by D. L. Smith
“Get out of here. I knew I shouldn’t have told you about this.” Leo made an ineffectual kick in his friend’s direction.
Topo took an equally unproductive swing at Leo’s foot and recovered his breath enough to gasp, “A tour bus . . .”
Leo spun around in the grass as if he’d received an electric shock.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Over ten.”
“Back up, back up, back up . . .”
Feet were suddenly headed in Topo’s direction for real this time, so he rolled to one side and let Leo scramble through.
For an instant Topo was alone with the notion that just beyond that veil of razor grass, Angelica Giancarlo’s naked splendor glided through blue water. But he couldn’t look. Some other woman, maybe . . . but not Angelica Giancarlo. Instead he sighed and followed Leo’s disappearing rear end.
Staying on their hands and knees, the two men scrambled toward the path and continued their excited conspiring in whispers.
“Where are they?”
“The hotel. They’re going to have lunch.” “Marta hasn’t served them yet?”
“Not when I left.” Topo was beginning to wonder if he was up to the return trip.
When they finally reached a path well out of sight of the beach Leo stood up, brushed himself off, and checked out the condition of his suit. A few grass stains, but nothing too drastic. Topo collapsed at his feet.
“Does she know you’re telling me this?” asked Leo. “Naw, I don’t think so.”
He knew what Leo was thinking, and fearing. The hotel belonged to Marta and they both knew what her reaction would be to Leo Pizzola entering her restaurant. Since his return, Leo and Marta had kept their distance—like two animals who spied each other from across a plain and then watched tensely, almost daring the other to make a move. The thought of walking into her restaurant filled him with dread. He knew she had not forgiven him. She would never forgive him. But this tour bus held a potential for money and every day money became more critical.
Selling his father’s farm hadn’t been as easy as expected. Leo’s plan had been for a quick trip back to Santo Fico, a quick sale, and an even quicker return to America. Instead he had watched his savings disappear in an assortment of airline terminals, train stations, bus depots, and bars—too many bars. He’d spent money for newspaper ads in Follonica and Orbetello. He’d paid ridiculous fees to real estate brokers in Grosseto and Siena. The reasons they all gave for why there was no interest in his “OCEANFRONT TUSCAN ACREAGE W/ORCHARDS, VINEYARDS, VILLA” were as varied as the people who were willing to take his money. Some said it was too run-down. Some said Leo was asking too much. Others said the season had passed or the season hadn’t arrived or his ad wasn’t big enough. But they all agreed on one thing—it was too damn inaccessible. One had used the word godforsaken. Unless something changed quickly, Leo knew he could end up trapped in Santo Fico again—this time maybe forever. Money was the answer and to escape Santo Fico he would face a hell of a lot worse than the wrath of Marta Caproni Fortino.
“Tell me about the guide.”
Topo was still collapsed on the grass. “He’s a pazzo. He knows nothing. He asked Marta if there was anything of interest to see.”
Leo held his breath. “And?”
“She said, ‘Not really.’”
Leo laughed out loud. If Marta knew that that was exactly what he would have begged her to say, she’d never forgive herself. A thought struck him.
“Americans?”
“Could be. But I think maybe English.”
Leo’s enthusiasm sagged slightly. He would like to talk to some Americans again. They could have talked about baseball. Here it was August and he had no idea how the Cubs were doing.
He shrugged and sighed, “We should hurry.”
As they quick-walked back up the trail Leo tried to remember his lines. It had been years since he’d spoken them or even thought about them—but he knew they were still there, somewhere just slightly out of reach in that murky Italian haze near the back of his brain. Leo rubbed his three-day stubble and toyed with the idea of a quick stop at the shepherd’s hut for a shave. No time. This would have to do. He optimistically brushed his suit and straightened his lime green tie. Wasn’t it amazing that for some extraordinary reason earlier in the morning, on some whim, he’d decided to wear his suit? What good fortune. Some people are just born under a lucky star.
Back at the water’s edge, Angelica Giancarlo stood by the smooth boulder clutching her towel and watched Leo Pizzola’s white straw hat disappear up the trail. She sighed and dried her hair. There was a time when she had no problems holding an audience.
FOUR
The atmosphere in the kitchen of the Albergo di Santo Fico was charged. The counters were quickly filling with trays piled with plums, grapes, and sliced melons. At the large island stove in the center of the room, a great copper pot of water boiled frantically, as if it were running out of time. Simmering next to it were two sauce pots, one filled with a deep red sauce and the other a creamy white—both bubbling like primordial Tuscan magma. Next to these, a broad copper skillet held a brushing of olive oil and some diced garlic that hissed and snapped as it browned. Stacked inside the ovens were trays of sole and shrimp, chicken and sausage, each tray waiting for its own bath of steaming sauce. All these preparations filled the kitchen with incredible combinations of aromas that crept out into the dining room and set English stomachs grumbling and English mouths watering in anticipation.
Marta stood at the sink and sliced pears into a huge earthen bowl that was already filled with leafy ruchetta, walnuts, and chunks of feta. It was almost ready for the vinaigrette. Carmen was stationed beside her, slicing cheeses, salami, and radishes and then loading them onto antipasti trays next to near perfect rows of olives, peppers, and tiny yellow tomatoes. Across the room, Nina, Marta’s younger daughter, having returned from the panetteria, now stood at a great wooden cutting board deftly slicing long loaves of fresh bread before piling them into small straw baskets.
The women worked silently, except for Nina’s soft humming of a melody that only she heard. She loved working in the kitchen, especially on those rare days when they were impossibly busy—like today. Her older sister, on the other hand, considered this just another penalty of her loathsome and meaningless existence in Santo Fico and she filed it away as just one more stupid routine to someday escape. Marta didn’t have time to think about it one way or the other. Like everything else in her life, it simply was. She moved quickly over to the island and stirred her locally famous red sauce with a wooden spoon. It was time. Pouring some olive oil in the great copper pot of boiling water Marta began working in handfuls of brittle pasta.
“We need the bread on the tables.”
Nina’s hands darted around the large tray in front of her as she quickly counted baskets. There were enough. “I’m ready,” she replied, trying to hide her excitement. She loved serving when the dining room was crowded. She nimbly carried the tray of breadbaskets through the swinging door.
A moment later Marta called over her shoulder to Carmen, “Why don’t you go in and see if they need more wine . . . And see how many gawkers have shown up who want lunch . . . And tell your sister that Uncle Elio’s basket is almost ready.”
Carmen knew why her mother wanted her in the dining room. She wanted to make sure nobody said anything cruel to Nina. It was silly. None of these people would do that— they were English. Still, at least it gave her a chance to stop slicing vegetables.
When Nina carried her tray of bread into the dining room, it wasn’t as if all conversation suddenly stopped. A general murmur did continue, but intermingled with it was the occasional soft but audible gasp as one guest after another beheld the young girl. First of all, it should be said that for fifteen Nina was uncommonly tall. Not as tall as her mother, but at least as tall as Carmen. She also had the silky, raven black hair of the Fortino women. But that was where the family resemb
lance ended. Nina was, well . . . Nina was a swan. Although her slender, graceful figure already hinted at womanhood, it was obvious that she would forever possess the body of a ballerina about to go on pointe. In truth, more than a few of the older English women who gazed at her long, graceful neck and her high cheekbones and narrow nose recalled a classic, enchanting face they’d seen delicately carved on some ancient cameo worn by their grandmother in a previous century. Indeed, this shy and unassuming serving girl would look quite at home fashioned in alabaster or milky porcelain.
But it was only when Nina crossed the room with slow and deliberate steps, and then stood at each table to serve them their basket of fresh bread, that the strangers discovered Nina’s most remarkable feature. It was then that they could gaze into the most beautiful blue eyes any of them had ever beheld. Nina’s remarkable eyes captured the color of a spring sky, only more distant; the color of the Aegean Sea, only deeper; the chilling watery blue of ice, only colder. But it was only as her hand nimbly crept around the tray searching out the next straw basket that they realized for sure that these remarkable eyes were sightless. Their initial reaction was shock, then embarrassment for themselves, and finally some vague anger at God for this profound injustice. Many found themselves politely thanking the cheerful girl with a catch in their throats.
Nina noticed the change in the attitude of the room, of course, but she just attributed it to the welcome arrival of the bread. She found everyone to be quite pleasant and courteous, and as she chatted carelessly with this latest bunch of strangers in a beautiful language they didn’t understand, her voice was like music. Occasionally her laugh would ring like a small country bell and soon they all relaxed and resumed their conversations, secure in a quiet appreciation that they had experienced a blessing. Nina affected everyone that way, including her family.
By the time Carmen came in from the kitchen, the dining room had pretty much returned to normal. She counted heads as she walked across a room that was slowly filling with shy but inquisitive locals who came to see the curiosity—foreigners! And to her amazement almost all the locals actually ordered something; many even ordered a full lunch. This was going to be a good day. It took her a few minutes at the bar exchanging pleasantries with neighbors and pouring wine before she could take the large bottle of Chianti and move on to the tables. She carefully checked their small earthen pitchers to see if any required more wine, and through a series of gestures and noises (she, of course, spoke no English and the visitors grasped little Italian) she determined whether they wanted more. Carmen was unusually astute at keeping an exact tally of which table had how many small pitchers. It would be so easy to overcharge the silly foreigners who were always sleepy and slightly groggy after lunch, but if her mother ever caught her cheating a customer she would filet her like a carp.
Carmen moved past Nina as she finished bestowing her baskets of bread.
“Mama says Uncle Elio’s lunch is ready.”
Nina’s expression fell. Lunch with Uncle Elio was usually the highlight of most days, but not today. She loved the sounds of all the foreign voices, and the excitement, and the jostling of the crowded dining room. But her expression brightened again when she realized that if she hurried with Uncle Elio, she could be back in time to help serve dessert. That was her favorite course anyway because everyone was always so happy and friendly at the end of one of her mother’s lunches. So with a quick nod in Carmen’s direction she headed for the kitchen.
By the time they had reached the coast road, Topo just wanted to get back to town without having a heart attack. So he sat on a rock at the side of the road and called up the hill to Leo, “Hey . . . Wait a second!”
When Leo stopped, Topo waved, vainly trying to motion him back. But Leo knew what Topo wanted and he considered ignoring his old friend and just continuing on. He certainly wasn’t going to walk all the way back down the hill only to haggle about money, so he simply called to the small figure plopped down on the rock, “Ten percent!”
Topo was outraged. “Fifty-fifty!”
This was no contest. Leo didn’t have to give him anything and called to him again, “Fifteen percent, or nothing!”
“Forty percent! You wouldn’t even know there was a bus if it weren’t for me!”
“Twenty percent. Or maybe you want to do it yourself.” “Maybe I will. It’s not so hard.”
“Well, come on! You do it. I want to hear you do it! In English!”
English . . . Merda!
Topo was dead. Even in Italian, nobody in the village could do it as well as Leo. Even Father Elio couldn’t do it as well as Leo. Franco Fortino, maybe, but that was a long time ago, and never in English, and besides, Franco was dead. Topo tried one more desperate plea—his big gun.
“Come on, Leo. Thirty percent! Be fair!”
Leo’s heart sank. He should have known it would come down to “Be fair.” In an instant they were nine years old again—Leo was farther up the trail, Topo was left behind with tears streaming down his dirty cheeks, demanding that life “be fair.” The only things missing were Franco Fortino and Marta Caproni standing at Leo’s side, chuckling at poor Topo’s grief.
“Twenty-five percent, Topo, and that’s it. One more word and you get nothing.”
Topo threw up his hands. After his patented plea for fairness he knew twenty-five percent was as good as he was going to get, and actually a little better than he’d hoped.
Leo started back up the trail, but after just a few steps he called back to the little man, “You okay?”
Topo nodded and gestured for Leo to go on. After all, time was money.
Word spreads quickly through a village like Santo Fico. By the time the breadbaskets were empty and the antipasti trays were picked over, the hotel’s dining room had filled with curious townspeople either crowding up to the bar or quietly elbowing into shadowed corners to gape at the strangers. The air had become thick with a murmuring tension. The exhausted tourists felt trapped at their tables on one side of the room, staring uncomfortably at their tablecloths and hands, while barricaded around them an invading army of silent villagers stared at the uneasy foreigners with unabashed wonder. Occasionally, Carmen was forced to cross the hushed room with fresh supplies of wine or bread, and the sound of her shoes echoed off the tile floor like rifle shots. Even someone clearing his throat resounded like a mortar blast.
Finally, to the great relief of the English tourists, whose inborn sense of etiquette had been strained to the limit, the kitchen doors swung open and Marta charged out with steaming bowls and platters. Carmen quickly followed with fresh baskets of fettunta. Saved! In a matter of minutes, plates of tender pasta smothered with chunks of sole and shrimp swimming in creamy white sauce or red marinara with chicken and sausage had effected a truce. All uneasiness quickly evaporated and both camps, the aliens and the natives, were soon chatting away gaily—within their respective ranks, of course.
As Leo crossed the piazza, he heard voices coming through the open verandah doors of the hotel dining room. He decided he had time to catch his breath and count his obstacles, so he sat down on the edge of the fountain just across from the old man and the skinny gray dog. The guide, of course, was an unknown factor, but Topo had called him a pazzo and he would just have to go with that. A more difficult matter would be trying to finesse the pazzo in Marta’s hotel. He imagined the way Marta might treat him. She might throw a water pitcher at his head. It wouldn’t be the first time. She might scream at him, point to the door, and order him back out to the street like a naughty dog. She could make things complicated. His thoughts lingered on Marta for too long, remembering the disaster six weeks ago when he first returned to Santo Fico . . .
It was a long walk down the north coast road from Punta Ala. Exhausted from jet lag and bus rides and the weight of his battered suitcase, all Leo wanted was to get to Topo’s house without running into anyone he knew—especially Marta Caproni Fortino. So, it stands to reason that the first person he should
run into as soon as he set foot in the piazza was Marta.
It was a little after noon when Leo trudged into the piazza, just as Marta was lugging a large basket from the hotel to the church. Leo knew her immediately. But from across the square, Marta failed to recognize the tall stranger with the cardboard suitcase held together with tape and twine. He was just some outsider with a black mustache and a rumpled linen suit plodding into town, and she wondered if he would need a room. He certainly could use a bath and a shave, she thought. His long face and broken nose were familiar, but there was something about this fellow’s sorrowful eyes and the way he watched her with a familiarity that was unsettling.
When it suddenly struck Marta that this was Leo Pizzola staring back at her she shrieked as if he were a ghost. She dropped her food basket right there in the street. Soup and bread, fruits and cheese, a pitcher of wine, plates and bowls, it all dropped and slopped and crashed onto the worn cobblestones.
“What are you doing coming back here?” Marta had screamed out across the cold stones of the piazza. “You don’t belong here . . . !”
Her voice bounced off the plaster walls and echoed off the red-tile roofs and proclaimed her indignation to the countryside. Leo stood in silence, offering no apology for his return. Tears welled up so quickly and so unexpectedly, Marta barely had time to run back into the hotel, abandoning the clutter that was to have been Father Elio’s lunch.
Leo had hoped to sneak back, take care of his business, and then quietly disappear. He was going to be the shadow of a starling—gone before you see it. Instead he had been in Santo Fico less than two minutes and had already caused a mess in the town square, frightened a woman to tears, been cursed to the surrounding hills, and caused the village priest to probably miss his lunch. But at least one nagging question had been answered—Marta had not forgiven him.
Now here Leo was, six weeks later, once again wearing his linen suit and again wondering why the hell he ever thought coming home was a good idea.