She shoved him away with a hand on his nose and didn’t say another word except to answer when Constanza asked if she was comfortable back there.
“Lovely seats,” said Carolyn politely. “Much nicer than the plastic ones on the Circumvesuviana.” She was trying to edge away from the dog, but there was no room to do so because I was taking up the rest of the seat.
Constanza was, of course, amazed to learn that Carolyn had ridden, with her luggage, from Naples to Sorrento on the little train. I was just glad it hadn’t been me; I’d been on the Circumvesuviana and knew that it was no place for an expectant mother, whereas this delightful limousine made traveling like floating down the road on a cloud. I even dozed off while Carolyn, Constanza, and Albertine discussed opera in Catania and Palermo. Composers’ names drifted into my sleep—Verdi, Mozart, Puccini, Donizetti, Bellini. I dreamt that I was in the opera house in Palermo, with Johnny Stecchino, played by Roberto Benigni, in the balcony threatening the audience with a banana. After waking up with a start, I said, “I saw that movie.”
The three women looked at me in surprised confusion. Then Carolyn said, “Oh, for goodness sake!” after glancing down at her blouse. “He’s drooled on me. Madame Guillot, would you please tell your dog—”
I spoke quickly to the dog in French because I could see that harsh words were about to be exchanged. Charles de Gaulle actually lifted his head and turned to look at me, so I continued to talk to him in French, but how much can you think of to say to a dog, especially a French dog? Finally I murmured softly, “Look you ill-behaved, froggie mutt, if you don’t leave my friend alone, I’m going to climb back there and hang you up by your designer dog collar.”
“What did you say to my dog?” demanded Albertine.
“I don’t know what she said to him,” Carolyn intervened, “but his head is off my shoulder, and I think he’s moved away.” She glanced into the back compartment, where Charles de Gaulle was now lying down, staring at me in an unfriendly way. Does he bite? I wondered. He hadn’t so far.
Nobody got into a squabble because the tour guide turned on her microphone and began to tell us the history of Pompeii. Iron Age settlements in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, influence of Etruscans, Samnites, Greeks, Romans, the 62 AD earthquake—nap time again. I knew all that. Carolyn woke me up by exclaiming, “I didn’t know they thought Vesuvius was just a green mountain until it erupted!” The guide continued by describing the awful plaster casts made of agonized people who had tried to escape and died and the excavations of the city that had begun in the eighteenth century.
She droned on, and again I dropped into a pleasant snooze. Naps are good for pregnant women, and I needed to store up strength for hiking through dust and clambering over stones on a very large site, carrying my very large baby. At least, I hoped that my mountainous stomach was mostly baby; if it wasn’t, I had a lot of dieting to look forward to if I wanted to retrieve the body my husband was so fond of. I was very happy to hear Constanza announce that we would break for lunch around one. I was hungry already, and I’d certainly need a rest by then.
Evidently the plan was to see major civic and religious ruins in the morning, so of course we looked at a lot of pillars without roofs, something I’d seen so many times in Rome: the remains of temples to Fortuna Augusta, Jupiter, Apollo—that was a good one because the statue was of Apollo naked except for a scarf over his arms, and he had a nice butt, but his bow and arrow were gone—and Isis, who had a lot of worshippers in Pompeii before they were gassed or buried under falling buildings when Vesuvius exploded. The temple had little rooms in which to keep water from the Nile and sacrificial ashes and a big room for worshippers. It’s a wonder Europe ever became Christian when the Roman soldiers kept bringing new religions home from the East.
There were theaters and amphitheaters holding from a thousand to twenty thousand people, not enough for soccer, but not bad. Near the amphitheater were a gymnasium and a pool for gladiators with graffiti left from their stay. I imagined them, coming in from practice, all sweaty, scratching things into the wall. The guide didn’t translate the graffiti. In her place, I would have, if it had been interesting. Needless to say, I did not climb up and down any crumbly, grass-choked amphitheaters. I was watching out for myself and the baby.
Probably the most unsettling sight was the view of Vesuvius, gray and forbidding, through the columns of the Forum. Or maybe it just looked gray because the clouds had rolled in, shadowing everything beneath. Of course we visited the thermal baths at the Forum, which had statues, carvings, pools of different temperatures, heat from boilers under the floors, dressing rooms, and separate sides for men and women. It was very elegant in its day. I remember reading that, after the earthquake when the baths were rebuilt, they dropped the separate sides for different sexes. I wonder how people felt about that? Titillated? Embarrassed?
I was thinking about that when we went out into the streets, which in Pompeii were full of obstacles. Big stepping stones had been set crosswise so the citizens could get from sidewalk to sidewalk without stepping into rushing water that couldn’t be contained by an inadequate sewer system. Down the center ran a rise in the stone pavement low enough that the wheels of carts and chariots could roll along with the stones in between. You could see the tracks worn in the road by the heavy traffic.
Those streets are not easily negotiable, not only because of the obstacles but also because the step down from the sidewalks in front of the buildings was often a long one. When I made the attempt, disaster struck: I lost my balance, stumbled toward one of those large stones, and would have fallen stomach-first onto it except that Constanza was right behind me. She grabbed me under the armpits and jerked me onto my feet, right off the ground, in fact. I don’t know when I’ve been more frightened. She’d saved my baby, and yet she just shrugged off my thanks and said in a surprisingly kind voice, “Be more careful, Bianca. How sad it would be to lose a baby from a misstep.”
From there to the limousine either Hank or Carolyn walked beside me, holding onto my arm to keep me from falling again. It occurred to me as I plodded along, still a little shaky and keeping an eye out for anything that might trip me up, that Constanza was not only quick for a woman her age, but also very strong. Lifting me up and off my feet was no small accomplishment. I’d gained twenty-five, maybe even thirty pounds with this pregnancy. Is Constanza one of those women who exercises and lifts weights? I mused. No wonder she has such a good figure.
I mentioned the thought to Carolyn as we waited at the Porta Nocera for the limousine, and she nodded thoughtfully. “That might mean that she’s strong enough to have thrown Paolina over the waterfall.”
I didn’t much like her saying that about the woman who had saved me from a miscarriage or a stillbirth, and I made a point not to sit with Carolyn at lunch. She, however, made a point of sitting beside Constanza, and I got stuck with Albertine Guillot, who gave me a lecture on my responsibilities as a prospective mother. A woman with no children! I told her that dog owners had responsibilities, too, and hers had drooled all over Carolyn’s blouse. She turned her back on me and struck up a conversation with Eliza Stackpole. Just what Albertine deserved, in my opinion. She got an earful about the cacti outside Eliza’s balcony, while I flirted with Hank Girol, which was a soothing pastime after my frightening tumble.
21
The Two Faces of Constanza
Carolyn
At first, all the walking was dreadfully hard. The guide raced along much too fast for me, but I had to keep up if I wanted to hear what she had to say. A very knowledgeable woman, if a little dry. Perhaps Constanza had hired an archaeology professor. So I climbed, panting, up and down curbs and stairs, and hurried through the dust and stones when hurrying was necessary. After what seemed like a very long time, it got easier. I couldn’t believe it. And after that, I began to feel very cheerful, and my breathing, even under dire conditions, deepened and evened out. Was I experiencing a runner’s high? Jason did things like
that, but I hadn’t been running. Still, my lungs seemed to have expanded, and a lot more oxygen was obviously being pumped to my brain. I felt almost euphoric.
When Bianca, after her fall, commented on Constanza’s strength, I knew immediately what that meant. Accordingly, I made sure that I sat beside Constanza so that I could ask her wily questions. However, it didn’t quite work out that way. For one thing, the restaurant had lovely food and pitchers of delightful wine from the Campania, not one of the famous brands, but very good, nonetheless, perhaps from one of the terraced vineyards we’d seen on our way to Amalfi. I should have paid more attention, but I’d been too busy taking pictures of the cliffs and the sea.
I ordered the pasta puttanesca, and it was so spicy, so delicious, and so colorful with its olives, capers, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley. Many possible explanations of the name have been offered, most of them quite scandalous. It may have been named by a brothel madam in Naples because it was something easily fixed for her customers, or by the girls between tricks. It might be named for the colorful undergarments the girls wore to entice their customers, or because it smelled so good that it lured customers in off the streets. Or it could have received its name from a wife, returning from an afternoon adultery, who needed a quick dinner for her husband. At least, it can be agreed that the sauce was so named during the twentieth century, that it looks, smells, and tastes wonderful, and that it can be quickly prepared.
Turning to Constanza to comment on the perfection of the dish, I noticed that she had placed a little meter gadget on her skin. It popped out a bit of paper, which she studied for a minute. Then she pushed away her own pasta and signaled the waiter. “The pasta’s wonderful, really,” I assured her.
Constanza sighed and said, “I know it is. I’ve had it here before, but my glucose level is too high. You’ll have to excuse me for a minute.” She rose and left the table. While she was gone, a salad was delivered and her pasta taken away. She must be a diabetic, I decided. I’d always thought of that as an American thing. Half the population of El Paso has diabetes. But Constanza was so slender—well, except in the breast area.
I did feel sorry for her. She wasn’t going to be able to eat this wonderful pasta. I twirled up some more, ate it, and snagged a piece of crispy-edged garlic bread from a straw basket. She couldn’t have that either. I’d noticed a list of gelatos on the menu, wonderful flavors, many not available at home. Perhaps I’d order a bowl with several flavors. No, that would be so cruel to my hostess.
She returned, sat down beside me, and calmly began to eat her salad. “It’s not the hereditary type of diabetes,” she remarked. “I find it a bother, certainly, but at least my children will not inherit it from me, or so my doctor assures me. They will have their blood checked when the time comes and take measures if they must. I was caught completely by surprise when I was diagnosed. No one in my family has had it that I know of. Of course, these are different times. Maybe I have ancestors who ate the local diet and died before their time, completely unaware of what killed them.”
Because I had stopped eating, she smiled at me and advised to me enjoy my pasta. “I intend to enjoy my salad,” she assured me. “The artichokes are excellent. Would you like to see pictures of my children?”
Of course, I said yes, and they were a very handsome young man and woman: Luca, the son, blonde like his mother; Elizabetta, the daughter, dark and exotic. The son lived in Catania and traveled widely as an executive ambassador for the family business. The daughter was in England taking a science degree. “Strange, isn’t it,” said Constanza, “that it would be my daughter who is interested in the medical side of the business? Valentino says she will be a brilliant scientist. Perhaps now that he must relinquish his infatuation for Paolina Marchetti, he and Elizabetta will marry. They would have beautiful children, just as Ruggiero and I have done. My son has already married, an American girl he met at school in your country. They have twin boys with the prettiest curly, blonde hair.” She showed me pictures of her grandchildren as well.
Then I showed her pictures of my children, Chris, the scientist-to-be, and Gwen, the aspiring actress, and we exchanged stories of their childhoods and their triumphs as young adults, just as any two mothers might. I couldn’t believe I was having this pleasant, normal conversation with Constanza Ricci-Tassone, whose descent from old Norman-Sicilian royalty had made her seem so snobbish. I never did get to the matter of her strength or where she had been the night Paolina died—Paolina, who had caught the eye the man Constanza had picked out for her daughter, as well as the eye of Constanza’s own husband. Hmmmm.
Then, after dessert, which Constanza skipped except for an unsweetened espresso, we were off in the limousine to Pompeii again. She very kindly arranged the car seating herself. Albertine and Hank sat in back with Charles de Gaulle behind them. I doubt the dog drooled on his mistress, and I hoped that he’d leave me alone. Bianca decided to take a nap in the limousine, so the chauffeur stayed with her to keep the air-conditioning going. The rest of us spent most of the afternoon visiting areas of Pompeii with houses and shops.
Shops were on first floors with signs to advertise their merchandise, marble benches to display it, and gods to afford them protection from ill fortune. There were bakeries where flour was milled, kneaded, and baked, and shops with amphorae of wine, oil, corn, and sarum, which was a popular Roman fish sauce made of mashed fish intestines and used to add a salty flavor to dishes. They even put it on salads. Doesn’t that sound disgusting? There were taverns where people could eat and drink and, of course, brothels. The structures were often incomplete, but they gave one a feeling for the city and its life. I was fascinated, as I had been when I visited with my father years ago.
And the houses! Life must have been very pleasant for those who could afford the villas with atriums housing fountains and ponds, and rooms for all the uses of a family, even bathrooms, decorated with frescoes and mosaics, statues and portraits. In the House of the Faun, named for a delightful third century BC statue of a faun in the atrium, there is a floor with a reproduction of an early Greek mosaic depicting a battle between the armies of Alexander and Darius of Persia. And who could forget, even when Eliza was rattling on about the Mafia, the House of the Large Fountain, with its two stone heads that sported curling hair and beards, large eyes, and gaping mouths from which the water must once have flowed? I wished Eliza would stop chattering.
Constanza heard her and said, “One seldom meets Mafiosi these days, even in Catania. My husband’s family were affiliated in the old days, but no more. Now the Riccis make medicines and beautiful children.” She laughed, and Eliza, shocked, said no more about the Mafia.
Our last visit was to the Villa of Mysteries, where we saw a frieze in the great hall with life-sized figures painted on a blood red background. Our guide said it was thought to show the initiation of a young bride of Dionysus. Whatever it meant, it sent shivers up my spine to see the scourged woman, the scenes of sacrifice, and the naked bacchante in their orgiastic dances.
I didn’t remember this house from my visit with my father. I remembered things like the statue of a deer attacked by dogs; “fast food” shops with bowls inset in the counters, where soup was sold; and the statue of drunken Hercules, one hand holding a huge fish, the other the penis beneath his protruding belly. As we walked at a leisurely pace to the waiting limousine, I mentioned these to Constanza—well, not Hercules—and she said they were at Herculaneum.
“If you have a chance to go to Naples, you must be sure to see the painting of Medea at the Archaeological Museum. A very powerful depiction, the mother so grim as she decides to slay her children because Jason is to marry another woman; the children, watched over by their old teacher, playing innocently, unaware of what she plans. I have never understood why she killed the children. She should have killed Jason.”
As my husband is named Jason, I felt somewhat discomfited by her opinion, but not as shocked as I was with what Constanza said next.
> “And the fate she chose for the bride-to-be—you remember? The fiery bridal dress she sent to Jason’s princess?” Constanza laughed. “That was a satisfying episode in the myth.”
Again I shivered. Constanza, whom I had so liked in her role as a mother, approved of the agonizing death Medea meted out to Jason’s new love. To get my mind off an unpleasant subject, I asked her if she knew what sharp cabbage was, explaining that I’d read Pompeii had been famous for onions and “sharp cabbage.” However, my hostess said that, without hearing the name of this cabbage in Italian, she couldn’t tell me and thought of cabbage as peasant food anyway.
“I read somewhere that in the Campania garlic and onions are never used in the same dish,” I remarked.
“Of course not,” she replied. “Why use both? In fact, a little of either is quite enough, and both together entirely too much. One does not want the breath to be offensive, after all. Breath smelling of onion and garlic is so lower class.”
I had to chuckle. “That’s a very medieval attitude, Constanza. Quite in keeping with your Norman heritage. Leeks, garlic, and onions were considered the food of the lower classes, who could be identified by their breath. There’s a story of the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este, who was asked by a peasant for knighthood. The duke agreed and ordered the knighting ceremony prepared, but when the peasant’s coat of arms was presented, it was a bulb of garlic on a blue background, and everyone laughed at him.”
“I’m sure you think that story unkind on the duke’s part,” said Constanza, “but it does show that garlic, historically, was held in low esteem, as was the peasantry. They ate coarse food which would have given the nobility indigestion.”
“So I read. There’s one story about the introduction of the potato to Italy. It was called a white truffle and no one would eat it until a time of famine in the eighteenth century, and then the peasants took potatoes up. It was suggested that bread could be made from potatoes, which might cause indigestion, but would make peasants happy because indigestion made them feel full. That’s sort of sad, don’t you think?”
Mozzarella Most Murderous Page 12
