her village was not the way she remembered it? What if no one was there from the old days? What if there was no one left who even remembered the Corsini family? I saw her take off the large Hollywood sunglasses she had bought in Rome and wipe her eyes. Oh god, she was crying . Perhaps this was a mistake after all.
I could swear we had been circling the same route for the past half hour, following Nonna’s erratic directions. “Are you sure you’ve got this right?” I asked her finally.
“You think I don’t remember my way home?” She sounded hurt.
“Mom,” I said, “I think you haven’t been here in almost fifty years and you just don’t remember exactly where Bella Piacere is.”
Livvie got out the road map and studied it one more time. She glanced toward a distant town set high on a crag and said that must be Montepulciano. Then Nonna said to drive on, she would know it when she saw it.
I sighed at her logic as we wound slowly up powdery white roads, with Nonna sitting on the edge of her seat, peering through the windshield like a soldier on military reconnaissance.
“There!” she said suddenly. “Left at the crossroads, the one with the Saint Francis shrine.”
I swerved left at the little plaster roadside shrine with the statue of Saint Francis, arm upraised as though he were blessing the jar of plastic flowers someone had placed at his feet, then followed a narrow lane lined with shady poplars, threading ever upward, past a tiny farm where a lone white cow peeked solemnly at us from a stone barn.
I looked around me. So this, I thought, is Tuscany: vineyard-covered hills, silvery olive groves, fields of dazzling sunflowers, old pastel-colored villas and ancient stone villages, cool archways flashed with sunlight, and the village of Bella Piacere on the crest of the hill. Paradise.
Oh puh-lease, I thought. This is too good to be true. It’s a picture-postcard place, a setup for tourists and Kodak moments . But there were no tourists around, no cameras clicking. Only silence and a feeling of peace.
I parked in the little cobblestoned square, and we got out of the car. We held Nonna’s hands and looked at where we were. At the place we came from.
Bella Piacere dozed peacefully behind closed green shutters in the hot sunshine of siesta. Pink and terra-cotta houses lined the cobbled square; a tabby cat slumbered behind a pot of tumbling scarlet geraniums, bead door curtains clattered in the sudden breeze, and there was a lingering aroma of lunchtime basil and garlic. From the cool dark interior of the tiny honey-colored church came the smell of incense and flowers, and in an alley, a flight of stone steps curved mysteriously upward. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and you could almost hear the silence.
Tears suddenly flooded down Nonna’s face. We flung our arms around her and stood in the middle of her village square in an emotional clump. This was Nonna’s homecoming, and I, for one, was wondering why she had ever left. Because now Bella Piacere tugged at my own heartstrings.
I asked myself, was it was because this was where my mother came from? Because it was my family’s, my own roots? Or was it the peace, the stillness, the sense of stepping back in time?
Chapter Thirteen
The Albergo d’Olivia was a faded pink stucco building facing onto the cobblestoned piazza, where a fountain sprayed over a pair of chipped stone cherubs holding aloft a dolphin. Not so many years ago, Nonna told us, the albergo had been a cow barn. Tuscan cows were traditionally kept indoors and groomed like prize horses, and in the old days they often had better living quarters than the peasants who owned them. Now, though, the barn was a tiny inn with wide arched windows where the big doors had once been. There was an ornate wrought-iron sign in the shape of an olive tree over the entrance, and a little terrace bar, just a few metal tables and chairs spilling casually onto the piazza.
Oh come on, I thought, ever
I could swear we had been circling the same route for the past half hour, following Nonna’s erratic directions. “Are you sure you’ve got this right?” I asked her finally.
“You think I don’t remember my way home?” She sounded hurt.
“Mom,” I said, “I think you haven’t been here in almost fifty years and you just don’t remember exactly where Bella Piacere is.”
Livvie got out the road map and studied it one more time. She glanced toward a distant town set high on a crag and said that must be Montepulciano. Then Nonna said to drive on, she would know it when she saw it.
I sighed at her logic as we wound slowly up powdery white roads, with Nonna sitting on the edge of her seat, peering through the windshield like a soldier on military reconnaissance.
“There!” she said suddenly. “Left at the crossroads, the one with the Saint Francis shrine.”
I swerved left at the little plaster roadside shrine with the statue of Saint Francis, arm upraised as though he were blessing the jar of plastic flowers someone had placed at his feet, then followed a narrow lane lined with shady poplars, threading ever upward, past a tiny farm where a lone white cow peeked solemnly at us from a stone barn.
I looked around me. So this, I thought, is Tuscany: vineyard-covered hills, silvery olive groves, fields of dazzling sunflowers, old pastel-colored villas and ancient stone villages, cool archways flashed with sunlight, and the village of Bella Piacere on the crest of the hill. Paradise.
Oh puh-lease, I thought. This is too good to be true. It’s a picture-postcard place, a setup for tourists and Kodak moments . But there were no tourists around, no cameras clicking. Only silence and a feeling of peace.
I parked in the little cobblestoned square, and we got out of the car. We held Nonna’s hands and looked at where we were. At the place we came from.
Bella Piacere dozed peacefully behind closed green shutters in the hot sunshine of siesta. Pink and terra-cotta houses lined the cobbled square; a tabby cat slumbered behind a pot of tumbling scarlet geraniums, bead door curtains clattered in the sudden breeze, and there was a lingering aroma of lunchtime basil and garlic. From the cool dark interior of the tiny honey-colored church came the smell of incense and flowers, and in an alley, a flight of stone steps curved mysteriously upward. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and you could almost hear the silence.
Tears suddenly flooded down Nonna’s face. We flung our arms around her and stood in the middle of her village square in an emotional clump. This was Nonna’s homecoming, and I, for one, was wondering why she had ever left. Because now Bella Piacere tugged at my own heartstrings.
I asked myself, was it was because this was where my mother came from? Because it was my family’s, my own roots? Or was it the peace, the stillness, the sense of stepping back in time?
Chapter Thirteen
The Albergo d’Olivia was a faded pink stucco building facing onto the cobblestoned piazza, where a fountain sprayed over a pair of chipped stone cherubs holding aloft a dolphin. Not so many years ago, Nonna told us, the albergo had been a cow barn. Tuscan cows were traditionally kept indoors and groomed like prize horses, and in the old days they often had better living quarters than the peasants who owned them. Now, though, the barn was a tiny inn with wide arched windows where the big doors had once been. There was an ornate wrought-iron sign in the shape of an olive tree over the entrance, and a little terrace bar, just a few metal tables and chairs spilling casually onto the piazza.
Oh come on, I thought, ever
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