My Father Came From Italy

by Maria Coletta McLean

  “So, Joe fixes the roof of the woodshed, not because we’re using it, not because the roof’s leaking, but because it makes it look like we’re using it and taking care of it, like the woodshed is important to us. We own the woodshed, even though it’s attached to Sam’s house next door, but we don’t own the backyard to our house, right?”

  “Right. Except that never did make any sense to me.”

  “Joe explained that to me too. Years ago all the houses on our side of the street that are attached, four or five of them including ours, used to belong to one family. They had a lot of children. When the parents died, they divided the house into a series of little houses so that each of the children would have an equal share — three rooms for one daughter, two rooms and a cantina for another, two rooms and the woodshed for another. That’s how the empty house next door got the backyard and our house got the woodshed that’s attached to the empty house.”

  “Do we own the land that the woodshed’s on?” I asked hopefully.

  “Joe says no. But — here’s the good part — the woodshed stands between Sam’s empty house next door and signor Mario’s woodlot, right? The only way into the backyard of the empty house is the few inches between the woodshed and signor Mario’s fence. That’s okay if you want to walk into the backyard. But say you want to take a wheelbarrow, a backhoe, or a very small dump truck back there. You can’t do it. The woodshed blocks the way.”

  “Sam could drive around our woodshed, through signor Mario’s woodlot and get into his yard that way.”

  “No. He can’t,” explained Bob. “Joe says signor Mario won’t let him.”

  “Signor Mario’s the sweetest guy. He’s always giving me a rose from his garden, some rosemary from the bush. Why wouldn’t he let Sam drive through his empty woodlot to get into his backyard and do his renovations?”

  “In Supino, a house is no good without land. Where are you going to plant tomatoes, grow grapes, roses, maybe an olive tree? If signor Mario won’t let Sam drive on his woodlot, Sam will have to find another way to get into his backyard. The only other way is to knock down the woodshed. Then, he’ll have a good wide path to drive his backhoe and dump truck and.... Joe told him we might want some land behind our house. Said he’d try to convince us to trade the woodshed for a piece of property behind our house.”

  “You mean we’re going to get a backyard?”

  “Posso,” replied Bob.

  *****

  The ravine behind the house is a field of buttercups. Tall, slender wildflowers nod elegantly to each other, chatting in the early morning breeze. Down the hill a little, the poppies raise their heads. Yesterday they were dark, heavy droplets bent low on slender furry stems, but today their heads are held high reflecting golden sunlight.

  “There’s a bunch of people in front of the cantina,” called Bob, from the front bedroom. “What do they want?”

  “No idea. Ask Joe. He speaks English.”

  Joe reminded me of my father. His answers were always simple, direct, but with a hint of disbelief. Like my father, he was patient. The balcony doors in the front bedroom were open. I could hear Bob speaking to Joe in the narrow street.

  “Joe. Who are all those people in front of our cantina?”

  “The neighbours. They wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “It’s Friday.”

  “What happens on Friday?”

  “Bob. What’s the matter with you? The new water tank comes today, no?”

  In half an hour, we hear the rumbling of the city truck travelling the new road that circles the ravine as it curves past the water fountain and rambles down the hill to the top of our street. Signor Mario’s empty woodlot is two doors away from our house and that’s where the truck stops. As the driver reaches for the door handle, the crowd of neighbours surrounding the truck are already inspecting and commenting. Everyone discusses the tank’s beauty; the colour, not blue but azzurro, is bellissimo. They are accustomed to using town water for an hour or two each day, so the real beauty is the size of the storage tank. “Magnifico,” they declare.

  The shape, stout and low to the ground, becomes a joke, “Come Mezzabotte,” they say to me. “Like your father.”

  Mezzabotte is a Supinese family nickname. It means half a barrel, like the shape of my father. It was true, but the family of Mezzabotte never knew such luxury; they carried their water from the mountain stream.

  As the driver tries to unload the water tank from the truck, Joe shouts orders, “Peppe, Sam. Lift the tank down to Marco and Angelo. Antonio, get out of the way. Let the men do it. Antonio, hold the cantina door open. Okay. Get Luigi to help you. Get this dog out of the way. Wait. Wait. What are you saying? No. We can’t put the water tank there. Just a minute. Who’s blowing that horn? Who? Il postino. Tell the postman he has to wait same as everybody else. Mmm beh! Is it my fault he’s early today? Tomei. Chi Tomei? Tell him they just moved into the third floor, above the tabacchi store. Ring the bell. I know the bell says Volpone. So what? It’s Tomei. It’s Mario’s niece. She married the engineer from Frosinone. I don’t know how long. Get your car out of the way, then we can move the truck. This is an official city truck. You think he’s going to move for you? I got no time to talk to you. Where’s Luigi? Don’t leave the tank there. No good. No good, I said. It’s got to go in the corner.”

  Joe says we must put the water tank in the back corner in order to leave room for the wood storage and the conversion of the cantina to a garage, for our macchina.

  “Macchina? What macchina?” I ask, but no one answers. “Bob. What car?” Bob shrugs his shoulders, palms upwards, with a look on his face that says, “How would I know?”

  I sit on the stoop of Joe’s house with Angela and watch them unload the water tank. When they finish, the city truck rumbles down the street and the postman slings his leather satchel over his shoulder and zigzags his way up the hill, whistling and slipping letters into mail slots as he goes.

  I hear applause coming from my cantina and Angela stands up, saying, “They’re finished. Bravo. I make the coffee.”

  The neighbours head to Joe’s garage, laughing and talking. I see Bob in the crowd. Someone pats him on the shoulder and says, “Good, Bob.” I see Joe’s brother, Benito, smile and give Bob the thumbs up sign. Even Benito, who can neither speak nor hear, knows what is going on and I am left to wonder what new decision has been made without me.

  Joe stops at the doorway and says, “What’s the matter Maria? Why you don’t come for coffee? You want to see where we put the water tank, first?”

  “No. I’m sure you picked a good place for the tank, I was just....”

  “Good place? The only place. Back corner, under the window. You see, Maria, in that way, we leave room for the woodpile and in the middle...” and here Joe paused to get the full effect, “space for the Fiat!”

  “Fiat?” I shout. “What Fiat?”

  “Doesn’t have to be a Fiat, Maria, if you don’t want,” suggests Joe. “Any small car will fit in that space. It is perfetto.” And then he is gone.

  Everyone has espresso and biscotti in Joe’s garage. Soon the speed of conversation becomes too fast for me. By the time I translate one word, the speaker is five sentences ahead of me. I go back and sit on the front stoop beside Angela.

  “I had a dishwasher once,” she says.

  The first time Angela left the village, she was 19. Her parents sent her to Toronto to visit her aunt. In Toronto many people who had been born in Supino, or whose parents had been born there, came to the aunt’s house to greet Angela and hear the news of the village. Joe had been one of the visitors, but a reluctant one. Joe was on his way to a party at a friend’s house and said he’d just drop in to appease his mother and be on his way. He never made it to the party. Three weeks later, Angela and Joe were engaged and by Christmas they were married. Joe had a good job working construction. They bought a bungalow near St. Clair and Dufferin and filled it with furniture and wedding gifts f
rom the villagers. Joe bought a dishwasher. Angela cut out a picture of the dishwasher from the Eaton’s catalogue and sent it to her mother in Supino who stuck the picture up in the Bar Italia so everyone could see it. The picture hung there for years, until the sun turned the newsprint yellow. Even then the villagers talked about the white, shiny machine that washed dishes automatically. “Mamma mia,” they said. “Automatico!” They also had a colour television with a 26-inch screen and every afternoon Angela watched soap operas to learn to speak English. After nine years they had a son and a daughter and a good life.

  Then came a letter from Joe’s mother saying she was getting old and tired, the house too big — too many stairs and too much work. She was worried about Benito, Joe’s brother who had a good job at the post office, sorting mail. He never missed a day of work, never missed mass on Sunday, but Benito was deaf and spoke with his hands. Joe’s mother worried that she and the priest were the only two in the village who understood him and both of them were getting old. Who would care for him, speak to him? It was time to come home, live in the house, take care of Benito. Angela and Joe packed up their belongings and shipped them back to Supino. The colour television and the dishwasher were given to her aunt. When they arrived in Italy Angela said, “Even after flying into the night and out of the morning and landing with a bump at Leonardo da Vinci aeroporto, I was still crying. I didn’t want to leave Canada.”

  Joe had returned to the garden to pick the endive flourishing after the recent rain. I had heard their story, now I wanted him to hear mine. I told him I didn’t want to buy a car now; the house was expensive enough. I wanted to wait.

  “You spend money to rent a car, but you don’t want to buy one? Maria, what’s a matter with you? Why you want to give money to some rental guy in Roma, every time you come? Those guys — all thieves. Anyway, we gotta buy. We got nothing to trade, except the cantina, but then, where you going to park the car?”

  My father had always encouraged me to buy rather than rent, own something rather than “throwing money out the window.” I was undecided. The neighbours were discussing who would be in charge of the car when we were away. Everyone had a lead and a price: 1,000 Italian lire was worth a Canadian dollar, so everything sounded expensive — the figures were in the millions. I kept saying to Bob, “How much is that? How much is that?” but he just shrugged and walked back to our house, shaking his head.

  *****

  We were employing half the town, but not much work had been done. Although I appreciated the friendliness of workers and villagers, I wished they’d socialize on their own time. Though Joe spoke English, we had language in common but lacked understanding. Joe used Supino reasoning and that didn’t help me sleep at night.

  “We’re going back to Toronto soon, Joe,” I reminded him. “When we come back in August, with my father, we want to be able to stay in the house.”

  “Good. I look forward to seeing Mezzabotte again. All the old people, they remember your father. His father was esperto — what you call it? — expert at pruning the grapes. Every year, Domenico’s grapes grow the most. Pretty soon other people ask him to come and trim their vines. Next year, more grapes. All along the road, where your father’s farm is, you see the best grapevines in the village. When your grandfather died, nobody knows his secrets, how to cut the branches just right. Some people they cut too much — others not enough — never like Domenico. He was perfetto. But your father, he tells you this, no? Lorenzo, down at the bar, he knows. Come. I buy you coffee. Lorenzo, he tells you the story.”

  Joe and I walked across the street, through Mario’s woodlot, to find Bob. He was standing among the crowd of buttercups in our backyard.

  “I made a list,” Bob began. “The hydro meter, the plasterer, the handyman, the floor-sanding man, the plumber, the carpenter, the painter, the electrician, the....”

  “Bob,” asked Joe, “you got the contract from Pietro?”

  “Yes.”

  “You signed?”

  “Yes.”

  “He signed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bob. You got no problem. When you come back in August with Mezzabotte, everything, she’s fine.”

  *****

  At the Bar Italia, Bob had just finished helping Bruno set up the tables and chairs on the outdoor patio. The cracked cement square holds four tables and ten chairs. Yesterday, a city truck had delivered planter boxes to different public sites around the village. The planters were full of flowers. But most of the villagers held the same opinion as my father — you can’t eat flowers — so the flowers have been replaced. On the counter inside the bar are velvety blue petunias deposited unceremoniously in a recycled milk carton; outside the bar in the planter box on the patio are three small tomato seedlings.

  We were arguing about who would pay for the coffees when Pietro came into the bar. I asked him why he and his contractors were all working next door at Sam’s house, when we had hired him just last week.

  “Maria,” responded Pietro patiently, “Mezzabotte doesn’t arrive until agosto. Look on the calendario. It’s only maggio.” He added, almost involuntarily, “Mamma mia.”

  Pietro explained that he’d run into a little problem: our attic window was going to look right into Sam’s new bedroom. Problema. Grande problema. Without exchanging a word, Bob and I knew we were entering into trade number three.

  Joe folded his hands on the table, tapped his thumbs together. “What you going to do?” Joe asked, leaning forward to hear Pietro’s answer. “You already said you’ll put in the new window glass. Bob sign; you sign. Problema, Pietro, grande problema.”

  “Fill in the window with cemento. Perfetto,” declared Pietro. “You don’t need two windows, Bob. You already got one window at the back. Basta. That’s enough, no?”

  “I like that little window,” claimed Bob.

  “Mamma mia. I pay you for the damn window,” yelled Pietro. “Bruno, bring me birra. Presto.” Bruno brought a pitcher of beer with several glasses and some advice for Pietro.

  “Canadese sono ricchi, no?” Pietro smacked his head with the palm of his hand and said nothing.

  “I have a plan,” said Joe, as if he had just thought of it while Bruno was getting the beer. “We make a trade. You take out the kitchen window. Cut the wall down to the floor. Put the door for the backyard. In return, Bob gives you permission to fill in that nice little attic window with cemento.”

  “Sí. Sí,” agreed Pietro, who hurriedly pushed his pen and a napkin toward Joe. Joe drew out the deal and we signed at the X.

  *****

  On the way back to the house, we’d picked up several extra people. There were two men who sat on the bench at the water fountain every day and waited for a stranger to stop at the fountain who thought he or she could get water from it. The men directed the newcomer up the hill, past our house, to the pisciarello where the cold water from the mountain stream ran continuously. But today they gave up their chance to give directions and followed us up the hill. Some children, who were playing soccer, stopped their game and joined us. Angela was just coming out of the tabacchi store, pasta and cigarettes in hand, so she joined us too. Christina, who owns the store, was left alone leaning in the doorway, so she locked the door and came along as well.

  “What if someone wants to buy something?” I asked Joe.

  “They wait. Or they come to the house. Maria, why do you worry so much?”

  The villagers had mixed opinions about cutting the doorway. They weren’t sure about using the door that Joe had found in the woodshed. It wasn’t a sturdy outside door with a solid lock and a heavy metal doorknob; it was an inside door with a frosted glass panel and a slender silver door handle. Joe said it would do for now. He had found a better one, a solid wooden outside door with a good sturdy lock, on the house next door to ours. No one was living in the house, but surely eventually somebody would and they would need a door.

  “Bob, you buy this house. No cost too much money. We take off the
door. She looks good, no? We put it for the backyard. What do you say, Bob?”

  “Buy the house? To get a door? Joe, we can just buy a new door.”

  “What’s a matter with you, Bob? Pietro already told you this at the bar. You’ve got to pay attention. Luigi he makes shutters and doors. Made to measure. Not like Toronto where you go to Canadian Tire and buy a door. This is Italy. Luigi can make the door for you. Measure nice. Special wood from Abruzzi region. Strong nails imported from Milano. He sands very smooth, even makes the picture on the door. What do you call that? Woodcarving. He puts stain and wax and polish. Nice, nice. But Luigi — he takes a lot a time. Sure, sure. Luigi tells everybody, ‘Sono artiste, grande professore.’ Bigga head, that guy. What a thief! If Luigi’s going to make the door for you, Bob, you’re going to pay a lot of money. It’s much better to buy the house. The house, she’s little. Just two rooms, one up, one down. Nothing special. But the door — bellissima. You and me, Bob, we knock out the wall between the two houses and presto, you have a five-room house. What do you say?”

  “Perfetto,” the neighbours said. “Bravo.”

  “Perfetto?” I shouted. “To buy a house to get a door? Not perfetto. Pazzo.”

  “Is the two-room house for sale?” asked Bob. “There’s no sign.”

  “Sign? Why you want to waste money on a sign? I already tell the owner nobody want that house. It’s too little. Who’s going to buy a two-room house? It’s a no good for nothing. That guy who owns the house — he lets it sit here empty while he pays rent for an apartment in Roma. His mother, she lived in the house 37 years. Now she’s dead. The son wants to sell. He doesn’t want to live here. Thinks he’s a bigga shot, live in Roma. Even when the mother was living, the son never came to visit. Just phone sometimes on Sunday. Better if the guy think that no one wants a two-room house. We get a better price that way. For now we put the door I found.”