So there you are, perched on geometrically arranged chairs about a rug of soberly coloured squares and rectangles surrounded by polished tiles, chinking your tall glass with your host’s. The Visentinis’ daughter is there too: Lara, named after the heroine in Dr Zhivago. A strapping twelve-year-old, she giggles merrily when Rita cracks a joke. I’m offering compliments about the wine, asking if it is the same that we will be bottling together in the spring. There are the makings of a pleasant evening.
But Giampaolo is so solemn. And, perhaps not wishing to discuss wine with a layman, he launches into serious conversation. He’s telling you about some new law. For he likes to talk about politics. Concerning drunk driving for example. Yes, the new law on drunk driving has been drawn up discretamente (quite well, with intelligence if not flair) and is in fact for the most part valido (sound, functional), but all of this is relativo (of only secondary importance) since the instruments for enforcing the law are not available, or if they are nobody has any intention of using them. He smiles, as if having performed a conjuring trick, takes a sparkling sip of prosecco, picks up another piece of pastafrolla.
And the formula, you discover as the evening progresses, can be applied to almost any area of life upon which Giampaolo cares to reflect. The Italian system of autostrade, he is telling you now, is definitely discreto, road surfaces and markings are always valido, but all this tends to be relativo since, with the exorbitant price of petrol and the very high tolls, one would need to be rich indeed before one could use it with any regularity.
Another long sip of this extraordinary wine.
Likewise efficiency in Italian companies, such as his own, is certainly discreto, the managerial class indubitably valido, but again these pluses are rendered relativo by a public sector which simply sucks blood from the rest of the economy.
And so, if you encourage him, he will go on all evening: the constitution, the electoral system, the TV networks; discreto, valido, relativo. It is a curious and, I believe, curiously Italian stalemate, in which ineradicable national pride (and why not?) exists side by side with a sense of cynicism (equally justifiable) and, at the end of the day, resignation. The judicial system has been ‘conceived discretamente bene’, and the constitution in this regard is undoubtedly valido, in that it establishes the total independence of the judiciary. But whatever the institutional make-up, it is inevitably only relativo given the endemic corruption that always allows the mafiosi to get off scot-free.
The mental pattern propagates itself like someone cutting pastry (or pastafrolla) with a die, or pouring wine into tall glasses. There is no question of simply showing anger or outrage for all the things that make the country a less attractive place to live than it might so easily be. The blunt analysis and sleeve-rolling gaucheness which forms the typical reaction of, for example, the English, inevitably carries the subtext that something could and should be done, and quickly: reform the poll tax, cut inflation, dump Thatcher, etc. etc. English people usually believe such things to be possible, or at least imaginable. But the Italian knows that nothing can or will be done in his country, and that if it is done it certainly will not be done quickly. This is his experience. After all, with all the shifting coalitions and merry-go-round of prime ministers, most people here haven’t seen a real change of government in their lifetime. Thus an Italian’s satisfaction, when he talks about politics, will lie in feeling that he has analysed the situation accurately, appreciated its ironies, seen the pros and the cons, absorbed the subtleties, and above all gone beyond the crude simplicity of foreigners who talk in ingenuous terms about changing things.
Discreto, valido, relativo — not one of them is a particularly complimentary or pejorative term. They are the cool words of the astute analyst, the man who looks at the whole show from a distance, then goes about his business as he would have done anyway, regardless, but happy to have had the chance to illustrate his powers of observation. In the final analysis: ‘La legge non mi tange.’
Fortunately there is Orietta’s gossip to brighten up the evening. Lucilla has apparently called on the priest, Don Guido, to be a witness in the case she is bringing against Signora Marta. He has agreed. Which is interesting. And did we know that Lucilla has a fancy man? Simone, an ex-carabiniere. Yes, he comes three or four evenings a week. The daughter giggles and begins to explain about the vacuum cleaner. Lucilla has what must be a pre-war vacuum cleaner, but recently she has been borrowing Orietta’s (Vittorina doesn’t have one), claiming that her own is broken. Whereas, in fact, Lara, the daughter, saw Simone, the carabiniere fancy man, bumping down the stairs with the thing only a week ago.
To mend it? To use it? Can’t he afford one?
Anyway, this is becoming a problem, Orietta says, since there’s so much dust about these days with all the building going on in the street. She needs to use the thing herself two or three times a day.
Everybody nods gravely.
Orietta is small, doll-like, and clearly perfectly attuned to sedentary domestic life. She doesn’t have a job, but every corner of the room shows evidence of her tireless cleaning. Only the other morning I watched her diligently polishing inch after inch of the long marble balustrade of the terrace balcony. There was concentration on her face, satisfaction, the devotion of the accolyte cleaning the altar. Not unlike her husband’s expression while pouring his prosecco. Later we will discover that, when Giampaolo wanted to accept a more dynamic job in a much smaller company, Orietta forbade him. It wasn’t safe.
She is also scared of earthquakes.
And of every possible disease. Thus, as so often with Italian acquaintances, we are not far into our first evening with the Visentini before Orietta is discussing her blood pressure. Which is a mite high. She shouldn’t have more than two coffees a day. Also she occasionally gets attacks of tachycardia. She is appalled to discover that I don’t even know my own blood pressure. As far as I know it has never been taken. Her face shows genuine concern. Apparently, we are touching on a real cultural difference here.
Orietta explains that after feeling somewhat faint a few days ago the doctor arranged for her to have an exhaustive series of blood and urine tests, together with an electrocardiogram and a heart scan. She has thus been getting up early every morning to get to the hospital, wait in all the queues, fill in all the forms and fix all the appointments. She remembers last time she had a blood test her bilirubin was way outside the norms indicated on the test sheet, whereas cholesterol A was thankfully low.
I remark that I have never, to my knowledge, had a blood test. I don’t even know my group.
Lara had a rash a few weeks ago on face and chest. Although this cleared up almost immediately, she too was sent off for complete blood and urine tests, including tests for such things as syphilis. It appeared that her trigliceridi were rather high.