Business was always good, not least because of the prodigious appetites of the Pertinis’ neighbors. Visitors from the city might come and go, but the mainstay of the osteria’s business was the villagers themselves. At noon each day every last one of them, from Don Bernardo the priest to the widow Esmeralda, the village prostitute, stopped work and strolled over to the Pertinis’ vine-shaded terrace, where for two hours they ate like royalty and drank wine made from the same grapes which ripened above their heads.
It was sometimes said of the Vesuviani that, laboring as they did under the ever-present threat of annihilation, all their appetites were gargantuan—whether for wine, for food or for love. They were also much more superstitious than other Neapolitans, which was to say, extremely superstitious indeed. Every lunch began with a dual offering: a grace offered up to heaven by the priest, and a small libation of wine poured onto the earth by Ernesto, the oldest laborer in the village, a tacit recognition of the fact that here on Vesuvius the ground beneath their feet was considerably more threatening, and closer to their thoughts, than heaven. Like every other village on the volcano, Fiscino was protected by a little circle of shrines, some containing statues of the Virgin, others little effigies of San Sebastiano, who had been protecting them for as long as there had been people on the mountain. Other Neapolitans might object that he had not been doing a very good job, since there had been a catastrophic eruption as recently as 1923, but to the Vesuviani the very fact that eruptions were not more frequent was proof of his remarkable efficacy. However, they were not above hedging their bets, just in case, and many of these protective shrines also bore a little mark depicting a horn, a symbol already old when Christianity came to these parts.
Similarly, it was accepted that while doctors might be good for certain straightforward medical problems, such as a wound that needed stitching, more complex maladies required the intervention of a maga, or healer. The maga fulfilled many of the functions of a pharmacist, dispensing herbs and recipes to treat everyday ailments such as toothache or the flu, as well as potions that would make a woman fall in love or a man stay faithful. On Vesuvius, the magical powers of the maghe were even more widely distributed than usual, so that one family possessed the secret of medicine for warts, while another had the cure for earache, and another the remedy for the evil eye. Within each family it was a matter of some speculation as to who would inherit the gift. For the Pertinis, the matter resolved itself early on. Both Livia and Marisa helped their mother in the kitchen, but while it soon became clear that Livia had inherited her mother’s ability at the stove, Marisa preferred to concoct recipes of a different kind, involving the blood of a cockerel, dew harvested at dawn on the Feast of St. John, or obscure herbs gathered from the depths of the pine woods that covered the slopes of the mountain.
Livia could not remember learning to cook. Agata had begun to teach her when she was very small, bringing a wooden step into the kitchen so that Livia could reach the stove. By the time she was twelve she had graduated from helping out when the restaurant was busy to being in charge when her mother was ill—a circumstance which occurred increasingly often. She no longer had to bring any conscious thought to what she was doing, nor was she ever aware of following a recipe. As a mathematician is said to be able to see complex equations in terms of patterns, or a musician can improvise melodies from a dozen different scales, she knew instinctively how to bring out the best in whatever ingredients she was using. When she was asked how she had cooked something, or what it was called, she would simply shrug and say “It’s sfiziosa,”—a Neapolitan word which has no exact equivalent in English, or even in Italian, but which means roughly “for the hell of it,” or “as the fancy takes me.” The restaurant’s customers soon learnt not to ask, and were simply grateful for the presence of such precocious talent in their midst, even if the owner of the talent was something of a scassapulle, possessed of a fiery temper and a sharp tongue.
During the meal Livia noticed that Enzo was sitting with a group of other soldiers, and that he was easily the most handsome of any of them. She also noticed that the beauty pageant contestants were sitting nearby, shooting the soldiers limpid glances out of the corners of their eyes, glances that did not go unnoticed by the young men, who responded by indulging in increasingly raucous horseplay, which the girls then pretended to be offended by. The three Farelli sisters, of course, were flirting more than anyone. Livia sighed. It seemed to her unlikely that Enzo would come back for that coffee after all. Colomba, the eldest of the sisters, was clearly setting her cap at him—or rather, her bonnet, a ridiculous concoction covered with glass fruit and feathers. So that was that. It was Colomba who had coined the nickname stecchetto, little toothpick, for Livia, because she was so scrawny. She had filled out a little since her sixteenth birthday, but she would never have Colomba’s curves.
Then she saw that Enzo was getting up from his place and coming toward her. She turned away. He did not stop, but as he passed her he whispered, “I was right the first time, when I called you an angel. Because surely only an angel could cook like that.”
“Save your flattery for whoever wins the beauty contest,” she said. But she flushed with pleasure despite herself, and when she saw Colomba Farelli looking at her with daggers in her eyes, it was nice to be able to smile sweetly in return.
As she was serving the huge platter of sliced apricots in wine which was the inevitable dolce of the feast-day lunch, something rather remarkable happened. A row had broken out between Colomba and her two sisters, Mimì and Gabriella. And not just a row: Within moments it had progressed from name-calling and screaming to hair-pulling and scratching, much to the amusement of the watching soldiers. It required the intervention of Don Bernardo himself to calm the warring parties, getting to his feet and thumping the table with an empty bottle of wine until there was silence.
“This is a disgrace,” he thundered. “And as a consequence of your appalling behavior, I shall not be awarding the prize to any of you.”
“So who will you give it to?” a voice asked from the crowd.
“To no one.”
“But if you don’t give it to anyone, it’ll be a draw, and they’ll all have won,” the voice pointed out. There was a murmur of agreement at the irrefutable logic of this.
“Then I shall give it to…” Don Bernardo’s gaze raked across the terrace, and came to rest on Livia. “I shall give it to someone who truly deserves it, because she provided us with all this food.”
Oh no, Livia thought. To enter and not win would have been bad enough, but not to enter and to win because the priest was angry with the Farelli sisters would be completely humiliating. Colomba, for one, would never let her forget it.
The same thought must have belatedly occurred to Don Bernardo, who was quailing slightly before the ferocity of Livia’s scowl. “Um…er…” he said.
Enzo jumped to his feet. “He means Pupetta,” he shouted. “Pupetta the wonder-cow, who provided the milk for our wonderful burrata.”
“Exactly,” Don Bernardo said, relieved. “I mean Pupetta. Where is she?” Pupetta, hearing her name, looked up from the end of the terrace, where she was just wondering if she could pretend to be a goat and eat the soldier’s hat.