March 20, 2010
Chink chink. Whack whack. Hammers bounce off chisels. Lumps of plaster drop like overripe fruit exposing ancient stones, ghosts of centuries past.
I’m giddy, over the moon. And look! A stone arch where an ugly closet used to be! I love going backward in time.
But like the Sicilian saying goes: Quantu cchiù autu è lu munti, tantu cchiù profunna è la valli, the higher the mountain, the deeper the valley.
Neighbors—a stocky elderly couple—knock at the door one day just after I’ve arrived back from Rome. “Signora, there’s a problema.” They seem agitated. “Come see.”
I follow them up a flight of steps into their home. The houses in Ragusa Ibla are fitted together like jigsaw pieces; neighbors live over me, under me, to the right and to the left. The couple waves arms around and jabbers in sync. What in God’s name are they pointing at?
When my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, I see what must be dozens of cracks like spider legs crawling over the walls. Bad news indeed, but what do these blessed spider legs have to do with me?
“Signora, all the pounding away in your house has ruined our walls.”
For a minute the room lacks oxygen. Are these cracks really new? Sicily is on a fault line. This could have happened years ago. I want to bring up these ideas, but of course I don’t. Instead I say in a voice sharp as a prickly pear, “Let me speak to the project manager. We’ll resolve this.”
Things are getting tangled up. Cu’ havi terra, havi guerra, Sicilians say, owning land is like fighting a war.
What will this cost? I’m hemoragging cash. The dollar is at an all-time low. I consult with Sicilians in the know.
Mason: No way we could we have done that. Impossibile. You’d be a fool to pay a centesimo.
Friend 1: Sicilians see Americans as a giant slot machine. Don’t pay.
Project Manager: It’s possible we did cause the cracks. We’ll never know. Pay up. Keep the peace.
Friend 2: It’s extortion, pure and simple.
Have they typecast me? The lady with the American dollars? Have I destroyed their walls? Do I now have two houses to restore? What to do?
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March 10, 2010
xx
My husband, newly arrived on the scene, has clawed his way down to stone. I phone the project manager with the news.
The crew turns up the next day with hammers and chisels. Now that Kim is here, the garrulous workers completely ignore me, peppering him with questions and concerns—never mind that he doesn’t speak one iota of Italian.
Something about a manly presence in the house has lit a fire under the crew. They really get cracking. Chink chink chink. Chunks of plaster fall like overripe fruit, unveiling enormous blocks of tawny stone.
Madonna! They look pretty freakin’ old. I’m prone to wild mood swings in Sicily, and now I’m on the upswing.
“Stones from the old Norman castello!” say nosey neighbors who wander in the house through the open front door, wondering what all the racket is.
They tell me the entire neighborhood scavenged rubble from the castle that once stood on this site before it crumbled in Ragusa Ibla’s great earthquake of 1693.
 Norman castle in Ragusa Ibla before 1693 earthquake, copyright S. Tumino Finding the ancient Norman rocks is a delicious surprise.
There are more surprises to come in the near future, though none nearly so pleasant.
***
xxx
Win this book!!!!!
I love this tiny up-to-date (2009) guidebook. It packs in information in the form of many top 10 lists. It includes charming out-of-the-way places—the author knows the hidden nooks and crannies of Sicily—and a few fold-out maps.
HOW? Between now and March 26, write a comment on any of my blogposts. The best comment wins. (“Best” could be funniest, most enlightening, most touching…)
March 1, 2010
The roof’s been fixed; the rain’s been staunched.
xxx
…xxxxx
…
xxx
xxx
I turn my attention to the interior of the house.
Please find me some old stones, I implore. Vi prego. There must be stone under the many layers of plaster and wall tile. Let’s expose it!
“What do you need old stones for, anyway? asks the project manager, tossing his head impatiently. “If you want stone, we can put pietra finta, fake stone, on the walls.”
Fake stone? Could he be serious?
“It’ll be faster and cheaper than looking all over the house for old stone. It looks better, too.”
“But,” I wail, “I love old stuff! We don’t have old stuff in the Stati Uniti!!!! That’s why I’m in Sicily!”
I long to wrap history around me like a well-worn cape. Sicilians, having lived among ruins for millennia, want to shed the old cape for something flashier.
***
A week or so later, I get a call in Rome. “Non c’e pietra.” There’s no stone.
I’m stunned. This is an old Sicilian house. There has to be stone. Or have I managed to purchase the one and only stone-free house in all of Italy?
***
There’s a new twist to the plot. My husband decides to travel from the U.S. to far-flung Ragusa Ibla to see for himself what’s going on. It’s the first time he and the house will meet—nearly a year after I’ve bought it—and I’m nervous. His interest in the project has not been keen. What’ll he think?
When he arrives at our mossy-smelling home late one afternoon, there’s rubble wherever you look. He wears a fixed frown and raises an eyebrow.
Then he hunts around for a tool. There’s nothing in the house but a vintage can opener. He climbs a ladder in the salone and starts scratching at the vaulted ceiling. He claws away with his rusty little can opener until fingers start to bleed.
“So who says there’s no pietra,” he yells from atop the ladder. “Look at this.”
Peeking through the plaster is a hint of beautiful stone.
x
He comes down from the ladder and steps onto the balcony with a wan smile. Plaster has settled into his hair. The sky is full of evening light; the bells toll as if they’re going mad. The small smile transforms into a dual-dimpled grin.
x
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February 19, 2010
I scale the scaffolding to inspect the newly-patched roof tiles. Resentment tugs at me—a feeling that my husband should be the one crawling up these monkey bars, not accident-prone me. Why is he 7,000 miles away, on terra firma, while I’m alone in this strange land? The truth is, the foolhardy idea to renovate a house in Sicily was all mine. But couldn’t he feign a little more interest?
I keep climbing. Anaïs Nin’s words run through my head: Life expands or contracts in proportion to your courage.
It’s cold up here. The house—at the summit of Ragusa Ibla— takes the full brunt of the cutting tramontana blowing south from snowy Mount Etna. The rocks at the edges of the roof are meant to keep the old terracotta tiles from flying away in the wind like a cloud of pigeons.
The finished roof, excruciatingly slow as it has been, looks gorgeous in the amber glow of late afternoon. But what do I know. Will it keep the rivers of rain outside? Will the damp house one day be a dry house?
Earlier in the day I’d rushed down in a panic from Rome because a neighbor had told me my scaffolding permit was about to expire. A denuncia against me—an official denouncement to the police—was under discussion by neighbors. None of my brushes with officialdom in Italy have been good; I’m especially nervous about being on the wrong side of the law in a country where even a bounced check can land you in the slammer.
But in true Sicilian fashion, disaster has been averted just in the nick of time. Fifteen minutes before the permit expires, my project manager tracks down a friend in the comune.
“C’e l’abbiamo fatto!” he enthuses, winking and brandishing the new papers. “We did it! It’s been extended. You’ve got to have friends in Sicily.”
Yes, you’ve got to have amici. A truism that becomes clearer to me each day. A friend of a friend—a virtual stranger—has, with astounding Sicilian generosity, donated all the materials for the next phase of the project: the plastering of leaky exterior walls.
But will the wall work drag on forever, like the roof did?
Will I give neighbors another reason to denounce me?
Will my husband ever come to Sicily? Will he ever want to see this old house?
…
xxx
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February 16, 2010
Starting in February, Sicilians take to the hills and valleys to hunt for wild spring asparagus.
The first time I stalked asparagi was with a party of friends in a wildflower-strewn valley just beyond Ragusa Ibla. We were led into battle by my friend Gio’s father, Signor Battaglia, a tailor with a zeal for women and wild edibles.
Though the skinny spears grew waist-high, they weren’t easy to spot. They lurked in brambles and behind stone drystone walls. For several hours we rambled through the golden freshness playing a kind of Where’s Waldo with asparagus.
“Look! There are five right ahead of me,” Signor Battaglia would say. He’d stop dead in his tracks to let our eyes focus. But the flora was tangled and we were asparagus-blind. He’d scowl with mock impatience, then inch forward to tap each tender green shoot with the tip of his cane. We’d erupt in surprise, and someone would clamber over a rock wall or wade deep into the brush to pluck the tall spears with a satisfying snap.
When we’d collected enough wild food to feed a village, we headed back to the house to prepare lunch with our dewy ingredients.
I’ve written elsewhere about this meal and special man, Signor Battaglia, who for me is the incarnation of Sicilian joie de vivre.
I thought about him yesterday and started craving asparagus. Since I’m not in Sicily at the moment, I had to settle for stalking spears in the vegetable aisle at Trader Joe’s. I found some good organic skinny spears. I love asparagus best roasted, so here’s what I did:
1. Snap off woody ends.
2. Wash well (store-bought variety can be gritty).
3. Put in baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.
4. Roast at 350 for about 15 minutes.
5. Grind coarse salt and pepper and add a little spritz of lemon if desired.
6. Serve at room temperature as an antipasto or hot as a side dish.
Asparagus has health benefits galore: it clears urine (yup!); contains fiber that encourages digestion; and supports heart health thanks to folate, vitamin B, and the master antioxidant glutathione.
Do you forage for wild edibles? What do you do with asparagi?
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Here’s a link to a blogger in Italy doing a series on wild edibles.
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My Tourist Tips for Southeast Sicily
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