The Hero's Way

by Tim Parks

  Paradiso

  There is a word Italians no longer use, viandante. On a July night in 1817 the adolescent Giacomo Leopardi opened what was to be a 4000-page diary with: ‘Palazzo Bello [the house where he was staying] Cane di notte dal casolare, al passar del viandante’ – Dog in the night from the farmhouse, as the wayfarer passes. ‘Wayfarer’ is not much used these days. The authoritative Treccani dictionary defines viandante as ‘A person who goes (andare) along the way (via); in particular someone who goes on paths outside towns, travelling by foot, to reach distant places.’ And adds, ‘No longer current.’

  First the figure fades, ghost-like into the mists of the past, then the word with it. An aura of the archaic spreads like a mould. Old poems, old diaries. Then a host of things that sustained that figure wither away too. The roadside water fountains are mostly gone, the wells, the taverns and hostelries where you could eat and sleep along the way. Who needs them now? So once again Booking.com and Airbnb offer almost nothing along our route today. But there is a place off the wayfarer’s path, a different kind of place, not designed for sleeping the night and moving on, but a world entire unto itself. Gated luxury. We’re going to be finding more and more of these hideaways from here on, not taverns or hotels but projections of the perfect holiday retreat. This one, which also caters for wedding receptions and ‘grand events’, is aptly named Paradiso. Eleonora reads me the description from its website. In English: ‘Tenuta Gran Paradiso, lovely Villa at a glance away from Rome, it is immersed in the quietness of the suggestive Tiber valley . . . with his being a chameleon, it will make all your unforgettable event.

  ‘There’s a swimming pool,’ she adds and shows me a blue photo.

  ‘Book it!’

  ‘Dog in the night from the farmhouse,’ Leopardi wrote, meaning barking presumably, ‘as the wayfarer passes.’

  Wayfarers may be no more, but the dogs remain. They’ve multiplied. The fewer wayfarers, the more dogs. And they go on barking across the centuries. German shepherds, mastiffs, Dobermanns, Rottweilers, protectors of the fearful proprietors of pretentious provincial villas. Or hunting dogs in farmyards: pointers, setters, spaniels and beagles. Working dogs out with the sheep: collies and Labradors. Fancy dogs on balconies: poodles and terriers and miniature pinschers. Dogs that tear back and forth between hedge and fence as you pass. Dogs wriggling heads through balcony railings. Dogs that strain at the ends of chains. Dogs that leap up behind a remote-controlled gate, panting loudly, pink tongues out in the heat. Dogs that dash into the road to confront you. Or follow you. All without exception barking, yapping, snapping, snarling, growling. Day after day, house after house, as we pass. Ferocious, festive or frightened, they all seize this now rare opportunity to justify their existence: the passage of a wayfarer. And when one dog begins, others soon join in. Spirit of the pack. Canine carolling. Across the road, along the valley. There are moments when it seems the whole Italian landscape is barking.

  Eleonora is terrified of dogs. She was mauled as a child. Dauntless when facing trucks on the Tiburtina, she jumps with fright when a dog bursts out of bushes to slam itself against a fence, barking wildly. Throughout this trip I am tensed for the moment – it will surely come – when we are confronted by loose dogs in open country. For now I merely observe, ‘So much for the quietness of the suggestive Tiber valley.’

  To tell the truth, it doesn’t feel like a valley. Just pleasantly undulating countryside, tall white drought-stricken grass set off by the resilient greens of shrub and olive. I remember a narrow chalky track downhill between dry thistles so tall their thistledown waved above our heads. Then a raspberry-stuccoed farmhouse, cactus to one side, fig tree to the other, with these words handwritten in white over the door: Formaggio e ricottina, la mangi da Michelina. Cheese and ricottinas, you can eat at Michelina’s.

  Once again, this is not quite the road Garibaldi took. Assured by his returning horsemen that he had shaken off the French and Spanish and still burdened for the moment with a number of carts, he took the main road north up the meandering Tiber. But that road is still the main road. More than ever the main road. Having learned now how to use Google Satellite and Street View, we inspected a few miles of it online and came to the conclusion that it is not a place you would want to walk. Dogs may bark and even bite, but they will not flatten you.

  So we’re outriding, on tiny parallel tracks to the east of Garibaldi’s column. An elegant but broken tower on a hillock to our right is the so-called Grotta Marrotta, a medieval ruin in what was once a rich and populous village. Regular signs warn us we can only hunt if ‘authorized’. Hunt what, one wonders, having seen no animals but dogs. The occasional hawk, turning high above, perhaps. A few sheep on the hills. Lizards everywhere, dozing on warm white stones or rustling off in the thistles. Crows pecking in stubble. Nobody hunts crows.

  Now another sign – glossy blue and yellow – informs us that we are on the Via Francigena, St Francis’ Way, the old pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome. But in two hours along this particular track we meet no pilgrims. We are absolutely alone in the scorched fields. It’s discouraging. A people once doggedly attached to the land – ‘I hoed all day under the sun’ – have been freed to sit in air-conditioned environments following events on TV and computer screen. The whole drift of modern life, from the actual to the virtual, opens the question of why emotions of loyalty and identity should any longer be attached to a physical territory. That once unshakeable connection – place/identity – that so galvanized and justified nineteenth-century liberal nationalism is now fast coming undone.

  All the same, it’s fun to think of Garibaldi’s path overlapping with a pilgrim route: the devout Christians going to bow their heads before the Pope; the patriot in flight from the Eternal City but still hoping to wrest it from papal clutches one day. And the two meet on this dusty road; or rather the pilgrim plodding south stands aside to let the soldiers marching north pass by. The meeting and mixing, or non-mixing, of these two mindsets lies at the core of Italy’s precarious identity.

  Also looking precarious are our plans for afternoon swimming. As always with these long spells of intense summer heat, the moment comes when the storm clouds gather, the air grows stiller, the clamour of the cicadas louder. We’re not entirely surprised. Like Garibaldi we cannot choose our weather, but unlike him we can type ‘Roma meteo’ or ‘Monterotondo meteo’ into Google and get a two-week forecast. The websites spoke of a storm in the night, but the clouds are already here at one o’clock.

  The garibaldini took a swim that afternoon. They set up camp at midday after eight hours’ walking and bathed, Hoffstetter tells us, in the Tiber by an old stone bridge. All of them? Thousands of men piling into the sluggish muddy stream? You imagine them sprawled nude on the banks to dry off in the sun – no swimming trunks of course – waving away hornets and wasps, looking for herbs to treat a rash.

  Did Anita turn away? Apparently she and Garibaldi – José, she called him – rode their horses across the water and rested in the shade of a little cliff.

  By the time we slip into our costumes the sun is hidden behind thick cloud, and as we arrive at the Paradiso’s blue pool the air stirs and a breath of wind ruffles the water. Most of the blessed have withdrawn to their bowers. Only four or five remain, lounging poolside. An older man is reading La Gazzetta dello Sport. A couple of young women are in the water, their elbows hooked onto the side, talking to two others on deckchairs. Loudly. About a friend’s relationship.

  Eleonora goes to the ladder and dips a foot. I’m a dive-in sort of person, so I’ve done a couple of laps before she’s properly in. But what’s a lap of fifteen yards, however cool and clean? I’d prefer the muddy challenge of the river. We splash about for a while, but the breeze is tugging the fringes of the sunshades now. The old man has to fight the pages of his Gazzetta. The oleander hedge that shelters Paradise from the wilds beyond is suddenly a shivering panic of white and pink. The women gather their towels and lotions. We follow, d
isappointed.

  But I should have told you about Angelino and Massimo, the Gran Paradiso’s guardian angels. St Peter was not on the gate as we turned off the road. Nor was he sorting through keys at the reception desk. Looking for someone to judge our worthiness, we had to wander, packs on backs, damp sunhats still on our heads, into a spacious restaurant, a sea of white tablecloths, where a dozen sparsely scattered guests were winding up their Saturday lunch. Finally we had the attention of the waiter, who approached us, wiping hands on his apron.

  ‘Heavy going, hey?’ Wiry and thin, he grins broadly, lantern-jawed, black bowtie on black shirt. You understand immediately that he’s a wag. A Ciceruacchio perhaps. Leading us round the building outside, he stops, sighs and – ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ – lights a cigarette, cupping his hand against the breeze. But where on earth are we walking with these heavy packs? Madness! Complete madness! ‘I’m a runner,’ he declares. ‘You’re passionate about walking. I’m passionate about running.’ He takes a deep drag of his cigarette. ‘Much deserved!’

  He leaves us in Reception and goes through a dark door to the kitchen. Eventually, a burly man in a chef’s hat appears, tall, stooped and abundantly bearded. His black shirt makes me think of Ugo Bassi. ‘We’re short-staffed today,’ he admits. ‘Of course you’ll be dining here, won’t you? Yes, we do have dishes for vegetarians. We have everything. Best food in the world.’ The other man comes back. ‘Tim-oh-tee;’ he reads my name from my ID. ‘I’m Angelino.’ He wipes a hand and offers it. ‘This is Massimo. Our magician.’

  We’re led through a maze of low buildings, bungalow apartments with brick-paved terraces. POMEGRANATE, PEACH, CHERRY, OLIVE. Each little dwelling has a pretty name and every space is marked off by bright white railings lined with fake classical vases held up by intertwining cherubs and ablaze with geraniums. ‘Massimo’s a genius,’ Angelino is telling us. Truly. ‘Everything is home-made. Haute cuisine.’

  It’s extraordinary how eager Angelino is to talk, to draw us into an atmosphere of excited complicity that somehow has to do with his smoky fingers and glassy eyes and a faint smell of grappa. He and Massimo are a team, he says. ‘He’s so meticulous. You know. I’m a bit more laissez-faire. He keeps me in line, I make him more human.’

  He might be a newly-wed enthusing over his bride.

  ‘You want to leave early in the morning? No problem.’ A breakfast basket will be brought to our apartment after dinner. ‘But you can’t walk tomorrow, my friends, it’ll be wet. Haven’t you seen the forecast? Why not stay another day? You look like you need a rest.’

  What we actually need is to take a shower. Which at last, suddenly remembering other duties, Angelino leaves us free to do. One thing is clear, however: we will have to eat in his restaurant this evening, and we will have to do justice to Massimo’s cooking. Any thoughts of resistance would be folly.

  With an early bed in mind, we went along as soon as the restaurant opened and chose to sit outside, which meant we were alone and Angelino could stop by and regale us with his personal history. His time in London. The English girlfriend who taught him English. ‘Not wishing to offend, you know, but I didn’t really like the place.’ Very soon he felt he had to get back to Italy, to Rome. ‘These are our frittelline,’ he says, setting down gleaming plates. The white cloth over the arm of his black shirt makes a handsome picture. And a little later, ‘This is our formaggio semi-stagionato pastellato e fritto.’ He watches us tuck in. ‘A writer, are you?’ With Massimo being such a good cook, he expects the two of them will end up on television one day. ‘I suppose celebrity could be exciting, but to be honest I couldn’t put up with the Bangla. You know? I’m happy as I am. Here is our polenta. You’ll love it. Here is our parmigiana.’

  At no point were we shown a menu. The plates just kept coming. How could we not like what he brought? It was exquisite. Washed down with a Castelli Romani wine, the same that Ciceruacchio carted to Rome from the Alban hills.

  ‘Did he really say “Bangla”?’ I asked.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Bangladeshis?’

  ‘I think he means if they got famous, they’d have to move in some slick international environment, with foreigners. Bangla.’

  ‘Here is our sformatino di zucchine con ricotta e noci.’

  Of course living in the city had become impossible, Angelino was laughing. ‘Not to be racist, you know, even though I probably am . . . Out here it’s wonderful.’

  As he departs with another set of plates, Eleonora reminds me that this whole area – Montecelio, Mentana, Monterotondo – voted for Salvini’s xenophobe League in the recent European elections.

  ‘Here are our gnocchi con funghi porcini zucca e tartufo.’

  I’m way beyond my limit.

  Meantime, down by the Tiber, Hoffstetter had his first chance to see South American slaughter techniques. A Uruguayan soldier selected eight cows and tied them in a circle round a tree. The soldiers held the animals still with ropes. Then this man, a ‘child of the pampas’, took the dagger from his belt and ‘with the greatest rapidity struck one beast after the other in the heart; almost at once the animals collapsed to the ground. As you can imagine, this strange spectacle gathered quite a crowd.’

  The meat was then cut up – a complex process – and an officer charged with distributing portions to the men, though only after the tenderest pieces had been reserved for the General and his wife. Fires were lit. ‘The soldiers cut their portions into thin slices, skewered them on green sticks and held them obliquely to the flames. We were resting on our saddlecloths round the fire, cutting the cooked meat with our daggers. But you could see from some men’s faces that they missed their olive oil and salt, and Anita went round smiling and consoling everyone with the thought that things would soon improve.’

  Towards evening, Garibaldi addressed his men. It was the first time he had talked to them all together since the piazza in Rome. You wonder how it was done, with 4000 soldiers by the riverbank. And you wonder what was said. We don’t know. But Hoffstetter describes it in terms of sustenance, as if it were part of the barbecue; ‘a juicy talk’, he calls it.

  Replete, the soldiers slept, but the cavalrymen had to feed their horses. The problem was that even though they had managed to find oats and beans they had no nosebags. ‘Men fed their horses from handkerchiefs, or dug little holes in the ground. I stood for hours with my two horses,’ Hoffstetter tells us ‘feeding them out of my cap’.

  I put my cap on again because the evening at the Gran Paradiso is suddenly cool. Once again a breeze is rising. And I’m eating so much I fear I won’t sleep. ‘Here is our semifreddo alla pesca!’ Angelino announces. I begin to worry they are planning to hit us with a huge bill.

  Now there is a bottle of limoncello on the table. Eleonora declines. Angelino pours her a glass anyway. ‘Our home-made limoncello!’ She lifts it to her lips, but the level in the glass remains the same. And when the bill arrives, it’s truly modest. Massimo comes out of the kitchen to pump our hands. A group selfie is taken. In the distance a first rumble of thunder has the two of them begging us to stay tomorrow. I feel mean for having doubted their genuine enthusiasm for serving us some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. Back in our room, a hamper is waiting on the table, with breakfast inside. You can see at once that it will cover lunch as well. What can we do but collapse on the bed and wait for the storm?

  DAY 4

  5 July 1849 – 28 July 2019

  Gran Paradiso, Passo Corese, Ponte Sfondato (Le Murene) – 19 miles

  Passo Corese

  It comes towards two in a gust of wind. We rush out on the terrace to sort out a pot that has blown over and is rolling around. The sky flickers and splits. The rain descends in drenching sheets. At once a tension develops. Eleonora is for turning off the alarm and starting later. Or not at all. I’m reluctant to change plans.

  The garibaldini also faced marches in the rain. On three occasions. All ‘ruinous for morale’, Ruggeri complain
s. The first time, ten days into the journey, was particularly dramatic, since they were walking in the pitch dark, through open country, in close proximity to the enemy. Having read all my authors’ accounts of that terrible night at least twice, I’ve been assuming that we too will walk that section in the wet. Our weather will follow theirs. Instead, the rain is upon us now, at 2 a.m., on day four, the exact hour when Garibaldi’s men resumed their march under quiet moonlight after their long break by the river. ‘In excellent order,’ Hoffstetter enthuses, ‘one of our most beautiful marches, thanks to the General’s talk.’

  For Hoffstetter, a march is an aesthetic experience.

  At five the rain is still falling, in thundery bursts. But after seven there’s a lull. Eleonora agrees to get going, and I feel guilty for pushing her, which makes me aware that deep down I actually want us to get caught in the rain. Yes, torrential rain. I want some extreme experience. To test the gear we’ve brought? The waterproof covers for the packs? The dry bags? I don’t think so. We’re getting to the heart here, I sense, as we swing out of Paradise and along the misty road, of why I’ve become obsessed with this journey. I could never have such a sublime goal in life as Garibaldi had – fighting for liberty, the making of a nation – but I do want to share something of his enviable purposefulness, his derring-do.