Incontinent on the Continent

by Jane Christmas

  A large unattractive sign announced “Hotel Hamilton,” with the words “Ristorante, Pizzeria, Self Service” printed underneath. Behind it, on an elevated patch of land, was quite possibly the sorriest-looking piece of modern architecture in existence.

  We waved our thanks to our guide, drove across the highway, and sat in the parking lot staring at the Hotel Hamilton, a bright white square slab located behind a gas station.

  “It sure isn’t how I’d pictured it,” I said to Mom. “For some reason I imagined something old, grand, and ornate.”

  “Me too,” she said. Then, trying to find something positive in the situation, added, “At least it looks clean.”

  We sat in a sort of dumb silence for a moment, as if trying to convince ourselves that we were actually going to be spending the night there. It was the polar opposite of all the photos you see of charming pensiones and hotels in small-town Italy.

  Eventually I heaved a sigh.

  “I’ll go in and see if they have a room.”

  I somehow knew they would.

  The lobby was deserted save for a startled front-desk clerk with a spiffy beige suit and slick black hair. A large board dangling with keys to every guest room hung on a wall behind the clerk as he bent over the room register and studiously perused it, rubbing his hands together before allowing that there was a vacancy. I acknowledged the rate of sixty-five euros a night including breakfast and signed us in.

  The best part about room 105 was its gleaming mahogany door and an oval-shaped brass plate that displayed the number. Behind the door was a room that had all the warmth of a student dorm. Twin beds were covered with plain green bedspreads of a utilitarian design; the blond wood credenza-cum- dresser was remarkable in its utter lack of personality; the closet rod was set at a height that would have been comfortable for a six-foot-seven-inch-tall basketball player. We left our clothes in our suitcases.

  The bathroom was bright and clean and sparkled like a toothpaste advertisement.

  The prospect of a warm and ample lunch gave us renewed hope, and after we had settled ourselves and had a quick wash, we made our way to the hotel restaurant. We were ready to tuck into some yummy Sicilian food.

  The dining room was empty. I coughed loudly in the hope of summoning someone, but no one came. I heard clattering sounds in the kitchen and tentatively pushed open a swinging door.

  “Buongiorno,” I called out in a pleasant if slightly timid voice.

  Eventually a man of about forty, slightly heavyset with sandy-colored hair and a matching moustache, came forward, wiping his hands on a very soiled apron and cocking his chin toward me as if to say, “What the fuck do you want?” He was either a waiter or the cook.

  I politely explained that we were hungry and would like lunch.

  He gestured roughly toward a table, threw down two menus, and disappeared.

  “Let’s just ask for a pizza,” said Mom. “The sign outside said they serve it.”

  But when the waiter came back for our order he said emphatically, “No pizza!” and made a cutting motion in the air with his hand. It seemed unwise to press the point.

  And so it continued. The rough service bordered on hostility that, in another country, might have been grounds for a war crimes tribunal.

  We ended up ordering the soup. It was quite possibly the worst concoction my stomach has ever entertained: a can of chickpeas that had been dumped into a pot, boiled for five minutes, tossed with some dried (not fresh) herbs, and plopped down in front of us so harshly that the contents slopped onto the table top. No apology was given; no effort was made to clean it up. The waiter retreated to a nearby wall and glared at us with narrowed eyes while sucking angrily on a cigarette.

  In retaliation, I dug into my purse and fished out my journal and a pen. I began to write in it furiously with the hope that he would think I was a food or travel writer and that he would be moved to amend either the food or the service. He did neither.

  We finished off with weak tea and paid the bill of fourteen euros. Frankly, meals like that make me question the purpose of eating.

  There was obviously nothing to hold our attention at the hotel, so we returned glumly to our car and drove to Agrigento, about fifteen miles away. The sun made a surprise cameo appearance. Well, maybe things are looking up, I thought.

  Agrigento is by far a larger center than Racalmuto and would have yielded nicer hotels and restaurants, but the night before, in Taormina, a tour guide in the dining room had warned us about Agrigento’s robust car-theft trade.

  Agrigento has another, more positive claim to fame, however— the Valley of the Temples. It is home to the largest and best-preserved collection of Doric temples outside of Greece. As we sped along the autostrada we could see a magnificent example on top of a hill, and we turned off to explore.

  Tourist organization is not Italy’s strong suit, and Agri-gento was no exception. There were no signs indicating where to buy tickets, let alone what to do if you happen to have someone with you who has great difficulty walking.

  Despite numerous queries (I had memorized the handy, “Mia madre è disabile” from my phrase book) no one was helpful. I drove to the turnstiles that formed a barrier across the road leading to the temples, but it was an automated system and there wasn’t a real person around to ask for assistance.

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Mom as we returned to the main parking lot. “I’ll stay in the car.”

  “That’s hardly fair,” I protested, looking around for someone who had a smidgen of authority for this attraction. “I don’t like leaving you in the car.”

  “No really, I’m fine. You go on ahead. There are some shops around so I’ll be alright.”

  “OK. I promise I won’t be long.”

  I finally found tickets for sale at a gift shop, but when I asked about wheelchair accessibility I was met with big shrugs and small smiles. I paid for one ticket and struck out briskly toward the temples. I glanced up at the sky and considered returning to the car for my umbrella, and then chided myself for not channeling more optimistic thoughts from the universe.

  “It will not rain,” I chanted to myself.

  I was already through the turnstiles and more than halfway to the Temple of Concord, a distance of about a quarter mile, when the sky opened. Smarter people than I casually pulled out umbrellas from purses and pockets and carried on without concern. I pretended to be oblivious to both the rain and the alarmed looks from my fellow tourists, who obviously felt that a woman my age should be better prepared.

  I focused on the ruins rather than the rain streaming down my face, and on the massive gnarly trunks of several olive trees that were as ancient as the temples themselves.

  The scale of the eight temples was fantastic—every stone larger than a human, every column defying an easy explanation as to how it was all put together. Four thousand years ago, the Greeks developed cranes, winches, and derricks, but that knowledge does not diminish the marvel of how these enormous structures were built. It would take a full day or two to wander the entire site, poke around the digs, peer into the catacombs in hopes of finding a human skull, and visit the museum that is reportedly chock full of locally found artifacts, but rain and an elderly parent alone in the car prevented me from venturing too far.

  By now I was drenched, though that barely hints at my condition: I looked like I had been dragged through the Mediterranean Sea for a week. People regarded me the way they would a homeless person—with pity and veiled disdain. I put on a brave face, activated my I’m-ignoring-your-glares force field, and floated winsomely back down the dirt road toward the car park.

  When I reached the car Mom was fast asleep, her head thrown back and her mouth wide open. I glanced around embarrassedly in case a lynch mob had assembled to punish me for leaving a little old lady locked in a car. I rapped gently on the driver’s-side window before unlocking the door. She jolted awake.

  “There you are!” she said, snapping to life and fussing busily
. “I’ve been out and about myself and bought some postcards. How was your walk?”

  Then, zeroing in on my soggy appearance, “We really have to do something about that hair.”

  Naturally, the sun came out as soon as we began the drive back to our hotel. We took a detour through Racalmuto once more to see if the place had improved since our visit a few hours earlier. Even in the sun, even after a good soaking by the rain, it had not. I hoped it was just the time of year, because I really wanted Racalmuto to be beautiful.

  We trolled the streets looking for a place to eat. We were famished. Hunger always seemed to strike us when Italy was shut down for siesta.

  I parked the car and Mom, and I set off on foot to see what could be scrounged in the way of food. The rain-slicked streets were deserted, and there was an ominous silence to the place, as if someone might suddenly burst through a door and start firing a machine gun.

  I spied a man walking toward me, but he turned out to be one of those life-size statues that are placed on park benches or on sidewalks to throw you off guard. There was no identifying plaque on this particular statue, but later on, having consulted that great oracle Google, I deduced it to be the Sicilian novelist and dramatist Leonardo Sciascia, Racalmuto’s famous son.

  I found a bar and purchased a bottle of Sicilian wine and two stale croissants. “This is going to have to serve as dinner,” I told Mom upon returning to the car. “I’m not going into that hotel dining room again.”

  Back at the hotel we sat on our beds in our pajamas, munching croissants and gulping wine.

  “You finish it off,” said Mom. “I’m not that keen on wine.”

  With that, she turned out her light, curled onto her side away from me, and prepared to fall asleep.

  “But it’s only seven o’clock!” I protested.

  “It’s dark out. That means bedtime,” she said. “Good night!”

  7

  Messina, Catanzaro Marina

  TO HAVE seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.” Goethe penned that in 1788, and I could not agree with him more. Although there was much more to see of Sicily— coastal Cefalù, Palermo, and a few interior villages were places I had a desire to explore—it was going to require a future visit to delve further into its charms. And so, to paraphrase Julius Caesar, veni, vidi, vamoose.

  I suppose this is a downside to renting a home base when on holiday. My sense of frugality—which inexplicably seizes me at the most inopportune times—made me mindful that we were paying for hotel rooms (and lousy ones at that) as well as the rental of the trullo in Alberobello.

  We checked out of the Hotel Hamilton in the morning, having availed ourselves of what passed for a continental breakfast (the less said about it the better), and made our way back to Messina.

  We took the same route we had travelled the day before, mainly because it was the fastest route, but also because it had been so lovely that I did not mind revisiting it.

  “We should stop very soon,” Mom said quietly about a half hour into our journey.

  This was code for “I have to go to the bathroom. Badly.”

  I pressed down on the accelerator pedal and kept my eyes open for an Autogrill.

  Italy’s highways are strung with this bright, polished fast-service chain of restaurants. They have acres of freshly prepared food, and everything exudes deliciousness. The other nice thing about Autogrills is that almost all of them have accessible washrooms.

  Ten minutes later, around Enna, I spotted an Autogrill. We slipped out of traffic and followed the exit lane into the spacious parking lot, right up to the front doors and into an empty handicapped parking space.

  In the rearview mirror I saw a tour bus lumber into the parking lot.

  “Andiamo! You better hurry!” I alerted Mom.

  I jumped out of the car and ran around to the passenger side to yank her out, but she was so slow moving her arthritic legs into position that by the time she was out of the car and on her feet, the busload of more sprightly seniors—from Germany— had swarmed the Autogrill with the same goal—to find the washroom.

  Mom hustled off to the ladies’ room, and I hung back to poke about in the Autogrill’s large gift area, where a mouthwatering variety of cheeses, chocolates, meat, pastas, sauces, oils, and wines were arranged as if it was about to be photographed for a food magazine.

  Occasionally I craned my neck over the food displays to check on Mom, who I could see standing patiently, a grim look on her face, in a long queue for one of four cubicles.

  She seemed OK, so I sauntered over to the bar and ordered a cappuccino.

  The downside of Autogrills is their organization, or rather lack thereof. There are often a lot of staff behind the counter preparing food and laying it out attractively, but the whole operation seems to fall apart when a customer attempts to actually order something. I often found it safer just to order a cappuccino.

  At the coffee bar, a gaggle of senior men from the German tour bus had gathered. If you want to witness “survival of the fittest” in action, or if ever you have reason to explain the concept to someone from another planet, then an Autogrill is the place to be when a coach tour rolls in. It is a ton of fun watching tourists and natives duke it out over who was first in line. Italy and Germany were about to square off, so I took my cappuccino to a table and settled in for the action.

  To be fair, the Germans were at the coffee counter first, but they were milling about in such a fleshy mob of disarray that you could imagine Hitler spinning in his grave. The Italians, their home advantage notwithstanding, are amazingly unflustered when they tangle with opponents who hail from a country where a modicum of civil order is enshrined in the constitution. The intensity of this particular meet was heightened by the fact that it was ten o’clock in the morning, a time when both cultures were in a state of advanced caffeine withdrawal.

  A German who had already placed his order at the bar threw the f irst volley by complaining about the gauche behavior of an Italian who was at his elbow and who had audaciously stridden up to the front of the loose queue to place his order.

  Unbowed, the Italian returned a dismissive shrug and exchanged quick words with the barista. A few of the Italian’s countrymen moved closer to the bar to run interference. The Germans cried foul in a booming baritone, throwing the argumentative Italians momentarily off guard. Italians dislike loud voices unless they are their own.

  A melee ensued, with the Italians predictably but entertainingly casting arrogant sneers at the Germans and making slow brushing movements on their sleeves, a gesture meant to dust off the trivial and provincial antics of the Germans. The Germans were ultimately edged out because of a lack of conversational Italian and, with rueful expressions on their faces, shuffled into a stout, straight line.

  I drained the last of my cappuccino and proceeded to kill more time perusing the lavish assortment of Easter goodies, which included chocolate bunnies the size of young children. But what was taking Mom so long?

  I wandered back to the ladies’ washroom. No one was there.

  “Mom? . . . Mom?”

  A small, sheepish voice finally came from behind one of the cubicle doors: “Yes?”

  “Are you ok?” I asked tentatively.

  The cubicle door creaked open slowly, just a crack.

  “I’ve had a terrible accident,” she whimpered, her head bowed in shame.

  “Oh dear,” I commiserated.

  It appeared that the more continent and mobile of the German bus travellers had rushed in, hogged all the stalls, and left Mom to wait in line a very long time. By the time her turn came for a cubicle her defenses had fallen faster than her trousers.

  “What can I do to help?” I asked softly.

  “Can you bring me some fresh clothes from the car?”

  She was miserable and embarrassed when we resumed our journey. She barely spoke.

  “It must be awful to not have control
over your body,” I offered.

  “It is. It comes out of nowhere—the urge to go, I mean,” she said. She turned her head away from me. “Without any warning. I wish there was something I could do about it. This is why I don’t want to go out with anyone.”

  She had had a couple of suitors since my dad’s death, but she had kept them at arm’s length. At first I thought she was being unduly prudish, but now I understood. For someone as fastidious as my mother in matters of appearance and social decorum, incontinence was the worst possible curse.

  “Don’t worry,” I said perkily. “We’ll be back in our little trullo tonight. Let me know if you need to stop again.”

  The sun came out when we turned north at Catania, but it did not brighten Mom’s spirits.

  “Look!” I said, pointing enthusiastically. “Mount Etna!”

  The volcano’s trademark smoky, wispy plume was etched ominously across the sky like a signature, but even mighty Etna could not alleviate Mom’s funk. I considered amusing her with a quip that she and Etna had something in common— they are both in a constant state of eruption—but then I thought better of it.

  “Did you know that Etna is so big that its plume and lava flows can be seen from the International Space Station?” I said, trying to draw her into conversation. She responded with little more than “Hmm” and a slight smile.

  And then, “Are those houses?”

  “Why, yes they are,” I answered, rather perplexed myself by the sight: Etna, the largest and most unpredictable volcano in Europe, has a bourgeoning housing development creeping up its side, along with farms and vineyards.

  “What sort of a marketing slogan do you suppose you’d need to get homebuyers clamoring for a piece of real estate like that?” I wondered aloud. “‘Go with the flow?’ ‘Bank on a boom market?’”

  In fact, probably no slogan at all. Nothing better illustrates the diffident and fatalistic attitude of Sicilians than a subdivision making its way up the side of a volcano.