Summers in Supino

by Maria Coletta McLean

  “Are these all your cousins?” he asked.

  “Of course not. These cousins just dropped in on their way up north. Usually there’s only about a dozen of us for dinner. Tonight’s a bit of an exception. Do you have a lot of cousins?”

  “I have three,” he said.

  “I have about 33.”

  The dinner conversation began with counting cousins — did we have 33 or more? — and that led to heated discussions about cousins living in Italy and the States and whether we were including them in the count. We ate my mother’s homemade ravioli and drank Uncle Primo’s homemade wine. The meatballs sparked a lively discussion between my two aunts regarding the addition of ground pork and veal to the ground beef and whether the extra expense was worth it. A third debate took off from there concerning Romano cheese — should it be added to the meatball mixture before cooking or just sprinkled on afterwards?

  Then I brought in the salad and my brother taught Bob his “secret method” of cutting a meatball in half and using it to wipe the spaghetti sauce off his plate so that the plate was cleaned for the salad. The salad was already dressed with oil and Uncle Primo’s wine from last year that had turned to vinegar. Bob was asking why we ate our salad after our meal and what were these dark leaves — escarole, we explained. And he missed most of the argument about who made the best wine in the family. I brought in the chocolate cake my mother had made; my sister brought the coffee pot. By the time the plates and cups had been filled and distributed around the table, there were a dozen different conversations going on and I realized Bob had given up trying to keep track and was sitting back, like my dad, just watching.

  I went to the McLeans’ house for dinner the following week. We sat in the living room, among freshly polished end tables adorned with starched lace doilies and vases of porcelain flowers. To get to the couch I had to walk across an Indian carpet with visible vacuum marks and see my footsteps once I sat down. Bob’s parents asked me about school. I was in my final year at Weston Collegiate and I started talking about Wuthering Heights. I thought it was going pretty well until I realized they were talking about the movie and I was talking about the book.

  At the dinner table, we began with iceberg lettuce quarters in individual wooden bowls. On the table were bottles of salad dressing I’d never heard of before — blue cheese, Thousand Island, and ranch. Then Mr. McLean passed me a plate with a slice of rare roast beef and asked, “Horseradish?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about until Bob reached over and offered me a bowl filled with grated something that smelled sharp and looked anemic. “No, thank you,” I said.

  Mrs. McLean passed me another bowl containing another pale condiment. “Sour cream? For your baked potato?”

  “No, thank you.”

  After that, no one spoke; they just ate. Partway through the meal, someone passed a small plate of Wonder Bread slices and a smaller bowl of butter. I thought back to our dinner table with crusty buns, fresh from the Italian bakery, piled on the tablecloth, and one plate per person. Here, there were multiple plates and silverware and everything matched. Our table settings were as diverse as the company who squeezed around the table, talking and laughing. Here, everything was peaceful and orderly. I got so unnerved by the silence that I forgot to eat my foil-wrapped baked potato waiting in its own little wicker basket to the left of my bread-and-butter plate.

  “Did you not like your potato?” asked Bob’s mother.

  I assured her I had just overlooked it and they sat and waited silently while I ate my potato. Sweat gathered under my armpits, erupted across my forehead, as I forked pieces of a potato the size of P.E.I. into my mouth. For dessert we had a store-bought apple pie. Bob’s mother cut the pie and started putting large slices on the dessert plates. While I was trying to think of a polite way to say I couldn’t eat that much pie, Bob’s father was offering me cream for my coffee, so I said, “No, thank you. Not for me.” As a result, I had no cream and no pie. I was left to choke down bitter black coffee while they ate their pie and drank their coffee with sweet cream.

  I never did get used to his family’s quiet Sunday dinners, but Bob enjoyed the boisterous gatherings at my house and my relatives’ homes. He embraced the Italian tradition of celebrating every family occasion with a big meal and a big crowd.

  The morning after our meeting with Pietro, we were sitting outside the Bar Italia watching the market-day activities when a man appeared at our table.

  “Mr. Bob of Toronto?” asked the stranger. “Buongiorno. Good morning. I’m Franco. Ahh, Maria, your father. Mi dispiace . . . I was knocking on your door and one of your neighbours called out, ‘Bar Italia,’ so here I am. I’m taking you for lunch.”

  “I think Pietro’s coming for us later,” I said.

  “Change of plans,” said Franco.

  “Will you have a coffee?” asked Bob, because it was barely 11 o’clock and way too early for the one o’clock lunch, but Franco declined. He said we had to get going, and since his Fiat was parked half on the road, half on the patio of the bar, we got in immediately.

  As we sped off, Franco said he was taking us on a little pre-lunch sightseeing trip to the town of Anagni. “Just a few kilometres away,” he assured us. Bob and I settled back in our seats; we knew that a few Italian kilometres could mean five or could mean 60.

  Anagni turned out to be like a lot of the villages in the area — first you had to drive back and forth across the face of the mountain before you reached the town. There were the same cobblestone streets, some too narrow for cars, others stuffed with Fiats and Vespas and stray dogs, the lines of laundry crisscrossing the roadways, the red geraniums tumbling from the window boxes, the market vendors set up in the piazza. We stopped at a cathedral set high on the hillside to enjoy the view.

  “Look there,” instructed Franco, “at the base of the mountain. That’s Supino.”

  The cathedral itself was closed for repairs, so we couldn’t see the frescoes Franco told us covered the walls and ceilings. Instead we went to a little shop nearby that sold postcards. After we’d admired those, we stepped into the bar next door and had a cappuccino.

  “Even though the cathedral is closed,” Franco assured us, “this is one of the finest views of Supino.” As if it was worth the drive to this village, just to admire the place we’d started out from. Then Franco checked his watch. “Time to pick up my daughter. My wife wants me to also pick up a loaf of bread from the bakery.”

  We jumped back in the Fiat and just outside of Supino we slowed near the intersection of the four streets, Quattro Strade. Franco pulled into the empty gravel parking lot of a dark, deserted-looking building. No lights and no sign. I could just hear Joe: What you need a sign for? Everybody knows it’s the bakery.

  The bakery was an unfinished room containing plaster pails, wheelbarrows, and deserted tubs of water. In the corner three workers were unwrapping their lunches and the fragrance of roasted peppers scented the air. Franco got involved in their discussion of the first figs of the season. The next thing we knew he was holding a glass of wine.

  “Vino?” offered one of the workers, but we shook our heads.

  “We have to buy bread,” I reminded Franco. “We have to pick up your daughter.”

  Franco turned to the workers and gestured with an upturned palm. “Canadese,” he explained, but he downed the wine, shook hands all round, and headed to the door.

  We followed Franco into a back room that boasted a wooden floor, rare in Italy, where most floors are marble. There was a highly polished oak bar with wooden barstools, wooden saloon doors, and heavy oak tables with matching chairs. Posters for cowboy movies covered the walls. No bread in sight.

  “The owner likes cowboys, especially John Wayne,” Franco explained. “He’s opening a Western-style restaurant serving American hamburgers and hot dogs and beer. Also a karaoke machine. Grand opening in August. How l
ong are you staying, Bob?”

  “We’re heading down the coast tomorrow . . .”

  “Tomorrow’s the dinner at Alberto’s house. Pietro told me he’s picking you up at seven o’clock. Sharp. Like Canadian time. Alberto’s acquired this North American habit of punctuality.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “We don’t know anyone named Alberto. Why do you think we’re going to his house?”

  “Dinner,” explained Franco.

  Before I could continue my questions, Franco had opened another door, and we walked into a room heavy with the scent of freshly baked bread. No bakers, no cashier, not even a cash register. Franco stuffed some euros into a battered tin sitting on the windowsill, grabbed two long loaves off the rack, and we roared off to pick up his daughter.

  In the schoolyard, children in coloured smocks played among the tranquil grey nuns. Franco’s daughter was dressed in a blue gingham smock with tiny roses embroidered across the bodice. Her black curls bounced as she ran toward us: “Papa, papa.” As we drove to their house, the little girl, Adriana, tucked herself in beside me, resting her head against my arm.

  Franco lived just outside of town, where the newer homes had been built on large lots. He pointed out his neighbours’ homes as we drove along: “Your travel agent Rocco’s summer home. The mayor’s house. Pietro’s house.” As we pulled into a driveway paved with interlocking pink stones, Franco added, “Pietro tells me you are a councillor in Toronto, Bob. I’m a councillor here in Supino. You must tell me all about Canadian politics.”

  Franco opened the front door of his house with a little flourish and proceeded to give us a tour, with his wife apologizing all the way. Sorry, she hadn’t had time to make fresh pasta, so Franco’s mother had made the fettuccine for today’s lunch; she hoped that was okay. Sorry, the dining room table was being refinished; it stood on a large white drop cloth, drowsy flecks of sawdust still drifting in the warm air — we must eat in the kitchen. Sorry, sorry. She hoped we wouldn’t mind. On the balcony overlooking a ravine we drank sweet vermouth in stubby kitchen glasses. She apologized for them too. Her crystal was packed away until the dining room set was finished. Sorry.

  In the garden below, an older man was throwing grain to the chickens. I thought of my father.

  My parents had moved next door to us in Toronto, and after my father had turned his backyard into a vegetable garden, he made a suggestion for our yard. “We could put a few chickens back here,” he said. “Make a chicken run and a coop.”

  “I don’t think so, Dad,” I said. “You can’t really keep chickens in the city.”

  But my father didn’t think in terms of Toronto by-laws; he still used Supinese logic. “Who’s going to know?” he asked.

  So, my dad and our 10-year-old son Ken built some chicken coops, attached them to the back of the garage, and fenced an area with chicken wire. There were no blueprints, building permits, or purchased construction materials involved because my dad believed in using whatever materials you already had or could get for free. That’s why there were spare boards and leftover pieces of plywood stored in the garage; that’s why Dad usually had a small ball of twine, a few nails, and his penknife in his pocket.

  They started out with three chickens. The hens were all good layers and we usually had two fresh eggs each day. This supply of free eggs might have lasted longer if Ken hadn’t wanted to take the chickens for a walk, as if they were pet dogs, and if my father hadn’t shown Ken how to tie a piece of twine — which he conveniently had in his pocket — into a slipknot and slide it over the chicken’s leg. Ken took the chickens for a walk on our adjoining front lawns so the hens had a good stretch of new ground to peck and scratch, and the neighbours had a good view of “livestock” kept within the city limits. When the letter arrived from the city by-law enforcement office, my father said we should just ignore it, but Bob assured him that we couldn’t, so my father laid out our two options: eat the chickens or move them to my brother’s farm 30 minutes north.

  That weekend, Ken and my father dismantled the chicken coops and loaded them into the trunk, tucked the three chickens into a burlap sack, put it on the floor of the back seat, and drove to the farm.

  Franco’s wife joined us on the balcony and called down to her father — “Papa!” — and the man turned and lifted his hat. A few minutes later he came out onto the balcony as well. “I’m Giovanni. Call me John. Where do you live in Toronto?”

  John and Bob talked about Toronto. John recommended a butcher on St. Clair, near where his family had lived. “Until my daughter married this man here and moved to Supino,” he said, throwing his arm around Franco. “Look at this view. I told my wife we should move to Supino, but she likes the city life. She said, ‘What am I going to do in Supino?’ ‘Same thing you do here,’ I told her, but women want grocery stores and movie theatres and . . .”

  We had roast chicken for lunch. I tried not to think about the chickens I’d just seen high-stepping in the yard. When the conversation had reached a lull, I asked, “Why are we invited to Alberto’s house for dinner?”

  Before anyone could answer, the mailman tapped at the kitchen shutter and held up a registered letter. Franco’s wife motioned him inside: “You’re late today.”

  With a nonchalant shrug, the mailman offered her a paper to sign. Franco’s father-in-law squeezed over to make room at the table, and the mailman hung his bag on the back of the chair and reached for a bun.

  “Finally,” said Franco’s wife as she tore open the envelope she’d signed for. “How many weeks have I been waiting for this?” She switched into Italian and her voice grew irritated as she read parts of the letter aloud.

  Franco interrupted. “That’s not what it means.”

  “Sure it does. It says right here —”

  “Let me see.” Franco took the letter; his wife snatched it back. Their voices grew louder.

  Meanwhile the mailman was stuffing some chicken slices into a bun. “Put some lettuce,” offered John, passing him the salad bowl. “You want some rapini?” He slid that bowl too toward the mailman, who loaded his bun, lifted his mailbag from the back of the chair, and headed for the door.

  “Grazie,” he called, but the couple continued their argument without so much as an arrivederci.

  I looked at Bob; maybe we should take our plates out to the balcony and let our hosts settle their fight in private?

  Franco’s wife jumped up from the table and jabbed her finger on the letter. “No, it says —”

  “That’s not what it means.”

  “This is formal Italian. You don’t understand legal terms. All you know is Supinese dialect.”

  “Hey, I went to university. Do you think you know more than me just because you went to — ?”

  “Of course.”

  “Basta.” A sudden slam of Franco’s fist on the tabletop. “That’s enough.”

  Franco’s wife turned and ran from the room. The door slammed. Franco raced after her. The door slammed again. Through the kitchen window I watched them running across the street, the letter shaking in Franco’s wife’s hand.

  John picked up the wine bottle. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Some disagreement about the translation. The woman across the street is a professore at the university in Rome. She’ll straighten it all out. Vino?”

  After we finished our lunch with John, he turned on the element beneath the espresso pot, and when the coffee was gurgling, I poured it into the little cups waiting on the counter. John brought a box of pastries to the table. Thirty minutes passed without any sign of our hosts. John and Bob exchanged business cards and said they’d get together back in Toronto. I began to gather a few dishes, but John said, “Leave them. My daughter will do them when she returns.” A few moments later, when he walked us to the door, he said, “Come again. Anytime.” Our hosts had never returned.

  As Bob and I started down the dr
iveway to walk back to the village, Franco yelled out the neighbour’s window, “Ciao. See you tomorrow night at Alberto’s.”

  The street was bordered with blood-red poppies hanging their heads in the afternoon heat. “What a commotion over a translation,” I said. “I wish she hadn’t opened the letter while we were there.”

  “The professor will settle it,” said Bob.

  “And another thing. Who’s Alberto and why are we going there for dinner tomorrow night? I want to go to Vietri.”

  “Joe said Alberto’s a senator in Rome. I guess Pietro figures that since I’m on our city council, I’d like to meet Italian politicians.”

  “Pietro’s a little pushy. First he tells us we’re having lunch at Franco’s — and we saw what a disaster that was — and now it’s dinner at Alberto’s. How’d he get to be in charge of our vacation?”

  “He’s just trying to be helpful. You said yourself that it’s a Supinese tradition.”

  “Yes, but that’s family or neighbours, not every Tom, Dick, and Pietro. At this rate, we’ll never get to Vietri.” I stopped to look at the unfamiliar landscape. “Where are we anyway?”

  “We’re almost at the Kennedy Bar,” said Bob. “We’ll be home in 20 minutes.” After a few more steps, he said, “You know, we never walked in this section last year when your father was with us. He always headed up any street that led to the mountain where he used to live and where he walked his cow every morning. I guess he was following his old routine.”

  My dad always woke up early — when he lived in Supino and walked his cow up the mountain, and later when he worked at Toronto Macaroni and delivered to small Italian grocery stores. He kept the early morning routine even after he retired. Bob was always up early too, because he helped the drivers load up at the coffee company where he worked. So, in Supino, Bob and my father had woken up early and gone out walking, Bob automatically matching his steps to my father’s slower ones.