UK readers who grew up watching the BBC in the 60s, 70s and 80s will recognise this picture and understand what it means. For the benefit of my overseas and younger readers, however, it’s called Test Card ‘F’ and was used to indicate that the channel was functioning but that there wasn’t a programme on right at that moment.
Much like the blog today, in fact.
By which I mean that, if you’re here looking for the usual Monday post, you’re out of luck. Sorry about that! Normal (if slightly delayed) service will be resumed on Wednesday, though, so please do stay tuned.
This seems like a great time to nudge those of you who haven’t yet subscribed to DLaM to do so. It’s simple to do – click on the orange ‘follow me on RSS’ button over there in the top of the right hand column and follow the instructions. And, hey, while you’re at it, why not click ‘Like’ on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and Google+?
Go on – I’ll wait. (And if you’ve already done it, why not check out this story from Molly Beer over at Vela? It’s great.)
Bravi! Now you’re all subscribed and up to date. Roll on Wednesday, eh? And as a bonus for being so patient, there’ll be a big announcement: hang onto your hats, Maniacs; the times they are a’changing …
The sun’s out and the clocks have gone forward, so everyone’s a bit discombobulated. Outside, Fat Cat leaps out of a flowerbed and into the air, then scoots across the lawn. Halfway over she freezes in a crouch and stares back at the house, eyes wide and ears flattened against her head. I’m not sure if it’s me she’s looking at, or a ghostly reflection on the glass of the long, low garden room window; either way she unnerves me. I break the staring deadlock. When I look back, she’s galumphed into the opposite flowerbed and is sniffing about, checking out the ground.
Photo: Kate Bailward
Black Dog huffs and sighs on the battered, wing-backed armchair from which she usually keeps an eagle eye on whatever food is on the table. She looks like she’s got a very full stomach – no doubt after eating something she shouldn’t have done – and is lying flat out on her side, eyes closed. With the sun coming through the garden room windows and warming her tummy she’s happy to snooze and let her digestive system do the work. Dad is at the table unpicking a curtain header so that it can be reattached to a theatre backdrop. He flips the material, which makes a sharp noise as the metal eyelets clatter onto the wooden table. Black Dog jumps and raises her head automatically, but knows that it’s nothing worth her time and effort barking at. She rolls onto her back and stretches, then settles back onto her side, licking her chops at the memory of her last meal.
Photo: Kate Bailward
Stinker wriggles on her beanbag, causing a sound like crashing waves. She leaps from it and onto the wooden floor, tip tapping her way across the room to have a drink from the plant pot base. Something about the algae supplement that Mum puts into the plants’ water drives the animals wild. They love it. Drinking from their own water bowl or the stream in the garden just isn’t the same.
Photo: Kate Bailward
The dishwasher hums and sloshes in the background.
Tiny Cat sits at the glass door, staring out into the sunshine. The light picks up her whiskers and the fluffy hairs on her chest, turning her into a sparking ball of light. Her ears twitch as Black Dog barks in the corridor, and she jumps up onto a chair. Black Dog comes back into the room and makes the mistake of getting too close to Tiny Cat’s chair. Tiny Cat, in retaliation, reaches down and bops her on the nose. Black Dog looks up reproachfully and settles herself down in a shaft of sunlight.
By the time you read this I’ll be in Rome airport, most likely, having spent a night on the train. I’d tell you the story of the women with whom I shared my carriage, but I don’t know it yet. It’s all to be discovered. I feel like I’m in that Pulp song. Not that I can name it right now, or even think of the lyrics, because Zucchero is playing on the radio and my flatmate is singing along as she mops the kitchen floor, but you know the one.
Right now I’m sitting at my desk in Catania. Or am I? If we’re talking about right now as the point that you read this piece, I could be anywhere: Rome; London; Somerset; somewhere in the sky overhead. Wherever I am as you read, as I write I’m thinking about where I was this time three years ago and smiling at how much has changed – and, conversely, stayed the same. I’m not a full-time teacher any more, but I still played Fruit Salad when I did some substitute work recently, just as I did three years ago. And I still spend my whole time telling stories, whether it’s to students like last year, or on this blog, or over at my cookery blog. Most of all, though, I’m content just going with the flow and seeing what happens. Those are the best days.
There’s a flurry of Sicilian from the top of the steps and Marco laughs. “You’re in trouble!”
In the car on the way over he’d told me with a certain amount of glee that not only was it unlikely that most of the people at the house party we were going to would speak English, but a fair few of them might not even speak Italian. “It’s a small town, you know.” As he wanted me to, I threw up my hands in horror when he told me, but I was grinning inside at the thought of getting away from being expected to be an English teacher for the night.
As it turns out, his predictions are wrong. Not only do a fair few of the guests speak both Italian and English, but the host of the party is a London boy from Whitechapel. He’s half-Sicilian and he moved out here a year ago. He’s also missing English company. We leap up and down to old rave tracks and new R&B ones, laughing about Only Fools and Horses, while the Sicilians stand around the edges of the room shifting from foot to foot in time to the music and eating the mountains of food that have been produced by the host’s girlfriend. Everyone has fun; it’s just in different ways.
Photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography
The next night I knock back Irish coffees and dance the tarantella to a soundtrack of Irish folk music in a room that has the feel of a hippy squat. I’m at a St Patrick’s Day party being thrown by Officina Rebelde, who I’m told are a left-leaning political community group “… or something like that”. I talk to the girl who runs it, trying to find out more, and she tells me that I should come along to the journalism course that they’re running on Monday and Thursday evenings. I file it in my whisky-addled brain as a possible and let the caffeine coursing through my system do its work as I continue jigging to the music.
Diego appears out of nowhere. He’s been in Brazil and I haven’t seen him for months. Every time I turn round I bump into people that I know and hadn’t expected to see. I’m reminded of the steampunk parties that I used to go to in London. Grand old houses with peeling walls and chipped marble floors taken over for the evening by revellers with painted faces, drinking out of plastic beakers and having an evening away from real life. Lucy spots someone over my shoulder. “I know you! You’re – er – Agatino, right?” He comes over, laughing. “You deleted me from Facebook, didn’t you?” Lucy giggles, twisting her sleeves over her hands and turning pink. “No! No, I don’t think so. You just haven’t come up in my Newsfeed recently …” He teases her, chuckling and prodding at her discomfort. She gives up trying to defend herself and surrenders to the ribbing. “Are you still in importising? Importatising?” She purses her lips and opens her blue eyes wide, trying to hold back hysteria. “Am I even speaking English?!” Agatino grabs my arm and the three of us fall about laughing. “Imports, Lucy, imports!” He turns to join the whirling crowd of Irish-linedancing Sicilians. “Add me on Facebook!” He disappears.
I’m walking home from the market with bags full of fruit and vegetables when the man appears at my shoulder. “Sei in vacanza?” I don’t look at him. I’m not sure if he’s a pickpocket trying to distract me from my bag or just a desperate man trying to pick up an easy foreign tourist, but I’m not letting him get away with either. Acknowledging that I understand him but without breaking my stride or looking at him, I snap, “No.” He doesn’t get the message. “Sei Italiana? Di Russia? Parli inglese?” To every question, I give the same terse reply: ‘no. No. NO.’
I think I’ve shaken him off when I leave the market, but he reappears as I cross Piazza Duomo. “Can I introduce myself? Can we be friends?” I keep walking. “No. No.” I’m too close to home to risk him following me any longer, so when he asks if I’m married I spit out the classic lie: ‘fidanzata’.
There aren’t many occasions when Italian wins out over English in terms of brevity, but this is one of them. One four-syllable word covers the entire English phrase, ‘I’ve got a boyfriend who’s insanely jealous and you need to disappear before he finds out that you’ve been pestering me and beats you to a bloody pulp.’ It may be a cop-out, but it works: as if by magic the man melts into thin air.
I’d been to the market looking for fresh produce generally, but specifically cedri. The places that sell them are few and far between – many people here don’t want these giant yellow citrus fruits, claiming that they’re bitter and useless for anything but making candied peel or cedrata. Me, I’m a bit hooked on them sliced thinly and served with fennel, as the pith is, if anything, sweeter and more tender than that of a lemon. The biggest thing for this Somerset girl who’s still not quite used to local fresh fruit that isn’t apples, however, is that the novelty value of them is beyond price. Every time I see them, in my head I’m yelling, ‘They’re lemons! That weigh nearly a kilo each! Oh my god!’
I found a guy selling them last week but he didn’t look too impressed when I bought just one, so I’m hoping to be able to find them at another stall.
No such luck.
I decide to brazen it out. I’m pretty sure that he’ll remember the tall redhead with the heavy fringe and pale skin who stands out like a sore thumb around here, so I smile at him and ask permission before picking up any fruit. He gives me a solemn nod. I’m encouraged: it’s a much better response than from the guy over the way selling veg. The one who I should have realised was no good when I saw that he didn’t have any customers. More fool me. I’ll remember for next time.
Back on the citrus stall, I choose two cedri and hand them over to be weighed, then can’t resist checking out the pile of enormous, red-fleshed, sweet tarocchi oranges as well. I pick up a few and discard them, looking for ones with unblemished skins, before choosing three. They’re heavy with juice and still have leaves attached. They’ll be delicious and I’m already planning meals around them as I hand them over. In my distraction I let go of the oranges before he’s quite got hold of them, but between us we manage to save them from falling. He puts them into a bag for me, telling me how much I owe. Pulling my purse out of my bag I rifle through the small change. As I do so, I hear a quiet, ‘signora?’ from the fruit seller and look up. He’s holding up a mandarin for me to see. He drops it into the bag with the tarocchi and the cedri then makes the universal symbol for ‘tasty’, pointing his forefinger into his cheek and twisting it with a shy, upward look. I can’t help but grin back at him. “Grazie!” He shrugs, embarrassed by my enthusiasm, tucking his rounded chin into his chest and ducking his eyes away. He can’t hide his smile, though.
I’ve already got a tub of ricotta in my shopping basket, but then I notice some others. They’re bigger, and look to be made locally, rather than by big brands. I bend down to take a closer look. I’m not sure what alerts me to the old man’s presence, but I become aware of him hovering behind my left shoulder. Thinking that I’m in his way, I step back and gesture for him to take whatever it is that he needs from the shelves of cheese. “Prego, signore.” Instead of moving in closer, however, he points to the ricotta and says something. His speech has that fuzzy edge that comes with great age and ill-fitting teeth, so I don’t catch the words. Not wanting to be rude, I nod politely and look back at the cheese, hoping that he’ll get the message and go in front of me so that I can go back to deciding which one to take.
He says something else.
This time I’m more tuned in to his voice and I realise that, far from trying to get to the cheese himself, he’s giving me advice about the ricotta and how bad this make is. I start to listen properly. He’s gesturing towards the tubs and pulling faces. “I tried that one once. It tasted horrid! With pasta, in ravioli, on its own – however I ate it, it was just awful.” I nod in gratitude. “Not good, then?” He shakes his head emphatically. “No! Not good at all.” I say thank you; in reply he gives me a curt nod as he shuffles away, leaning hard on his walking stick and mumbling into the collar of his smart winter coat. “Horrid! Dreadful stuff!”
Another shop, another day. I’m here to buy a pack of butter and a tub of lard, in an attempt to turn myself into a Sicilian pastry-making goddess. As I leave the glare of the sunlight outside and my eyes adjust to the gloom, I see two men in their late 50s shooting the breeze with the shop owner over the glass of the deli counter. “… and Antonio wants a bottle of that wine. What was it called?” I’m aware of their eyes following me as I walk through the shop, but don’t pay much attention. I’m used to being scrutinised by now.
Having found the two items that I want, albeit at an eyewateringly high price, I stand to the side of the two men, holding my packages of cooking fat, waiting for them to finish. The one closest to me is thin and elegant, dressed to the nines in three piece suit and tie under a navy-blue camelhair coat. “Prego, signora!” He waves me up to the counter. “Antonio, you’ll have to wait a moment. The signora would like to pay.” I smile and thank him as I put my shopping onto the counter. The shop owner turns to me and starts to ring my two items up. His hand hovers over the wine bottle with a questioning look. “Is this yours?” Before I can say no, the elegant man answers for me. “No, that’s Antonio’s: the signora is buying things to cook with, not to drink.” In indirect, formal Sicilian fashion, he addresses his next comments to his companion and the shopkeeper, but they’re meant for me. “Chivalry is dead nowadays, isn’t that right? Gentlemen don’t exist any longer.” I shake my head. “Oh no! They exist. I’m sure they exist.” He glances over at me, seemingly surprised that I’ve answered. I duck my head and pay for my purchases, worried that I’ve overstepped the mark by speaking directly to him. As I turn to leave, however, he recovers his poise and wishes me a good day, accompanied by a small, controlled inclination of the head. It seems I’m forgiven, but I still walk out of the shop with the feeling that I’ve just been involved in something that wasn’t quite what it seemed.
I live 40km from an active volcano. At the moment, as you’ve probably seen in the news, Etna’s being particularly lively, spewing out pieces of volcanic rock measuring inches across, as well as clouds of ash that have reached as far as Calabria. However, much as the news of Etna’s eruptions gets sold dramatically around the world, here it rarely impinges on day-to-day life much at all. Most of the time, the first thing I know about any eruptions is reading news reports on Facebook. I’d rather that than the alternative of having to exit, followed by lava, though.
The other day there was rare physical evidence of Etna’s current eruption, in the form of a pink dust coating all the cars and buildings in the city. The sky was an ugly, yellowish-grey colour, and Etna herself was hidden in greasy-looking black cloud. As I walked through town it started to rain. I cursed my luck – it’s a half-hour walk to the school where I’m currently substituting and I still had to get home again after classes. I put my head down and walked faster, arriving at school before the rain started in earnest.
In the break between classes the heavens opened. A crack of thunder shook every pane of glass in the school, making one class scream and setting off all the local car alarms. Rain poured down as a solid wall of water – when it rains here, it does so with intent. Idly I wondered how waterproof my boots were and then forgot about the weather while I introduced myself to a new class in preparation for taking over as their teacher for three weeks.
Having finished for the day, I wandered home, pleased that the rain had by now done its worst and was merely dripping from the sky half-heartedly. As I got further from the designer chic of Corso Italia and closer to the centro storico, more and more shops were shuttered up. I rolled my inward metaphorical eyes at the chancers who’d seen a rainstorm as an excuse to knock off early.
Little did I know.
As I passed my favourite local bar, Città Vecchia, I saw that the chairs and tables which usually sit outside had been moved and a lone barman was sweeping the outside area. A car was sitting in the middle of the road, engine running, as the driver talked to a man on the pavement. I dodged around them, passing behind the man on the pavement. I didn’t realise he was talking to me until his tone changed. “Do you understand, signora?” he asked, with a hectoring edge to his voice. I put my head down and kept walking. Having not heard the start of the sentence, I had no intention of getting into conversation with him. There are times on the streets of Catania when it’s better to pretend to be deaf than to get drawn into potential trouble.
Picking up my pace, I squelched my way through the soggy cardboard boxes which were coating the streets of the open air market. Stepping into a large puddle that I hadn’t seen in the gloom I found out that my boots were waterproof after all. Good to know as I picked my way – not always successfully – around the inevitable lakes filling every gutter. This is Sicily. When it rains, the streets flood because the drains can’t cope. It’s just what happens.
When I got in, Clem popped her head out of her bedroom, where she was battling the early stages of flu. “You’re back! Did you get caught in the water?” I laughed as I put the kettle on. “Yeah, a bit, but the rain’s not so bad now.” She looked at me as if expecting something more. I looked back, wondering what I’d misunderstood this time. (It happens a lot.) “Sorry. What?” She looked at me, eyes bright with excitement – or maybe fever – and told me that there were stories all over Facebook about the rain. “Via Etnea was a river! Still, you’re home now, so everything’s OK.” She disappeared back to her sickbed, coughing as she went.
I finished making my cup of tea.
In these days of mobile phone and iPad video cameras, everyone’s a filmmaker. Sitting in my room, stufa cranked up high, I fell into a rabbit hole of pictures and videos. They showed an hour in Catania that overshadowed the gorgeous lightshows that Etna’s currently putting on, by virtue of being so much more immediate. One clip showed chairs and heavy, waterlogged planters from (I think) Prestipino Cafe, at the top north-east corner of Piazza Duomo, being washed across the square by the water and ending up by La Fontana Amenano at the diagonally opposite, south-west corner. At La Pescheria, where the torrent of water pouring down Via Etnea met the bloated underground river Amenano as it burst up to the surface, one picture showed a car submerged in muddy water to halfway up the side windows. In another film, a scooter was buffeted down a narrow street, bouncing off cars as it passed like a pooh-stick getting caught in the rushes.
As I scrolled through my newsfeed looking at all the first-hand accounts and viewpoints I felt a pang that I’d missed out on seeing it for myself. But then I looked at pictures of damaged roads and buildings and read a story of a man being taken to hospital with multiple injuries after being caught by the water and realised that – in this case – that was fine.
“That guy just threw confetti in your hair,” hisses Kate as I lower the camera and walk away from the enormous, primary-coloured float that I was shooting. I grin at her, not bothering to shake it out. “I know.”
We’re at Acireale Carnival, also known as ‘Il Più Bel Carnevale di Sicilia’ (the best carnival in Sicily). From what I’ve seen they’ve got a fair claim to the title. Catania, despite being a big city, doesn’t have anything like this. Today is a display of allegorical floats, enormous mechanised structures made of papier maché and covered in flashing lights, blaring music from giant speakers. On other days there might be floral floats or displays of children’s marching bands. More than anything, though, there’s a sense of fun and silliness. Bags of confetti are sold at 50-metre intervals along the roadside, along with silly string, masks and wigs. Kate and I are two of the very few people not dressed up. Scraping silly string from my coat later on, I realise the hidden value of wearing a costume to carnival – it protects your clothes. I’m not worried, though. Everything washes out and I’ve had far too much fun in the sunshine to be bothered. I’ll still be finding confetti in my bed nearly a week later; it’s like glitter that way. It creeps in everywhere. Then, just when you think it’s all gone, a little piece shows up to make you smile.
A girl across the road peels floating whirls of candy floss from the giant bundled cloud in her hand. She crams it into her mouth without looking as she gazes in awe at the enormous float coming down the road towards her. In common with most of the kids running about the carnival today she’s dressed in costume. The most dedicated parents buy costumes a few sizes too big and bundle warm weather clothing underneath to avoid ruining the overall effect. However, either this girl’s parents aren’t that forward-thinking or she’s had this costume for a few years; there’s no space underneath for extra layers. Instead, over the translucent powder-blue gauzy material and shiny turquoise satin that make up her princess dress, she’s wearing a heavy knitted Aran cardigan of the kind that you’d see Shoreditch hipsters wearing with thick-rimmed glasses and skinny jeans. It comes down nearly to her knees, at which point the chiffon of her skirt explodes outward like so many clouds of pale blue, shimmery mist. Her parents steal pinches of spun sugar from the stick in her hand. She edges away and starts making efforts to stick it to the back of her ears as she dives into it, mouth first.
A family of penguins walks past. Mum, Dad and baby in a pushchair, all bulging fur-fabric stomachs and flappy wings, complete with beaked hoods and giant, webbed orange feet attached to their shoes.
A row of teenage boys lines the front of the float, smirking with the insouciance of being 18 and part of the inner circle. They lounge as they roll their cigarettes, too cool for school in their leather jackets and skinny jeans. A younger boy runs up to the side of the 4×4 bike that pulls the float, giggling with glee, and one of the teenagers shouts across at him. “Get back here now!” The boy glances over but continues to bounce along beside the bike. The teenager – an older brother? – launches himself off the float and onto the street, grabbing the younger boy gently but firmly by the arm and propelling him backwards. “Sit down and stay out of trouble, you hear?” The boy nods and clambers up onto the slow-moving float, swinging his legs over the edge as he settles himself next to the older kids with an open-mouthed grin and sparkling eyes.
A group of friends shriek and giggle in their glittery eye-masks as they chase each other with bags of confetti. Proving that Carnival is not just for the kids, they’re all in their mid-40s and having the time of their lives as they compete to see who can get the most confetti in the others’ hair and coat hoods. As I point my camera at them, one woman laughs and throws a handful of confetti directly at me. It flutters to the ground in a cloud, clinging to my hair and my eyelashes and my coat collar as it falls. I grin back at her, snapping a photo as retribution.
Kate wants a cup of tea. We go into the nearest bar and she orders, but in a whisper, unsure of her Italian. The man behind the bar squints at her. “Cosa?” I call over her head, telling him that she wants hot tea with lemon. He grins and gives a thumbs up. She looks back at me, confused. “That’s what I said to him.” I laugh. “Say it louder next time.” I order myself a coffee and knock it back before heading back outside to continue taking pictures as Kate works her way through the pot of tea and plate of biscuits that’s appeared in front of her. Five minutes later, she comes outside with the guy from behind the bar in tow. “Can you translate for me? I don’t understand what he’s saying.” He’s chatty and friendly, talking about the enormous float that’s directly in front of us. “Do you think it will win?” He points at Kate and grins. “She’s nice. She liked the tea and biscuits.” It turns out he’s from Catania, too. His break’s over, but before he goes back to work we all shake hands and make hopeful noises about maybe seeing each other around town sometime.
At the train station, a twenty minute walk from the centre of town, we find that there’s an hour and a half to wait for the next train, despite what Trenitalia’s website had told me earlier in the day. It’s hardly worth walking back into town again, so we sit and wait. The ticket machine has frozen and doesn’t respond to my jabbing at the screen, so I give it up as a bad job and resolve to buy a ticket on the train. Kate fusses over the silly string on the back of her new jacket as I turn my face to the winter sunshine and close my eyes, drinking up the warmth on my eyelids and cheeks. Ten minutes later, the sun’s gone in and we’re both cold. We head inside. There’s an Indian guy standing next to the ticket machine. He waves me over. “Do you speak Italian? I don’t understand.” Pleased that he’s got it working and I won’t have to go through the charade of paying for a €4.50 ticket with a €50 note on the train, I take him through the various screens, chatting to him in Italian as I do so. He has no problem following what I’m saying and I wonder why the machine is a stumbling block. It doesn’t occur to me until we’ve finished the process that he didn’t want to say he couldn’t read. I feel humbled.
After the first night fireworks, the Festa di Sant’Agata continued for two more days, finally concluding at around 11am on 6 February. Last year I was impressed but cynical; this year I found it overwhelmingly poignant. That has much to do with the fact that I was more involved this year. Living in the centro storico meant that I could go out with a camera at whatever point I chose and be right in the heart of the action, whereas last year in the suburbs removed me from it.
A story for you: on the final morning of the festival, I went to the Duomo and watched people streaming out of the doors, having paid their respects to their saint. More than one man walked past me with red eyes and tears pouring down their faces. The strength of devotion on display was overwhelming.
As I stood there, a woman appeared at my elbow and offered me a gift – a ring ‘for Sant’Agata’. I’m not Catholic, but that wasn’t the reason I refused it initially. Too often these gifts are given with the proviso that you return the favour with a monetary donation. I shook my head. “No grazie, signora.” She was taken aback. “You don’t want it? But it’s for Sant’Agata! A gift.” As I continued to refuse, she took matters into her own hands and pushed the studded, silvery metal ring onto my thumb. I was still expecting the request for money and opened my mouth to say that I didn’t want it, but was silenced by her turning and walking away. This was no scam, but a genuine display of – what? devotion? generosity? desire to spread the word? I don’t know. Whatever it was, I felt a lump come up in my throat as I thanked her departing back.
W.S.Agata / Viva Sant’Agata
Photos of my experience of the Festa this year can be found here, here, here and here. Those of you who follow the DLaM page on Facebook will have seen them already, so below is a new video of the final night of the festival, when devoti carry enormous burning candles through the streets. It’s dangerous, impressive, and a great test of their spiritual, mental and – above all – physical strength. Do watch and feel free to share the links with anyone who would like them.
There’s still an hour to go before the start of the concert and fireworks that mark the end of day one of the Festa di Sant’Agata, but we can’t even get close at the moment. We backtrack and try another road: same story. This time we persevere. The view will be better from this corner – we hope. The crush of people gets tighter and tighter as we funnel into ever smaller spaces. I begin to lose all sense of where my body finishes and others begin.
*****
The Festa this year holds a double significance for me. Although I’ve been in Italy since 2009, before Catania I’d never stayed in one place for longer than 10 months. To see important benchmarks like this come round for a second time gives me a feeling of security. It’s ironic, because compared to last year my situation is precarious, with no cushy teaching contract to keep the money coming in every month.
*****
The silence after the cannon fire is total and eerie. It’s the second time this morning that I’ve been woken up by it, the first being a couple of hours ago, when the procession of candles left Piazza Stesicoro. Then, it was early and I went straight back to sleep. This time, I lie awake in bed listening to the quiet. The absence of sound is just as absorbing as – maybe more than – its presence. My ears concentrate on what’s missing. What would I usually hear? Cars on Via Sangiuliano. People walking and talking underneath the front windows. Church bells. The general bustle of mid-morning in the centro storico.
Right now, there’s none of that.
*****
The ambulance crew elbow their way back through the crowd, against the tide, faces red and elbows flailing as they try to drag some people to safety. The crowd is doing its best to part for them, but there are just too many people. Kate yells in my ear, ‘I’m going to follow them!” I consider going too and then decide that I’ve come too far to go back now. She disappears from behind me and I feel myself being vacuumed back into the stream of people, Deanna ahead of me. The sinous mass into which we have been absorbed comes to a halt, but, like seaweed in a current, we continue to sway from side to side. Deanna’s shoulders are hitting the bottom of my ribs and behind me I can feel someone’s arm moving slowly up and across and down my back. I turn my head to give him a piece of my mind, but close my mouth as I realise that, red-faced and sweltering, he’s just trying to remove his coat.
*****
When I opened my window this morning and the sleep-stuffy odour of unaired bedroom was replaced with the sweet, burnt-sugar scent of caramel and toasted nuts from outside it was all I could do not to run downstairs in my pajamas and grab myself a bag of fresh, still warm, torrone to whisk back to bed with me and crunch down with coffee. There was talk this year that the City Council wouldn’t be allowing the outdoor market, whether due to cashflow or public order reasons it wasn’t clear. At least not to me. At the last minute, however, it was all put back on.
*****
A woman tries to exit the crowd, handbag held high. Ineffectually she whines, “scusate.” She claims that the woman following her doesn’t feel well, and keeps issuing instructions over her shoulder to ‘just breathe’, but she doesn’t look sick to me. Not like the kid in front of me, who’s half the height of anyone around him and close to being crushed. I notice his eyelashes first, thick and beautiful, drooping down his cheeks. Minutes later his dad tries to heft him up onto his shoulders but the boy is limp and unresponsive. Uncle, down below, mouths a question at the boy, who can barely shake his head in reply. The next moment his eyes have rolled back in his head and he’s dropped like a stone. His head falls, heavy and uncontrolled, and unthinking I catch and support it as mamma or zia or whoever the woman is with the family desperately tries to pour water into his mouth. It’s too late. He’s unconscious and the water dribbles out of the sides of his blue-lipped mouth.
*****
The other day I was going to cook up polpette for lunch, but was interrupted in the nick of time by Clem and her mum whirling into the kitchen with bags from the fish market. Within ten minutes Clem’s cousin had arrived and within half an hour we were sitting down to a feast. We tucked into black-shelled mussels with softly chewy bright orange hearts, which sent up a smell of the sea from the simple garlic and parsley sauce that surrounded them. Then there were tiny, thumbnail-sized baby squidlets, tossed in flour and chucked into sizzling olive oil, scooped straight from the pan to a serving dish and onto the table. As if this weren’t enough, there were sweeter-than-sweet pale pink prawns from which we sucked the olive-oily pan juices before peeling them with our fingers and popping them into our mouths as conversational punctuation points.
*****
Papà cradles his unconscious son, head lolling, in his arms. A quick-thinking stranger assesses the situation and barges his way through the previously impassable roiling mass of people as a kind of icebreaker, yelling that there’s a child in trouble and everyone needs to get out of the way NOW. Within moments the boy is at the ambulance being revived.
*****
We sit around the table in the icy kitchen in our scarves and jumpers, devouring seafood and chatting about everything and nothing. As we do so, I look around the table and offer up a personal prayer to Sant’Agata: thank you for letting me be a part of your city.
*****
Tomorrow (5 February) is World Nutella Day. If you’re a fan of Italy’s favourite gooey treat (or even if you’re not – we don’t discriminate), don’t forget to check out my recipe for mille feuille with nutella, honeyed orange cream and clementine at Quasi Siciliana.
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I’m walking home from the market with bags full of fruit and vegetables when the man appears at my shoulder. “Sei in vacanza?” I don’t look at him. I’m not sure if he’s a pickpocket trying to distract me from my bag or just a desperate man trying to pick up an easy foreign tourist, but I’m not letting him get away with either. Acknowledging that I understand him but without breaking my stride or looking at him, I snap, “No.” He doesn’t get the message. “Sei Italiana? Di Russia? Parli inglese?” To every question, I give the same terse reply: ‘no. No. NO.’
