The Visentini offered no comment on this state of affairs. Presumably, we must procure a bin of our own.
I then asked about the garage which Signora Marta had mentioned. Tall and serious, but handsome too, and with something boyish about him somewhere, Giampaolo led me downstairs to a semi-basement where, turning right at the bottom of the stairs, a very big area the size of a whole flat served as the shared condominium garage. I was immediately impressed by the positively licked cleanness of the smoothly finished red-brick tiles that had been chosen for the flooring: no oil stains, barely visible tyre marks. Attractive as it was, this simply didn’t seem necessary for a garage.
Four parking spaces had been marked out between cement pillars. To the far side was Giampaolo’s gleaming white twin-carburettor Giulietta, just in front of us a minuscule Fiat 126, again white. The other two places were empty.
I asked which was my space. Giampaolo said this one on our right was Flat 1’s and so Vittorina’s (Lucilla’s sister-in-law), and the space to the left of the Giulietta at the far end was Flat 3’s, our own. Però, he warned, neither space had been used since the death of the male members of those households: Umberto Patuzzi and Giosuè Zambon. This was a question of respect. He showed me the small crucifixes on the pillars beside the spaces. Lucilla, he said, was a superstitious person, but not ultimately an unpleasant one. It was merely a question of time.
I remarked that if using the garage meant war with Lucilla, forget it, it didn’t matter, my car had little bodywork worth saving. This did not bring a smile, and in retrospect it occurs to me how foolish such jokiness is amidst a nation of car worshippers. A man who has spent six months of his stipendio buying an Alfa Romeo twin-carburettor Giulietta which he hardly ever uses, does not want to hear that others are quite happy to get by with a ten-year-old rusting Passat. And bright orange at that.
Before returning to the women upstairs, Giampaolo made a point of showing me the communal taverna.
A taverna is a large basement or semi-basement room situated beneath a modern villetta, palazzina, or small condominium of central or northern Italy, and it is dedicated to partying. It must have a large, preferably enormous fireplace, suitable for barbecuing; a selection of strictly labelless wines, alpine-style pine furniture, one long banqueting table, an area with sink for washing dishes, and perhaps a stereo. On the walls, as was the case in Via Colombare, decorations should include old posters showing views of the mountains or the country, some hunting trophies (here, remarkably, a surely fake cheetah) and such things as old swords or shot-guns. In Via Colombare there were Patuzzi’s wooden skis from perhaps forty years ago.
It should be said that old houses do not have taverne. Only new ones. For the taverna is the contemporary Italian’s dream of the past, an exercise in urban adaptation and nostalgia. That is to say, this big below-ground party room attempts to recreate, for the modern flat-dweller in his cramped condominium, the feeling of those huge old country kitchens with their abundance of game, polenta and local wine which still take up such a large space in the national consciousness. Thus, in many a taverna, often beneath the most uninspiring prefabricated structures, you will find that the occupants have bought an authentic old pietra serena fireplace to install in the wall, or, if they cannot afford the real thing, then at least a decent imitation, with an impressive array of black iron fire-tending implements. Tables likewise tend to be old or to look old and you must have at least one ornate high-backed hard wooden chair which no one ever sits on.
When a couple of condominium families get together to invite their friends to eat here, on the Bank-holiday evening of ferragosto perhaps (15 August), or on 25 April, la festa della Liberazione, they expect these furnishings, particularly the splintery pine benches and fake oil-lamp light fittings, to induce a mood at once of merriment and traditional wholesomeness, the rightness of family and friends enjoying the fruits of their labours around the common hearth. As if for the space of an evening, the office worker, or shopkeeper, or pharmaceutical salesman could enjoy the healthy repose of the contadino after the grape harvest; as if, like some Jungian subconscious, the taverna could be used to store away a primitive past and all its richness.
My own experience is that, like so many dreams, the taverna is better in the dreamer’s imagination than in the realisation. Happier the Veronese choosing his fireplace and barbecuing instruments, than the same irritated fellow trying to enjoy them. You go to a taverna party in a damp basement, unheated and un-aired since the last binge, and quite possibly you will catch your death despite the most stifling weather above ground. The chimney doesn’t draw properly because it is rarely used. You eat off a miscellany of plates, survivors of other dinner services once used upstairs; you drink from dusty glasses that no amount of rinsing will clean, perhaps because there is no hot water in the basement sink. Items of cutlery are found to be missing. Your knife doesn’t cut very well. Conversation booms about the bare cement walls. After about an hour or so, just when the wine and barbecuing are beginning to take the chill off the place, the condominium dog-in-the-manger comes downstairs to complain that the noise is making it impossible for him to follow the latest episode of some favourite telenovela, i. e., a recycling of Dallas, Dynasty or whatever. He is reassured, amidst much contrition and invitation to join in (for this is by definition a wholesome party), then promptly forgotten, though remaining perhaps as a nagging subconscious irritation.
The food begins to arrive. You eat the flesh and sometimes it seems the bones and feathers too of blackbirds and small pigeons, crushing, as instructed, Malteser-sized heads between your molars so as to suck out the brains inside. Which are indeed toothsome. But pitifully small. While all around the table people are trying too hard to be jolly.
Out come the carabinieri jokes (right angles boiling at 90° and so on), the shaggy dog stories of bureaucratic odysseys (‘so when I went back for the third time he says that since my birth certificate was from another province and dated prior to 1959, the whole procedure should have been done by post with the office in Rimini …’). There is much loud guffawing, head shaking, glass filling. ‘No, you must have another uccellino. You must. They’re squisiti and I’ve already cooked it now.’ The thing falls on your plate with a definite resemblance to those hapless little corpses one finds on wet pavements in spring. Accordion music strikes out from the stereo. Six couples launch themselves into traditional dances in six square metres. Loud giggles. Somebody burns themself on a hot poker left sticking out of the hearth, etc. etc.
The taverna seems to induce this behaviour, this determination to be festive at all costs. Indeed, almost any taverna party has the flavour of those New Year’s Eves when you simply can’t feel there is anything to celebrate and wish you had stayed at home. But then my wife constantly tells me I’m a gufo, an owl, a spoilsport. She thoroughly enjoys these occasions. In my defence, I would merely say that, whatever the surroundings, I always love the wine, I can even tell with my eyes closed more or less which of the local varieties I’m drinking, and if only we could be having it in well-ventilated accommodation upstairs with some tortellini al dente, followed perhaps by a plate of finely sliced rare horsemeat and a tiramisù straight from the fridge, I would be in heaven.