Italian Neighbours

by Tim Parks

  The days pass. The moon is now a perfect round silver coin in the sky. How can it possibly affect our prosecco? I stand on the balcony, watching it rise full as full between rainclouds over the derelict factory. To wax no more. Mid-May it will have to be.

  30

  Il 25 Aprile

  ON 25 APRIL flags hang from windows and balconies along the main street through Montecchio. It’s Liberation Day. People whose homes face on to major thoroughfares are obliged to fly the flag. Most of them do. Somebody has forgetfully left a pink towel over the railings of their balcony. In a beam of sunshine it clashes gorgeously with the red, white and green.

  Walking towards Centro Primo Maggio, for it’s a public holiday, we hear the strains of a brass band. In dark uniform an endearing mix of adolescents and middle-aged stalwarts are playing a military march. They arrive at the monument to the fallen more or less as we do. Not the monument in the main square dedicated to the soldiers who died – they have already been there – but a more modest, modern affair located at the corner below the extanning factory where another small estate of case popolari begins. Here a copper plate records the names of eleven civilian Montecchiesi killed in the bombing. A recycled wreath lies at its foot.

  The band lower their instruments and a couple of youths in jeans are busy setting up an amplifier. A small crowd gathers, families in their Sunday best, shifting weight from one foot to the other, children tugging at coats. Every few minutes they have to part to let a car, or a team of racing cyclists through. On the opposite corner is one of the noisier bars for village youths, its window daubed with a cartoon view of the New York skyline, symbol of unimagined decadence.

  An old, portly man in uniform, complete with medals, starts to speak into a microphone, although there are only thirty or so people. He begins with the normal introductory formalities employing the pompous Italian of public discourse, so that for a moment I imagine this will be one of those politician’s speeches one grows accustomed to here where any possible message is obscured by an interminable clutter of qualifications and relative clauses. (‘It depends’ – I quote more or less at random from a newspaper by my side – ‘if this development is to be seen in the light of a possible rapprochement between forces by their nature intrinsically unsympathetic to what I think one would have to call the future interests and indeed hopes of the nation, conceived as that group of people who, for reasons of history, race and culture, consider themselves to form an identity distinct from, though not opposed to, other national identities, or whether …’)

  But no. Having got over his carefully pre-prepared introduction, his list of names to be thanked and organisations mentioned, the old man has given up on his notes and is talking in a very simple way about the war and the dead now. He remembers how Italy fought on the wrong side, how soldiers went to freezing Russia in light summer uniforms, how these civilians were killed by the bombs of their ex-allies. He pauses, clears a hoarse throat. ‘If their death is to have any meaning at all.’ he says, gesturing to the monument, ‘it must lie in the kind of Italy that we have managed to build after the war, that we are able to build now. And at the moment, this Italy of Mafia, tax evasion and public corruption does not do honour to their names, we cannot feel we have built on their sacrifice.’

  He continues in this remarkably strong vein, although speaking calmly and intelligently. His old man’s sincerity is impressive, the more so because of his scrubbed red nose and the deep wrinkles, weather-, age- and drink-induced. He has none of the professional speaker’s polish; he ers and ahs, feeling for what to say next. Turning round to the monument, having problems with his microphone, he begins to read out the names, one by one, as if they were people he knew. And maybe he did. ‘Albertini Mario, Pizzini Giuseppe, Stefanelli Emanuele …’The little gathering listens gravely; and it’s a moment of unusual candidness, this old man in the spring light, speaking hoarsely into a microphone, reading out the names of the dead, surname first, then Christian name, as if at some impossible roll-call. Then the band strikes up the national anthem and everybody disperses for their cappuccinos. On our way to the bar, we find a bunch of fresh daffodils has appeared by the plaque to the three who fell under enemy fire as the Germans retreated. It would be intriguing to know who put them there. The Dalmatian imprisoned behind jumps on and off the old bidet that serves as its waterbowl.

  In the bar the price of our cappuccino has gone up another hundred Lire, but since this price is fixed by a government body, we can hardly complain at Pasticceria Maggia. The price of an espresso is fixed, the price of a cappuccino is fixed, the price of a newspaper is fixed, the price of petrol, diesel and heating oil is fixed, the price of bread is fixed. Is this in line, I ask Lorenzo, with the spirit of Liberazione? And paying at the till I ask the pretty Cinzia if the price of brioches is fixed too, since I notice they always cost the same everywhere. ‘Not officially,’ she smiles, and is careful to give me my receipt.

  Returning to Via Colombare, it’s to find Lucilla and Vittorina sitting on their backsides in the middle of the lawn, legs stretched wide apart in dark old wool skirts. Vittorina has her big straw hat against a sun that’s getting perceptibly stronger every day. Each woman holds a knife and they have an old shopping basket between them. They thrust their knives into the lawn, wiggle them vigorously about and pull out the fresh young dandelion plants. The roots are cut off and tossed away and the leaves dropped into the shopping basket to be washed for salad or boiled like spinach. They chatter and sing as they work. I have never seen them so happy. Lucilla has put on a green kerchief, peasant fashion. When they’ve exhausted the garden, they say, they’ll go off to the orchard and vineyard fields to try there. And indeed, walking about the countryside in spring, the meadows are full of crouched figures with plastic bags or shopping baskets, gathering dandelion and other leaves.

  Giampaolo comes out to discuss lawnmowing rotas and they give him some of their harvest. Vado Matto, he grins, I’m crazy for them. We accept too, although I can’t say I’m wildly enthusiastic. The locals have a taste for such rough, bitter salads: leaves with the texture of a cat’s tongue and the taste of herb medicine. Terribly good for her constipation, Lucilla confides. To me it seems the kind of taste one could only have developed in darkest wartime.

  Old Lovato watches us all from over the fence, wondering what we’ll do with the garden this year, how much our hedge will grow and steal his light. Behind him, and stinking with fertiliser, his peas are already rising thick as Persian spears at Thermopylae. Meantime, with Vittorina not being able to do much after her stroke, Giampaolo’s encyclopaedic, ecological approach has got us no further than a few weedy rows of snail-ridden spinach and salad. The sun may well follow its dazzling trajectory above Via Colombare, the railings and cement, vines and cypresses may drip and drip with light, but somehow that dank little patch below the old cinema wall and Negretti’s terrace is always in the dark.

  Incredibly, in May – but as a dipendente Giampaolo seems born to bad luck – the weather breaks again right on the new moon. Once more it seems the combination of rising pressure and waxing moon is to elude us. The brilliant Mediterranean sky is suddenly replaced by the kind of cloud you expect to find over Halifax or Slough. The rain is desperately heavy. Via Colombare is not cambered and surface water gurgles about looking for a gutter. Lovato stands at the window, staring at his peas, willing them to stand firm. Our lady of the twig broom cycles by under an umbrella, climbs off at her house and, despite the torrent, kicks a cigarette stub away from her gate. Old Signora Marini is another one pedalling under an umbrella. Lack of wind makes this possible as it would not be somewhere else I know. On the third day of uninterrupted rain, I even spy one-armed Negretti, his good hand on the right handlebar, his new dog Ursa tied to the left, and a red umbrella tucked under his stump.

  Montecchio being on the water table for countless kilometres of limestone hills above, the ditches are soon full to overflowing. Even the emergency ditches begin to fill, so
mething that happens only once or twice a year. The water is a muddy brown flecked with white as it bears away the heaps of litter people have thrown there. Before the week is out, water floods the section of road by the Cassa di Risparmio di Verona, Vicenza e Belluno, the village’s one bank. The Communist Party is quick to get out posters complaining that, while the council has plenty of money to spend for all sorts of other projects, it has never solved this simple drainage problem. The head of the local Christian Democratic Party ducks (as it were) the question at a meeting held in the local library which is temporarily closed for book borrowing because the librarian is away for his military service. Finally, the rain becomes so violent that it fills the emergency ditch to the brim, bursting the stout wall that protects the main road and covering it with water and broken masonry.

  How can we possibly bottle prosecco in this, Giampaolo complains. He taps his barometer. I’ve never seen it so low. We watch an evening’s TV together over the last of the previous year’s bottles. On one of the smaller channels there are frequent ads for talismans (by post) and the services of local astrologers, but nothing on how to get the right combination of atmospherics and lunar cycle for our sixty litres of bubbly. The news quotes the huge sum the government has already promised in compensation to keep the farmers sweet. Should we, perhaps, prepare a claim for our possibly ruined prosecco?

  Then the miracle happens. The weather clears two days before the weathermen said it would. The pressure is suddenly rising. Giving us a twelve-hour window to do our stuff before the full moon.

  31

  L’imbottigliamento

  AMIDST ANCIENT ACCOUNTANCY reviews and stacks of Nuova Alta Tensione in Patuzzi’s cellar, stand about a hundred cobweb-ridden wine bottles. Giampaolo inspects them, turning them over in his hands, looking inside, putting his nose to the neck. There’s a grave expression on his face. It’s Friday night. Saturday is our last day for the waxing moon. His own bottles stand in sparkling ranks by his cellar door, each with a square of snap-wrap on top to keep out the dust. Clearly we should have thought of this problem before.

  Our neighbour goes away and returns with a bottle full of metal shot and a big cast-iron tub. His instructions are precise. We boil the bottles ten at a time in the tub and for at least five minutes; we then half fill each bottle with the metal shot and, thumb over the top, shake vigorously, up and down and round and round. The shot must be rinsed between each bottle. After which the bottles can be washed in normal fashion, rinsed three or four times to remove the soap, and placed in a position where they can drain off thoroughly before tomorrow morning. Already I’m beginning to wonder if we mightn’t perhaps have stuck with supermarket bubbly.

  Rubber gloves are required. And infinite patience. But the radio has just the thing for us. As we work late into the evening there’s a quiz show which involves people answering questions about intricacies of bureaucratic red tape: ‘In what situation might you be asked for a document of esistenza in vita?’ ‘Should an application for a no parking sign for your garage or gate be made on plain paper, or stamped paper (and, if the latter, how much does the stamp cost?)’ ‘How many years less does a woman teacher have to work for her pension if she has three children?’ ‘When selling a second-hand car, is it sufficient for just one spouse to take an oath before the solicitor, or do both spouses have to go?’ ‘When given a prescription for an X-ray, for how long is it valid?’ The respondents are quick on their buzzers. We try not to slosh too loudly because the answers are frequently surprising. Actually, it’s a pretty useful programme.

  Then Saturday morning early, a blond thumbprint of moon only a sliver away from being full, it’s straight down to Giampaolo’s cellar to do the deed. Like his mind, this tiny space of four or five square metres is admirably tidy and well ordered. There are two shelves of wine bottles, all carefully hand-labelled: the type of grape, the area they come from, the harvest year, the date of bottling: Cabernet–Friuli – vendemmia 1981, imbottigliato il 2 Maggio, 1982; Traminer – Alto Adige – vendemmia 1982, imbottigliato il 15 Aprile 1983 … On the shelves below are boxes and cabinets full of tools, hardware supplies and the like. Again there are painstakingly prepared labels: 2 cm anchor nails, 1 cm self-tapping screws, 5 mm rawplugs … The air rarely moves down here. Along the top shelf are hundreds of editions of the topical magazine, Panorama (which may be worth something one day), plus twenty or so volumes of a now outdated but still formidable encyclopaedia. Almost at once I feel I’ll have to be on my best behaviour.

  Out comes the equipment, handled with the special care of the fetishistic object. A clear plastic siphon with a tap, lengthily boiled and rinsed the evening before. There’s something disturbingly surgical about it. A corking tripod with handpumplike lever. As you bring this down the fat cork is squeezed pencil thin and forced into the top of the bottle. Molto valido, this piece of equipment, and a bargain at 50,000 Lire from a friend. The action is discreto. Although of course the quality of any corker is relativo, since what counts above all is the quality of your cork.

  And we swing into a long lecture on the various corks the market offers. Giampaolo has purchased different kinds for the different wines he is planning to bottle, although there is also an element of experiment, he explains. He is eager to see how much effect different corks will have on the same wine bottled the same day from the same demijohn. He has corks made from a single piece of quality cork; these are the most expensive, since they retain their springiness and breathe well. Careful to wash your hands before touching them. Then there are some cheaper corks made from putting together pieces of cork in layers. These are OK as long as you’re not planning to keep your bottle too long; they’ll do for the prosecco, which will last a max of a year, but not for the Cabernet he’s got which should improve with age. And, finally, he has a bag full of plastic stoppers, which have the advantage of being very cheap: you can insert them by hand and remove them by hand, but of course they don’t breathe. It will be interesting to see if this makes any difference to the prosecco.

  He’s also going to do five corker of each wine he’s got in clear rather than green glass, to check how far the light factor affects the quality. I point out that to do this he will have to open two bottles at once, otherwise he won’t be able to make a direct comparison. But he’s aware of that. When the in-laws come to lunch, it won’t matter if one bottle is not quite up to scratch. Apparently, the tight space of the cellar is breeding a sense of complicity.

  We lift the first demijohn on to a chair to get the height required for siphoning. This has to be done with immense delicacy so as not to disturb the sediment at the bottom. Bent over, muscles tense, it is as if we were shifting a tactical nuclear warhead. Then with the Murphy’s-law cussedness which upsets even the best-laid plans, the chair turns out to be rickety, or the floor uneven, and the big jar tips perilously from side to side doubtless displacing clouds of sediment inside, like mud in a pond. There’s a hunt for pieces of paper and cardboard to slip under the chairlegs, but the damage is done now and we will have to wait at least half an hour for the sediment to settle. In the meantime, we siphon off half a jugful, examine it for cloudiness, then pour a little in and out of our first ten bottles (dark green) to rinse and prime them. Immediately the dankish air down in the cellar takes on a very heady smell indeed.

  We line up the bottles ready for action stations. There’s a pleasantly conspiratorial feel to mucking about in a cellar that stinks of drink. We are beginning to enjoy ourselves, and at last the siphon is gently lowered into the demijohn. Giampaolo kneels on the cleanswept cement, head down low, to suck the precious liquor through.

  At which precise moment, with a great banging of brooms, mops and buckets (the doors are iron down here and resound tremendously), fat Lucilla appears. And announces that she had planned to do the garage spring-clean today. There are a lot of tyremarks on the floor and one or two drops of oil. A rather shell-shocked, but determined Vittorina appears behind her, thinning hair tucked int
o a kerchief. They stand there in the doorway looking at us. Orietta has also been informed and press-ganged. Rita has pleaded the excuse of pregnancy. That is, having observed Lucilla’s cleaning methods, she is concerned about exposure to noxious fumes.

  So, at this extremely delicate and exciting moment, Giampaolo and I are obliged to go and move our cars out of the garage, where, hairy upper lip working nervously, Vittorina (despite all doctor’s orders not to exert herself) is already sploshing detergent on orange bricks. Lucilla is strewing handfuls of sawdust. Orietta has a grim look. For the first time I notice a Sacred Heart above the four electricity meters. Cars removed, we excuse ourselves hurriedly.

  Bottling turns out to be both boring and demanding. The siphon nozzle goes down into the first of a hundred and more bottles. The wine flows slowly, but you have to keep an eye on it so as to stop it at three or four centimetres from the top. Meantime, you’re checking that the next bottle has been primed, or, once the process is underway, trying to cork the bottles you’ve already filled. With a dipstick, Giampaolo examines the wine in the other demijohns and tells bottling stories. How the year before last, for example, all but two of the prosecco bottles came out flat and were more or less undrinkable. Although he’d had excellent atmospheric and lunar co-operation. This is just one of those imponderables that make it so exciting.

  I ask him why the prosecco I buy from the supermarket, admittedly at three times the price, is never flat, despite the fact that the bottling factory can hardly be observing the moon and the barometer. Additives, he says contemptuously. Sugar, fizzing agents. Give you a hangover. That’s why shop-bought prosecco can never equal the perfect home-bottled variety, just as Bepi’s vegetables are never at the same level as those grown in the garden without any pesticides.