You were taken in by Antonio and his sister Elisabetta, in their old house in the abandoned hamlet on the hill above the city walls, up the valley of the Torba, near to its confluence with the Ombrone, which flows down the hill through vineyards and olive groves to the plain. They took you in without any questions.
You went in and sat by the fire. The woman brought you a bowl of warm, scented water, round and whole, and a soft towel, and indicated that you should wash. She placed it on the ledge beside you. You plunged your hands in and splashed your face, feeling the dust and grime wash away. In the meantime she prepared a bath for you in the next room, which was filled with steam. You let yourself slip under the water, brushing the tangles out of your hair, washing your scratched aching body. The water felt soft and comforting. You almost fell asleep in the bath but managed to rouse yourself at the last moment and step out of the large tub. You wrapped yourself in the rough towel that lay ready for you on the chair, and combed out your hair in front of the fireplace. You felt reluctant to put on your dirty old clothes again, so you slipped into the homespun linen robe that had been laid out on the bed. You opened the door and the woman was there waiting for you; she took your hand and led you back to the kitchen and showed you to the table. You sat and she dished up steaming hot yellow polenta which Antonio cut with a piece of string. She laughed to see how hungry you were, and refilled your plate when you were finished. Ugo was smiling and seemed at ease in a way you had never seen before.
After dinner the woman sat beside the fire and sang songs that were strange and yet familiar at the same time. You listened to her singing and soon you realised you knew the songs and you joined in and sang with her, soft, sad songs of loss and grieving, and Ugo sang too.
At first you slept all day every day. Elisabetta tended to your needs and those of the boy, dressing his wound until it healed, so that each time you awoke she would be moving quietly about the room. You found you did not have the strength to rise from your bed, nor did you have the energy even to question why.
But you woke up one morning and the sun was shining through the deep-set windows of your room, and she called you to get up and sit by the fire. And you sat there with her shelling peas and listening to the sparrows chirping in the eaves.
And each day you grew a little stronger.
You went out with Antonio this morning. There was still frost on the ground and the buozzo was frozen over. He was pruning the olive trees in preparation for the new growth. Antonio did the work, you and the child walked behind raking up the cut branches into little mounds, which you set alight and left to smoulder in the crisp windless air. The smell of burning wood surrounded you as the small columns of smoke rose straight into the pale sky. You bent and straightened, feeling the muscles in your thighs and belly tighten and grow strong. The sun was barely bright enough to warm you, but the exercise created heat in your own body so that soon you were sweating. You felt a freedom and contentment you had not known for many years. When it was mid-morning Antonio shared his bread and olives with you and you sat on a log and looked out over the valley. All about there were little bonfires burning like yours. He traced out the limits of his land with a dirty finger, from the acacia on this side to the oak tree on the other. It had belonged to him and his family for many generations. He knew every tree and tussock intimately. He showed you where a fox had sunned itself early this morning on the path, miming its movements. And now you were back at work, working in tandem, tending to the exuberance of nature.
You looked out this morning and saw the young wheat springing up all around you, the first red poppies starting to flower, dancing on the ends of their long green stalks. You saw the first swallows of summer darting overhead, chasing invisible insects with shrill cries. You heard the low distant drone of a tractor and two men working on the far edge of a field, their attention completely focused on the task at hand.
There is an idea that has slowly been forming in your mind over these months in which your body has been idle. You would like to restore the paintings in the little chapel at the far end of the piazza. Antonio shows you a box of dyes and pigments that he has found in one of the abandoned houses and you set to work.
You have been here now for a year – you know because it is chestnut season again. You have made flour out of the chestnuts, and then castagnaccio, mixing the sweet brown flour with water and olive oil and then baking it in the wood ovens in large flat round trays. The year has gone around and now it is back to this. Back to the chestnuts, back to the castagnaccio. Antonio brings in loads of chestnuts and some you eat at once roasted in the fire and the others his sister puts out in the courtyard to dry in the late autumn sun, and then grinds to make flour. She has a kind of small mill off the kitchen.
The boy has grown tall in these months. He laughs often and helps Antonio with his work in the fields. You sometimes hear him whistling outside your window to imitate the birds of the woods as he works.
The leaves are falling in the woods behind the house. Golden red and brown they drift motionless in the still air, then spiral slowly down. There is a golden haze through the branches. Scent of mushrooms and myrtle. Sometimes you sit down where the rivers meet, the water eddies around as it rushes towards the sea. The seagulls, calling plaintively, come inland before a storm to take refuge.
When the winter is done it will be time for you to go. You have finished restoring the paintings. At Easter you will light the candles and allow everyone from the surrounding villages in. The priest will come and say mass in the little chapel. And when they have all gone you will pull on your coat and boots.
And you will open the door and slip out alone into the night.
Acknowledgements
I WISH TO EXPRESS MY ENORMOUS gratitude to the following people without whose support, love and guidance this book would never have happened: Athol Grieve, Stephen Watson, Imraan Coovadia, Paul Ashton, Ian Donald, Ursula Ulmer, Gill Mudie, Carrol Clarkson, Anne Schuster and Robert Bosnak. What you have each given me in your own singular way goes beyond words.
I wish also to express my thanks to AnnMarie Wolpe, Hillary and Tony Hamburger, Joan and Julian Leff, Carole Silver and Norman Levy whose enthusiasm and encouragement overcame my reluctance to publish this book.
Finally I would like to thank the jury of the European Union Literary Award 2013, as well as Jenefer Schute, Ester Levinrad and the editing team of Jacana Media who have made the intricate process of producing a book seem safe and easy.
The epigraphs on here and here are from TS Eliot’s poem “Burnt Norton” from Four Quartets, published by Faber and Faber (London, 2001). The dictation Anna P gives her students on here and here is from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, originally published by Longmans, Green and Company (London), now available in various editions and in full at www.gutenberg.org. The extracts from Pontormo’s diary are my own translations from the Italian, from the book Diario Fatto Nel Tempo che Dipingeva il Coro di San Lorenzo (1554-1556) by Jacopo da Pontormo, published by Gremese (Rome, 1988).
The Story of Anna P, as Told by Herself Page 16