Francesco

If only he hadn’t wanted to finish weed-wacking that field. He’d put in a new cutting string that whirled around and effortlessly did away with what most people called weeds. Some were and some weren’t. He knew the difference and most of them, in one way or the other, were edible. You might have to strip away the tough outer part, or get to the tender inner leaves, but then you had a particularly delicious salad or makings of a sauce for pasta. 

A couple more swaths and he would be done.  Suddenly he found himself flat on the ground and one leg was pointing off to one side while the foot – well the foot was pointing in another direction. A hole hidden in the grass. A hole he hadn’t seen or known was there. His enemy/friend the porcupine had probably been looking for tubers. Somehow he got up, somehow he got to the truck and got back home. His tendon had snapped. It was the beginning of him being old, of feeling useless. Eventually a brace did the trick, more or less. But his real working days were over. Who was going to prune the roses that climbed up the trees? Who was going to clear the field, carefully cutting around the wild orchids?  And there were steep steps to get to the kitchen and bedroom of his stone house.

That had all happened a couple of years ago. But he still wore a brace, could do so much less. Couldn’t help out the grey-haired lady who lived by herself in a stone house engulfed in greenery – bamboos and chestnuts. He liked to work for her, in other words for me – I called him my “Paul Bunyan”. Of course, I had to explain all that to him and he guessed he did sort of have a rough woodsman-like appearance. Heavy hand-knit socks, often of different colors. A stocking cap pulled down to his ears, with wisps of grey hair sticking out wildly, like an unkempt straw stack. His calloused hands were more like paws, what with cutting brambles, thinning out underbrush, always aware of a plant that might be rare and precious. And was therefore to be saved.  He was strong – then – and worked hard, always humbly asking me if what he did had pleased me.

A friend had said that Francesco and his wife Daniela should be declared national treasures, that God had made them and then thrown away the mold. Where else would you find a woodman/nurseryman who refused to cut down a tree simply because the owner said it cut off his view.

You would never have guessed that he had been to university, studied agriculture.  He and his wife Daniela, who has her degree in biology, can glean a fragrant salad and greens for the pasta from the fields around them. The core of the garlic shoot, before it flowers, called tarlo. Then there’s the anima or core (I like the use of the same word here for core and soul) of a thistle-like plant.

Going to see them is a journey back in time. A horse would have navigated the hilly dirt road better. The car bumps along, past the Cantina Monrubio, curve after curve with golden broom on either side if it’s May, and wild roses if it’s June. At the end of the road a small handwritten sign “Vivaio” “Nursery”, tells you this is it. I park my car and find Daniela in the field to one side of the house. making the rounds with the real estate agent. They’ve gotten to the olive grove, and the woods, the trees all local varieties, which they planted on a slope that was eroding. The trails are covered with brown oak leaves. I like the leaves, Daniela says, scuffling through them. She tries her best. But there’s just too much to do.

Looking around one seems to be in a wild Eden. Roses, some grown from seed, climb up the trees. In early June, there’s a whole field of wild orchids in the tall grass below the house. A blue butterfly alights on a weed and Daniela is ecstatic. To the delight of the boars, in August the boughs of the gnarled apple trees, heavy with fruit, bend down to the ground, and over in the woods is the porcupine’s den – enormous, like a maze of hobbit dwellings.

Francesco walks limping down the dirt path. Olive branches are piled up at one side. Hidden in the tangle, the small yellow star-like blossoms of a cornel tree stud the underbrush. Suddenly he leans down. Spring is early and the wiry foliage of wild asparagus peers out from under some bushes and with it, three slender asparagus spears. He pulls them up, slowly chews on one after the other. He sees the place the way it was a year, ten years ago. Soon the roses will leaf out, continue climbing up the tree. He planted one from seed and now it’s taller than he is, embracing the tree. There are dark grey plastic flower pots everywhere for that is how he always starts his plants. After all it used to be a nursery, but only of autochthonous varieties. In the distance on a slope are clumps of yellow daffodils. Yellow seems to be the color of spring – daffodils, mimosa, forsythia, cornels. But there are also purple crocuses, violets and red Japanese quince. 

He hates to think of leaving, but perhaps it’s worse to see the paths overgrown, boar hoof prints in the mud, and knowing what should be done, but which he can’t do any more. Does the porcupine still have its den over there? I say. Oh yes. And that field, what they call seminativo, arable, on the map, is full of wild orchids in June. And won’t be touched by scythe or plow. Stone steps lead back up to the top of the terraced slope. Large smooth stones – they come from a Roman road, he tells me. The bulldozer discarded them when it was making the new road and I lugged them up, one at a time.

Back to the house, anything but what you might call a normal civilized abode, a cat is waiting by the steep crumbling stone steps, the door locked twice with a chain. Inside, a jumble of books lines the walls, prints and pictures, plates and a dish towel all with floral patterns. In the kitchen, there is room in the great fireplace for a log to smolder away all day, to be brought back to life by adding a few sticks. Ropes of garlic, hard round shapes with a papery feel to the skins, drape the sides of the surround, white against the basalt black of the stones. The individual cloves inside, dressed in red, hold concealed a green heart. The freezer at one side seems anachronistic as Daniela hustles around to get some glasses and homemade bitter orange liqueur.

Moving is going to be a real undertaking for books are heavy.  And where are they going to put them? I point to a series on the Bible. But do you ever look at those? I ask. Oh yes. I love all the books. And stacks of magazines. Francesco and Daniela haven’t entered the internet world yet. (neither have I really. At least not to the point of using ebooks, and I too wonder what will happen to all my real books when I move). I like books, the feel of them, Danela says. I can imagine her consulting one book after another. Then Francesco pulls out a folder of pictures he made using leaves. Landscapes, houses, abstract patterns. All using varicolored leaves where one leaf may stand for a whole tree.  The notebook he made when he was only 8 is a real botanical catalogue, a foretaste of the future. Some people are lucky and know what they want to do early in life. And then they go and do it.

As we sip our liqueur, Francesco tells me about a BBC documentary on the cuckoo he had seen recently. I guess we all know, he said, that the cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and when the chick hatches it pushes the host babies out of the nest.  The cuckoo parents lead a carefree life not having to find food for their offspring.  Francesco added that sure, it was a nasty bird, but on the other hand it’s evolution. The cuckoo knows just when is the right time to lay its eggs in the host nest and has “figured out” how to procreate and raise its young, without having to do anything but lay its eggs. Pretty smart, if you look at it that way. I rather think he is a creationist – and can see why but figure it is a subject I should shy away from.

Later that day, back home, I sit quietly meditating, when I suddenly hear a slight sound. A petal has dropped from the large fragrant rose perched in a vase on my computer tower. I think of Francesco and how he had said that we wait a whole year for that one short moment of beauty. One must learn to appreciate the other kinds of beauty, the other stages in growth and development, not just the flowering (whether plant or anything else). I sit here and another petal drops.

I go back to thinking about Francesco and Daniela and how their vivaio reflects the love they put into every tree they planted, every path they cleared.  It has become too much now for them to keep up with, but they are loath to leave despite the pain they feel knowing what should be done but can no longer do. There seems no way I can shake off that sense of melancholy, of what once was, of impotence to change things.