Seasons in Basilicata (54 page)

Then came this arrogant Englishman spouting impromptu theories on Italian political impotence by pointing at the
cantina'
s roaring fire, on which a delicious-smelling dinner of lamb pieces skewered on fresh rosemary twigs was being barbecued
alla bracia
(over the embers at the side of the fire), and saying things like: “That fire is like Italy. All those frantic flames and all that red-hot fury, but all the heat is going right out the chimney, leaving us all crouched around desperately seeking a little warmth!” Then, if that same Englishman didn't use his night-long crawl through the
cantinas
as a metaphor for Italy's lack of direction and concerted action. He suggested that the nation's “
cantina
culture” was actually a way in which everyone released their pent-up frustrations and anger with such eloquence and rhetorical panache that, in the clear, cold light of day, there was no energy left for the really hard, focused work of turning dreams and wine-laced wishes into functioning reality. “And what's more…by the way, this lamb is fantastic.”

“David,” I seem to remember Sebastiano gently interrupting at one point during my lengthy diatribe, which I'm not sure anyone really understood (myself least of all). “Why don't you forget driving back to Aliano and spend the night at our apartment?” (Anne was furiously nodding.)

So, there was my good friend and faithful companion in all this unabashed “couple of little boys together” serendipity planning the perfect end to yet another perfectly zany-crazy day.

Postscript

After this day (and others) of unexpected delights, Anne and I decided it was time we took the initiative and treated Sebastiano and Rocchina to a truly romantic, traditional dinner somewhere as a gesture of thanks for all their many kindnesses—preferably a local
place somewhere between our home in Aliano and theirs in Stigliano. The problem was that, as far as romantic restaurants were concerned, we lived in a rather sparsely blessed corner of Basilicata. There were restaurants, of a sort, but few were conducive to candlelight chats serenaded by mellow music in an ambiance created by fine dishes in a warm, rustic setting reminiscent of old stone
masseria
(farmhouse) dining rooms.

But, as often happens when you let things float around for a while, the perfect place presented itself by word of mouth. It was a relatively new creation, near the beautifully restored hill town of Guardia, and with a splendidly impressive name: Azienda Agrituristica Difesa d'Ischia. And it was everything we'd hoped for: a government-supported
agriturismo
restoration of an old farm and country house into a small nine-room hotel with a pool (even a tennis court, would you believe?), set high on a hillside overlooking the Sauro River Valley. It even included an intimate stone wall-and-wood beamed–ceiling
trattoria
proudly claiming to serve all its own produce and authentic regional dishes.

This is the perfect place, we gushed when we saw it. And so it turned out to be. The only reason I'm mentioning it at all in this brief postscript is to offer a tantalizing glimpse of what can await one even in the wilds of Basilicata. Oh, and also to warn of the dangers of ordering a “full antipasto” before launching into the rest of a traditional five-or six-course dinner.

Once we'd all got through the “
ooos
” and “
ahhs
” and “
woos
” that were our reactions to such an unexpected find, our charming young waitress confirmed in an off-hand kind of way that, of course, we'd be having the antipasto before the other courses. We said, “Of course.
Va bene.
” Then, out of the tiny kitchen run by a couple of elderly mammas—whom we spotted occasionally between flurries of steam and wielding of mammoth pots—came platter after platter of one of the most generous and surprising series of antipasto delights. These I will merely list without going into rhapsodic descriptions: plates of prosciutto, salami,
coppa,
and
soppressata;
a bowl of four different kinds of olives; platters of anchovies, pickled peppers, hot
peppers, and roasted peppers; sliced tomatoes with basil leaves and plump rounds of authentic
mozzarella di bufala;
bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and sprinklings of thirty-year-old and very expensive balsamic vinegar (a true gourmand's experience); fire-grilled slices of aubergine doused in homemade olive oil; roasted aubergine layers wrapped around a tuna-and-caper filling; cheeses—cream, provolone, pecorino (new and aged), and gorgonzola; bowls of fava beans, chick peas, and French beans in olive oil; a melt-in-the-mouth cheese-and-mushroom
frittata;
slices of focaccia with tomatoes and melted cheese; a dish of warm
bagna cauda
(that creamy garlic-anchovy–olive oil dip) served with fat chunks of home-baked bread; slices of spicy homemade sausage doused in hot sauce; and, finally, a medley of marinated mushrooms with just a touch of fresh mint eaten
stuzzichino
style (with the fingers).

And that's about all I can remember. I'm sure there was more (Anne claims she counted more than twenty-five separate delights), but the waitress had to wait for us to devour some of the dishes in order to make room for more platters and bowls. I saw her smiling a little, perhaps wondering if we'd ever get through this mammoth and magnificent spread. So, maybe unwisely, I encouraged Sebastiano and Rocchina to show her that we were certainly a match for the trattoria's sumptuous, and very reasonably priced, spread. And we did. We just about finished everything with complimentary mumblings of
mangiabile!
between all the succulent mouthfuls, but then realized that we didn't have the stamina or the stomach for the rest of the dinner. Our waitress smiled knowingly and suggested, “Just a few tidbits of grilled
abbacchio,
” (delicious suckling lamb) and then straight to the desserts. All in all a truly
buon pranzo
experience.

And I thought, isn't it amazing what we have to put ourselves through and suffer just to say thank you to a couple of good friends.

Meeting Antonio—There Are No Coincidences

Then, out of the blue (actually it was a very cold, damp night) came another series of enduring friendships…

 

I'
M ALWAYS
rather nervous of such glib, New Age, hocuspocus, psychobabble one-liners as “There are no coincidences.” But I must admit that sometimes curiously intertwining and beneficial events—little synchronicities, if you will, invariably impossible to predict—seem so inevitable, timely, and right that it does make me wonder….

As it did this one evening. Anne was away for a couple of days in Matera (yes, the Carrefour hypermarket and the aesthetic delights of that unique “cave city” had lured her off once again), and I was scribbling notes to myself and transcribing tapes from recent interviews. In my normally odd, but to me perfectly sensible, manner, I had dragged the mattress from the unused single bed in our bedroom into the living room by the fire. And there I lay, legs akimbo, cushions balled up under my chest, with notebooks, books, files, and folders fanned out around me in an impressive display of research and writing. Such displays, while doubtless chaotic looking to an outsider—give me a sense of achievement, direction, and purpose, a sense, however, that on that particular evening was a little sparse and confused. Questions flowed around in my head like errant moths lacking a lighted candle: Am I focusing too much on Carlo Levi and his book? Am I focusing too little on Carlo Levi and his book? Is what I am producing a memoir, a travelogue, a socioeconomic treatise, or merely a random collection of tales and anecdotes about people and odd happenings in a remote corner of the world that most people have never even heard, or cared, about? And so on. The usual confusions and crises of an author at mid-manuscript point.

I was looking again at parts of my original outline for the book, particularly the part that read:

Well, despite the length of that particular sentence, am I still on track? I wondered. Admittedly, the more I talked with the locals and the longer we stayed there and became intimately involved in the daily happenings and rhythms of existence in Aliano and other nearby villages, the more I sensed myself identifying with their lives, their histories, their challenges, and their frustrations with the muddled ways of the Mezzogiorno. Sometimes I even found myself feeling the same sense of outrage and indignation that Levi himself pithily expressed, particularly his memorable conclusion that: “The peasants here are not considered human beings.” I would sense myself agreeing with his overall realization that, in recording the patterns of lives here, the injustices, the impotence of government, and the ubiquitous sludge and slime of corruption that corroded and eroded so many well-intentioned “infrastructure-enhancement” schemes, he was becoming a spokesperson, not only for the Mezzogiorno itself, but for “the deepest parts of the soul of our world” (as suggested by one enthusiastic reviewer). The Mezzogiorno as metaphor for similar inequitable and unjust Mezzogiorno predicaments everywhere in the world.

And then I would have to remind myself, sternly, that hey, you're not here as a political advocate or a regional planner—as I might have been twenty-odd years before, in that previous life of mine—or an anthropological analyst. You're here to enjoy yourself with Anne, to participate in and celebrate the oddities and amusing and moving ironies of life here, and to create a portrait of our serendipitous
lives together in this splendidly wild and relatively undiscovered corner of southern Italy. And that's all, I would emphasize. Forget your “planner/analyst” persona. Don't get sidetracked into defining problems and certainly not suggesting solutions. Let others far better equipped and far more perceptive than you worry about all that and…

The intercom door buzzer buzzed.

That's strange, I thought. It was rare for people to come calling so late in the day. It must be a mistake. Someone must have pressed our buzzer when really intending to contact Giuseppina. So I readjusted my sprawled frame, puffed up the cushions a little more, and resumed my reveries.

Then came a knock on our door, not Giuseppina's ambiguous rattle but a distinct rat-tat-tat that smacked of purpose and intent.

“Yes? Hello.”

“Mister David Yeadon?” a deep masculine voice called out.

“Yes?”

“May I speak with you, please?”

Oh, boy, I thought. This sounds a little ominous. The police? An emergency back home? Someone's hit my car down at the piazza? I hadn't recycled the garbage correctly? (I hadn't.) Or, much worse, something's happened to Anne in Matera?

“Okay,” I heard myself mumble in a rather guttural tone.
“Uno minuto.”

It was too late to clean up the splay of stuff all over the floor and heave the mattress back into the bedroom. It was too late to do anything but regret the fact that I was wearing a rather grubby jogging suit and walking about in bare feet. (I work better without socks.) If Anne had been around she could have handled the visitor or at least given me a chance to make myself a little more presentable. But Anne was away. So, the heck with it, I thought, this is my home, and I don't have to apologize for anything.

I opened the door.

Standing there was a figure dressed almost entirely in black with a large, black hood pulled over his head. His face, a pleasantly open face of someone possibly in his early forties, peered out of the murk
of the staircase. He looked cold. It had been an unusually cold day, with furious Pollino winds howling up through the
calanchi
gorges. In fact, he looked very cold.

“Come in, come in. You look cold,” I said.

“Oh, thank you. Thank you very much,” the shrouded figure said, half stumbling into the room. “Wow! It's so warm in here. How lovely. My apartment is freezing!”

“Ah,” I said, “you live here?”

“Oh, yes. I'm sorry. My name is Antonio Pagnotta, and yes, I live very close by, across from the post office. And my place is too cold. The fire doesn't work well. Always smoking.”

“Ah, yes. When those winds start blowing, it can be a real nuisance. Come and sit down,” I said, curious about the reason for this unexpected visit. And then I realized that sitting was a bit of an impossibility with my mattress blocking access to the sofa. So off I rambled, with apologies for the mess, etc.—which I'd distinctly told myself I wouldn't do—while kicking the mattress out of the way. “Excuse all this,” I said. “The mattress is my desk, hence…” I let the rest of the sentence fade away. The stranger gave me a wide, understanding grin, sat down, and said, “Yes, of course, I am the same. With my work.”

And that's when the magic of “no coincidences” began to kick in. It turned out that Antonio was also a creator of books, primarily photojournalism books, and that he was in Aliano preparing his latest project,
The Wheel, the Cross, and the Pen: The World of “Christ Stopped at Eboli.”
Don Pierino (my loyal network catalyst) had apparently mentioned that I was there working on a similar project and suggested that Antonio call and introduce himself.