I disembarked in a new world. Leanardo Da Vinci Airport, Rome. Everyone is in a hurry, except me. I listen to the flurry of Italian around me. I wish I understood it. All the Italian I know is from Pucinni, which does not translate well for hailing a cab, or asking where the rest room might be. I shoulder my pack and follow my fellow passengers out of the plane. By looking around me I will figure out what I need to know. Signage is in Italian, then in English. I understand the tragedy of ethnocentrism when I overhear the woman ahead of me say, “Shouldn’t the big words be in English and the translation ones in Italian?”
I am saved from figuring out how to get to the train station from Leanardo Da Vinci by my husband’s worst nightmare. Waiting beyond the barrier is a man who looks like he stepped out of the pages of the racy novel I read on the plane. Tall, muscled, olive complected, black curling hair, black eyes, cleft chin. He holds a sign with my name written in elegant calligraphy. And he holds a red rose.
I square my shoulders and walk to him, outstretch my hand, “Ciao, Signore…’
“Ciao, Signora. I am David Palermo, my sister has sent me to bring you to Norcia.” He takes my hand, bows gracefully as he raises it to his lips. I am melting. My insides were already quivering from reading, now I can barely keep standing. I will never read another romance novel as long as I live.
“Grazie, Signore Palmero.”
“Ah, call me David. You speak Italian?”
“No, no. But I think one should never travel to another country without knowing how to greet properly, say good bye properly and express gratitude.”
“You are a woman of the world I see.”
“Hardly. This is my first trip out of my country, except perhaps Canada. But I live so close to the border that other parts of the United States seem more like a foreign country than Canada.”
“You have the heart of a woman of the world, to believe as you do. Come, I have reservations at a restorante nearby. I will find a taxi.”
He left and I followed dazedly, wondering if I looked nice. Wondering where I was going. All my husband’s misgivings came roaring into my head.
“What if this is a fence for trafficking white slavery?”
I was dressing for bed in our room. I looked at my bulgy, forty something body in the mirror. There was the hip to hip Caesarian scar. There was the navel to pubis hysterectomy scar. Not to mention the hundreds of silvery stretch marks, the blue veins in my thighs, my breasts sagging almost to my waist.
“They’d pay you to take me back.”
“You are being naive.”
“No,” I sighed, “I am being stubborn.” I pulled on my nightie and climbed into bed. “Look I know this is risky, even dangerous. I was reading in “The Things They Carried” how after a battle or ambush, after a comrade died, how the soldiers felt so alive. It was the brush with death that gave them that feeling. I’ve read the same thing about extreme sport fanatics. That’s why they do what they do, the rush from risking death is exhilarating. I want to be alive.”
“So learn to parachute. It would be cheaper and safer.”
I kissed him. “I love you, but I am going. If you love me, let me go.”
“I’m letting you go because I can’t stop you. But I don’t like it.”
“I’m not asking you to like it. I’m not even asking you to understand. I don’t understand, but this feels right somehow.”
“Since when did you start making decisions based on your feelings? You have counseled countless clients not to make decisions based on feelings. You tell us to carefully think things out. Look before you leap.”
“And she who hesitates is lost. I read somewhere that if you have not changed your opinion or mind about something in the past year to check your pulse, you might be dead. Maybe there is a time to trust your gut. I’ve told clients that too. Look, I am as confused about this as you are, but I have to go.”
“Is this a mid life crisis?”
“Probably.”
“What if you never come back?”
“What if you aren’t here when I get back?”
LIfe is about taking risks, or risks taking you.
The taxi pulls up and David Palermo opens the door for me. A moment of decision. What if I never come back? I could back out now, say I’ve changed my mind, go home, or find a hotel and see the sights of Rome. I could be safe. David offers to take my backpack and I relinquish it. I get in. He shuts the door. He enters the other side, gives the driver instructions in Italian, turns and smiles at me. What if I never get back?
“I thought a nice lunch before the drive to Norcia. It is about two, maybe three, hours drive from Rome – after we get out of Rome! I thought a lunch and walk before we leave.”
“That sounds heavenly.”
“I am sorry you will not be able to see the sights of Rome. She is a beautiful city.”
“I am sorry too, but I understand. I can not see and do everything there is to see and do -”
Saying ‘yes’ to one possibility is to say ‘no’ to a thousand others. What has this ‘yes’ cost me? How kind the gods are that we never know!
The restorante is not very far. We sit at a table near a window and I drink in the brilliant sky, sunlight on the buildings, the pass of people. David asks what my favorite Italian food is and I answer unhesitatingly ‘Ravioli’. He laughs and orders for us. And he orders wine. A Baptist preacher’s wife drinking wine with a man who is not her husband in Rome. Scandalous. Terrifying.
Our talk is small talk, he is interested in my life in The Village of the White Deer, enchanted by the history of the deer. I ask about Sybilla, the adventure awaiting me.
“I promised Sybilla I would say nothing, though I can tell you about Norcia and the Casa where you will stay tonight. That I will do on the drive there. We must keep you awake to offset the jet lag so you are ready for tomorrow.”
After lunch we walk and look through shop windows. One is a shop of knives and scissors. I spy Swiss army knives, and enchanting embroidery scissors. Remembering my confiscated treasures by airport security- I give an “Oh!”
“You see something, Signora?”
“Si, the airport confiscated my Swiss army knife and embroidery scissors. I would like to replace them.”
“Of course. Please, let us go inside.”
David holds the door open for me. Such a little thing but it makes me feel like a princess. It takes no time to make my purchases, which David pays for. “You have no need for money on this trip, Signora. The Sybilla has spoken.”
He is so charming. I am giddy with the romance of the city, his manners, the wine from lunch. We walk some more, to a sleek limousine which is waiting for us. David opens the door for me. This is my second moment of being able to turn back. I could say no, and run and find my way back to the airport and back home. I could. Once I get in, I am committed.
The car is luxurious. I sink into the upholstery. If this is a trap, then I am an easy mark. What a world I live in, to be suspicious of kindness and manners!
This time David gives no directions to the driver. The car pulls away into traffic and I am on my way. I am entralled by the golden and green Italian countryside. For a while I watch out the window. I can’t believe I am here. Eventually I turn to David, “Where are we going? You said somthing about a place called ‘Norcia’.”
“As I promised, I will tell you of Norcia. It is an ancient place, northeast of Roma. It sits like a jewel on the Castellucio plains, encircled by the Sibillini Mountains. It is so beautiful, mountains, karst, rivers and ancient roads through it all. The forests are ancient as well. No white deer, I am sorry to say, but if you are lucky you might see wolves, wildcats, wild goats, peregrine falcons, and perhaps the wild boar. Tomorrow we will go through the National Forest into the Sybillini Mountains where you will meet my sister.”
He talked animatedly about the skiers and hang gliders who come more and more to the area; the new road from Marche, bringing more tourism and therefore boosting the economy, but also brings trouble. Touriste are noisy, leave litter and graffiti, demand amenities that are contrary to the simple, quiet life of the town folk. I nod my agreement, it is the same in the Village of the White Deer. Tourists keep the economy alive, but we like them best when they leave.
He described the recent fair celebrating St. Antonio Abate’s Day, the Patron St. of Norcia. St. Antonio Abate is the patron saint, and the Saint Benedict and his sister Saint Scholastica where born here.
“If Benedict and Scholastica were born here, why are they not the patron saints of Norcia? I have never heard of any of these saints.”
“That is because you are an American Baptist, not an Italian Catholic! But I tell you, who knows why the old ones choose one over another? Perhaps it is because St. Benedict and Scholastica did not stay and do their good works in Norcia. Perhaps it is because St. Antonio is patron saint of swineherds. Norcia is famous for it’s pig butchers. Anything that can be done to a pig, Norcia butchers can do. It is fact, the name of shops to sell pork are called ‘Norcineria’ and butchers of pork called un norcino, after Norcia.”
“Perhaps it is kismet for me to come to Norcia,” David’s talk of pigs brought to mind memories of when I was little on my grandfather’s farm. I loved to play in the octagonal shaped hog house, climbing over and under the slats between stalls. My brother, angry with me for something long forgotten wrong, locked me in. My grandparents searched frantically for me for hours. I had long ceased to cry and scream, finally falling into an exhausted sleep in the clean hay. They were furious when they found me, and I never dared go into the hog house again.
Another time we were visiting a friend’s farm, having a beautiful picnic on the lawn beneath willows. We children were left to our own devises. There is so much to do on a farm! We ended up in the hog house, daring each other to ride the pigs. We ended up covered in pig muck, but the wild ride was exhilarating! My memory glows, despite the fact I had to be housed down and ride home in the bed of the truck in soaking undergarments. My beautiful white dress with blue roses and sparkling Mary Janes were ruined, I had disgraced my family. Still, I gloried in riding that pig.
“Signora, where are you?” asked David.
I told him my porcine memories and he laughed heartily.
“Perhaps Saint Anthony is your patron saint as well, the patron saint of pig riders!”
“Perhaps. I heard my grandparents laughing over the story years later. “tell me, who are these saints?”
“Saint Benedict and Scholastica were twins, born in Norcia as I told you, only it was “Nursia’ then, a place of healing. Nursia was famous for its doctors and surgeons then. Their mother, she die at their birth. This is maybe 500 years after the Christ. Their father, Eutropius, he raise them. Saint Benedict, he makes studies of literature in Rome. There he lives the state of civil and moral decadence in which the capital of the empire has reduced itself. When he is more or less twenty years old he starts his hermitage in a cave near Subiaco. His example leads some friars to join him. Though later, the rigidity of his rule will take them to such a big exasperation that they try to kill the Saint. Evenso, there are still Benedictine monks. The Saint he founds some monasteries at the limit between Lazio and Abruzzo. He founds also the Monte Cassino north of Naples, where once the people worship the Apollo. In 1964 Pope Paolo VI proclaims him “Patron of Europe”. So, in a way he is patron saint of Norcia, as Norcia is part of Europe.
“Before that , the folk of Norcia build him a Basilica. His statue is in the Piazza San Benedetto. There is also Casa Religiosa San Benedetto, a convent with the nuns. That is where you will be staying tonight. It is very plain, but very comfortable. “
“What of Saint Scholastica, his sister? Scholastica means ’she who studies’, doesn’t it?”
“Si. You are educated also, I think.”
“I graduated from college, and I read a lot.”
“Scholastica, she was dedicated to God from her birth. When Benedetto founded his monastery at Monte Cassino, Scholastica deeply desired to follow him. Eutropius let her go. She followed her brother’s hermitage, and women followed her. Saint Benedict ordered the rule, ora et labora, pray and work, but Scholastica she oversaw the virgins who joined her. They lived a simple life, working, praying, but that was best. The times they were not good in Italia then. Many invaders, Attila the Hun, and others. But the Holy Father in Roma stopped them at Rome. In the countryside, the peasants, they suffered. In Norcia many hide in the karst caves of the mountains.
“Scholastica was a woman of simple faith. The story goes that she and Benedict would meet at an inn halfway between their orders once a year. They were near to each other, about ten kilometer apart. There they would spend the day talking about spiritual things, and return home before night. Once Scholastica begged her brother to stay and talk through the night. He could not, it was improper for him to be away from his order at night. So Scholastica, she fold her hands, bow her head and pray. She pray and weep. Suddenly a fierce storm come, though the sky had been clear and sun shine all the day. The storm is so big, no one can even open the door.
” ‘Sister,” cry San Benedetto, ‘what have you done?’ “I ask you to stay and you do not listen. I ask God for you to stay, and He listen.’ So the brother and sister saints talk all the night. In the morning they say arividerci! Three days later, Benedetto look out his window and see his sister’s soul rise to heaven like a dove. He send his brothers to bring her body to his monastery and he buries her there. When he die, he is buried with her. “
“That is a beautiful story. How does Norcia honor Saint Scholastica?”
“There is a church in the cemetery for her honor. And the basilica is build on the ruins of the house of their childhood.”
“I see. Is Scholastica the patron saint of grave diggers?”
David laughed, “No. She is the patron saint of rain and storms, of children with the epilepsy, and nuns. It is interesting you should say ‘gravedigger’, Saint Anthony is the patron of gravediggers and cemeteries.”
“Gravediggers and pigs? I can understand Scholastic as patron saint of rain and storms and nuns. I can understand her as patron of Epileptic children, perhaps she was kind to them and cured them. But how does a saint become patron of graveyards, grave diggers, pigs!”
“And amputees, the tarfuti, domestic animals, basket weavers, brushmakers, butchers, pizzamakers, taxi drivers, pets, swine and swineherds, ergot, hermits, hospitals, monks, relief from pestilence, eczema, skin diseases, epilepsy, St. Anthony’s fire, and protection against fire.”
“That is quite a list. Explain it to me, por favor.”
“It is logical. St. Anthony was born in Egypt -”
“The patron saint of Norcia Italy was born in Egypt?”
“Si. Born in Egypt in a small village. When he was about twenty years he heard the words, ‘If you want to be perfect, sell all you have and follow me’, from the Christ. So he sold all he had. He used the money to ensure the education of his sister, and he went into the desert to live the life of a hermit. Later he meet his sister and you will never guess, she is a nun! Other men follow his example and become holy hermits in the desert. Anthony, he is often visited by holy people and the sick. At this time he use the lard to treat sickness of the skin. This makes him patron saint of pigs and anyone who does anything with pigs, as well as hermits, and those with skin diseases.”
“Saint of those who work with pigs, butchers, swineherds. In America we have football which is made of pig skin. So St. Anthony is the logical saint of football?”
David laughed,”That is logical. Those in his order made baskets and brushes like the broom from what they gathered at the River Nile.”
“Saint of basketmakers and brush makers.”
“He is patron saint of graves because he buried his friend St. Paul the Hermit. He is the Patron Saint of Naples because once when the Vesuvius erupted, the lava stopped at his statue and the city was saved. This is why he is patron of pizza makers and the saint to protect against fire.”
“Is that what it means ‘St. Anthony’s fire’?”
“No. St. Anthony was tormented by the devil. The devil would come to him as a monk with bread to tempt him when he fasts, or a beautiful woman, or beat him with whips. The marks would be on his body, but fellow monks could not see. The saint’s prayers would drive the devil away, but the devil returned again and again. It is a disease, St. Anthony’s Fire. The poor victim writhes in pain, they feel as if they are being burned alive, they see things, hallucinations. The toes, the fingers, hands, feet, fall off. The people suffer like Saint Anthony suffer. Now we know St. Anthony’s Fire is caused by the ergot-”
“A fungus on rye. My grandfather burned a whole field of rye when he found ergot on a stalk. He never recovered the income lost from that crop, and ended up selling the farm. Now I understand why.”
“The rye become tainted, and people eat the bread. They are poisoned. Whole families died. Terrible. Monks built a hospital in France where victims went to be healed. Thus he is saint of hospitals and monks.”
“How is he patron of taxis? Those are modern invention.”
“Ah, but the taxi replace the horse.”
“And St. Anthony is patron of horses? Where do horses come in?”
“With the pigs, pigs are farm animals, horses are farm animals, cows are farm animals. So it grows. Now St. Anthony is the patron saint of all domesticated animals, all pets. When the dog cannot find the tarfuti, the truffle, prays are raised to St. Anthony and viola! the dog he find the truffle! On his saints day people bring their pets to the priest to be blessed.”
“I have heard of that,” and I tell of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, the Catholic Church in the imaginary town of Lake Wobegon. Since before we were married, my husband and I have listened to the Radio Show with Garrison Keillor’s famous monologue about the little town time forgot and decades cannot improve. I tell David about the Prairie Home Companion, and how true to my life experience it was, the little town I grew up in is in the same proximity of Lake Wobegon.
“In many ways your wobegon is like Norcia, a little town time forgot and the decades cannot improve. We do not lock our doors here, or the bicycles. Everyone know everyone.”
By then we arrived at the gate of Norcia. David walked me from the town square to the Casa Religiouso San Benedetto. The sisters showed me to a small. plain room with a bath. It is mid-afternoon, I have been in Italy about 5 hours. On my body clock time I arrived in Italy at 3 AM. Now I am at 8 AM. I slept little on the plane. I am edgy from being cooped in a plane, a long car ride, a strange climate, thoughts about saints, and anxiety about tomorrow’s venture. I decide to go for a walk. I believe I can find my way back to the square by myself . And I do.
The afternoon sun is golden and rose on the cream buildings of the city. I am shy to go into the shops, I feel so foreign and I have no money to spend. The towns people look at me, and greet me. I return the greetings. I see the Torre Campanaria del Comune, and touch the lion on the base of its banister. So old, so beautiful, but I cannot focus. My mind is still stubbornly focused on saints. In the Piazza is a statue of San Benedetto. I look at him long. He is glowing in the sun, his beard flows down his chest, he must have lived to a ripe age. His hand is outstretched as if to say , “Behold!’ There is something I am missing, something important I must see about the saints. I remember that I do not know what Saint Benedict patrons.
I enter his basilica, it is quietly still. I sit and try to think, looking around for clues to who he is. I wish I had taken art appreciation, learned to read the symbols in art. To me art has been about aesthetics. Now it strikes me how art is so much more than being pleasing to the eye. There is a code of symbology used to teach and I do not know it. I want to learn, but there is no one to teach me today, and no Internet to browse.
When I leave the Basilica de San Benedetto, David is waving goodbye to a group of young people. He sees me and smiles. “I see you have become acquainted with San Benedetto.”
“I tried, but I know so little, I cannot understand the paintings. I have more questions, but where do I find answers?”
David’s smile broadens. “That is my role, signora. Come let us eat. Over good food I will tell you anything you want to know.”
Norcia, David tells me, is famous for its foods. The best pork products come from Norcia, as he already told me, and the finest farro and lenticche, spelt and lentils, some which cannot grow anywhere else! Rare goat cheeses are produced here. There are funghi and tartufi, the mushrooms and the truffles. The festival for truffles will be the last weekend in February. It is truffle season now. Yesterday’s rain provides them fresh for today.
We enter a small restorante. David orders for us. First comes fresh, hot bread topped with truffles. Crostini ai tartufi neri di Norcia, David calls it. We dip it in olive oil. It is so good, words cannot describe. Next we are served Zuppa di lenticchie, a lentil soup, smooth and creamy as butter. This too is so good, comfort food, accompanied with more wonderful bread, and green onions, wrapped in bacon and grilled. I can eat only the one bowl, and am stuffed. More food comes, a sauce of cream, a ham which David calls ‘prosciutto’, mushrooms and ground sausage that is put over pappardelle- long, wide and flat pasta.
“You have questions, Signora?” David says, as he spreads chevre montrachat, goat cheese, on sliced pear and hands it to me. I nod, eyes closed to savor the sweet, sharp delight in my mouth. He pours me a goblet of golden wine. The wine too is superlative.
“I am thinking over and over about the saints. I do not know what San Benedetto is patron to. Can you tell me?”
“Such a simple question! Of course I can tell you. He is patron of Europe, and the city Heerdt in Germany. He takes special care of farm workers, civil engineers, coppersmiths, architects, especially the Italian architects, monks and nuns, those who go in the caves -”
“Spelunkers.”
“Si. and he is also caring for the servants who break their master’s belongings-”
I giggled. Oh, I have had more wine this day than in my forty four years preceding!
“- and of the school children and those who are dying, those with the sicknesses of the skin -”
“Like St. Anthony.”
“Si. He is saint of those with the pain of stones, they pass in the kidney and gall -”
“Gall stones, kidney stones.”
“-and fever, and the poison. He protects against witches and temptation. Any more questions, signora?’
I shake my head. My mind is besotted with indescribably delicious food and golden wine. “I want to know everything, but I cannot think!”
“Come. I will walk you back to the casa.”
The air is an elixir of peacefulness. Children ride their bicycles about the Piazza, they chase each other on foot. One child runs with a small brown dog. Older people are chatting with happy faces. David tells me of the history of the city, from the days of the Sabines until the last world war. We arrive at the convent.
“I will return in the morning, about 7:00 AM. We will have breakfast and set out. “
It is only 6 PM in Norcia, noon on my body clock, when we parted. I have spent the past few hours journalling in my room. I am missing something important, something about the saints, but I just cannot put my finger on it. Perhaps a long hot soak and to bed. Sometimes answers come in dreams.
