“Ah, Madonna”, said Gloria, Andrea’s sister, heaven forbid they barbecue her dogs.
Meri’s youngest son, Georgio, is an avid hunter, and tossed his comment into the ring. “Why bother”, he said, “cinghale, the local wild boar, tastes better than dog, way better”. Poor Sara was devastated with the translation of this conversation, asking me if they really ate dogs. Sara always takes her pooch to bed with her and they snuggle like bugs in a rug for the night. Why bother indeed, I thought. Georgio’s poor hunting dogs spend their lives on the end of chains, and have some leftover pasta and few scraps thrown out for them once a day. I could easily believe their meat would not be tasty and tender. I remembered being so angry upon discovery of how tight their collars were, the two-finger rule unknown or ignored. I tried to loosen them a notch but each collar was secured with a nut and bolt. As much as I tried to tell myself that this way of life is all the dogs know, it bothered me for ages. I will never agree with their treatment of animals as tools of work, deserving of no love and attention, but have learned to accept it as part of this way of life. I have always known I would make a terrible farmer.
It took two hours to wade through the feast, topped off with pastries and coffee. My backside felt like a square brick and it was time to make a move. Having started the ball rolling, everybody else got up and mucked in, helping to clean up and put stuff away. The pots were washed with water boiled on the stove and we rinsed them under the fontana springing from between some rocks.
Luigi and I decided to walk back down to Rovinaglia. Accompanied by Sara and three of Meri’s grandchildren, Lorena, Gloria, and little Francesca, we set off into the forest of oak and chestnut with stops along the way to study big black dung beetles waddling across the path, and to rest and sip water. We passed several “maesta”, votive pillars and little shrines dedicated to saints, and the Madonna. These are very common and can be seen along the country roads and hidden away in the forests miles from anywhere. The oldest ones are stone, others brick, newer ones of concrete blocks, not attractive but continuing an age-old tradition of prayer stops. What amazes me is that they are more often than not filled with fresh wild flowers or flowers from someone’s garden. The bottle of water always standing to attention so one can top up the vase as one passes by.
The way down was far more beautiful than that awful trek in the jeep. There was time to notice the huge oak trees and wonderful canopy of chestnut trees from which the ladies still gathered chestnuts and ground them down for flour. The occasional views through odd openings among the trees to the hills in the distance, the tiny wild flowers snuggled in the rocks and grass beneath the trees. And oh, those aromatic Laburnum blooms dripping from the trees in yellow and white. Just too much! We had a great time with the kids and after such an enlightening and enjoyable get together, I really began to feel as though I belonged in this family.
The free and easy, relaxed atmosphere was very different from the stiff and uncomfortable family dinner we had had years ago when we visited Nona with the kids. The whole family had attended in Meri’s dining room, seated round a huge table. Beautiful china, glasses, and silverware were set on a linen tablecloth, with napkins. It all seemed so out of place, it did not fit with their lifestyle. After the beautiful meal over which Meri had slaved all afternoon in a baking hot kitchen, I did not score any brownie points with Nona who regarded my manner with great scorn, when I refused to rush off to the kitchen with the women to do women’s work while the men remained lolling in their chairs, smoking and drinking wine. My trying to rally the males to muck in and help caused varying looks of shock and horror and gagging laughter. Nothing has changed in the traditional village families where the women still toil away in the kitchen without the help of their men. I have never understood whether this “women do women’s work” thing is an entrenched cultural tradition or the women go on like this because they truly enjoy being slaves to their men. Having come from a family where men did and still do dishes, cook and vacuum, and having a very domesticated husband, it is beyond me why any woman would want to wear herself out in the kitchen while the men sit around like useless lumps. In Meri’s case it was doubly harsh because she worked hard on the farm and with the animals as well as providing total and complete care to her family. Now, with a grown daughter who is helpful at times and can exhibit tremendous disrespect for her mother at other times, making caustic, abrupt demands, often rude and argumentative, Meri still runs around catering to their every need. When these incidents occur in my presence, I have to leave because I know, if I blow it will be considered very inappropriate. One does not interfere in the upbringing of another mother’s children.
We arrived in Rovinaglia just as the four-wheelers came tumbling down from Monte Pero. The kids mounted the various trucks and were gone before we knew it. Thankfully so—I found it very tiring trying to carry on continual conversation with kids in Italian.
A pleasant quiet evening was in store for us. Sara and I were treated to an old story about the witch’s house up in the woods past Casa di Grossi. Giulio’s family owned a fair amount of land up there and it was on this land that a strange family had decided to squat, taking over one of the old huts. The gossip was that they were witches. The kids would cross this creepy area to see the witch’s house. The witch-kids were always locked in the house. When the parents left, Luigi and his friends could hear them screaming inside. As they ran across the clearing in front of the hut they would cross themselves hoping to ward off evil spirits. I think Luigi was very successful—he does not have an evil bone in his body. One day the witches disappeared, never to be seen again. Sara and I eyed each other secretly, we knew we would go looking for the witch house. She also wanted to camp overnight up at Genovese, in the trees. She wanted to observe the wild boars that come out at night, snuffling for mushrooms. We started making plans but the next day proved to be far too interesting to spend time on witches and wild boars.
It was August 14th, 1997, my son’s birthday. What a day to remember! I am sure he was breathing in the fresh air of the Okanagan, hurtling down the bike trails. Mom and Dad were not so lucky. That morning, we awoke to a reeking odor which enveloped us, the house, and the whole world it seemed. On the occasional day, we had noticed an unpleasant waft here and there, depending on wind direction. Most septic tanks lids in Italy are at ground level, not buried in hell as ours was in Canada, so it is not uncommon to experience the exuberance of this smell. From mountain villages to the streets of Florence the odor will occasionally assault one’s senses.
But this was powerful. Discovering that the tub and toilet were not draining and the smell was coming from the overflow vent of the bath, Luigi put on his plumber hat and ventured forth into unknown frontiers. Knee deep in shit would be an adequate description of where he found himself. The old septic tank had obviously done its thing for who knows how many years and was now tired and worn out at playing host to this sudden onslaught of our continued use of the “facilities”.
Watching him wading around in the quagmire in Nona’s old “wellies”, I kept very quiet. His, and the locals’, fear of snakes was very real. Over the years a number of villagers had succumbed to those two or three which are poisonous. Sara and I had heard a strange rustling a few weeks prior, below the bedroom window. At that time I looked out to see the writhing courtship of two huge snakes, black and yellow and tones of green. Not a fisherman’s story, they were at least the diameter of my upper arm, length unknown but obviously quite long! This was right beside the septic tank that he was now excavating, but my theory is what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over. Hopefully they had moved on with all the disturbance, I was ready with my exacto knife and sucking abilities, just in case.
The sloping vegetable garden on the lower side of the house overlooking the valley had become a quagmire of “ick”. I suppose Nona had never thought to put an envelope of Septonic or a handful of rotten meat down the loo to aid
in the break down of solid waste, and of course neither had we.
Our septic tank experiences had been twenty years earlier in Prince George. We had forgotten they can only take so much abuse. We had no idea that the vegetable garden was the location of the septic tank, and field. As it had obviously been leaking for sometime, I was quite amazed that no one had contracted some ghastly virus or typhoid. Needless to say, we never ate anything from the garden ever again, and would not let Meri plant anything there.
Fortunately this inconvenience was occurring close to our departure time. Luigi spent a lot of time working in this open-air sewer, digging out around the tank, hauling rocks to improve the drainage field, and putting lots of devouring enzymes into the tank. He sealed the top preventing any odor from escaping and re-landscaped the whole area so that the top of the tank sat beneath about three feet of earth.
We knew that we would have to get a new tank put in if we intended on returning. The lane behind the house is only used by the few residents of Costa Dazi, we thought this would be the best location. The equipment would have access and room to dig the hole and install the tank and there would be space to install a new field. Although the lane is not part of the property belonging to the house, it is very common to see the circular concrete tops of septic tanks peeking through public thoroughfares. The wind roars down the lane like an express through a tunnel and flies out into the farmyard, so any escaping smell would blend nicely into those surroundings. Roberto agreed to do the work for us which would help to reduce the millions and millions of lire we could see this project costing.
With only a few days remaining before we had to head home and our lungs completely overwhelmed with the disgusting aroma we just had to get away for a day. We set off along the main road to Parma which follows the Taro valley between amazing rock formations and colored strata patterns streaking canyon walls. The river winds back and forth, deep dark pools, white rushing, bubbling water cascading across beds of shingle. At each bridge crossing, the road drops to the valley bottom and then climbs again where faded blue signs indicate the villages snuggled in the hills above. Always a church and the inevitable osteria close by, allowing the needs of the body and soul to be satisfied within steps of each other. Baselica, Belforte, Caffaraccia, Tiedoli, the names alone are enough to lure us ever upwards along narrow, snaking roads. Off the beaten track, the lack of tourists and commercialism attracts us most. There is always a feeling of humble sincerity in the air. It is not necessary to encounter humans to experience this sense, it is just there.
We headed up toward Mt. Molinatico, a naked, round-topped hill decorated with radio antennae, like a cake with candles. The road leads through several villages, and we stopped here and there doing the usual poking around for inscribed rocks and headstones, dates over old doors. We found a small church which was being renovated. Inside a stocky, shirt-sleeves-rolled-up man was working away in the dirt, attacking piles of rubble. But the altar, which stood bare and undecorated, was ready for business. I could not imagine how a congregation would care to kneel on rubble and inhale dusty incense, let alone sit on the few rickety old pews.
The workman, who in fact was the priest, proudly showed us around his church. He had undertaken the work himself, raised the money to fund the project because the Diocese could not or would not help. I thought it might be a good idea if our village priest was to roll up his shirt sleeves and get some dirt under those pious fingernails. It would do him good to undertake some physical labor. He might even be able to keep that middle button buttoned.
The outside of this lovely little church was restored to the original rock, the bell tower was quite lovely, not overpowering as they often are but a nice unobtrusive companion to the church. Beside the church was the priest’s house and in the yard were chickens and ducks and some exotic, feathered fluffy duck things with red faces and fluffy pants.
The door of the house opened and out stepped a veritable bird of paradise. Quite in keeping with the odd looking birds now surrounding her, she was dressed in tight leopard-print leggings and a brightly colored shirt. The blackest, curly mop of hair was somewhat contained in an electric pink scarf wrapped around her head. Sister or housekeeper to the priest, who knows, but she was quite delighted to have visitors and pointed out how the wildflowers were to be found only in this area because of its unique natural features. Weeds are weeds, according to the farmers, I thought as I glanced at a pile of garden waste, but the wild flowers surrounding the area were truly glorious.
The church stood alone, with no village nearby. The cemetery up the hill was fully populated which seemed to indicate that a congregation once existed, and still must, as evidenced by the priest’s successful fundraising.
Our idea had been to go up to Molinatico where Luigi, proudly displaying his new mushroom hunters’ license, could legally forage for the great porcini. No more sneaking around in the undergrowth! We had driven up to Mt. Molinatico a few weeks prior to this day. Luigi had gone off mushrooming and I sat in the shade, drawing, among the wonderful beech trees with their gorgeous gnarled and twisted trunks, like lurking ghouls. The sun sparkled down through the little holes in the canopy of leaves. Before I knew it Luigi returned with lots of mushrooms. The porcini were huge and he also had what the villagers call “poor man’s mushrooms”. Different shapes and sizes and colors—oh the colors, there were blue and mauve and yellow and green and gold and creamy colors. Of course we would check with Meri before eating any. Luigi would not eat them anyway not being overly fond of mushrooms. All the more for me. I was already imagining a huge feast! Luigi told me how he had had his picnic lunch in the woods with a young man and his grandfather. The old man was eating a cheese that had live, wriggling maggots, “ibegi”, in it. A delicacy, Luigi pointed out to me, his family used to eat when he was a kid. With churning stomach I contemplated anew my “mushroom feast”. The first course of action on arriving home had been to slice the porcini and spread them out on wire racks to dry in the sun. I performed my most enjoyable little task until I had the strange experience of movement, as if the complete layers of porcini were on the move. As I looked closer I saw little wormy-things popping their heads out from the slices, even the ones I had sliced through were wriggling. It was so revolting! Just at that point Pierina popped over and discussed the day’s harvest. I pointed at the wriggling mass of mushrooms and she laughed, explaining that the sun brings the worms out and they all die, the flavor and quality of the mushrooms are not affected, in fact they are enhanced. She is such a tease, I did not know whether to believe her or not but remembering Luigi’s story about the ibegi in the old man’s cheese, I was inclined to believe her. Meri was my trusted mushroom expert so off I went with a sample and the basket of poor man’s mushrooms. She weeded out a few poisonous ones and said Pierina was right about the worms (which amazed me considering the animosity that exists between them). But she was disturbed that I was intending to have a huge mushroom feast. “Your liver, your liver” she cried “it’s not good for your liver”. Well I had my feast and I am still here. In fact when I returned to Canada my liver scan revealed a mighty reduction in the amount and sizes of the tumors. Perhaps hidden in the Emilian woods is the magic ibegi cure for liver lesions!
On this current trip, after the detours to look at the hillside churches and explore villages along the way, the mushroom hunt was given a rain check. It was too late in the day. Ardent hunters know that these elusive mushrooms peak between the hours of five and mid-morning, it was now almost noon. We continued on, just for the lovely ride. The vegetation and strata were changing imperceptibly with the elevation. Lush growths of chestnut dwindled as we climbed into the realm of the evergreens. When we broke out into a completely barren wasteland of moulded volcanic lava fields we knew we had taken the wrong road. Molinatico is clothed with forests except for its rounded topknot, which is quite bare. The road became narrower and rockier, with obvious watercourses scoring the surfa
ce. Luigi ever the intrepid explorer forged even higher as I whimpered like a sniveling coward. Bumping and spinning our way along we arrived suddenly at what seemed, to me at least, Valhalla. A beautiful house set in an oasis of trees and lush growth, flowers blooming everywhere. A monstrous great teddy of a dog gamboled across our path and romped round and round the car. We pulled up beside the gate and a rather ancient looking old fellow came forward to retrieve the dog. I do not know what prompted my crazy husband to ask, “What’s for lunch?” but the man threw up his hands in delight and demanded that we stay and visit and thus began another of those chance encounters at which we seem to be so good. An equally frail old lady appeared and together they insisted on giving us a tour of their property. Leading us round to the back of the house, they proudly showed off their efforts. Half the property stretched up the hill through the trees; they had created a huge natural rock garden and we were led up and down and round and along the winding path through the rockery. We inspected every flowering shrub that she had planted and nurtured. I especially loved the lavender bushes. Always a favorite of mine, I stroked the aromatic leaves and swooned as I held my hands to my face to inhale. We were shown round the gorgeous old house and introduced to the children and grandchildren, framed and proudly displayed on one wall.
In Love With Emilia Page 7