Nothing is familiar. If he was here before — and he was — he has forgotten everything. The little track-like road winding away from Strada Statale 309, first seeming to wander in the wrong direction, away from the tall campanile that sticks out above a stand of trees, and then turning on itself and taking him, past a vista of fields stretching to the horizon, to a little lake, a few dumpsters next to a wall, some parking spaces on an apron of tarmac.
He puts the Passat in one of the spaces, most of which are empty. The frigid air shocks him when he opens the door. There is quite a strong smell of dog shit. A sign indicates, surprisingly, that thieves are a problem here. He looks around at the silent, empty scene. The only sound is the quiet shushing of traffic on Strada Statale 309. Thieves? Not now, surely. Anyway, there is nothing in his car for them to steal. He puts on his scarf and locks the Passat.
The campanile is a few hundred metres off. He sees it through the leafless trees. Starting to walk towards it, he is weighed down, somewhat, by a feeling that this is pointless, what he is doing. He feels tired and cold, and he is not actually very interested in seeing this place. That is obvious now that he is here, walking towards it over the frost-blanched tarmac, quickening his step to keep warm. And in fact there does not seem to be much to see. The setting is a sort of sparse park. He passes two modest-looking places to eat, set behind empty terraces on one side of the road that leads to the campanile. Only one of them seems to be open — there is a sign outside, anyway. And it occurs to him that the abbey itself may not be open, on a weekday morning at this time of year.
It is open, however.
What there is of it.
—
After he has looked it over, he walks back to the place with the sign outside. A very simple place — not where they ate with Alan and his wife when they were here years ago. There is a slot machine with flashing lights. Old posters on the walls. Dusty bottles of wine for sale on shelves. He sits down at a small table. A man puts a paper place mat in front of him, and hands him a laminated menu. The only other people eating there are a middle-aged couple speaking in low voices at another table. German, they seem to be. He quickly scans the menu. He is not very hungry. He wants something hot. He orders soup.
He only spent half an hour looking at the abbey — a series of low brick buildings, very plain, with small windows. A few modest pieces of carved white marble. Inside, it was mostly just empty rooms. There was a courtyard with a square of lawn and a well in the middle. It was all quite evocative. A memorial to a way of life that went on here for a thousand years, a way of seeing the world. One side of the courtyard was formed by the side wall of the abbey church. The whole interior of the church was painted with scenes and figures. He spent some time in there, looking with a historian’s interest at the painted walls, the strange and often violent scenes depicted on them. A man on fire. Naked women. A sort of devil, with suffering people in his enormous oval mouth.
When he had had enough, he stepped out into the porch. The low winter sun shone into the deep porch. Set in its walls were some marble tablets, memorials for the important dead. In a tranquil and unhurried mood, he studied some of these. They were in Latin, obviously, a language he learned a lifetime ago. He is still able, sometimes, to make something of it, and in one of the inscriptions he found five words that made him stand there thoughtfully for a while. A single Latin sentence, on a piece of stone in memory of a man who had died hundreds of years ago.
The waiter puts the hot soup on the table in front of him, and some bread sticks individually wrapped in paper.
‘Grazie,’ he says.
‘Prego,’ the waiter says, as he walks away.
The Germans at the other table have unfolded a map of northeastern Italy. Poring over it, they talk to each other in quiet voices.
The waiter is talking to someone too, though nobody is visible. He speaks again, in a scolding tone. And then a little girl emerges from somewhere and walks over to one of the empty tables where she sits down. She must be…Seven years old? She sits at the table, looking out the window, her feet swinging well short of the floor.
Tony eats his soup — minestra di fagioli. Green leaves of cabbage float in it, huge creamy beans.
Unselfconsciously, and still staring at the window, at the empty stillness of the winter day, the little girl has started to sing something in a soft, lisping voice.
While he eats his soup, he tries to understand the words of the song. She is singing it for a second time now.
‘Gennaio nevicato,’ she sings, her lips hardly moving.
In January it snows.
‘Febbraio, mascherato.’
February is masked.
‘Marzo, pazzerello.’
March is mad, madness.
‘Aprile, ancor più bello.’
April, even more lovely.
‘Maggio, frutti e fiori. Giugno, vado al mare.’
May, fruits and flowers. June, off to the sea.
‘Luglio e Agosto, la scuola non conosco.’
July and August, school is unknown…No school.
‘Settembre, la vendemmia. Ottobre, con la nebbia.’
September, the, er…harvest. October, foggy.
‘Novembre, un golf in piú. Dicembre con Gesù.’
November, an extra jumper. December, Jesus.
Having finished the song, she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. She has auburn hair, pale skin. She sees that he is looking at her. Her eyes are greenish.
He smiles. ‘That was a nice song,’ he says to her, in Italian.
She says, ‘I learned it at school.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well…’ He is not sure what to say. ‘Well done,’ he says.
She shrugs and starts to sing it again, evidently with nothing else to do, staring out the window.
‘Gennaio nevicato. Febbraio, mascherato…’
The Germans are paying for their meal.
They leave and the waiter starts to tidy their table.
‘Un caffè,’ Tony says to him as the man passes with an armful of plates. He acknowledges the order with a single nod. His daughter — if she is his daughter — is still singing.
Novembre, un golf in più. Dicembre con Gesù.
And the Germans are unexpectedly there again. They hurry in, obviously agitated.
The waiter is at the espresso machine, whacking something.
‘Polizei!’ the German man almost shouts. ‘Polizei!’
The waiter doesn’t stop what he is doing. He just turns his head, and the German says something in his own language which the waiter does not seem to understand.
The man tries English. ‘Please, you must call the police,’ he says.
‘You must call the police,’ echoes his wild-eyed wife.
In Italian, the waiter says, ‘The police? Why?’
‘You must call them,’ the man says, still speaking English. ‘Our car…Somebody has.’ And he motions with his fist.
‘Somebody has broken into your car?’ the waiter says, sticking to Italian himself, and sounding wearily unsurprised.
‘Yes, yes,’ the man says in English, understanding. ‘You must call the police.’
‘Okay,’ the waiter says, unexcitably. ‘I’ll call the police.’
First, though, he takes Tony his espresso — something Tony appreciates, though it evidently exasperates the Germans, particularly the woman, who turns to the door with an outraged sigh. The waiter returns unhurriedly to the bar and picks up the phone, which is attached to the wall next to a calendar with pictures of agricultural machinery.