Chapter 1 #9
“He says whoever put the hat on the bed has to touch the palle of a nearby man.”
“What is a palle?” I asked.
“The testicles.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
“That can’t be what he said.”
“He’s quite sure,” she said resolutely. “And I am not yet deaf.”
I searched my limited experience of life to sense whether this was of great cultural importance or something entirely of her own invention and thus another test of my employment. I asked if perhaps I myself could be the nearby man.
She raised her eyebrows and applied more Italian to the phone. A pause as she pursed her lips.
“Apparently not,” she reported. “Grazie, Luciano,” she said into the phone before handing it to me. I pushed the little button to hang up, but she was busy walking to the door. “Now who is nearby? Quickly! Someone will die!” Her face lit up. “We have Gazelle!”
I put out my hands. “I’m not touching his testicles, I’m sorry.”
“Or Vinsanto!” she said, a finger to her chin. “He’s not bad-looking.”
I explained he had left to drop off her friend.
She put one hand on my arm. “Well, we can’t wait around. A hat on the bed means death. Unless you find another man, I’m afraid it has to be Gazelle. I’m sure he won’t mind, and you may do it through the trousers. He’s always up for anything. Go, now, quickly!”
“Are you serious?”
She turned like those Venetian statues that swivel in the wind, presenting the full aura of her righteousness to me. “Young man. You do not understand Italy. Touch Gazelle’s palle or I will send you back to Washington.”
It was the most absurd sentence I had ever heard in my life. Somehow I could not find it funny. I walked out slightly stunned and got halfway to the chicken coop, but we will never know if I would have gone through with it, for I heard the Baronessa’s distinctive call:
“Koo-koo! Koo-koo!”
I shouted “Yes?” and saw her pop out into the courtyard with a man in a jacket and a fedora.
“Giovedì! You may return! The matter is solved!” she announced with her mischievous grin, gesturing to the man, who tipped his hat. “My friend Oscar has arrived!”
All my ideas about life in a villa, especially life with a baronessa, seemed now like the foolish thoughts of a tourist who has not bothered to read his Baedeker’s.
Antique paneled walls and crystal chandeliers?
My reality was hand-painted animals and lamps that looked plucked from a pirate ship.
Servants to iron my bedding and draw a hot bath?
My mattress was “grumeleux,” the bath had hardly any hot water, and, in any case, I was a servant myself.
As for elegance and style, they were all around, but with the opalescence of a soap bubble—glimmering, gorgeous, trichroic—bursting when one is compelled by duty.
Such as the last thing I wanted to do: touch the nearest man’s palle.
Luckily, the Baronessa’s friend was an accommodating partner in removing the curse, as well as amused.
Oscar and I adjourned to the little studio decorated with seaside scenes.
He removed his fedora (delicately placed on a table), revealing a bald crown that had seen many days in the sun.
The silver hair above his ears was carefully trimmed, as everything about him was careful and deliberate, from the chestnut ascot, cobalt polka-dotted, to the chardonnay jacket and claret trousers, to the mustard-yellow socks.
I would later learn that he believed the secret to growing old was to “always have a nice smile and a nice smell,” meaning to keep oneself pleasant to be around.
He certainly was, and he was as generous with his smile as he was with advice to young Americans.
He smelled of rose and old leather and carried a few packages wrapped in brown paper, the size of large books.
Here, I hoped, might at last be a reasonable person to consult.
“Young man, a favor I must ask.” His accent was distinctly British, but not the posh upper class of the princess; he talked like the voice of the London Tube, and it instantly put me at ease. “You are here to make this catalog for our friend.”
I said the rooms were apparently not ready.
“Don’t worry too much about detail. Paintings like this, no need to do anything more than describe them.”
“Am I making a record for her estate?”
“Her estate?” he asked, surprised.
I explained that since she was ninety-two—
“Yes! I had forgotten. I am certain Estelle has explained everything.”
I said that she certainly had not.
“Do you know where I met Lisabetta?” he said, quickly switching topics. “At an auction!”
I asked what had been on auction and he pointed to himself. I apologized and said I had not realized he was an artist.
“I have a very special but very minor talent,” he said. “But Lisabetta found a place for me.”
“Is some of your work in the house?”
He raised his eyebrows and said it certainly was, then deflected the conversation back to the matter at hand: “Do you know why a hat on the bed is bad luck? Here is why. In the old days, when a person was dying, the priest would come and sit to give last rites. And every time, he would put his hat on the bed. You see? His hat on the bed. Then, later, that person would die. And what do you think killed them? Well, it was the hat.” He laughed merrily. “Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
There came a shout from the courtyard—“Pronto!”—that I recognized as Nimali’s, but Oscar didn’t seem in a hurry to attend to lunch.
Instead, he asked me a little about my background.
I told him I was a typical American, born to two scientists in the suburbs of our nation’s capital and educated in the suburbs of a Puritan city, and had been to Europe only once, when I was twelve, on a trip focused mainly on visiting my supposed ancestral home in Scotland, with London and Paris thrown in for good measure.
He nodded gravely, as if I had told him I’d been raised by mountain gorillas.
“Lisabetta and I were good friends in our distant youth on Capri,” he said. “We had some fine adventures! And got into not a little trouble.”
“By the way, my name’s not really—”
“Shall we see what is for lunch?”
I suggested we should first perform the countercurse.
He laughed, showing his straight white teeth. “A gesture is as good as a deed,” he said, adding that I had merely to touch his trousers. “Listen, I know my old friend is not always easy. There may come a point when you want to leave.”
I stared at him. After all, I just spent a day with a pozzo and a princess, trying so hard to be allowed to stay…
“There will be one, I promise,” he said, then smiled. “But do not go. As a favor to me and to yourself. It will be worth whatever trouble you have to go through.”
I agreed and very lightly touched his trousers with my fingers. He laughed. And so we snatched one day from death.
We found the Baronessa already seated at the luncheon table in the arcade, chattering in French with Estelle.
The wisteria hung in the courtyard, following the arch, and framed them like a Fragonard.
Our arrival did not stop the conversation, but Estelle did stand up and gesture for me to sit between her and my employer, who seemed to be telling a story at length.
Estelle had her hair up in a white headscarf and wore a loose linen dress, almost a poncho, in its natural dusty hue.
She sent me what looked like a conspiratorial glance, but I could not imagine what we could conspire about, unless it was the faina, and anyway, since we were at that moment sitting down to lunch, how I was meant to do anything about it.
Oscar took his position opposite me, and I saw that before him, instead of a white plate like ours, sat a bowl shaped like a head of cabbage and, in it, an enormous multicolored salad.
Nimali stood beside the table in a pink apron, holding a bowl of pasta.
Her glare was one of extreme impatience.
“Lisabetta, it is done,” Oscar announced, gesturing to me. Somehow overtaken by the theatricality of it all, I found myself giving a little bow.
The Baronessa smiled and said to me: “That is all very well, but you must come instantly when Nimali says ‘pronto’! The pasta will now be overcooked.”
I apologized to her and to Nimali, who held the bowl out for Estelle to serve herself.
“Giovedì,” said the Baronessa, “you must learn the rules of the Italian table. First is the oldest female guest, our very young Estelle. Then to our eldest man, who would be Oscar, if he were eating pasta. You will be next and you may blame it on your youth. Then I, the host, am last.”
Oscar leaned over with a merry smile: “Oh, but it’s secretly the best! We call it the priest’s portion. His humility forces him to eat after everyone else—but we all know the sauce is at the bottom! So the priest gets the best bite of all.” The Baronessa seemed amused.
Certainly it was true of the second-to-last bite; spaghetti dotted with mussels, clams, shrimp, and parsley, fragrant with garlic, and my portion was delicious.
The pugs pushed at my legs, hopeful for a morsel.
I found myself looking around the table, and the Baronessa caught my eye.
“He is looking for cheese!” I sat up straight in confusion; this was hardly my first Italian meal, but heretofore there had always been—
“No cheese with fish!” Estelle said, slapping my hand playfully. “Never never never!”
“And no using the spoon!” interjected the Baronessa.
I sat up haughtily. “I think you’re just making up rules.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Oscar said cheerfully. “Have you ever seen cows in a fishing village?”
Having never seen a fishing village, I said no.
“Or clams in the mountains?”
The mere idea made me smile.