Italian Diary: Villa or Bust

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I hate Italy, or at least the part of it I'm in. The part where bells ring all the sleepless night and livelong day to remind you that Time is Passing, Time is Lost. It couldn't be any clearer for whom the bell tolls. It tolls, every fifteen minutes, for thee. And still, no matter how avid an insomniac ye be, it's impossible to guess the hour from the mad system of senseless chimes that pummel your  brain into the wee hours.

I know it's sacrilege to say I hate it here. My mother would tell me that I don't "hate" anything, that I only "don't care for" something and can't tell the difference. But I do hate things. And so I hate this land of nebbia. Nebbia is the fog that shrouds the mountains and clogs the brains and machines of this broken Mediterranean country.

You can go ahead and love it all you want. Fantasize away about the hot Tuscan summer and the charming Italian gardener you've hired at your tumbledown villa in an olive grove. Feel free to love the art, rich in gold leaf, Della Robbia blue, Michelangelo marble. Well-meaning friends direct me to the same museums I dutifully plodded through decades ago, maw agape, but now I have not one jot of desire to see another Christ on a cross or a Virgin being annunciated. Give me a Flemish still life any day, the light pouring in, no one's belief system or penchant for drama represented in a water pitcher or a convex mirror.

How did I end up living in a villa in Italy for what I'd hoped would be the whole winter? I did it by pushing a button. At some point last fall, when I was looking for a house sitter of my own, I thought, "Why not take a gander at a free living situation myself, somewhere without snow, somewhere with a bit more going on than on an island in Maine in the winter?" And then, I contacted the owner of this villa. The rest, as they say, is....Veronica.

Veronica tipped her hand early in the game. She tipped it so far that I could read the words "alcohol" and "off-her-rocker" and "trouble." We back and forth-ed with emails. Did she want an energetic, older couple (non-smokers! college-educated!) to help her tend her 80 hectares outside of Lucca, her villa / seasonal B & B that sleeps 30, and her other properties on the property? She had posted an ad implying as much. An early email from her described it as:
we would expect a bit of help over the winter months with some fine tuning of the villa 

Vague? Indeed. She was a tricky one to get a straight answer from. I asked her which of the 3 houses we might be sleeping in and if there was a car to use, or if we needed to rent one. Her reply email, typos and all, went like this:
if you hate a bit of work then maybe dont come ! Sorry to be blunt but its not a free ride and there are other people on the property for security  but  i would  like   another presence - i cant remember all your other questions ...

probably you will be in the Coach house 

yes there is   heating   but not   hot USA heating - we just put on another jumper !

i dont really want to be  held to ransom to quite so many questions !

i know Americans are quite demanding so to be honest  all your questions made me a bit nervous !! 

We are not offering 6 star hotel sevice / accomodation ???!  More an experience with some help ! 

let me know

You can see where I may have been a little put-off. Less trusting souls might have looked elsewhere. I let a week or so pass. Then, as the news of the plight of the Syrian refugees made headlines, and in response to my saying I had no Italian so how was I supposed to run a B & B in Italy, she wrote:

you may want a more relaxed time  with nothing y do every day but that will not suit  us 

so you will   have  to explain to me your expectations 

to be hoenst Diana i am nott he most domestic of people so running this huge house is a trial ! it would be great for someone like yourselves to look at it with new eyes and tell me and then we can make a plan 

Dont worry about the Italian - there is always Google translate although sometimes it does come out a bit like an ourang utan !  i will rest easier once you are there... it is a big property and there are a lot of people on the march at the moment if you know what i mean .....................................  !!

My son told me not to go, that she had called me an orangutan. I had the queer sense of being a rubber necker at an accident I couldn't quite see, craning to see more of the disaster that was Veronica, or if not of Veronica, than of what she left in her wake. Who WAS this woman? More emails were exchanged over the next couple of weeks, mostly sent by me, rarely answered by Veronica. I'd get replies like:

busy now

tomorrow morning ?

or

where is your tel number ?

very busy and dont have  time to look !

or

yes fine 

i will try and call you  in the next few days

just very busy now

or 

We have a big cooking school on here at the moment so we are very busy.. !

The following doozy came in after I'd asked again what our accommodations would be:

Bit nervous about all these questions ! you sound a bit   like a guest who is paying us euros 220 per night for the Dante suite !!!

So i will have to speak to you before you go -  maybe we are slightly at cross purposes !

I will be able to call you on Tuesday  as I am away at the moment staying in a house  party and  its a bit rude  to be on  their  phone etc and there is no moible coverage here .

Hope thats OK

thanks 

Finally, she called. It was 1AM her time, 7pm mine. I was in a crowded restaurant in the middle of dinner with my family, but I wasn't going to let the opportunity pass. I asked her to spell out what she expected of us. How many hours a day would she want us to work on the villa? What were our duties? She asked if Stanley could carry the guests' bags. "Of course!" I replied,"He's very fit--he runs 5 miles a day!" An audible inhalation, sharp and pronounced, could be heard on the other end. I imagine she clutched the nearest armoire in a swoon of Prosecco-induced shock.

Next, out of nowhere, she said, "You must pour the Processo when our guests arrive. You can do that, can't you, Diana? Can't you?" A note of desperation in her voice. To which I replied, again and again, "Of course. I can do that." 

Then, satisfied with the business-like manner in which she'd conducted her first live interview, she rang off with a cheery "Right then!" I had clinched the job. We were going to carry bags and pour Prosecco throughout the winter. Even if the B n B was closed. Shifting sands, muddy waters.

Undaunted, and determined not to stay in Maine over the winter, we made plans to leave our home, our dogs, our family, and our work to see what this job, this villa, this woman, might be all about. No matter what, we kept telling ourselves--our vain, foolish selves--we'd be in ITALY! More to follow...