Anghiari si racconta

In 2001, Ron retired and I thought it would be a nice gift to come to Italy. We’d had many, many holidays here, especially when we were young. We used to go to Sicily a lot; this is almost 40 years ago … we had wonderful holidays. We used to come in the summer, because that was when teachers got time off.  We didn’t go for a while, but then Ron came and studied at the university in Perugia for a year. So, we always had at the back of our minds that we would buy something, and we always figured that it would be in Umbria and not in Tuscany. Anyway, we came on this trip and stayed at my friend Shelagh’s place – the little house across the garden there. It was the first time we’d been to Anghiari. So, we were staying there, and we were enjoying it. And then we learnt from Giuseppe (who was managing Shelagh’s place) that this place, now my home, was for sale. We thought it was wonderful, and we just decided to buy it. We called it Ca’Price for the ‘Price’ which was Ron’s last name.  Ca’Price: the house of Price. But it was also a play of words as it was a capricious act to buy it.  It wasn’t Umbria, but it was only 5km from Umbria, so since the price was right ….

I feel part of this place. I live in a neighbourhood…  I go out in the morning and I hang my clothes out – ‘Buongiorno signorina’, ‘Buongiorno signora’ – and of course I never hang the laundry the right way – ‘pazzo (mad) doesn’t know anything’. Romana was horrified, because I think you are supposed to hang things by size but I just put them all up together, in whatever way I pick them from the basket.

So, Romana is there every morning leaning out the window, and every morning I talk to Agnese. Her mother, Lea, who was a great character, wonderful actress, died about a year ago, and Agnese never married and still lives here. And they speak anghiarese with me, they don’t speak standard Italian, so I find it hard, but it’s a compliment really. Agnese used to say to her mother ‘mamma, mamma, parla italiano con Marco e Ronaldo, non anghiarese’, but now they all speak anghiarese, and that is a compliment really, because I am part of the community. And the same with Adriano, the man who lives along the street from me. None of them speaks English; I don’t have any neighbours who speak English.

When I talk about my neighbourhood, I’m talking about people in the streets around here. And it is really sad because they are dying – 3 or 4 of them have died in the last year and a half. There would have been maybe 10 households and we would chat together … so many are dying off. And Lina has died; her daughter is a former mayor. A lot of my friends, particularly the elderly people, have died. Beppa died, her husband Enzo died. And Poppa, Signora Zanchi, known to all in Anghiari as Poppa.

It scares me about the houses, because the children live in Rome…. Some of them keep the places and they come sometimes for the weekend and that is it. But it frightens  me sometimes that Anghiari could become like Montone and places like that, which are almost like museums.

So now there is Romana and Mario and Agnese and me, and nobody else much except for Adriano down the street and I don’t see him very much. Mario and Romana, however,  are my very, very dear friends, and they are in very good shape; Mario, who is almost 80, does the garden, and Romana is 78 and she is my housekeeper. She looks after me, but I worry that it is getting a bit too much for her. I know that they think sometimes that they might move closer to their son who lives in Sansepolcro, so they would be going. And Agnese, she is on her own, and that worries me…and others…. Yes, it is sad, I really miss them. I miss seeing Poppa who would hang out her window on via Francesco Nenci and sing Tuscan ballads and shout at the neighbours.  I find I still look for her as I’m coming home up the hill … I do miss them.

Speaking of community, the Church has been important for me here – they’ve welcomed me completely. It’s not like a community in churches in Canada, where they have coffee, they gather for social visits. People here don’t go to church for a sense of community like that. 95% of them would be Roman Catholic, and going to church is just part of their lives. I go there, to the 9.30 at La Propositura rather than the 11, and people say good morning to you. Some of them I know better than others – I know Elisabetta, you know, the lady who has the leather shop, so people like that. And Fiammetta who looks after the houses of some English and American people. These people from the church are friends – and we all chat a little bit, and you feel part of the community…. Most of them, I don’t know their names, but I see them on the street and we say ‘Hello’, and there’s something nice about that … you feel that you belong. And Don Marco (the priest) was extremely kind when Ron died, they were amazingly kind, the whole community was.

I’ll tell you about Ron’s death. He came back to Anghiari, I expect knowing he would die here… we came in the summer of his last year and then we came back again in the fall. In November he got very ill. I think he wanted to die here to be perfectly honest. The palliative care doctor and staff who organised everything, were very, very good. The doctor came here, to our home, every day. His name was Pietro Martini and I continued seeing him at church until he died earlier this year. You know you have to select your doctor from a list provided by the health services and we didn’t know one doctor from another. Anyway, we liked the thought of a doctor named Martini, so that is why we chose him. He came every single day, except Sunday, and we had home help – 2 nurses came every day. They said Ron could die here, and I don’t think you could get better care anywhere. I told dottor Martini: ‘In North America doctors never make house calls’ He looked stunned: ‘What do you mean? Don’t tell me that; that is ridiculous. They won’t come to your house? Not possible.’ He was quite horrified.

Anyway, the day Ron died, Giuseppe came around about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was the Annunciation, in December, so it was a holiday, which means that it is more complicated contacting the coroner`s office. Anyway, Giuseppe came in and I said: ‘Oh, Ron, look who is here.’ He opened his eyes: ‘Oh Giuseppe, nice to see you.’ So that was the last thing Ron said. And Giuseppe said to me: ‘Do you want to have Don Marco come for the last rites?’, and I said ‘That coming from you, you communist!’ I had to laugh. I said: ‘No, I don’t think so’, because Ron wasn’t a churchgoer, and I didn’t think he would necessarily like it.

He died about 9.30 in the evening, and Giuseppe came around at once; Mario, Romana, and my friend Weston also came at once.  Romana took over everything. I have often thought I could write a piece for the New Yorker, ‘My big, fat, Italian funeral’, because it was really funny in a lot of ways. The undertaker, Marco Pernici, came, and said we had a little window of opportunity for extreme unction. It seems that if you miss the last rites you can still get extreme unction … it is all very complicated, very RC, and I said ‘mmm, I don’t know’ But then from Ron’s perspective it didn’t matter either way. So Don Marco came, and he was very nice. He knew Ron wasn’t a Roman Catholic – I remember Ron talking to him early on in our stay in Anghiari at the annual Lenten blessings of our house, telling him he was raised a Protestant…. Yet, he was prepared  to give him the full service. Anyway, Mr Pernici goes to leave and I said ‘You are not taking the body?’ and he said ‘Are you nervous to have the body?’ ‘No, why would I be nervous….’  I just didn’t know the procedure.

And then the next day people called in during the day … very nice, and supportive.  In the evening Signor Pernici came to put the body into a coffin and bolt it closed.  An electric drill to screw in the bolts. I will never forget, they were coming to take the coffin down the street, early in the morning of the service, to the church. Ron’s mother had called from the States – Missouri – it was midnight there, so it is quite early in the morning  here – and anyway I got really behind, while she argued about getting a lock of Ron’s hair and I tried to explain that the coffin was bolted closed and could not be opened.  Meanwhile I was trying to eat some breakfast and get dressed to go to the bank and pay for the grave.

Mario and Romana arrived and I am in my pyjamas trying to eat cereal and trying to please Ron’s mother on the phone. And Sr Pernici arrived early to take the body and he said ‘You have to walk behind the coffin down the street’ and I said ‘I can’t walk down the street in my pyjamas!’ ‘You have to walk down the street!’ ‘I can’t’. I said ‘Mario you represent me. Nobody is going to see the coffin going from here… nobody is going to see the coffin going down the street’. Anyway I had to run down to the bank to pay for the grave… and then the nurses, who couldn’t go to the funeral, arrived … I barely made it, about 2 minutes before the funeral, I got to the church.

Talking about the community, the ladies from around here did the flowers, the ladies from La Badia, our parish church. It’s not used very often, but there will be a service there this Sunday, Palm Sunday, at 9 o’clock. Anyway, they had lovely flowers, and several men from Anghiari formed the choir…Mario and Bruno Sannai… the men sang… it was beautiful. It was absolutely beautifully done, and Don Marco spoke. They asked me to say something, but I said no, I can’t stand it when people get up and they go on… and what Don Marco said was all that was needed. And a lot of people came. After the mass, there was a beautiful procession, because you walk to the grave… it was a beautiful day in December, to walk down to the cemetery. It was quite lovely.

I’ve never had a sense here that they bother about people’s sexual orientation. It was really funny because last year Romana, I was over at her place, and she said ‘Now, it is all right, everybody would think it is perfectly all right, if you got another companion. We will support that’. ‘Not interested … one is enough’.  My reply! Oh boy do I mean that.

Living between two cultures can feel rather schizophrenic. I’ve felt this particularly since Ron died. When you are away from any place too long, you miss the day to day activities. People are always glad to see me when I return, but you can lose continuity.  My principal residence is Anghiari but I enjoy my times in Canada. For example, in Canada, they’ll find a new bridge partner if I’m away for too long. So now what I tend to do is come here for a couple of months and then I go back to Canada for a visit. I spend 2 months in Cambodia. I don’t know what I would do if I had to choose between Italy and Canada – I enjoy both. I would say probably I spend more time here now as an official resident, but I don’t want to give up my life in Canada. I have a lot of friends, I have a very, very nice place, and, of course, I had my mother until a couple of years ago.

Mama used to come here frequently. The last time she came she was 98. She had her 95th birthday here. There were almost 60 people at the Castello di Sorci just outside town, mostly people from Anghiari and a few from the expat community. The old part of the castello, where we had the party, is charming, with exquisite table clothes and chair covers. We had a meal of many courses, lots of singing and laughing, and wine, grappa and vin santo.

I’ll give you some idea of my daily life here in Anghiari. My Italian is much better now. You see, because Ron spoke Italian fluently, that meant I didn’t have to; I could rely on him. But then, as he got ill, I had to, to arrange things…. So, speaking Italian and having to do things on my own has made a difference.

Anyway, as I said, in the morning I often do the washing because there is only a small washing machine, and then I hang it up, and I chat with the neighbours when I do that. From there I always have breakfast and then I usually go out, down to the piazza. I go down and I get my New York Times International (International Herald Tribune as it once was) from Angela and then I go over and I have a cup of coffee at the bar, either the Garibaldi or the Bar Sport… and that is a pleasant way to start a day. I sit and read my paper. I do my shopping. I visit the butcher and his brother, Mondo and Beppe, and then I go to Letizia for my vegetables and back up here. Suddenly the morning is gone. Sometimes I go to the market, the barber… and I go every week to the florist, I always have flowers from Marta at the florist on the piazza. I go to the supermarket in Sansepolcro for paper towels, and you know, coffee, tea, what I would call staples, and wine, because they have a good selection there.

After lunch I have a little pisolino (nap), and I sit outside, and I read a lot; I sit in the garden in the nicer weather when there’s sun in my garden. I normally write late morning or late afternoon, but I wouldn’t say that I come here to write. In the afternoon I often go for a walk.  Usually, I go for a walk down to the cemetery…. And in the nicer weather I like to go down in the evening and have a drink either in the Garibaldi or the Bar Sport.

When I’m having an aperitivo in the evening, or my coffee in the morning, I always chat with people. People come and sit beside me. In the morning I sit by myself because I want to read my paper, but I have conversations. If I go to the Garibaldi in the morning, I always chat … I like to chat with Olga, the Belarusian lady behind the bar – I am very fond of her.

What makes Anghiari special is the people – there is a lovely feeling when you walk down the street and everybody says ‘hello’. And I know people… I do voluntary work, working at the Pro Loco, so I’ve met many people doing that. It is my way of saying ‘thank you’ and I think people really, really appreciate that, and it’s why I am treated as well as I am, because they say ‘he has tried to give back’. I go in, usually on weekends.   I am supposed to provide information and help to do the English/French visitors, but they often leave me there alone so I deal with the Italians as well!  I get funny looks from Italian visitors – the information man with questionable Italian.

At the library, next to the Pro Loco, I did a presentation on one of my books, and they came, all sorts people came. I couldn’t believe it, Italian people who couldn’t speak a word of English came. And other writers came, because I have been to their book presentations at the library. They have wonderful events there. Merryl, the librarian, is an English woman…. she has been here a long time and she speaks fluent Italian. She runs the library now on a voluntary basis. Very interesting person… And beautiful frescoes on the walls and ceilings …

Anyway, when I go down to have a coffee, I walk into the bar and people say ‘hello’, and I don’t feel like a foreigner.

When I am in Canada, it’s a very different experience. Of course, people say ‘Hello’ but 99 times out of 100 I don’t know anybody over there. It is just a very, very different thing. I go to the supermarket, and on the weekend I go to the farmers market to get my vegetables for the week. That’s it. Shopping is not an activity of life, it’s not social – I just go there to get things. Whereas here, I really enjoy talking to Mondo the butcher in his Castello dialect, and I talk to Letizia – I’m very fond of her. That is part of my daily life. I know the checkout women at the supermarket in Canada, but it’s not the same.

My life is very different in Canada. I go to the gym and I swim daily. And I belong to more social things. I belong to a bridge group for example and I am still on a couple of boards, and I go to church.  In Anghiari you go to church and you chat and you say ‘Hello’ and everything, but there is no social activity related to going to the church. In Canada, I go to the bridge group, I go to coffee hour on Sunday …. There are a lot more dinner parties and cocktail parties – there’s that kind of social circle for me in Ottawa. And, if I don’t feel like sitting at home in the evening, there are things I can do – there’ll be a concert on or a movie or a play. I can feel a bit more lonely here because, if I feel a bit lonely in Canada, I just phone some friends, and say ‘Come over, I’ll make dinner and we can play bridge’.  I can’t play bridge here.

Generally people don’t do dinner parties and cocktail parties here in Anghiari – it’s just a different lifestyle. I love having dinner parties, and I usually have people over once a week, but I have a rule that it has to be half and half, Italians and expats. I won’t have a dinner party with just expats. Tomorrow night you are coming here for dinner and you’ll see there’ll be a mix. It’s good for the expats to mix a little bit, but I think it is just more fun.

On reflection, I think I have felt less a foreigner since being on my own. Everybody had been so very kind to me, and then I did the volunteering, and suddenly I was just part of the community.  Since I have been on my own, I have had to speak more, I have to do things on my own. I have to deal with the bureaucracy and whatever…. I felt part of the community before, definitely, but when I ended up on my own, and I found that I could do things, that I had the confidence, well, then I felt happy.