Under the Tuscan Sun

by Frances Mayes

  We try not to call; we tend to get into long conversations, then decide that we could have done x at the house for the money the call has cost. But there is a great need to recount what you've done when you're working on a house. Someone needs to hear that the beams look really great after their final waxing, that your neck is killing you from working above your head all day, that you're on the fourth room. He relates that each room takes forty hours: beams, ceiling, walls. Floors will come last. Seven to seven, seven days a week.

  Finally, finally, June—I can go. With all the work Ed has described, I expect the house to glow when I arrive. But, naturally enough, Ed has concentrated on telling me his progress.

  When I first arrive, it's hard to focus on how far he has come. The beams look beautiful, yes. But the grounds are full of rubbish, plaster, the old cistern. The electrician has not shown up. Six rooms haven't been touched. All the furniture is piled into three rooms. It's strictly a war zone. I try not to show how horrified I am.

  I'm ready for r & r. Unfortunate, because there's nothing to do but launch into this work. We have about three weeks to get ready for our first major onslaught of guests. The wedding! It seems ludicrous that anyone could stay here.

  Ed is 6′2″. I am 5′4″. He takes the ceiling I take the floor. Biology is destiny—but which is better? He actually loves finishing the beams. Painting the brick ceiling is less fun but is rewarding. Suddenly the gunky beams and flaking ceiling are transformed into dark substantial beams, pristine white-brick ceiling. The room is defined. Painting goes quickly with the big brushes made of wild boar hair. Pure white walls—white on plaster is whiter than any other white. As each room is finished, my job is to paint the battiscopa, a six-inch-high gray strip along the bases of the walls, a kind of pseudo-moulding that is traditional in old houses of this area. Usually it's a brick color but we prefer the lighter touch. The word means broom-hit. The darker paint doesn't show the marks of the mops and brooms that must constantly pass over these floors. Almost upside down, I measure six inches in several places, tape the floor and wall, then quickly paint and pull off the tape. Naturally, the tape pulls off some white paint, which then has to be retouched. Twelve rooms, four walls each, plus the stairwell, landings, and entrance. We're leaving the stone cantina as is. Next, I decalcify the floor. The first step is to sweep up all the large chunks and dirt, then vacuum. With a special solution I spread, the residue from dirt, plaster, and paint drippings is dissolved. After that, I rinse the floor with a wet mop three times, the middle time with a mild soap solution. I'm on my knees. Next: mop again with water and a little muriatic acid. Rinse, then paint the floor with linseed oil, letting it soak in and dry. After it dries for two days, I wax. On the floor again, char style. My knees, totally unused to this, rebel and I suppress groans when I stand up. Last step: buff with soft cloth. The floors come back, rich and dark and shiny. Each room pops into place, looking very much as they did when we bought the house, only now the beams are right and the radiators are in place. “Brutto,” ugly, I said to the plumber when I saw them. “Yes,” he replied, “but beautiful in winter.”

  As Ed told me, seven to seven: seven days a week. We spread the rubble down the driveway, which is chewed up anyway from all the trucks. We dig in the larger stones and bricks, spread grass cuttings on top. Gradually, it will settle in. We hire someone to take away a truckload that Benito failed to haul. On a walk a few days later, we see a pile of awful rubble dumped along a road about a mile from our house, and to our horror, spot our plaster with the madonna blue coat of paint underneath.

  From high school through graduate school, Ed worked as a house mover, busboy, cabinetmaker, refrigerator hauler. A friend calls him “the muscular poet.” He's thriving on this work, though he, too, is sapped at night. I never have done manual labor, except spurts of refinishing furniture, pruning, painting, and wallpapering. This is an order of bodily exertion to shock my system. Everything aches. What is water on the knee? I think I may get it. I die at night. In the mornings, we both have surges of new energy that come from somewhere. We plug right back in. We're consumed. I'm amazed: the relentlessness we've developed. I never will feel the same toward workers again; they should be paid fortunes.

  When I seal the patio bricks with linseed oil, the sun feels especially deadly. I'm determined to finish and keep working until I start to reel with the fumes and the heat. Now and then I stand up and breathe in great draughts of the honeysuckle we've planted in an enormous pot, stare off into the great view, then dip the brush into the pot again. Who would think to ask, when paying a lot for a new patio, whether the job included finishing the brick's surface? It never occurred to either of us that we would have to treat the kitchen and patio bricks to several coats of this gloppy stuff.

  After we clean up late in the day, we walk around assessing what's left, how we've done. We will not have any children together but decide that this is the equivalent of having triplets. As each room is finished, we get to bring in the furniture for it. Gradually, rooms are set up, still spare but basically furnished. I've brought over white bedspreads for the twin beds. We take a morning in Arezzo and buy a few lamps from a place that still makes the traditional majolica vases of the area into lamps. A fabulous feeling—things are shaping up, they're done, it's clean, we'll be warm in winter—we've done it! This feels giddy and fuels us to keep going.

  A week before the wedding, our friends Shera and Kevin arrive from California. We see them get off the train way down the track. Kevin is maneuvering something enormous that looks like a coffin for two. His bicycle! We keep working while they go to Florence, Assisi, and on the Piero della Francesca trail. At night we make great meals together and they tell us all the wonders they've seen and we tell them about the new faucet we want to install for the hip bath. They fall instantly in love with the whole area and seem to want to hear our daily saga of cleaning the new bricks on the kitchen floor. When they're not travelling, Kevin is off on long bicycle trips. Shera, an artist, is captive here. She is painting milky blue half circles over the windows in a bedroom. We've picked a star from one of Giotto's paintings and she makes a stencil of it and fills the half domes with gold leaf stars. A few stars “fall” out of the dome and onto the white walls. We're preparing the bridal chamber. At an antique shop near Perugia, I buy two colored prints of the constellations with mythological beasts and figures. At the Cortona market, I find pretty linen and cotton sheets in pale blue with cutwork in white. We're preparing, too, for our first houseparty. We buy twenty wineglasses, linen tablecloths, pans for baking the wedding cake, a case of wine.

  There is no way everything can be finished in time for the wedding (or ever?), but we manage an extraordinary amount. The day before everyone arrives, Kevin comes downstairs and asks, “Why does the toilet steam? Is there something peculiar about Italian toilets?” Ed brings in the ladder, climbs up to the wall-mounted tank, and dips in his hand. Hot water. We check the other bathrooms. The new one is O.K. but the other old one also has hot water. We hardly have used those bathrooms and had not let water run long enough for the hot water to arrive, so we had not noticed that neither bathroom had cold water at all. As soon as guests started using the baths, it became noticeable. Shera says she thought the shower was awfully hot, once it finally warmed up, but hadn't wanted to complain. The plumber cannot come for a few days, so we will go through the wedding with quick showers and smoking toilets!

  The front terrace is still rough but we have potted geraniums along the wall to distract from the torn-up ground. At least we removed the rubble. Four rooms have beds. Susan's two cousins from England and Cole's brother and sister-in-law are arriving. Shera and Kevin will move to a hotel in town for a couple of days. Other friends are coming from Vermont.

  By day, we are twelve in the house. Many hands to help with drinks and lunch. The cake must be improvised because the oven is small. I envisioned three tiers of sponge cake with a hazelnut butter-cream frosting, to be served with whipped crea
m and cherries steeped in sugared wine. We couldn't find a large pan for the bottom and finally bought a tin dog dish to bake it in. The cake is lovely, if a bit lopsided. We decorate it with flowers all around. Everyone is running off in different directions sightseeing and shopping.

  We're having the prenuptial dinner here on a clear warm night, everyone in pale linens and cottons. Many photos are taken of us arm in arm on the steps and leaning over the balcony. Susan's cousin brings out champagne he has brought from France. After drinks with bruschette and dry olives, we start with cool fennel soup. I've made a rustic casserole of chicken, white beans, sausage, tomatoes, and onions. There are tiny green beans, baskets of bread, and a salad of arugula, radicchio, and chicory. Everyone tells wedding stories. Mark was to have married a Colorado girl who ran away on the wedding day and married someone else in a week. Karen was a bridesmaid on a boat wedding and the bride's mother, in teal chiffon, tipped into the drink. When I married at twenty-two, I wanted a midnight wedding with everyone wearing robes and carrying candles. The minister said absolutely not, that midnight was a “furtive hour.” Nine was as late as he'd go. And instead of a robe, I wore my sister's wedding dress and carried a leatherbound Keats down the aisle. My mother pulled my skirt and I leaned over for her words of wisdom. She whispered, “It won't last six months.” But she was wrong.

  We should have an accordion player, à la Fellini, and maybe a white horse for the bride to ride, but we do well with the fabulous night, and the CD player inspires a little dancing in the dining room. The white peach tart with pine nuts should end this dinner but Ed's description of the crema and the hazelnut gelati in town sends everyone to the cars. They're amazed that such a small town is still hopping at eleven, everyone outdoors with coffee, ice cream, or perhaps an amaro, an after-dinner bitter. Babies in strollers still as wide-eyed as their parents, teenagers sitting on the town hall steps. The only thing sleeping is a cat on top of the police car.

  The morning of the wedding Susan, Shera, and I pick a bouquet of lavender, pink, and yellow wildflowers for Susan to carry. When we're all dressed in silks and suits, we walk into town over the Roman road. Ed carries our good shoes in a shopping bag. Susan has brought Chinese painted paper parasols for everyone because of the midday sun. We walk through town and up the steps of the twelfth-century town hall. It's a dark, high-ceilinged room with tapestries and frescoes and high judicial-looking chairs, an impressive room to sign a treaty in. The city of Cortona has sent red roses and Ed has arranged for Bar Sport to come over right after the ceremony with cold prosecco. Susan's cousin Brian runs all around with his video camera, getting shots from every angle. After the brief ceremony, we cross the piazza to La Logetta for a Tuscan feast beginning with a selection of typical antipasti: crostini, little rounds of bread topped with olives, peppers, mushroom, or chicken liver; prosciutto e melone, fried olives stuffed with pancetta and spicy bread crumbs; and the local finocchiona, a salami studded with fennel seeds. Next they bring out a selection of primi, first courses to try, including ravioli with butter and sage, and gnocchi di patate, little “knuckles” of potato served here with pesto. Course after course arrives, culminating in platters of roast lamb and veal and the famous grilled Val di Chiana steak. Karen notices the grand piano in the corner under a massive vase of flowers and prevails upon Cole, who is a pianist, to play. Ed is at the other end of the table but he catches my eye as Cole begins Scarlatti. Three weeks ago this was a dream, a long shot, a frightening prospect. “Cheers!” the English cousins call out.

  Back at home, we're all stunned by the food and heat and decide to postpone the wedding cake until late afternoon. I hear someone snoring. In fact, I hear two people snoring.

  Though the cake lacks that professional touch, it may be the best cake I ever tasted. I'll credit our tree for the nuts. Shera and Kevin are dancing in the dining room again. Others stroll out to the point where our land ends for the view of the lake and valley. We can't decide whether to eat again or forget it. Finally we run down to Camucia for pizza. Our favorite places are closed, so we end up in a definitely downscale, unatmospheric place. The pizza is excellent, however, and no one seems to notice the dust gray curtains or the cat who has leapt on the adjoining table and is polishing off the remains of someone's dinner. At the end of the table our bride and groom, holding hands, are in a charmed circle of two.

  Susan and Cole have headed to Lucca then back to France; their family guests are gone.

  Shera and Kevin are here for a few more days. Ed and I visit the marmista and choose thick white marble for the countertops. The next day he cuts and bevels them and Ed and Kevin load them into the back of the car. Suddenly the kitchen looks the way I thought it would: brick floor, white appliances, long sink, plank shelves, marble counters. I sew a blue plaid curtain to go under the sink and hang a braid of garlic and some dried herbs from the wall shelves. In town we find an old peasant dish and cup rack. The dark chestnut looks great against the white walls. At last, a place for all the cups and bowls we're buying in the local ceramic patterns.

  Everyone has gone. We eat the last of the wedding cake. Ed begins one of his many lists—we should paper a room with them—of projects he hopes to accomplish now. The kitchen is looking irresistible and we're moving into high season for vegetables and fruit. July fourth: Much of summer is left. My daughter is coming. Travelling friends will stop in for lunch or for a night. We're ready.

  A Long Table

  Under the Trees

  MARKET DAY FALLS ON THURSDAYS IN Camucia, the lively town at the bottom of Cortona's hill, and I'm there early before the heat sets in. Tourists pass right through Camucia; it's just the modern spillover from the venerable and dominant hill town above it. But modern is relative. Among the frutta e verdura shops, the hardware and seed stores, you happen on a couple of Etruscan tombs. Near the butcher's shop are remnants of a villa, an immense curly iron gate and swag of garden wall. Camucia, bombed in World War II, has its share of chestnut trees, photographable doors, and shuttered houses.

  On market day, a couple of streets are blocked to traffic. The vendors arrive early, unfolding what seems like whole stores or supermarket aisles from specially made trucks and wagons. One wagon sells local pecorino, the sheep's milk cheese that can be soft and almost creamy, or aged and strong as a barnyard, along with several wheels of parmigiano. The aged cheese is crumbly and rich, wonderful to nibble as I walk around the market.

  I'm hunting and gathering food for a dinner for new friends. My favorite wagons belong to the two porchetta maestros. The whole pig, parsley entwined with the tail, apple—or a big mushroom—in its mouth, stretches across the cutting board. Sometimes the decapitated head sits aside at an angle, eyeing the rest of its body, which has been stuffed with herbs and bits of its own ears, etc. (best not to inquire too closely), then roasted in a wood oven. You can buy a panino (a crusty roll) with nothing on it but slabs of porchetta to take home, lean or with crispy, fatty skin. One of the lords of the porchetta wagons looks very much like his subject: little eyes, glistening skin, and bulbous forearms. His fingers are short and porky, with bitten-down nails. He's smiling, extolling his pig's virtues, but when he turns to his wife, he snarls. Her lips are set in a permanent tight half smile. I've bought from him before and his porchetta is delicious. This time I buy from the milder man in the next stand. For Ed, I ask for extra sale, salt, which is what the indefinable stuffing is called. I like it but find myself picking through to see if there's something peculiar in it. Though the pig is useful and tasty in all its parts and preparations, the slow-roasted porchetta must be its apogee. Before I move on to the vegetables, I spot a pair of bright yellow espadrilles with ribbons to wind around the ankles; I balance my shopping bags while I try on one. Perfect, and less than ten dollars. I drop them in with the porchetta and parmigiano.

  Scarves (bright Chanel and Hermès copies) and linen tablecloths float from awnings; toilet cleaners, tapes, and T-shirts are stacked in bins and on folding tables.
Besides buying food, you can dress, plant a garden, and stock a household from this market. There are a few local crafts for sale but you have to look for them. The Tuscan markets aren't like those in Mexico, with wonderful toys, weaving, and pottery. It's a wonder these markets continue at all, given the sophistication of Italian life and the standard of living in this area. I find the iron-working traditions still somewhat in evidence. Occasionally, I see good andirons and handy fireplace grills. My favorite is a holder for whole prosciutto, an iron grip with handle mounted on a board for ease in slicing; maybe someday I'll find I need that much prosciutto and buy one. One week I bought handwoven baskets made from dark supple willow twigs, the large ones perfect for kitchen supplies and the small round ones for the ripe-right-now peaches and cherries. One woman sells old table and bed linens with thick monograms, all of which must have been gathered from farms and villas. She has three mounds of yellowed lace. Perhaps some of it was made on the nearby island, Isola Maggiore in Lake Trasimeno. Women still sit in the doorways there, hooking lace in the afternoon light. I find two enormous square linen pillowcases with miles of inset lace and ribbons—ten thousand lire, same as the sandals, seems to be the magic number today. Of course, I will have to have the pillows especially made. When I buy some striped linen dishtowels, I notice several goat skins hanging from a hook. I have in mind that they would look terrific on the cotto floors at my house. The four the man has are too small but he says to come back next week. He tries to convince me that his sheepskins would be better anyway, but they don't appeal to me.

  I'm wending my way toward the produce, but walk up to the bar for a coffee. Actually, I stop with an excuse to stare. People from surrounding areas come not only to shop but to greet friends, to make business arrangements. The din around the Camucia market is a lovely swarm of voices, many speaking in the local Val di Chiana dialect; I don't understand most of what they're saying but I do hear one recurring habit. They do not use the ch sound for c, but slide it into an s sound. “Shento,” they say for cento (one hundred), instead of the usual pronunciation “chento.” I heard someone say “cappushino,” for cappuccino, though the usual affectionate shortening of that is “cappuch.” Their town is pronounced not “Camuchia,” but “Camushea.” Odd that the c is often the affected letter. Around Siena, people substitute an h sound for c—“hasa” and “Hoca-Hola.” Whatever the local habit with c, they're all talking. Outside the bar, groups of farmers, maybe a hundred men, mill about. Some play cards. Their wives are off in the crowd, loading their bags with tiny strawberries, basil plants with dangling roots, dried mushrooms, perhaps a fish from the one stand that sells seafood from the Adriatic. Unlike the Italians who take their thimbleful of espresso in one quick swallow, I sip the black, black coffee.