Category: View

The technological terrorist for anyone attempting to learn a new language is the telephone. At least it is for me. There are no facial expressions to aid understanding, no gestures, no body language. On the phone it is even that much more difficult and embarrassing (for me) to ask for the frequent repetitions I almost always need – at a slower rate and, ideally, in a less exotic accent – when you can’t look someone pathetically in the eye and plead old age, ignorance, or fatigue.

But when you are anticipating a scheduled delivery, there is no choice; the phone must be answered.

As I write this, I’m anticipating a delivery. I received a call from the courier about an hour ago. He said they would arrive around 3:30. That seemed reasonable in the moment. Of course, the delivery was appointed for 14:00 and the fellow who called was adjusting it to 15:30, but he didn’t say it that way, he said “three-thirty.” This created some confusion in my brain and I sat for forty minutes worrying about how he could arrive at 14:30 as it was already 14:30 when he called. Somehow I had not converted his “three-thirty” correctly into 24 hour time. Or something. Anyway, my mind was in a disturbed state. For a long time. Over nothing.

It takes a lot of guts to be relating this, I hope you appreciate that.

He will arrive exactly when he said he would at 3:30, of course, but I didn’t realize my error until 3:10, about five minutes ago. This allowed me to waste an otherwise perfectly good forty minutes fretting that I had somehow offended him, and that his last bit of conversation, which I believed to have meant “tell you what, we’ll see how navigable the street is when we get there,” was actually “tell you what, your damn street is too damn narrow, why don’t you just come and pick the damn stuff up yourself.”

I had committed the usually dreadful error of trying to make conversation. (I sometimes say stuff just to demonstrate that I can speak the language, at least after a fashion.) I energetically approved of his estimated arrival time, then offered a friendly warning that the street may be too narrow to come all the way to my house. This led to responses I did not understand, which led to my further attempts at urbanity. Which never work. They only confuse everyone involved. I finally said, after several what sounded to be urgent questions about street width versus truck width, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that last bit, at all.” That lead to his closing suggestion. Which I would have simply taken to be what it sounded to be; “lets not talk on the phone about something we need to be on site to know,” as I just mentioned. But when I answered “Grazie, bene, perfetto!” and that was followed by silence, a blip, a beep, and a click, it caused me to wonder how well I had interpreted his closing remark, and that rapidly morphed into speculations on cancelled delivery.

I conveniently forgot how unreliable voice service is alla mia casa.

Now, I sit. Seven minutes to arrival. Jiggling my leg. I also want to ask the couriers if they will, for a tip of course, move the divan on the upper floor down the outside steps to the lower. I hope they’re nice, jolly types, who have had a good day. I imagine outrage and disgust at my imperialistic American attitude, annoyance at my outdoor furniture which could be construed to be in their way, and incredulity at my taste in divans.

The other day I took the funicular down to Scalo and walked to the CIA, a housewares and clothing store, to buy sheets. The label for the pillowcases said “2 Capi,” and WordReference on my phone had nothing to add regarding what that meant. So, when I arrived at the checkout counter, I asked. The woman there spoke such clear, lilting Italian I wanted to ask her to dance. She didn’t dumb down or slow up, and I understood every word as she offered (and I giddily accepted) a CIA discount card good also for online shopping and gas. She then rifled through the five or six boxes of paper, each with many layers of forms and documents, that were cluttering the area an American would call the “bagging counter.” Her search continued as she described the marvels of the card I was about to receive. She filled out a form, conducted another search for an unassigned card, and pasted on a sticker that made it even more valuable. The card issuing accomplished, she proceeded to explain the packaging philosophy for bedding.

I intend to go back to CIA just for the experience of understanding what someone is saying to me. Remember this and speak clearly to immigrants. We’re all more or less the same.

Speaking of immigration, this past Monday I had my second visit with Alessandro the Intervenor for Immigrants, a title that makes him sound kind of like a saint, which he kind of is. At the previous meeting we had, he started in English and implied all the way through that my Italian had not progressed past ordering gelato. Then once we had finished business, he turned to me and said, in Italian “So, how was your summer?” I blinked. The sudden transition to Italian and personal threw me. He repeated the question in English. In Italian, I told him about the house, how all the wood surfaces had collected mildew and had to be washed, that the garden was weedy, but that working with one’s hands was satisfying. That wasn’t really my summer, that was my previous week, but at the moment it seemed, more or less, to be my summer. Alessandro cleared his throat and we bid farewell.

This time in, we started in Italian and stayed there. No more mention of Google translator for when I had to compose a document. Huzzah. I think my knowing the word for mildew may have turned the tide. Orvietani respect anyone who knows about mildew.

* * *

The delivery guys were just here. The main guy called again, and I managed to understand that I was to meet them in the piazza across from the carabinieri, so I did so and at a pace. They’re Romanian, which explains the accent. The older guy (about forty) speaks English, too. He’s smart, overworked, tired of it, but the consummate professional. In two trips they brought the furniture to my house with a hand truck, ingeniously and skillfully loaded, and delivered everything to place. They hauled away most of the really huge packing material. I was so grateful. All that cardboard needs to be fastidiously folded, taped, and stored for a week until paper day in the recycling calendar comes along, so having it off my hands is a huge gift. They moved the divan into place downstairs with the nimbleness and pride of veterans, saying nothing, negative or positive, of its shape or color. I gave them €20 for their trouble. They deserve that and more, but I fear seeming over-generous.

Now that they’ve left — as I survey the not unattractive but clearly not high-end furniture that was implied by the photographs — and begin to remove the protective layers, I have a sudden urge to thank those Romanian guys one more time. The technological terrorist turns friend; I send a text.

It is terribly important these days (or maybe any days) to recognize gratitude when it arises, and even more important to express it. To seek to be honest, fearless, generous, grateful, and kind is not just a matter of courtesy or good form, anymore, it’s about the survival of the species.

A voice called from beyond. Beyond what, I wasn’t sure. “Sopra o sotto?” I asked. “Al cancello.” it replied. The voice belonged to Andrea. I thought maybe it was my neighbor Renzo. At this point, all Italians sound the same.

I had switched off the ringer to my phone as I always do when I go out with it in my pocket, and had forgotten to turn it back on – which is also what I always do so I’m not sure it qualifies as a thing I forget. Andrea had already called, emailed, and texted. There was a dinner in Centeno, near Procena, he was invited and his wife Natsuko didn’t want to go. Did I? Oh, and by the way, would I drive?

Andrea owns a car, a 1998 Alfa-Romeo, but somewhere along the way I guess he decided he wasn’t a driver, so when travel by car is necessary, Natsuko usually takes him there. When she’s not up to it, or is simply not in the mood, Andrea must forsooth, stay home. Lucky for him, an American without a car who does drive (however reluctantly) lives ten minutes walk away and is usually eager to experience whatever. So, I said “Sure, let me get my driver’s permit.”

To be honest, I jumped up like I’d been given an electric shock. I was thrilled. Not just by the prospect of dinner in Centeno, but by a friend having dropped by and yelled over my gate. It was so, like, I live here. So Italian. I brought Andrea a glass of water, ran upstairs to put on real shoes, grabbed an old vest made of a kind of silky fabric colored with gold and brown, we rushed to Andrea’s parking place in the yard behind the palazzo he where lives, and off we went to the far reaches of the Lazian countryside.

We took the “short” way out of town. That means lurching into the twists and turns and extremely narrow streets of the Quartiere di Serancia, following a torturous path that seems to go on forever only to arrive maybe twenty meters from where we began so we can turn onto a lane too narrow for one car let alone the two-way traffic it carries, then swerving through Porta Romana (which is even narrower) timing our transit so as to miss the oncoming vehicle by seconds. A few more such maneuvers brought us to Sferracavallo below the city, and onto dark, curvy roads that either aren’t banked at all or are banked in the wrong direction, with cars appearing behind us at unreasonable speeds, then passing on improbable curves. I understood why Natsuko had opted out of the trip.

Another forty minutes or so brought us suddenly to the gates of Centeno. The gate, singular, I should say. Invisible in the dark are four metal posts connected with chains on either side of a gap barely wide enough for an especially narrow Fiat. Andrea pointed them out just as I was about to plough into one but with enough time for us to slow down and squeeze through the middle. “Park anywhere,” he instructed. I did. And as quickly as possible.

I had been invited to one of Piero Ortusi’s dinners last May. He is sort of the caretaker of Centeno. Historically, the tiny town was a customs check between the Papal States and Toscano. The name is said to be derived from its location at 100 kilometers from Rome on the Via Cassia, the ancient way north. I suspect this story for several reasons, the least being that kilometers didn’t come into use in Italy until after Napoleon, but it’s a pleasant justification for calling it Centeno and is likely based somehow in fact. The town also served both as a way-station and a quarantine, protecting Firenze and Siena from the vulgarities and insalubrious habits of Rome.

At some point in the past 20 years or so, a significant part of the town was repurposed as an artists’ retreat. There are private rooms, dormitories, a dining hall or two, studios for painters, dancers, and musicians. Piero has a house and studio of his own. He’s a quiet man who wastes neither words nor gestures. His puckish humor bubbles continually behind his observant eyes. He was a stage designer for years at the amphitheater in Verona. Now he sculpts.

I greeted everyone, and as I came around to Piero he fingered the fabric on my vest. “Nice colors, good pattern. I’d keep that on, if I were you.” and he winked without winking.

This dinner, as the one in May, was about plumbing the imaginations of Piero’s artistic friends regards an annual festa he wants to inaugurate in Centeno next summer. It’s a wonderful group of people. Smart, talented, funny, insightful; they are puppet makers, performers, arts administrators, ecologists, and writers. The dinner was potluck, but Piero hosted as if he were the keeper of a venerable inn. We dined in one of the halls, the doors open wide to the night, bread toasting over a fire (regardless of the day’s heat), moths of every size and color coming and going along with the dogs and children. No one is ever distracted by the traffic of creatures. The food is always various and wonderful, and appears in sudden bursts out of nowhere. No one waits for the Queen to dip her fork into the frittata. Everyone pours and scoops and passes without ceremony.

There was a woman of about forty there last night who I had not met previously. She has a lovely relaxed way about her, was dressed even more casually than the others. Her hair, piled and tied improvisationally about her head, manages to look elegant. She speaks well and with kindness, but for the first half hour I had no idea what the subject was, only catching bits and pieces and nothing that would make a whole. Others held forth in turn. It was a polite and committed exchange of views. The speaker would continue for a goodly time, someone else would pick up the argument, and everyone else would listen. Claudio, the fellow sitting to my right, said nothing for so long I imagined he wasn’t much of a talker, then it was spontaneously his turn and he proved me wrong.

Eventually, someone asked if I was able to follow the conversation. I hazarded a very inaccurate guess. They explained that the area around Acquapendente has accepted eighty-some refugees from North Africa. The discussion was about the treatment the refugees were receiving, the need to educate their children, the difficulty of employing them, and generally how they will be absorbed into local society. I thought about the walls and taco trucks that seem to define discussions like these in the States, and fell into deep wonder. The conversation broke quite naturally into pairs and trios all talking at once, there was a crescendo, a finale, and the room fell quiet.

More food arrived from somewhere, the woman with the pile of hair took out a notepad, and the discussion turned to the festa. Many proposals and ideas were put forth, always in the same deliberate manner as in the discussion about refugees. Notes were taken by several at the table. After each proposal or question, the woman with the hair would take the lead into the next phase. Piero spoke rarely until it was time to conclude, then he gave a settled description of the pieces he imagined would constitute Centeno’s festa.

I leaned over to Andrea and confessed that the hour was making me tired, and as I had to face the twists and darkness that lay between us and Orvieto, we had best contemplate an exit. He nodded and concluded his piece with a comic oration. He stood, explained my need to bring him home alive, everyone followed suit, and goodbyes were exchanged. Piero again fingered the fabric of my vest, lifted his eyebrows and made it clear that I would don that garment in his presence again only in peril of losing it to a more appreciative wearer. He winked – again without winking.

Back in the car Andrea quizzed me on the second round of discussion. I had been able to follow it a tiny bit better. “She’s the major, you know.” Who? What? “Il sindaco di Proceno.” Who? “The woman you hadn’t met before.” Oh! The mayor. “Si. Sorry. The mayor. Centeno is part of the comunale of Proceno.” Wow. “Yes, good to have her here.” Nice to have seen this idea develop in its various stages. “Oh, there will be more dinners like this one.” Good. Good. That’ll be good.

The road back was exactly the same, of course, but so much easier to drive.

The expandable garden hose is the best idea of the century. Except when it isn’t.

I neither credit nor blame Italy for its design. It’s made in China. I bought both sections of hose at the local ferramenta (hardware store; a godsend for anyone with a new house and garden who doesn’t have a car) but neither do I hold responsible the brothers who own the store, nor the Egyptian fellow they reputedly bought it, and its inventory, from. The hose is a good idea – with interesting surprises.

The hose at rest – that is, when not filled with water – is about two meters long, green, and shriveled. Turn the water on, it fills behind the pistol-head-sprayer thing, extends to about seven meters, and becomes smooth and hard. It remains green. Not the color, but the engineering can’t help but remind one of a penis. And why not base a garden hose on a popular feature of anatomy? It’s a model that has satisfied its purpose for millennia. But being of human design, the hose has attributes not shared by the male member.

The inside of the hose is a blue rubber tube, very stretchy. The blue tube is sheathed in a fabric sleeve that holds its shape as it fills and grows in length. You may wonder how I know so much about how the thing works. You learn these things when you’ve paid for something that breaks with a regularity that is, at least at first, inexplicable.

The first time the hose broke it was apparently my fault. I had only one section at that point, and it didn’t quite reach to the extremity of the garden where sits the thirsty camellia. So, I gave it what I thought was a gentle tug. The hose came apart right at the plastic slip lock that connects it to the faucet. The releasing pressure caused the hose to slither like an angry snake, and it sprayed me down as I danced about in panic.

I took the hose to the ferramenta. There, Rafael patiently slipped the green fabric a centimeter at a time over the blue tube until the tube was again visible. Then he stretched the tube-end over the nozzle that is meant to hold it in place, secured a clamp sort of thing over the join, and told me to move as much fabric as possible through the collar that screwed the pieces together because he was tired of fiddling with it.

I did what he suggested but didn’t quite understand that last part about fabric and collar, so as soon as I turned the water on, it sprayed me down again. That was May 11^th. I flew away on the 12^th and left the hose hanging at the garden wall.

When I returned a couple of weeks ago, feeling in a jetlagged and mellow mood, I looked at the forlorn wrinkled green hose and was moved to determine what I’d done wrong. In the heightened receptivity that jetlag can sometimes induce, Rafael’s instructions to move fabric towards the connector suddenly made sense, so I reproduced his patient feeding of blue through green, worked the fabric into the screw-on collar, and tightened it as securely as I could. It worked brilliantly – for about a minute. I’d not been rigorous enough in feeding green fabric but in principle the approach was correct. Soaked through and through, I commenced another half-hour of tedious scooching at twilight.

In 1972, I visited my first cousin once removed who was named, as was my father, Pete Zarko. He lived in the mountains outside a town called Ravno in Herzegovina. Ravno means “flat” in Croatian. Naming the town in that way was surely someone’s idea of a joke. Petar’s village, named Gaic (which means “actor”) lies five kilometers outside of Ravno. So mountainous and rocky is the terrain around both towns that the last four of those kilometers could not form into a trail or road, you just had to know where you were going. Fortunately, another cousin was guiding me.

Anyway, this remarkable man called Petar had lived in California’s Santa Clara Valley from 1909 to 1929. When I met him, he still spoke the English of that time, filled with colorful swear words, similes, and metaphors. It was summer, so his wife cooked everything (and baked bread) over an open fire pit in a “summer kitchen,” basically a shed attached to the main house. In short, life in Gaic only peripherally referenced the latter 20^th century.

One day, it was time to cut the hay. To cut hay Petar had to sharpen his scythe. He did this by hammering on the blade’s edge as it lay against a specially-shaped stone. About mid-way through, the hammer handle broke. Without missing a beat, and with no use of this vintage English cuss words, he moved to the wood pile where he identified the best candidate for a new handle, worked it with a knife until the end fit the hole in the hammer head, and pounded in two iron wedges (with a rock he used specially for this job) to hold the head in place. By then, it was past twilight, and he didn’t feel he could finish sharpening the scythe. Next morning after waking at four so he could take the cow three kilometers up steep inclines to pasture (he was 83 at the time) he finished sharpening and cut the hay.

To this 23 year-old who was always trying to prove he could do the next thing on his list more quickly than anyone would have any reason to wish for – and with as much patience as a hog in heat – watching all this was to witness a miracle.

So, I sat on the top step leading up to my garden on Via delle Pertiche Prima, took the green fabric cover, and one centimeter at a time, advanced the blue tube inside it for about a meter until it shone a-glistening and ready to stretch over the plastic connector. The hose was tested and it worked well for a day or two.

But I had still not tucked the fabric in tightly enough. I saw it with my own eyes. The green fabric pulled loose while the blue tube grew a huge bubble that burst into a spray of water, most of it ending up on me. The engineering of this thing was becoming clearer.

So, taking a cue from cousin Petar, I sat down again, and coaxed the tube through what this time was a meter and a half of green fabric, and when it came to tucking, I tucked in earnest.

What I didn’t do was to trim the green fabric sleeve. Because the blue tube had burst, it was now 20 centimeters shorter, and as the system is calibrated to maintain a balance in tension between tube and sleeve, that there was extra room inside the green casing meant the blue tube expanded past what it was designed to tolerate. So later that day as I was using the hose – and glowing with pride at how well I had repaired it – water suddenly stopped flowing. Blif. Nothing. Then it started leaking, everywhere, and mostly onto me.

I felt the hose near the connector. The tube had not slipped loose, it was still attached. I felt along the green fabric a little further; nothing inside. Nothing for two meters, this time. The blue tube had broken neatly off at about 30 centimeters. Back to scooching.

In the end, I must admit that even after forty-some years I have not achieved the patience of cousin Petar. After having scooched for a meter, just to look at the remaining meter made my fingers sore. I employed scissors. I trimmed the fabric. And the blue tube – but not as much as the sleeve. Now there is too much blue tube proportionate to the green sleeve (waiting for that, were ya?) but I am willing to risk that too much blue is better than too little. The beast twists into grotesque gnarls as it fills up, but I think it unlikely to burst.

Still, the compromise is a blow to my pride. That I might continue to imagine myself spiritually advanced, I pretend to believe that one day Petar’s hammer handle broke again, at which he growled, let loose a string of vintage expletives long ago smuggled in from California, and sent a neighbor down to the hardware store in Ravno to fetch a new hammer. But I strongly suspect he actually carved a replacement while humming a centuries-old folk tune.

Two weeks later, the hose is still working. And if it bursts again, you won’t hear about it from me.

I knew it would be different this time. The seven months between fall of 2015 and spring of 2016 were filled with amazement, novelty, discoveries as small as an unnoticed alley or a spring bloom. It was a time for falling in love with a town while remaining apart from it. I was fond of the handle I had given myself; The Outsider. It was accurate and let me off the hook at the same time.

My cousin Gail, who I had lunch with in California after a thirty-five year, unintentional gap, listened to my stories about street life in Orvieto and, as an only-child herself, said it was not unusual among us almost to prefer a solitary observation of communal life to being an actual part of it. She called it “parallel play.” I have since discovered the term refers to a stage of childhood development where two or more children will play next to each other without involving the other. Still, her observation struck a chord. It’s time this toddler evolved to “group play” outside of a theatrical milieu, regardless of how awkward the language skills or how abiding his ignorance of the cultural code.

When you rent property in Italy, you either purchase whatever is inside from the previous tenant or let it go. Letting it go often means that when you take residence, the house is empty of everything including the kitchen sink. In my case, the kitchen stayed and all but three of the lighting fixtures went away, none of those that remained very usefully positioned. I had occasion to buy a table lamp in May which sits on the mantel, its little cord straining to reach the nearest outlet, but that’s it so far. I’m slowly collecting wall and ceiling fixtures and have contacted a electrical fellow from York to install them. In time there will be light, but at this moment night life involves a lot of careful treading.

Before I left for the States in May, I also bought myself a bed. And a elegantly comfortable sofa that is made of dense foam that will fold onto the floor to make a guest bed. And a lovely antique walnut table and six chairs. And a set of two plastic-wicker armchairs with matching settee and coffee table for outside. And an large umbrella that hangs from an arm to put them under. Writing this, it seems like a good list. But I can tell you this; to be home one needs drawers and shelves.

For example, I have a small, oddly shaped, bedroom, and what Americans think of as closets are practically non-existent in these old buildings. I spent hours measuring and searching online for a wardrobe that makes any sense at all in such a restricted space. I found several narrow ones, all a bit too deep, and by the time I managed to fit the imaginary thing in place, there was never any room left to imagine crawling into bed. Clothes have therefore been laying around in lackadaisically random piles. Between trying to locate what I would wear on a given day, and the unobstructed lines of sight from bedroom window to across-the-street neighbors, getting dressed in the morning has been a circus act.

Then I found the armadio of my dreams; a frame of steel tubes pops together via nylon joints, fabric stretches to form shelves between the tubes, a canvas cover encompasses all, and it zips shut should I wish to enter storage mode. The thing assembled in about two hours, and enjoyably, too. It looks fresh and cool and young, and I lay this morning gazing lovingly when I should have been planning my new act. There’s a small chest of drawers of similar design that serves as a bedstead, and my clothes now all have predictable places to hang out, as it were. (The sight lines issue was later resolved when I rediscovered what shutters are for.)

Today I finished planting the garden. I’ve become rather knowledgable about shade gardens in the last three or four years, and that experience paid off gratifyingly in this one’s rapid development. Now it’s just the four “W’s”: water, weed, watch, and wait. (Oh, and “wonder” but that’s subjective; a personal choice.)

Also today, were delivered two small rugs I had ordered and an armadietto, a chest of three drawers for beside the upper bathroom sink. One of the rugs is brightly colored, Jackson Pollock-esque-ish, and makes a happy statement in front of the fireplace. The other I got because it reminded me of the handsome Afghan that lies languid and lush before the fireplace in the library of the apartment in Scranton. The Pollock was love at first sight and we are totally right for one another. The nostalgic Afghan? Well, best not revisit attractive infatuations from the past. The new Afghan is not ugly, it’s okay, but it’s red, and conventional, and I don’t like it. It doesn’t capture the magnificence of the Afghan left behind. At all. I will give it to the first person I know is looking for a rug. It was cheap.

I saw an armadietto, similar to the one delivered, at the housewares shop on Piazza Vivaria yesterday – for ten euro more. I was so proud of my razor-sharp acumen in hunting bargains – saved ten euro and free shipping to my door! What wisdom and foresight, how resourceful. What I didn’t factor was that the one at the store came assembled. The one that arrived at my door was in a box. A thing I have encountered with unwavering consistency over the past twenty years of putting together things that come in a box; the little holes that guide the screws that hold the tracks that guide the drawers are never deep enough. So, the screws don’t go in all the way, the tracks wobble, and the drawers don’t glide, they stumble. I’ll borrow a friend’s power drill, take much of the thing apart, and correct this, but the experience was not, shall we say, joyous.

Joyous or not, these simple adventures root me to this bit of land on Via delle Pertiche Prima in Orvieto. The hassles and decisions, right or wrong, the voices and clicks from the palazzi around me, the voluntary violets, the shop just around the corner that serves delicious falafel sandwiches for about four dollars – that I am gradually furnishing a modest house and carefully planting a garden, this is not parallel play. It’s frequent visits to the ferramenta for tools and screws and brackets. It’s discussions at the market with the nursery guy about what plant needs what care. The lovely women at Ubaldini elettrodomestiche are beginning to treat me like a local. Someday I’ll invite friends over for drinks. I’m looking at incipient group play mode, here, without it being a rehearsal or class – or any other situation where I pretend to be in charge – and it’s pretty exciting.

There has been progress in other ways, too. The several deliveries of the past week shared a sort of unity in that they all arrived at the very moment I needed, for whatever reason, to take off my clothes. I can’t figure out the buzzer/intercom system, always fumble it, drop the handset, and ring open the gate by accident. So, I have had occasion to introduce myself to the delivery team in various degrees of deshabille. Two days ago, I was able to greet them in swim trunks, a dirty tee-shirt, work boots, and black styrofoam knee pads; my best garden attire but for the first time pretty well covered up. I think they were surprised. Maybe even proud. Certainly relieved.

Yesterday my wonderful neighbor, Renzo, rang as I was upstairs (what else?) getting dressed. I opened the window and shouted “Vengo subito!”

Oh.

Screw the intercom and the rushing around to satisfy a buzzer – all that Pavlovian-American behavior. Open the window and yell. I’ll learn this Italian thing, yet.