Incontinent on the Continent

by Jane Christmas

  I drove to Locorotondo, where I also came up empty-handed. I approached a couple of girls—they were probably about fourteen years of age—with long, straight hair and the teenage uniform of hoodies and jeans. They were holding hands, an endearing cultural affectation.

  With my trusty phrase book in hand, I asked if they knew of an Internet café. They looked at each other and seemed confused by the question. I tried speaking to them in French, with marginally better success.

  The girls took me on a long walk through town, down a steep set of stairs, and along an unpopulated street—a walk of about fifteen minutes—but once we reached our destination it became clear that they had misinterpreted my request and had taken me to a computer store, which was closed anyway.

  I thanked them graciously, but as I retraced my steps I muttered unkind things about their intelligence. Really, how many teens these days don’t know about the Internet? Were these girls still playing with dolls?

  I wandered into a few hotels and asked about Internet availability, but they either did not have it or did not know what I was talking about.

  I headed back to Alberobello. (That I even found my way back to Alberobello says a lot about intuitive driving and the power of prayer.) Motoring slowly through a tangle of narrow roads and lanes, resolutely determined to find an Internet café, I passed the oddly named Twin Pub. In the window sat a computer terminal.

  I parked the car and dashed inside. The place was empty save for the old owner/barista. Did he, by chance, have Internet access?

  “Sì,” he said, cocking his head toward the computer. He extended his hand for identification; I handed over my passport. He had me sign a form that was written in Italian but that I gathered was a promise I would not launch porn or terrorist activity onto his system.

  The formalities concluded, I sat down and logged on. Within seconds I was greeted with fifty-five messages in my inbox. Nothing says you belong to the world more than dozens of messages in your inbox.

  After deleting the solicitations to buy Viagra, the heartfelt pleas to help princes spirit money out of Nigeria, and the well-intentioned but thoroughly annoying jokes, cute-animal photos, and homilies forwarded by friends from friends of friends, I was left with five real messages.

  Adam announced he had a girlfriend who was so pretty he wasn’t entirely certain he deserved her. Matthew’s message was a simple “’Sup?” I keep telling that boy that I am his mother, not a rap artist, but he clearly sees no distinction between the two. Zoë excitedly reported that she was having a blast on her French exchange. She loved her host family, her new friends, school, and life in France in general. A couple of messages from Colin inquired how Mom and I were faring and how it felt to feel the warm sun on our faces. (I hastily corrected his weather assumptions.) I answered all of them.

  Immensely satisfied that all was right with the world and my loved ones, I logged off. Before leaving, I asked the barista for a cappuccino, savored every drop, then drove contentedly back to the trullo.

  THE NEXT day, having found my sea legs for travelling in unfamiliar places, I returned to Alberobello and followed the signs to the centro storico. I arrived in front of the imposing neoclassical basilica just as Mass had ended. The grand Piazza Antonio Curri was swarming with people, mostly older men and women strolling leisurely in small groups down Corso Vittorio Emanuele, every one of them dressed in black.

  Judging by the alarmed looks on their faces, I had obviously missed a sign informing me that vehicular traffic was prohibited, at least at this time of day. I pulled off into the small Piazza xxvii Maggio and grabbed the last available parking spot.

  I got out of the car and took a short stroll. My eyes settled on a small terrace next to a church, and I walked to the edge of it to check out the view. An incredible sight greeted me: a hillside crammed and cascading with hundreds and hundreds of white stucco trulli. This was Rione Monti, a unesco World Heritage site.

  Small, conical-shaped stone dwellings are unique to this area of Italy, though not to the world. They can be found in Egypt, Turkey, Malta, Syria, Spain, France, and even Ireland. But the sheer proliferation of these buildings in the southern part of Apulia makes Alberobello the trulli headquarters.

  Initially constructed using the drystone method, they served as seasonal or daily shelters for farmers and shepherds, and also housed livestock and farm equipment. When the region came under the feudal system, the ruling counts of Con-versano permitted farmers to build their little stone homes as long as they didn’t use mortar. What the cunning counts were trying to do was evade taxation. A law had been established forbidding the creation of large urban areas without the consent of the emperor’s tribunal. The counts reckoned that if they could keep their little growing fiefdoms under the radar they could pocket the taxes from their tenant farmers and avoid paying taxes to the Crown. Whenever word got out that a royal inspector was in the vicinity, the counts ordered their farmers to dismantle their homes and make themselves scarce. Once the inspector had left—likely curious as to why there were so many little rock piles dotting the fields—the counts called their farmers back to work and let them reconstruct their trulli. You can imagine the scale of such an operation, with three thousand inhabitants in a “non-existent” village. And you can also imagine the farmers’ resentment.

  In 1797 a couple of them had had enough. Risking the wrath of the counts, they successfully petitioned King Ferdi-nand iv of Bourbon to be liberated from their feudal restraints, including the silly no-mortar rule.

  Looking out onto the sea of these adorable and enchanting dwellings—I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to march out of them—it occurred to me that Mom might enjoy this sight. As I walked quickly back to the car I passed a museum devoted to trullo history. A sign indicated it was open until 4:00 pm. I looked at my watch—1:00 pm. There was still time to dash back home and get Mom.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said half aloud as I started up the car. “We’ve been in Italy for nearly five days, and all I’ve become acquainted with is the inside of this car.”

  By the time I returned to the trullo I had made up my mind about a few things.

  “C’mon,” I said to Mom as I stood at her bedside. “Get dressed, and let’s go out. I found something you’d like.”

  “But I’m so comfortable here,” she squeaked, pulling the covers close to her chin.

  “No really, this is crazy. We’re in Italy. You’re not seeing anything, and by extension neither am I. We’ll be back in an hour.”

  She propped herself up and gave me an imploring look, hoping I’d change my mind.

  “I’m serious,” I said as patiently as I could.

  “Do I get a cup of tea first?” she asked.

  “A quick one then. I’ll put on the kettle.”

  Fifteen minutes later, after she had put on her beige pantsuit and running shoes and applied her coral lipstick, we began what was becoming a routine drive—descending the long driveway and then ascending the steep hill on the opposite side of the valley. This time I managed not to stall the car.

  We returned to the square and the museum in Alberobello. The little church that had taken me twenty seconds to walk to took Mom ten painful minutes to reach, and once there all she seemed to care about was locating a bench so she could sit down to catch her breath.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” I said. “Come here and look at this view. You won’t believe it.”

  She raised herself reluctantly from the bench, hobbled unsteadily toward where I stood, and gazed out at the masses of trulli before her. I looked at her, waiting for an excited reaction.

  “That’s nice, dear,” she said vacantly. “Now can I sit down?”

  She turned around and returned to the bench.

  I stared at her in disbelief. “That’s nice”? What had happened to her? She loves this sort of stuff!

  Suddenly, an older version of my mother materialized before me. Over the years I had ignored the fact that she was aging. Ev
en when she had hip surgery and a knee replacement, I had considered them merely tune-ups to return her to full mobility. It had never occurred to me that her condition would worsen.

  Now, with clarity and shock, I saw her frailty and her stoic determination to maintain her independence and spirits while coping with a debilitating disability. She always denied having pain in her legs, but her eyes now betrayed her practiced optimism.

  There were other signs. I had noticed how she fumbled with the simplest items as if she were holding them for the first time. And she was becoming increasingly absentminded. At first I thought I had forgotten to relay information to her, but the lapses were occurring with regularity. She claimed I never told her things, such as the fact that we were going to Viterbo in a few weeks. Yet we had talked about that part of our trip numerous times. In new surroundings I was seeing a different version of my mother.

  I sat down on the bench with her. “There’s an antique store across the street. Do you want to go in?”

  When I was growing up, she could sniff out antique stores a mile away, and nothing could get her moving faster than the knowledge that one was in the vicinity. It had become something of a family joke.

  “No, it’s OK. You go over if you like,” she said. “I’m happy to stay here.”

  She did not want to walk up the piazza to the basilica or stroll over to the gelato shop or even window-shop. She was content to see Italy from the passenger seat of a car.

  “There’s a museum about the trulli just up there,” I said. “You like museums. Would you like to see it?”

  It was obvious from her expression that she would not.

  Nevertheless, she got up from the bench and wobbled for a moment. I took her hand as she steadied herself on her cane, and carefully led her to the Museo del Territorio.

  We paid our entry fee and wandered from room to room looking at shards of pottery and ancient farm implements, diagrams explaining the construction of a trullo, and historical photos of the area. Nothing held Mom’s attention for long.

  “I want to go back to bed,” she said finally.

  On the drive back to the trullo we commiserated about the cold, rainy weather. I was certain that warmth and sun would improve her health and our holiday.

  “Maybe we should head down south to Sicily,” I suggested.

  “The weather might be better there.”

  “Yes, let’s do that,” she said dreamily. “When were you thinking of going?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning.”

  5

  San Mango d’Aquino, Reggio di Calabria, Taormina

  I WASN’T ENTIRELY certain how to get to Sicily, but I had a map. Based on my quick calculation it looked to be a day’s drive. Early the next morning I bundled Mom into the car and drove away from our chilly trullo. Naturally, because we were trying to escape the rain, the sun popped out.

  Our first stop was an Agip gas station in Martina Franca.

  “Il pieno, per favore,” I said confidently to the gas jockey. It was one of the less salacious phrases I had managed to memorize from my little Italian phrase book.

  The gas jockey inserted the hose from the gas pump into the tank of my car, and while the euros turned over briskly on the pump’s display panel he proceeded to rattle on about, I think, whether I wanted the windshield cleaned or the engine checked.

  Although I have a very limited knowledge of Italian, I have been told that I have a convincing Italian accent. The danger is that Italians then assume that I speak the language fluently.

  I have also been told that I look Italian, probably because of my dark hair.

  “Grazie, solo il pieno, per favore,” I answered with a firm nod, hoping that would be the end of it. Then I could not help adding, “Signor? Dov’è la strada a Sicilia?” I asked.

  I recognized phrases in his response such as a sinistra (to the left), a destra (to the right), and sempre diritto (straight ahead). That was all I needed to get me started.

  Within a few minutes we were sailing along the ss172 , through orange groves and the rolling hills of Apulia. I tried to channel the spirit of Francesco da Mosto, the puckish and exuberant host of a tv series of Italian travelogues, who scoots about the country in a little red convertible. Hmm, a little red convertible, I mused; perhaps we should have rented one.

  Less than an hour later, the trullo-dotted landscape came to an abrupt end, and the road began a lazy descent. The sun was burning off the morning haze, and directly in front of us was the sparking Gulf of Taranto.

  Returning my attention to the road—and since I was driving, this seemed a fairly smart move—the coastal plain revealed Taranto, an industrial city with a smell to match. Its factory stacks were already belching smoke and steam, fouling the air of a new day. Not exactly what I expected from the city whose claim to fame is the tarantella.

  The terrain levelled out, and we turned onto the e90. The road ran close to the coast but, sadly, did not afford a view of the Gulf of Taranto. We caught the occasional glimpse of sparkling blue sea or an olive grove surrounding a tidy farm, but generally speaking, the route did not serve up anything but a bland and desolate landscape of lumbering truck traffic and dust-choked road construction.

  Although we kept our eyes peeled for the e940 turn off at Sybaris, we missed it, and I pulled into a gas station/café to verify directions. I was about to get into the car to resume our journey when Apollo of the e90 roared into the parking lot on his motorcycle. He was dressed head to toe in metallic-blue, skintight leather, under which rippled a gazillion taut muscles. He alighted gracefully from his matching blue hog and walked with long purposeful strides, as if in slow-motion, toward the café, running his fingers through shoulder-length, dark hair that he shook free, the curls obediently falling into place. Cradled under his right arm was a metallic-blue helmet in a design that Mercury himself might have favored.

  He had such a dazzling combination of confidence and vanity. There was nothing to do but stand helplessly with my mouth wide open, which I did for too long a time.

  “Now, what would you do with him?” snapped my mother disapprovingly. “Get in the car and let’s go.”

  “Actually, I was wondering what he would do with me,” I mumbled as I slipped behind the steering wheel of our station wagon.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing,” I said, letting the sound of the ignition drown my reply.

  Our journey along the A3 Autostrada del Sol was leisurely, toll free, and not nearly as harrowing as I had expected. There were no cars shooting past like rocket launchers (well, not many), the directional signs were pretty straightforward and understandable even to a non-Italian, and the scenery became more arresting the farther south we drove.

  Dark clouds gathered and followed us through the coastal plains of Basilicata and then to mountainous Calabria, where the Pollino range merges with the Sila mountains. We found ourselves entering a terrain of immense forested mountains and plunging valleys. The only evidence of civilization was the road on which our car zipped around gasp-inducing bends and through black tunnels of blasted rock. The rock face was so close that in places you could stretch your hand out of the car window and touch it. Every so often, the sort of scenery that lands on the cover of a tourist brochure of Italy would pop into view: a villa perched on a hilltop surrounded by a stand of cypress, or clusters of homes and tidy vineyards and orchards scattered around the base of a valley.

  But the scene-stealer for me was the autostrada.

  Civil engineering is an art form in Italy. When it comes to roads and road design, the Italians are, in my humble opinion, the hands-down world champions. Italian engineers approach their construction projects without disturbing the land or its natural contours. They don’t bully the landscape into submission; they caress it.

  For someone who is not particularly fond of driving and who had such misgivings about driving in Italy, I felt exhilarated behind the wheel, taking curves that hugged a mountain bend, barrelling throug
h dark tunnels, and crossing bridges that soared above precipitous valleys. It was pure scenery— not an advertising billboard in sight. Had we so desired, we could have pulled into one of the numerous rest stops thoughtfully provided along the road for travellers seeking a place to pause and admire the view or to munch on their lunch.

  Speaking of lunch, someone was getting hungry.

  “It’s twelve o’clock,” said Mom. “I need to eat. My diabetes, you know.”

  “OK, the next exit we reach, we’ll turn off,” I replied.

  Just past Cosenza I veered onto an off-ramp with a sign announcing San Mango d’Aquino. I figured it would produce a restaurant. This was Italy, after all.

  The road wound steeply up a mountain and continued this way for some time. Nothing resembling a restaurant (or rather, an open one) presented itself. The route was lined with bland buildings that appeared to be boarded up or abandoned. Still, we continued to follow the road upward. I considered turning around, but by now we were half intrigued, half amused by our choice of exit.

  “If you see people wearing wings then we can safely assume that we’ve gone too far,” I said.

  Up and up we continued. When we finally arrived at the summit, we were too afraid to look down. Homes were hung over the lip of a cliff, giving literal meaning to “living on the edge.”

  “Can you imagine waking up each morning in a place like this?” gasped Mom. She is not a fan of heights. “I’d die.”

  The grade of the road levelled off, and we inched our way along a cobblestone street in search of a restaurant. Finding nothing that fit that description, we broadened our criteria to include a grocery store.

  “There’s one,” I said, bringing the car to a stop alongside a small store. Beside it was a small fenced courtyard that overlooked the abyss. “Maybe we can get sandwiches made up.”

  The sound of a signora humming happily greeted us when we entered the grocery store. “Buongiorno,” she called out in a singsong voice from behind the deli counter.