“So you are a reformed character?”
“This you know already. No more playboy. I want a quiet life in a stone house in the country, with dogs and wild boars I can shoot from the window…” He gave me his gap-toothed grin and I decided to believe him.
* * *
—
I was sitting outside Rifrullo. May was my favorite month so far. The back wall was embroidered with jasmine, its fragrance drifting to where I was bent over my computer. The trees outside the gate were also in flower, acacia hanging like bells from the branches, their aroma combining with the jasmine. I sat out here on fine mornings with a cappuccino and my laptop, working, watching life on the corner, bathing in the sweet, soft air.
My street had turned into an open-air theater—life was now lived outside. Cristy had emerged from behind the counter of her shop and stood at the doorway, bobbing up and down when a familiar face walked by. Even Giuseppe the Gnarled Jeweler was out walking Jack the dog around the block instead of hiding in the depths of his shop by the heater. Old Roberto lingered longer than usual on street corners, parking himself by the jasmine and bending down to drink from the fountain set into the wall. He filled his cupped hands with water that, he told me, once flowed straight from the hills. Old Roberto was more voluble than usual. He, like everyone else, was infected with this mild spring fever, a feeling of waking from hibernation, the return of life out of the huddled interiors and into the open, under the sun, a preview of the summer to come.
The via di San Niccolò was a stage, and Dino and I had taken our place in the neighborhood tableau as The Lovers. Whether stopping at Rifrullo for a midmorning coffee or sitting outside the wine bar just outside the city walls, we were always together and always intertwined. I was not used to such public displays of affection. But Dino had no such compunction, wrapping me in his arms as we sat sipping our coffees, holding my hand as we bought bread in the forno, giving me long kisses as we ordered lunch. All but the most intimate parts of our love affair were acted out in San Niccolò. This is how I learned that in Italy, love is always a cause for celebration—the more affectionate we were, the more excitedly we were received, and I felt like a celebrity when I had Dino by my side. Like the jasmine on Rifrullo’s back wall, I bloomed in the warmth of Dino’s attention, losing my reserve and playing my part in the tableau almost as enthusiastically as he did.
* * *
—
I was surprised that my body was still shrinking. Every night Dino took me to a different trattoria out of town, sometimes in Chianti, sometimes near Florence in the hills to the south. Plain brightly lit village eateries or cavernous country places hung with hams—either way, we ate beautifully. Many of our evenings were spent in Nello, where Dino talked for so long to the waitress that sometimes I thought she was going to draw up a chair and sit down. Sometimes we were joined by his friends, and Dino spent the first course translating for me until their discussions grew heated and he paused only to say: “As with all Italians when they get together, amore, we are talking about food!” No one seemed to mind him nuzzling me at the table; in fact, they delighted in it, kissing my hand on saying goodbye, patting him on the back with a congratulatory “Grande Dino!” I stopped being shy about displaying our relationship so publicly.
Whether we were alone or with friends, the courses arrived one after the other, all on small oval plates; even the pasta dishes were delicately served in small portions, disabusing me of my misconceptions about Italian food, of the idea that eating multiple courses had to be fattening. I used to think of Italian food as consisting just of pasta, pasta, and then more pasta. For a change from pasta, there was pizza. All calorie bombs, right?
Wrong.
I discovered with Dino that while Italians did eat pasta and even pizza, these were nothing like their northern European and American counterparts. Pasta servings were small, pizzas had wafer-thin bases, toppings did not include meatballs or chunks of roast chicken, and definitely not pineapple. Typically, an Italian meal consisted of multiple courses. The first—antipasti—was hors d’oeuvres, a starter dish smaller than those on our menus. This was followed by the primi—the first course, which was pasta, gnocchi, or risotto—although risotto, not being a Tuscan dish, hardly ever appeared on the menu. The secondi was the meat or fish course and was accompanied by contorni, side dishes of vegetables and salad. Last, there was the dolci—dessert—and most meals were rounded off by a short dark coffee—espresso for us, but in Italy just caffè. We adhered to multiple courses, but the curious thing was that at the end of the meal, I was never stuffed, just pleasantly full.
Eating with Dino, flirting and laughing our way through the meals, I ate slowly, each meal drawn out as much for the pleasure of the company as for the pause between the end of one course and the arrival of the next. The brain had time to realize how full it was, so there was no overeating. I had found my natural limit again. Never previously known to willingly turn down a tiramisu, I now often chose fruit or nothing at all. The majority of our meals were made up of salads and vegetables, and Dino explained that having so many different tastes on the table stimulated and satiated the taste buds.
Now that my windows were often open, the sounds and the smells emitting from my neighbors’ homes made my mouth water—the preparation of food, accompanied by the musical cadence of Italian, the fizz of a fryer, the bubble of boiling water, but most of all, the scent of all those flavors and ingredients coming together. I was inspired to try out the new vegetables I had found in the market, sometimes spending a whole morning shelling broad beans so I could serve them to Dino for lunch with pecorino cheese, as recommended by Antonio.
I nosed around the market every morning, opening my basket for Antonio to fill with the new season’s goodies: purple-veined radicchio, peppery, dark wild arugula. I learned to grill radicchio and sauté cicoria with lemon and garlic. I made a salad of wild arugula with slivers of the exquisite Parmigiano that Dino bought me. I also made the Dramatic Idraulico’s tomato sauce regularly, and was now bold enough to start it off with a few diced vegetables—onions, carrots, and celery, as advised by the market gang, a sofrito—the holy triumvirate of Italian cooking, the base of many dishes. Antonio had explained that onions added richness, carrots sweetness, and the celery a sort of savory taste that the Japanese call umami.
* * *
—
Dino never stayed the night although we spent most of our evenings together and he often dropped by during the day—I had grown proficient at Love in the Afternoon. One afternoon, he caught me trying to replace a screw that had fallen out of the wall. He took over and fixed the fallen picture back in place. Then he took my face in his hands and enunciated slowly: “Amore, you can ask for help. You are not alone, I am here.”
Not alone. I had been so used to doing everything alone for so long, and after the affair with Nader I hadn’t imagined that I would ever dare connect with a man again. Was Dino really here for me? I wondered. “Come on, amore,” he said, leading me out of the apartment, “I want to show you something special.”
He drove up to Piazzale Michelangelo, pulling over in the far corner of the parking lot and jumping up to open the car door for me. He led me to the stone balustrade, pointing down to a garden that fell away below us, roped-in flower beds crowded with tall iris flowers. Bigger than the size of my hand, they displayed the most psychedelic color combinations: flame-orange frills with a white tongue, an inky dark blue, a bridal white with layers of frills; there was even a black one, its velvety depths dark and mysterious. Pointing to an iron gate tucked into a corner, he announced: “The iris garden of Firenze, you must see it! Is only open two weeks a year!” The giaggioli were captivating. I turned to take his hand but he was already gone, getting into his car, saying he had a meeting.
“Remember, amore,” he called out through the open window as he pulled out into the traffic. “You are not alone!”
* * *
—
Since my lov
e story had started with Dino, I had not written a word. I had a good excuse every day, but the reality was that Dino took up most of my time, either being there or promising to come over, and then sometimes being hours late or not making it at all. In theory, it shouldn’t have mattered, as I was just at home writing, but I found that I could not settle in to my work if I was anticipating a visit, from Dino or anyone else. To sink into the book, I needed an undisturbed stretch of time ahead of me, and Dino’s habit of seeming always to be on his way over made me too restless to concentrate. I resolved to be less available, to prioritize my routine and rituals and get back to my book.
So it was that the following Saturday morning, I took an awkward-paced walk to Sant’Ambrogio with my neighbor Giuseppe, taking him first for one of Isidoro’s cappuccinos before the market. In Cibreo, I sat down at my usual seat with Giuseppe opposite.
From the next table, an elderly couple was watching us. They leaned over and greeted Giuseppe. The woman was small and round, with a dark bob and circular glasses behind which her eyes darted about the room. The man was tall and white-haired, lanky, his long frame draped across the chair. Giuseppe introduced them as Betsy and Geoffrey, American artists, with a house in a village outside Florence where they spent half the year. Betsy told me in an East Coast accent that they had recently arrived for their seasonal stay. They spoke to Giuseppe in Italian, Geoffrey drawling out his words while Betsy’s speech was so fast that I couldn’t follow. Geoffrey was a painter, Giuseppe explained, while Betsy made ceramics, mostly large pots that Giuseppe told me with a grin were “wild.”
As they got up to leave Betsy paused by my chair. “I am just starting a new work, and I need a model.” She looked down at me through the fringe of her bobbed hair. “If you would like to do it, please give me a call. I think you would be perfect.” She handed me a card, and I stared after her.
“Well, Giuseppe, shall I do it?” I asked, stunned.
He slowly weighed it up. Then he looked at me and laughed. “Of course you must do it! It fits with your Florentine adventures, no?” His eyes were twinkling from behind his glasses in a way that made me wonder how much he could actually hear through our walls. “And she is an important and well-known artist. You will love their house. Now you are so gloriously here, what else can Florence do than immortalize you in art?”
* * *
—
The following evening, Dino was standing in my kitchen, naked apart from an apron tied around his waist. He had just arrived back from a weekend fishing trip in Sicily bearing an ice box and an armful of acacia flowers plucked from the trees outside the city gate. After making love to me on the sofa, he had pulled out two fresh tuna steaks and a jar of Sicilian capers from the ice box. Instructing me to hand him all my fresh tomatoes and garlic, he set about making us dinner.
“Amore, this is some of the fish I caught yesterday!” he announced proudly. “You remember the picture?”
I did indeed. He had neglected to tell me he was going anywhere until the day he was leaving, and at first I had been cross, but in the three days he had been gone, he had bombarded me with pictures of himself in action. Ignoring the poor bleeding fish that costarred in his pictures, I had focused instead on Dino in his swimming trunks, his body tanned, the muscles bulging as he wrestled the fish, the veins on his arms standing out. He had appeared in one with a knife in his hand, blood running down his biceps. I could forgive him his disappearance if he was going to come back to me laden with fresh fish and in such sporting shape. Now I watched him moving around my kitchen in his porno-chef look, throwing out instructions to me as his sous-chef.
“Sit there, amore, and talk to me,” he ordered. “You are much better at talking than cooking.”
I slapped his bare bottom in admonishment and told him about my encounter with Betsy, how nervous I was about accepting the offer of modeling for her.
“I am assuming I would have to be naked.” I shrugged. “I am not sure I can do it.”
“But why?” he asked.
I blushed. Despite what we had just done, I was shy. “Well,” I muttered, “to take my clothes off and have someone look at me…”
“But I look at you, amore,” he said, “and you are not nervous, you like it.”
“Yes, but that’s different,” I cried, “and anyway, you don’t really look at me, not at me standing there for hours in detail, do you? I don’t exactly have the sort of body that can withstand hours of scrutiny…”
He stopped cooking to come over and untie the sash on my dressing gown and, holding me at arm’s length, looked at me deliberately, slowly. “Now listen, amore,” he said purposefully as I squirmed under his gaze. “You are beautiful and your body is beautiful. You think you are ugly because you are not a supermodel, but you are super you! I love your curves. You look like a woman, and that is most beautiful of all.” He planted a kiss in the middle of my chest, on my heart.
“Oh!” I flung my arms around him.
He hugged me back. “Anyway, amore, you don’t have to worry,” he said, waving a wooden spoon as I pulled my dressing gown around me, “if she’s nearly eighty, she probably won’t be able to see you at all…”
The evening was relaxed, domestic. The table was decorated with flowers from Old Roberto’s garden, to which we had added the acacia Dino had picked, candles were throwing light around the room, the fish was delicious. We were relaxed, at home. I felt so close to him that when, once again after making love to me and falling asleep in my arms, he got up in the dead of night and made for the door, I couldn’t bear the crashing disappointment of his departure.
“Dino, why won’t you stay?” It was the first time I had allowed myself to ask.
“Because my wife is waiting for me, of course!” he retorted, flaring his nostrils and snorting with derision. I raised my eyebrows and he laughed. Then he paused, saying, “You think I have time or energy for anyone else, amore? You wear me out…”
I couldn’t dispute that. There really seemed no time or energy for another woman. But just to be sure, as I kissed him, I sucked on his bottom lip so hard that I left a bruise, a love bite covering most of his bottom lip, right there on his face, clear for all to see.
“Oh, excuse me, amore,” I said, running my finger along the purple stain. “I got carried away!”
He grinned. “I love your passion,” he said, kissing me again. “I don’t care who sees it.”
I watched him skipping down the stairs with a wide grin, leaving me vaguely reassured.
I consulted Luigo the next night.
“Okay, bella, so you are sure he’s not married?” he asked, logically.
“Well, I have been known to give him love bites…” I admitted sheepishly.
Luigo gave me a long look. “Hickeys, bella? How old are we?”
I shrugged. “I know, but I was suspicious and wanted to know if he would let me.”
“And did he?”
“He positively encouraged me!”
“Has he ever taken you to his place?” Again, Luigo was practical.
“Er, no,” I admitted. “But that’s because he doesn’t exactly have his own place.”
Luigo put his tea towel down. “Are you telling me he lives with his mamma?”
Indeed, Dino lived with his parents. At the beginning, he had told me that it was a temporary arrangement, that he had gone to stay there on returning from living in Milan, that he was saving up to buy his own place—the stone house in the country. My shock had been replaced by understanding. “Ah, okay, that’s fair enough.” I too had spent stints at my parents’ in between my own apartments. “When did you move back from Milan?”
“Five years ago,” he had replied nonchalantly as my eyebrows shot up.
Luigo nodded. “He’s a mammone,” he said. “Mommy’s boys who live at home although they are grown up. Some do it right into their thirties!”
“Oh dear, Luigo, he’s forty. That’s bad!”
“Well, bella, it’s qu
ite common here,” he said airily. “Italian men are very lazy and they love their mamma’s cooking, you know. At least we can be sure he’s not married. Maybe Mommy gives him a curfew…”
Tuna with capers and tomato sauce
SERVES 2
1 white onion
Best-quality extra-virgin olive oil
20 good Sicilian capers
2 cloves garlic
1 14-oz. can chopped Italian plum tomatoes
Chili flakes
2 tuna steaks
Juice of 1 lemon
Chop the onion and fry with the olive oil in a pan until translucent; add the capers and cook for a short time. Peel and chop the garlic, then add. When a little cooked (don’t burn), add the tomatoes and let reduce for 10 minutes, adding a few chili flakes.
Cover the tuna steaks in olive oil and the lemon juice, then grill on each side—do not let them become dry. Place on a plate and pour the tomato sauce on top. Serve.
Fresh broad bean and pecorino salad
SERVES 2
2 lbs. broad beans (as fresh as possible)
5½-oz. medium mature pecorino
Juice of 1 lemon
Shell the beans and separate the smaller ones from the larger ones. Pop the large beans into boiling water for just 1 minute, then drain and put in a bowl of cold water. (I personally don’t bother with blanching any of the smaller beans but toss them all in raw.)
Once cooled, peel the outer skin from both the large blanched beans and the small raw ones, discard the skins, and throw the beans into a serving bowl. Cube the pecorino. Toss the cheese with the beans. In a small bowl make a pinzimonio dressing (see page 36) with the lemon juice, season, and whisk. Pour over the salad and toss, then serve.
Bella Figura Page 12
