Seven Seasons in Siena (3 page)

Yet the brucaioli not only listened, they engaged. They laughed and applauded and whistled and called out comments. Again, even the teenagers were on board. I caught some of them standing on their chairs so they could get a better view of the guy at the podium. Just some middle-aged dude in a suit and tie; nothing at all remarkable about him. But they were all hanging on his every word, in a way you almost never encounter in America, where listening is just what you pretend to do while waiting your turn to speak. Some of the teens were even showing real emotion; you could see the tears on their faces reflected in the flickering light. I couldn't imagine what kind of magnificent oratory could so move them. (Later I asked Dario; he told me it was just the usual boilerplate stuff—“Whatever happens tomorrow, we will leave the piazza with our heads held high,” and so on.)

I hadn't been able to get all those images and observations out of my head; all day long, back at the villa we'd rented in the Tuscan countryside, they'd played over and over in my memory. I'd had no idea then, of course, that I'd be returning so soon and in the midst of a huge contingent of the very natives I'd been studying from afar, every one of them now suffused with a kind of sacred mania.

When we finally arrive, the Caterpillar district is churning with color—not only the blue, green, and gold of the contrada but the various hues of its allies, who have come to help celebrate the victory. Everywhere people are sucking on pacifiers—actual infant pacifiers, as though the entire community has commenced teething several decades late—because, as Dario explained, a Palio victory is a kind of rebirth. Grown men are openly weeping. I see a pair of fashionable young women clutching each other in an almost desperate embrace, from which they don't disentangle themselves the entire time my eyes are on them. Children ride on their father's shoulders, and teenagers pass through the crowd with liter jugs of red wine, which they cheerfully dispense to anyone who presents an empty cup.

Suddenly the weight of the throng increases, as though we're being wrung through a presser; I'm forced back against the chill stone walls of the buildings lining the street. My first thought is that the crowd has parted to allow a car to pass; then I remember that none is allowed within the old city center. A drumroll rises above the homogeneous din and increases in volume, till I realize that a small parade has formed. As it passes I see some of the contrada youth in historic dress—caps and boots, doublets and hose—marching by waving their flag to and fro, to and fro. These are the esteemed
alfieri
. One of their banners sweeps over my head and glances across my brow, like a furtive kiss. The drummer brings up the rear, and when he's passed by the crowd expands, as if exhaling; I find I can move again.

As I allow the surge of the crowd to carry me along, the sound of the drum is replaced by a lusty incantation of a victory song by an impromptu choir of several dozen voices,
most of them either stone drunk or well on the way. Despite the slurring I can just make out the words:

I'm left wondering about that reference to laxatives: is it an idiomatic expression, or do the losers really punish themselves with the trots? (I'll later learn that in fact they do exactly that, to quite literally purge themselves of the shame. No,
seriously
.) I'm still contemplating it when several of the men in my vicinity take a sharp turn against the tide, as it were. I'm bumped one way, then another, and in the process am completely turned around. Several other people suffer the same incapacity, so that for a few moments we're all stepping on one another's toes as we try to reorient ourselves.

One of them, a young woman with long black hair and large, luminous green eyes, offers a brief apology, then grins widely and adds a little coda. My jaw drops, because what I think I've just heard is
“Siamo andati in culo a tutti”
—basically, “Now we're up everyone's ass!” I say to her, in my best Italian, “I'm sorry, could you repeat that?”

“Ah,” she replies in English—clearly my best Italian isn't good enough—“you are an American.”

“Yes,” I say, fingering the fazzoletto around my neck and adding, “but a friend to the Caterpillar.”

“You came from America for this Palio?”

“Just for this, yes.”

“You have brought good luck,” she says, and she removes something from around her own neck, something I haven't noticed before: a pacifier strung on a ribbon. She presents it to me.

I feel suddenly abashed. “Thank you,” I say, and just as I'm about to take it from her, she gives it a twist; the little plastic grip is suddenly animated by blinking lights.

I laugh in appreciation.
“Grazie, grazie,”
I say.

The current of the crowd carries us along together.

“My name's Rob,” I say. “Roberto. Robert.” Jesus, I'm giving her multiple choice here. The excitement's gone to my head.

“Beatrice,” she says, pronouncing it in the Italian manner—Bay-ah-TREE-chay. She offers her hand, and after I shake it she says, “You are here all by yourself?”

“No, I'm with a friend. We got separated at the Duomo, but I think he'll know where to find me. We were here last night, at the dinner.”

She looks at me with a slightly higher regard. “So you really are a friend of the Bruco.”

“I have another friend—almost a brother—who is one of you. He invited us.” I mention Dario's name, on the chance that she might recognize it; she nods in a way that means she's either heard of him or knows him very well or doesn't know him at all—it's hard to say. The Sienese are like that; a bit guarded even at their most open.

We suddenly find ourselves before the stone grotto that marks the very epicenter of the Caterpillar district. She asks, “And what do you think of us?”

“I think you're wonderful,” I tell her, meaning it. “The ideal society.”

“We think so too,” she says, and there's no swagger in her voice, no puffed-up pride; nor any obsequious gratitude for my validation or condescending affirmation of my good taste. For a moment the guard is down, and what lies behind it is beguiling in its plainness. Courtesy and civic pride. That's all. I didn't know they still made people like this.

“And also,” I add, “yes, I agree, you are now up everyone's ass.”

She flicks my fazzoletto and says, “You too.”

A moment later she's engulfed by a trio of friends and is led away by them; and I myself am driven toward Via del Comune, the street on which the Caterpillar headquarters is located. As soon as I round the corner, it's as if night changes to day; the entire street is lit up like a football stadium—only not by industrial floodlights but by innumerable lamps, sconces, torches, and streetlights. People are crammed into every window overlooking the scene, as hundreds of brucaioli and well-wishers stream to and fro, embracing each other and laughing and drinking and dancing, while the chapel bell clangs, clangs, clangs, like a baby with a wooden spoon banging on a pot; it's that kind of joyousness—bold and insistent and not even close to being tired yet.

I start down the street—and when I say “down,” I mean literally; the length of Via del Comune runs at as close to a twenty-degree angle as makes no difference—and am fast closing in on the contrada headquarters, which is bound to be
ground zero for unfettered Caterpillar glee. I can't wait to see it, can't wait to walk out onto the balcony overlooking the gardens where, just last night, two thousand people sat at tables, serenely feasting, while speeches were spoken and songs were sung and food was served and plates were cleared, and where tonight the scene must be entirely different: a chaos of surging, wine-stoked boisterousness, formless and free-flowing. Last night was the contrada at its most functional; tonight I'll see it with its hair down.

Except that my enthusiasm overruns my caution. I've barely made it to the entrance when a group of young bucks, loud and slap-happy, get into a playful shoving match; I should step back, out of their way, but I'm so close … one of them loses his footing and knocks into me, spilling a cup of wine over my shirtfront. He's immediately apologetic, but the damage is done; I'm drenched, and I can feel the wine slowly seeping past my waistband.

I take a few moments to consider whether I might still proceed as planned: insinuate myself into the festivities, drink in all the sights and sounds and sensations. But despite sporting the Bruco fazzoletto, I'm an outsider; I don't know anyone here, and I'd hoped to cloak myself in invisibility—rely on my ability to move among these people unnoticed, the better to see them as they really are. I can scarcely do that now, with a splatter of warm wine clinging to me like blood. Anyone might presume I've just been shot in the stomach.

Reluctantly I head back up Via del Comune, hoping to run into Jeffrey somewhere on the way. Which I do, at the top of the street; he appears with a look both irritated and relieved. “I thought I might find you here,” he says.

“I figured you would,” I reply, panting from my climb.

“What happened?”

“I got carried away by a crowd of people at the Duomo. Seriously, at one point my feet weren't even touching the ground; I was dangling like a marionette.”

“No, I mean, there.” He points to my belly.

“Someone spilled wine on me. He was nice about it.”

“You ready to go, then?”

I look back down the street—more and more people passing us by, flinging themselves bodily into the festivities like badminton birdies. “I guess so,” I say. “I'd love to stay and check this out, but it's trickling down into my crotch now.” I screw up my face in disgust and tug at my zipper to create a little pocket of air—as though this will help dry out my nether regions. No such luck.

As we head back toward the city center, Jeffrey notices my pacifier. “Where'd you get that?”

“Gift,” I tell him, dangling it before me. “From a Caterpillar gal. To thank me for bringing good luck.” I twist the grip, and it lights up.

He laughs. “No way.”

“Way. She also told me we were ‘up the ass of everybody.' ”

“I bet that sounds a hell of a lot better in Italian.”

“What doesn't?”

At the end of Via dei Rossi, where the Caterpillar district ends, I take another look back, long and regretful. And then I let go. Sometimes it's all you can do.

WE SPEND THE NEXT
few days touring the neighboring towns—Montalcino, San Gimignano, Colle di Val d'Elsa, but
not Poggibonsi—and indulging in wine tastings at local vineyards. Then comes the night before our departure, when we've packed up all our suitcases and set them in the hall for the morning, and we have to decide what to do about dinner. The refrigerator is empty, so I say, “Let's go to Siena. We know we can get a good meal there.”

And we do, at one of our favorite restaurants, Da Nello. We've got the place to ourselves, since we're dining ridiculously early—we have to, in order to get on the road tomorrow in time to make our flight. The light of early evening is still golden as we depart, so we head to the Campo to take in, one last time, the sheer splendor of the place.

It becomes apparent even before we reach the piazza that something's going on there. We hear the staccato report of drums, the steady hum of chatter spiked with shots of girlish shrieking, and a kind of free-for-all brawling of musical genres. When we reach the perimeter, we find what all this is in aid of: a procession—by the indefatigable Caterpillars, the proud brucaioli.

“This must be the victory parade,” I say, stunned by our luck at having stumbled upon it. “Look, it's all musically themed.” And so it is: there are floats with shaggy-looking rock groups performing atop them, marchers dressed in bulky costumes representing the treble and bass clef symbols as well as individual musical notes, strolling ensembles furiously playing a variety of instruments—even the contrada kitchen workers are here, using actual kettles as kettledrums.

“Why music?” Jeffrey asks.

“Because of the winning horse. Berio—like the composer.”

“Oh,” he says, a bit unenthusiastically.
“Him.”
(A few years earlier, we went to a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of
Un Re in Ascolto
but found its narrative too unlinear to follow and its score too dissonant to enjoy; we ended up leaving at the interval. What can I tell you, we're vulgarians; we like showstoppers.)