Beneath the Tuscan sun

“Never take a trip with anyone you don’t love.”

I recalled Hemingway’s sage advice too late: we had already sped thru the Mont Blanc tunnel and begun an erratic descent into Italy. A bouchon of immense proportions had stalled our passage thru Mont Blanc for hours. Along with hundreds of other cars looking to escape Switzerland for the holiday weekend, we’d been stuck. Properly impacted. The hellion at the wheel was making up for her lack of driving experience with reckless abandon and expressive expletives.

With a surgeon’s detachment, I assessed the situation. Russian at the wheel, winding highway, multiple cell phones, tangential speech, Italian drivers honking impatiently when we slowed to 85 mph, the Russian’s ego preventing transfer to the right lane, and most disturbingly plans responding to external stimuli. My prognosis? No c’est bon.

I was calmly philosophical about our imminent demise in a fiery collision of steel and asphalt because I was in Italy. Italy exerts a mildly euphoric effect on me; I can explain it no more than I can deny it. Even the bad parts of Italy are simply wonderful, and as we raced towards our certain death, a part of me still took in the beauty of the mountains, the romance of the occasional castle silhouetted against the setting sun, and the complete rightness of having a highway sign labeled simply by a coffee mug.




An inadvertent swerve by our Baltic driver took us off the paved comfort of the highway briefly onto rougher terrain. My jaw rattled fiercely, and the romantic visions I had, fled my beleaguered skull. I grasped the safety handle on the top of the rental car firmly, and exchanged a meaningful glance with mon cher amie, H.P.

H.P was the common link between myself and the deranged Russian, and I wondered how long it would be before we would have sufficient privacy to discuss the inescapable fact that the Russian was clearly insane. I always feel need to give name to the obvious. It’s a deep seated character flaw, and wholly ineradicable.

It had started innocently enough. A road trip over Spring Break. Europe affords its workers more days off for Easter than I had dreamed existed. All of Geneva takes the opportunity to escape. We planned ours accordingly. We’d drive to Tuscany and do what we liked, when we liked. A leisurely pace with Italian wine and fashion was the order.



A last minute phone call from a friend who had fallen out of touch resulted in an addition to our party. Enter the Russian, who was chauffeuring us to our imminent demise.

“It’s all just so fucking retarded!” Another litany of curses erupted from the Russian, and I wondered, not for the last time, how our road trip had been so efficiently hijacked. It was the eighth hour of a planned four day holiday. This latest outburst had been prompted either by a text from one of her cell phones or perhaps being passed by a Porsche at well over 100 mph. It was unclear. Cursing, she had two cells in her right hand, while her left hand gripped the wheel in a frenzied vengeance. This was a graduate student in mathematics from Belarus. The ink on her driver’s license was weeks old. What hope did she have of competing with native born Italians in sports cars on their highways? None, none at all. She was insane, and we were all going to die. The facts were inescapable.

It would have been helpful, at this point, as a participant in this journey, if I had been aware of the cast of characters who were pulling the puppet strings in the background. Although I was not afforded that courtesy, I see no reason to perpetuate the insult upon you, Dear Reader.

As we learned upon the highway, the Russian had cancelled our hotel plans for the trip. She had a benefactor, here after known as Wealthy Banker, who owned a villa in Tuscany. Wealthy Banker appeared to be some sort of benevolent genie in the human guise of an elderly Indian man. In between her curses and swerving, we attempted to ascertain how she knew this man and what the deal was with the villa. Fearful of provoking her, and disturbing her tenuous hold upon the steering wheel, I used the same voice and style of questioning I use with psychotic patients. This elicited a similarly useless word salad of information.



Despite having programmed our GPS to the hotel address in Milano, a mere three hours before, we found ourselves arriving instead at an apartment building in Milano. Enter Italians 1 and 2. Italian 1 was a genial banker in his late 40s with an expansive smile and paunch. Italian 2 was a wizened Venetian, who sold women’s shoes. He had an extensive array of colorful silk scarves that followed each other in quick succession over the coming days; each more elaborately knotted than its predecessor. The Italians were to accompany us to the villa in Tuscany, where we could stay for free.

The final characters of note? The Russian’s three cell phones. As H.P and I gradually divined, each to keep in touch with a different man.
But I digress. Let’s now return to the Italian motorway.

At the first glimpse of a highway exit, H.P and I both simultaneously shrieked an urgent plea to stop and use the facilities. A curse, a swerve and two near misses later, our chauffer had negotiated her way to the parking lot.

I gaped in awe at the many splendored Italian truck stop, while H.P quietly commandeered the keys to the rental. This was no AM/PM, with depressed florescent lights casting dim shadows on withered 99 cent hot dogs, speared on electric spits, doomed to rotate next to the nachos and Big Gulps for all eternity. Ambient track lighting. Fresh paninis. Local olive oil. Wine and beer for sale. Espresso: strong, piping hot, freshly prepared from a gleaming, chrome laden marvel of Italian design. I may have swooned.

As I said, I am pretty sure I could undergo a root canal in Italy, sans anesthesia, and still enjoy the experience. With H.P now at the wheel, and two Italians in tow, we negotiated windy gravel roads twisting through beautiful vineyards, and rustic villages with crumbling stone walls. The Italians trailed us patiently for about five minutes, before they passed us in a blur of carbon fiber and exhaust. A sedate and safe four hours later, we arrived at the villa.




At the bottom of a steep and long driveway, there spread before us, was our home for the weekend. Wisteria twisted around a trellis that climbed the stone walls of the house. The sun was setting behind hills verdant with grapes. A swimming pool was nestled into a flower garden, and surrounded by an expansive deck. Farther away, by one of the adjacent guest cottages, a frog hopped off the wishing well, and disappeared into the lily pond with a small splash. Italians 1 and 2 had already arrived, and were sipping camparis by the pool as the last streaks of daylight disappeared from the sky. The house staff had assembled in front of the main building to greet us.

The house staff had assembled in front of the main building to greet us. For the first, but not the last time that week, I was to wonder what movie set I had walked into. Our luggage was efficiently whisked away, camparis were pressed into our hands, and the chef cleared the five course menu she had in mind for our delicate palates (we answered, Si, Si!).

The remarkable meal she had prepared, and the bottles of local wine, helped stem the awkwardness of sitting with an assorted group of strangers. Did I mention that the Wealthy Banker’s cousin, her mother, and two children were also at the villa? I didn’t learn that fact until dinner time either. Small talk ensued.

After dinner, the family members disappeared into one of the many houses affiliated with the villa. Italian 1 and the Russian drifted out onto the patio, where the occasional arch comment and soprano giggle would waft into the parlor. In the parlor, H.P, Italian 2 and I confronted each other over a bottle of limoncello. After the first round, Italian 2 began to confide in us. His girlfriend of many years had recently relocated to the United States for work, and he was far from happy about this state of affairs. He’d recently visited her in the small, backwater village she’d moved to, and he was far from impressed.

“Portland!” He sniffed disdainfully, slopping more limoncello into our waiting glasses. “What is this Portland? There are no clubs there, no music, no dance. We go to a club, and my English, not so good, but it was no club! It close at 2 am! And there, the men, how you say, oh… what is the opposite of rigid?”
I choked on my limoncello. Italian 2 poured his third, and adjusted his neck scarf. H.P waited with bated breath.

“No, it is I mean to say, the men, they are not so thick, but they wait on the walls and the girls, they all dance like this…(insert small Italian man jumping on chair and doing a booty dance).. like how you say…oh I don’t know…(insert visual of small Italian man doing pelvic thrust and winking lasciviously) but the clothes they wear are sport clothes! This is for hiking, not for club!”

To our amusement, and his appreciation, this theme was developed well into the first bottle of grappa. Sometime later, after Italian 2 had explained why his mother’s tiramisu was better than anyone else’s, asked us if we knew biscotti, and related his opinion on U.S traffic laws, the time had come to retire.

Italian 2 made his goodnights, and departed for the pool house. Italian 1 ushered us to our wing, up a winding set of stairs. On the second floor, we entered a spacious room, with a huge king bed covered in a lace duvet with delicately embroidered pillows artfully tossed about. Tasteful art adorned the walls. Through another door, an ensuite bathroom with Jacuzzi tub awaited. The Russian’s suitcase had been placed in front of the wardrobe. Wow.

I couldn’t wait to see my room!

We stopped at the next door along the hallway, and with a theatrical gesture, Italian 1 bade us all to enter. A narrow pine bed with a patchwork quilt waited. Bookshelves lined the walls. Two shuttered windows were tightly fastened. H.P and my luggage waited for us in the corner. The door shut behind us as Italian 1 and the Russian exited.

Our eyes met.
“WTF, BFF?”I queried.
“lmfao.”H.P wearily replied.
After rapid ablutions, we climbed into our bed to exchange whispers about whether we were having a shared hallucination, or if this was really happening, and the Russian had a psychotic break. Her behavior was completely at odds with how HP had known her to be in college. A coy giggle from the room next door interrupted our quiet debate. A series of suggestive thumps ensued.

“Hold me, I’m scared!”H.P whispered her tone thick with disbelief, tinged with disgust. I rolled my eyes, and distributed a travel essential: ear plugs.
Ten hours of sleep and waking to a gorgeous view of Tuscany rapidly restored any equanimity that had been lost overnight due to inadvertent spooning and allegations of blanket thievery.





The three of us had planned to spend the first day in Florence, where we had tickets to the Uffizi Gallery, and we’d planned to explore the Duomo, Campanile, and of course the Prada outlet. Over breakfast, H.P and I attempted to convene with the Russian and figure out when she wanted to leave. This proved to be astonishingly difficult. It was as if we had been rendered mute overnight. Although the Russian and Number 1 sat mere centimeters away from us, no acknowledgment, verbal or physical was made to our comments. Instead Number 1 dithered on about a party that night in the south of Italy that he wanted to take “us” to. The Russian listened with rapt attention. Italian 2 glumly sipped his espresso and caressed his orange checked silk scarf. H.P and I confirmed with each other that we could in fact, hear the other one speaking. I pointed out that the maid could also hear our requests for coffee. With the integrity of our vocal cords verified, we mutually agreed again, that nope, it definitely wasn’t us.

This didn’t go on for too long before the synergy of our combined impatience and decisiveness resulted in us pushing back from the breakfast table, and announcing that we were headed to Florence. An expert negotiator, H.P had cleverly maintained control of the car keys.

Florence is worthy of all the superlatives that it has been lavished with over the years. The stunning duomo, the meandering cobblestone streets, the gorgeous architecture, the charming Ponte Vecchio, the beautiful leather goods… Trying to describe Florence is akin to attempting to relate a dream to someone else. It’s etched indelibly in your memory, but when you try to describe it, you just sound like a trite, incoherent ass.






We happily ate gelato, browsed art and handbags, gawked at David, and scaled all 467 stairs to the top of the bell tower. Catching our breath at the top, we gazed out over the orange roof tops and pondered how we could get jobs in Italy.
The next few days passed in a blur of pasta, wine, runs in the vineyard, photography, and generally being ignored by the Russian and Italian 1. Italian 2 vacillated between periods of conviviality and morose reflection, where he’d stare absently into his limoncello and adjust his neck scarf thoughtfully. At these moments I surmised, Portland weighed heavily on his mind.

And so the vacation passed.



Up until the moment we headed up the driveway, H.P at the wheel, I was convinced the Russian would be staying in Tuscany. We needed to leave by noon, or there was no way we would get her to the Geneva airport on time. We had well passed the point when both H.P and I would be thrilled to see the last of her. Regardless, HP felt obliged to get her to the airport, whereas I was ok with just waving goodbye. HP is much nicer than moi. In a pre breakfast tactical discussion, we cornered the Russian in the sun room, and informed her of the need to be on the road by 11am, sharp. She smilingly agreed, and together we trooped to the breakfast table.

However:
At 10:30, she laughingly discussed lunch plans with the chef and Italian 1.
H.P and I mentioned our need to be on the road. The chef heard.
At 10:45, she requested an omelette and waffles to be made.
H.P and I pushed our long empty plates away on the table.
At 10:50, she playfully discussed a trip to San Vicente with Number 1.
H.P and I left to get our bags and made our farewells. Everyone except the Russian and Italian 1 heard them.

At 11:00, our luggage and our charming selves were loaded in the car. The Russian was not. H.P gave the engine a warning rev, and prepared to turn the car to head up the nearly vertical gravel driveway and head back to Switzerland.
To our surprise, the Russian climbed into the back seat, one of her text phones already attached to her ear.

The rental car, a humble import, bucked and reared, as gravel spun from beneath its tires. Our ascent was erratic, and I tried to refrain from clutching the sides of my seat. H.P was bent over the wheel, intent on controlling the car as we scaled the driveway at a snail’s pace. Our sigh of relief at the top of the cliff was brief- a red light was spotted on the dashboard, and the foul smell of something-that-shouldn’t-be-burning burning was unmistakable.

We pulled over. The Russian continued yammering on the phone. The red light contained an odd symbol that neither of us had ever before seen on a dashboard. It vaguely resembled a nuclear mushroom cloud. HP and I quickly began problem solving. Turn off the car, turn it back on. Let the car rest for a bit, maybe it’s overheated. Call the rental company and ask them the significance of the mystery symbol (wait, maybe we aren’t supposed to be in Italy with the car, and of course the Swiss advice will be to wait for a mechanic- I hurriedly hung up). I looked under the car for leaking fluids, and futilely looked under the hood for evidence of a nuclear explosion. HP searched the car manual for the definition of the cryptic Defcon 5 symbol that had popped up on our dashboard.

The Russian switched phones to make another call from the backseat.
I was staring in vain under the hood, when a triumphant yell from HP caught my attention.

She had found the mysterious symbol in our book! The answer was at hand. Unfortunately it was written in German. The only German we know between the two of us is sufficient to order beer, coffee and request no mustard on any foodstuffs. To Google Translate then! I prayed my ancient, WHO issued, blackberry would summon the energy to find a signal out here in the Tuscan wilds and load the page in the next two hours. The loading bar crept across the page at an agonizingly slow pace. HP and I stared fiercely at the miniature screen, willing it to keep loading. In the backseat, unconcerned, the Russian opened a bottle of wine, and sent a text from her second phone, the first one still pressed to her ear.

Finally! The page loaded! We bumped heads in our eagerness to read the diagnosis of our car, and learn our fate:
“Symbol engaged with beta saturated brake.”

Our eyes met with mingled relief and shame.
HP released the parking brake, and we sped home.