Living in a Foreign Language (6 page)

Marcella in the kitchen at Patrico

We meandered through the narrow, twisty cobblestone streets to the Piazza Mercato, where there's an ongoing farmers' market in the center of the square, and Joanna suggested we get some gelato.

“Italians follow a very strict code when it comes to eating, and one hard-and-fast rule is gelato at four o'clock. It's sort of a law. For me it's pistachio—but that's not legislated.”

Jill tried the
frutti di bosco
, and Caroline got two flavors, one on top of the other—chocolate below and vanilla yogurt on top. I had
stracciatella
, which is the Italian version of vanilla chocolate-chip. We felt very law-abiding, scarfing down our four o'clock gelatos as we walked over to the Cathedral Square.

The Spoleto Cathedral is a knockout—especially the initial approach to it. We walked along a narrow street from the Piazza Mercato and came to a wide descending staircase, at the bottom of which is the vast piazza that frames the cathedral. Because you're above it looking down, you can see the rolling hills of Umbria behind it—just like the backgrounds for so many of those frescoes by Giotto, Lippi and Signorelli.

“Okay,” barked Joanna. “Spoleto Cathedral—five things.” She bounded through the enormous doors and into the dark church. We scurried to keep up with her.

“I can't tell you how many times I've given this fucking tour over the last twelve years, so I've got it down. Five things.”

She ticked them off on her fingers.

“The Lippi frescoes behind the altar, the random brick design on the floor, the gift from Barbarossa, the framed letter from St. Francis and the circular Rose Window above the entrance. We can see all five of them and be out of here in fifteen minutes. And you'll know more about the cathedral than most Spoletini.”

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later—well, maybe twenty—we were back out in the bright sunlight of the piazza, having digested a succinct but thoroughly educational description of each of the five cathedral highlights. Our tour guide was nothing short of brilliant.

“What about that wooden cross?” asked Caroline.

“What about it?”

“Well, you said five things; wouldn't that be six?”

Joanna shrugged.

“Yeah, okay. Six things. Can you get me back to my car? I have to pick Bruce up at the train station.”

As we dropped her at her car at the gas station, I asked her if she had any properties that were available for sale. “We're not buying. So, don't show us anything if that's a problem. I'm just curious what's available.”

She barely blinked. “How about tomorrow? I can call around and see if there's anything good.”

“We have to leave around noon—we're driving down to Sorrento.”

“Lucky you. I'll give you a call tonight and we'll make a plan.”

I
REALLY WASN'T LOOKING TO BUY
; I had made a solemn promise to Jill. I just wanted to check out the lay of the land—see what things were going for. I wanted to compare it with France. Hey, I'm a property junkie. When I'm on the road, on a job or just traveling, you can always find me scanning the listings in some real estate window, checking out the deals. And it's a great way to see the countryside—you know, to get away from all the touristy stuff.

And that, your honor, is the case for the defense.

JoJo—for that, we learned from Luca, is what Joanna is called by her friends—met us for breakfast at the hotel. We had already checked out and put the bags in the car. I very much wanted to get on the road at a reasonable hour. We were going to have to skirt Rome, navigate through Naples and then get on a tiny, crowded road that would take us into Sorrento. I definitely didn't want to hit Naples at rush hour.

“I have two places to show you,” said JoJo over coffee on the terrace. “And maybe a third if my friend Bruno ever calls me back. Why don't you follow me, and when we're
done you can get straight on the highway and be on your way.

First, we saw a nice little new construction that sat in the middle of somebody's farm, on the way up to Monte-falco. The house was completed except for the finishes—we would get to choose the flooring, the appliances, the paint job, etc.—and you could tell it was going to be a very nice house. And the price really got my attention. Even with all the work yet to be done, it was clear that Umbria was a much better deal than France or Tuscany. But it sat literally in the middle of a farm—with deeded access along a skinny little road that bumped through somebody else's property. And it was kind of stuck out there in the middle of everything, without trees.

When we got to the second place—which was a tight, uncomfortable little redo in the beautiful hill town of Campello Alto—JoJo took us aside for a conference.

“I spoke to Bruno and he says he'll show you the house. Now, I have to tell you I think you're gonna love this place; I'm pretty sure of that. But I should be straight with you that, first of all, Bruno's a good friend of mine. Second, he's asking what I would consider a high price for it—fair, but high. I have to tell you that. He's been threatening to put it on the market for a couple of years, and up to now, he—and Mayes, his wife—have been reluctant to let it go.

“Let's see it.”

“I think you're going to like this house.”

We turned off a two-lane country road onto a dirt track that cut through two large groves of olive trees. The road trickled down a couple hundred yards to an electric gate. JoJo pushed the bell, the gate opened for us and we drove into a secluded acre planted with fruit trees—we later
learned there was plum, apricot, pear, almond, apple and fig—and, most prominently, 125 olive trees in various stages of development. There was a spacious parking area and steps that led us up to a cozy two-story stone house, covered with vines. Every window had boxes filled with red geraniums. Just outside the entrance to the kitchen was a vine-covered pergola with a table and chairs, and sitting there were Bruno and Mayes.

“You have to excuse us,” said Mayes in a lilting Spanish accent that caught us completely off guard. Mayes is from Mexico City. “We're cleaning up after the renters.”

“We've been using the house as a rental for the last couple of years,” said Bruno, whose Italian accent was diluted by his years of living in the States—both in New York and Los Angeles.

“So, we come and spend the day, have lunch. You know, we love this place,” said Mayes.

“Yeah, my mom is in the kitchen right now making lunch—so, if you want to stay . . .”

We all blurted out thanks and explained that we really had to get on the road shortly.

“Where ya goin'?” asked Bruno.

We told him about our trip and the birthday party that we were headed to in Puglia and they said that they go to Puglia all the time for quick vacations. Mayes offered us some water, and we pulled up chairs and made ourselves comfortable under the pergola.

It turned out that they're both in the movie business—Bruno is a production designer with an Academy Award nomination on his resume, and Mayes is a very busy and successful costume designer. They met when Bruno was doing a movie in Mexico. She's a beauty. Her long, curly hair was
tied back, revealing a wide face, bright hazel eyes and cheekbones that go on forever.

Bruno I fell for instantly. He's at ease with himself, charmingly self-deprecating, a great storyteller. He's a Roman, and has the cockiness—some would say the arrogance—that's often attributed to people who grow up in the Italian capital. His eyes are in a perennial state of amusement and they seem to be constantly scanning the horizon for fun. And he's about my size and shape—which makes him fairly perfect.

“So, you guys want to buy our house, huh?”

“Our little Rustico,” said Mayes, wistfully, for that's what they call the place.

“Well, I don't know about that, but . . .”

“You want to come in and take a look?”

We entered into the kitchen, where, indeed, there was Bruno's mom sautéing some zucchini on the range.

“This is some actress, right? You hired her when you heard we were coming over.”

We shook hands with Mama, who explained—in Italian—that she loves to come up from Rome and cook for Bruno and Mayes whenever there's a changeover at the house. She, too, loves the Rustico.

The house was tiny—kitchen and living / dining room on the first floor; two bedrooms, each with a full bath, on the second. And that's it. But it was perfect, to my eye. It was about 350 years old but had all the modern conveniences, subtly added so as not to disturb its history. Bruno's a set designer—he knows what he's doing. When we went back outside, he pointed out the wood-burning oven next to the pergola. It was huge. I thought it was a guesthouse.

“The
forno
is four hundred years old. It was here before the house.”

“Does it still work?”

“Oh yeah. We had a party here last summer and made pizzas for thirty people.”

That did it. They had me. I was theirs.

“Tell 'em about the plans,” put in JoJo.

“Oh yeah, we have approved plans from the
comune
to put on an addition, to roughly double the size of the house. Also a pool. It's not easy to get plans to build approved these days. Especially in the olive groves.”

Bruno got out the plans and we all gathered around the table to look at them. Mayes went into the kitchen and brought out some wine. The bottle was one of those refillable ones with a rubber stopper—no label. Mama brought out the platter of zucchini and they insisted that we relax and have something to eat and drink. Tomatoes from the garden appeared—plus sliced mozzarella, drizzled with olive oil, and some bread to sop it all up with. We were laughing, telling stories about movie shoots in foreign places; Mayes wanted to know all about Caroline's life, growing up in Asia. The minutes slipped by unnoticed. The sun was now hitting the pergola from a whole different angle.

Jill was in the middle of telling a story about our movie experience in Italy twenty-five years ago with Lina Wert-muller.

“Wasn't Giannini in that?” asked Bruno.

“Yeah,” I said. “We've known Giancarlo for a long time.”

Bruno picked up his cell phone and dialed.

“Giancarlo? Bruno. I got a guy here says he knows you.”

And he handed me the phone. I hadn't actually seen Giancarlo for twenty years.

“Giancarlo?
Sono Mikey
[pronounced “Meekie”—which is what all the Italians on the movie called me].”

“Mikey? What the hell you are doing there?” he said in his still terrible English.

“Maybe I'm buying Bruno's house.”

“Rustico? He's not selling Rustico. They love this place. Tell him I said he is
pazzo. Tutto pazzo.”

After we hung up I told Bruno that Giancarlo said he was crazy. Bruno's puckish face jutted out from under the brim of his baseball cap.

“He's probably right.”

He and Mayes were holding hands under the table. There was a long pause as we soaked up the energy of the Rustico; then Mayes spoke.

“A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting out here. The sun was setting. And I pointed out to Bruno that the vines had finally grown together at the top of the pergola. The next day he called JoJo and talked to her about putting the house on the market. If I only realized what I was doing, I would have sneaked out in the middle of the night and cut them back.”

“What's next—you know?” said Bruno with a grin. “I have to be building something. Otherwise you die.”

I looked over at Jill, and she smiled back. And then she nodded to me. Not just a nod—she pursed her lips and furrowed her brow as if to say, “I've thought this over very carefully and I'm about to give you my considered opinion,” and then she closed her eyes and shot me an emphatic, single, eloquent nod. And I felt the earth move.

W
E HUGGED
B
RUNO AND
M
AYES
and said our goodbyes; we told them that we were interested but had to talk it over. We asked them if Bruno's mom came with the deal because that would certainly enhance the package. We hugged Bruno's mom. Then we hugged JoJo and thanked her for being our guide over the last few days. We're actors; we hug. The electric gate opened to let us out and our car slowly climbed the hill back to the main road, leaving behind the Rustico and those wonderful people.

My heart was pounding. Was Jill's sudden reversal making me nervous? Maybe all my talk about buying a place in Europe had been nothing more than a bluff and she—with a nod—had just called it. A thousand doubts flooded my mind. Can we really afford this? We barely work anymore—the fact that we can spend so much time in Italy is a testament to that. Am I being a fool to spend a healthy chunk of our life savings on a place so far away? And what will my brother say? Oh, God. My brother, Ed, is four years older than me and represents the more sober side of the family. Well, maybe
“sober” isn't exactly the right word, but he's our accountant and financial adviser and I use him as a guardrail for whenever I round a particularly emotional curve. It's a gift having an older brother who looks out for you, but I could already envision the argument we would get into over this one. And was that really a nod Jill gave me back there or did she just have something in her eye?