Anton Buttigieg’s elegiac verses.

Massa reflects on new fads among the present generations

This he does to relate emotionally with Salvu’s great pain at the loss of his first wife, together with the child she had been carrying.

Other references are made to very well known Maltese writers, such as Mikiel Anton Vassalli, Canon Agius de Soldanis, Fr Manwel Magri and Annibale Preca.

Thematically, Weraq tal-Ħarifa puts family and love (which can affect anyone, regardless of age) at the centre. Other themes are fate, forgiveness, old people’s waning health and the attending solitude.

There is more as regards the temporal dimension. Nowhere in the novel do we discover exactly how old was Salvu when he married Salvina, nor how old she was when she died.

Neither do we get to know when Salvu actually became a widower. Just a fleeting: illum m’għadnix żgħażugħ (today I’m no youngster).

A considerable number of years seem to have elapsed, and thus another question begs itself: why is Salvu taken aback when Vanda tells him she was pregnant, and why,some time later, does he behave so immaturely with his mother?

This may somewhat weaken the strength of the overall plot. One has to keep the flashback element in mind, which leads to Salvu’s second marriage with Vanda.

Back in the present, Salvu and Vanda are now pensioners. In their frequent dialogues various social points are touched and discussed: same-sex marriage, children raised by same-sex couples, and priests in civilian garb. Same-sex love is represented by Klara (Vanda’s sister) and Antoinette.

A valid development in the plot is the introduction of suspicion, which later changes into crude reality, in Salvu that his wife was tottering on the verge of dementia. Another helping factor to widen the plot is the story of Sandra, Klara and Vanda’s elder sister. Why has the woman been secluded at Saint Vincent’s Home for the Elderly? And why did Vanda not divulge the facts to Klara?

In Weraq tal-Ħarifa, Massa goes into minute details in his descriptions of Salvu and Vanda as an aged couple. These details may seem trivial and irrelevant, but together they help the author to give a clear picture of the aged in their various ups and downs.

Thus Weraq tal-Ħarifa as been written by an elderly author about the elderly. This is certainly a novel which will not elicit a smile, but is strongly linked to crude reality.