Tim Parks - Italian Neighbours - An Englishman in Verona

An old, portly man in uniform, complete with medals, starts to speak into a microphone, although there are only thirty or so people. He begins with the normal introductory formalities employing the pompous Italian of public discourse, so that for a moment I imagine this will be one of those politician’s speeches one grows accustomed to here where any possible message is obscured by an interminable clutter of qualifications and relative clauses. (‘It depends’ — I quote more or less at random from a newspaper by my side — ‘if this development is to be seen in the light of a possible rapprochement between forces by their nature intrinsically unsympathetic to what I think one would have to call the future interests and indeed hopes of the nation, conceived as that group of people who, for reasons of history, race and culture, consider themselves to form an identity distinct from, though not opposed to, other national identities, or whether …’)

But no. Having got over his carefully pre-prepared introduction, his list of names to be thanked and organisations mentioned, the old man has given up on his notes and is talking in a very simple way about the war and the dead now. He remembers how Italy fought on the wrong side, how soldiers went to freezing Russia in light summer uniforms, how these civilians were killed by the bombs of their ex-allies. He pauses, clears a hoarse throat. ‘If their death is to have any meaning at all.’ he says, gesturing to the monument, ‘it must lie in the kind of Italy that we have managed to build after the war, that we are able to build now. And at the moment, this Italy of Mafia, tax evasion and public corruption does not do honour to their names, we cannot feel we have built on their sacrifice.’

He continues in this remarkably strong vein, although speaking calmly and intelligently. His old man’s sincerity is impressive, the more so because of his scrubbed red nose and the deep wrinkles, weather-, age- and drink-induced. He has none of the professional speaker’s polish; he ers and ahs, feeling for what to say next. Turning round to the monument, having problems with his microphone, he begins to read out the names, one by one, as if they were people he knew. And maybe he did. ‘Albertini Mario, Pizzini Giuseppe, Stefanelli Emanuele …’The little gathering listens gravely; and it’s a moment of unusual candidness, this old man in the spring light, speaking hoarsely into a microphone, reading out the names of the dead, surname first, then Christian name, as if at some impossible roll-call. Then the band strikes up the national anthem and everybody disperses for their cappuccinos . On our way to the bar, we find a bunch of fresh daffodils has appeared by the plaque to the three who fell under enemy fire as the Germans retreated. It would be intriguing to know who put them there. The Dalmatian imprisoned behind jumps on and off the old bidet that serves as its waterbowl.

In the bar the price of our cappuccino has gone up another hundred Lire, but since this price is fixed by a government body, we can hardly complain at Pasticceria Maggia. The price of an espresso is fixed, the price of a cappuccino is fixed, the price of a newspaper is fixed, the price of petrol, diesel and heating oil is fixed, the price of bread is fixed. Is this in line, I ask Lorenzo, with the spirit of Liberazione ? And paying at the till I ask the pretty Cinzia if the price of brioches is fixed too, since I notice they always cost the same everywhere. ‘Not officially,’ she smiles, and is careful to give me my receipt.

Returning to Via Colombare, it’s to find Lucilla and Vittorina sitting on their backsides in the middle of the lawn, legs stretched wide apart in dark old wool skirts. Vittorina has her big straw hat against a sun that’s getting perceptibly stronger every day. Each woman holds a knife and they have an old shopping basket between them. They thrust their knives into the lawn, wiggle them vigorously about and pull out the fresh young dandelion plants. The roots are cut off and tossed away and the leaves dropped into the shopping basket to be washed for salad or boiled like spinach. They chatter and sing as they work. I have never seen them so happy. Lucilla has put on a green kerchief, peasant fashion. When they’ve exhausted the garden, they say, they’ll go off to the orchard and vineyard fields to try there. And indeed, walking about the countryside in spring, the meadows are full of crouched figures with plastic bags or shopping baskets, gathering dandelion and other leaves.

Giampaolo comes out to discuss lawnmowing rotas and they give him some of their harvest. Vado Matto , he grins, I’m crazy for them. We accept too, although I can’t say I’m wildly enthusiastic. The locals have a taste for such rough, bitter salads: leaves with the texture of a cat’s tongue and the taste of herb medicine. Terribly good for her constipation, Lucilla confides. To me it seems the kind of taste one could only have developed in darkest wartime.

Old Lovato watches us all from over the fence, wondering what we’ll do with the garden this year, how much our hedge will grow and steal his light. Behind him, and stinking with fertiliser, his peas are already rising thick as Persian spears at Thermopylae. Meantime, with Vittorina not being able to do much after her stroke, Giampaolo’s encyclopaedic, ecological approach has got us no further than a few weedy rows of snail-ridden spinach and salad. The sun may well follow its dazzling trajectory above Via Colombare, the railings and cement, vines and cypresses may drip and drip with light, but somehow that dank little patch below the old cinema wall and Negretti’s terrace is always in the dark.

Incredibly, in May — but as a dipendente Giampaolo seems born to bad luck — the weather breaks again right on the new moon. Once more it seems the combination of rising pressure and waxing moon is to elude us. The brilliant Mediterranean sky is suddenly replaced by the kind of cloud you expect to find over Halifax or Slough. The rain is desperately heavy. Via Colombare is not cambered and surface water gurgles about looking for a gutter. Lovato stands at the window, staring at his peas, willing them to stand firm. Our lady of the twig broom cycles by under an umbrella, climbs off at her house and, despite the torrent, kicks a cigarette stub away from her gate. Old Signora Marini is another one pedalling under an umbrella. Lack of wind makes this possible as it would not be somewhere else I know. On the third day of uninterrupted rain, I even spy one-armed Negretti, his good hand on the right handlebar, his new dog Ursa tied to the left, and a red umbrella tucked under his stump.

Montecchio being on the water table for countless kilometres of limestone hills above, the ditches are soon full to overflowing. Even the emergency ditches begin to fill, something that happens only once or twice a year. The water is a muddy brown flecked with white as it bears away the heaps of litter people have thrown there. Before the week is out, water floods the section of road by the Cassa di Risparmio di Verona, Vicenza e Belluno, the village’s one bank. The Communist Party is quick to get out posters complaining that, while the council has plenty of money to spend for all sorts of other projects, it has never solved this simple drainage problem. The head of the local Christian Democratic Party ducks (as it were) the question at a meeting held in the local library which is temporarily closed for book borrowing because the librarian is away for his military service. Finally, the rain becomes so violent that it fills the emergency ditch to the brim, bursting the stout wall that protects the main road and covering it with water and broken masonry.

How can we possibly bottle prosecco in this, Giampaolo complains. He taps his barometer. I’ve never seen it so low. We watch an evening’s TV together over the last of the previous year’s bottles. On one of the smaller channels there are frequent ads for talismans (by post) and the services of local astrologers, but nothing on how to get the right combination of atmospherics and lunar cycle for our sixty litres of bubbly. The news quotes the huge sum the government has already promised in compensation to keep the farmers sweet. Should we, perhaps, prepare a claim for our possibly ruined prosecco ?