Chapter 5
It turns out that riding a scooter is not like riding a bike.
Poor Nico. This guy clearly has the patience of a saint.
My little marigold scooter is not as sweet as she appears.
Figuring out how to go forward without going too fast forward, and turning enough but not too much, is a process.
It’s a process that takes me at least twenty minutes to practice enough where I’m comfortable going on a real road.
I’d guess it normally should take less than ten minutes to drive to Nico’s farm, but I’m grateful he’s not in a rush, because having me accompany him has stretched that time significantly.
When we finally pull up into the driveway of a small house, I take off the helmet Flavia left with the bike.
It was kind of her to include it, even though it’s clearly made for a large man who’s never used it, and seems more like a liability than a safety measure.
I guess finding a store with a helmet that fits is my next activity in a day that’s been much more eventful than I initially hoped.
But when I remove the key to get my rumbly new ride to turn off, all those thoughts dissipate as I’m blanketed by the quiet here.
Nico’s house is like an entryway; fields with olive trees as far as the eye can see stretch behind us.
But it all starts at a little friendly stone cottage with a rounded wooden door.
It’s more whimsical than the houses in town: more bowed and singular.
There’s a beaten-up wooden outdoor table with chairs off to the side, and a few boulders that seem to be for sitting and staring into the groves.
It’s all so beautiful in its simplicity, tucked away from town like a shell you find hidden on a beach.
“You feel okay after that ride?” Nico asks, and I turn back toward him.
“Oh sure,” I bluster. “Once I got the hang of it.”
“You did great,” he says kindly. “It takes a bit of practice to get used to anything new.” Ain’t that the truth.
“Is this all your land?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Yeah, it is now,” he says as he starts walking around the house.
I follow, and we walk for a few minutes in companionable silence until we’re deeper in among the trees.
He projects a stillness that fits with the seemingly unending nature of the grove.
And the setting makes my body calm down a little bit around him, which I’m exceptionally grateful for.
“So,” he finally says. “This is sort of all there is to an olive grove. There isn’t much action here.” His words are unnecessarily modest. No one would need action here, since it’s so incredibly beautiful.
Weedy, vivid green grass lines the sloping ground, and every few feet is a gnarled bushy olive tree.
They look like a character you’d fall in love with from a Tim Burton movie—slightly gangly and awkward in their stance but impossible not to feel affection for.
Maybe it’s the fact that their leaves are almost like needles.
It gives the trees a dichotomy of being lush and thinned.
And their silver-green color makes them seem muted next to the vibrancy of the grass surrounding the trees.
Up close, the trunks are a lighter ashy color, more bent and rippled than the typical base of a tree. And across every defined spindly branch are tiny globes, waiting to ripen, grow, and become recognizable as olives.
“I’ve never looked at olive trees this close before. They’re kind of unusual,” I remark.
He gives me a soft smile, seeming to understand that it was a compliment and enjoying my realization.
“Yeah, there really isn’t anything else like an olive tree.
For one, they grow all over the world, in many climates and soils.
And second, they’re true survivors. They don’t need humans or any special intervention to make them thrive.
If there’s a drought, they don’t die; the olives are just a bit smaller that season.
They’re pretty incredible plants, really. ”
“So what exactly do they need you for?” I rib.
He barks out a laugh and gives me a mischievous grin.
“I think that all the time. There’s not much to do here eleven months out of the year, other than watch the trees grow.
We can’t do anything more than leave them alone, and whatever the weather is that year, then that’s what it is.
Some of the oldest trees here are eight hundred to a thousand years old, so it would be ridiculous to think we’re actually doing anything. ”
“Which ones?” I ask, curious. He starts walking, and I naturally follow.
We get to a more open field, with the trees spaced a little farther apart. These trees are a bit wider, more pocks and winding roots, the age showing in the beauty of their curves. “Do they still produce as many olives?”
“Oh yeah,” he says. “There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference once they’ve reached maturity.”
“So seriously, what’s the point of you?” I cheekily press, and he gives me that loud barking laugh again. It does something to me, that laugh, as though it fills me up with its joy and makes me want to get it out of him another time.
“None, really. My job is all in making the oil. I think that’s where the real differences come in, frankly. The olives are important but not as important as what you do with them to get oil.”
“How often do you make the oil?”
“We basically do everything in one month.”
“That’s it?” I exclaim. “For the whole year?”
“Yeah, in October we harvest our own trees and we get in others’ harvests to the mill, and we’re making the oil for about a month. That’s our oil for the year—we have a distributor who sells it once it’s bottled. But yeah . . . there’s not much more to it.”
“Nice life you have here,” I say, and he shyly grins in agreement.
But as if the whole thing couldn’t get more charming, a small tan dog runs up to us as we keep walking. He’s so excited to see Nico that he’s jumping and spinning at the same time, yipping with glee, his tiny stub of a tail whisking back and forth so wildly it’s become a blur.
If I thought I saw Nico’s smile before, the arrival of this little rascal elicits a whole new category.
He crouches down and lets the dog lick every inch of his face.
They’re a study in opposites that fit together—Nico a stoic, unmoving giant with a quiet expression, and a tiny, playful, solid mass wriggling with his tongue everywhere, his emotions bursting from his whole body.
“This is Luce,” he says, finally picking up the dog, who’s now breathing heavily and happily from his exertion.
“Loo-chay?” I ask, trying to pronounce it properly.
“It means ‘light.’” He’s looking at Luce with adoration, and I can see how this firecracker creature could be a shining beacon for someone.
Luce looks over at me, his eyes bright. He has a face so cute it reminds me of a stuffed animal, covered with short, wiry light-brown fur.
He’s the same color all over except for a bit of darkness around his nose and on the tips of his tiny flopped-over, V-shaped ears.
If I was going to make a cartoon dog to appeal to small children, this is probably how I’d draw him.
He tilts his head joyfully, as though he’s checking me out.
I put my hand out for him, and he immediately licks it, the wetness of his black button nose and the whiskers on his chin tickling me.
“He’s kind of goofy,” I admit.
“He’s extremely goofy,” Nico concurs, the grin still in place as he rubs Luce’s head.
“Where did he come from?”
“In general or right now?”
“I meant right now, since he seemed to pop in out of nowhere, but also generally.”
“Well, he’s a border terrier, so he’s an English breed, but he’s fully integrated into his Italian lifestyle,” Nico explains. “Which means he has full run of the fields and loves to bound around, making sure everything’s in order. He thinks he’s in charge, and maybe he is.”
“Maybe no one’s told him there’s actually nothing to do most of the time.”
Nico snorts a laugh. “Yeah, he’s still under the delusion that we might have some control over things here.”
He puts Luce down, and we start to slowly meander after him.
I’m uncomfortable with how much my brain refuses to stop seeing this whole scene as attractive.
If my instinctual reaction found the rolled-up sleeves enticing before, he made the sensation multiply by cradling a small dog.
And walking alongside him, our long strides matching up, feels so effortless.
He’s effortless. I’m imagining his wife must be as offhandedly elegant as he is, the way I know Anita is too.
And that rational thought helps me shake the rest of it off.
We stop at a wooden fence that’s clearly more decorative than useful, since the gate that accompanies it is open.
On either side are cows unlike any I’ve ever seen.
They’re a whitish-gray color, with two horns sticking out, curved into a half moon and close to horizontal.
Their shape is a little more streamlined than the cows I’m used to.
“So this is the fence between my place and Gia’s,” he explains.
I’m surprised to not have realized. “You’re neighbors?”
He nods, his grin turning more mischievous.
“Oh yes. This was my grandfather’s farm, and he and Gia’s family have buttressed against each other forever.
But she and I have always been simpatico.
I let her cows graze on my fields, and she lets Luce bother her in the few moments she’s actually at home.
It’s a perfect symbiosis for both of us. ”
“What are these cows?” I ask, still unable to stop looking at the ethereal gargantuan beasts dotting the fields.
“They’re Maremma cattle—they’re a local breed. Historically, the breed used to feed on marshlands in the wild, but now people keep them because they do so well in the harder terrain. We use them for beef, of course, but also to help us keep this feral land under some level of control.”