Under the Tuscan Sun

by Frances Mayes

  When I lived in Somers, New York, I had a large herb garden beside the eighteenth-century house I still dream of. Often I turned up brown and amber medicine bottles. As I was planting a border of santolina, the branches of which used to be spread on church floors in the Middle Ages to keep the human scents down, my trowel unearthed a small iron horse, rusty, stretched into full-out running position. I propped the horse on my desk as my private totem. Earlier this summer, I was digging up stones and my shovel sent flying a small object. When I picked it up, I was stunned to find that it was a horse. Is it Etruscan or is it a toy from a hundred years ago? This horse, too, is running.

  A few years ago I read a section in the Aeneid about the decision to found Carthage on the spot where the wanderers dug up an omen:

  the head of a spirited horse, for by this sign

  it was shown that the race would be distinguished

  in war and abound with the means of life

  (I, 444)

  The war in the line doesn't thrill me but “means of life” does. The hoof of Orlando opened the hot spring. The winged horses at Tarquinia, unearthed from stone rubble and dirt, keep appearing in my vision. I prop a postcard photo of them next to my own two horses. Means of life. The Etruscans had it. In certain times and places, we find it. We can run full out, if not fly.

  Turning Italian

  THE ITALIAN ED IS A LIST MAKER. ON THE dining room table, the bedside table, the car seat, in shirt and sweater pockets, I find folded pieces of notepaper and crumpled envelopes. He makes lists of things to buy, things to accomplish, long-range plans, garden lists, lists of lists. They're in mixed English and Italian, whichever word is shorter. Sometimes he knows only the Italian word if it's a special tool. I should have saved the lists during the restoration and papered a bathroom with them, as James Joyce did with his rejection slips. We've exchanged habits; at home, he rarely makes even a grocery list—I make lists there, letters to write, chores, and especially of my goals for each week. Here, I usually don't have any goals.

  It is hard to chart such changes of one's own in response to a new place but shifts are easy to spot in another person. When we first started coming to Italy, Ed was a tea drinker. As an undergraduate, he took a semester off to study on his own in London. He lived in a cold-water bed-sitter near the British Museum and sustained himself on cups of tea with milk and sugar while reading Eliot and Conrad. Espresso, of course, is pandemic in Italy; the whoosh of steam is heard in every piazza. During our first summer in Tuscany, I remember seeing him eye the Italians as they stepped up to the bar and ordered, in a clipped voice, “un caffè.” At that time, espresso was rarely seen in America. When he ordered like the Italians, at first the bartenders asked him, “Normale?” They thought surely a tourist was making a mistake. We require big cups of brown coffee, as the Italians, with a touch of wonder, call it.

  “Sì, sì, normale,” he answered, with a slight tone of impatience. Soon he was ordering with authority; no one asked again. He saw the locals down it at once, instead of sipping. He noticed the brands different bars used: Illy, Lavazza, Sandy, River. He began commenting on the crema on top. Always he took it black.

  “Your life must be sweet,” one barrista told him, “to take your coffee so bitter.” Then Ed began to notice the sugar boats all the bars have, to notice how when the bartender put down the saucer and spoon, the sugar bowl would be pushed over and opened with a flourish. The Italians shoveled in an incredible amount—two, three mounded spoons. One day, I was shocked to see Ed, too, pouring in the sugar. “It makes it almost a dessert,” he explained.

  The second year we visited Italy, he went home at the end of the summer carrying a La Pavoni, purchased in Florence, a gleaming stainless-steel machine with an eagle on top, a hand-operated classic. I was the beneficiary of cappuccino in bed, our guests of after dinner espresso served in tiny cups he bought in Italy.

  Here, he also has bought a La Pavoni, this one automatic. Before going to bed, he has his final cup of elixir, either at home or in town. There is something he likes about ordering in bars. Sometimes they have curvy Deco-era La Faema machines, sometimes chic Ranchillios. He examines the crema, swirls the cup once, and gulps it down. It gives him, he says, the strength to sleep.

  The second major cultural experience he took to with zest is driving. Most travellers here feel that driving in Rome qualifies as an experience that can be added to one's vita, that everyday autostrada trips are examinations in courage and that the Amalfi coast drive is a definition of hell. “These people really know how to drive,” I remember him saying as he swung our no-power rented Fiat into the passing lane, turn signal blinking. A Maserati zooming forward in the rearview mirror blasted us back to the right lane. Soon he was admiring daring maneuvers. “Did you see that? He had two wheels dangling in thin air!” he marveled. “Sure, they have their share of duffers riding the center lane but most people keep to the rules.”

  “What rules?” I asked as someone in a tiny car like ours whizzed by going a hundred. Apparently there are speed limits, according to the size of the engine, but I never have seen anyone stopped for speeding in all my summers in Italy. You're dangerous if you're going sixty. I'm not sure what the accident rate is; I rarely see one but I imagine many are caused by slow drivers (tourists perhaps?) who incite the cars behind them.

  “Just watch. If someone starts to pass and it's at all dicey, the person behind him won't pull out until the person has passed—he gives him the chance to drop back. No one ever passes on the right, ever. And they stay out of the left lane entirely except to pass. You know how at home someone figures he's going at the speed limit, he can stay in whatever lane he wants.”

  “Yes, but—look!—they pass on curves all the time. Here comes a curve, time to pass. They must learn that in driving school. I bet the instructor has an accelerator instead of a brake on his side of the car. You just know, if someone is behind you, he's planning to pass—it's his obligation.”

  “Yes, but all the oncoming traffic knows that. They adjust because they know cars are coming out.”

  He's delighted to read what the mayor of Naples says about driving there. Naples is the most chaotic city for drivers on earth. Ed loved it—he got to drive on the sidewalk while the pedestrians filled the street. “A green light is a green light, avanti, avanti,” the mayor explained. “A red light—just a suggestion.” And yellow? he was asked. “Yellow is for gaiety.”

  In Tuscany, people are more law abiding. They may jump the gun but they do stop for signals. Here, the challenge is the medieval streets with inches to spare on either side of the car and the sudden turn a bicycle barely could make. Fortunately, most towns have closed their historic centers to cars, a boon all around because the scale of piazza life is restored. A boon for my nerves, too, as the twisted streets lured Ed and we have backed out of too many when they became impassable, all the locals stopping and staring as we reverse through their town.

  He was most impressed that the police drove Alfa Romeos. The first year after we went home he bought a twenty-year-old silver GTV in perfect condition, surely one of the prettiest cars ever made. He got three speeding tickets in six weeks. One he protested. He was harassed, he told the judge. The highway patrol picks on sports cars and this time he was not speeding. In a simple miscarriage of justice, the judge told him to sell the car if he didn't like the system and he doubled the fine on the spot.

  For a while, we exchanged cars. We had to. He was in danger of losing his license. I drove the silver arrow to work and never got a ticket; he drove my vintage Mercedes sedan, unaffectionately known as the Delta Queen. “It lumbers,” he complained.

  “It's very safe, though—and you haven't been stopped.”

  “How could I in the gutless wonder?”

  When we returned to Italy, he was back in his element. Most of our trips are on small roads. We've learned not to hesitate to take the unpaved roads if the route looks appealing. Usually, they're well maintained or at least
navigable. We've been known to go off road to get to an abandoned thirteenth-century church and, as in the tiny towns, to back up when necessary. No problem to one who has ice water in his veins. To back uphill on a curvy one-lane road is an experience to delight the manic driver. “Whoa!” he shouts. He's turned around, one hand on the back of my seat, the other on the wheel. I'm looking down—straight down—into a lovely valley far below. There are perhaps five inches between the wheel and the edge. We encounter a car coming down. They jump out to confer, then they, too begin to back up; now we are a convoy of idiots. They're in a red Alfa GTV like Ed's at home. We all get out where the road widens and they discuss the car at length, going over its particular kind of mirror, the problem with the turn signal, value today, ad infinitum. I've spread the ordinance map on the hot hood of the Fiat, trying to figure how we can escape this ravine where, obviously, the collapsed monastery is not located.

  One reason Ed likes the autostrada so much is that he gets to combine his pleasures. Autogrills appear every thirty or so miles. Sometimes they're quick stop places with a bar and gas. Others arch over the freeway and have a restaurant and shop, even a motel. He appreciates the clean efficiency of the bars. He nips his espresso, often has a quick panino of thick bread and mortadella. I will have a capuccino, unorthodox in afternoon, and he patiently waits. He never would malinger at the bar. In and out. That's the way it's done. Then back on the road, with the fully leaded espresso zinging through him, the speedometer climbing to cruising speed. Paradiso!

  At a more fundamental level, he has been changed by the land. At first we thought we wanted twenty or thirty acres. Five seemed small, until we started clearing it of jungle, until we started maintaining it. The limonaia is full of tools. At home we have our tools in a shiny red metal toolbox—the small size. We did not expect to have pole digger, chain saw, hedge clippers, weed machine, a whole line of hoes, rakes, a corner for stakes, innumerable hand tools that look pre-Industrial Revolution—sickles, grape cutters, and scythe. If we thought, I suppose we thought we'd clear the land, prune the trees, and that was it. An occasional mowing, fertilizing, trimming. What we never knew is the tremendous resurgent power in nature. The land is implausibly regenerative. My experience with gardening led me to think plants must be coaxed along. Ivy, fig, sumac, acacia, blackberry can't be stopped. A vine we call “evil weed” twines and chokes. It must be dug out down to its carrot-sized root; so must nettles. It's a wonder nettles have not taken over the world. Digging them out, even with heavy gloves, it's almost impossible not to get “stung” by their juices. Bamboo, too, has its runners constantly sending shoots into the driveway. Limbs fall. New olives must be restaked after storms. The terraces must be plowed, then disced. The olives must be hoed around, fertilized. The grapes still need weeks of attention. In short, we have a little farm here and we must have a farmer. Without constant work, this place would revert in months to its previous state. We could either feel burdened by this or enjoy it.

  “How's Johnny Appleseed?” a friend asks. She, too, has seen Ed up on a high terrace examining each plant, fingering the leaves of a new cherry tree, picking up stones. He has come to know every ilex, boulder, stump, and oak. Perhaps it was the clearing that forged the bond.

  Now he walks the terraces daily. He has taken to wearing shorts, boots, and a “muscle shirt,” one of those cutaway undershirts my father used to wear. His biceps and chest muscles bulge like “after” pictures on the backs of old comic books. His father was a farmer until the age of forty, when he had to give up and work in town. His ancestors must have come out of the Polish fields. They, I'm certain, would recognize him across a field. Although he never remembers to water the houseplants in San Francisco, he hauls buckets up to the new fruit trees in dry spells, babies a special lavender with scented foliage, reads into the night about compost and pruning.

  HOW ITALIAN WILL WE EVER BE? NOT VERY, I'M AFRAID. TOO pale. Too unable to gesture as a natural accompaniment to talking. I saw a man step outside the confining telephone booth so he could wave his hands while talking. Many people pull over to the side of the road to talk on their car phones because they simply cannot keep a hand on the wheel, one on the telephone, and talk at the same time. We never will master the art of everyone talking at once. Often from the window, I see groups of three or four strolling down our road. All are talking simultaneously. Who's listening? Talking can be about talking. After a soccer game, we'll never gun through the streets blowing the horn or drive a scooter around and around in circles in the piazza. Politics always will passeth understanding.

  Ferragosto, at first, baffled us as a holiday until we began to understand it as a state of mind. We, gradually, have entered this state of mind ourselves. Simply put, ferragosto, August 15, marks the ascension of the corporeal body and soul of the Virgin Mary into heaven. Why August 15? Perhaps it was too hot to remain on earth another day. The domed ceiling of the cathedral in Parma depicts her glorious skyward rise, accompanied by many others. From the perspective below, you're looking up their billowing skirts as they balloon above the cathedral floor. This is a triumph of art—no one's underwear shows. But the day itself is only a marker in the month, for the broader meaning of the word is August holidays and a period of intense laissez-faire. We're coming to understand that everyday work life is suspended for all of August. Even though throngs of tourists descend on a town, the best trattoria may have tacked up a chiuso per ferie sign, closed for vacation, and the owners have packed and taken off for Viareggio. American business logic does not bear up; they do not necessarily rake in money during tourist season and take their holiday during April or November when tourists are gone. Why not? Because it is August. The accident rates soar on the highways. The beach towns are mobbed. We have learned to forget all projects more complicated than putting up jam. Or to abandon even that—I fill my hat with plums then sit down under the tree, suck the juice, and toss skin and seed over the wall. All over Italy, the feast of the Assumption calls for a celebration. Cortona throws a grand party: the Sagra della bistecca, a festa for the great beefsteaks of the area.

  Sagra is a wonderful word to look for in Tuscany. Foods coming into season often cause a celebration. All over the small towns, signs go up announcing a sagra for cherries, chestnuts, wine, vin santo, apricots, frog legs, wild boar, olive oil, or lake trout. Earlier this summer, we went to the sagra della lumaca, the snail, in the upper part of town. About eight tables were set up along the street and music blared over them, but because of no rain the snails had disappeared and a veal stew was served instead. At the sagra in a mountain borgo, I came within one number of winning a donkey in the raffle. We ate pasta with ragù, grilled lamb, and watched a dignified old couple, him in a starched collar and her in black to her ankles, dance elegantly to the accordion.

  Preparations for Cortona's two-day feast start several days in advance. Town employees construct an enormous grill in the park—a knee-high brick foundation about six by twenty feet and a foot high, with iron grills placed over the top, somewhat like the barbecue pits I remember from home. On the same spot, the grill is used later in the year for the town's festa for the autumn porcini. (Cortona claims to use the largest frying pan in the world for the mushrooms. I've never been here for that festa but can imagine the savory aroma of porcini filling the whole park.) The men arrange tables for four, six, eight, twelve under the trees and decorate with lanterns. Little booths for serving go up near the grill, then the ticket booth is taken out of a shed, dusted off, and set up at the entrance to the park. Walking through, I glimpse stacks of charcoal in the shed.

  The park, normally closed to cars, is opened these two days of the year to accommodate all the people arriving for the sagra. Bad news for our road, which links to the park. Traffic pours by starting at around seven, then pours by again from eleven on. We decide to walk in over the Roman road to avoid clouds of white dust. Our neighbor, one of the grill volunteers, waves.

  Big steaks sizzle over the huge bed of
red coals. We join the long line and pick up our crostini, our plates and salad and vegetables. At the grill, our neighbor spears two enormous steaks for us and we lurch to a table already almost full. Pitchers of wine pass round and round. The whole town comes out for the sagra and, oddly, there seem to be no tourists here, except for a long table of English people. We don't know the people we're with. They're from Acquaviva. Two couples and three children. The baby girl is gnawing on a bone and looks delighted. The two boys, in the well-behaved way of Italian children, focus on sawing their steaks. The adults toast us and we toast back. When we say we're Americans, one man wants to know if we know his aunt and uncle in Chicago.

  After dinner, we walk through town, along with throngs of people. The Rugapiana is jammed. The bars are jammed. We manage to obtain hazelnut ice cream cones. A bunch of teenagers is singing on the steps of the town hall. Three small boys toss firecrackers, then try to look innocent of the act without succeeding. They double over with laughter. I wait outside listening to them while Ed goes in a bar for a shot of the black elixir he loves. On the way home, we pass back through the park. It's almost ten-thirty and still the grill is smoking. We see our neighbor dining with his gorgeous wife and daughter and a dozen friends. “How long has the town had this sagra?” Ed asks them.