Seven Seasons in Siena (29 page)

After the extraction, the only imaginable way to spend the day is in analyzing its results with every single human being you encounter, so we find ourselves at Bar Macario, where I follow about ninety seconds of the discussion before the speculations and arguments pile up in my head and I take refuge in a series of prosecchi. Then on to the nameless
sala da tè
, where in addition to the prosecco I have the pleasure of the company of Milo, a beagle who has the distinction of being the only dog allowed in Società L'Alba.

And then of course, on down to the Bruco garden for more discussion and a few more prosecchi. Suddenly I'm remembering the endurance test for the liver that accompanies each day of the Palio week. I'm feeling perilously wonky, and it's not even dusk yet. Fortunately, at this point a water fight breaks out in the garden, with the more raucous brucaioli squirting, spraying, and dousing each other with furious energy. I'm doing my best to steer clear, but eventually someone dumps an entire pitcher over my head, the result of which is instant clarity. Or perhaps not quite so instant; it takes me thirty seconds to remember that I've got precision electronics in the pockets of my now-sodden jeans. In typical contrada fashion, the very guys who assaulted me are soon helping me wipe the moisture off my iPod and iPhone and apologizing like crazy.

I'm invited to dinner at Barbocce tonight, but I don't have time to go back and change, so I arrive in a state of warm dampness. There's so much humidity radiating from me, I'm surprised windows don't fog as I pass. But I wear my sodden clothes like a badge of honor, because in the eyes of the brucaioli, I've graduated from utter invisibility to acceptable target.

The next morning, I'm only slightly less sanguine. Dario is busy with clients today, but I manage to make it back to Siena in time to watch my first prova, in which Virginio acquits himself handsomely. Then I go on to dinner in the contrada. I seat myself across from someone I haven't met before: Michele, a Roman blood pathologist who works for the contrada, monitoring the horses. After all this time, I still seem to gravitate toward my fellow
stranieri
. Michele and I have an animated discussion, because he'll be coming to America as part of an Italian contingent to the Kentucky Derby, and he doesn't know what to expect. I do all I can to convey to him that the Derby is so different from the Palio that it might as well be on another planet.

Luigina swings by after the dolce, bringing with her a gush of authenticity, and we have a long literary dicussion, about sixty-five percent of which I actually understand. After that I catch up with Daniele at the bar. It's one of my best nights ever in the Società. I've talked almost the whole night, just like an honest-to-God brucaiolo.

That's about the extent of the socializing I'm going to get, because the following night is the big
cena della prova generale—
the Palio-eve dinner that's the most attended in the contrada year. There are more than two thousand people in the garden, and Dario and I are again assigned the wine duties—which,
this year, begin with unloading the cartons off the delivery truck. Dario suggested bringing along a second shirt, which is fortunate because the heat and humidity are so oppressive that I've perspired right through my first one before the truck has even pulled away.

My American friends are a little bewildered by my unavailability. I try to give them as much of my time as I can, but my wine duties are pretty demanding; Dario and I have about six hundred bottles to open for the dinner tonight, and we're armed only with handheld corkscrews (the professional wall-mounted opener is still broken due to an unfortunate mishap last year). It's especially frustrating because the wine was just bottled this morning; there's something dizzyingly absurd about two grown men working like maniacs to pull out hundreds of corks that were only just inserted a few hours earlier.

I do slip away long enough to escort my friends to the blessing of the drappellone at the Church of Provenzano; then on to watch the horses being led into the Campo for the prova generale. This is always very exciting, because the energy level is at about solar-flare intensity; but the bottleneck outside the piazza, where we're situated, proves potentially perilous when one of the horses quite literally kicks up a ruckus. No one is hurt, but you realize how easy it would be for someone to be crushed against the wall here—or trampled underfoot. It's only the innate sangfroid of the Sienese that prevents this; they seem utterly immune to any form of panic. For all I know, there's some folk belief that getting your teeth kicked in by a flying hoof is good luck for your contrada.

After the prova, we have a few drinks to cool down (the heat level has ratcheted up again, from hair dryer to blowtorch),
then it's on to the big dinner. From my vantage point behind the wine table, it goes by in a blur; perhaps because we're so ridiculously busy. Before the meat course has even been served, people have sucked dry most of the bottles we've opened, and we're kept frantically busy uncorking new ones. The Caterpillar teenagers, who are doing table service, swarm around us waiting for us to hand them enough bottles to run back to their thirsty customers. Dario has brought panama hats for us to wear—a little visual signature—but I keep having to doff mine, sneak back into the storeroom, and shove my head under a running faucet to cool down. Either the heat or the pressure alone would've been enough to wring me out like a dishrag; in tandem, they've made me a gloppy mess.

While we're madly uncorking, I try to maintain some awareness of how the dinner is going. The atmosphere is relaxed, genial; no one has a serious expectation of a victory tomorrow and will be happy to see it go to the Shell. In short, the brucaioli seem contented to coast through this Palio. It doesn't even cause much of a stir when Virginio declines—probably due to shyness—to speak the few humble words that are customary for the jockey at this event.

The mood remains fixed at this even pitch; there's no escalation to the more extreme transports of celebration. Everyone is well behaved. Caio Buio passes out, true, but Caio Buio always passes out. While he's unconscious, someone draws on his face with a marker, giving him muttonchop sideburns, a handlebar mustache, and a Lone Ranger mask. When he comes to he doesn't realize this and wanders around the garden to the general hilarity of all who see him. I consider letting him know, but I don't want to spoil everyone else's fun. The next time I spot him, an hour or so later, he's scrubbed
himself clean, and doesn't seem at all abashed. That's the way it is here. That's the contrada.

THE DAY OF THE PALIO ARRIVES
. We pile into the bleachers; in addition to the group I've now come to refer to as the Various Americans (comprising my friends and Dario's clients), there's a group of bruciaioli: Paolino, Katia, Rachel, a few others. The historical procession proceeds as usual, with the hilarious exception that the Dragon has recruited all its ugliest men to take part in protest over the dragophobic drappellone.

Just before the fantini come out, Dario—who's seated behind me—leans forward and whispers, “After the race, jump over the railing; we're to help protect Virginio if he requires it.”

I turn, somewhat alarmed, and ask, “Protect him from what?”

“If he's perceived as having blocked any contrada's jockey or helped another's enemy, they might try to take revenge on him.” Perhaps seeing the look of manga-style incredulity on my face—you could park a sixteen-wheeler in my gaping mouth—he adds, “It probably won't happen. But be ready.” What he's telling me is, Be ready to take part in a brawl.

I've only ever been involved in one actual physical altercation, which involved someone at a concert ending his disagreement with me over his place in line by ramming the ball of his hand into my chin. It was completely unexpected and disorienting and humiliating and, oh yeah, let's not forget,
painful
, and in fact it remains one of the most awful experiences of my life. Now I'm expected to be on the lookout for
a whole mosh pit of that kind of activity and fling myself into it like goddamn Spider-Man? I'm middle-aged, for God's sake! I have expensive dental bridgework! I wear prescription glasses! In designer frames!

So how much do I really want to be a Caterpillar? Can I do this?
Will
I do this? I take a deep breath and steel myself. All right, then. Fine. Whatever it takes.

Anyway, here they come now: the fantini, riding out from Palazzo Pubblico, each one taking a nerbo as he passes onto the Campo. They all seem to radiate confidence and power. I remember that this year, for the first time, the jockeys have been subjected to a prerace alcohol test, though it seems to me the worst that could happen to a tipsy fantino is that he'd fall off.

There's absolute silence as the lineup is announced. The Tower is in tenth place—the rincorsa, who will determine by his own entry when the race begins. It's almost certain that he'll do so when the moment is most opportune for the Shell.

Yet nothing is ever certain in the Palio. After a fractious and nerve-shredding hour at the mossa, during which the riders and mounts behave with all the mathematical precision of bumper cars, the Tower inexplicably chooses to begin the race when the best-situated jockey is—his enemy, the Wave. It's a pretty epic fail, as the Wave takes an early and pretty impressive lead. I'm guessing the Tower jockey might need a little protection himself after this is over.

It's looking a lot as though the Wave might take the race, especially after wipeouts by both the Eagle and the Unicorn (hair-raising to watch, though no one is actually hurt); but here's Trecciolino for the Shell, coming up like white lightning; and though it's true that everybody does seem to make
way for him—the advantage of all that (ahem) “strategy”—I have to say, it's a pretty goddamn impressive performance. He just keeps thundering ahead; any faster, and he'd break the sound barrier. Before you know it, he's bypassed the Wave.…

 … but so has the Forest. Just as Dario predicted, no one has given much thought to that contrada, and without anyone really working for or against it, its jockey—the twenty-six-year-old Voglia—is free to go all out for the win, which despite Trecciolino's superhuman effort, he does, propelling Fedora Saura right past the finish line.

And the Shell? Right on his tail—second place. The absolute worst of all possible outcomes. In fact, someone close to me comments, “The Shell is covered in shit!” The looks on the faces of the Shell contradaioli range from numbness to shock; grief hasn't set in yet. But it will.

There's no lag time for the jubilation being felt by the Shell's rival, the Ram—its members are especially exultant because Trecciolino is one of their own, and thus his agreement to sell his services to the Shell has been seen as a betrayal. (There's even a rumor floating about that the Ram helped bankroll the Forest's victory.) I like Gigi Bruschelli a lot; I respect him; and more than that, as an older man myself, I would have relished seeing him win another Palio while in his forties. But as it happens, everything has turned out wrong for him; especially since Voglia, the young victor, is one of a new generation of fantini who have come from outside Trecciolino's sphere of influence. I'm suddenly reminded of Cianchino, who saw so clearly the writing on the wall that ended his own career.

But I believe in Trecciolino. Having met him, I've experienced
the quiet indomitability he wears like an aura. This can't be the end.

The Bruco's essential irrelevancy to today's events leaves me feeling strangely unsatisfied. Hell, at this point I might even welcome a bit of a tussle, even a black eye to wear home with honor; but Virginio finished so far in the rear that it's clear he neither helped nor hindered anyone and so needs no one's protection.

Back at Società L'Alba, I find it hard to keep up with all the chatter—the endless dissection of the race and what to expect from whom from now on.

I make my way around the garden, mortally offending two brucaioli by not remembering having met them before. I run into Peggy, and she asks me if I'd do her the favor of taking a photo of her and her friends. I agree, but once I have the camera in my hands I can't make head or tail of it. It's as if I've never seen anything like it in my life before. I might as well be holding an astrolabe or a Chinese puzzle box.

Even worse, I spot Silvia leaving and, realizing that this may be the last time I see her, I resolve to overcome my shyness and awe and tell her how much I respect her and how grateful I am for the warmth and hospitality I've been shown every time I've come here. That's my
intention
, anyway, but when I corner her on the stairs, it seems to take a lot longer coming out of my mouth, and though she's very gracious through it all, I have to wonder afterward what exactly I said and whether in my concern to leave room for people to pass behind me I leaned too far into her personal space, and whether in Italy they have the concept of the restraining order.