We pulled into a gas station, but no one approached us at the pumps. I got out of the car and wandered into the gas station’s café.
“Chiusa oggi. Tutto,” a young man behind the counter said brusquely, with a wave of his hand. Closed today. Everything. No reason was given. Italians take their closings very seriously.
“The town’s closed today,” I said to Mom when I returned to the car.
“Why?”
“Beats me,” I shrugged.
“But it’s Thursday!”
We drove up and down the empty streets of Alberobello.
There’s something unsettling about a town without any activity. Eventually, with a sigh of surrender, we returned to our trullo.
We retreated to our individual rooms and the warmth of our beds. I put my pajamas back on and added socks and the snot-green sweater. I scoured the cupboards and drawers for more blankets but came up empty-handed. How was it possible for Italy—my beloved, hot Italy!—to feel colder than Canada?
“Are you warm enough?” I asked Mom when I peeked into her room.
But her eyes were already shut.
THE NEXT day we took another stab at checking out the area.
Culture shock was no match for how utterly blindsided I was by a lack of all sense of direction. A road map was of no help because it did not show the numerous small country lanes that shot off in various directions from the main road. At least I assumed it was a main road.
We dutifully followed the road signs to the nearby town of Locorotondo but, despite our efforts, ended up in another town, Martina Franca. Dumbfounded, I glanced down at the map in my lap. I had no idea how we ended up there, much less how we would find our way back.
At least there was some action in Martina Franca. We inched through the busy streets filled with small cars. Elderly men and women wandered in and out of traffic.
“Oh look!” cried Mom. “A church! Stop! I want to go in!”
“It’s hard to stop here, Mom,” I stammered, checking my rearview mirror and swerving to avoid an oncoming car.
“There’s traffic piling up behind me. You get out and go in. I’ll try to find a parking spot.”
“You just passed a parking spot,” she said. “Why didn’t you park there?”
“What spot?” I said, turning my head just as a small car deftly slipped into the vacant space. “How am I supposed to look for parking spaces and concentrate on driving in a foreign country?”
“You’d notice them if you stopped being so grumpy,” she replied flatly. “Now stop the car.”
In the middle of the street I jammed the car’s gear into neutral and pulled on the emergency brake.
Mom flung open the passenger door (without looking first to see if another car or someone on a bicycle was approaching; luckily, neither was) and laboriously maneuvered herself out of the car. Meanwhile I sprinted to the rear of the car, lifted the hatch, and unloaded her walker. I could feel the impatience of Italy boring into my back as horns tooted their irritation at this nervy pit stop.
Normally when this happens, and I am possessed by the moral superiority of knowing that there is a very good reason why I have stopped the car, I launch into a small rage that involves certain fingers and unladylike language. But something prevented me this time. Perhaps it was the old man behind the wheel of the car that was nosing my rear bumper. I did not have the words to fire at him—well, not Italian words.
Instead, I watched Mom persevere to the sidewalk, slowly raise her walker over the curb, and set off with great effort for the church.
“Dear God,” I muttered. “Please shoot me before I reach that stage of life.”
I got back into the car and began searching for a parking space, creeping along a dense labyrinth of streets. Upon circling the block I spotted—aha!—an empty spot close to the church where I had dropped off Mom. I pulled in—and it took all my skills to shoehorn the car into the space without scraping off the paint on my car or the cars on either side, I might add. After congratulating myself I squeezed out of the driver’s side, locked the car, double-checked that the car doors were indeed locked, and then turned toward the church, just in time to see Mom walking toward me.
“I thought you wanted to see the church,” I said.
“I saw it, said a prayer; it’s a lovely church,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Gee, when I pray I feel obliged to tell God that He might want to pour Himself a large coffee and settle into a comfortable chair. My prayers are rarely brief.
Low stone walls lined both sides of the two-lane highway back to Alberobello. Ahead, a hilltop town came into view. An impressively ancient white stone church dome and bell tower hovered behind a whitewashed stone wall bordering terraced fields. The town was Locorotondo.
We followed the signs to the centro storico and by some fluke wound up in front of the same town hall where we had first rendezvoused with Chris a few nights earlier. Across the street, people were milling around tables and stalls arrayed with brightly colored goods.
“I’ll bet that’s the market,” I said to Mom. “I’ll let you out here, and once I find a parking spot I’ll catch up with you.”
I stopped the car to let her out, then jumped out myself to unpack her walker from the back of the station wagon, set it up, and help her and the walker mount the curb. Then I got back into the car and drove off in search of a parking spot.
We had only been in Italy a couple of days, and already I was resenting the responsibility of driving and parking. Usually when I travel, I am free as a butterfly. I am more likely to be on foot and can stop and start, linger or jet off when the mood strikes. Not on this trip. I was responsible not only for my mother and her walker but also for our rental car, for finding our way around, for negotiating things in Italian, for deciding the itinerary, for, hell, even when and where to eat. I have on occasion been characterized as a control freak (usually by an ex-husband), and my reasonable response was always, “Well, someone has to be!” But truthfully, the accusation was patently unfair. I would kill—kill—to be led around by the nose for at least a week or so and have someone else take control of the day-to-day responsibilities.
By the time I caught up to Mom, she had already scuttled halfway through the market. She and that red walker of hers can really fly.
The market was crammed with vendors selling every conceivable item: clothing of questionable style and vintage, plastic bins, small appliances, leather or leather-looking purses (I was not tempted to take a closer look), duvets and comforters sporting large, unattractive floral patterns in faded pastels, and various household gadgets that, while likely useful, lacked esthetic charm.
Mom and I stood out like greenhorns among the legion of local women, some who were weathered of face, with kerchiefs tied under their chins and dressed in Italy’s national color— black, others who were younger and wore smart-looking jeans but who, if such facial expressions as narrowed eyes and furrowed brows offer a window on a person’s lifestyle, endured hardworking lives and scant resources. They wandered by the stalls, casting looks of profound indifference at the wares displayed, occasionally poking and prodding an item as if taunting the vendors, who would then leap to their feet and launch into their sales pitch, which most certainly included the phrase, “Today, everything is 30 percent off.”
In this crowd my mother was easy to spot. She wore beige slacks with a matching zip-front jacket. She was the only blonde in the crowd—Italian women dye their hair dark until their dying day—and she was pushing a metallic-red walker, a rare and novel contraption in these parts judging by the number of turned heads.
Picking up the scent of fresh ignorant