Seasons in Basilicata (23 page)

I think it took about twenty minutes before a laborious rebooting was performed, and the system began to move on again in its tediously officious way. I was beyond the limits of patience when I
left and had to resist the urge to kick my way past the guard and the cameras and through the fancy security doors. When I finally emerged back into the soothing sunshine, a well-dressed man who had also just left the bank turned to me with a grin and asked in eloquent English what I thought of the Italian banking system.

I said I found it hard to believe that customers had the tolerance and stoicism for that kind of bureaucratese nonsense.

“Ah,” he said, smiling even wider, “We Italians have a different concept of time, I think. We always assume that things will take far longer than one expects. And so long as we have someone to talk to, the time passes pleasantly, eh?”

“I don't see much of that kind of attitude on your roads!” I responded, thinking of the
autostrada
racing-tracks and the up-your-rear-end antics of frantic drivers on
tornanti
mountain roads everywhere.

“Yes, so true. But driving is another matter. That is an expression of…how should I say politely?…a man's
man-ness.
Which is very different from the situation in a bank.”

“But your banks all look so efficient: computers everywhere and enough security to protect the Queen of England's crown jewels.”

My elegant informant paused for thought and then offered another telling insight into the “Italian Way.” “It's all a front, you see. Front,
figura,
is so very important. Even when everything is chaos you must have lots of papers and rubber stamps and signatures. Sometimes I watch the old ladies picking up their pensions. A simple job, eh? But in Italy it can be like taking out a mortgage! All front y'see.”

He paused again, and it was obvious he was trying to think of a final riposte, one of the philosophical aphorisms with which Italians loved to round off their conversations. “But of course we all know this. And we all do it. And we know too” (that sly touching-of-the-cheek-below-the-left-eye gesture that meant so much in Italy) “that all this fancy security and paper-pushing is just a front to divert attention from the truth: The real ‘organization' is not what you see but what you don't see. And the real crime, for which there is no
security, takes place much higher up” (he pointed heavenward, but I don't think he was talking about eternal powers) “at the top. Far away from all this nonsense at the bank counter. In the quiet places, particularly in poor Calabria, with the
'Ndrangheta.
So greedy. Far worse than the Sicilian Mafia. And then also of course in the old palazzos and clubs. And on the golf courses that you never see, and in the beautiful, large villas hidden behind all those trees…

He gave a final chuckle before bidding me farewell. “And in Italy, as you know, we have a very lot of trees.”

A Dawdle Day

These occasional tangles with Italian bureaucracy can leave me exhausted and in urgent need of a do-nothing respite, a period of calm and quiet introspection and contemplation.

 

N
ORMALLY
I
CONSIDER
myself a master of the day's momentum. I'm a lover of things-to-do lists and a celebrator of check marks, each signaling a task performed, an aim achieved—all small, but satisfying, indications of organized movement and intent, reflecting a continuum of new tasks and new challenges.

Anne doesn't share my list-lust, my daily litanies of perceived progress. She has a remarkable knack of getting things done without the structured formality of lists and checks. She carries each day's regimen in her head and seems to accomplish just as much as I do. And on the rare occasions when she “just forgets” to do something, her rationale is that it obviously couldn't have been that important a task in the first place. Nothing that couldn't wait until tomorrow. Or beyond…

As with many nuances of our married life, we celebrate our differences and our diverse ways of doing things. Anne smiles and tolerates my little lists (and even the rare “list of lists” when my life gets really overhectic); I nod understandingly when she admits to an overlooked obligation, because I know that everything needing to be done will eventually get done.

But some days are different. These are the days when I allow myself to float, “list-less” (and listlessly), freed from the constraints of all those little reminders that usually give my life a sense of organization and accomplishment.

Such diversions from my strictures and structures usually come about spontaneously and in response to some sudden urge to lose myself in a “dawdle-day” mode, whether it be a long, rambling walk or drive, a flurry of painting or experimental photography, or a sudden surge of cooking, which can produce the occasional bizarre “improv” dinner.

A day like today, for example, when Anne wanted to spend some time with friends in Accettura and I felt like doing absolutely nothing at all. I usually blame such urges for indolence on things like the traveler's check fiasco or similar frustrating confrontations with local “petty tyrant” rituals. And I attempt to justify such desires by convincing myself that even when we try to do “nothing” we're invariably doing something and thus contributing to our mental well-being, our imagination, our aesthetic sensibilities, or our overall sense of physical relaxation and spiritual nourishment.

Of course, it's not always easy, despite all the tedious tirades of modern-day gurus and New Age enthusiasts, just to flip a switch in our heads, turn off our restless, wriggling minds, and exist, thought-lessly, in the limbo of meditative nothingness.

But some days—a day like this one, for example, when the dawn comes slowly, in rainbow richness—seem to carry within them an enticing balm so calming that you just surrender to the wonder of being alive, the gift of mellow perceptions, and a peace so all-encompassing that, for a while, you know you need no more than this.

This
being a perfumed breeze, barely perceptible, that eases in over the rooftops of our little village, quietly announcing a new morning. The low horizontal layers of light over Montepiano ease from mauve-lemon to salmon pink to a slash of scarlet, and finally into a lush, plush gold. The sun flows up over the bare hills by
Stigliano and Cirigliano and gilds the eastern face of the church tower, the edges of the roof pantiles, chipped, cracked and moss-flecked, and the ancient, peeling stucco walls of the houses. There the houses stand, released once more from the anonymity of the night, bold and bulged with age and the weight of their massive stones that have stood for centuries, somehow resisting all the insults of earthquakes, sudden landslides (an all-too-common occurrence in these Basilicatan hill villages), and the violent vicissitudes of storms and hurricanes hurling their fury across the Pollino ranges to the west.

On this particular day the village feels solid and enduring as dawn merges into morning. I become totally aware, once again, of all the little scurrying rituals of its daily awakening, the salivary aromas wafting up to my terrace from the bakery across the piazza, the viscerally strong coffee and cappuccino aromas from the bar next door, the slurred movement of sleepy feet and donkey hooves, the skim of a bicycle or two, a few early morning “octos” lighting their first cigarettes of the day, and the smoke, blue with honeyed curlicues, coiling upward past still-shuttered windows and tiny laundry-drying terraces laced with strands of brilliant red peppers, crisping over the days in the crackling-dry mountain air.

We breakfast together at our table on the terrace, dunking our golden-crusted rolls into our coffees, as the new warmth of early morning strokes our backs and shoulders and makes our scalps tingle with anticipation. It's going to be a beautiful, cloud-free day again, for the fourth time this week. The light is crystal, polishing everything and making the mountains appear so close they're virtually breakfast guests. And while Anne drives off to see our friends, I know I'm going to do little more than let the day, almost erotically, have its way with me. My beckoning lists will remain in the living room, untouched and irrelevant on this morning of slowly moving shadows and cubist patterns of brilliant light—a morning where the early dawn pastels of Monet merge slowly into the bold Cézanne-like structurings of mountains, forests, and sinewed valleys. And then, as the light intensifies and the heat
shimmers the air, and you feel you're seeing everything through a diaphanous sheen of waterfalling colors, a van Gogh vibrancy emerges. Buildings, tiles, chimneys, the lines of laundry, those strings of peppers, nearby fruit and olive trees, and even the herbed pots on our terrace, undulate with intensity, as if being brushstroked with inspired urgency and visionary fervor onto a canvas filled with writhing forms—alive, vital, and totally tangible. A reality so spirited that, for a while, nothing else seems to exist and time passes without seeming to pass at all.

I'm enveloped in a warm cloak of peace and utter contentment. Ideas, dreams, and possibilities, released from the mind's secret places, rise like champagne bubbles into mellow consciousness. And my eye moves slowly, panning like a camera lens from the broad vista of high ranges, the shadowy
calanchi
canyons, and the last remnant of night mists over the distant sea, to zoom into a single white daisy set perkily amid an explosion of daisies in a pot by the terrace railing. I can see the faint veins in each petal descending in graceful arcs to the mounded central cluster of the bee-luring stamen. The green of the ragged stem leaves, frilled and lacy like Italian parsley, intensify the whiteness of the flower as it moves enticingly in the faintest of breezes.

And nearby is our large terra-cotta container of basil—an exuberant burst of aromatic greenery thrusting hundreds of gentle, curving leaves into the morning air. I stroll over and pick one, and the day comes alive in a rush of anise-tinged freshness. I tear off a small piece of the leaf and let it rest on my tongue. At first there's a little hesitancy, as if the herb is reluctant to release its richness, and then,
pow!
All my taste buds rise in grateful unison to savor the rush of flavor, my saliva glands pumping riotously to saturate every nook and cranny of my mouth with the intensity of that gloriously aromatic plant.

No matter how much we pluck its bounty for our salads, pastas, and pesto, our basil plant seems to surge back almost overnight. It will offer itself abundantly and consistently well into December—so we have been assured—when the first frosts bite. And even then, we hear, it will fight back, throwing out hosts of tiny new leaves as if to
say, “Take everything I have and keep my memory alive in your sauces and dinners until I reawaken in the spring.”

So, I know what's for lunch now. Hot, steaming
tagliatelle
dribbled with Giuseppina's homemade olive oil, black pepper, and parmesan, and tossed with torn basil leaves and thick segments of vine-fresh tomatoes purchased yesterday from Edenfruit, our favorite (only) greengrocer in the village, just below our terrace. And maybe a little sparkling wine. Why not! The day is shot anyway already, with all this delicious hedonism. Possibly that Malvasia made by Giuliano's cousin, which I've been saving for something special. A day like today, for example. A day that flows on, leading my eyes and senses on a slow journey over rooftops and chimneys to the fortresslike battlements of the church tower and the patterned granite and marble stones of the piazza, and then outward, across the cliffs and precipices at the edge of the village to the hazy enormities of the mountain and ridge landscape beyond.

 

T
IME PASSES SLOWLY
and easily. I doze, read in snippets, and pause to see what new nuances of color and form present themselves. I watch the sun, with its constantly changing play of light and shade, make its slow arc over the village, shaping the now-familiar daily rituals, silences, and siestas of its people. It entices birds to sing and then to cease singing in the stunning heat of the afternoon, and then to revive their choruses and swoopings over the rooftops as it begins to sink and lose its fire.

Shadows lengthen and change color. As the Impressionists—particularly Manet, Monet, Bonnard, and of course my beloved van Gogh—knew well enough, shadows are rarely if ever gray, even on the dullest of days. There are subtle violets and deep olives in their dun tones. And on days like this, the shadows almost sparkle with color—mauves, dark scarlets, rich ochres and bronzes, and deep, majestically glowing purples. You don't always notice them at first, particularly as the buildings and landscapes are still vibrant with luscious deepening hues and brilliant-shafted highlights of reflected late afternoon amber. But if you focus your eyes on the
shadows, looking away occasionally to increase the contrast, the range and intensity of their colors are as vivid and rich as those of the sun-bathed flanks of the buildings and the hills all around.

But the real beauty, the real magic, comes during that half-hour period when shadow and light, mystery and majesty, begin their enticing mingling into dusk: a marriage of half shades and haziness when the edges of things begin to soften and merge, and a world, recently crisp and stridently full of hard-edged forms reinforced by blocks and barricades of shadow, now becomes a far gentler, soft-focus place. A unity of graduated tones, from the deepest of blues to the lightest of lemons. The day is now passing into the nuptials of night (now there's a phrase you don't dream up every day), but it does so with such grace and subtlety that I barely notice the changes. Until it's almost dark, and a chill swish of night air closes in like a curtain. When Anne finally returns from Accettura the last band of scarlet is dimming to a dark bronze across the Pollino range and flecking the fleecy feathers of high cirrus clouds.

I hear our car (yes, it's still that little Lancia DoDo with its distinct exhaust prattle) roll down the hill to our parking space by the church. I say “our” space because, through some unspoken tradition of village courtesy, the space I'd found to park the car that first day I arrived months ago had somehow remained ours, except when some outsider, oblivious to local customs, claimed it as his own for a few disconcerting hours. And even then I'd invariably see that the half dozen or so octos, who always sat nearby along the low church wall, were in a quandary, uncertain whether or not to reprimand the outsider and request the prompt removal of his car. Usually they agreed, through heated debate on a “not” vote, but I was always touched by their constant concern. Although no words were ever spoken, I felt they had accepted both of us as a small part of the village community.