Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes Read Free Book Online Page B

than going to a hotel—and
not nearly as humiliating. Why the water doesn't just seep into the
dried-out water table, I don't know. We shower fast, drink nothing
but bottled water, eat out frequently, and enrich the dry cleaners.
All day we hear the rhythmic pounding of well-drilling equipment
rising from the valley below us. Others, it seems, don't have deep
wells either. I wonder if anyone else in Italy ever has had a load
of water dumped into the ground. I keep confusing
pozzo,
well, with
pazzo,
crazy, which is what we must be.
    By the time we start to get a grasp on what the place
needs—besides water—and who we are here, it's time
to go. In California, students are buying their texts, consulting
their class schedules. We arrange for permit applications. The
estimates are all astronomical—we'll have to do more of the
work ourselves than I imagined. I remember getting a shock when I
changed the switchplate on an electrical outlet in my study at home.
Ed once put his foot through the ceiling when he climbed into the
attic to check for a roof leak. We call Primo Bianchi and tell him
we'd like for him to do the main work and will be in touch when the
permits come through. Bramasole, fortunately, is in a “green
zone” and a “
belle arti
zone,” where nothing new can be
built and houses are protected from alterations that would change
their architectural integrity. Because permits require both local
and national approval, the process takes months—even a year.
We hope Rizzatti is as well-connected as we have heard he is.
Bramasole must stand empty for another winter. Leaving a dry
well leaves a dry taste as well.
    When we see the former owner in the piazza just before we
leave, he is congenial, his new Armani tossed over his shoulders.
“How is everything at Bramasole?” he asks.
    “Couldn't be better,” I reply. “We love everything about
it.”

    AS I CLOSED THE HOUSE, I COUNTED. SEVENTEEN WINDOWS, each with heavy outside shutters and elaborate inside windows with swinging wooden
panels, and seven doors to lock. When I pulled in the shutters, each
room was suddenly dark, except for combs of sunlight cast on the
floor. The doors have iron bars to hook in place, all except the
portone,
the big front door, which closes with the iron
key and, I suppose, makes the elaborate locking of the other doors
and windows moot, since a determined thief easily could batter his
way in, despite the solid
thumft, thumft
of the lock
turning twice. But the house has stood here empty through thirty
winters; what's one more? Any thief who pushed into the dark house
would find a lone bed, some linens, stove, fridge, and pots and
pans.
    Odd, to pack a bag and drive away, just leave the house
standing there in the early morning light, one of my favorite
times, as though we'd never been there at all.
    We head toward Nice, across Tuscany toward the Ligurian
coast. The toasted hills, fields of drooping sunflowers, and the
exit signs with the magical names flash by: Montevarchi, Firenze,
Montecatini, Pisa, Lucca, Pietrasanta, Carrara with its river milky
with marble dust. Houses are totally anthropomorphic for me. They're
so
themselves.
Bramasole looked returned to itself as we
left, upright and contained, facing the sun.
    I keep hearing myself singing, “The cheese stands alone” as
we whiz in and out of tunnels. “What
is
that you're
singing?” Ed is passing cars at 140 kilometers an hour; I'm
afraid he has taken rather naturally to the blood sport of Italian
driving.
    “Didn't you play The Farmer in the Dell in first grade?”
    “I was into Capture the Flag. Girls played those singing
games.”
    “I always liked it at the end when we boomed out, “The cheese
stands alone,' emphasizing every syllable. It's sad to leave, knowing
the house will just stand there all winter and we'll be busy and
won't even think about it.”
    “Are you crazy—we'll be thinking every day about where
we want things, what we'll plant—and how much