A HOUSE IN SICILY
Fontana Vecchia, old fountain. So the house is called. Pace, peace: this word is carved into the stone doorstep. There is no fountain; there has been, I think, something rather like peace. It is a rose-coloured house dominating a valley of almond and olive trees that sinks into the sea. Across the water there is a view on clear days of Italy’s tip end, the peninsula of Calabria. Back of us, a stony, wavering path, travelled mostly by farming peasants…
Before dawn, when drooping stars drift at the bedroom window fat as owls, a racket begins along the steep, at moments perilous path that descends from the mountains. It is the farm families on their way to the market-place in Taormina. Loose rocks scatter under the stumbling hoofs of overloaded donkeys; there are swells of laughter, a sway of lanterns: it is as though the lanterns were signalling to the far-below night fishermen, who just then are hauling in their nets. Later, in the market, the farmers and the fishermen meet… If you question the freshness of a fish, the ripeness of a fig, they are great showmen. Si, buono: your head is pushed down to smell the fish; you are told, with an ecstatic and threatening roll of eyes, how delicious it is. I am always intimidated; not so the villagers, who poke stonily among the tiny jewel tomatoes and never hesitate to sniff a fish or bruise a melon. Shopping, and the arranging of meals, is universally a problem, I know; but after a few months in Sicily even the most skilled householder might consider the noose – no, I exaggerate: the fruit, at least when first it comes into season, is more than excellent; the fish is always good, the pasta, too. I’m told you can find edible meat; I’ve never been so fortunate. Also, there is not much choice of vegetables; in winter, eggs are rare. But of course the real trouble is we can’t cook; neither, I’m afraid, can our cook. She is a spirited girl, very charming, a little superstitious: our gas bill, for instance, is sometimes astronomical, as she is fond of melting immense pots of lead on the stove, then twisting the lead into carven images. As long as she keeps to simple Sicilian dishes, really simple and really Sicilian, they are, well, something to eat.