Seasons in Basilicata (3 page)

Gissing failed to mention the more recent plagues of nineteenth-century mountain brigands, renowned for their kidnap-and-ransom antics (primarily on the local populace, not tourists), and the insidious power of the Calabrian Mafia or
'Ndrangheta,
which still has tentacles there today. But then he adds, in a rare moment of emotional uplift: “Listen to a…peasant singing as he follows his oxen along the furrow, or as he shakes the branches of his olive tree. That wailing voice amid the ancient silence, that long lament solacing ill-rewarded toil, comes from the heart of Italy herself, and wakes the memory of mankind.” And then he admits, in an unexpected apologia from such a finicky, disgruntled traveler: “In the first pause of the music I reproach myself bitterly for narrowness and ingratitude. All the faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as soon as their music sounds under the Italian sky…. Moved by these voices…I asked pardon for all my foolish irritation, my impertinent fault-finding.”

How can one not forgive Gissing when he exhibits such insight, graciousness, and genuine humility?

But back to Norman Douglas. In addition to the music, which he loved as much as did Gissing, there was also something about the region's cheerful pagan quality—he called it the “tigerish flavour” of the Mezzogiorno—that greatly appealed to this driven wanderer. And scholar too—a fine scholar of layered history who advised that “the magic of south Italy deserves to be well studied, for the country is a cauldron of demonology wherein Oriental beliefs—imported direct from Egypt, the classic home of witchcraft—commingled with those of the West.” He was particularly intrigued by the depths of such “demonology”: “priests are…mere decorative survivals, that look well enough in the landscape, but are not taken seriously save in their match-making and money-lending capacities.” Further on, Douglas writes “The records show that the common people never took their saints to heart in the northern fashion—as moral exemplars; from beginning to end, they have only utilized them as a pretext for fun and festivals, a means of brightening the cata-combic, the essentially sunless, character of Christianity.”

At one point he describes the night he saw a werewolf—a
lupomannaro
(“not popular as a subject of conversation” in the South)—in a remote mountain community, and a villager explained that he was one of “the more old-fashioned werewolves”…“and in that case only the pigs…are dowered with the faculty of distinguishing them in daytime, when they look like any other ‘Christian.'” Even in the midday heat as well as the night-gloom, Douglas sensed deeper forces and presences: “This noontide is the ‘heavy' hour…
controra
they now call it—the ominous hour. Man and beast are fettered in sleep, while spirits walk abroad, as at midnight. The midday demon—that southern Haunter of calm blue spaces.”

Douglas found his fascination for such aspects of Mezzogiorno life constantly rejected by local mayors, minor officials, and powerbrokers. And when he delved deeper, he found that: “a foreigner is at an unfortunate disadvantage; if he ask questions, he will only get answers dictated by suspicion or a deliberate desire to mislead.” So, never one to be at a loose end for research, he set off exploring some of the legends surrounding the multitudinous local saints and
discovered an intriguing retinue of flying monks, raisers of the dead, and other assorted miracle-and marvel-makers, many with distinct
pagani
attributes.

But Douglas also discovered larger and more enduring characters in the Mezzogiorno. In the ancient and mysterious mores of the south “there arises…a new perspective of human affairs; a suggestion of well-being wherein the futile complexities and disharmonies of our age shall have no place, and which claim kinship with some elemental and robust archetype….”

Finally, ever a non-admirer of the more modern confusions and complexities of Christianity, which he called “that scarecrow of a theory which would have us neglect what is earthly, tangible,” he found in Calabria and Basilicata that “a landscape so luminous, so resolutely scornful of accessories…brings us to the ground, where we belong…. What is life well lived but a blithe discarding of primordial husks, of those comfortable intangibilities that lurk about us, waiting for our weak moments.”

And in the inhabitants—despite their living conditions, which often shocked Douglas into despair—who were so obviously outcasts from “life's feast” and whose depths he was never able to plumb fully, he invariably sensed that “the sage, that perfect savage, will be the last to withdraw himself from the influence of these radiant realities.”

 

T
HUS WE WERE LURED
into the land of Levi, and his pursuit of his “magic key” unlocking the “radiant realities” of a wilderness so loved by Douglas. And we began, like Gissing, to be “moved by the voices and spirits” of the people we met and befriended there. Times for us were not always easy, and our adventures didn't always turn out quite the way we might have liked, but we never once stopped celebrating our good fortune at being able to share our lives with our newfound friends in Aliano and the surrounding hill villages. Like Levi, we came to “understand this land and love it,” and like Douglas, we caught glimpses of Italy as a bizarre “cauldron of demonology,” while admiring the region's “elemental and robust
archetype” character. And we found, just as Pico Iyer, that renowned travel writer–philosopher, suggests, that “All the great travel books are love stories, and all great journeys are, like love, about being carried out of yourself and deposited in the midst of terror and wonder.” (We were never at a loss for either of those.)

Best of all, we revived and expanded our own lives together through our experiences, and gleaned intriguing and powerful insights there in that beautiful and beautifully strange Basilicata.

The Adventure Begins

Browmmmmm…browmmmmm…swiiiiish…browmmmmm…swiiiiish…

Well, that, I thought, as I was abruptly awakened in utter darkness, is certainly a sound you don't hear every day.

If it is indeed daytime here.

Wherever “here” is.

Then came that whirling panic of utter disconnectedness, a smothering blankness of confusion, made even more terrifying by those strange sounds coming from somewhere very close by and getting louder and stronger…booming, swishing, booming…

Thankfully, the mental curtain rises suddenly, and I know I'm not in the United States in our New York home with Anne snuggled beside me or in our other cozy little
tatami-
matted retreat in Japan.

I'm in Rome. Rome, Italy. And I'm alone. Anne is still teaching at her university at Kyushu.

After long and tediously cramped flights, from Japan via the U.S.A. and England, I'm finally here. But not in the Rome of the glossy brochures—the Rome of soaring Corinthian columns and rubble-strewn ruins and tiny piazzas with trellised trattorias and the whine of
motorini
(mopeds) and the hosts of tottering, weary tourists and the cacophony of honking traffic, always jammed and always oblivious to stoplights (in Italy they are regarded merely as suggestions), pedestrians, and even other traffic.

No, definitely not
that
Rome. I'd been there before and, quite frankly, after landing at Leonardo da Vinci airport (more commonly known as “Fiumicino”) the previous afternoon, after a soul-stirring flight over the pristine peaks of the Swiss Alps, I hadn't been in the mood for the tumult and tensions and crackle and din and the utter sensory overload of the historic core of that flamboyant and heavily testosteroned urban chaos. Neither was I ready to leap into my rented car and drive immediately to the South for a first glimpse of a region that, after all my readings and weeks of anxious preparation, had begun to take on a character of almost mythic proportions.

What I needed the day of my arrival was precisely what I found: a fishing village with a vast beach of smooth blond sand, a quaint boat-filled harbor, a choice of inexpensive hotels and good restaurants, and all within a few minutes' driving distance west of the airport (so close in fact that one wonders why planes don't occasionally splash down in its harbor).

Almost as in a dream, where things wished for can become tangibly real, I arrived in the little seashore town of Fiumicino. And all these delights were presented in such a quiet, off-season, sedate kind of way that I had to blink furiously to assure myself that this was indeed not a dream…especially when my car literally drove itself into a small, vine arbor–shaded car park beside a charming
pensione
complete with a flower-bedecked restaurant. And at the restaurant, with its meticulously laid tables of shining crystal glasses, three charming, elderly-lady proprietors welcomed me like a long-lost relative, with a grace and tenderness befitting a Jane Austen novel. The oldest one appeared to be a permanent fixture in her antique chair by the cash register. Under her meticulously plaited silver hair glowed two azure blue eyes, and her smiling lips were the epitome of welcome.

So that's where I am, I thought, as yesterday's memories flooded in. And those sounds are, I assume, the sounds of fishing boats firing up their engines and swishing their way down the long, narrow inlet of the harbor and out into the open sea.

I groped my way out of bed, shuffled across the cool tile floor to
the window, and flung open the shutters. And there they were: a dozen or more large trawler-tough boats gliding past as the sun yolked up above the rooftops of houses and nautical workshops on the far side of the harbor and the screech of gulls and the briny-fishy aroma of morning rolled into my room. And I smiled. A big, happy, yawny kind of smile.

And I thought, so this is where our adventure begins.

 

A
WHILE LATER
, after a long hot shower and a leisurely search of my suitcase for something not too creased to wear (if I'd allowed Anne to pack for me, as she'd suggested, nothing would have been creased), I ambled down from my room to an adjoining coffee bar by the harbor to start my first day with a frothy-topped cappuccino dusted with powdered chocolate, and a very large and very flaky
cornetto.
And then, as I watched the huddle of locals around the bar from my chair on the sidewalk, I realized I was missing one of the key ingredients, a traditional morning
corretto
—that small glass of something strong and revitalizing to kickstart the body and mind. So, as a salute to the “when in Rome” (literally) spirit, a second cappuccino with a small anise chaser was ordered and I returned to my chair and grinned at the sun as the pungent alcohol raced through my still semi-dormant system and made all my appendages, including my nose and ears for some odd reason, tingle in a most beguiling manner.

What now, I wondered? Stay here by the harbor for another day and sort of ease into the mood and pace of things? Or maybe play tourist and plunge into the tumult of the city for a quick scramble up the dome of St. Peter's and a stroll through the ancient monoliths of the forum and amphitheater? Or…

“GO SOUTH,” a voice insisted. “TODAY. NOW!”

This was my favorite inner voice—the impulsive, occasionally intrepid, explorer voice, and the one I invariably follow. He always seems to know intuitively what I really want to do, no matter how much I might try to propose or rationalize other perfectly reasonable options.

“Rome will wait. And you can come back to this little
pensione,
too. But today, now, GO SOUTH!”

So, south it was to be.

“But go leisurely,” the victorious voice suggested. “There's no rush. Meander a little and get a feel for the place. Time is all yours for as long as you need, or wish.”

And with that tantalizing thought, I gathered up my belongings from the room and bid farewell to the three matronly ladies (emphasizing that I would indeed be back). Even before the Roman rush hour had begun, I was off, following the big green freeway signs south toward Naples, singing silly, mindless tunes to myself, and inviting serendipity to set the course and pace of my long journey down into the depths and mysteries of Basilicata.

“No One Travels to the South”

Smiling, I watched the morning traffic jams intensify—I smiled because the jams applied only to traffic bound for the chaotic heart of Rome. I, on the other hand, was just leaving Rome and had most of the freeway to myself. As I drove happily southward, my mind was kind of freewheeling through the arrival antics of the day before, and one small incident—shards of overheard conversation—stood out.

I couldn't believe I'd actually heard and understood them (thanks to the interpretive abilities of a fellow passenger). And in such an auspicious place as the airport, as I was finalizing the laborious long-term rental arrangements for my little toy Lancia DoDo. In hindsight, it would have been far more expedient and far less expensive to have purchased a car of my own on day one. Or at the very least I should have avoided renting any car named after an extremely dumb and therefore extinct overgrown turkey.

A well-dressed woman—actually, a superbly attired and manicured lady, as only Italian ladies can be—was also reaching the end of signing her seemingly endless forms for the release of her car, a
black Mercedes turbo, which she referred to loudly and proudly on at least three separate occasions during the red-tape rituals.