The door buzzer sounded like the secret police were at the gate. Must be Renzo.
I buzzed the gate open, looked out onto the little courtyard, and there, suspended on brown twine was a tiny basket perfectly sized to hold a square of something wrapped in foil. Renzo waited on the street for my reaction. I looked up and saw Patrizia on their balcony two floors above holding the other end of the twine, smiling and laughing. Renzo pushed open the gate.
“I called but you didn’t hear me.”
“My phone was upstairs, and before that I took a walk. This is wonderful. Like I’m a prisoner, but in a good way.”
In my mind he answered, “we’re all prisoners these days.” Or maybe he actually said it. Social deprivation does that to your brain.
“What is it?”
“Crostata, fresh this morning.” And he pointed at his chest to take credit, but humbly so.
I looked up again at Patrizia “on pin rail” (a reference for you theatrical types) still smiling, and I laughed.
“You guys are the best!” Or some Italian equivalent thereof.
We all laughed. I removed the wrapped square and the basket flew up toward the fly loft in professionally smooth fashion.
“Buon pranzo!”
“Altrettanto!”
And with waves from both, they were off to lunch at their very private trattoria next door.
How elegantly planned. How perfectly theatrical. What a gift they are.
The crostata (apricot) was excellent.
I didn’t get to my Roman emperor at Capri imitation today. I did a little umbrella prep, but was discouraged by the forecast of high winds. Better to leave it for now, crank it up at week’s end. Time is one thing we have plenty of, these days.
I took morning and afternoon walks, though — the very local routes. I now believe when the policeman told me to “walk at home” he was actually saying to “walk near home”. They had seen me the day before at Piazza del Duomo and said nothing, but when I showed up on Piazza della Repubblica, they intervened. For those of you who know this town, or who are looking now at a map, there’s no way those two locations could both be “near home” and Orvieto’s best quickly figured that out. (My conclusion regards the details of the lockdown edict is courtesy of an article sent to me by a friend in Pennsylvania. That’s the connected world we live in.) I will walk again tonight. Not keeping up with three walks daily has taken its toll, and I need to get back on routine if this national regimen is going to last weeks longer, which seems likely.
At least once a day on one of my highly repetitive strolls, I see her. She is a brown (possibly small breed) boxer. I say “possibly” because she’s still young and I’m not sure how much she has yet to grow. We met on Corso Cavour one day in warm weather and became instant friends. I saw her two or three times thereafter, and each time she would frolic while her mistress strained at the leash. A lovely puppy, so adorable, so irresistibly playful.
Then a couple of months passed, and nothing.
Some time before Lockdown, maybe in late January or early February, we began to cross paths again in this neighborhood. Well, she had grown in size and strength, but was still full of puppy enthusiasm. Her greeting was a bit like an affectionate attack. Her mistress struggled to pull her away, and I struggled to turn it into play, while also rescuing my shopping bag and corduroy jacket from her eager jaws. Still, I relished seeing her, and we encountered at that spot and in that way a couple of times more. Awhile later I’d see them turning a corner, and wave to the woman with the leash. The dog would take gloriously beautiful poses of rapt attention. This repeated a number of times, then we all decided to stay indoors for a few weeks.
But our walks now occasionally coincide, except the woman’s husband is carrying the leash. All the same reactions happen, but we cannot touch. I wave and wonder how long this can go on before she becomes disappointed. It breaks my heart, and I apologize vocally, which the husband, not knowing our history, doubtless finds passing peculiar. I have to try to fill him in one of these days.
So it goes. The virus found tragically fertile ground in a country whose inhabitants love to touch, and it exploited that fondness in ruthless (though quite natural for a virus) fashion. And now we have to stop touching each other to undermine its flourishing. It’s a worthy and necessary effort, and we trust it will succeed by and by, but it sure makes for a strange interlude.
The photo is of a theatrical pin rail, so you don’t have to look it up. From there, the rigger flies drops into the loft. Follow that?