Under the Tuscan Sun

by Frances Mayes

  The minute she graduated from college, she lit out for New York. The artist's life, the odd-job life, the long hot summer, health problems—she's ready for the icy mountain-fed pool run by a priest back in the hills, for trips to the Tyrrhenian coast, where we rent beach chairs and bake all day, for strolls in stony hill towns at night after dinner in a strictly local trattoria.

  The days stream by and soon it is time for both of us to leave. I must be at work but Ed will stay another ten days. Maybe the sandblaster will come.

  Festina Tarde

  (Make Haste Slowly)

  WALKING OUT OF THE SAN FRANCISCO airport, I'm shocked by cool foggy air, smelling of salt and jet fumes. A taxi driver crosses the street to help with luggage. After a few pleasantries, we lapse into silence and I'm grateful. I have been travelling for twenty-four hours. The last leg, from JFK, where Ashley and I said good-bye, to SF seems cruel and unusual, especially the extra hour it takes because of the prevailing wind. The houses on the hills are necklaces of light, then along the right, the bay almost laps the freeway. I watch for a certain curve coming up. After rounding it, suddenly the whole city rises, the stark white skyline. As we drive in, I anticipate the breath-stopping plunges over hills and glimpses between buildings where I know there's a wedge or slice or expanse of rough blue water.

  Still, imprinted on my eyes are the stone towns, mown fields, and sweeping hills covered with vineyards, olives, sunflowers; this landscape looks exotic. I start to look for my house key, which I thought was in the zippered inside pocket of my bag. If I've lost it—what? Two friends and a neighbor have keys to my place. I imagine getting their answering machines, “I'm out of town until Friday . . .” We pass Victorian houses discreetly shuttered and curtained, porch lights shining on wooden banisters and pots of topiary. No one, not even a dog walker or someone running to the store for milk, is out. I feel a pang for the towns full of people who leave their keys dangling in their locks, for the evening passeggiata when everyone is out and about, visiting, shopping, taking a quick espresso. I've left Ed there because his university starts later than mine and the sandblasting still is a dream of accomplishment for the summer. The taxi lets me out and speeds off. My house looks the same; the climbing rose has grown and tried to wind around the columns. Finally I find the key mixed in with my Italian change. Sister comes to greet me with a plaintive meow and a quick brush of her sides against my ankles. I pick her up to smell her earthy, damp leaf smell. In Italy, I often wake up thinking she has leapt on the bed. She jumps on top of my bag and curls down for a nap. So much for having suffered in my absence.

  Lamps, rugs, chests, quilts, paintings, tables—how amazingly comfortable and cluttered this looks after the empty house seven thousand miles away. Bookshelves, crammed, the glass kitchen cabinets lined with colorful dishes, pitchers, platters—so much of everything. The long hall carpet—so soft! Could I walk out of here and never look back? Virginia Woolf, I remember, lived in the country during the war. She rushed back to her neighborhood in London after a bombing and found her house in ruins. She expected to be devastated but instead felt a strange elation. Doubtless, I would not. When the earth quaked, I was shaken for days over my whiplashed chimney, broken vases, and wineglasses. It's just that my feet are used to the cool cotto floors, my eyes to bare white walls. I'm still there, partly here.

  There are eleven messages on the answering machine. “Are you back?” I need to get your signature on my graduation form . . .” “Calling to confirm your appointment . . .” The housesitter has left a list of other calls on a pad and stacked the mail in my study. Three kneehigh stacks, mostly junk, which I compulsively begin to go through.

  Because I have stayed away as long as possible, I must return to the university immediately. Classes begin in four days, and regardless of faxes from Italy and the good offices of an excellent secretary, I am chair of the department and need to be bodily present. By nine, I'm there, dressed in gabardine pants, a silk print blouse. “How was your summer?” we all say to one another. The start-up of a school year always feels exhilarating. Everyone feels the zest in the air. If the bookstore were not crowded with students buying texts, I probably would go over and buy a supply of fine-point pens, a notebook with five-subject index, and a few pads. Instead, I sign forms, memos, call a dozen people. I go into racing gear, ignoring jet lag.

  Stopping for groceries after work, I see that the organic store has added a masseuse to the staff. I could pause in a little booth and get a seven-minute massage to relax me before I begin selecting potatoes. I'm temporarily overwhelmed by the checkout rows, the aisles and aisles of bright produce and the tempting cakes at the new bakery just installed in the front of the store. Mustard, mayonnaise, plastic wrap, baking chocolate—I buy things I haven't seen all summer. The deli has crab cakes and stuffed baked potatoes with chives, and corn salad and tabouli. So much! I buy enough “gourmet takeout” for two days. I'm going to be too busy to cook.

  It's eight A.M. at Bramasole. Ed probably is chopping weeds around an olive tree or pacing around waiting for the sandblaster. As I turn in my garage I see Evit, the one-toothed homeless man, rifling through our recycle bin for bottles and cans. My neighbor has posted a VISUALIZE BEING TOWED sign on his garage door.

  The last message on the machine starts with static, then I hear Ed's voice; he sounds raspy. “I was hoping to catch you, sweetheart; are you still at work? The sandblaster was here when I got home from the airport.” Long pause. “It's hard to describe. The noise is deafening. He's got this huge generator and the sand really does blast out and fall into every crack. It's like a storm in the Sahara. He did three rooms yesterday. You can't believe how much sand is on the floors. I took all the furniture out on the patio and I'm just camped in one room, but the sand is all over the house. The beams look very good; they're chestnut, except for one elm. I don't know how I'm going to get rid of this sand. It's in my ears and I'm not even in the room with him. Sweeping is out of the question. I wish you were here.” He usually doesn't speak with so many italics.

  When he calls next, he's on the autostrada near Florence, en route to Nice and home. He sounds exhausted and elated. The permits have come through! The blasting is over. Primo Bianchi, however, won't be able to do our work because he must have a stomach operation. Ed met again with Benito, the yellow-eyed Mussolini look-alike, and has worked out a contract with him. Work is to start immediately and to finish in early November, easily in time for Christmas. The clean-up goes slowly; the sandblaster says to expect sand to trickle down for five years!

  Ian, who helped us with the purchase, will oversee the work. We left diagrams of where electrical outlets, switches, and radiators should go, how the bathroom should be laid out, how the kitchen should be installed—even the height of the sink and the distance between the sink and the faucet—where to pick up the fixtures and tile we selected for the bathroom, everything we can think of. We are anxious for word that work is under way.

  The first fax arrives September 15; Benito has broken his leg on the first day of the job and start-up will be delayed until he is able to walk.

  FESTINA TARDE WAS A RENAISSANCE CONCEPT: MAKE HASTE slowly. Often it was represented by a snake with its tail in its mouth, by a dolphin entwined with an anchor, or by the figure of a seated woman holding wings in one hand and a tortoise in the other: The great wall of Bramasole in one, the central heating, kitchen, patio, and bathroom in the other. The second fax, October 12, warns that “delays have occurred” and that “some changes in installation can be expected” but he has full confidence and not to worry.

  We fax back our encouragement and ask that everything be covered well with plastic and taped.

  Another fax, just after, says the opening of the three-foot-thick wall between the kitchen and dining room has begun. Two days later, Ian faxes us the news that when a very large boulder was pulled out, the whole house creaked and all the workers ran out because they feared a collapse.

  We called. Didn't
they brace the rooms? Had Benito used steel? Why hadn't they known what to do? How could this happen? Ian said stone houses were unpredictable and couldn't be expected to react the way American houses react and the door is now in and looks fine, although they didn't make it as wide as we wanted because they were afraid to. I vacillated between thinking that the workers were incompetent and fearing that they might have been crushed by an unstable house.

  By mid-November, Benito has finished the upstairs patio and the opening of the infamous door, plus they've opened the two upstairs doors that connect to the contadina apartment. We decide to cancel the opening of the other large door that would join the living room to the contadina kitchen. The image of all Benito's men fleeing the premises does not inspire confidence. The next delays Ian mentions concern the new bath and the central heating. “Almost certainly,” he advises, “there will be no heat when you come for Christmas. In fact, the house will not be habitable due to the fact that the central heating pipes must be inside the house, not on the back as we were originally told.” Benito asks him to relay that his charges are higher than anticipated. Items listed on the contract have been farmed out to electricians and plumbers and their overlapping bills have become incomprehensible. We have no way of knowing who did what; Ian seems as confused as we are. Money we wire over takes too long to get there and Benito is angry. What is clear is that we are not there and our house's work is done between other jobs.

  HOPING FOR MIRACLES, WE GO TO ITALY FOR CHRISTMAS. Elizabeth has offered us her house in Cortona, which is partly packed for her move. She also wants to give us a great deal of her furniture, since her new house is smaller. As we drive out of the Rome airport, rain hits the windshield like a hose turned on full blast. All the way north we face foggier and foggier weather. When we arrive in Camucia, we head straight to the bar for hot chocolate before we go to Elizabeth's. We decide to unpack, have lunch, and face Bramasole later.

  The house is a wreck. Canals for the heating pipes have been cut into the inside walls of every room in the house. The workers have left rock and rubble in piles all over the unprotected floors. The plastic we'd requested was simply tossed over the furniture so every book, chair, dish, bed, towel, and receipt in the house is covered in dirt. The jagged, deep, floor-to-ceiling cuts in the wall look like open wounds. They are just beginning on the new bathroom, laying cement on the floor. The plaster in the new kitchen already is cracking. The great long sink has been installed and looks wonderful. A workman has scrawled in black felt-tip pen a telephone number on the dining room fresco. Ed immediately wets a rag and tries to rub it clean but we're stuck with the plumber's number. He slings the rag onto the rubble. They've left windows open all over and puddles have collected on the floor from this morning's rain. The carelessness apparent everywhere, such as the telephone being completely buried, makes me so angry I have to walk outside and take gulps of cold air. Benito is at another job. One of his men sees that we are extremely upset and tries to say that all will be done soon, and done well. He is working on the opening between the new kitchen and the cantina. He's shy but seems concerned. A beautiful house, beautiful position. All will be well. His bleary old blue eyes look at us sadly. Benito arrives full of bluster. No time to clean up before we arrived, and anyway it's the plumber's responsibility, he has been held up himself because the plumber didn't come when he said he would. But everything is perfetto, signori. He'll take care of the cracked plaster; it didn't dry properly because of the rains. We hardly answer. As he gestures, I catch the worker looking at me. Behind Benito's back he makes a strange gesture; he nods toward Benito, then pulls down his eyelid.

  The upstairs patio seems perfect. They've laid rose-colored brick and reattached the rusty iron railings so that the patio is secure but still looks old. Something was done well.

  By four, twilight begins; by five, it's night. Still, the stores are opening after siesta. A morning of work, siesta, reopening at dark for several hours: the winter rhythm unchanged from the massively hot summer days. We stop by and greet Signor Martini. We're cheered to see him, knowing he'll say, “Boh,” and “Anche troppo,” one of his all-purpose responses that means yes, it's too bloody much. In our bad Italian we explain what's going on. As we start to go, I remember the strange gesture. “What does this mean?” I ask, pulling down my eyelid.

  “Furbo,” cunning, watch out, he answers. “Who's furbo?”

  “Apparently our contractor.”

  WARM HOUSE. THANK YOU, ELIZABETH. WE BUY RED CANDLES, cut pine boughs and bring them in for some semblance of Christmas. Our hearts are not into cooking, although all the winter ingredients in the shops almost lure us to the kitchen. We love the furniture Elizabeth has given us. Besides twin beds, coffee table, two desks, and lamps, we'll have an antique madia, whose top part was used to knead bread and let it rise. Beneath the coffin-shaped bread holder are drawers and cabinet. The chestnut's warm patina makes me rub my hand over the wood. On the list she's left for us, we find her immense armadio, large enough to hold all the house linens, a dining room table, antique chests, a cassone (tall storage chest), two peasant chairs, and wonderful plates and serving pieces. Suddenly we will live in a furnished house. With all our rooms, there will be plenty of space, still, for acquiring our own treasures. Amid all the restoration horrors, this great act of generosity warms us tremendously. Right now, the pieces seem to belong to her orderly house, but before we leave we must move everything over to the house full of debris.

  As Christmas nears, work slows then stops. We had not anticipated that they would take off so many holidays. New Year's has several holidays attached to it. We'd never heard of Santo Stefano, who merits one day off. Francesco Falco, who has worked for Elizabeth for twenty years, brings his son Giorgio and his son-in-law with a truck. They take apart the armadio, load everything into the truck except the desk, which is too wide to exit the study. Elizabeth has written all her books at that desk and it seems that it was not meant to leave the house. I'm taking boxes of dishes to our car when I look up and see them lowering a desk by rope out the second-floor window. Everyone applauds as it gently lands on the ground.

  At the house, we cram all the furniture into two rooms we've shoveled out and swept. We cover everything with plastic and shut the doors.

  There is absolutely nothing we can do. Benito does not answer our calls. I have a sore throat. We've bought no presents. Ed has grown silent. My daughter, sick with flu in New York, is spending her first Christmas alone because the construction debacle threw off her plans to come to Italy. I stare for a long time at an ad for the Bahamas in a magazine, the totally expected photo of a crescent of sugar-sand beach along clear, azure water. Someone, somewhere, drifts on a yellow striped float, trailing her fingers in a warm current and dreaming under the sun.

  On Christmas Eve we have pasta with wild mushrooms, veal, an excellent Chianti. Only one other person is in the restaurant, for Natale is above all a family time. He wears a brown suit and sits very straight. I see him slowly drink wine along with his food, pouring out half glasses for himself, sniffing the wine as though it were a great vintage instead of the house carafe. He proceeds through his courses with care. We're through; it's only nine-thirty. We'll go back to Elizabeth's, build a fire, and share the moscato dessert wine and cake I bought this afternoon. While Ed waits for coffee, our dinner partner is served a plate of cheese and a bowl of walnuts. The restaurant is silent. He cracks a shell. He cuts a bit of cheese, savors it, eats a walnut, then cracks another. I want to put my head down on the white cloth and weep.

  ACCORDING TO IAN, THE WORK FINISHED SATISFACTORILY AT the end of February. We paid for the amount contracted but not for the exorbitant extra amount Benito tacked on. He listed such charges as a thousand dollars for hanging a door. We will have to be there to determine exactly what extra work he did. How we'll settle the final amount is a mystery.

  In late April, Ed returns to Italy. He has the spring quarter off. His plan is to clear the land and treat,
stain, and wax all the beams in the house before I arrive on June first. Then we will clean, paint all rooms and windows, and restore the floors to the condition they were in before Benito's restoration. The new kitchen has in it only the sink, dishwasher, stove, and fridge. Instead of cabinets, we plan to make plastered brick columns with wide plank shelves and have marble cut for countertops. We have a major incentive: At the end of June, my friend Susan has planned to be married in Cortona. When I asked why she wanted her wedding in Italy, she replied cryptically, “I want to get married in a language I don't understand.” The guests will stay with us and the wedding will take place at the twelfth-century town hall.

  Ed tells me he's confined to the room on the second floor that opens onto the patio, his little haven amid the rubbish. He cleans one bathroom, unpacks a few pots and dishes, and sets up rudimentary housekeeping. Benito hauled several loads out of the house but only made it as far as the driveway, now a dump. On the front terrace he left a small mountain of stone that was taken out of the wall. The patio and bedroom brick form another small mountain. Even so, Ed is elated. They're gone! The new bathroom, with its foot square tiles, belle époque pedestal sink, and built-in tub, feels large and luxurious, a stark contrast to the former bucket-flush bathroom. Spring is astonishingly green and thousands of naturalized irises and daffodils bloom in long grass all over our land. He finds a seasonal creek pouring over mossy rocks where two box turtles sun themselves. The almond and fruit trees are so outrageously beautiful that he has to tear himself away from working outside.