“I think I’ve seen that man before,” I said to Bob.
“Sure,” replied someone. “He sells at the Tuesday market.”
Now I remembered him. We’d even bought a large and rather expensive hand-woven wicker basket from him to store our firewood and he’d tossed in a complimentary breadbasket. Joe had been a little upset with us for spending the money when he had already given us a wooden crate that had once held grapes. We’d pointed out that the large basket was handmade, and showed him the breadbasket we’d received — “for free.” Joe showed us the faded stamp almost hidden on the bottom of the basket that read “Made in China.” A few spectators were now browsing the man’s baskets and the woman’s cloths. Cristina, from the tabacchi store, held up an embroidered tea towel and asked the price. The two women haggled. The man began unloading his baskets.
“No, no,” said the woman. “Casa mia.”
“Un permesso,” replied the man.
“Quattro euro?” repeated Cristina, fingering the cloth. “Troppo.”
“Un momento, un momento,” said the policewoman. She spoke directly to the woman: “This man has a permit issued by the city for via Regina Margherita 13 and numero 13 is painted right here on the street.”
“Casa mia.”
“Yes, it’s your house, signora, but today and tomorrow he has un permesso to use this space. Just for the festa.”
“I’m selling my cloths here.”
“Do you have un permesso, signora?”
“I don’t need. This is my house.”
Cristina offered the woman three euros, instead of four, for the tea towel. “She has the right to sell in front of her own house,” she said.
The street sweeper said, “The street belongs to the village. I sweep it every day.”
“I sweep,” said the woman.
“My job.”
“If you did a good job I wouldn’t have to.”
“She doesn’t have un permesso,” said a stranger.
“A number painted on the street,” said Cristina, “means nothing.”
“It means the man can sell his baskets there for two days,” said the policewoman.
“He’s not even from our village.”
“That doesn’t matter. He has the permesso and she doesn’t.”
“She lives here.”
The debate roared around us, like the rounds of a campfire song, getting hotter and hotter.
“Maria,” called a small voice. Guido’s wife, Liounna, was waving from the doorway of the newspaper shop. We pushed our way across to her and, without so much as a handshake or a kiss, she led us away from the crowds and to the back of the shop. “Such a crowd,” she said as she opened the door into the owner’s kitchen and motioned us out the back door to a little laneway made for bicycles and pedestrians. A Vespa came roaring toward us; we stepped into a doorway. When we stepped back onto the street, Liounna was already halfway across someone’s terrace. We reached the dead-end street where the local boys were usually involved in a pickup soccer game. Today there was no one.
“The children are at the public garden. There are rides from Rome today,” said Liounna.
“At the top of the hill?”
“Sì.”
“How on earth did they get the rides up there?”
“Donkeys.” Guido was sitting under the shade of his quince tree. Their kitchen window was open to the yard, so, as I arranged the espresso cups on the tray, I could hear Bob telling Guido all about the argument. “The woman lives at number 13 via Regina Margherita but the basket seller is a foreigner from Morolo.”
“Ey,” called Liounna. “I’m from Morolo.”
I brought the coffee tray and Liounna carried the olive-oil cake out to the yard.
“They never settled who had the right to sell in that spot,” said Bob. “The man from Morolo has a permit —”
“Permits,” scoffed Guido. “That’s a North American idea. It’ll never catch on in Supino.”
Sitting in Guido’s yard, I could hear the wind pass through the branches of the quince tree and the scratch of the chickens in the back garden. It was easy to forget the crowds here.
“Stay away from the centre of town when the festa is on, Bob,” warned Guido. “Too many strangers trying to cheat you with fake leather and cheap shirts.”
“There’s a Mass for San Cataldo,” said Liounna.
“Even pickpockets go to church,” replied Guido. “Later, you watch the fireworks, Maria. Your father always loved the fireworks.”
“What time?”
“When the sky’s black.”
Guido had been a young boy when my father was still living in Supino. He’d followed my dad and his calf along the trails that led to the mountain of Santa Serena. My father had taught Guido how to let the calf lead the way because the calf avoided the stinging nettles and thistles along the path, how to bend the springtime willow branches into a cone shape to trap a wild songbird, how to whittle a divining rod and use it to find water, how to make a cross from the palm leaves given by the priest on Palm Sunday, and where to find the first blue flowers of the springtime up on Santa Serena to pick and take back home to Mama.
“Where’s Kathryn today?” asked Guido.
“The festa,” replied Liounna. “Young people don’t mind crowds.”
“When there’s too many people, I can’t breathe,” said Guido, and he started to cough at the very mention of the crowds. Liounna reached through the open window for his puffer.
“Once we get here, we never see Kathryn,” I said. “She’s always off with her Supino friends.”
“Why you worry?” asked Liounna. “Caterina’s okay. She was here this morning with Davide, your neighbour boy. They brought me some lemons from Sorrento that they found at the market. And some fresh ricotta. Tomorrow we’re going to make ravioli, Caterina and I.”
“Always a special feast for San Cataldo,” explained Guido. “Your father liked that too.”
“Let’s grab a loaf of bread on the way home,” said Bob as we left my cousin’s place.
I reminded him that Guido had said to stay away from the centre of the village.
“We’ll detour through the back lane.”
We entered the bread bakery through the back door and were immediately crushed into a slow-moving queue. With our loaf finally tucked safely under Bob’s arm, we turned to retrace our steps. Then, a loud boom. Another explosion followed. Before we knew it, we were out on the street, surrounded by Supinese and strangers, staring at the puffs of smoke that billowed from the mountainside.
“Fireworks?” I said, even though it was mid-afternoon.
“Cannonballs,” said the baker.
“Where on earth would someone find cannonballs in Supino?”
“Left over from the war.”
The bells from San Sebastiano rolled up the hill with the crowd; bells from the other three churches tumbled down to meet us. The cannonballs continued to boom as we surged up to the Church of San Pietro. One thousand villagers squashed into a piazza that could accommodate 500. Every balcony that overlooked the square was packed with bodies and hung with satin ribbons of gold and burgundy. The church doors opened, emitting the trace of incense, the song of praise to San Cataldo, and a cart crammed with candles.
My father had told me that the candles for San Cataldo were fat as salamis and, once they were lit, their wax dripped onto the cobblestones, making the streets as slick as ice. I watched as the candles passed from hand to hand and altar boys with equally long tapers lit the wicks. The women, cradling the fat candles in their arms, continued their song of praise as they led the procession down the hill, to the Church of San Sebastiano.
My father had told me about this church too, the smallest in Supino, where the priest liked to walk along the path of beech trees every afternoon before
the six o’clock Mass. We followed the women carrying the dripping candles and the red-robed men who carried the platform with the statue of San Cataldo, his gold cross shining in the noonday sun. The procession passed by the vendors with their covered wares and arrived at the bottom of the street, where the village priest, flanked by altar boys, walked to the podium. Although the sound system ensured that everyone could hear the prayers and the homilies, the priest seemed uncomfortable with the microphone and loudspeakers. I too was uncomfortable — with the crowd, the bored vendors waiting for the sign that they could uncover their goods, and the unfamiliar faces that lined our streets. I empathized with Guido, who said he couldn’t breathe during the festival days.
We worked our way to the side of the Kennedy Bar where a laneway ran parallel to the main street. That’s where we met Kathryn and Davide.
“What are you doing here?” we said to each other.
“Heading home,” I said.
“Heading out of town,” said Kathryn.
“Too much chaos,” said Davide.
We spent the rest of the day at our house, mostly in the tiny backyard. At dinnertime we ate tomato sandwiches. I made coffee in our little espresso pot on our hot plate. Bob ate the last of the ginette cookies and their anisette-flavoured icing broke off in flakes, landing on the patio. We sat quietly as the late-day sparrows arrived to carry off the sweet crumbs. Toward evening we moved to the balcony and watched strangers trudging up our street with babies sleeping in arms, children carried on backs, parcels tucked beneath arms or stuffed into shopping bags, back to cars double-parked on our street.
As the sun disappeared behind Santa Serena, we carried our bed to the open window. I said, “I’m going to pretend I’m sitting on the roof of my dad’s farmhouse, like he always did, and watch the fireworks.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” said Bob.
When he returned, he held a tray containing two tumblers of vermouth and a little white bag. “To your father,” he said, lifting the glass. I opened the bag filled with my favourite candies, miniature licorice allsorts. “Found them at the market,” said Bob.
Supinese fireworks burst across the sky. Flares shot up and cascaded into fountains of sparkling confetti. A streak of lightning yellow flew across the black sky, scattering a thousand tiny lemon drops. A red ball burst into a green ball and into a yellow flame that sizzled as it spiralled. Between the bursts, the village dogs barked, and the donkey, who lived across the ravine, brayed in response. I remember that sparkling night with the scent of smoke in the air and the damp evening breeze and the comforting feel of Bob’s shoulder leaning against mine.
The next morning, we opened our balcony shutters to silence. The vendors, the visitors, and the festival excitement had left the village. Benito was sweeping our street, our next-door neighbour Sam was setting up scaffolding to begin retiling his roof, and Angela was leaning out her kitchen window watching. Davide’s motorcycle was idling outside our house.
“We’re going over to Guido and Liounna’s,” said Kathryn. “Why don’t you come for lunch later. We’re making ravioli.”
Since we wouldn’t be in the village for Joe and Angela’s 25th wedding anniversary party in September, we took the gift we’d bought in Venice over to their house on the afternoon of our last day. We also took half a loaf of bread.
“Why you keep buying a loaf?” Joe asked. “I told you. Say ‘Mezzo,’ and they cut the loaf in half for you.”
I didn’t explain that we’d purposely bought a whole loaf so we’d have mezzo to give to Angela and Joe in exchange for all the eggs and vegetables and fruits left on our doorstep.
“We wanted to give you this little gift for your anniversary,” said Bob, and Joe handed the box to Angela.
“Bella,” she said, unpacking each of the glasses and setting them up on her sideboard. “Why don’t you stay for the party. My relatives come from L’Aquila for three days. My cousin, she makes that spaghetti that Bob likes — alla carbonara.”
“I’d like to,” Bob said, and he paused for a moment as if he was seriously considering staying on for a few months just to eat homemade spaghetti alla carbonara. “But I have my business and Maria goes back to class in September. Kathryn too. We’ll be back next summer.”
“Next summer, we got to find the good door for the backyard. That door we got now is too thin,” said Joe. “And Maria said she doesn’t like those patio tiles that I put, even if they are free. She wants terra cotta. Mamma mia. That’s gonna cost some money, Bob. Also Maria said she doesn’t like that light I hung in the living room. Says those little mirrors are too bright. I said they’re supposed to be bright, that’s the point. How you like an awning for the backyard? Benito says the man who sells at the market is going to buy a new one. She’s a little faded but still good for shade. Also, there’s the Feast of San Lorenzo next August. I put your name for the decorating committee.” Joe put up his hand. “You don’t need to speak Italian, Bob. Just hang a few dozen banners. Put some ribbons from house to house. You know, crisscross. Won’t take more than a few hours one morning. The city brings the ladders. We take it all down the next day. You know that guy from Pennsylvania? He comes for the whole summer, April till September. Brings his family. Even brings his American car — what you call that? Station wagon.”
“Too bad you don’t stay for the party,” said Angela. “How you feel if my cousins live at your house for a few days? I take care of everything.”
The next summer, we discovered we needed to spend more time in the village because now our patio was missing — only six stones still stood in a drunken tower where the patio had been. Someone had dug two trenches: one ran 10 feet toward the ravine and the second went toward the right for another 10 feet to Peppe’s house next door. Our patio was stranded in the middle.
I stood in the doorway trying to take it all in: the uprooted banana tree, which Benito had planted for us as a shade tree, now teetered on the edge of the ravine, its roots bound in a cotton sack that looked suspiciously like my book bag. The rosemary bush, the roses, the laurel bush, and all the other plants Benito had crammed into our tiny garden were now stuffed into plastic pails lining the bottom of the trenches. A small backhoe perched precariously on the pile of excavated dirt and rocks. If the backhoe tipped over, it would go tumbling into the ravine, taking the banana tree with it.
“What on earth?” I said. From across the ravine, the rooster crowed. Benito came around the corner, through Sam’s yard and into ours with a bucket and began to dole out cupfuls of water to his plants. I heard him clucking over a brown leaf here, a broken branch there. He gave us a wave and whistled for his brother. Two minutes later Joe was in the yard.
“Don’t worry, Maria,” said Joe. “Sam from next door — he explained everything before he dug the trenches so Benito could move his plants.”
“But what are the trenches for?”
“Sam’s building a wall to keep the soil from falling into the ravine at the back. He’s going to extend it right across the back of his house and yours. See those rocks over there? He’s going to use them.”
“A wall’s not a bad idea,” said Bob. “You don’t want the patio to slowly slide into the ravine.”
“Look, Joe,” I said, “tell him we’re only here for a few weeks each summer and couldn’t he build the wall later?”
“He’s got the backhoe for another job so might as well do it now,” Joe explained.
“But we don’t have anywhere to . . .”
There was no point in saying we didn’t have anywhere to sit, because Joe had already told us to sit on his patio. He had the afternoon shade.
“Sam’s not charging you for the work — not even for the stones,” said Joe. “He wants to know, though, what about the space underneath your patio?”
“You mean the dirt under our patio? What about it?”
“Sam has a plan
to use it for a cantina. Dig it out sort of like a cave. It would be cool under there and good for storing wine or apples and potatoes in the winter.”
“How would we get into the cantina?” I asked. There were no steps from our patio into the yard, and even if there were, we’d then be in Sam’s yard. Our backyard consisted of a 10-foot-by-10-foot patio, accessed from our back door, and nothing more.
“Why you want to go in Sam’s cantina? Listen, Maria, let me explain to you again. Sam will build the stone wall and he’ll put in a new patio for you. He’s looking for some old — what’s that word? authentic — when Sam finds some authentic terra cotta tiles he’ll get Mario, the old bricklayer, to lay them. Don’t worry, Mario does good work. He’s an artisan. Sam’s going to put a wrought-iron fence too so you can’t fall off the patio. Then Benito needs a little space for his pots and you’ll still have lots of room to sit.”
I thought about my cousin Guido and his advice: whoever owns the grapevine owns the grapes that grow there. If Sam builds a cantina under our patio, he’ll own the cantina but the cantina will be on our land. How long does a cantina have to stand before the land belongs to the cantina owner? And did it even matter, since we had no use for the soil beneath our patio anyway?
Lorenzo the barber had told us about a man who owned a narrow three-storey house in Supino Centro. There were matching houses on both sides with single-car garages on the street level. The owner moved to the States and left the house empty. “The man who stayed in Supino knocked out the inside wall between his garage and the Americano’s garage and parked his car there. Also a Vespa,” said Lorenzo. “Ten years passed, maybe 15. Finally the Americano comes back to Supino. Maybe he’s going to fix up his house. Maybe he’s thinking to sell, I don’t know. What does the Americano find when he opens his garage door? The neighbour’s car. Then he sees there’s no wall between his garage and next door’s. Just one big garage. The Americano starts yelling and swearing. Tells the Supinese to get his bloody car out of his garage. Tells him to rebuild the wall. The Supinese says he’s used the space for 10 years. In Supino, if you take care of something for 10 years it belongs to you.”
Summers in Supino Page 6
