The Blooms of Wisteria
by Rozanne Charbonneau
part 1
Liguria, April 2005
Attilio stands under the pergola on his terrace. The vines droop with cascades of wisteria, their petals fragrant with honey and musk. He breathes in and feels richer than any duke. Yesterday, he devised the most devious plan. It is of utmost importance to protect his freedom as a solitary man. Two women are plotting against him. His daughter-in-law, Giuliana and an unsolicited matchmaker, Silvana, a widow from the village of Le Ghiare.
His eyes roam downwards over the hundreds of olive trees clinging to the slopes. Some are tended to. Others are strangled by underbrush and neglect. Only the old lay out the olive nets in December, because no youth will stoop to this backbreaking work.
The modern world begins past this idyll of greenery in the seaside town of Levanto. When fair, its bay of indigo reaches far into the horizon. Yesterday evening, the clouds turned the color of oysters and wept over land and sea. Giant waves shattered into foam against the shore. The rain stopped at dawn. Veils of mist now linger over the precipice of the valley. This is his favorite time, before the sun erases all mystery.
At eighty years old, he has survived one wife and one child. His beloved son, Davide, died of a heart attack six months ago, during a hunt for wild boar. At least they shared this final experience together. Giuliana lives in the village just down the road. She takes it upon herself to visit him every day.
* * *
“You are the only close family I have left, Papà,” she would sometimes say as she stoked the wood-burning stove in his kitchen. Such sentimentality. The nagging would begin at the Formica table right after lunch.
“You should quit smoking and drinking,” she’d warn him, peering at his yellowed fingers. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”
The close-cropped hair on her skull was too masculine for his taste. If he wrapped a laurel branch around it, she’d look like Julius Caesar. He’d take another sip of wine and raise his glass to the emperor. “I toiled in the marble caves for forty years. I never missed a day of work.”
“When is the last time you picked up your mandolin?”
“I played for the dances in the piazzetta all my life. There is no one else left to listen.”
She would then look at the terracotta tiles on the floor. They were uneven from the stream that passed through the earth underneath. “You know I will help you stay here as long as I can, Papà but, at some point, a more comfortable apartment in town might be...”
She seemed to have no feeling for the past. As a teenager, Attilio had knocked down the kitchen wall behind him with his father. They’d hidden casks of olive oil in fresh cement and plastered their sustenance over. Italy, 1943. Everyone had been so desperate, so hungry.
“I was born in this house, and I will die in it. You will never convince me to leave my village, Dosso.” He’s told her many times that she was as exhausting as a second wife.
“Ha! I know plenty of lonely signore who would be happy to take my place,” she would reply, clattering the pans.
* * *
A biscia the color of tin slithers out of the crack in the right-hand corner of the terrace. She has now grown as long as his leg. A harmless animal, but he should still leave a bowl of poisoned milk out for her to drink. She could slip into the house if the French doors are left open for air. She could lay a dozen eggs in her lair.
* * *
After the siesta, Attilio sits most days in front of the green metal door to his cantina, his favorite place for a smoke. The sun beats down on his weathered bench all year round. Yesterday, the last of the crocuses peaked their heads out of the grass. He picked a flower and placed it in his buttonhole. It would fade fast, but no matter.
Giuliana called out to him from the kitchen window. She wanted him to meet her on the terrace immediately. Annoyed, he stamped out his cigarette. “What is she doing here?” he muttered to himself. “I cooked my own lunch today and washed the dishes. Can’t she leave a man in peace?”
Attilio descended the steps on the side of his house to the terrace. Giuliana had now joined a woman standing under the wisteria. He did not recognize her. The blooms hung down like stalactites, sheltering her from the sun. She wore a navy dress over her ample breasts and stomach. Silver strands of hair framed her face. Her skin was fair, with a map of wrinkles on her cheeks. He took a step forward. Her eyes were gray with black flecks. They reminded him of shattered glass. Two wedding rings, one loose and one tight, encircled the third finger of her left hand.
“This is Signora Silvana Barletta. We play bridge together with the other ladies in town on Wednesdays,” said Giuliana. “I just wanted to show her your beautiful view while I look for my lucky cards.”
Silvana turned to Attilio, nervous. “I hope you don’t mind my visit,” she said. “We will play doubles this evening. She must have her lucky cards.”
Giuliana’s matchmaking is sloppy, too obvious. He has told her a hundred times that he does not need female company. What are we supposed to do, fondle each other? The sap has long run dry.
He decided to have a little fun, to play along; “And I am Attilio Perrone. How nice it is to meet you.” He pulled out the metal chair at the table for Silvana. “Coffee is in order, but not without my finest Sciacchetrà.”
Both women looked relieved. Giuliana rushed to the kitchen for the sweet liquor and refreshments.
Attilio passed the biscotti to Silvana and asked her the questions appropriate to their generation. Where did she come from? Was it his imagination or had he seen her in the Levanto market at the stands? She blushed, perhaps at the thought that he might have noticed her. “I come from a village called Le Ghiare at the bottom of the valley,” she said.
“How lovely. I do not think I ever met your late husband.” What a pit, he thought. When it rains, a hundred rivulets of water pour down from the hills into the piazzetta. It lies in the shadows all year long.
“He was an electrician,” she answered, crossing herself. “He died two years ago. We were blessed with two daughters. Both are married, and I have three grandchildren.”
His heart clenched, thinking of his son. “Buon anima,” he said, raising his glass to the dead.
He needed to change the subject. Perhaps he could show her his modest flower garden below the terrace. Giuliana beamed and carried the dishes back to the kitchen.
“The soil on this lower slope is poor,” Attilio said, leading Silvana down the stairs. “Only the hardiest plants survive.”
Dozens of white lantana bushes rambled over the earth. Silvana sighed and ran her fingers over their clusters of flowers. “They are as wide as my dinner plates,” she said.
He pointed to the buds climbing the wall to the left. Jasmine would bloom in May. He would welcome plumbago and agapanthus in June. The lemon and orange trees along the right-hand wall were bare, but the branches of the kumquat tree still offered fruit. Attilio pulled the bottom of his shirt out of his jeans and made a sling. He filled it with citrus for Silvana to take home.
The sun dimmed in the sky. Crickets thrummed their evening song. Back on the terrace, Attilio picked up Silvana’s cardigan with a flourish. He made sure that Giuliana saw how gently he could drape it over the widow’s shoulders. He then thanked this misguided woman for the visit. “Such a lovely way to spend the afternoon.”
It was important to remain chivalrous. Attilio therefore accompanied Silvana and Giuliana through the piazzetta. After eighty years, it seemed no larger than a matrimonial sheet. Pink and yellow houses attached to one another blocked out the sun. The grandmothers were sitting on the chapel stairs for their daily chat. He saw their eyes take Silvana in.
“Buona Sera,” said Silvana.
“Buona Sera,” the old women replied with smiles.
There would be gossip for weeks. Maybe he could pretend Silvana was a distant relative, visiting the village for the first time.
He pointed to the Angel Gabriel and Mary carved into the ancient sheet of slate above the chapel door. “No one knows who brought The Annunciation to Dosso. It must have been stolen from Levanto centuries ago.”
He steered his charges out of the piazzetta before the grandmothers could start a conversation. On the steep road toward the top of the village, Silvana’s shoe hit a rock, and she stumbled. Attilio grabbed her upper arm, steadying her fast. Her skin was dry but soft. She leaned slightly against him and then pulled away. The scent of lavender floated from her neck.
Not a bad smell, but a trap nonetheless.
* * *
His biscia guest zigzags along the end of the terrace, then drops her body over the ledge. Twigs and leaves crackle as she writhes below. She makes her way toward the pond in his neighbor’s garden for breakfast. But he is too fond of the frogs’ chants at night. A drop of arsenic in a bit of long-life milk should do the trick.
* * *
The moment he returned home, he picked up the telephone in the hallway and made a call. “I would be grateful if you could come over right away. I have a favor to ask,” he said.
Ten minutes later, his best friend Luciano sat at the Formica kitchen table across from Attilio, shaking his head. “No good will come of this.”
“Who cares about goodness? This information will put Giuliana in her place for good.”
Attilio had asked Luciano to snoop around Le Ghiare. Through roundabout questions, perhaps he would learn if Silvana respected the old ways after her husband had died. In the villages of Liguria, both men and women left their keys in the front door to indicate that they were home. However, a widow was expected to lock her door from the inside and hang the key around her neck. If she dared to leave it on the outside, it would mean that she was open to gentlemen callers.
“What makes you suspect that she left her key in the front door?”
“Her husband was an electrician. He worked in Levanto. I doubt they paid much attention to tradition. I wager that she left caution to the wind.”
“But you tell me she is only a few years younger than you. What man would be circling her house? Does this detail truly matter?”
Attilio pounded his fist on the table. The refrigerator rattled and hummed. “I live by the old ways. My daughter-in-law understands this. If we find out that Silvana left her key in the door, Giuliana will feel like a fool. She will never bring a woman here to waste my time again.”
Luciano cracked his knuckles. “I know no one in Le Ghiare. The villagers will be suspicious.”
Attilio grinned. “Take a bottle of my Sciacchetrà. After a glass or two, tongues are bound to wag.”
* * *
The mist over the precipice has now disappeared. Attilio sits down in his chair on the terrace and laughs over yesterday’s events. He will beat these women at their game. He has asked a lot of Luciano, but he will return the favor. The water in his neighbor’s pond splashes. Belly full, the biscia will soon return to her hole. He won’t lay out the bowl of poison. She won’t hatch eggs until September. She has the right to eat, just like him.
* * *
The following day, Attilio drives his Ape, a three-wheeler no sturdier than a can of tuna fish, around the hairpin curves toward his village. He is in a good mood. He’s bought pansotti and walnut sauce at the pastaia in town for lunch. Fifty years ago, his wife Bruna would make this triangular ravioli only for Christmas and Easter. Flour was in such short supply. Now he could buy these delicacies any day of the year.
Suddenly, the sound of metal crunching screams in his ears. His body slams to the right and out the door. When he opens his eyes, his cheek is embedded in the earth. Thank God the door was unlocked. Thank God he landed on one of the few soft slopes descending the valley. There are so many deadly drops along this road.
A lizard leaps out of a crevice and flees. The jaws of a metal trap bite down on the leg of a fox only two meters away. Her eyes are still, her mouth is curved up in a grin. He can feel blood trickling down his forehead. People are shouting. An ambulance wails. He turns his eyes to the left. By some miracle, his Ape has landed upright on the top of the slope. A tourist bus full of blond-headed Germans hovers above on his side of the road. “Fröhliche Reise” reads its sign, promising joy. Large vehicles are not allowed on this stretch.
Aryans. Didn’t we have to contend with enough of them during the war?
Darkness seeps like water into his skull.
* * *
Attilio awakes in a bed with sheets as stiff as cardboard. A crucifix hangs on the wall across the room. A crack in the plaster travels close to the savior’s head. It looks like a bolt of lightning.
I am a communist. I have no use for you.
His wife, like all women of his generation, walked over the hills to the village of Montale for church. But Attilio never allowed the greedy priest to bless his house on the days of the saints. His hard-earned money belonged in his own pocket.
His leg is in a cast, hoisted up by a pulley. He smells alcohol. Shoes squeak on the floor in the hallway. A man snores in a bed in the corner of the room.
“Where am I?”
Giuliana grabs his hand. “Oh, Papà. You gave us such a scare.”
Her mouth is close, but her voice sounds far away. His body feels numb, as if it belonged to someone else.
His eyelids grow heavy. The train to Genova will arrive on platform 2. He so wants to show Davide the ships in the harbor...
* * *
When he opens his eyes the next morning, a woman with silver hair is sitting by his bedside. A metal coffeepot and two rolls rest on a tray.
He lifts his fingers to the bandage on his head. “What are we doing here, signora?”
“It’s me, Silvana. Your daughter-in-law will come in a few hours. She asked me to watch over you until she arrives.”
She pours a liquid as light as tobacco spit into a cup. It smells of nothing. Caffè americano. He won’t drink it.
“My leg hurts.”
Silvana clucks her tongue in sympathy. “I will call the nurse.” She slides the plate of rolls closer. They look decent.
“Should you be here? Don’t you have a house to take care of?”
She waves away his concern. “My daughters will pick me up at midday. We will stop at L’Abetaia for lunch.”
And where is my son?
* * *
Dawn had just broken. Attilio and Davide tiptoed through the November mist on the path to Bardellone. Davide pointed to empty chestnut husks scattered over the pine needles near their feet. The boars would be sleeping in the bushes on the slope below. They took their positions and waited. The rest of the men and dogs would arrive soon. They shot eighteen of the beasts that day by sundown. Only one bitch was gored and sent to the vet.
They butchered their prey in the garage embedded in the hill, its interior a fluorescent wound in the darkness. Attilio was the leader of the squad. He commanded respect from all the men. He even knew how to handle fat Armando, who always wanted the lion’s share. Before fists began to fly, he would send this fool to La Spezia with the livers, each packed in a separate container. The lab for disease control there was open all night during the season. “I don’t trust anyone else with these innards, young man. Our lives are in your hands,” he would tell him each week.
After the men hosed down the last liter of blood from the floor, Attilio and Davide returned home to his cantina. They sipped Sciacchetrà and smoked until midnight. Few words were needed.
Oh, what he would do to bring him back.
* * *
Copyright © 2024 by Rozanne Charbonneau
