Fourth of July, all things American, Giancarlo brought me lunch; pasta, salad, bread, a sweet. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a small foil-wrapped loaf.
“Do you know this stuff?”
“Philadelphia Cream Cheese? Of course I know it. It’s been clogging arteries since I was a kid! Very American.”
“Exactly.”
Brief pause. “Oh!”
“Happy July four!”
When I was a kid, my aunt loved amazing us with her No-Egg Wonder Cake. It was chocolate, and gooey, and scrumptious, and she iced it with sweetened Philadelphia Cream Cheese. That icing established the cheesy substance among my special favorites – though I rarely eat it in any form. My aunt’s recipe, by the way, used vinegar and baking soda as leavening. I was of an age when I was just discovering the marvels of vinegar and baking soda bombs, so the cake had added appeal.
Elia gets a kick out of explaining to everyone how my American accent is teaching him English. I don’t quite follow, but the idea delights him, so who am I to question? We are as much a novelty to our Italian friends, as they are to us. And Elia is Moldovan, so double that.
A few American part-time residents with solid immigration credentials – such as permanent residence or EU passports – have found their ways back. Some go into quarantine, some do not, depending I guess on where they come from and when. I don’t know, it’s very confusing. Some I had a chance to see before I entered personal lockdown because of my tendon. Others have stopped by to see the creature himself, braving the heat of the day. Still others, I have heard of their arrivals, but have not seen. I assume they are soaked in jet lag or the usual amazement of being here.
Being here these days can involve quite a back story. One couple I’ve yet not seen, but heard from, wrote of a flight that included four stops, cancellations, delays, and missed connections over a three-day span. Others got on Alitalia at Kennedy, and disembarked more or less on schedule in Rome. These days, even uncertainty is uncertain.
One thing we Americans abroad all share; a deep gratitude for the luxury of a home in, or around, Orvieto. We talk about the town among ourselves, Americans and expats of other extraction alike, because we cannot cease but to marvel at our being a part of it.
“Do you like Orvieto?” Annette, a German physiotherapist asked me yesterday while teaching me a series of limbering and opening exercises.
“I love it. Do you know the film, King of Hearts?”
“Oh, yes. Lovely.”
“Orvieto reminds me a bit of that. Everyone is just a little bit crazy. And because we all are, we let each other play out our characters with a bemused affection. The really serious people can’t bear the inconveniences of living on a medieval street plan, and have left for more rational lifestyles. Those of us who remain embrace the loopiness, the scramble, and the beauty it creates.”
Or at least that’s my take. Actually, I only got as far as “bemused affection” with Annette present, the rest is what I would like to have said were I not being told to breathe.
The municipal building here (municipio) was designed by Orvieto’s preeminent renaissance architect, Ipolito Scalza. It is a series of arches topped by a porch, very stately and harmonious. Then one arch and a half beyond what was obviously designed as the central arch – replete with extra columns and more thickly embellish with decoration – the building suddenly ends. The government ran out of funds for the project in 1585. I’m sure there are good reasons for the project’s never having been taken up again in 435 years; lack of political stature, land rights, the Papal States. I am also sure that almost every American who passes and notices the incompleteness is driven just a little mad by it. In America, we finish what we start! Or at least, so we like to believe.
On more than on occasion, I have caught myself dreaming idly as I pass that I’d won a lottery (that I never play) and offer a stunned mayor money enough for Scalza’s vision to be realized, thereby setting off a series of political intrigues and machinations that eat up another 400 years, the end of which witnesses the filling in of the half arch that now marks the building’s western limit.
And that is why we like it here.
Happy July four! Even if a week or so late.