Seasons in Basilicata (18 page)

And that was another thing: my cooking. When it got around that not only did I cook our food but that I actually enjoyed cooking, even to the point of discussing recipes with the local ladies—well, that was a bit too much for some of the elderly male benchwarmers to digest. But eventually they seemed to accept this quirk of mine, write it off as another foreign fetish, and continue to greet me (occasionally with sympathetic glances at Anne for having to put up with such a bizarre husband) as if I'd been a long-time resident of this remote and enticing place.

Which is precisely the feeling I had on that lovely spring morning as I strolled back to our aerie overlooking the piazza, parcels of
fish and seafood all neatly wrapped, thinking that maybe we'd try the fishman's recipe with those fresh anchovies for our dinner that evening.

Maybe I'll Stay an
Americano

But feeling like a long-term resident didn't necessarily mean that everyone else in the village shared my sentiment. I learned this a couple of weeks after our arrival.

 

“S
OMETIMES
,” as my mother used to tell me, “things are best just left alone.”

Now this is my Yorkshire mother speaking. Born and raised in the land of the famous pudding, the coalfields (at least before the Thatcher wipeout of the mines), the steel mills, the Yorkshire Dales, and the home of England's finest beers—Samuel Smith's and Tetley's. And of course, source of the Yorkshire dialect, so indecipherable to outsiders that only a few of its meaty aphorisms are understood—most notably “weer theer's muck, theer's brass,” and the typically dismissive phrase that pretty well sums up a Yorkshireman's view of the rest of the world: “neether nowt n' summat,” or, put in the Queen's vernacular, “not particularly memorable.”

Yorkshire, England, is where I was born. And despite the fact that I've spent well over half my life far outside its borders, primarily in and around New York but on occasion just about everywhere else in the world, I still regard myself very much as a Yorkshireman—born and bred and proud of it “until I'm good an' dead an' six foot under,” as an uncle of mine used to say with irritating regularity.

So, as you might understand, it came as some surprise when I realized that my Aliano neighbors had failed to grasp the geographical niceties of my origins and often referred to me, both overtly and covertly, as “
il Americano.
” And it wasn't as though nobody had shown curiosity about my place of birth. Usually the second or third
question from anybody I met, after asking my opinion on the weather or confirming that I was, indeed, well and happy and enjoying myself in Aliano, was, “And where are you from?” And I would gladly explain about Yorkshire, England—where it was in relation to London and how the weather there was far inferior to the balmy blue skies of Basilicata and how the wines (Yorkshire doesn't produce many) were not even a patch on Basilicata's magnificent Aglianico del Vulture vintages. And then I would smile, hoping I'd been sufficiently complimentary. And they would nod and smile and invariably end the brief interrogation with a satisfied, “
Bene, bene. Americano. Bene.
”

“No, no,” I would reply, “Not
Americano. Inglese.
”

And they would nod and smile again, but as I turned to leave after a polite
Buon giorno, Buona sera, Va bene, Ciao,
or
Arrivederci
—depending on the hour and the individual and the mood—I would invariably hear a quietly whispered “
Americano
” as I walked away, and see them nodding knowingly to anyone else who happened to be around in a “he can't fool me” kind of way.

So I gave up. If they wanted to call me an
Americano,
I thought, then so be it. And I guess, in many ways, I was, after all those years we'd lived in New York and all those tens of thousands of miles backroading together around one of the world's most scenic and mesmerizing nations and writing books and endless articles on America's hidden delights.

“You know, David, it's possibly a good idea to stay an American anyway,” Giacomo (a bar friend) suggested to me over a cappuccino as I told him about this little local misconception.

“Really?” I said. “And why's that? What's wrong with trying to tell them about Yorkshire?”

“Well,” Giacomo said hesitantly (he invariably spoke hesitantly, as if his evolution from questing adolescence to mature middle-age was incomplete), “First, it may be a little confusing to them. They might think Yorkshire is your country, and as they've never heard of it and can tell you're speaking English, they find it easier to think of you as an American. After all, America's virtually our second home.
Almost every Italian family has someone who lives in America. It's been that way since the late 1800s. And that's what they call people who return from living abroad, even if they didn't live in America! So, in a way, they're seeing you as part of our extended family, eh? And that's nice, no?”

I nodded, remembering Don Pierino's remarks that there were more Alianese in the Bronx than there ever had been in Aliano itself.

“Okay,” I said. “That's fine. It doesn't really matter anyway.”

“And then…” Obviously Giacomo hadn't finished. “
Scusi,
but maybe I should tell you something else.” He seemed almost embarrassed.

“About what?”

“Well, you see, during the war…”

“Which one?”

“The last one.”

“Ah,” I said. “You mean the fact that the English were fighting the Italians?”

“No, no, not that.”

“Because the Americans were there, too, you know. Britain and America were allies.”

“No, no. Of course. I know that. Let me explain.”

“Sorry, I just thought…”

“No, that's okay. Everyone understands about that…ah, difficult time. No, it's something else. And it may not be true. Who knows these things? Everything gets so exaggerated.”

“So, tell me.”

“Well, it seems there were some stories about our prisoners. Italian soldiers in North Africa. Many were caught by the British and sent away in ships to England.”

“Yes. I'd heard that. But I thought we treated them well. Not like the German camps. Or the Japanese.”

“…and to Scotland. Yes. Like you say, most were treated very well. Hardly prisoners at all, really. They often helped out on the local farms. And even got paid, too. Because so many of the young
Scottish men were away at the war. Some even decided to stay there after the war. Married nice Scottish girls and settled down. They said Scotland was very beautiful except for maybe…”

“The weather.”

“Except for the weather and…” Again, that hesitancy.

“And what?”

“Well, except for the Scottish men. The older ‘whisky men,' they called them. They were quite wild, I think. Always fighting…and things.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. I think so. Because y'see, some of our men, the prisoners, after the war, did not come back. Could not be found.”

“You mean they'd escaped?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“So, what happened to them?”

“Well…” said Giacomo very slowly. “We…they…the people around here think that maybe they were…well, you know Italian men, even prisoners, they have…a way with the ladies, you know. And they say Scotland is very wild. And the Scots men getting very drunk a lot…well, maybe, you know…some of the ladies felt a little lonely and also sorry for the prisoners and maybe they were having…” And then came one of those exquisite Italian gestures that suggested so eloquently and passionately what a less-cultured individual, a Yorkshireman like me, for example, might bluntly describe as “having hot times in the highland heather.” They would refer to such an occurrence more delicately as a
piccola avventura
(a little affair).

“Ah,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“So, some of them never came back?”

“Yes, this is what they say. Of course…”

“And they never found them?”

“No. I don't think so. Those Scotsmen, you know. Very wild peoples. Maybe when they found out about their women…”

“Ah,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “They say the earth there—what do you call it—‘peat,' I think. They say it is very deep there in Scotland.”

There was a long pause. I ordered a couple of double grappas for us both, and we waited in silence until they arrived.

“You know, Giacomo, I think you're right,” I said.

“How so?” he said. Although he already knew. He'd once tried to explain
la perfida Albione,
the disdain Italians have for certain kinds of Britishers, especially those football hooligans.

“Maybe I'll just stay an
Americano
for a while.”

“
Bene,
” said Giacomo. “Very good idea.”

So we toasted my new honorary citizenship.

An Interesting Question of Etiquette

There were other minor embarrassments, or certainly “questions of etiquette,” to be sorted out in our early days in the village. I remember one occasion in particular. I had just emerged from the Aliano church. No, I hadn't just attended the whole of the noontime Sunday mass, but enough of the last few minutes to confirm that the pleasant-sounding choir that echoed in the street outside consisted, in fact, of a dozen or so well-scrubbed, Sunday-best angelic faces and was not some prerecorded cassette tape. It was reassuring to know that, in this tight-knit village of peasant-heritage pensioners, there were enough nubiles around to provide at least the well-intentioned nucleus of a real, live chorus. And a guitarist, too. Far cheaper, no doubt, than an organ and certainly more likely to attract a younger crowd…although apparently not young enough: out of the fifty or so in the congregation—not bad for a
pagani
community of a thousand or so individuals—only a mere ten could be classified as youths.

After the service was over I smiled and nodded at the ever-smiling Don Pierino and emerged into the bright one-o'clock sunshine. Rather than go immediately to my terrace for our lunch, I thought I'd spend a while in the sun on the old men's perch by the war memorial at the side of the church. The memorial has a rather
interesting, very contemporary-style statue of what I thought were the two Marys holding the slumped, lifeless body of Christ. A classic subject, I thought, until I noticed that this particular Christ was dressed in what looked like army-issue boots and tight military-cut trousers, with a well-stocked ammunition belt around his waist. Now that's something you don't see every day, even on a war memorial, I was thinking to myself, when a charming little girl with long, black hair and bright, hazel eyes, dressed in pristine Sunday white, nudged me and gave me an utterly disarming smile.

“Oh,
ciao,
” I said, surprised and charmed by her precociousness.

“
Ciao,
” she said. She was pointing enthusiastically up at our terrace and, presumably, saying nice things about it, although I wasn't sure what. I nodded, smiled, agreed equally enthusiastically with whatever she was saying, and just stood there, beguiled by all her excitement.

She waved and danced off, and I sat down on the marble bench by the statue and watched the rest of the congregation fan out across Piazza Roma. After a couple of minutes, I noticed someone waving from the terrace below mine. Giuseppina's terrace. It was the little girl, still bubbling with excitement. I smiled again and was about to return her wave when I noticed Giuseppina herself, in her Sunday black (which looked remarkably similar to her weekday black), hanging up her washing to flutter in the breezes that wafted up the Via Roma from the cliffs of the
fossa.
She'd obviously already done the sheets and pillowcases and all that mundane stuff, and was now onto what one might call the personals. And an awful lot of personals there were, too. And unusually large and lacy personals—black Victoria's Secret–style—obviously not the personals of her small and perky daughter who occasionally visited her. And it was obvious that Giuseppina knew that the little girl, presumably her granddaughter, was waving at me at this rather, well, personal moment.

Giuseppina had obviously decided to ignore me at what was obviously an intimate interlude for her. So what should I do? Should I wave back and let Giuseppina know I'd seen a full in-your-face
display of her unusually frilly lingerie, or should I pretend I hadn't noticed the wave or?

And then out came Don Pierino, walking from the church toward his apartment high up by the “other” church. He looked up and saw Giuseppina adding yet more personals to a now very impressive line, and he scowled. Which is hardly surprising, as apparently he had just given a homily about inadequate church attendance and here was one of his more faithful parishioners in one of the most prominent houses in the village hanging out her smalls for all to see when she should have been genuflecting and “amen”-ing with the rest of the congregation. What could I do but restrain my amusement, pretend I'd noticed none of this, slide off the bench, and slink away to the solace of the shadows by Bar Centrale where I ordered a double espresso and a large grappa, which I think in the circumstances was possibly the correct thing to do. Etiquette-wise.

Postscript

Ah, the righteous justice of retribution. Slow, but certain. And I was certainly given my comeuppance a couple of weeks later, when Anne decided, on a brilliant blue-sky day, that it was a good opportunity to wash and hang out a few of
my
intimates: half a dozen or so pairs of underpants. Nothing so unusual in that, I thought, except for the fact that we'd overlooked their somewhat colorful characteristics; rainbow-hued might be the appropriate term. They were a gift from Anne as a protest against my normally subdued range of outer attire colors of browns and olives and bronzes and dark blues (manly I thought. She didn't).