‘Any idea what the Phoenicians or Romans called the cork?’
‘Phoenicians?’ He shook his head, but the Romans knew the tree simply as suber and their women – here he paused and sighed, clearly recalling his own unfaithful Roman lynx – wore shoes of cork to keep their feet warm in winter.
Cork was also employed to float fishing nets and sailors attached cork buoys to the draglines of their anchors. I hazarded a guess that these were either Phoenician, Egyptian or Minoan inventions but Antonio suggested Babylonian.
‘Mmm, they lived by rivers.’
‘They had an important influence on the Greeks.’
Because the cork tree was native to the western Med rather than the eastern, it would have involved trading the crop this side of the sea.
Later, after my travels, I discovered that the French, until the Middle Ages, had hived their honeybees in cork, keeping them cool in summer and warm in winter, similar to those I had seen along the banks of the Guadalquivir in Andalucía. Another fascinating tidbit that came to my attention was the discovery attributed to the French monk Dom Pérignon, of champagne fame. When he was running the monastery cellars, wine bottles were plugged with rags or hemp soaked in olive oil but these were found to pop out during fermentation. Whether or not it was Dom Pérignon who personally came up with the idea of changing the oil-soaked rag for cork, it was ingenious and revolutionised the champagne industry from that time onwards. The Greeks had employed it for wine stoppers thousands of years earlier. A wine jar from the first century BC was found in Ephesus. Sealed with cork, it still contained its liquid.
Michel collects drawn corks. I have always been rather baffled by this eccentric habit of his. All around the olive farm are stacked straw shopping bags brimming with them.
‘What are you going to do with all these?’ I have begged on more than one occasion.
‘Cork is a limited commodity,’ he responds.
Dare I confess that once when I was clearing out the cabin up behind Mr Quashia’s home-constructed hangar I came across kilos of them and I burned them on a bonfire? When Michel found out he was not only cross but profoundly upset.
‘One day,’ he said, ‘when I am less taken up with professional commitments, I intend to build a cork sculpture in the garden. A monument to a dying trade.’
It is a fact that today wine bottles are frequently plugged with plastic or screw tops.
Dusk was inching down upon us. I glanced at my watch. It was well gone six.
‘Is it much further?’
Antonio seemed weary, poor broken-hearted fellow. ‘I have no idea,’ he sighed. ‘We should ask. Shall I call my grandfather? Who should we ask?’ So desperate to use his phone.
There was no one. We were in the middle of nowhere. The island had the feel of being shipwrecked, lost at sea, north of the heart of the Mediterranean and drifting. Hills, forests and distant jaggedy blue mountains. I had the sensation that nature was watching me with curious eyes, peering out of itself, wary of strangers. We descended into a long valley. It could not be described as a plain. I wondered to myself when we had last passed any habitation. Where were we? And then a woman riding her bicycle.
‘Shall we ask?’
She knew the tree. ‘But you still have some way to go.’
I was concerned for the light and when Antonio returned to the car I picked up speed a little. Eventually we drove into forest country again.
‘These are wild olives,’ I stated, incredulously. Hectare after climbing, hilly hectare of silvery forests, burnished by the sun descending in the western sky ahead of us. And then a sign, a handwritten, wooden arrow directing us to a track on the left. The light was fading fast now.
‘I hope we don’t drive by it,’ the fretful man at my side.
‘We’ll know it.’
‘How?’
‘It’s three thousand years old. It’s an olive tree. I’ll spot it.’
We were approaching a stone chapel, just as Andreo had described. Ahead was a gate, chained.
‘Look! There, beyond the fence, there it is.’
‘We cannot go in. It’s too late. It’s closed. Better not to.’
‘Then you wait in the car.’ I grabbed my camera and made for the gate, ready to climb, but as I pressed my hand against it, it swung invitingly open. I stood a moment in the fast-fading daylight, angular slants of beams falling across circular canopies of foliage, and took in the scene. Jumbo olive trees dotted about a field, knee-high in grasses and wild lavender flowers, ascending the gently sloping hillsides like African game grazing at sundown. The companions to the chief of the pack were younger, but were not adolescents by any standards. I paced slowly towards my destination, the oldest I had encountered anywhere in the western Mediterranean. What did it mean a wild tree of three thousand years old? It was growing here before the arrival of the Phoenicians to the island. Had its stone been carried from afar by a bird? If so, from how far? Surely not from the Middle East? Or could it be that the arrival of the Phoenicians, or other foreigners from the east, predated the archaeological facts that we hold true? Could it be that it was neither the Phoenicians nor the Greeks who brought the olive tree to the western Mediterranean?
Or was it possible that this tree was one hell of a survivor, the sole survivor from forests of uncultivated oleasters that had been growing wild since prehistory all across this island, all across the western basin of the Mediterranean? And that the cargo transported from the east on those fifty-oared galleys was not the tree itself, but knowledge, knowledge of cultivation, plant care and nutrition.
I lifted up my camera and took a first shot. Its crown was too extended, its trunk too solid, too broad, to capture its entire silhouette in one frame. I began to circle its base, shooting up into its branches, but the light was against me now. I snapped once more and then let the camera hang loose. Instead, I began to study the tree, communing tentatively, a step at a time.
Antonio was at my side. ‘She rang!’
‘Bravo. Look at this, Antonio.’
‘Well, actually I rang her and then she called back, but I don’t think she’s coming for the party.’
Unlike the cultivated trees in Lebanon, this relic had been left to its own undomesticated devices. The trunk had split, but it had not disintegrated. It had now a central void with suckers grown into substantial trunks flanking the original. Its principal torso was studded with knots and knobs, topped by an unruly dome. And then I stopped, looked and then looked again. The tree, unquestionably a female to my mind, had two oval hollows and a twisted, bulbous eruption, between those hollows. I lifted my camera and began to shoot again wildly, snap-snapping.
‘Antonio! Come here! What do you see?’
‘She’s very big, very old.’
‘Yes, yes, but look here. Can you see anything over on this side?’
My young companion came scampering round and looked up into the tree. His face broke into a broad grin of amazement. ‘Mamma mia. She has a face.’
‘Yes, she has a face. She has eyes, an elephantine nose and expressions.’
In Italian, albero, meaning tree, is masculine, yet Antonio had described this primitive, pagan olivo as female. I, too, perceived her as female.
I took a step to my left to study her from another angle, and the eyes appeared to follow me.
‘She’s watching you,’ called Antonio, laughing skittishly. His observation seemed accurate. Wherever I moved, the tree’s gaze appeared to follow. I moved in close and the ‘eyes’ seemed to realign, to refocus. What did its expression tell me, telepathically communicate to me? Bewilderment? Sagacity? Concern? A sense that this spirit was trapped, had been left behind, had no one to commune with? I wasn’t sure. It certainly did not strike me as a malicious spirit, but nor did it seem to be happy. The baggy ‘face’ had a rheumy-eyed, worried expression.
I have for most of my adult life experienced plants as living beings. In scientific terms of course they live, but whether they possess
a spirit is open to hot debate. The early occupants of this island about whom almost nothing is known, not unlike the Stone Age peoples of Mallorca and elsewhere, saw their world as filled with spirits. Many spirits, not just one. Plurality. Spirits that took up residence in trees and stones. They believed in the divine presence in existence, not exclusively within us but within everything.
If you live your life surrounded by nature, working with it, looking at it in every mood and light, this is not such an extraordinary concept to take on board. As far as I am concerned our olive trees have always possessed a divine presence, as has everything else that lives on our farm and beyond, but I had never until this moment come face to face with a tree spirit and so visible, tangible. Without wishing to demean her, this 3000-year-old energy force could have been incorporated directly into a Disney film and given a voice. The character was so present, so animated, alive.
It was eight thirty, growing dark. Antonio, elated by his communication with the Roman woman, was now worrying about his grandfather. ‘We must go, we should be on our way.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m coming.’ It was exceedingly difficult to walk away from that tree, from a spirit that I felt profoundly had been attempting to express itself. I spoke a few private words to her and returned to Antonio, agitating alongside the car. I drove in silence while Antonio chattered light-heartedly.
His grandfather lived in the historic heart of Tempio Pausania. We pulled up in a cobbled, typically Mediterranean narrow street and walked the half-lane to the farmer’s home. As Antonio rapped on the door’s wooden surface, a dog began to yap. Moments passed and a stooped old man of eighty-four with cadaverous features and tanned skin, Piedro, was welcoming us. He led us with slippered feet through to a rear dining room-cum-kitchen where two hunting rifles hung from a wall alongside a large wooden armoire. Hooked up to one of the ceiling beams were long, looped strings of sausages, made by Piedro. Since his wife died five years earlier – he crossed himself whenever he mentioned her – he had taken charge of the house as well as the vineyards, olives and livestock. Occasionally, a daughter or Antonio dropped by, but it satisfied him to be self-sufficient. He shuffled to a corner, lifted out a bottle of his own wine, a Moscato, and drew the cork.
Glasses poured, I took a sip …
Through serendipity’s blessing and the graciousness of good Lebanese friends, I had found what I believe are the oldest cultivated olive trees on the planet, perhaps the most ancient living specimens of any plant in existence. I had had a fair crack at understanding the comings and goings and the cross-fertilisations of Mediterranean peoples, the trade exchanges of oil and olives, all of which had played a mighty part in the creation of what today are the Mediterranean nations, and I was satisfied, excited, by all that I had found. I am not a botanist, after all, nor an archaeologist or historian. Merely a woman who had set out on a journey alone, determined to find a decent, constructive way to live in harmony with her surroundings and who loves olive trees with a passion. What I had been hunting for this time, on this western tour, had been a path forward, constructive pointers that might assist us to alleviate the destruction of the earth’s surface and atmosphere. I now knew that the olive tree had much to offer as a paradigm for drought tolerance, as a major contributor to the reforestation of desert areas … all this was positive material that I could take back to the farm and work with. But an ancient spirit, a perplexed old girl living within a tree seeded 3000 years ago? No, this had not been on the agenda. It was even difficult to grasp. But I could not ignore what I had found even if I was thrown off course …
‘What do you want to know from my grandfather?’ Clearly this was a repeat of Antonio’s question but I had not been paying attention, lost as I had been in my contemplations. To gain time, to find balance, I requested a potted history of the old man’s life.
He had been labouring the land since a child. Back then they had worked with wooden implements; they seeded by hand, toiling from dawn to nightfall. He only attended elementary school and sometimes skipped those classes, but he could read and write. Horses, donkeys, bulls had transported everything.
‘At seventeen, I went to be a soldier, but only on Saturdays. I had a problem with my throat and used it as an excuse. The Germans were camped close by several of the fields my father worked, but they were always decent and paid for whatever they took. Life was very hard due to the syndicos. Sixty per cent of everything earned went back to the landowners. If we didn’t pay, we could be kicked out of our home on San Giovanni’s Day.’
‘When is that?’
‘The feast of John the Baptist, 24 June.’
Piedro was a decent old bloke, counteracting his loneliness and the ongoing grief he felt at the loss of his childhood sweetheart and wife for more than half a century by the addition of a sandy-haired puppy whose picture he insisted I take. He wanted to speak, was keen to share his lifetime experiences from Mussolini onwards.
‘Mussolini was good to us, for us, the peasants, in the early days, until he joined forces with Hitler. After that, life was terrible.’
He talked of the defunct feudal system, which had taken much the same form as had existed in Sicily. The Mafia had maintained a stranglehold here, too, within the syndicos, but Mussolini had done his best to stamp it out.
‘Had he succeeded?’ I asked.
Piedro shrugged and popped an olive in his mouth with a glint in his eyes. For the puppy on his worn corduroys or the past, I could not tell.
This island, lost somewhere between Europe and Africa, had been slow to move into the twentieth century. However, in 1946 things had started to improve.
‘In 1948, I bought the land my grandfather had been renting at exorbitant prices since 1919 and began to make it productive for myself and the family.’
Today, according to Antonio, his grandfather was land-rich. He had sufficient for his needs and that of his grand- and great-grandchildren. His story was one of success, a redemption from the shackles of the landlords.
I studied him as he talked, slicing ham, sausages, cheeses, all made by his own sweat, with a substantial horn-handled knife worn in a sheath attached to his leather belt. The knife, Antonio said to me later – ‘did you notice my grandfather’s knife? It is an island speciality, a sa pattadesa.’ It was common, explained the grandson, for country men to work on the land well into their eighties, tilling, husbanding the beasts, making wine, foodstuffs, getting about on their three-wheelers. Piedro must have been a handsome man in his youth. He was still resilient, still fighting fit with big, arthritic hands and stubby fingernails, stained like dying leaves. He represented the vestiges of a passing peasant class.
I had hoped to make a start on my journey south that same evening, but it was late by the time I dropped Antonio back at his car outside the WWF shack. I decided instead to find a pensione in Santa Teresa, which I did with little difficulty, and I was off at daybreak with a great deal of ground to cover. By lunchtime, because I had spent a while at the Giant’s Tomb, I was still north. I had reached a sign for Santa Lucia and decided to turn off for a quick bite. The bay offered one bar, one restaurant plus a stone lookout tower facing towards Italy. There were several groups of cyclists sitting on the breakwall knocking back gallons of water. I ordered the set lunch. The only other table occupied was the proprietor’s, eating with his family, the chef and the fisherman who had brought in the catch that morning. It was a typical Italian affair, plenty of laden plates punctuated with uninhibited outbursts of laughter. Gone, it seemed, were the days of Sardinian poverty, of hen-scratched existences. After I had eaten my fish I was invited to join them, offered a glass of crema di limoncello, a thick and tartly sweet digestive, and then handed a bottle of their own vineyard wine from nearby Siniscola. A dessert was placed in front of me, a paste of almonds and goat’s milk and honey. Delicious. Then was poured a glass of crema di milto. A myrtle liqueur. Now, I was protesting; I was replete; I was driving! Along came a fellow, a capitano, yellowing, bloodshot e
yes, broken capillary vessels, grey stubble and British naval captain’s cap. A man who had been born at sea. This called for another bottle of vino. He, too, was a local fisherman. There were nine altogether plying their trade in this tiny community. From a nearby house appeared a wizened corn straw of a woman dressed in colourful local costume. She, too, idled a moment at the table. Her clawed hand was clutching a hand-painted seashell.
‘It brings good fortune,’ bayed the old girl at me.
Maria, generous-hearted wife of the proprietor, took it and handed it to me: ‘occhio di Santa Lucia’.
Protection, once more, against the evil eye.
Maria offered to make up a snack for me to enjoy along my way. Their generosity was large, bordering on incomprehensible. It was only after I had settled my bill and I was about to get on the road that it became clear that a mistake had been made. For a reason to do with the label on my car-hire keys and something about my T-shirt they had mistaken me for a rep from Europcar. I offered to give back the bottle of wine and pay for the extra delights but they shook their heads, embraced me, hoping to see me back again soon.
After a fabulous drive through some of the loveliest of mountain scenery of red granite cliffs, Bob Dylan crooning, high-ranging forests, desolate moorlands, scrublands known here not as maquis but macchia, I came to the conclusion that Sardinia was quintessential, unadulterated Mediterranean. While Sicily was rich with elegant cities and architecture, Sardinia exuded an untouched, virgin air. It was prehistoric. Exhilarated, I pelted up hillsides, climbing the long spurs and then swung a bend, looking out across miles of untouched scenery, free-falling down into extended curves that seemed to wind forever. Where there was intermittent habitation, the island’s natural boulders were used as meadow walls and gateposts. Rock formations rose from the mountain’s surface like rockets, still-life artwork, almost as unsettling and enigmatic as my lady friend olive tree. Almost. These had a name: tacchi. I had climbed up into the impenetrable province of Ogliastra, seas of olive trees, a silver and green sea-ness of foliage, and was surrounded by ranges including the highest point on the island. Up near Baunei, towards journey’s end for the day, some women were clad in traditional black, others in local costume.
The Olive Tree (The Olive Series Book 2) Page 39