Summers in Supino

by Maria Coletta McLean

  I don’t know if it’s a real law or just a Supinese interpretation of the law, but Lorenzo said the garage man’s car remains in the narrow neighbour’s garage. When I asked what happened to the Americano, Lorenzo just shrugged. “He left.”

  “Sam can’t dig a cantina for himself underneath our patio,” I said. “We own that land.”

  “He’s going to trade. The cantina for the terra cotta patio and the iron fence,” explained Joe. He spoke slowly so we’d understand.

  “We don’t need a patio . . .” I began, but looking around at the leaning tower of patio stones, I realized that we did need a patio. “Let me think about it.”

  Bob and I discussed it over coffee, we discussed it over pizza, we discussed it under the Big and Little Dippers outside our bedroom window, and we discussed it while sitting on Joe’s patio, beneath the shady grapevines, in the afternoon. It came down to a few basic points: It was our land. We wanted an authentic terra cotta patio and a wrought-iron fence. We had no use for the land underneath our patio since we couldn’t access it. It was our land.

  “We’re only here for a few weeks every summer,” I said, but we couldn’t decide whether that meant we should allow Sam to build the patio so we’d have somewhere to sit or, since we were only Summer Supinese, Sam was taking advantage of us and our land beneath our patio, which we didn’t have anymore.

  We tried to talk it over with Guido, sitting on his patio beneath the quince tree, but he just shook his head throughout the whole conversation and at the end he simply said, “No.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. I had been hoping for some advice.

  “No,” he repeated. “You need to change the lock on your front door every few years as well or someone can claim that since they have the key to the house, they own it.”

  After my father’s death, I’d begun to write down the stories of Supino that he’d told me, but he’d never mentioned anything about grapevine ownership or the occupation of deserted houses. Bob felt the problem was that we were only visitors to the village, and the solution was for us to spend more time in Italy.

  “You’ve been listening to Joe too much,” I said.

  “I’ve been thinking of opening a coffee bar,” said Bob. “I could run it in the summer and we’d close in the winter. That would keep me busy all summer.”

  “What about the rest of the year?”

  “I could deliver meals for Meals on Wheels.”

  “And the coffee company?”

  “I’m thinking of selling it.”

  It sounded like a pipe dream. A dream so fanciful that it was impossible. As unlikely as a couple returning from their first trip to Italy and deciding to buy a house, sight unseen, just because it was in her father’s village. Trusting a stranger in the village to oversee the renovations and have the house livable for 10 days in August when they’d take her father back to his birthplace after 64 years away. Now believing that the magic that was Supino could last for the entire summer. Without the coffee company, we’d have the time to spend summers in Supino, but we’d also be without an income. Still, the idea settled into our minds and it became less an impossible dream than a challenge that we might solve.

  We were too young to retire, but not old enough to settle for security. Bob knew coffee; in Toronto he imported green coffee beans, and he had a staff who roasted and packaged them for delivery to restaurants. He was good with people, so he’d enjoy running a coffee shop. He’d have to learn the language, but Joe could help him with the permits and the set-up. Kathryn may have sparked some of this thought because she’d found a Canadian high school in Italy and had already applied to complete her final semester there. It wasn’t in Supino, of course, but it was less than two hours away.

  Bob signed up for a Berlitz intensive Italian course and went faithfully twice a week. He bought the books and tapes, and I could often hear him practicing in his home office, but whenever I entered the room, he stopped.

  “Speak Italian to me,” I’d say, but Bob was reluctant.

  “I can understand what people are saying,” he said, “but I can’t speak.”

  I felt the opposite: that given a few minutes I could put together a grammatically correct Italian sentence, matching the adjectives to the gender of the nouns and selecting the correct verb tense and level of familiarity. “I’m okay to speak,” I said, “but when the person answers, especially if they speak fast, I’m lost.”

  “Then we make a good team,” Bob said.

  Through that winter, Bob went to Italian class and I wrote weekly vocabulary lists and memorized them. One week it was lists of fruits and vegetables, the next week clothing, the following week common questions. Now that Bob could understand more Italian, he became increasingly involved in the Toronto Supino Social Club. He was the treasurer and attended the monthly meetings. The group’s main priority was to buy a clubhouse.

  “The committee put a down payment on an unfinished unit in Woodbridge,” Bob told me. “Now we have to finish the unit so we can host some fundraisers to pay the mortgage.”

  “You could rent a hall to hold a fundraiser.”

  “Why would we rent when we already own? The unit just needs a little work.”

  “Are you hiring a contractor?”

  “Why would we hire a contractor? The Supinese know how to do the work. First, we call a meeting and tape up some bristol board. We write one job on each board — plumbers, electricians, carpenters, drywall installers, tile layers, painters. People sign up according to their skill. Then we’ll serve coffee and cake.”

  “What if a member can’t do any of those things?”

  “Most of the Supinese can do all of those things. Those of us who aren’t tradespeople will donate in a different way. For example, the barbers have already said they’d pay for the light fixtures. I’m donating the coffee equipment.”

  “How are you going to make coffee for the meeting without electricity?”

  “I’ll brew it at the coffee company and bring it in the big urn. Paper cups, stir sticks — I can bring all that.”

  “There’s no heat in the building.”

  “People can leave their coats on.”

  “You know, you’re starting to sound like Joe,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  Then one Tuesday night in March, the phone rang and everything changed. “That was the police,” Bob told me. “There’s been an accident with your mother. She’s had some sort of stroke and crashed her car. An ambulance is taking her to the hospital.”

  Humber Memorial Hospital was a six-minute walk from our house; I was at the emergency entrance in four. “Josie Coletta,” I said, and they said they couldn’t find her. I explained about the police and the phone call, and somewhere in the back of my mind I held on to the idea that it was all a mistake and they’d phoned the wrong number. Maybe it was a different Josie Coletta with a daughter named Maria who had the same phone number as me.

  “She’s en route to North York General,” said the nurse, and I was out the door.

  Kathryn was just pulling into the driveway as I ran up the front walk. I got in the passenger side. “Do you know where North York General is?”

  We were at the hospital in 40 minutes, and even though my mother was there in the emergency ward, we had to sit in the waiting room. I phoned my brother and my sister only to say that I was at the hospital but I didn’t know anything about mom’s condition. Time dragged by. I paced. I checked in with the emergency-room receptionist so many times she started shaking her head as soon as she saw me heading her way.

  “See that door?” I said to Kathryn. “I’m pretty sure it’s an exit from the emergency ward. We could just slip in there when no one’s looking.”

  ‘Which door?” said Kathryn. She sounded willing.

  “The one marked ‘No Entry.’”

  I don’t remember how
I got into the emergency ward but I do remember standing beside the bed where my mother lay. Her speech was blurred. Technicians and nurses kept coming in to run tests. I overheard someone say that in these stroke cases the first 24 hours are crucial, and if it’s the right kind of stroke they can administer a drug that works wonders. Did my mother have the right kind of stroke? My brother and sister had arrived by then, but all we could do was wait. More nurses and technicians, in and out, blood pressure and blood tests and reflexes tests and talk about x-rays and the question “Has the specialist arrived yet?” It all sounded hopeful.

  Someone put a fat folder on the counter of the nurses’ station. A doctor flipped through the pages, shaking her head, and then she came to our mother’s bedside. Mom’s eyes were closed, but I thought she was still conscious. I held her hand and said, “I’m here.”

  “Massive stroke,” began the doctor. “If she survives the first 24 hours, we’ll see if she can survive 48.”

  My mother squeezed my hand.

  Because there were no other beds available, my mother spent almost a week in the emergency ward, and every morning when I arrived, I spoke to her as if she were still conscious and lucid and, really, just resting. I don’t think either of us was fooled. Bob and Kathryn came to the hospital after work every night, bringing dinner. We sat beside my mother’s bed and talked and ate and tried to pretend everything was normal.

  Finally they moved her to a room, which we decorated with drawings from the grandchildren and flowers and helium balloons so she could see that she was loved, if only she’d open her eyes. Her brothers and sisters and friends and cousins all came, spending five minutes here and five minutes there, each one speaking to her, but my mother never answered. She couldn’t swallow, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move her left leg, she got a kidney infection, she caught pneumonia, and she didn’t open her eyes.

  On the 21st day, the fingers on her left hand began to turn black and the hand grew cold, and the doctor said, “Circulation problem.” Then the doctor said, “Amputation.” And my mother didn’t open her eyes. The doctor asked me if they could amputate my mother’s arm. I closed my eyes. A nurse came floating into my mother’s room; she said her name was Fatima. She said she had a message for me. “At least do no harm.”

  I said, “No amputation.” The following day, I said, “No IV.” We’d already signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. We were back to waiting.

  After 23 days in hospital, my mother died.

  I found a funeral home featuring a central staircase and red velvet curtains. “I think my mother would like this place,” I said to Bob. “It’s kind of fancy and she liked that style. I was thinking about those girlfriends that she used to work with at Toronto Macaroni, 60-odd years ago, who kept phoning to see how she was doing. The grandchildren have no idea of what Mom was like when she was young. Did you know she learned to ride a bike when I was 12? She would have been 42. She said she never had a chance to learn before. I can still see her whizzing down the sidewalk with her dark black curls and her sweater flying out behind her. The grandchildren only know the woman who shopped at the dollar stores and studied the grocery flyers for the best prices and slipped them 20 dollars when it was their birthday. They don’t know about the young Josie Coletta who worked in the office at Toronto Macaroni.”

  “Why don’t you tell them?” said Bob. “You can speak at the funeral.”

  “I can’t speak. I’ll break down and cry.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you did. But you can speak. You can do anything when you really want to.”

  So I met with the priest who was to say the funeral Mass and asked permission to speak. “Yes,” he said. “I see here on the death certificate that your mother was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Her parents emigrated from Colliano, Italy, and she was born in Greensburg. Then her mother died in the influenza epidemic of 1918 and her father took the children back to Italy. Later they emigrated again, this time to Canada.”

  All the time I was reciting my family history, droning on and on, I was wondering what difference it made where my mother was born.

  “I was ordained in Greensburg,” said the priest. “Your mother has travelled far from her birthplace. It’s time to send her to her eternal home.”

  So after the priest began the Mass, I spoke about my mother. I spoke clearly and calmly about a vibrant woman who once wore stockings with a line down the back and fashionable hats and suits and fire-engine-red lipstick. I talked about the stylish woman who worked at Toronto Macaroni with the other girls, who painted her fingernails red and smoked cigarettes and went to the opera or dancing at the Palais Royale on Saturday nights. I didn’t cry — not until I sat back down and the singer began “Ave Maria.”

  Although my mother was not born in Supino, members of the Toronto branch of the Supino Social Club came to the funeral. At the end of her life, the Supinese were there, reciting Italian prayers at her funeral Mass.

  We’d lived next door to my parents, in the town of Weston, for more than 20 years. After my mother’s death, Bob and I removed the little path of patio stones that led from our front door to theirs and filled in the squares with sod. I talked about moving, but Bob said we shouldn’t make any decisions for at least a year. We knew that death could make you think you’re sane when really you’re not. My brother and sister and I sorted out the things from our parents’ house. Bob brought cardboard boxes from the coffee company and we divided up the dishes and pots and pans; we also piled up boxes for charity, gave away the furniture, and gave our mother’s costume jewellery to the grandchildren as mementos.

  The following summer we spent three weeks in the village. We did the usual things, walking daily to the shops in the morning and to the water fountain in the afternoon. Our part of the street was narrow, but once you got to the end of our block, the street widened; city workers spent that summer laying sidewalks from that section all the way to the water fountain. They arranged cobblestones in consecutive arches that matched the curve of the street. They installed streetlights as well. The sides of the street were still dense with saplings, Queen Anne’s lace, and the occasional songbird.

  We attended the watermelon festival that summer as well as a celebration of fettuccine. When we ate meals at Guido’s little farmhouse, we brought flowers or pastries. It didn’t seem like enough though, so one day we invited Guido and Liounna to come to the restaurant at the Hotel Dalma for all-you-can-eat pizza.

  “All you can eat?” repeated Liounna.

  “A North American idea,” said Guido. “That guy from Detroit with his big ideas. Eat like a pig so you can brag about it? Makes no sense. Anyway, it’s too far to walk.”

  We had planned to drive to the restaurant on the outskirts of Supino, but we didn’t press him.

  The restaurant’s owner, Riccardo, spoke English, as long as you were talking about food. There was no menu: he recited his specials: “Linguine, fettuccine, spaghetti with meat-a-ball or salsicce — how you say? — sausage, and beef-a steak-a, and pollo, what you call chicken. And pig slices.” That would be pork chops.

  This summer he added a sign to the front of his hotel that advertised all-you-can eat pizza on Saturday nights. He’d set up a few patio tables and plastic lawn chairs on a small patch of grass below the sign — enough room for about 10 customers. That’s where we were sitting. In the adjacent garden the owner’s son played on his swing set and his nephew sat beside the ornamental pond, trying to catch the goldfish.

  “Why you sit here?” asked Riccardo.

  “Pizza,” said Bob, pointing to the sign.

  “Follow me.”

  We trooped through the empty dining room, past the noisy kitchen, all steam and tangy tomato sauce, and straight out the kitchen door into the backfield. A dog lounged under the shade of the hotel laundry. Obviously Riccardo had misunderstood us and was taking
us on a tour of his property. “Here she is!” he said with a majestic sweep of his arm. A good 80 metres beyond the restaurant, over the field dotted with dandelions and plantain, was a clearing, about the size of our Toronto backyard. Riccardo had set up three blue canvas canopies there. We walked on a path lined with buttercups, their faces as shiny as shellac. Beneath two canopies were tables set with linen cloths and wildflowers of pale purple. There were chairs for maybe 40 people. Beneath the third canopy was a long table laden with stacks of china plates, cloth napkins, wine and water glasses, and a large plastic tub of olives. Wicker torches fenced the area.

  Bob said, “This is pretty far from your kitchen.”

  “I can use the exercise,” said Riccardo, patting his generous stomach.

  “But every week you have to carry everything out here,” said Bob. “What if it rains?”

  Riccardo pointed vaguely to his son and nephew and dog. “I have assistants. The last day it rained in Supino was on a Tuesday. We are open in the pizza field only on Saturday night.” Riccardo stopped at the first table and pulled out a chair. “Is this all right?” he asked. We were the only customers. He whipped out a small notebook and a pencil. “May I take your order?”

  In the field next door, a dog yelped. Bells began to clunk and clatter as the dog directed a flock of sheep from the clover pasture onto the street, and a shepherd stood in the middle of the road, waving his crook. The bells, the dog’s barks, and the bleats of the sheep made it impossible to speak to Riccardo, so we waited. We watched as an approaching car screeched to a stop, and the sound spooked the sheep so that some returned bleating to the clover pasture while others ran, bells jangling, down the roadway. This resulted in more barks from the dog and a few curses from the shepherd. By the time the sheep were safely corralled into their field, another family had made the trek out from the dining room to the pizza field and Riccardo had left our table to seat them.