by Angela Petch
I found a spot behind the sheep pen to settle down for the night and curled up under Matteo’s blanket. My clothes, hanging next to his fire, would be dry by morning. For a while my head was full of Fausto. I wondered what else he might have in store for me. If I’d known he was going to be part of the transumanza caravan, guiding the same flocks, sleeping by the same camp fire, I would have fled away from the square in Badia Tedalda. It would have been as easy as spitting into the river to have backed away from the horses stamping their hooves on the cobbles and to have slipped back home up the mule track through the early morning shadows. But I hadn’t and it was a waste of time to dwell on pointless thoughts.
I wondered what on earth Fausto was doing here? Why leave his feather bed and roast meat from his father’s shop for five months of hardship? I muttered a filthy oath and turned over. Tiredness closed my eyes and I slept.
On the following day we passed through Ponte alla Piera, the caravan funneling over a narrow humpbacked bridge and along an equally tight track between houses, the noise like fine drizzle as the sheep squeezed against stone. Paolo instructed me to make sure his precious cart didn’t scrape against the walls. A few inhabitants stood on their front steps or at gate-ways to neatly tended vegetable plots. He explained the town was notorious for making claims for damage against shepherds. In the middle of the tiny village stood a fountain, with a couple of guards on each side.
‘They’re making sure we don’t take their water to dilute the milk we sell to them,’ Paolo explained. ‘It happened once in the past and they’ve never forgotten. And watch out later when we pass through the orchards,’ he added. ‘Don’t even think about picking an apple for yourself, boy. They’ve got shot guns too, some of them.’
It was just as well my mind was full of concern about Fausto, for descending from Scheggia towards Chiassa, we were nearing Arezzo and the seminary. Any thoughts of Fra Domenico and his perversions I forced to the back of my mind, concentrating instead on placing one foot in front of the other, occasionally turning round to make sure Fausto was not about to pounce on me. After we’d made camp for the night I found it hard to sleep. I stayed by the fire, leaning against the trunk of a willow long after the others had turned in, believing I was hidden by the curtain of leaves trailing to the ground. But Paolo came to fetch and rebuke me, warning I would be no good for next day’s long walk if I didn’t bed down.
At Pieve al Toppo on the following day we entered a wide valley along a straight road with cabbages and cauliflowers planted on each side. It felt as if our mountains now belonged to another world and, as we passed through a scattering of houses, I smiled at the name of the hamlet: Albergo.
I’m visiting a hotel, I thought to myself. Just like rich people do. I fantasised about the cotton sheets and wool covers I would be sleeping under and a delicious medium-rare fiorentina steak I would dine on before retiring. I would send a post card to my family from my ‘albergo’ and…
My daydreaming was interrupted as the few sheep I’d meant to be guarding had strayed onto a patch of cabbages. A toothless old woman hobbled out of her house, brandishing a walking stick, shouting obscenities at me, threatening to cut off my balls and fry them for her lunch if I didn’t move my sheep fast. ‘It’s always the same,’ she screeched, ‘every year without fail you mountain peasants cause us grief. It’ll be my son’s gun I’ll point at you when you return and not this…’ She waved her stick in the air before poking me in the backside as I bent to pull the horns of a ram, trying to yank him back onto the track.
I was given a scolding from Severo the vergaio, who threatened to leave me behind at the next town of Ciggiano if I didn’t sharpen up my act.
‘The women there will finish off what that woman started,’ he said, spitting tobacco onto the ground at my feet.
This was followed by titters from the other garzoni in earshot, including Fausto, who sported the widest smirk of all.
After crossing the river Leprone, the track became steeper. This next stage was a more familiar, hilly landscape to me, like the Apennines. The sun shone warm and I removed Nonno’s cape and rolled it up as we climbed towards the castle of Gargonza and Monte San Savino. This was the first of about three fortifications we were to pass on our journey. In history lessons at the seminary and from reading Dante’s Divina Commedia I’d learnt about the Guelphs and Ghibellines and their continual feuds in the Middle Ages. Now their castles had turned into villages housing landowners and workers, with their own schools and chapels. I thought to myself that these places were now like barricades against nature and its hardships, instead of marauding armies. The road was lined with olive trees and vines, the fruits waiting to be harvested and several villagers stood guard along this stretch in case we should be the first gleaners. They looked hostile and surly and I began to understand how much suspicion our caravan aroused when I saw two more guards armed with rifles by the mill ponds of Molino del Calcione.
It had been another long day. We washed our faces and hands as best we could in the river Foenna. The animals had drunk thirstily and stirred the waters to mud. That night I slept soundly which was just as well, for another arduous climb beckoned the next day.
The caravan slowed right down as we trudged up a narrow, wooded track. This time, instead of guarding against the sheep straying onto crops, we garzoni had to take care they didn’t topple down the steep sides and break their legs. Another ancient castle from the 11th century – San Gemignanello - stood on top of this next rise.
The trees thinned and we entered a new world, parched and arid, like a lunar landscape. Soon we were covered in dust stirred up in clouds by the sheep. We crossed an unfinished railway track at Montalceto. Dozens of men were toiling on its construction, lifting heavy sleepers, breaking up stones to make gravel. They waved at shepherds they knew. I recognised one or two faces from Badia Tedalda. Not everybody who travelled down from the mountains worked as shepherds. They came down to do piecework, grabbing anything they could do. Paolo explained that some workers who could afford the fare would one day in the future be able to travel to the Maremma by steam train from Arezzo or Palazzo del Pero along these new tracks. I thought they might have an easier time than we were having, their feet would not be blistered and sore; they would not have to sleep on the hard ground or be covered in dust and sheep dirt for days on end.
As the caravan wended its way around another bend in the dusty, stony road, I glimpsed a hill town in the distance, its houses built on the edge of a gentle escarpment. It seemed like a miniature, tamer version of Montebotolino but set in a more undulating countryside.
‘That’s San Giovanni d’Asso,’ Paolo said, ‘we’ll be stopping there tonight. It’s not such a bad place.’
Instead of erecting shelters, the men who could afford to, slept at “Da Cecco” that night, a local hostelry. We apprentices were to put our heads down on sweet-smelling hay in a barn belonging to Innocenzo. Originally from the village of Fresciano, just below Montebotolino, this kindly, middle-aged man had married a local girl on his journey down with the sheep. He opted to stay and had fared well from the transumanza ever since.
That night Cipolla the cook did us proud, shaving a black truffle or two from the woods back home into our polenta.
Innocenzo had set up a challenge.
‘The white truffles found here in the clay hills of the Crete Senesi are famous,’ he said, lowering his voice to his audience of friends from the past, ‘or so they claim,’ he added, winking and tapping his long nose. ‘So, we’ll see who’s right and who can tell the difference between the two. And there’s to be no cheating!’
Paolo and some of the older shepherds had brought along flagons of Chianti for this occasion in expectation of the contest, and they added these to the generous supply of the local, very potent Val d’Arbia and Orcia. Supper developed into a lively feast. It also marked the halfway point of our journey down to the sea and everybody relaxed a little. After noisy arguments the contest was declared
a draw and, in the absence of winners, the prize of a huge flagon of wine was shared out.
Afterwards, in the corner of the main square of Vittorio Emanuele II, I sat next to Luciano and a couple of other garzoni. We leant our backs against the bell tower of the little church and chatted about the journey so far. I was beginning to enjoy a feeling of camaraderie with them and Paolo had been a big help to me. Despite my aches and pains, I was growing used to the walking. The only blight was Fausto. In one way or another I knew I had to sort him out.
Perched on the edge of a rocky outcrop, San Giovanni d’Asso did not have as commanding a view as from Montebotolino but it was the closest similarity to home since the start of the journey. I felt happy for the first time since I’d sneaked away from my village and family.
‘Like to try my chestnut cake?’ A girl with a pretty smile stopped in from of me, carrying a basket of home-baked cantuccini and cakes. Luciano whispered to me he bet they would not be as good as his aunt’s.
Innocenzo shouted over from his group of fellow-drinkers, ‘Careful what you take from her, young man,’ he said, ‘or you’ll end up having to stay here, like I did.’
This was followed by rude laughter and comments along the lines of ‘meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani’ - (better an egg today than an old hen tomorrow.)
I must have blushed the colour of the kerchief round my neck and of course Fausto joined in loudest with the jesting, bawling out that I wouldn’t know which end of the hen to start with anyway. If Paolo hadn’t sent me a warning glare, I would have jumped on Fausto and pushed him over the edge of the wall by the church and into the ditch twenty metres below.
Next morning a lot of the men complained of smarting heads but Severo hurried us on our way, accepting no excuses from anybody. We still had another four days or more before we reached our destination.
The broad spaces of the Val d’Orcia countryside changed by the hour. Cypress trees lined twisting white ribbon roads up hills towards impressive stone buildings, larger than any farmhouse I knew. Tall and slender, the trees seemed like stakes holding down the land. Hundreds of olive trees silvered the slopes, their leaves trembling in the breeze on their gnarly trunks. In Montebotolino, nine hundred metres above sea level, these types of plants could not survive in winter. I tried to calculate how much olive oil they would produce and how wealthy the landowners in these parts might be.
As we drew nearer the coast, the valleys were far wider than the ravines cutting through the landscape of our Upper Tiber Valleys. Here, the wind blew over ash-coloured undulating hills. The light was blinding and the earth barren. Yellow dust clouds churned up by the animals’ hooves clogged our eyes and nostrils. My mountains so huge and blue in the far, far distance seemed a million kilometres away. It was still very warm, despite it being autumn and I swatted away bothersome insects, pulling the sleeves of my shirt down to cover my wrists. By late afternoon I was covered in sores from scratching bites.
‘Bloody mosquitoes,’ muttered Paolo, slapping at one settling on the back of his hand and wiping away a smear of blood. ‘If I bloody catch malaria again, it will be the last time I trek down to the Maremma… Family or no family to support.’
Malaria was rife on the marshy Maremma plains. In winter when the men were away, those of us left behind to endure mountain winters recited the rosary by the fire each night after supper. We prayed for the safekeeping of our families on the malaria-infested coast. Conditions had improved slightly since Unification fifty or so years earlier. At the seminary we had been shown a film clip of how the landowners – the latifondisti – had drained marshes and built large farms for workers – case coloniche – and introduced fish to the waterways to eat mosquito larvae. But in summer the plains were still a place of malaria and death. Everybody knew this. We sang songs about it. One of many my mother sang in her fine voice expressed the wishes of so many:
“Siamo tornati con l’aguzzo ingegno
Sui nostri monti pronti a lavorare
In ogni cosa noi mettiam l’impegno
Per vivere quassu’ senza zanzare...”
They wanted never to have to live with mosquitoes again and to be able to live and work hard in their mountains instead.
For the last nights of the journey the fire was still lit, although the temperature was warmer. Our staple supper of polenta still needed to be stirred in the black cauldron on top of the brazier. Paolo sat next to me and told me of the ordeal he had suffered during the months of last summer. ‘I swear to Our Lady and all the saints I wouldn’t still be here today if it hadn’t been for the feast of St George and what my dear friends did for me,’ he said.
He told of how on the 23rd of April his herdsmen friends had captured a foal, taken it to the town of San Giorgio, near Grosseto, and sold it to buy medicines for malaria. Every shepherd knew the story of how St George had slain a dragon and they believed this saint had the power to cure malaria.
‘My fever lasted for forty days,’ Paolo said ‘and I can’t remember much about that time. My friends saved my life and I can never show them enough thanks, but I know if I catch the fever again…’ He made the sign of the cross on his chest and shovelled the last of his polenta into his mouth as if to build up strength.
I decided there and then I would stick close to my neighbour and travelling companion and keep an eye on him. It was a way to repay him for his kindness over the last eight days.
At the end of the tenth day, on a sultry evening, our caravan of exhausted men, boys and sheep arrived at Alberese on the Maremma coast, a flat, desolate spot without a mountain in sight. Paolo pointed wearily at a low ridge a few kilometres away.
‘The sea lies over there, Giuseppe. The first chance we have, I promise to take you there. But we’ve a few days hard work ahead of us and first off we need to set up camp.’
Chapter 11
Giuseppe’s new friends
All I wanted to do was lay my head down and sleep forever. I longed for my mattress and woollen blankets back home and vowed that never again would I complain of little Angelo’s snoring. I tried not to think of Mamma preparing tasty soup and home made focaccia bread over the fire and busied myself tying up my boots in case Fausto or any of the other apprentices might notice the tears in my eyes.
The first task was to set up more secure pens for the sheep. Severo strode about, his long cloak no longer draped around his tall figure. It was too warm for such a heavy garment down here. Instead he rolled up his shirt sleeves and I looked in awe at his swelling muscles, wondering if I would ever be as strong.
‘You, boy! Stop gawping and help tie these sticks together,’ he shouted, startling me from my daydreams…
Two older shepherds were constructing a hut from robust sticks tied together at the top to form a wigwam known as “A Gesù”, similar to the traditional stable in nativity scenes displayed in church at Christmas.
One of them handed me a shovel and ordered me to cut sods of earth to arrange over the sticks. More pieces of wood were set on top to provide extra protection from the rain. The older men had brought simple truckle beds down with them but I only had Nonno’s cloak to lie down on in the open air until I and the other garzoni could construct our own dwelling. Paolo had described how eventually there would be a whole village of huts clustered together, known as vergherie. They would all be sited on slopes above the pastures to allow for drainage and so the shepherds could watch over their flocks.
Fausto beckoned me over to a vacant hut. There were one or two gaps here and there which would need to be repaired to stop water entering, but it looked good enough to me and would save me from building from scratch. ‘This will be a fine hut for you tonight,’ he told me. ‘You can patch it up when you have more time.’
I wondered at his unaccustomed kindness but was grateful not to have to sleep another night in the open, for grey clouds and sultry heat threatened storms. I laid my cloak on the earth floor inside the hut and set down my bag before going to help Paolo fi
nish unload his cart.
Cipolla and the men on kitchen shift had arrived earlier than the rest of the caravan to prepare supper. That night we ate acquacotta – a watery soup consisting mostly of beans and bread. This was followed by salad prepared from wild herbs and plants. We finished our simple feast with slices of cheese and a dried pear each. I ate like a hungry wolf and afterwards, my belly full, I found my second wind. I no longer felt so tired and didn’t want to turn in straightaway. Paolo had warned me we would be starting work at four the following morning – there was still a lot to do – but I wanted to savour every part of my new adventure and, anyway, nobody else seemed to be turning in yet.
Once again, Ulisse and the older shepherds were singing by the brazier. I went to fetch my cloak from the hut because with darkness the temperature had fallen. I joined my new garzoni friends. The words drifted over to us:
O mamma mia non piangere se devo andar’ in Maremma
Vedrai che la Madonna non ci abbandonerà...
(Mother dearest, don’t cry for me if I have to leave for Maremma, Be sure Our Lady will take good care of us…)
I should have said this to my own mother before sneaking away from Montebotolino. I should have prepared her for the departure of another of her sons. How was she, I wondered. Was she angry with me? Was she crying? Were my sisters looking after her?
All at once my body was on fire and I jumped up, scratching my belly, my chest, neck, hopping from one foot to another at the tormenting irritation. Fausto approached with two of his cronies.
‘Oh look, if it isn’t little San Giuseppe from Montebotolino wriggling like a piglet! Have you got worms or ants in your pants - or maybe the pox from going with that puttana at San Giovanni d’Asso?’