Under the Tuscan Sun (13 page)

The upstairs patio seems perfect. They've laid rose-colored
brick and reattached the rusty iron railings so that the patio is
secure but still looks old. Something was done well.

By four, twilight begins; by five, it's night. Still, the
stores are opening after siesta. A morning of work, siesta,
reopening at dark for several hours: the winter rhythm unchanged
from the massively hot summer days. We stop by and greet Signor
Martini. We're cheered to see him, knowing he'll say,
“Boh,”
and
“Anche troppo,”
one of his
all-purpose responses that means yes, it's too bloody much.
In our bad Italian we explain what's going on. As we start to go,
I remember the strange gesture. “What does this mean?” I ask,
pulling down my eyelid.

“Furbo,”
cunning, watch out, he answers. “Who's
furbo?
”

“Apparently our contractor.”

WARM HOUSE. THANK YOU, ELIZABETH. WE BUY RED CANDLES,
cut pine
boughs and bring them in for some semblance of Christmas. Our
hearts are not into cooking, although all the winter ingredients in
the shops almost lure us to the kitchen. We love the furniture
Elizabeth has given us. Besides twin beds, coffee table, two desks,
and lamps, we'll have an antique
madia,
whose top part
was used to knead bread and let it rise. Beneath the coffin-shaped
bread holder are drawers and cabinet. The chestnut's warm patina
makes me rub my hand over the wood.
On the list she's left for us, we find her immense
armadio,
large enough to hold all the house linens, a dining room table,
antique chests, a
cassone
(tall storage chest), two peasant
chairs, and wonderful plates and serving pieces. Suddenly we will
live in a furnished house. With all our rooms, there will be
plenty of space, still, for acquiring our own treasures. Amid
all the restoration horrors, this great act of generosity warms
us tremendously. Right now, the pieces seem to belong to her
orderly house, but before we leave we must move everything over to
the house full of debris.

As Christmas nears, work slows then stops. We had not
anticipated that they would take off so many holidays. New Year's
has several holidays attached to it. We'd never heard of Santo
Stefano, who merits one day off. Francesco Falco, who has worked
for Elizabeth for twenty years, brings his son Giorgio and his
son-in-law with a truck. They take apart the
armadio,
load everything into the truck except the desk, which is too
wide to exit the study. Elizabeth has written all her books at
that desk and it seems that it was not meant to leave the house.
I'm taking boxes of dishes to our car when I look up and see them
lowering a desk by rope out the second-floor window. Everyone
applauds as it gently lands on the ground.

At the house, we cram all the furniture into two rooms we've
shoveled out and swept. We cover everything with plastic and
shut the doors.

There is absolutely nothing we can do. Benito does not
answer our calls. I have a sore throat. We've bought no presents.
Ed has grown silent. My daughter, sick with flu in New York, is
spending her first Christmas alone because the construction
debacle threw off her plans to come to Italy. I stare for a long
time at an ad for the Bahamas in a magazine, the totally expected
photo of a crescent of sugar-sand beach along clear, azure water.
Someone, somewhere, drifts on a yellow striped float, trailing
her fingers in a warm current and dreaming under the sun.

On Christmas Eve we have pasta with wild mushrooms,
veal, an excellent Chianti. Only one other person is in the
restaurant, for
Natale
is above all a family time.
He wears a brown suit and sits very straight. I see him slowly
drink wine along with his food, pouring out half glasses for
himself, sniffing the wine as though it were a great vintage
instead of the house carafe. He proceeds through his courses
with care. We're through; it's only nine-thirty. We'll go back to
Elizabeth's, build a fire, and share the
moscato
dessert
wine and cake I bought this afternoon. While Ed waits for coffee,
our dinner partner is served a plate of cheese and a bowl of
walnuts. The restaurant is silent. He cracks a shell. He cuts a
bit of cheese, savors it, eats a walnut, then cracks another.
I want to put my head down on the white cloth and
weep.

ACCORDING TO IAN, THE WORK FINISHED SATISFACTORILY AT
the end of
February. We paid for the amount contracted but not for the
exorbitant extra amount Benito tacked on. He listed such charges
as a thousand dollars for hanging a door. We will have to be there
to determine exactly what extra work he did. How we'll settle the
final amount is a mystery.

In late April, Ed returns to Italy. He has the spring quarter
off. His plan is to clear the land and treat, stain, and wax all
the beams in the house before I arrive on June first. Then we will
clean, paint all rooms and windows, and restore the floors to the
condition they were in before Benito's restoration. The new
kitchen has in it only the sink, dishwasher, stove, and fridge.
Instead of cabinets, we plan to make plastered brick columns with
wide plank shelves and have marble cut for countertops. We have
a major incentive: At the end of June, my friend Susan has
planned to be married in Cortona. When I asked why she
wanted her wedding in Italy, she replied cryptically, “I want to
get married in a language I don't understand.” The guests will stay
with us and the wedding will take place at the twelfth-century
town hall.

Ed tells me he's confined to the room on the second floor that
opens onto the patio, his little haven amid the rubbish. He cleans
one bathroom, unpacks a few pots and dishes, and sets up rudimentary
housekeeping. Benito hauled several loads out of the house but only
made it as far as the driveway, now a dump. On the front terrace
he left a small mountain of stone that was taken out of the wall.
The patio and bedroom brick form another small mountain. Even so,
Ed is elated. They're gone! The new bathroom, with its foot square
tiles,
belle époque
pedestal sink, and
built-in tub, feels large and luxurious, a stark contrast to the
former bucket-flush bathroom. Spring is astonishingly green and
thousands of naturalized irises and daffodils bloom in long
grass all over our land. He finds a seasonal creek pouring over
mossy rocks where two box turtles sun themselves. The almond and
fruit trees are so outrageously beautiful that he has to tear
himself away from working outside.

We try not to call; we tend to get into long conversations, then
decide that we could have done x at the house for the money the call
has cost. But there is a great need to recount what you've done
when you're working on a house. Someone needs to hear that the
beams look really great after their final waxing, that your neck
is killing you from working above your head all day, that you're
on the fourth room. He relates that each room takes forty hours:
beams, ceiling, walls. Floors will come last. Seven to seven,
seven days a week.

Finally, finally, June—I can go. With all the work Ed
has described, I expect the house to glow when I arrive. But,
naturally enough, Ed has concentrated on telling me his progress.

When I first arrive, it's hard to focus on how far he has come.
The beams look beautiful, yes. But the grounds are full of rubbish,
plaster, the old cistern. The electrician has not shown up. Six
rooms haven't been touched. All the furniture is piled into three
rooms. It's strictly a war zone. I try not to show how horrified
I am.

I'm ready for r & r. Unfortunate, because there's nothing to
do but launch into this work. We have about three weeks to get
ready for our first major onslaught of guests. The wedding! It
seems ludicrous that anyone could stay here.

Ed is 6′2″. I am 5′4″. He takes the
ceiling I take the floor. Biology is destiny—but which is
better? He actually loves finishing the beams. Painting the brick
ceiling is less fun but is rewarding. Suddenly the gunky beams and
flaking ceiling are transformed into dark substantial beams, pristine
white-brick ceiling. The room is defined. Painting goes quickly
with the big brushes made of wild boar hair. Pure white
walls—white on plaster is whiter than any other white. As
each room is finished, my job is to paint the
battiscopa,
a six-inch-high gray strip along the bases of the walls, a kind of
pseudo-moulding that is traditional in old houses of this area.
Usually it's a brick color but we prefer the lighter touch. The
word means broom-hit. The darker paint doesn't show the marks of
the mops and brooms that must constantly pass over these floors.
Almost upside down, I measure six inches in several places, tape
the floor and wall, then quickly paint and pull off the tape.
Naturally, the tape pulls off some white paint, which then
has to be retouched. Twelve rooms, four walls each, plus the
stairwell, landings, and entrance. We're leaving the stone cantina
as is. Next, I decalcify the floor. The first step is to sweep
up all the large chunks and dirt, then vacuum. With a special
solution I spread, the residue from dirt, plaster, and paint
drippings is dissolved. After that, I rinse the floor with a wet
mop three times, the middle time with a mild soap solution. I'm
on my knees. Next: mop again with water and a little muriatic acid.
Rinse, then paint the floor with linseed oil, letting it soak in
and dry. After it dries for two days, I wax. On the floor again,
char style. My knees, totally unused to this, rebel and I suppress
groans when I stand up. Last step: buff with soft cloth. The floors
come back, rich and dark and shiny. Each room pops into place,
looking very much as they did when we bought the house, only now
the beams are right and the radiators are in place.
“Brutto,”
ugly, I said to the plumber when I saw them.
“Yes,” he replied, “but beautiful in winter.”

As Ed told me, seven to seven: seven days a week. We spread
the rubble down the driveway, which is chewed up anyway from all
the trucks. We dig in the larger stones and bricks, spread grass
cuttings on top. Gradually, it will settle in. We hire someone
to take away a truckload that Benito failed to haul. On a walk
a few days later, we see a pile of awful rubble dumped along a
road about a mile from our house, and to our horror, spot our
plaster with the madonna blue coat of paint underneath.

From high school through graduate school, Ed worked as a
house mover, busboy, cabinetmaker, refrigerator hauler. A friend
calls him “the muscular poet.” He's thriving on this work,
though he, too, is sapped at night. I never have done manual labor,
except spurts of refinishing furniture, pruning, painting, and
wallpapering. This is an order of bodily exertion to shock my
system. Everything aches. What
is
water on the knee?
I think I may get it. I die at night. In the mornings, we both
have surges of new energy that come from somewhere. We plug right
back in. We're consumed. I'm amazed: the relentlessness we've
developed. I never will feel the same toward workers again; they
should be paid fortunes.

When I seal the patio bricks with linseed oil, the sun feels
especially deadly. I'm determined to finish and keep working until I
start to reel with the fumes and the heat. Now and then I stand up
and breathe in great draughts of the honeysuckle we've planted
in an enormous pot, stare off into the great view, then dip the
brush into the pot again. Who would think to ask, when paying a
lot for a new patio, whether the job included finishing the
brick's surface? It never occurred to either of us that we would
have to treat the kitchen and patio bricks to several coats of this
gloppy stuff.

After we clean up late in the day, we walk around assessing
what's left, how we've done. We will not have any children together
but decide that this is the equivalent of having triplets. As
each room is finished, we get to bring in the furniture for it.
Gradually, rooms are set up, still spare but basically furnished.
I've brought over white bedspreads for the twin beds. We take a
morning in Arezzo and buy a few lamps from a place that still
makes the traditional majolica vases of the area into lamps. A
fabulous feeling—things are shaping up, they're done, it's
clean, we'll be warm in winter—we've done it! This feels
giddy and fuels us to keep going.