Italian Neighbors

by Tim Parks

  Clearly there was material for a couple of Ph.D.s in this cupboard but, nevertheless, straight into our Brandoli boxes it all went. We were in a hurry. An essay on holiday destinations as an expression of Italian economic development over the last three decades was not what we had in mind. Except that here, beneath the brochures, was a photograph album. Well, who can resist at least glancing at photographs?

  Such was Patuzzi’s love of the road and his motor car, he must have had the habit of getting someone, presumably Maria Rosa, to snap him by exotic road signs (as others might want to record their presence at the top of mountains). So here he is, in black and white, full head of virile hair brushed back, thin aquiline, intelligent nose, arriving in Trento with stout climbing boots round his neck and a knapsack on his shoulders; he has the confident, satisfied look on his face of someone who has just been admired for making an intelligent remark, or at the very least has eaten a good lunch. Nineteen thirty-seven, says the spidery hand. And here he is again, in colour now, balding, but still sporty, in wool trousers and green anorak, by a sign that tells us ‘Wien’. We flick through page after page of these things: mountain villages, hotel billboards, autostrada exits; until finally, most recently and most extraordinarily, here is a much older, weathered, bent Patuzzi, leaning on a stick, by black lettering on a white road sign announcing ‘Praha’, with, beside him, and even more extraordinarily, a very recognisable Lucilla. That does put a new slant on things. More a ménage than a condominium perhaps? Could she even be right about ownership of the flat? Or am I jumping the gun?

  Further back in the cupboard are some collectors’ items from the war days: an army hat, a school textbook (‘Describe your feelings – of admiration and gratitude – on contemplating a photograph of il Duce’), and a stack of the macabre Signal magazines: tabloid-size, in German with Italian translations, these offer comic-strip propaganda, mainly directed against – well, against us. ‘Bombe sull’Inghilterra!’ one enthusiastic piece is entitled. Is this, I sometimes wonder, why the young men in the bar still feel such rivalry? And what had friend Patuzzi done in the war apart from reading such heady stuff (later we learned that Lucilla had been begging for bread on the streets of Vicenza).

  Further back still (I said the cupboard was huge) was a rather more harmless (and more numerous) collection of magazines going under the enigmatic title of NAT. A moment’s close attention to the inside cover revealed that these letters stood for NUOVA ALTA TENSIONE, and it took only a few seconds’ leafing through them to appreciate that such tension was presumably meant to be created in the lower abdominal area by late fifties and early sixties pin-ups of Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda, Sophia Loren and a host of lesser names, photos of such breathtaking touched-up tameness you wondered how people managed after all the bomb-toggling excitement of wartime. Was Patuzzi slipping them in between his accountancy journals as he walked out of the tabaccheria? Did he read harmless gossip about bathing beauties between toiling over accounts on the great ugly desk in the second bedroom which clearly had a longer history than this house? At what point had Lucilla come in, if she had? Beneath a photo of a tiny, delicate-featured girl from the south, a caption was still telling us twenty-five years later that Mariangela Rainaldi, a devout Catholic, presently worked as a party hostess but was eager to become a film star.

  In the drawer of Patuzzi’s bedside table we found a long shoehorn, a catechism, an Alpini hat (the famous Italian mountain regiment), a long expired tube of haemorrhoid cream, an oval, silver-framed photo of a solemn Maria Rosa, and a long piece of thick leather with a handgrip at one end and a heavy ball of lead tied to the other. What on earth for?

  But there was a problem with rubbish now. Not that we felt we could throw away anything precious, like the diaries full of additions and subtractions in figures of eight and nine digits, the replies to letters Maria Rosa’s brother must have sent to a number of marriage bureaux in Paris – no, everything that should be preserved for prying eyes more patient than our own would be preserved. All the same, there was much in the way of old toothbrushes and toiletries from the early seventies that would be missed by no one. Who needed to know that il professore had cleaned his teeth with Pasta del capitano?

  Unable to locate anything inside or outside the flat that remotely resembled a dustbin, we eventually tiptoed downstairs to make ourselves known to the Visentini in the flat below Lucilla’s (the one that had been meant for her daughter). Presumably they would be able to tell us what the score was.

  We knocked lightly on the door. A voice asked who we might be, for nobody will ever open in Italy until identity is declared. Security, even in the remotest villages, is at New York standards. We explained. Came the sound of a heavy lock turning over once, twice, three times, and the door opened. A wispy, attractive little woman in a pink tracksuit stood before us and immediately insisted we come in.

  Well, we were in the same country, the same village, the same building even, in a flat that in structural terms was a straight mirror image of our own, and yet on stepping into casa Visentini we were immediately in a different world. Everything here was modern, pleasantly styled, clean as a pin, with a light touch to the ornaments, the lithographs on the walls, the low, modern, comfortable sofa. If there was, perhaps, just one thing in common with our own accommodation, and with so many other homes I have been into in the Veneto, it was in the desire for a certain formality, a certain achieved composition in every room, ritualistic and ceremonial. Cosy is not a word one would normally apply to an Italian interior, nor would the owners be proud to hear their furnishings thus described. The briefest glance at the Visentini’s flat showed that the whole domestic environment had been most painstakingly arranged, nothing left to chance, nothing haphazard. Everywhere lines met and diverged in clean, carefully calculated, stylish angles. The exact opposite of the world outside.

  And at first Orietta and Giampaolo were as guarded and rigidly polite as their furniture was attractive and composed. Yes, we were invited in, and with kindness. Indeed they insisted we come in. For this was the right thing. But it was not clear what we were to talk about. They did not want to be drawn immediately on the – for us – burning issues of a hostile Lucilla and a howling dog. Giampaolo in particular was poker-faced. The rubbish, he explained, was usually placed in a large, shared, plastic dustbin which was then put outside the gate for collection every morning. However, Lucilla had removed this bin on our arrival, making it abundantly clear she did not want us to enjoy the use of it.

  The Visentini offered no comment on this state of affairs. Presumably, we must procure a bin of our own.

  I then asked about the garage which Signora Marta had mentioned. Tall and serious, but handsome too, and with something boyish about him somewhere, Giampaolo led me downstairs to a semi-basement where, turning right at the bottom of the stairs, a very big area the size of a whole flat served as the shared condominium garage. I was immediately impressed by the positively licked cleanness of the smoothly finished red-brick tiles that had been chosen for the flooring: no oil stains, barely visible tyre marks. Attractive as it was, this simply didn’t seem necessary for a garage.

  Four parking spaces had been marked out between cement pillars. To the far side was Giampaolo’s gleaming white twin-carburettor Giulietta, just in front of us a minuscule Fiat 126, again white. The other two places were empty.

  I asked which was my space. Giampaolo said this one on our right was Flat 1’s and so Vittorina’s (Lucilla’s sister-in-law), and the space to the left of the Giulietta at the far end was Flat 3’s, our own. Però, he warned, neither space had been used since the death of the male members of those households: Umberto Patuzzi and Giosuè Zambon. This was a question of respect. He showed me the small crucifixes on the pillars beside the spaces. Lucilla, he said, was a superstitious person, but not ultimately an unpleasant one. It was merely a question of time.

  I remarked that if using the garage meant war with Lucilla, forget it, it didn’t matter, my car had
little bodywork worth saving. This did not bring a smile, and in retrospect it occurs to me how foolish such jokiness is amidst a nation of car worshippers. A man who has spent six months of his stipendio buying an Alfa Romeo twin-carburettor Giulietta which he hardly ever uses, does not want to hear that others are quite happy to get by with a ten-year-old rusting Passat. And bright orange at that.

  Before returning to the women upstairs, Giampaolo made a point of showing me the communal taverna.

  A taverna is a large basement or semi-basement room situated beneath a modern villetta, palazzina, or small condominium of central or northern Italy, and it is dedicated to partying. It must have a large, preferably enormous fireplace, suitable for barbecuing; a selection of strictly labelless wines, alpine-style pine furniture, one long banqueting table, an area with sink for washing dishes, and perhaps a stereo. On the walls, as was the case in Via Colombare, decorations should include old posters showing views of the mountains or the country, some hunting trophies (here, remarkably, a surely fake cheetah) and such things as old swords or shot-guns. In Via Colombare there were Patuzzi’s wooden skis from perhaps forty years ago.

  It should be said that old houses do not have taverne. Only new ones. For the taverna is the contemporary Italian’s dream of the past, an exercise in urban adaptation and nostalgia. That is to say, this big below-ground party room attempts to recreate, for the modern flat-dweller in his cramped condominium, the feeling of those huge old country kitchens with their abundance of game, polenta and local wine which still take up such a large space in the national consciousness. Thus, in many a taverna, often beneath the most uninspiring prefabricated structures, you will find that the occupants have bought an authentic old pietra serena fireplace to install in the wall, or, if they cannot afford the real thing, then at least a decent imitation, with an impressive array of black iron fire-tending implements. Tables likewise tend to be old or to look old and you must have at least one ornate high-backed hard wooden chair which no one ever sits on.

  When a couple of condominium families get together to invite their friends to eat here, on the Bank-holiday evening of ferragosto perhaps (15 August), or on 25 April, la festa della Liberazione, they expect these furnishings, particularly the splintery pine benches and fake oil-lamp light fittings, to induce a mood at once of merriment and traditional wholesomeness, the rightness of family and friends enjoying the fruits of their labours around the common hearth. As if for the space of an evening, the office worker, or shopkeeper, or pharmaceutical salesman could enjoy the healthy repose of the contadino after the grape harvest; as if, like some Jungian subconscious, the taverna could be used to store away a primitive past and all its richness.

  My own experience is that, like so many dreams, the taverna is better in the dreamer’s imagination than in the realisation. Happier the Veronese choosing his fireplace and barbecuing instruments, than the same irritated fellow trying to enjoy them. You go to a taverna party in a damp basement, unheated and un-aired since the last binge, and quite possibly you will catch your death despite the most stifling weather above ground. The chimney doesn’t draw properly because it is rarely used. You eat off a miscellany of plates, survivors of other dinner services once used upstairs; you drink from dusty glasses that no amount of rinsing will clean, perhaps because there is no hot water in the basement sink. Items of cutlery are found to be missing. Your knife doesn’t cut very well. Conversation booms about the bare cement walls. After about an hour or so, just when the wine and barbecuing are beginning to take the chill off the place, the condominium dog-in-the-manger comes downstairs to complain that the noise is making it impossible for him to follow the latest episode of some favourite telenovela, i. e., a recycling of Dallas, Dynasty or whatever. He is reassured, amidst much contrition and invitation to join in (for this is by definition a wholesome party), then promptly forgotten, though remaining perhaps as a nagging subconscious irritation.

  The food begins to arrive. You eat the flesh and sometimes it seems the bones and feathers too of blackbirds and small pigeons, crushing, as instructed, Malteser-sized heads between your molars so as to suck out the brains inside. Which are indeed toothsome. But pitifully small. While all around the table people are trying too hard to be jolly.

  Out come the carabinieri jokes (right angles boiling at 90° and so on), the shaggy dog stories of bureaucratic odysseys (‘so when I went back for the third time he says that since my birth certificate was from another province and dated prior to 1959, the whole procedure should have been done by post with the office in Rimini …’). There is much loud guffawing, head shaking, glass filling. ‘No, you must have another uccellino. You must. They’re squisiti and I’ve already cooked it now.’ The thing falls on your plate with a definite resemblance to those hapless little corpses one finds on wet pavements in spring. Accordion music strikes out from the stereo. Six couples launch themselves into traditional dances in six square metres. Loud giggles. Somebody burns themself on a hot poker left sticking out of the hearth, etc. etc.

  The taverna seems to induce this behaviour, this determination to be festive at all costs. Indeed, almost any taverna party has the flavour of those New Year’s Eves when you simply can’t feel there is anything to celebrate and wish you had stayed at home. But then my wife constantly tells me I’m a gufo, an owl, a spoilsport. She thoroughly enjoys these occasions. In my defence, I would merely say that, whatever the surroundings, I always love the wine, I can even tell with my eyes closed more or less which of the local varieties I’m drinking, and if only we could be having it in well-ventilated accommodation upstairs with some tortellini al dente, followed perhaps by a plate of finely sliced rare horsemeat and a tiramisù straight from the fridge, I would be in heaven.

  Throwing open the iron door, drawing me to the threshold to gaze inside, Giampaolo Visentini was obviously a taverna fan. Perhaps for him the taverna represented some unthinkable loosening up, or an occasion when the more difficult social skills could be replaced by simple prowess with the barbecuing fork. In any event, showing me the gloomy place (I remember antlers and crossed ski poles on thin whitewash) he began to betray the first signs of life and enthusiasm. Did I like barbecuing? Did I like grilled aubergine? And bruschetta (toasted bread with olive oil and garlic)? I said, yes, yes I did. And was I interested in bottling my own wine? The people in his company always clubbed together to bring a truck-load of casks from a particularly good vineyard in Friuli. If I would like to split a cask of Cabernet or prosecco with him I should let him know in good time. We could buy in October and bottle next spring. The price was low and the quality excellent. I said to count me in at once, I was always ready to give something a try. By the time we were climbing the stairs again there was a feeling we might just make it as neighbours.

  Then, running the gauntlet of Lucilla’s door to get back through our own, we heard our phone ringing for the first time. Signora Marta, perhaps, having forgotten to tell us where the serious books and spare light bulbs were kept. Or one of the numerous schools and agencies we had immediately passed the number on to.

  ‘C’è il dottor Patuzzi?’ a confident older man’s voice asked.

  I froze.

  ‘Parla Giordano. Una questione di documenti.’

  ‘But Patuzzi’s dead. He’s been dead two years and more.’

  ‘But his name’s in the phone book,’ this voice objected.

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said.

  ‘Ah. In quel caso non insisto.’ And the phone went, well, dead.

  Rita said: ‘It’s if they say, “Patuzzi speaking”, you should start worrying.’

  But somehow it seemed that when you had just cleaned all of a man’s junk out and read a few of his letters and seen his well-thumbed girly magazines and his boyhood skis and a crucifix by his parking space, then fantasmi were not an unreasonable proposition.

  6

  Residenza

  IT WOULD HAVE been some weeks later we tried to change that entry in the phone book. W
e phoned SIP, the telephone company and were told that in order to have our names in the phone book with that number we would need a recent certificate of residenza in bollo (that is with a few thousand Lire’s worth of special stamps on it) and signed renunciation of the number by Patuzzi, or his heir. The contratto for the phone would then be shifted, for a small charge, into our name and the bills would be addressed to us.

  By the standards I have grown used to, this seemed something of a breeze. A check at our local comune, a pleasant enough little office with the inevitable crucifix, an impressive collection of rubberstamps and a large computer on line to the city registry, provided the information that for certificates of residency we would need either proof of ownership of the said flat as first home, or a written statement from the owner that we were tenants there. This should be on carta bollata – legal paper with, again, a few thousand Lire’s worth of stamps on it.

  So we rang Singora Marta. She was very polite but unable to understand why we wanted to change the name, ‘referring to the number in the phone book’. Couldn’t we simply tell everybody we wanted to phone us what our number was? We explained that there might be people who wanted to track us down for work. We were liberi professionisti. But if, she objected, they knew of our names, then they could ask the people they’d heard of us from. Non è vero? People who would surely have our telephone number or know someone who had it. Telephone directories were thus demonstrated to be entirely useless.

  No, she added, the point was, it would be extravagant if we were only staying for a year. Because when we were gone we would of course renounce the number, so as not to be listed under it any more and have bills for it in our names, at which point she could if she chose have the line disconnected, but then God knew how long it might take to get it reconnected and how much that would cost. The result being that she would most probably have to take the number on in her own name (rather than Patuzzi’s). And since she already had a phone number, this number (Via Colombare’s) would be registered as a second home phone, meaning much higher basic bills even if she made no calls.