By late summer, Paul and
James had become good friends with Simona. The three of them played together
almost every day in the surrounding fields and orchards, when they weren't
cruising back and forth between our house, the uncles' houses, and Simona's
house. Simona, who was six that summer, had played at Gabi since she was a
baby, so she was able to lead the way. We told them not to hike up to the next
village, but if they wanted to play on the slopes beneath the courtyard, or
walk down to the orchard where apple, plum, and apricot trees dropped fruit,
they were free to do so. Hunger brought them home at lunchtime and long before
the sun slipped below the horizon.
One day I heard the usual
sound of the tractor coming up the hill pulling a trailer loaded down with hay.
Matthew clamored to see, so I put down the book I had been reading to him and
Margaret Ann and positioned chairs so they could look through
the open window. Zio Remo, who had been
helping with the harvest, was sitting on top of the hay as they drove up the
hill. He waved at Simona, Paul, and James walking up the road from the
orchard.
Paul’s wavy, fair hair had grown long, and even from
that distance, I could see the blonde streaks. He had stretched out after his
fifth birthday, and his legs and arms had bronzed in the summer sun. James’
light brown hair was also crowned with blonde highlights and long strands
dropped frequently over his eyes. I knew that sooner or later I would have to
attempt to trim his and Paul’s hair. James at three and half, was also thinner
and more tanned than when we arrived. It
seems strange for them to have tanned more in Northern Italy than Southern
California, but they were outside more often at Gabi, playing and exploring.
As the tractor passed the
children on the road, we heard the faint sound of Zio Remo’s voice as he called
out to Zio Silvio to stop. They invited the children to ride. Silvio stood
astride the trailer hitch and hefted up the children one by one on top of the
hay, where Remo nestled them securely into the middle then stretched his arm
out behind them. The tractor started up towards us. I grabbed my still camera and called to
George to get the movie camera. The children looked so content.
The late afternoon sun was warm as they settled into
the hay, and the slow rhythm of the moving tractor lulled them to stillness. As
I watched them I could imagine the sweat from Zio Remo's hard day's work
mingled with the sweet, dusty smell of freshly mown hay, and the prickle of the
stiff stalks pushed at the skin on the back of their legs as they saw the
windows of our house appear and disappear between the tree branches above them.
When they turned into our road they saw us on the bedroom balcony where we had
moved with the babies to watch, and they pointed, laughed, and waved up at us. The
twins laughed back and squealed as they ran up and down the balcony trying to
get a better look when the tractor passed slowly beneath us. Zio Remo smiled
and waved to them. As the tractor rounded the corner, Zio Remo idly reached up
to pull twigs off the overhanging hazelnut tree.
We crossed to the other side of the house, to the
courtyard balcony, and waited for a few minutes until the tractor came to a
stop in front of the barn. In the main courtyard Marino walked over to watch as Zio Remo helped the children
off the hay, onto the trailer hitch, then to the ground. We still have an 8mm
movie that shows Simona wave off Zio Remo then jump daringly the last two feet.
As we watched, Matthew and Margaret’s babbling echoed noisily around the
courtyard, and the cows in the barn mooed and clanked their chains at the
laughter and loud noises. Then Zio Silvio drove the tractor and trailer under
the portico. The hay would stay on the trailer until the next morning when the
two men would spend another couple of hours forking it onto the conveyor and up
into the hayloft.
It was suppertime for the children. Simona ran back to
her grandmother's house, and Paul and James came upstairs. As they burst into
the kitchen I ruffled their hair and bent my head to inhale the smell of hay
from their warm heads. I marveled at how different their summer had been from
those that had gone before. Their world in California had been bounded by the
block-wall fence that surrounded our back yard, by the car which transported
them to the park and to various relatives' houses for visits, and by the impatience with which many adult strangers had greeted them. I
could never let them roam freely on the street where we had lived in
California, because the zooming cars were too dangerous. At Gabi cars were a rarity. If we hadn't
noticed them as moving dark rectangles on the road far below, they announced
themselves with whining gears as they strained up the steep road. The children
stood still to see who was arriving, so we never worried about their darting
out unawares. They ran and jumped and climbed, and even learned to ride around
the ruts in the courtyard on the two-wheeled bikes their grandpa had bought
them.
All I could see, all I wanted to see, was that our
children were thriving, nestled in the warmth of a healthy and accepting
environment. Not only were they learning what it took to put food on the table,
but they were learning a second language, and they had connected with relatives
they wouldn't have known otherwise. They were healthy and strong, and the ready
acceptance from kindly adults in their lives meant that they were learning to
trust the world about them. And so, as the warm summer sun set for the day, I
felt content that our decision to move to Italy had been the right one.
What we didn’t know until years later was that as the
tractor bearing the children rounded the corner of the house out of our sight,
Paul grabbed at the branch of the tree to snap off a twig as he had seen Zio
Remo do. Instead of breaking off into
his hand, the twig held. Paul had tugged at the branch and held on to it as the
tractor moved out from beneath him. For a few moments he hung suspended twenty
feet above the ground while Zio Remo yelled at Zio Silvio to stop and back
up. Zio Silvio maneuvered until the
trailer was positioned under Paul’s swinging legs. At first Paul was so scared
he didn't want to let go. Finally, he was persuaded to release his grip as Zio
Remo reached up, grabbed his legs, and guided him back down.
While we were basking in the glory of the simple life,
our first-born was in danger of breaking a limb, or worse. The simple life at
Gabi meant no phone, no paramedics to summon, and the nearest hospital was 40
minutes away. It was a good thing we didn’t know!
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