If our impulses were confined to hunger,
thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free;
but now we are moved by every wind that blows
and a chance word or scene that
that word may convey to us.”
(Mary Shelley)
1.
Greta was sitting on the steps leading to the Duomo but it was getting late now. She would stay there forever to admire the double-arched windows of the Papal Palace, especially at sunset, when the red sun would make their fine design look even thinner. At first glance, they might have looked like valuable intaglio carvings, done by delicate hands of skilled embroiderers, but actually they were the fruit of the work of strong and meticulous mighty arms and experienced fingers of stonecutters from Viterbo who with their expertise, were able to master the apparent hardness of the peperino1 stone giving it the shape they wanted.
Everything was magic in those moments.
Greta had been working in Viterbo for the last five years as the secretary of a notary public. She loved that adoptive town, the little streets of the old part of the town paved with sampietrini2, the fountains in every square, profferli3. She loved the peaceful atmosphere that you would get in the countryside areas which were not too far from the town. Despite it all, as a real Sicilian woman, she could not keep away from the water, the element that she loved the most and was essential for her life. After running away from Aci Castello, she had lived in Rome for a short period of time, where she worked in a fast food restaurant, then she went looking for a quieter place. She got a place in Capodimonte, a little town fairly close to Viterbo, on the Bolsena lake. That beautiful lake, with its two islands looking like two watchmen, had caught her attention from the first time, casting a spell on her right away.
It was getting late. It was time for Greta to go home. Before doing that, though, she needed to drop in at notary De Fusco, her employer, to collect some paperwork that she had to hand over to the owner of one of the two islands of the Bolsena lake, the Bisentina island. She was excited because the next day she was going to go to that island by boat. It had sparked interest in her since the first time she saw it; she was going to see for herself if what she heard about it was true.
Notary De Fusco was a plump man, in his sixties, with little hair and a blank look, he would take his job very seriously, but certainly he was not a cheerful person. “He was a good man,” thought Greta “but he was afraid of his own shadow and that was maybe his bigger flaw”.
Greta remembered when a few years back, browsing through a local newspaper looking for a job, in the ads section, she was amazed to see how short his message was “Reliability and willingness to work. That’s what I am looking for”.
He was just like this.
«Now Greta, that’s the plan. Tomorrow morning you will meet up with Principe del Drago. I have already made arrangements with that fisherman and you will go in his boat. You will read the sales deed page by page to him, you will get him to sign them, you will give him a copy, and you will bring one copy back. Please be kind, but not obsequious, excessive mannerism is not good in such situations.»
He had been telling Greta this three or four times already, what to do and how to deal with these matters that she knew so well. He was visibly nervous because he wanted this deal to be successful: to him the fact that a big landowner as Principe del Drago had chosen him among all the notary public in the area to settle his real estate business, surely was a reason for pride , especially as regards to those colleagues who, as he used to say when he was in a friendly mood, would consider work only as a way to earn a living.
Greta got out of the front door of the big building where her office was, with a considerable pile of documents inside a black leather briefcase that the notary public had lent her for the occasion. The fresh air accompanied her to the bus stop, like a loyal friend would have done, ready to listen to what happened to her during the day which was just gone.
* * *
When she eventually got out of the bus, the sun had just gone down and was replaced by a light reddish colour that reflected shadows the colour of blood on the lake. It looked as if it was wounded by the wake left by some isolated boat of fishermen back from putting the nets down: the two islands stood out against the horizon so dark as the night.
The Strongholds of Capodimonte, which overlooked the lake from the small peninsula where there was the oldest part of the town, stood out with its magnificent polygonal shape. The wood all around the strongholds, with its fresh and shiny magnolias, palm trees and pink oleanders, was surely designed to virtually shorten the height of the big spurts that were supporting it, however it made the whole view of the strongholds far more beautiful, even from a distance. Greta set off home thinking about the first time she visited that big building: she remembered the courtyard with its doors, his windows, with the triple loggia designed by Sangallo, she remembered the upper apartments where you could get access to from a cordonata4 which was probably used in the old times by horses too, she remembered long, straight and dark sets of stairs. There was not a soul in the old strongholds, and even if the bright colours of the lake were overflowing from every window and from every crevice, you could only feel sadness coming from the walls that once saw the prestige and the splendor of noble lineage which were now just experiencing years of solitude.
Despite her melancholic memories, Greta could only think about the day after, when she could go to the Bisentina Island at last; a tiny piece of land, yet so charming.
She kept looking at the lake, while going up the steep hill paved with grey sampietrini, leading to the upper part of the town, where she lived. Greta knew so well the steep and windy little lanes with stairs everywhere, little walls, arch buttresses with houses built with the local dark stone, with dark entrance halls or brightened up by the redness given by plain patchings with bricks. She knew the smell of thousands of vases and cooking pots stacked with herbs and flowers on the small windows, or left to beautify some small tabernacle at the corners of the houses. All of a sudden, resurfacing from that hydillic view, she felt someone approching her whose shadow was getting longer beside hers.
«Good evening Greta, you are back really late tonight. You work too much.»
An open smile, surrounded by countless tiny wrinkles on a face burnt by the sun: this was Greta’s neighbour, Giacomo, the old fisherman.
«Holy smoke, Giacomo, you gave me a start! I was wondering who that was at this time of the evening… My head is up in the clouds tonight, I can picture myself already sailing the lake.»
They walked ahead for some time, side by side, without saying a word, deep in their thoughts, Greta was holding tight in her right hand, her briefcase packed with papers, Giacomo had a basket full of early produce coming from his vegetable garden: tapered carrots, red and juicy tomatoes, yellow potatoes, pink and velvety peaches and eggs, still warm. On top of the vegetables, Giacomo had placed a bunch of flowers, artistically held together by a twisted twig: colourful zinnias, delicate asters and just blossomed gladiola. They got to the little square; Giacomo wanted to give Greta that basket with the vegetables, but the girl never wanted to take anything from him because she felt already very grateful to him to let a stranger rent his lovely little place for an extra nothing.
«I’d be glad if you accepted this… this basket, Greta. It is about time you try the vegetables I grow. I beg you, I live on my own and I am always left with too much of them. It is no bother to me, it would be a pleasure indeed.»
«Alright Giacomo, I accept your gift with great pleasure provided that you will come for dinner at my place tonight. I am sure that with all this bonanza, even a disaster in the kitchen like me will manage to make a mouthwatering meal.»
Greta was feeling a little sad over the last few days and sharing the dinner with that cheerful old man would do her good.
Greta got down to work in the kitchen, and in just