The Italian Party

by Christina Lynch

  “I kind of get it, though,” she said. “Where you’re from, that’s deep.”

  “Is primal.”

  “Robertino said that in time of war, which is what the Palio is, you stick with your tribe. Always.”

  Carlo looked away, and she saw a shadow on his face. “That kind of loyalty—blind, based not on reason but on fate—I find it very frightening.” He was speaking quietly but intensely, as if he needed her to understand. “So many times I have asked myself why do people draw these arbitrary distinctions, why do they separate themselves this way? Countries are no different—just arbitrary lines drawn on maps. This is mine, that’s yours. What makes sense for a boy like Robertino—‘my soccer team, my school’—it becomes grotesque and frightening in the mouths of adults.”

  “So you’re not coming to the Palio?”

  He shook his head and stood. “I must go. I just thought I would stop by and make sure everything was all right with the apartment. You’re okay?” He peered at her.

  “I’m fine. We love the apartment,” she said, wishing he could stay, that they could go out and have lunch. The apartment felt better with him in it.

  I wish I were married to Carlo … Stop it, she told herself. Jesus. She remembered the vision of a happy foursome she’d had. “I would love to meet your wife sometime.”

  “Yes, sometime,” he said. Then, with a tip of his hat, he was gone.

  * * *

  Robertino was busy with Palio preparations in his contrada and had said he couldn’t meet her this afternoon, so the day stretched ahead of Scottie, empty. The loneliness she had felt before Carlo’s visit was amplified by the sight of the indentation he had left in the sofa cushion. She was filled with a longing, a yearning that she could not express. A yearning for what? She wished there was one person she could tell everything to, someone who would love her despite her background, her flaws, her mistakes. Wasn’t that what all the novels and movies had promised? A one true love?

  She washed the lemonade glasses and went out to see what was happening in the streets. Even after two months of walking through the piazza every day, and gazing out over it at night, the spectacle still fascinated her. Today, she saw a teenage boy with a green tie holding hands with a shy girl in white tulle, a small wine-stain birthmark on her face. Two men in hats walked arm in arm, smoking short cigars. Six women standing near the fountain were clearly gossiping about each other’s waistlines and dresses. There was nothing like this in America, she thought as she walked past. Times Square was busy in a commercial way, with its huge colored billboards, but during the day it was full of hordes of people in dark suits hurrying to work, eyes down. Piazza del Campo was Technicolor.

  She left the piazza and walked up Via di Città. Because she was tall and blond and clearly not Italian, everyone she passed on the narrow street stared openly at her. She had one label here, as if she were a character in an allegory, or a tarot card: La Straniera, the Foreigner. She had gotten used to this odd form of celebrity, and accepted that it meant she had to be careful of her appearance, since she was effectively stepping onto a stage every time she left the apartment. Today she was wearing a pale pink cardigan over a white full-skirted dress embroidered with a row of large strawberries, small hoop earrings, a pearl choker, white gloves and a simple hat. Gone were the plaid Bermuda shorts and kneesocks that were practically a uniform at Vassar.

  Michael had laughed when she’d said she was tired of being a foreigner. She didn’t bother explaining to him her dislike of people noticing differences rather than similarities. He just wouldn’t get it. She wanted to meet Italians, be immersed in Italian culture the way Robertino was. Everything about it fascinated her—the way food was revered, treasured rather than seen as an inconvenience to be packaged in a way that made it as easy as possible to prepare and consume. Nothing in Italy was “instant” or “new and improved.” There were no tray tables to eat off of while you were doing something else, or diners with lunch counters so you could eat in a hurry, and though you could get a panino in a bar, they were new and strange and filled with things like a veal cutlet or just boiled spinach, and if you didn’t sit at a table to eat it, it was considered barbaric. She had explained to Robertino about carhops and drive-ins in California.

  “You eat dinner in your car?” he asked, as if she had suggested eating in the manure pile behind the barn. “With your hands?”

  She strolled through little Piazza Postierla. She could hear drums somewhere close by, and remembered that Michael had told her to stay in today. The warlike Palio energy worried him, she could see. A militia of nine-year-olds was waving snail flags and chanting as she walked down the Via della Diana toward Porta San Marco, passing women getting their water from a well, bucket by bucket. She decided to stop in and see Signor Banchi.

  She had never gone there alone before, and it felt very adventurous to make her way solo through the streets. When she went there with Robertino, Banchi was always delighted to explain the calendar of Italian country life, in which every month had its labors and rewards. He had a saying for every situation, from “A cavallo giovane, cavaliere vecchio” (A young horse needs an old rider) to “A goccia a goccia si scava la roccia” (Drop by drop the rock is carved).

  His small, verdant farm was just outside the walls of the city, walls that sharply delineated urban from rural. In fact, the caper plants colonizing the ancient gate made it look like the country was slowly ambushing the city. Banchi had taught her how sheets and tarps were set out in November to collect olives, nasty to taste unless cured in brine, and most of which were then crushed under a huge stone at the communal press. He explained that the oil must be protected from light and heat or it would go rancid. He had shown her the tiny grapes now growing into pale green orbs, beginning to blush, and explained how you tasted for sugar when deciding when to pick. He showed her how to find wild asparagus and borragine, and promised her that in the fall he would show her where to find truffles, which she had never tasted, and which mushrooms in the surrounding forests were edible (“Mushrooms and poets: One in ten is good”). In his garden he showed her how to tend artichokes, tomatoes, basil, potatoes and arugula (“Who doesn’t labor reaps nettles”), leaving enough for the wild creatures and insects who would do their tithing no matter what measures you took to stop them.

  “You could spray the bugs and poison the moles,” Scottie had said helpfully.

  “Plant enough for everyone,” he said. “And no one has to be greedy.”

  Yes, a visit to Banchi was just what she needed.

  * * *

  Scottie pushed open the gate and walked down the stone path toward Banchi’s front door, which was at the top of a flight of stairs. Before heading up, she peered through an archway into the cool darkness of the ground floor, where a milk cow named Lodovica lived alongside the two enormous oxen who had rescued their car. Their names were Lapo and Cecco, two poets who were friends of Dante; Banchi could quote long stretches of all three writers’ works by heart. Utterly good-tempered beasts, the oxen let her lean against them and inhale their sweet smell as they ate fresh hay. When Banchi had made fun of her for tickling their ears and spoiling them, she gave him a proverb in return: “Who pets the mule doesn’t get kicked.”

  “Ciao, ragazzi,” she said, then climbed the stairs to the front door of the farmhouse, open but with a striped cloth hanging in the doorway to deter flies.

  “Signor Banchi?” she called. “Permesso?” She saw comic books on the kitchen table, some in Italian, some American. Batman. Tex Willer. Lash Lightning.

  From the back room came Robertino, a scrap of bread in his mouth, pulling a straw cap onto his mop of blond curls. His azure eyes in olive skin startled her, even though she saw him nearly every day.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. “We have no lesson?”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s stupid, I was lonely and bored, and I thought…”

  “You were lonely? You missed me?”

 
“Yes. It’s silly, I know.”

  She was about to say that she’d come to see Banchi when Robertino took a quick step toward her, grabbed her arm and kissed her on the mouth.

  “No!” she said, pulling away. He was just a boy! But when she looked at him, she saw that he wasn’t just a boy, that she had misread everything.

  He was confused, and angry. “You said you missed me. You came here to find me.”

  “No, I meant … No, Robertino, I do miss you, but not in that way. I miss our lessons.”

  “Oh. I am just a boy to you.” He was sulky, put out. Everything was ruined, just like that, in an instant. She was an idiot.

  “It’s not that. You know I’m married,” she said, hoping to save his pride at least. “In America, we’re faithful to our husbands.”

  “Always?” He seemed mystified by this.

  “Always. And,” she added, the words tumbling out of her mouth even before she had thought them through, “I’m pregnant.” Sono incinta.

  “Oh!” he said, his manner changing, brightening a little. She had saved his pride. And something else, she saw—she was no longer an object of sexual desire. She had transformed in his eyes, with those two words, from a woman to a mother. Whore to Madonna. It angered her to see how quickly his attitude changed.

  “Auguri! Congratulations!” he pumped her hand in a chaste handshake. “Mr. Messina is delighted, I’m sure.”

  “He doesn’t know yet,” she said. “It’s a surprise.”

  “Of course, of course, I will keep your secret.”

  “Do you think—do you think he’ll be happy?”

  “Of course he’ll be happy,” Robertino said. “Nonno is with the rabbits.” He grabbed a peach from a bowl on the table and was out the door and down the stairs before she could even ask what the latest Palio gossip was. She followed him out, feeling relieved but also stupid. He disappeared, then reappeared from behind the house atop a bay mare with two socks.

  Scottie had seen the occasional cart horse in the city, but this was the first saddle horse she had seen up close since arriving in Italy. Her eyes traveled over the mare’s legs, seeing how her pasterns angled into her fetlocks, gauging the angles of her croup. She was beautifully put together. Her head wasn’t classic Arab—too straight a nose—but Scottie guessed she was an Arab-Thoroughbred cross. Short, strong back, balanced neck, good bone and big round feet. A real athlete. She had white lines on her front legs where someone had clearly hobbled her with something thin and painful, like wire. She had more white irregular marks right across the most sensitive part of her nose, which Scottie guessed was from a nail-studded noseband. All the scars were old and long healed, but still Scottie felt rage rise in her. She pointed to the scars. “What happened?”

  “Only she knows,” said Robertino. “She came from Sicily. They are hard on horses there.”

  Scottie sighed. At least the horse was well taken care of now. “She’s fast, isn’t she, and springy?” she called out. “Is this the famous Camelia?”

  “Yes,” he said, obviously proud.

  “Where are you training today?”

  “Near San Galgano.”

  She reacted to the name—that was where Ugo Rosini had offered to take her.

  “Is it bella?” she asked.

  “Bello,” he corrected, his power restored. “Un bel posto.”

  He loosened the reins, sending the horse into motion. She watched him ride off. He floated above the ground, bareback, his small body seemingly an extension of the horse, itself a liquid, fiery phantasm. Formally trained riders would have scoffed at the half-out-of-control riding style, but it reminded Scottie of Indians she had seen in California whose barely broke horses retained their feral energy, all the more beautiful for their high heads and wild eyes.

  He would be all right. He would find a girl, many girls, and forget he had ever had a crush on her. She, on the other hand, felt earthbound and jealous, but not of love, just of riding. She was a wife now, and soon to be a mother. Horses would have to come later, if ever. She fought back tears again. She walked over to the rabbit hutch, but didn’t find Banchi.

  She was filled with a terrible despair, a sense that, as in a board game, she had landed on the wrong square, and would never find her way home again.

  Maybe she would go surprise Michael at work.

  * * *

  Michael was not in the office, which was all locked up. She had only been down to the industrial zone once before. A man from across the way was staring at her, leaning in the doorway of a warehouse, smoking a cigarette.

  “Buongiorno, signora,” he called out. “You want to buy a tractor from me instead?” He leered at her.

  What an awful man, she thought. She hurried off, wondering, if Michael was not at work, where was he?

  * * *

  By one o’clock, she was back in Piazza del Campo, where in preparation for the Palio a corps of twelve-year-olds was tossing orange and green Selva flags featuring a rhinoceros high into the sky. They jeered a boy who missed his catch and called him a coglione, which meant both “stupid” and “testicle.”

  Nothing was making any sense to her. She decided to subdue her emotions with a giant bowl of pasta. Having been raised to think Italian food was all baked ziti and overcooked spaghetti with watery red sauce, she had been happily exploring the menu of Ristorante Il Campo every day for lunch before her afternoon lessons with Robertino. The headwaiter, Signor Tommaso, had taken to always giving her the same table, so she had a good view of the goings-on in the piazza.

  “You are dining alone, signora?” he asked her today as he did every day, pouring her acqua frizzante. He loved to share all the local gossip about the Palio, as well as Italy’s headline news, usually about gruesome deaths—MAN FIGHTS WITH WIFE, THROWS SELF IN WELL—and which American movie stars were visiting Capri and Rome.

  “Have you seen the paper today?” Signor Tommaso asked. “Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier are having a baby.”

  “How lovely,” she said, her hand going to her own belly.

  “An enormous quantity of diamonds was stolen in London.”

  “I’ll be on the lookout.”

  “In Lucca, a woman ran over her husband with a tractor.”

  “Oh dear. Bad for business. Or good for it.”

  He suggested the specials—penne arrabbiata, and a trout with almonds, but they sounded light, and she wanted weight to tamp down her emotions. “Pici cacio e pepe,” she said, longing for the heavy hand-cut pasta dripping with cheese. “And figs with prosciutto.” The figs—black and sweet—went so well with the salty prosciutto. “And cake,” she added. “Torta della nonna.”

  She watched Signor Tommaso work. Waiting tables in America was a student’s job, a stepping-stone on the way to another career. Here, being a waiter—a job for men only, never women or mere boys—was a career, a profession elevated to an art form. Orders were never forgotten, and diners all felt pampered. Dishes were recommended, but whisked away if an ingredient was less than perfect.

  “You will have a good view of the tratta two days from now,” he said, bringing her a glass of cool Vernaccia. “Everyone wants a window on the piazza for the week of the Palio.”

  Scottie was taking a forkful of cake when she saw the woman again. The mean, angry woman with the donkey who had yelled at her and called Robertino a traitor. The woman was across the piazza, staring at her, eyes blazing. Scottie, feeling bold, waved. The woman turned away and disappeared into the crowd.

  * * *

  Scottie stopped in Via Salaria to pick up a loaf of bread for dinner. She had walked around the city all day, but had barely spoken to anyone. She missed female company. Italian women were polite but did not seek to make friends. Maybe her baby would be a girl.

  At first it had been annoying not to be able to buy everything she needed in one place, but now she was enjoying the daily routine, chatting with the owners, buying only what she and Michael would eat that night. Turned out she di
dn’t need that large American refrigerator, which was fortunate since it still didn’t work, and the power went out regularly. What was the point of storing food when you could buy it fresh? Due etti di mortadella, un mezzo pane, un po’ di insalata, grazie, e un chilo di pomodori.

  At the panetteria, she waited her turn, looming head and shoulders over the crowd of tiny Italian women, who pulled away from her instinctively, leaving a circle of space around her like a demilitarized zone. She stared at the huge, thick, crusty loaves. When she first saw them, she had laughed out loud. Unsliced bread! So old-fashioned. The store did smell good, though. The bread, when she managed to hack through the thick crust, narrowly avoiding cutting her arm off, was chewy. It had a funny taste, too.

  “Bread of Tuscany have no salt,” explained the lady who owned the store.

  “Why?” Scottie asked.

  The woman shrugged as if the question were absurd.

  Today the steady military rat-a-tat of the Palio drums in the street outside was beginning to give her a headache. A woman standing near her nudged another and whispered. Scottie pretended they weren’t talking about her. This happened all the time.

  Suddenly she felt a terrible tightening in her belly, an agonizing twisting sensation. She dropped the bread she was holding, and her purse, and gave an involuntary groan.

  * * *

  None of the women spoke English, but Scottie felt well looked after, as if a troop of strong-armed dwarves from a fairy tale had taken her under their wing. They had surrounded her, held her up, and she had been led by several of the women through the back room of the bakery into an adjacent apartment. Small, dark, warm, it felt like a bread oven itself. As she started to vomit, a woman held her dress back so it did not get soiled, while another quickly mopped up the floor.

  “Troppo bello per rovinarlo,” the woman said, smoothing the dress, and the others clucked in agreement.

  They led her to a small bathroom, but didn’t close the door. “C’è sangue, sangue?” They pointed to her private area.