WHILE PASQUA IS CELEBRATED WITH FAMILY, Pasquetta, the day after Easter, is celebrated with friends, and in Gimigliano it’s celebrated in the Sila.Sila Piccola, one of the three ranges of the Sila massif—an expanse of more than twelve hundred square miles and at an altitude of nearly sixty-five hundred feet—begins just north of Gimigliano, in the heart of Calabria. Deep forests of pine, beech, and chestnut trees blanket most of the region. The Greeks once had all but cleared the forests for their shipbuilding industry, leaving barren, windblown mountains. The Romans had deforested the region for the same reason (as they did the rest of Italy), but since then the Sila forest has been relatively untouched by agriculture and industry.
The Sila massif now contains the largest national park in Italy. This is the only region in Italy where wolves, bear, wildcats, and boar roam the dense forests, along with a species of slender tiny deer. It is also home to deadly vipers.
I rode with Luisa, Tommaso, and Francesco, while Sabrina, Masino, and Marisa followed in their car. Everyone had dressed up
for the dinner. I had been happily surprised when they invited me to join them; I finally felt as if I had gone from being a distant relative to a friend.
We passed through dense swaths of pine forest with deep brown soil and many takes—some natural, most man-made. We crossed a dam over the Alli River, the same place where Angela and Mimmo had taken Martha and my parents to their summer cottage. One afternoon we saw wild horses lapping up the cool water on the distant banks.
“At certain times of the year here,” Tommaso said, “you can snow ski in the morning, then go to the beach in the afternoon.”
From the winding mountain roads, the peaks to the north, cleared of trees, looked as if they were capped with snow. Giuseppe had once explained to me that many of the mountains had been stripped down to rock for the clay from which terra-cotta roofs and fine pottery are made, most of it going to the north. Unfortunately, the Calabresi as a whole were never able to profit from this industry. Individual landowners sold tracts to northern excavators, and even the contractors who bought state land failed to keep their promise to hire more than a few Calabrese workers, with the better-paying positions going to the owners’ northern relatives. But now the Gimiglianesi regard the Sila with a great sense of pride, as a respite from everyday life.
Out of this seemingly remote wilderness we emerged into a cluster of condominiums and four-star hotels, with cozy white houses and restaurants with peaked roofs and dark-brown wood trim, smoke streaming from their chimneys, that seemed to have been transported directly from Switzerland. We had reached Villaggio Mancuso, a tourist destination for skiers all over Calabria that is known as Little Switzerland. Just as the Calabrese coast has been referred to as the poor man’s Riviera, so the Sila is a downscale Alpine resort.
When I looked closer, there were signs that we were still in southern Italy. In the small zoo, you could catch a glimpse of the tiny Calabrese deer. The stores sold packaged porcini mushrooms,
jarred ’nduja and piccante, as well as vacuum-sealed packages of soppressata and sheep cheese; tchotchke stands sold figurines and toy guns carved from the region’s pine and chestnut trees, miniature wine jugs hand-sculpted from the region’s clay, and ornate walking sticks and pipes carved from Calabrese olive wood (though they are manufactured in Milan, as their tiny stickers announced).
And of course there were packs of the usual harmless stray dogs. Many of them obviously had wolf blood, but constant contact with humans had rendered them as docile and needy as stray puppies. You would find yourself being followed by three or four, all of them looking longingly up at you.
For the noon meal, the cousins and their friends had reserved half a restaurant, Il Semaforo, named for the streetlight outside, the only one for miles. Since the intersection was no larger than those elsewhere in the area, it seemed as if the streetlight had been put up just to supply the name for the restaurant. There were eight couples, and as is typical throughout Italy, each had only one child. We sat at a large L-shaped table, the men in the center and at the bend of the L, the wives and children at the ends. Immediately liters of wine were set on the table, and my glass was miraculously filled.
“Let’s make sure l’american’ finds out what good eating is,” I heard someone say.
The table had been set with cacciocavallo and pecorino cheeses, hard and soft, and with breads and Calabrese meats—salame, soppressata, prosciutto. An army of waiters placed in front of us scilatelli, or maccheroni al fomo—baked penne with tomato sauce and mozzarella. A man my age walked in and sat next to Tommaso. His face brought to mind pictures of my dad and my uncle Frank in their twenties; he had my uncle’s profile and my father’s jet-black hair. And like the two of them, and me, he had the stereotypical dark olive southern Italian complexion.
“Marco,” Tommaso called from the other side of the table, “here’s a distant cousin of yours, Tommaso Rotella.”
I walked over to introduce myself. Tommaso, my newfound relative, poured me a glass of wine, and we toasted. We noted resemblances in features, but after a list of potential relatives yielded no
matches, we drank some more and concluded that surely we must be related somehow, if only distantly.
Next, the waiters served conchiglie, small shells with porcini mushrooms and peas in light cream sauce. The wine kept coming. Masino and I began talking about Italian soccer, and he was pleased to find that I could keep up with him. I had been following Reggina, from Reggio di Calabria, which for the first time shot up from Serie B to Serie A (the top league of Italian soccer). We talked about Catanzaro’s team, the very mention of which elicited boos and hisses from around the table. The Italians are harsh fans when their teams are performing poorly Way down in Serie C-2, the lowest rung of professional Italian soccer, Catanzaro struggled to reclaim its glory days of the 1970s, when it had blossomed at the top of the Serie A teams.
“Next week is one of Catanzaro’s last games,” Masino said. “We’ll go.”
I was thrilled at the prospect of attending my first professional soccer game—even if it was a lowly Serie C team.
The waiters cleared our primi piatti and served the secondi: sliced breast of goose stuffed with pepperoni, prosciutto, and bread crumbs, accompanied by fresh carafes of wine.
The Calabresi eat with gusto, and I was pleased to see that it wasn’t only my father and I who ate quickly. Within fifteen minutes our plates were cleared and a second secondo arrived: a vitello scallopine sauteed in olive oil.
Someone stood up from the only other large party in the restaurant and waved me over to his table. It was Tonino Ventura, my uncle Tom’s doppelganger from my flight into Calabria. He introduced me to his wife and two daughters, his mother and father, and the rest of his cousins. He told the story of meeting me on the plane. It was obvious that his family had heard the story before, but his own interest seemed as keen as ever.
When I returned to my seat, I found that several platters of roast lamb and potatoes had been set in the center of the tables.
Luisa’s husband, Tommaso, broke out into the popular old folk song—for my benefit, I knew—“Calabresella Mia.” Luisa covered
her eyes in embarrassment. The other men joined in. Some stretched their arms around the friends next to them.
At last dessert was served. It was surprising in its sparseness after all the rich food; it was a mix of fruits and nuts, with platters of hard cookies.
Tommaso ordered bottles of prosecco, Italian sparkling wine. Corks popped and champagne overflowed onto the tabletop. Luisa’s face turned hard. She looked at her sister, who frowned.
“Imbriago,” I heard her say. Drunk.
An older couple walked in, waving to everyone.
“Unbelievable, Marco,” Tommaso said. “Yet another relative. You’re related to the entire village.”
He introduced me to my uncle and aunt Ciccio and Maria Critelli as he offered them champagne.
“I remember your father,” Ciccio said as we touched glasses. “Forty years ago.”
He seemed genuinely disappointed that I hadn’t been brought around to see them sooner. I had been a bit surprised at this, too; I’d have thought it would have made it easier for Angela and Domenico to distribute the responsibility of entertaining me. But wonderful hosts though they were, I was learning that they weren’t the most social of my relatives.
Masino, Sabrina, and Luisa began packing up to go. Many of the wives left with each other, leaving the cars with their husbands. I wanted to stay and looked to Luisa for her thoughts. I could tell she was angry with Tommaso. She waved for me not to get up. “No, stay,” she said, sounding as if she meant it. “Have fun.”
The party moved outside, wine bottles and all. It was already eight o’clock.
I kicked around a rubber ball with some kids behind the kitchen. Then I picked it up and began dribbling.
“Come on, Michael Jordan,” one said.
I tripped over my rubbery legs. Then eight of us, I and seven preteen kids, improvised our own hybrid of soccer and basketball, using clotheslines as hoops. I overshot, and the ball rolled into the
back door of the kitchen, where the chef and his two female assistants were cleaning up.
“So you’re the American?” he said. “I’m also a Rotella, but I’m from Tiriolo, the next village over from Gimigliano.” We shook hands, and he offered me a glass of wine.
“Have you ever been to Toronto?” he asked.
“No, but it seems that all of Calabria lives there, or has at one time.”
“I used to work at a restaurant there,” he said. “I never learned English. Where did you learn Italian?”
I told him what little dialect I knew I had learned from my father and grandparents, but that I had studied Italian in college.
“Marco, Marco!” the kids called behind me.
I thanked him for the meal and told him it was one of the best I had ever eaten. He shrugged it off. “Next time you come back to Calabria, stop by for dinner.”
When I got outside, almost everyone had cleared out. Only my cousin Tommaso, Tommaso Rotella, and a couple of their friends remained.
Tommaso wobbled over to his car. No one including me seemed to care, or notice, that he was very drunk. “Marco, it’s time to go.”
I sat in the front seat and Tommaso Rotella crawled into the back. “You’re all right,” Tommaso said, slapping me on my shoulder. I didn’t know what had made him think I wasn’t in the first place, but it was another sign that I had gone beyond simply being the American relative. His mood became sentimental.
“You like Bob Marley?”
“I do.”
He smiled a drunken smile and pushed in the tape. We set out for Gimigliano, the three of us singing along to “No Woman, No Cry.” When the tape ended, Tommaso steadied the wheel with one hand while he popped in another tape. “Vasco Rossi,” he said. The song “Stai con me in città” came on, and the two Tommasos commenced singing along with the Bruce Springsteen of Italy.
When we parked at the piazza at Inferiore, Tommaso shook my
hand, placed his other on my shoulder, and looked at me squarely, without a smile. “Buona sera, mio amico,” he said, then turned and stumbled down the alley to his home.
I looked at Tommaso Rotella and shrugged.
“The wine, the food, music, the sun setting. He gets a little sad,” he said.