Page 22 of The Tuscan Child
We entered the little town and drove up a narrow street lined with old stone buildings, most of them with shutters closed against the midday sun. Down below, shops were open to the street: a butcher or delicatessen with piles of salami in the window, a shoe shop, a wine merchant with casks outside. Impossibly narrow alleys led off from that central street, some hung with laundry, others with casks of wine outside doorways. And everywhere there were bright window boxes full of geraniums. The street was made of cobblestones and we bumped over them. Then we came to a central piazza. On one side was an imposing church built of grey stone. Facing it were what seemed to be municipal buildings with crests above their doors, and on one side was a small trattoria with tables outside. At one of these tables a group of men sat in the shade of a sycamore tree with glasses of red wine and plates of bread and olives in front of them.
My driver stopped. “Behold,” he said. “This is San Salvatore. You must descend here. I go to the farmhouse just outside the village.”
I thanked him and climbed out. The van drove away and I stood looking around, conscious of the eyes of those men on me. There didn’t seem to be anyone else to ask, so I plucked up the courage to ask them if they could tell me where there was a hotel in the village.
This made them look amused.
“No hotel, Signorina. If you want a hotel, there is perhaps a pensione down in the valley at Borgo a Mazzano. Otherwise”—he spread his hands expressively—“there are good hotels in Lucca.”
I fought back tiredness and frustration. I had not really slept on the train all night. Now I was really hot and hungry. “Is there nobody who rents rooms to visitors in this town?” I asked.
They looked at each other, muttering and conferring. Then one of them said, “Paola. She fitted out that old animal barn to let to visitors, didn’t she?”
“Ah, Paola. Yes. Of course.”
They nodded to each other. Then one addressed me. “You should go to Signora Rossini. She may have a room for you.”
“Thank you,” I said, although the mention of her old animal barn did not sound too inviting. “And how do I find this Signora Rossini?”
One of the men stood up. For a moment I thought he was going to escort me, maybe offer to carry my bag, which now seemed to weigh a ton. Instead he came around to me, then pointed. “See that archway? Go through the tunnel. Then keep straight ahead, you understand. Always straight. And after the last houses of the village, it is the first place you will come to on the left.”
I thanked them again and set off with trepidation.I’ll stay tonight,I thought,and then maybe take the bus back to the valley tomorrow and stay at a proper pensione there.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JOANNA
June 1973
On the side of the piazza, a narrow alley dipped down between a greengrocer’s with a wonderful display of fruit and vegetables outside and what looked like a wine shop on the other side. Then it entered a tunnel. I hesitated, wondering if this was some kind of local joke and God knows what I’d find at the other end of that tunnel, or even if it actually led anywhere. Was it a route to a dungeon? A cellar?
But I could still feel their eyes on me, and I was not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing my fear. I stepped forward bravely. The floor was made of large cobblestones, the walls hewn out of the stone of the hillside. And after the tunnel turned a corner, I saw that one side had openings to the view while the other had what looked like wine cellars. I came through the tunnel without incident and followed the path that dipped steeply into the valley. The village came to an abrupt halt after only a couple of rows of houses, and I took the track that led down the hill. It consisted of two rows of rutted dirt made by the wheels of successive carts and tractors. Between the dirt rows poppies poked their heads above the grass. After the houses came to an end, I walked between leafy vines on one side and on the other kitchen gardens with runner beans covered in their red flowers climbing on beanpoles above tomatoes and other vegetables I didn’t recognise. I went a way down the hill, and there on the left ahead of me was one of the old farmhouses I had admired on my journey here. It was built of faded pink stone, its terra cotta roof glowing a rich, warm red against a startlingly blue sky. Over its doorway an old and gnarled grapevine created a shady porch, and beside it was a huge clay jar with rosemary spilling over the top. The front door was open. I went up to it and looked for a bell. I knocked tentatively but got no response.
“Hello!Buongiorno,” I called. No answer.
From the back of the house I could hear women’s voices. I advanced slowly along the tiled passage, which opened up on to a big sunny kitchen from which wonderful smells were emanating—baking bread and herbs that I couldn’t quite identify. A row of copper pots hung on hooks. Beside them were braids of garlic and drying herbs. In the centre was a scrubbed wooden table on which various vegetables and herbs had been chopped, and on the right-hand wall was an enormous and ancient open brick oven that could have baked a dozen loaves at once. And at the more modern gas stove beside it a woman was standing with her back to me. My first glimpse of her made me gasp and stand rooted to the spot. It felt as if I had been transported back in time. This was my mother, the same stout build, the same hair twisted up into a bun, stirring something magical on the stove as I came home from school.
Any minute now she’d turn to see me, give me a big smile, and open her arms to embrace me. Instead a dog rose up from under the pine table and came toward me, growling. The woman turned and uttered a little cry of alarm at being startled.
“Quiet, Bruno,” the woman said. “Lie down.” The dog obeyed, still eyeing me suspiciously.
“Scusi, Signora,” I said quickly. “I knocked but you didn’t hear.” Actually, I think I said that I struck the door, not having the word for “to knock” in my scant vocabulary.
“No matter,” she said. “You are here now. How can I help you?”
“I need a room for the night,” I said. “The men told me you had a place?” I had practised these phrases on the walk down, and they came out quite smoothly.
She nodded, beaming now. “Yes. Of course. My little house in the garden. Once it was for animals. Now it is for people. Good, eh?”
I returned her smile. It was difficult to tell how old she was—probably in her forties, but her face was remarkably unlined and her hair only showed the faintest streaks of grey. She was wearing a large blue and yellow apron over a white blouse with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows.
She wiped her hands on the apron and came toward me. “I am Paola Rossini,” she said. “Welcome.”
I shook the outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you, Signora Rossini. I am Joanna Langley,” I said.
“From England?”
“Yes.”
