The Train to Orvieto

by Novelli, Rebecca J. ;

  She showed Signora Farnese the ring Gabriele had given her. “An engagement is more than a ring,” Signora Farnese said. “In Italy, engagement is both a legal and a religious matter.” Willa wasn’t sure what legal and religious matters Signora Farnese had in mind. Both with and without Signora Farnese, she continued her visits to Orvieto. Wherever she went, she carried her sketchbook and drew the people she saw on the street, in church, in the Piazza del Duomo and in the trattoria nearby. Thus, it became usual for people to hide their faces from Willa’s gaze and her constant drawing. As she became increasingly involved in her relationship with Gabriele, she neglected her studies at the Accademia d’Arte. At last, she was asked to withdraw.

  “Signora Santori tells me everyone she knows is convinced that you have a questionable reputation,” Signora Farnese told Willa, “and you don’t even live there yet.”

  “But I’ve done nothing wrong,” Willa said. “Besides, they don’t even know me.”

  “Signora Santori says that the Marcheschis are a respected family, but lost most of their money during the Great War. If Gabriele doesn’t marry someone with a large dowry, they will have to sell off some of their land.” According to Signora Santori, Gabriele had forsaken Maria Cristina Orsini to follow the American siren because Cupid’s arrows had struck him in the heart the moment he saw her. It was un colpo di fulmine and un amore a prima vista. A bolt of lightening and love at first sight. If Willa had only refused Gabriele in the first place, there would have been no harm because he would not have foresworn Maria Cristina, a fine Catholic girl with a large wedding chest whom everyone had expected him to marry and who was the sister of Gabriele’s good friend, Pietro Orsini. Now Maria Cristina would soon enter the convent, and her beautiful wedding chest would be of no use. It is always a mistake, people said, shaking their heads, to make a hasty marriage in defiance of the wisdom of one’s parents and the practices of the community. Che peccato! What a pity!

  Later, Signora Santori reported that many said that Gabriele’s innamorata demanded expensive gifts despite the growing shortages, gifts of such scarcities as truffles, chocolates, coffee, and even silk stockings—things she didn’t deserve, things that other people needed. Such reports grew in size and complexity. In Napoli, they claimed, Gabriele took Willa to a sold-out performance of The Elixir of Love, where the two sat in the orchestra section, thereby depriving some very important people of seats. Afterwards, the couple met “the greatest soprano of all time,” Olivetta Boccale, also known as “La Voce,” an extraordinary honor that la straniera was incapable of appreciating. They said that Gabriele had also obtained custom-made leather shoes for his selfish courtesan when there was a shortage of shoe leather in Italy because it had been requisitioned by the military where it was truly needed for soldiers in Ethiopia and elsewhere. As a result many soldiers had gone barefoot. In the winter. In the Alps. In the summer. In Africa. Although none of these claims was true, people remembered them, and their memories became a truth that was more true than truth itself.

  Upset finally, Willa repeated these stories to Gabriele. He smiled. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “They’ll forget their crazy ideas when they get to know you.”

  Willa believed him. Gabriele had always lived in Orvieto. Who would know better than he? “Yes, people are so silly,” she agreed.

  For his part, Gabriele had his own version of their courtship. “I overwhelm her,” he would announce triumphantly, and then he would hug Willa enthusiastically and often, even in public.

  “Gabriele!” Willa scolded, but then she always laughed, too.

  “We’re innamorati pazzi,” crazy with love, they told everyone who would listen.

  When Willa’s next monthly check arrived with a letter from her father, the engraved stationery of Mr. Carver’s law firm signaled that the contents of the envelope included a serious message. Warily, Willa opened the envelope and unfolded the letter: “I do not approve of the marriage proposal from Mr. Marcheschi. He appears to have an excessive interest in your dowry. Arriving in two weeks. Be packed and ready to leave.” It was signed, “Sincerely, Howard Carver.”

  “My father is coming to take me back to America,” Willa told Gabriele as soon as they were together. “He doesn’t approve of our plans.”

  “I understand. Naturally, he wants to know me better and make sure that I can take good care of you before he gives his permission,” Gabriele said. “I’ll speak to him as one man to another. Once I show him our podere, he’ll see how bright our future is.” The elder Marcheschis, however, had a different view. Willa’s father, they said, “arriccia il naso di fronte a tutto,” he turns his nose in the air, “because he thinks the Marcheschis aren’t good enough for his daughter.” Willa noticed their chilly demeanor toward her on her next visit.

  “Your family is upset,” she told Gabriele as the two of them walked along the Corso toward the Piazza del Duomo and stopped for something to drink at an outdoor café. It was a feast day in Orvieto, and everyone had come out to enjoy the entertainment. “I don’t think they understand how my father feels,” she said in an unusual moment of insight, “and they’ve taken offense when they shouldn’t.”

  “They are very traditional,” Gabriele said, nodding. Several of Gabriele’s friends greeted him, but they did not acknowledge Willa. In fact, Pietro Orsini, Maria Cristina’s brother, stood between Gabriele and Willa and turned his back to Willa.

  “Your friends don’t like me,” Willa said when they resumed their passeggiata.

  “It’s just that they don’t know many Americans,” Gabriele replied. Willa had to admit that Americans were unusual in Orvieto, but she doubted that Gabriele was correct about the reason people weren’t cordial to her. She understood that she had given the wrong impression. She just wasn’t sure what she should do to rectify her errors or whether she could.

  Along the Corso, flags of many colors fluttered in the breeze. Willa and Gabriele bought gelato and afterwards strolled around the Piazza del Duomo. Under the gazes of the Madonna and the saints carved into the stone around the entrance of the cathedral, a ring of people stood watching a fire-eater. They whooped each time a long flame disappeared into the fire-eater’s mouth. Nearby, a juggler tossed sharp swords that glinted against the bright sky. The crowd gasped and cheered when he caught the weapons behind his back and never once got cut.

  Across the Piazza another crowd formed in front of a wagon with a bright red proscenium mounted on it and the words Circo Dei Burratini painted in gold letters on the side. Willa took Gabriele’s hand and pulled him over. The little stage had velvet curtains that opened to reveal a painted backdrop, which concealed the puppeteers. The crowd yelled and clapped for the show to begin. The curtain opened with a squeaking sound. On the little stage, Punchinello, the rich hunchback, sought the favors of Columbine, the maid, who tricked him out of his money, intending to use it to marry Harlequin. The crowd shouted warnings and epithets at the hapless and angry Punchinello, who protested until Harlequin knocked him over the head with a stick. The audience cheered and elbowed one another to get a better view. Then Harlequin mimicked an obscene Punchinello making love to Columbine before leaving her at the altar himself. The crowd screamed with delight. After the curtains closed, the proprietor passed a large black hat mounted on a stick into which the audience dropped coins and bills until the hat sagged under the weight of the money inside it.

  “What a mean story,” Willa said to Gabriele.

  “It’s just puppets,” he said. “It’s not a real story.” He pointed toward the street leading out of the Piazza. “Look at the people on stilts.” The two of them stood in the shadow of the Duomo watching the slow, stiff movements of the costumed figures, a dance of giants. The stilt walkers, the fire-eater, the sword thrower, the puppets: in these Willa saw a world of heightened imagination and color, a magical place she would share with Gabriele. Nothing else really mattered.

  11

  Mr. Carver declined Signora Farnese’s of
fer of hospitality and, instead, stayed at the Savoy Hotel on the Piazza della Repubblica. “I don’t want to put anyone to any trouble,” he said. His real purpose was to speak to Willa privately. He took her to dinner at Trattoria dei Tre Cugini located next to the Arno near the Ponte Vecchio. The candlelit room glowed, and around them frescoed walls depicted scenes of opulent Renaissance banquets. Diners spoke in low tones interrupted only by the sounds of chiming glasses and restrained laughter. The maitre d’ seated them in a curved booth upholstered in dark leather.

  “Daddy, won’t you at least come meet Gabriele?”

  Mr. Carver shook his head. “There’s no need. We’re leaving in three days.” She understood that her father had made up his mind about her engagement long before his arrival. The prospect of leaving Orvieto, where she had not yet lived, seemed to Willa a profound loss and a certain end to her work as an artist, work that seemed to her more promising and probable with each new painting of country life. Until then, Willa had not let herself believe that returning to Erhart was a serious possibility. It was unimaginable! She believed something would surely work out to keep her from leaving Gabriele and Italy and life as a wife and artist.

  “But, daddy, Gabriele and my work and my art are here…in Italy…in Orvieto. I love him and he loves me.”

  The waiter came to take their orders. Willa inhaled the odors of garlic, herbs and wine from a passing cart. “I’d like whatever that is.”

  “Vitello, signorina,” the waiter said.

  Mr. Carver waved the menus away. “The vitello, please, and I’ll have steak, salad. We’ll have the antipasto misto now.”

  “Daddy, did you get Gabriele’s second letter?”

  “Yes. He wanted to clarify his intentions and his situation. I believe he means well toward you, but your interests aren’t what the Marcheschis have in mind. They need money.” The waiter returned with a platter. Willa took some prosciutto and melon in her fingers and bit into the sweet-salty morsel. “Signora Farnese’s friend says they made some unwise investments and lost a great deal during the Great War.”

  “But, daddy, they own lots of land. They aren’t poor.”

  Mr. Carver seemed to anticipate this objection. “It costs money to develop and maintain one’s land. I don’t want to become involved in supporting them.”

  “Besides, it’s called un podere,” she said as if the name mattered. “Would you like to see the paintings I’ve already done of Orvieto? I’m thinking of having a show in a few months.”

  Mr. Carver cleared his throat. “If you marry Gabriele and go to Orvieto, you won’t become an artist. You’ll become someone who works on a farm…a podere, if you wish. The consequences for you will be the same, no matter what name you give it.”

  “Daddy, that’s not fair. At least meet Gabriele. Please!” The waiter served their main course. Willa looked down at her plate. “Wait! Vitello is veal!”

  The waiter took out a stained paper from his vest pocket and ran his finger down a list. “Sì, signorina.”

  Willa hesitated. “I forgot. That’s a baby animal.”

  “It’s what you ordered,” Mr. Carver said. “Besides, veal tastes a lot like chicken, and you don’t mind eating that, do you?” Willa knew better than to get involved in two arguments at once with her father. Mr. Carver often said lawyers who did that were “muddleheaded” and “not worth their fees.”

  “Daddy, please just meet Gabriele.” She knew from experience that convincing her father to change his mind required small steps rather than big leaps. If only he could see Orvieto and meet Gabriele and his family, he would feel differently. Of this she was certain.

  “As long as you’re packed and ready on Thursday morning, I’ll meet this Gabriele fellow, if that’s what you want.”

  Willa smiled. “Oh, thank you. I’m sure you’ll love him as much as I do.” They finished their meal. She ordered zuppa inglese for dessert. “We can go to Orvieto tomorrow. I’ll call and leave a message for Gabriele.” Mr. Carver nodded. Willa went to a public telephone. She waited for the operator to place the call, heard the phone trill at the other end. She counted that at least five people picked up their receivers. Their breathing and whispers punctuated her conversation with the telephone operator in Orvieto. When she said goodbye, she counted five clicks on the line before she hung up.

  The elder Marcheschis shook Mr. Carver’s hand murmuring “benvenuto” and “piacere.” They repeated these greetings throughout the day, but there was little else they could say as Mr. Carver didn’t speak Italian. Gabriele, however, showed Willa’s father the Marcheschi lands, their winery, and later the city of Orvieto, discussing every aspect of the family business and his plans for the future. “We sell our wine throughout the area,” Gabriele said waving his arm in a wide arc.

  “What about beyond the area?” Mr. Carver asked. “This region doesn’t have many people. How will you grow your business if you don’t grow your customer base?”

  “We are a local winery,” Gabriele explained, “So our production is limited, but we sell all that we make.”

  “How will you support my daughter and a family if you don’t have plans to expand your production?” Gabriele seemed unconcerned that he lacked an answer to this question. Perhaps he doesn’t understand what daddy is asking, Willa thought.

  “He has no business plan beyond what he’s doing now,” Mr. Carver said to Willa when they were alone for a moment. “You’d find yourself poor and working for nothing.”

  Willa stared at her father. “But we love each other, daddy. That’s what matters.”

  Gabriele saw Willa’s tears. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s crying because I’ve told her that I won’t give my approval for your marriage until I see evidence that you can support her properly,” Mr. Carver said. Gabriele was offended and so were his parents when they understood Mr. Carver’s views.

  “The Marcheschis always support their family,” Gabriele said.

  Mr. Carver remained unconvinced. “It’s time to go,” he told Willa, “or we’ll miss our train.”

  At the station, Gabriele took Willa aside. “We will marry anyway, and you’ll paint in Orvieto. It will be good luck to be married in our Chapel of the Lily. Our happiness is certain.”

  But once Willa and her father boarded the train and found their seats, Mr. Carver voiced even more serious objections. “Do you understand how much work needs to be done just to make that house livable?” He took out a list he had made in the course of their visit. “The roof needs mending and perhaps the timbers beneath it. They apparently don’t have indoor plumbing and very little running water. What water they do have may not be clean. In some places the planks are coming off the floor. Somebody is going to get injured on that loose stairstep outside. The new winemaking equipment doesn’t work properly because they don’t seem to know how to configure it correctly. I could easily see that much of their work is done by hand, and most of their farm equipment belongs to another century. In their present situation, it would be very difficult to make a living even if you contributed your labor, and you don’t intend to do that because you say you’re planning to paint.”

  “But Gabriele said that I can paint there.”

  Mr. Carver shook his head. “That’s a pipe dream, Willa. If you’re serious about being an artist, you would be better off going to New York or Chicago to study. At least, then you would paint.”

  It is an unfortunate truism that we are never more attached to something than at the moment we believe we are bound to lose it. This was the case for Willa, who understood her choice to be not just between Gabriele and her parents, but also between her vision of life and the more predictable and conventional life her parents envisioned for her. Once she saw her future in these terms, she thought only of how her soul would die without Gabriele; die if she couldn’t capture the light in the Piazza, the sunset over the vineyards, the faces along the Corso; die if she returned to America with her father on Thursday.


  Mr. Carver took note of her silence. “What are you thinking?”

  “I still want to be with Gabriele and paint here. In Orvieto.” Willa said.

  Mr. Carver shook his head. “I also understand that you have not made a favorable impression on people. Have you considered how that will affect your future if you were to live there?” Willa was thinking of the people in Orvieto in artistic rather than personal terms. Their manner no longer seemed unfriendly to her but, rather, reserved. They were part of her larger canvas, one that concerned contemporary life in a small, Italian hill town. Daddy must be mistaken, she thought. Besides, artists are often misunderstood.

  “Daddy, they don’t even know me yet. How could they think anything?”

  Mr. Carver remained firm, and his firmness called up within Willa an intense and stubborn determination. “I’m going to marry him,” she said, certain of her love for Gabriele and of her wish to become his wife.

  12

  Several weeks after Mr. Carver returned to America, Willa and Gabriele sat together on a bench that overlooked the Isolotto in the Boboli Gardens. Gabriele handed Willa an apple from their picnic basket. She took a bite, then another. He watched as she ate and put his arm around her shoulder. “You are as rosy and full as this fruit.” She smiled at the beauty of the Gardens and the beauty of that moment. If I had gone back to Erhart, she thought, I would have missed this. Gabriele took her hand. “Are you Catholic?”