Seven Seasons in Siena (20 page)

Once again I experience the phenomenon of my comprehension of the Tuscan dialect improving after a drink or two. Before long Antonio and I are holed up in a corner and he's showing me photos of his entire family, including his late wife. She has a lovely smile, and I tell him so.

Dario arrives, wearing a suit—he's just come from some business meeting or other—and this makes for so unusual a sight that he's subjected to a few minutes of collegial razzing. Then he announces that Rachel is on a bus from Rome and will be here within a matter of hours. You can actually feel the sudden welling up of joy; it's as though someone has released more oxygen into the room. I had no idea Rachel had
become
that
popular. I feel something small and hard turn in my gut; a kind of presentiment—it's hard to say of what. But I feel as though I've just taken three wild swings and struck out, while the batter behind me has knocked it out of the park.

At dinner I take a seat close to Luigina so that we can confer on our performance, but I'm distracted by the first course—white-beans-and-bread soup, with a drizzling of olive oil—have I mentioned that they eat
very
well in the contrada?—and Luigina is distracted by being available to everyone, first-lady style. But it doesn't matter; after all, this isn't
American Idol
. It isn't American anything, as I find out, when we're called up to do our number. Luigina had requested that we sing “My Way,” a tune for which she apparently has some fondness and which I know fairly well. But when Claudio starts up the recording and the lyrics appear on the screen, they're in Italian. I hadn't anticipated that. Suddenly I have to keep one step ahead, trying to figure out where to place syllables in the course of each measure, because the stresses aren't remotely the same as in the English original. For instance, the line

becomes, in the Italian version:

I'm like a juggler who's suddenly been tossed a half-dozen extra balls. Also, the tune is in a spectacularly wrong key for
me, pitching way too high on the climactic notes. But it suits Luigina fine; she croons along in a kind of husky Lauren Bacall purr.

Eventually I just give up the melody and humbly take the backseat, singing harmony; and what do you know,
that's
what gets everybody's attention. I thought, from all my years of watching the San Remo Festival, that the way to an Italian audience's heart was through bigness, crescendo; but right here and now, it's the subtlety of singing thirds and fifths that wins them over.

Of course, the song is designed for a supersize finish, and we make the most of it, after which there's exactly the kind of ovation I'd hoped for; finally,
finally
I've made the brucaioli sit up in their chairs and see me as something more than a tourist.

“I'm Sonny,” I tell Luigina as I scoop her into an embrace, “and you're my Cher.” Which even she thinks is funny, because she must be two heads shorter than the diva in question.

A few more teams perform, after which three finalists are called on to do another number. The first is a trio of three lissome young girls, who perform an Italian number I haven't heard before with a fair amount of jumping up and down. The second is another duo, the male half of which is the former captain, Riccardo Pagni—the man who ended the Bruco's dry spell with the victory of '96—and he's actually a threat; he has a smooth, easy voice and a very winning stage presence.

I can feel my pulse thrumming in my wrist, and my mouth has gone dry in anticipation. I'm pretty sure, by the reception to our number, that Luigina and I will be the third finalist team. But if we're not, I have to accept it, I have to laugh and applaud and show what a good sport I am.

Claudio announces the third team: “Luigina e Robert.” Which he pronounces “Roh-bairt,” in that charming Tuscan way.

There's more wild applause as we return to the mics. For our second tune, I ask Claudio for an old Italian hit from the seventies, “E Penso a Te,” by the late Lucio Battisti, one of my favorite singer-songwriters. The recording begins—and it's in a perfectly comfortable key for me. Within a few bars it's clear that I'm more familiar with the tune than Luigina, who quite masterfully covers with a bit of camping it up, which everyone adores.

“E Penso a Te” is one of those wonderfully characteristic builds-to-a-tsunami Italian tunes, and I give this one everything I've got. By the climax, when I get to execute a hair-rising octave jump, I'm pretty sure they can hear me in Grosseto. I'm almost rattling the windows right out of their frames.

People actually get up out of their seats for this, and I have the sudden sense of
arrival
that I've been seeking all these months. I owe it, of course, primarily to Luigina, who's been unfailingly in my corner since I first met her; I'm tempted to lift her right off her feet, but I'm not sure it would suit her dignity.

The contest judges put their heads together and confer for a moment. I feel a tightening in my scalp; a sudden sense of alarm at going too far, too fast. After months of trying to insinuate myself into the ranks of the brucaioli, I've seized on this first glimmering of acceptance and let it go to my head. I've let myself get
pushy
—bellowing like some great ape in the rain forest. The last thing I want to do is brutalize my way into a first prize here tonight. This is a proud people who
don't like to be told what to do, especially by some bellicose American wielding a microphone like a bludgeon. Have I set myself up to win a battle, only to lose the war? After striving humbly all these months for success, I find myself, tonight, fearing it.

Third place goes to Riccardo and his duet partner. He's very gracious, smiling as wide as the Chianti hills
—still
working the crowd, even after he's heard the verdict. (I could learn a thing or two from this guy.)

Second place next, and already I'm feeling the pressure of a first-place win … but wait a minute, what's happening? People are applauding, Luigina's on her feet, and she's headed toward the front of the room. They've called our names. We're second-place winners.

Which means that the trio of young girls gets the top prize. I mean, I should have seen it coming. I'm a middle-aged bald guy. Anytime, anywhere I come up against beautiful young girls jumping up and down, I'm going to lose. It's one of the immutable laws of the universe. I just never thought it would work to my advantage before.

I squeeze my way through the chair backs and stumble up onto the stage, where Luigina has been presented with a big gold cup affixed with ribbons (blue, green, and yellow, of course). She insists I take it, which is extraordinarily kind of her (though later I realize she probably has an entire room filled with similar trophies). I check out the base, which reads,
Contrada del Bruco 2° Karaokando 2009, 2° Classificato
, and I feel as though I'm holding in my hands real, tangible evidence that I belong.

Afterward, it seems as though everyone wants to shake my hand or buy me a drink or both. Enrico, the silver-haired stalwart
I met at Giuliano Ghiselli's table a few nights ago, calls me over to sit with him and his friends awhile. A trio of tawny young women insist on pouring some prosecco into my prize cup and watching as I drink from it; it leaks from every seam, splashing all over my shirtfront, which we all seem to find hilarious. And Antonio, my friend from the bar, hails me and confers on me the very great honor of sharing his precious homemade grappa. Which, if it were any stronger, would have to be registered as a chemical weapon. Seconds after downing my first mouthful, I can feel all the hair on my chest just quietly drop off. Even so, I have to swallow the second mouthful immediately, before it melts right through the plastic cup.

It isn't till later, headed back to Vagliagli in Dario's van, with the thin beam of his headlamps piercing the voluminous dark like jouster's lances, that it occurs to me that though I've had a measure of triumph, it's far from a complete one. I've opened some doors tonight, but just as many—in fact many more so—remain firmly in their frames. The full attendance at tonight's dinner can't have been more than eighty or so brucaioli, from a contrada boasting a membership in the thousands. Aside from Giorgio, none of the officers was there—no Fabio, no Gianni the capitano, no Gianni the vicario—not even Francesco, who heads the contrada choir. Possibly news of my performance will reach some of those ears over the next few days, as a kind of anecdote or curiosity; but I'm
already
an anecdote and a curiosity. I don't want to diminish the genuine fellowship that's been offered to me tonight—I deeply appreciate it, it's like water on parched soil—but it's not so much arrival as introduction. I still have building to do.

Unfortunately, there's no time. I leave town in two days.
Had the order of this month's events been reversed—commencing with the karaoke night and concluding with dinner with the captain—I might have been able to consolidate my gains in the former, in time to more fully take part in the latter. As it is, I'll have to leave it to fate and hope that when I return in winter the glow of singularity will still linger, and I can pick up where I've left off.

My chief worry, however, is that with the contrada's activity in autumn being diminished, it might be completely moribund a few months hence. Still, there's something about the brucaioli that makes me doubt that a blanket of snow and a bite to the air can suppress completely their fervent social energy and their communitarian zeal. But there's only one way to find out.

…

 
NEXT MORNING AT DARIO'S, I WAKE UP TO FIND RACHEL
in the kitchen, preparing breakfast and clearing counters and washing dishes and airing the place out and for all I know tugging the entire Italian peninsula over a few inches to give us better light. And while she's doing all this she looks spectacular, as if she's just waiting her turn to saunter down a runway. Her hair shines and bounces, her eyes sparkle, her clothes are trim and impeccable, and the smile she gives me could stop a jihad in its tracks. She says, “Ciao, Roberto!”—strangely, only my fellow Americans call me Roberto; the Sienese all insist on Robert—and throws her arms around my neck, forgetting that she's still holding a sponge, so that in addition to a hug I get a glob of suds on my neck. I yelp in surprise, and then we both laugh; which is how it always is with Rachel—the time before you're laughing together is measured in milliseconds.

“Sit down, sit down,” she insists, as if I've just come in from a hard day's labor instead of just rolling out of bed, and when I obey she sets a plate before me bearing an omelet the size of a yule log. She brings a pot of tea to the table, takes a seat across from me, and starts asking me for all the contrada
gossip. I tell her about my big karaoke night, and she hangs on every word as if her own future were riding on the outcome—and then blurts out, “I wish I'd been there!” as though she really, really, really does.

But then she starts asking me for particulars; how so-and-so's job search is going and how somebody else's wife is feeling postsurgery. Most of the people she's mentioning are just names and faces to me, and I feel a sudden sense of unease; it's obvious that Rachel assumes I'm much more intimately connected in the contrada than I am. And why shouldn't she? Haven't I been coming here fairly regularly with just that purpose in mind? And while I'm trying hard to disguise how little I actually know of anyone's state of affairs, she brings out a bag of gifts she's brought for everyone—affectionate, funny tokens that must play off the personality of each recipient because she can't help laughing each time she displays one to me.

A few minutes later Dario wanders downstairs, looking a bit bleary-eyed. He surveys the change in the household and I can tell he's torn between pleasure and apprehension. After all, it
is
nice finally to have the dishes cleared out of the sink—he and I had been eyeing them darkly for the past few days, as though they were uninvited guests who we wished would just leave—but at the same time, he prizes the shaggy randomness of his everyday life, the pleasure to be had in greeting each day on its own terms, and there's none of that to be had in this kind of highly energized atmosphere. Dario is as Dionysian a human being as I've ever met; Rachel, as Apollonian.

I head out to take a stroll, with the excuse that it's my last day and I'd like to say a fond goodbye to the rolling Chianti hills. But really it's to think over this jarring shock I've just
suffered. Rachel—who was introduced to the contrada at the same time I was—has dramatically surpassed me, embracing the community and being embraced in return, in a way I can't even begin to imagine. Possibly it's easier for her because she's a beautiful, vivacious woman, while I'm a stocky bald guy.