Incontinent on the Continent

by Jane Christmas

  “Put on your bloody seat belt.”

  “I’m not going to wear it; it’s uncomfortable.”

  “It’s the law, Mother. Put it on.”

  “Fine. It’s on.”

  “No, it isn’t. Can’t you hear that beeping noise? It tells you the seat belt is not buckled. Do it up now!”

  And so it continued for many, many miles. Jet lag and exhaustion had pushed aside any semblance of civility.

  We eventually found the correct turnoff and then travelled an interminable distance in silence to the town of Locoro-tondo. In a small square with four or five roads emanating from it, I stopped another lone wolf wandering the darkened streets and asked for directions. He grabbed my map and proceeded to weave uncontrollably until a whiff of alcohol invaded my senses. I snatched back the map.

  “See? This is what happens when you ask strangers,” I barked at Mom.

  “Why don’t you just call someone?” Mom suggested.

  “On what?”

  “Your cell phone.”

  “I don’t have a cell phone.”

  “You seem to have money for everything else, why wouldn’t you buy a cell phone?” she huffed.

  I dislike cell phones—their omnipresence, their tinny rings, the tyranny of their billing plans, the lack of etiquette they encourage in their users. I am distressed by how quickly they have been gobbled up by a culture too afraid to be caught alone and silent for ten minutes. And those claims of benign electromagnetic activity? Nonsense.

  It was well past midnight when we found the town hall, the prearranged rendezvous point with a property manager who would guide us to our accommodation.

  Mom and I were barely on speaking terms.

  “Give him hell for not meeting us at the airport,” Mom demanded as our car jerked to a stop in the parking lot and a tall man, who I assumed was the property manager, approached us. “What kind of an outfit is this, anyway?”

  I had no energy left to berate anyone. Besides, it is one thing to rant like a lunatic to my mother, and quite another to do so to a complete stranger. Not that I haven’t, but I wisely bit my lip now. And a good thing: the very tall, muscular guy walking toward us looked like he was in a bad mood, too.

  I rolled down the window and murmured a greeting. This man’s name was Chris, and he was a transplanted Brit. On Chris’s instructions we followed him in our car out of the dimly lit town into a black countryside of narrow, winding, bumpy roads. This went on for quite some time, long enough for me to wonder whether we were being taken somewhere to be murdered.

  The road wound around low walls of stucco and stone that almost grazed our car. By North American standards our rented car would be considered a small-to-midsize vehicle, but by Italian standards it was a boat. My murder fantasy was replaced by a more practical concern: Had I read the damages clause of our car rental agreement?

  The car stalled several times as we ascended a steep, curving driveway that led up to the trullo we had rented. I spit out a few expletives. Mom said nothing, but from the set of her jaw it was clear that her annoyance was inching up. It was hard to imagine two grumpier visitors to Italy.

  We parked the car and struggled out of our seats.

  “How do you undo this damn thing?” said Mom, yanking with mighty irritation at her seat belt.

  Chris was already at the front door of the trullo, fumbling in the dark with a large ring of door keys.

  “You’ll find that these are a bit of a pain,” he said with a frustrated sigh as he made several attempts at the keyhole.

  Finally, one of the keys did the trick, and Chris pushed open the door.

  With a flick of a light switch our mood changed. The trullo was truly gorgeous, even better than the Web site photos had indicated. Whitewashed stone interior walls soared to domed ceilings; shiny terra-cotta tiles lay on the diagonal; niches of varying sizes and shapes—some used as windows, others to store knickknacks, books, and dvds—were cut into the wall. Broad archways marked the passageways to rooms. The wood trims around the doors and window frames were stained a dark brown. The living room, in which we stood, was furnished with black leather sofas and natural pine tables and dressers. I noticed a fireplace in a small alcove off the living room.

  “You can’t use that, I’m afraid,” said Chris, following my eyes. “Not sure whether it works all that well.”

  Instead, he gave me a quick rundown of the heating system and the locking mechanisms of the shuttered doors, and then incredibly convoluted instructions for operating the vcr/dvd/ satellite t v console, instructions that evaporated in my jet-lagged brain. Even in an alert and rested state, I am unable to retain information when it involves mastering more than the basics of modern electronics.

  He deposited a superintendent’s quantity of keys into my palm—every door in the place had two locks, and the front door had three—then he bade us good-night and disappeared into the blackness.

  I watched the taillights of his little car recede down the driveway and then reappear on the opposite hill. A wave of panic shot through me when I realized that not only did I not have his phone number in case of an emergency, the trullo itself did not have a phone.

  Mom had headed off to inspect the washroom facilities, and I wandered around to check out the rest of the trullo.

  I found a small bedroom with twin beds off the front room, part of the original structure. The back section of the trullo, however, was a completely modern addition consisting of two bedrooms—each with a queen-sized bed, and one (which Mom had claimed) with an ensuite—a kitchen with a small laundry room, and a second bathroom, all connected by a hall. Doors opened from the bedrooms and kitchen to the rear patio and an hourglass-shaped inground pool.

  I poked around the kitchen, opening cupboard doors and drawers. Provisions had thoughtfully been left for us—pasta, tomato sauce, fresh cheese, crusty Italian bread, olive oil, salad greens, tomatoes, beer. And two bottles of wine, one of which—the red—I opened and immediately drained by half.

  Mom and I sank into the black leather sofas in the front room.

  “Well, here’s to Italy and our adventure,” she said, jubilantly raising her glass to mine.

  No mention was made of our tempers—mine in particular— and I could not bring myself to apologize.

  3

  Alberobello, Martina Franca, Locorotondo

  Rain was hammering the slate tiles of the trullo’s roof when my eyes opened the next morning.

  I threw off the bedcovers, scrambled out of bed, pulled open the heavy wooden shuttered doors, and peeked through the glass. Fat drops were pinging, staccato-like, off the patio and the pool.

  I unlocked then opened the door to embrace the warm Italian air, and a bitter blast of cold—colder than I had experienced over a lifetime of Canadian winters—shot into the room. I gasped and slammed the door shut.

  I glanced at the floor, where the contents of my opened suitcase flopped over the edges, exposing their unsuitability: two bathing suits, capri pants, long gauzy skirts, sleeveless tops, strappy sandals. What was lacking were thick sweaters, wool socks, hip waders, mittens, and a hot water bottle.

  I pulled on the only sweater I had packed—an oversized, sickly pale green garment with a deep V-neck, which I had thrown in at the last minute—and wandered down the hall to the living room. Peering out a small window past the rain and the dissipating fog, I was alarmed at how high up on a hill we actually were. The driveway wound frighteningly into an abyss and then rose up a sharply steep, rut-infested incline. It looked impossible to scale by foot, much less car. I could not believe I had driven that road in the dark without screaming in fear.

  I padded off to Mom’s room.

  “Well, it’s not the best day to start a holiday, is it?” said Mom as she peeked out from under a thick layer of bedcovers.

  “Has the rain stopped?”

  “I’m sure it’ll clear up soon,” I said with assurance. “This is southern Italy, after all. Let’s go into town.”<
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  She did not seem pleased by this suggestion.

  “Why?” she pouted.

  “Because we just arrived in Italy,” I said impatiently. “Aren’t you curious to see the area? I’ll put on the kettle.”

  She didn’t say another word and gamely struggled out of bed.

  As we chowed down slices of a toasted baguette and tea in the kitchen, we could hear the low rumble of distant thunder.

  “What time did you want to leave?” asked Mom.

  “Now,” I answered. “Is that ok?”

  “Well, no,” she replied primly. “It takes me a bit of time to get moving.”

  “OK, how about five minutes?”

  She winced.

  “A bit longer than that. What I meant is that it takes me a while to get moving. ”

  “Oh, right,” I said, catching the euphemism.

  “I’ll let you know,” she said, and toddled unsteadily toward the bathroom.

  I waited. And waited. Her morning ablutions took longer than my teenage daughter’s. I passed the time flipping through an English-Italian phrasebook.

  My absolute favorite Italian word is “andiamo!” which translates into “let’s go!” It has such energy, enthusiasm, and optimism. When I am feeling full of vigor and anticipation I will say, “Andiamo!” I just love the sound of that word. I had the feeling that I would be using it a lot on this trip, but not in a good way.

  An hour later Mom emerged from her bedroom, startling me out of a nap.

  “OK, I think I’m ready,” she said. “Now, where did I put my glasses?”

  Four more minutes.

  She located her glasses and began rummaging through her purse.

  “I was sure I had some Kleenex in my purse. Oh, where is it? Would you mind grabbing me some from the bathroom?”

  One minute.

  “I need my puffer. Let’s see. Maybe it’s in my purse.”

  She conducted a forensic audit of the contents of her purse.

  “Yes, I think it’s there. Yes. There it is. I really should clean out my purse.”

  Two minutes.

  “Now, do you think I should bring my cane or my walker?

  Well, the walker is in the car anyway, isn’t it? I’ll bring both.

  What else am I forgetting?”

  “That I am impatient, perhaps?” I ventured.

  She paused in the middle of the room, put a finger to her lips, and stared at the floor as her brain scanned the possibilities.

  Two more minutes.

  She suddenly straightened up and beamed, “Well, whatever it is, it can’t be that important.”

  She shuffled to the front door and continued through it out onto the patio and toward the car. This all took another three minutes.

  I followed her and paused at the door to find the right key to lock up. Three more minutes.

  “What’s keeping you?!” Mom hollered from the car.

  Once in the car, I turned the ignition. The seat belt signal promptly began to beep.

  “Seat belt,” I said to Mom.

  “Oh come on,” she tutted. “We don’t need seat belts here.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “But it’s so uncomfortable.”

  Her body stiffened as I leaned over her, wrenched the buckle and sash from the passenger side, and drew it across her chest, theatrically snapping the buckle into its mate and adjusting it for comfort, though, according to my mother, a seat belt can never be adjusted for comfort. Years ago, she once seriously considered cutting the seat belts completely out of her car because, in addition to being a nuisance—they kept getting caught in the door, she claimed—they were not esthetically pleasing.

  My mind drifted back some twenty years to when I routinely strapped my toddlers into their car seats. Their bodies never stiffened; gosh, they were such compliant and agreeable little tykes, accepting without question the necessity of seat belt use.

  I loved hovering over my kids in those days, inhaling the sweet smell of their fresh-washed hair and clothing or catching the twinkle in their eyes. Occasionally they would grab my hair with their chubby, clumsy hands and pull my face close for a kiss, then erupt into shy but victorious giggles.

  But this was my mother, not my children. I smelled the familiar scent of her makeup, but it was not a moment that inspired playfulness.

  I can’t say I felt entirely comfortable mothering my mother. What comes naturally to me as a mother does not come naturally to me as a daughter. The emotional distance that had been allowed to grow between us over the years had seen to that.

  “You don’t have to baby me, you know,” said Mom sternly.

  “I’m quite capable of putting on my own seat belt, thank you very much.”

  She let out a sniff of disapproval as I double-checked that the buckle was secured. Like a practiced parent, I ignored the pout.

  We drove in silence toward Alberobello along rain-soaked, narrow, winding country roads and rolling landscape for about five miles. We could barely see anything through the rain-splattered windshield.

  I made a left turn at what appeared to be a main thoroughfare, and within seconds the sorts of buildings that signal the approach of civilization began to appear: a garden center, a few restaurants, a store selling ceramic tiles and flooring.

  Nothing looked remotely open.

  We pulled into a gas station, but no one approached us at the pumps. I got out of the car and wandered into the gas station’s café.

  “Chiusa oggi. Tutto,” a young man behind the counter said brusquely, with a wave of his hand. Closed today. Everything. No reason was given. Italians take their closings very seriously.

  “The town’s closed today,” I said to Mom when I returned to the car.

  “Why?”

  “Beats me,” I shrugged.

  “But it’s Thursday!”

  We drove up and down the empty streets of Alberobello.

  There’s something unsettling about a town without any activity. Eventually, with a sigh of surrender, we returned to our trullo.

  We retreated to our individual rooms and the warmth of our beds. I put my pajamas back on and added socks and the snot-green sweater. I scoured the cupboards and drawers for more blankets but came up empty-handed. How was it possible for Italy—my beloved, hot Italy!—to feel colder than Canada?

  “Are you warm enough?” I asked Mom when I peeked into her room.

  But her eyes were already shut.

  THE NEXT day we took another stab at checking out the area.

  Culture shock was no match for how utterly blindsided I was by a lack of all sense of direction. A road map was of no help because it did not show the numerous small country lanes that shot off in various directions from the main road. At least I assumed it was a main road.

  We dutifully followed the road signs to the nearby town of Locorotondo but, despite our efforts, ended up in another town, Martina Franca. Dumbfounded, I glanced down at the map in my lap. I had no idea how we ended up there, much less how we would find our way back.

  At least there was some action in Martina Franca. We inched through the busy streets filled with small cars. Elderly men and women wandered in and out of traffic.

  “Oh look!” cried Mom. “A church! Stop! I want to go in!”

  “It’s hard to stop here, Mom,” I stammered, checking my rearview mirror and swerving to avoid an oncoming car.

  “There’s traffic piling up behind me. You get out and go in. I’ll try to find a parking spot.”

  “You just passed a parking spot,” she said. “Why didn’t you park there?”

  “What spot?” I said, turning my head just as a small car deftly slipped into the vacant space. “How am I supposed to look for parking spaces and concentrate on driving in a foreign country?”

  “You’d notice them if you stopped being so grumpy,” she replied flatly. “Now stop the car.”

  In the middle of the street I jammed the car’s gear into neutral and pulled on the emerg
ency brake.

  Mom flung open the passenger door (without looking first to see if another car or someone on a bicycle was approaching; luckily, neither was) and laboriously maneuvered herself out of the car. Meanwhile I sprinted to the rear of the car, lifted the hatch, and unloaded her walker. I could feel the impatience of Italy boring into my back as horns tooted their irritation at this nervy pit stop.

  Normally when this happens, and I am possessed by the moral superiority of knowing that there is a very good reason why I have stopped the car, I launch into a small rage that involves certain fingers and unladylike language. But something prevented me this time. Perhaps it was the old man behind the wheel of the car that was nosing my rear bumper. I did not have the words to fire at him—well, not Italian words.

  Instead, I watched Mom persevere to the sidewalk, slowly raise her walker over the curb, and set off with great effort for the church.

  “Dear God,” I muttered. “Please shoot me before I reach that stage of life.”

  I got back into the car and began searching for a parking space, creeping along a dense labyrinth of streets. Upon circling the block I spotted—aha!—an empty spot close to the church where I had dropped off Mom. I pulled in—and it took all my skills to shoehorn the car into the space without scraping off the paint on my car or the cars on either side, I might add. After congratulating myself I squeezed out of the driver’s side, locked the car, double-checked that the car doors were indeed locked, and then turned toward the church, just in time to see Mom walking toward me.

  “I thought you wanted to see the church,” I said.

  “I saw it, said a prayer; it’s a lovely church,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Gee, when I pray I feel obliged to tell God that He might want to pour Himself a large coffee and settle into a comfortable chair. My prayers are rarely brief.

  Low stone walls lined both sides of the two-lane highway back to Alberobello. Ahead, a hilltop town came into view. An impressively ancient white stone church dome and bell tower hovered behind a whitewashed stone wall bordering terraced fields. The town was Locorotondo.

  We followed the signs to the centro storico and by some fluke wound up in front of the same town hall where we had first rendezvoused with Chris a few nights earlier. Across the street, people were milling around tables and stalls arrayed with brightly colored goods.