by Sally Gable
The electrician Giancarlo and his assistant are at work setting up and connecting spotlights and a control panel. (Giancarlo seems to have a monopoly on electrical work at the villa, based on the fact that he is the one who rewired it for Dick Rush and now no one else understands it.)
Saturday will be showtime! Manifesti—colorful posters—are on walls and shopwindows all through town. The event that brings so much excitement? A recital by Scuola di Danza di Castelfranco, a regional ballet school that holds its classes in Castelfranco, a much larger town and trading center lying seven miles northwest of Piombino Dese.
Now, on Friday morning, the whole troupe arrives in full dress for a brief rehearsal on the massive stage and a group photo on the villa's north steps. The dancers range from four-year-old large dolls, so left-footed I'm sure they'll find a way to trip over their own thigh-length tutus, all the way to a few late-teens whose concentration is already so intense and professional that they seem sulky and detached. There are a few males among them, but my whole attention is swallowed up by the craze of colors on the girls and young women flashing back and forth before me as they gaggle and chatter, then move from warm-ups to tentative twirling rushes across the stage.
I can sense a quiet, contented grin from my villa, that so much youth and vitality is still fascinated by its own centuries-old form and drawn to dance in its shadow.
Saturday dawns bright and sunny, perfect for the ballet that will begin at the traditional hour of nine in the evening. But Silvana wears a worried face when she arrives to open the balcone. Despite the splendid weather that the new morning has brought, the forecast is not good. I will not let an anonymous weatherman confound my own eyes, I tell her; my optimism is undiminished.
Piombino Dese bestrides an ancient Roman road in the Venetan plain midway between Venice on the Adriatic coast to the southeast and the Dolomite range of the Alps surging from the plain to the north and northwest. On a clear day, free of the haze and ozone that are more typical in the modern industrial era, I can stand on the north portico of the villa and see past the low line of foothills, where Asolo and the other hill towns nestle, deep into the Alps themselves, standing snow-covered all summer long. All tempo-rali—storms—affecting the villa arise in the Alps and come down from the north. They have always done so. Palladio himself was well aware of the phenomenon; it led him cautiously to specify stone capitals for the columns of the villa's north porticos, even while he was experimenting with the exuberant free form of terracotta for the capitals of the less weathered south facade.
Shortly before lunch, Carl buzzes me on the intercom to suggest that I join him upstairs on the north portico. When I arrive, he directs my gaze northward toward the Alps. I have to agree that there is a distinct darkening in the sky along the peaks.
“There may be a storm building up, but it will never get here in time to ruin the recital,” I insist.
“Maybe it will pass to the east or west,” Carl says, but with less certainty. The mountain-bred storms of the Veneto are often violent, but they frequently follow a random path, so there is an element of chance in whether a particular storm sighted on the horizon will actually hit Piombino Dese.
By midafternoon the sky has darkened across the whole northern horizon, blocking all sight of the Alps, but the clouds are still far, far away. About six o'clock we hear a vague shudder from the distance that a pessimist might take to be thunder. An hour later the thunder has settled into a syncopated rhythm that cannot be denied. Flashes of light begin to cavort across the northern sky before falling to earth with a crash.
“I think it's slipping off east of us,” I suggest bravely. Carl listens without comment.
The dancers and their parents begin to arrive at eight, but they show little enthusiasm for donning their costumes in the dressing rooms that have been provided in the cantina. Giancarlo and his assistant show much more energy in their rush to drape plastic sheets over all the electrical equipment in the backyard and secure the flaps with tape. The assistant ballet mistress, whom I discover to be an expatriate Englishwoman, and a tight knot of parents cluster on the north portico to watch the storm roiling across the sky just miles away. Its arms stretch around us to the east and west, and an early darkness envelops us.
I am not ready to surrender. “Maybe it will pass through before nine o'clock,” I suggest hopefully.
Ballet students gather on the north steps after a rehearsal
“No,” the ballet mistress says. “Once the stage is wet, we won't be able to dance on it. It wouldn't be safe for the dancers.”
At precisely 8:40 the imps of hell are unleashed around us. Sheets of rain and lightning, alternating with vast sound chambers of thunder, strike with such fury that we are all surprised despite having spent hours watching the storm's inexorable march across the plain.
The storm rampages through half the night, but is followed by a morning so brilliant it would challenge Titian himself to bring its colors to a canvas. The sharp edges of the Alps are a glistening and reproachful reminder of a world without smog. In our backyard the dripping chairs and sodden stage sit sleepily under the slowly warming sun. Gradually the heat lifts the water from the lawn and the leaves of the trees, and the familiar rustle of wind through the Lombardy poplars returns to wake the space.
The week passes quickly, all sunny and dry Saturday arrives and the afternoon offers no hint of shadow in the northern sky. Gian-carlo returns to strip the plastic from his spotlights. Finally the chattering dancers appear, happy now in the certainty that the show will go on. Carl and I watch in amazement as the crowd begins to pour through the front gate and flow in a swelling stream around the villa to the park. The chairs are soon filled, and still the throngs arrive. At half past nine, when the recital at last begins, there must be five hundred people gathered, a third of them standing.
The youngest children in their bright tutus are the biggest hit, but I am struck by the genuine talent of two of the teenage girls. A few years later I learn that the younger of the two, from a Piom-bino Dese family, has been recruited for the corps de ballet at La Scala in Milan, and that she has courageously accepted—a brave leap from the nest in family-centered Italy. (In fact, Piombino Dese must be a hotbed of terpsichorean talent: a son of a later sindaco now dances with the Rome ballet.)
In all, the recital is a great audience favorite, aided no doubt by the fact that so many of the spectators have relatives onstage. But there will be a long hiatus before the dancers return to Villa Cornaro. The expense of the project, as compounded by the rain delay, I am told, is more than the ballet school and its supporters can risk again without financial aid.
Several of our most vivid memories of villa life involve those same wild temporali that swoop in from the north at irregular intervals. I sometimes think I should name them individually, like hurricanes: Angelo, Bonifacio, Carlo, Davide, Epifanio. Our introduction to them comes early. During our first October stay at our new villa, while we are still learning the mysteries of the security systems that Giancarlo installed for Dick Rush, Carl and I settle in our upstairs bedroom at the west end of the villa for a sound sleep after a busy and happy day. The October air is chilly, but we've cocooned ourselves warmly. The balcone are tightly closed, of course, blocking out all light from the street and much of the sound. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, we are shocked awake by a one-two punch. First, a mighty clap of thunder explodes around the villa without warning. What can only be described as a stealth tempo-rale has ambushed us! Then, as we sit rigidly upright in bed, our senses floundering for an explanation of the first crashing noise, we hear a new sound: a siren has begun to wail, loudly and nearby.
“That's the burglar alarm,” Carl deduces at last. “The thunder set it off by rattling the windows.” Reflexively he leaps from bed, only to be confronted by three problems. First, he's completely underdressed for the temperature of the villa; second, the room is inky black and he can't find the light switch; and third, he has only the vagues
t idea of where the burglar alarm controls are located, much less how to turn them off. By patting the wall frantically he at last locates the light switch several inches below the lowest point at which he thought it could possibly be. I gallantly find and hand him his summer bathrobe and send him shivering on his way down the circular wooden stair. We think the controls lie tucked away on a landing halfway between the ground floor and the cantina. Wishing him the best of luck, I immediately pop back into bed and pull up the covers.
Is it fair that Carl be sent off shivering into the night while I snuggle in bed? I ask myself. Of course it is, I respond. Who cooked dinner? Thunder hammers the villa, rain beats loudly against the halcone, and the burglar alarm strives to waken any neighbors whom the storm has left asleep. I now recall that the alarm system is also programmed to launch a series of three telephone calls immediately, first to the Miolos, then to the Battistons, who live next door, and finally to the local office of the carabinieri. I quickly review the possibilities. The Miolos, I am sure, will understand; I can explain it all to the Battistons in due course. But I am praying fervently that Carl finds the turnoff switch before the call is made to the carabinieri! I picture myself spending the rest of the night giving statements and filing official reports. Tension mounts. I conclude that Carl is lost, wandering around somewhere in the can-tina. Suddenly, with all hope gone, the alarm ceases its wail, and Carl returns to bed triumphant, cold, and grumpy.
16
Gli Scquizzato
We do not meet the Scquizzatos all at once. We meet them at different times, in pairs or one at a time. The parents Memi and Francesca, a daughter, a suitor, a son, a daughter-in-law and her father and sisters, granddaughters, sisters and brothers, cousins of undefined distance. And one who looms largest in their own minds we never meet at all.
Memi is a short mass of a man. He would be called rotund if it weren't that all his bulk appears to be muscles built and tempered by a life of farmwork. Memi is an ebullient, gray-haired meso-morph, happy with life and dedicated to ensuring that everyone around him is also.
Memi is a major landowner with extensive acreage at the west edge of town, an unschooled man of assets and substance. His large henna-colored house sitting along Via Roma contains three commodious apartments: one for his son, Ottorino, Ottorino's wife, Michela, and their young daughters, Giulia and Elena; one for his bachelor brother, Livio; and one for himself, Francesca, and their daughter Wilma. Livio and Ottorino share in the farmwork.
During breaks in his farm routine, Memi bicycles slowly through Piombino Dese, ostensibly for exercise, but really for company and conversation. Occasionally he bicycles to our front gate bearing a large branch broken from one of his trees and clustered with dark crimson cherries; or he will have a bag of fresh eggs or a jar of golden peach marmellata that Francesca has just prepared. Memi and I have enthusiastic conversations despite the fact that I don't understand much of what he says. Memi is not troubled by petty differences between Italian and the Venetan dialect and doesn't see why anyone else would be. If it becomes clear that Carl or I will never understand some particular point he is trying to make, he moves easily to another subject, realizing that it is only the conversation that matters, not the content.
Memi always seats me beside himself at dinner, whether to give me a lesson in his Italian/Venetan amalgam or to pour me another glass of wine more easily—because I obviously enjoy his homemade wine almost as much as he does. The long dining table ends only a few feet away from Francesca's stoves, one oversize gas range and a smaller woodstove. Francesca continually jumps to her feet and turns to tend some pot, as she readies each course on a just-in-time basis that a Detroit automaker could be proud of. As the meal winds to an end, Memi becomes more and more agitated. He looks for ways to prolong the occasion. He might first amble from the room and return with cherries or peaches or some other fruit from his orchard. Later he appears with a box of chocolates that he has remembered. His resources nearing an end, he passes a bowl of hazelnuts from last season. Francesca, abetted by Wilma, comes to his aid with rounds of cheese, dessert, and coffee. Coffee without a sizable splash of grappa is just dishwater, Memi confides, as he struggles to overcome our stiff resistance to his jolting our coffee.
In appearance, Francesca contrasts dramatically with Memi. She is slim, with a light complexion. Her surprising blond hair is stylishly coiffed. Yet she is Memi's match in energy and hospitality. Moreover, Francesca is one of the best cooks I know, with her daughter Wilma a close contender. In all our many meals with the Scquizzatos, we've never been served the same dish twice. Almost everything Francesca cooks is produced on their farm: vegetables and fruits, chickens and eggs, pigs and goats, rabbits, guinea hens, and cows. As their granddaughters grow up, they even add three horses, not for future menus but for the girls’ pleasure.
Livio is responsible for the enormous half barrels of raspberry rhododendrons and lollipop-pink hydrangeas in the flower gardens beside the house and near the street, where the family often eats al fresco on warm days when the number of guests would overflow the dining table indoors.
Several townspeople have told me the story of one memorable Sunday several years before Carl and I arrived in Piombino Dese. Francesca had prepared a lavish noontime dinner for forty or fifty relatives and friends to celebrate the First Communion of Giulia, their older granddaughter. Colorful tables sprouted in the garden among the flowerpots and rose beds, as the massive crowd passed the huge serving bowls Francesca had prepared. Following coffee and dessert, an unknown man and woman emerged from the crowd to ask for the cashier, so they could pay their bill. Inquiry disclosed that the strangers had parked their car on Via Roma, entered the garden, and sat down after spying the crowd, which they thought to be a sure sign of a great restaurant. They had been served without hesitation.
No one has told me Memi's or Francesca's reaction to the discovery of the interlopers. I imagine that Memi's first thought would be to check whether the strangers would like a final grappa before departing.
The Scquizzatos, with Sally, dining at Villa Cornaro (1) Wilma, Memi; (r) Michela, Francesca
At first, we do not meet their son Ottorino. Ottorino is a member of the town council and a political ally of the sindaco. Yes, the same mayor whose devious idea of placing a public sports field behind Villa Cornaro had been thwarted only by the combined efforts of Dick Rush, the local farmers, and officials in Rome. For political reasons, Ottorino several years earlier stopped joining his family when the Rushes invited them to the villa, even though his parents were the Rushes’ closest friends in town. Ottorino's boycott of the villa continues even after our succession to ownership. Soon, however, Carl's peace offensive with the sindaco frees Ottorino to rejoin the social program. Later, when the vicissitudes of small-town politics bring the mayor defeat at the polls, who is to succeed him? Ottorino Scquizzato!
Ottorino inherits a taller version of his father's build. His wife Michela, on the other hand, is a slim, elegant whippet of a woman. Michela is always impeccably dressed, bringing to her “business-casual” outfits a chic that defies the category. Improbably, this wife of a small-town politician-farmer is a globe-trotting multinational business executive. Her fast-growing family-owned business, Tasca Abbigliamenti—a prosperous women's apparel manufacturer— may be even more improbable. It is entirely managed by five sisters, who all thrive in a brutally competitive field.
Carl and I watch Michela's skills expand as she gains experience. When we first meet, Michela's father is still active in the business he founded, but he is reducing his day-to-day involvement. Italy has a particularly male-dominated business world, and I can only speculate at his thoughts as he fathered five consecutive daughters, followed at last by a single son. In fact, he seems to have reacted much the way my own father did when faced by three daughters: He taught us to fish and hunt.
Michela, the oldest, obtains her university degree in economics and begins working in Tasca's administration. Her sister Dar
ia is sent to fashion-design school in Italy and in New York so she can step in as the firm's chief designer. The other daughters are trained for roles in operations.
We sometimes talk with Michela about her business exploits. For Carl, this satisfies two needs: He gets to talk business, and he gets to do it in English. Michela's English is hesitant in our early years but steadily improves as her international responsibilities grow. On one early occasion, Michela proudly shows us through Tasca's sprawling manufacturing plant, situated between Asolo and Bassano. She points to the advanced new cutting tables where computer-driven cutters simultaneously produce pieces for hundreds of garments. She explains how computer programs shuffle and fit the various individual pieces of a garment to leave the least scrap, while at the same time keeping essential pieces properly aligned with the direction of the fabric. Carl is impressed by the capital investment that all the new equipment reflects.
As we return to Piombino Dese each year, we get fresh reports from Michela or, more often, her mother-in-law, Francesca, who becomes one of my closest friends. Michela's father has retired; Tasca has launched a sewing operation in Hungary; the queen of Spain has bought several Tasca dresses in Madrid; Michela has returned from China, where she is also setting up sewing operations; Tasca has opened a factory outlet in nearby Cavaso del Tomba.
Did she say factory outlet? I never pass up an outlet store; a New England gene prevents it.
“Orange? Oh, I don't think so! I could never wear orange!”
Daria merely smiles and waves the brilliant suit before my dazzled eyes the way the snake must have brandished the apple before Eve.
“You will be surprised, Signora Sally. Orange is perfect for you. You should just try it on.”