The Reluctant Tuscan

by Phil Doran

  Another clear indication of its longevity was the four distinct patterns of stonework, one on top of the other, on the walls of the bedroom on the second floor. Each change marked a point where the roof had been raised because people kept getting taller. These renovations seemed to end somewhere around the time Lord Byron came drinking and debauching his way through these parts about two hundred years ago. There is no record, of course, that Lord Byron was ever in our house, since anyone he could have drunk or debauched with was too illiterate to write it down, and the goats weren’t talking.

  We were staring at the crack in our wall when we heard Umberto dialing his cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Nancy asked in Italian.

  “Well, my father, for one. He would be very interested.”

  My Italian was good enough to understand that the way Umberto loved to kibitz, the revised age of our house would be all over town before the church bells rang for noon Mass.

  “We can’t tell anybody about this,” Nancy said, as I nodded in agreement behind her.

  “But this is important,” he said, as he reluctantly hung up. “Big news for the town.”

  We hadn’t shared with Umberto any of our difficulties with the Comune for fear he wouldn’t want any part of our troubles, but we had to let him know that this would only make things worse. If the Comune found out the true age of this place, they’d shut us down immediately and turn the whole site over to the Dipartimento di Archeologia.

  “You know, Umberto,” Nancy said, “I’ll bet even the Pingatores don’t know how old this is.”

  “That’s possible,” he mused.

  “Which makes me think that if they did, Vesuvia would get even madder that her brother sold it. She’d yell at him, and who knows what she’d do to you for sneaking over here to work with us.” Nancy made a malocchio at him.

  “So you don’t want me to say anything?”

  “Please,” she pleaded. “At least until the work’s done.”

  Umberto darted his eyes around the room like a man who had just taken a picture of a flying saucer only to discover there was no film in his camera. “What about the guys?”

  “Well, if you patch the crack up right now, nobody will be able to see what’s inside.” Nancy handed him a bucket and he stood there staring at her. “I mean, Vesuvia could come up that footpath on her way to her trees at any time, and if she even suspects—”

  “Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “In the meantime, how do we keep the house from falling down?” I asked in my broken Italian.

  “It’s complicated,” Umberto said, tearing open a sack of plaster. “First we have to prop up the wall with wood beams, then we need to girdle the outside of the structure with pipes and—”

  “Can you start tomorrow?” Nancy asked.

  “I can’t do anything for a week.”

  “A week?” I moaned.

  “What can I do? Vesuvia told me I got to finish her wall or else! Why do you think I’m here on a Sunday?”

  “What’s going to keep the house from falling over with the next stiff wind?” Nancy asked.

  “I think the shovel will hold it up.”

  “But we’re paying for that by the hour,” Nancy said, throwing in an assortment of Italian swear words.

  Umberto shrugged and went outside to get water to make plaster. Nancy followed to plead with him, leaving me alone with my crack. As I stared at it, I thought of the fifty generations of people who had lived here in the thousand years this dwelling had been standing in place. A faceless army of peasant farmers and milkmaids, doing the best they could, every day, to survive and raise a family, hardly noticing that the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution were happening all around them.

  Did they recognize Michelangelo when he wandered through these hills looking for fresh veins of white marble? Did they even look up from their tilling when Napoleon’s army marched right past here chasing the Austrians out of northern Italy? Did they wonder about the small group of English poets and writers on their way to pay their last respects to Percy Shelley, whose body washed up on Focetta Beach not ten miles from here?

  The house creaked, and a thin finger of dust drizzled out of the crack. It resembled ashes, and I thought about the funeral pyre they had made on the beach for the drowned poet. Percy Shelley once wrote that Italy was “the paradise of exiles,” and that made me think about his widow, Mary Shelley, another expat writer trying to make a life in this alien culture. When I thought about the book that made her famous, I felt a strange kinship with her.

  She had her Frankenstein and I had mine.

  19

  Omertà

  Having spent most of my adult life in an air-conditioned office, I was ill prepared for Nancy’s insistence that we have an orto, a vegetable garden. Even though we were not living in the house, she felt that there was no reason we couldn’t enjoy the benefits of fresh vegetables all summer long. I went along because I had no idea how much work it would take.

  Apparently there’s this whole procedure where you have to turn over the soil, dig up all the weeds, and spread (organic, of course) fertilizer, snail killer, plant food, and mulch . . . whatever the heck that is. I did all of these chores, muttering under my breath every time I passed the steam shovel that was still holding up our house. After two weeks there had been no trace of Umberto or his guys to shore up the rustico, and any attempt to call him went unanswered.

  We would see him every day, of course, working on Vesuvia Pingatore’s walls. We’d wave, he’d wave back, but when we beckoned him over, he’d point to his watch and give us a sheepish little shrug. We knew he was sulking about having to keep quiet about the age of our house, but we had no choice, we had to carefully guard our secret against all intruders. And that included Cousin Faustino, who was locked in mortal combat with fumagini, a sticky black fungus that was ravaging our olive trees.

  Cousin Faustino kept arguing that he needed to dig up a diseased tree that was close to the house so he could treat it with nitrogen. But we feared that in unearthing the root, he would see a section of the exposed wall and discover what we were trying to hide. So we distracted him. Nancy engaged him in taking us around the land and telling us about the various plants we had growing there, like niebitella, a feral mint that the Italians cook with porcini mushrooms to cut the oily taste, or finocchio selvatico, a form of wild fennel that Cousin Faustino broke off and ate raw. When we cooked up a batch, it gave us stomachaches and double vision.

  I did my part in distracting Cousin Faustino, especially when Nancy wasn’t around, by getting him to do my work for me. My soft, pencil-pusher hands were cracking and blistering from working the hoe, so I’d call him over, ostensibly to ask him about what we should plant when. He’d rattle off a list of things I couldn’t understand, and when I pleaded ignorance he’d take the hoe and show me how to properly prepare the seedbed. Feeling a little like Tom Sawyer after he got his friends to paint the fence, I’d go in the house to fetch us soft drinks, while Cousin Faustino worked.

  It was three-thirty in the morning. A lone Vespa whined through the narrow streets, provoking the village dogs into fits of barking. I flipped over my pillow, laid my face on the cool side, and tried to fall asleep, but the Vespa buzzed in my ears like a gnat that keeps flying around your head despite your best efforts to shoo it away.

  I dragged myself out of bed and headed for the kitchen to see what there was to graze on. When I passed the laptop I remembered that I hadn’t checked my e-mail today, so I switched it on. I was scanning over the spam when my eyes widened. There was an e-mail from my agent!

  For weeks now I had been careful not to badger him about my script. In some weird way I felt that by my not contacting him, some good karma might accrue and I’d soon be surprised by another phone call. My heart was in my mouth when I opened it, only to learn that he and his wife were thinking of coming to Italy and could we r
ecommend a good itinerary?

  I ground my teeth in anger as I saw that there was not one single mention of my script. But I realized I needed to be cool, so I wrote him back. My reply started out as a dry, businesslike missive with a selection of picturesque villages and recommended hotels and restaurants, but somehow in the middle of it, my feelings about this place started to seep through, including the “Ten (Now Seventeen) Things I Hate about Tuscany.” I ended with an invitation for him and Mrs. Agent to come visit us in Cambione. They could stay with us if they chose, and there, in the soft azure sunlight of another perfect day, I could ask him face to face how come he hadn’t sold my damn script?!

  The village dogs had now settled down and the heavy night air seemed to heave, as if it were sighing right along with me. Why was I still obsessing over that script? Had I learned nothing from my last go-around? Did I really want to be thrust back into that world of oversized egos, vainglorious self-promotion, and monumental insincerity?

  I knew I’d never get to sleep now and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was too agitated to read and I had lost my appetite. I thought about going back to bed, snuggling up to Nancy, and seeing if she wanted to fool around (but then I’d have to talk to her, because she’d want to know what was bothering me, and then she’d get upset because I wasn’t letting go of things the way she wanted me to . . .), or I could just do what I normally do at four o’clock in the morning: stand in front of the refigerator with an eating utensil and sample things—an activity I like to refer to as “sport forking.”

  Not finding anything all that amusing in the fridge, I went into the living room and flicked on the TV in the hopes that some confluence of solar flares and atmospheric disturbances would conspire to send me a program I’d actually like to watch. I sat through about four minutes of a hopelessly retro variety show that featured a baggy-pants comic cracking jokes with a rim shot on every punchline.

  I was flicking through the channels when I suddenly recognized Tony Soprano. “Yo, Tone, what are you doing here?” I found myself saying aloud to the TV.

  He was speaking in badly dubbed Italian, but I understood enough from the voice-over announcer to learn that The Sopranos would start airing here in the fall. I thought about all the episodes we had missed and I was delighted. Finally, I had a good reason to improve my Italian. Now, if they’d only start showing the Dodger games, I’d be in hog heaven.

  When you come to Florence and you’re in search of a magnificent view of the city, as well as a brutal cardiovascular workout, you must go to the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore and climb the 468 steps up to the top of the dome. The view is heart stopping, if the 468 steps alone don’t do the job. Looking down through a labyrinth of ochre tile roofs you can see a dense warren of narrow streets richly clotted with life. Beyond that, to the north, lies the panorama of the hills of Fiesole, and to the east your eyes can follow the Arno River as it turns into a muddy trickle in its meanderings toward Pisa.

  The church, commonly referred to as Il Duomo, has one of the largest and highest domes ever built. It is taller and wider than the Pantheon in Rome, which it’s modeled after, and more than one-third larger than the Capitol Dome in Washington, D.C.

  As you make your way up the endless, narrow stairway, you’ll pass a level where the wall has been exposed so you can see how this marvel was actually constructed, since the architect, Filipo Brunelleschi, vowed never to use any scaffolding. The Romans had originally mastered this technique, but that knowledge was lost during the Dark Ages when the Church declared everything Roman to be pagan.

  Brunelleschi went to Rome and, digging through the forbidden archives, unearthed the designs for the Pantheon dome. He learned that the Romans had conquered the effects of hoop stress on unsupported walls by surrounding a structure they wished to enclose with stout chains and heavy lead piping. This would enable them to reinforce the walls with concrete (which they invented, by the way) until the structure was sturdy enough to stand alone. So when Umberto and his crew showed up with lengths of pipes and chains, I was to learn that they would be using this two-thousand-year-old technique to hold together our one-thousand-year-old house.

  The enveloping of our house in this girdle was done quickly but carefully. Scaffolding was put up around the rustico (with apologies to Filipo Brunelleschi, who built the Duomo without using any!). Vagabondo handed up lengths of pipe and Va Bene and Problema chained them together at the corners of the second story, until the house looked as if it were wearing a headband. As they worked, Umberto used a plumb level to gauge how straight the corners were, and since one end was sagging because of the crack, he got into the earthmover and gently nudged the wall until it was straight enough for the guys to shore it up.

  A cement mixer roared to life. Va Bene and Vagabondo dug away at the mound of earth behind the house, as Problema and Umberto slathered layers of concrete on the newly exposed foundation. To his credit Umberto was quick to cover up the foundation with concrete before his guys could take a closer look and discover that we had a wall within a wall.

  Unfortunately, all this work was being done on one of the hottest days of the summer. We kept a steady stream of bottled water coming and insisted the guys take breaks in the shade. The only good part was that because it was so hot and dry the concrete set very quickly, and by the end of the day Umberto felt it was hard enough to take away the earthmover.

  So as we gathered around, Umberto climbed in and gunned the engine. I readied my camcorder and we all looked at each other in anticipation.

  Va Bene said, “Don’t worry, Signor Fellini, it’s going to be fine,” while Problema predicted disaster, and Vagabondo gave me a wink and a thumbs-up as he continued chatting on his cell phone with a girl he had met at the beach.

  We held our breath as the earthmover moved and the house didn’t. A cheer went up and I produced a bottle of spumante I had picked up at the Alimentari Brutti, figuring that as long as something had a cork in it, we probably wouldn’t get salmonella. As I poured us a round of drinks, I realized that I was becoming so Italian, I looked to celebrate at the slightest provocation.

  With the structure stabilized work kicked into high gear, and within a week all the earth behind the house had been dug up and carted off. Additionally, they had patched up and reinforced the stone walls that buttressed the terraced land on our hill. Things were going so well, we were actually in a good mood when Umberto presented us with his bill.

  It was enormous. At least twenty-five percent higher than we had anticipated, and that didn’t even include the rental on all the heavy machinery. There were so many zeros, at first Nancy thought he had given us the price in lira. If he continued to charge us at this rate, we would run out of funds long before the house was finished.

  We had to do something, but we knew we had to proceed carefully. Italians are very touchy when it comes to money. Ironically, they consider it crass to even bring up the subject even when they are gouging you down to the marrow of your bones. They just don’t like to talk about money, and you can see their reticence on the subject manifested in a thousand different ways. At a street mercato, for instance, when you ask a vendor about the price of something, he will go on at great lengths describing the quality of the item, until you have to say, “Più parole, più costosa.” The more you talk, the more expensive it sounds.

  You also have to ask a waiter for your bill at least three times, until you’re finally forced to get up, take out your credit card, and walk to the cash register. Italians restaurateurs consider it rude even to hint that you should leave, unlike some establishments in New York and Los Angeles, where they take away your silverware and the tablecloth while you’re still sipping on your coffee.

  We agonized over this problem for days before we finally spoke to him about it. And even though we did it in the most nonconfrontational manner, Umberto was an unsettling combination of vague and defensive when we tried to get him to explain why his bill was so much higher than his original esti
mate. Then it occurred to us. We were paying for his silence. The discomfort we had caused him by asking him to keep our secret was going to have to be compensated.

  Okay, if this is how he wanted to play it, fine. In the immortal words of Joan Crawford when the board of directors at Pepsi tried to get rid of her, “Don’t screw with me, boys, I’ve been to Hollywood.”

  I went online and downloaded a picture of Tony Soprano and his crew. I printed it on photo paper and bought a frame. We found a prominent spot on the wall of Dino’s living room, and after taking down a pinup of a topless blond and a rendering of Christ healing a leper, we hung the framed photo of the Soprano gang.

  We invited Umberto over for coffee and when he arrived we seated him so that Tony and his goombahs were staring down at him. When Umberto asked about the photo, Nancy explained that they were her uncle Tony from New Jersey and a few of his business associates. In fact, Nancy added, she was so confused by Umberto’s bill she had faxed it to Uncle Tony, who was in the construction business, among other things. Nancy emphasized the “among other things” part by putting her finger on her nose and bending it to the side.

  Umberto smiled uncomfortably as Nancy went on to tell him that Uncle Tony had faxed her back, saying that he thought she was being overcharged and that somebody needed to talk to this Umberto. Umberto started visibly perspiring.

  We were preying upon their common conception that all Americans, especially those of Italian descent, are gangsters. This stereotype is clearly fed both by the popularity of our movies and TV shows around the world, and by the images of cigar-chomping, Hummer-driving military personnel around the world. This gunslinger image the Italians have of us was brought home to me when I innocently visited a hardware store soon after I arrived in Cambione. As soon as the owner realized that I was American, he brought me over to the rack of guns he was selling, thinking that I would want to buy several.