Chapter 49

This is Gemma Kane, speaking with Zito Gatti, my mother’s youngest brother, at the Gatti family cemetery on their olive farm in Loro Piceno, Italy. Today is Tuesday, June 13, 1961, and the time is 7:00 AM. [Note: Uncle Zito speaks fluent English, which he learnt in order to export olive oil to the U.S., Great Britain, and South Africa; no translator/interpreter needed.]

Zito: I hope you’ll forgive me for suggesting we meet this early in the morning. I wanted to show you around the farm before it got too hot, which it will be in just a couple of hours.

Gemma: No problem. With jet lag, my internal clock registers eleven at night, so I’d be more tired if we met later. (Checks tape recorder) I hope the batteries last.

Zito: You’ll only need them in the cemetery and the orchard. Once we get to the frantoio, there’ll be electricity and you can plug in.

Gemma: Frantoio?

Zito: The olive press, or mill. It’s not far. Nothing is, the farm’s small, although bigger than when Tazia was a girl. Over the years, I bought three neighbouring properties. So many families gave up. It’s hard to compete with the big companies. (Lifts tape recorder) It’s heavy. I’ll carry it on the way to the fields and mill. Unless you want to take the truck?

Gemma: No. I’d rather walk the land. Soak in every inch, sound, and smell of what my mother’s life was like here. (Listens to cicadas humming; feels sirocco wind blowing in from the Sahara, already bringing the day’s heat and humidity.)

Zito: Tomorrow, when Bianca prepares a feast for you and our whole family, you’ll experience every taste too. (Laughs) Especially anything made with olives. The oil runs in our veins. It’s why we Gattis live so long. (Pulls the few weeds off parents’ graves)

Gemma: (Reads headstones) My grandfather died ten years ago; my grandmother only five. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to come. Imagine if they’d died knowing their daughter was alive.

Zito: They might have felt worse, unable to grasp why Tazia let them think she’d died. This way, their final thoughts were of a dutiful daughter, who helped their youngest child—me—survive.

Gemma: I suppose they would have also been terribly upset to find out she’d gotten pregnant and had a child out of wedlock. I’m sure that’s why my mother chose to disappear, to spare them the shame. (Looks at Zito’s sun-weathered face) Actually, I expected you to be more shocked about the circumstances of my birth. The Catholic Church hasn’t changed its position on that.

Zito: No, but with your own family, standards are looser. (Smiles) I can’t speak for everyone, but most of us are happy to meet you. God and your mother willing, we’ll see Tazia again too.

Gemma: (Excited) You could all come to the wedding next week. I know it’s last minute but ...

Zito: (Holds up hand) Whoa. One big event at a time. Let this news sink in, then we’ll see about our making a trip to California or Tazia coming here.

Gemma: You’re right. Besides, I can’t know how the others feel until I meet them tomorrow. (Chews fingernail; stands)

Zito: (Picks up tape recorder; walks toward fields) If it’s our moral judgment that concerns you, don’t worry. The Gattis are traditional but also progressivo when it comes to accepting people.

Gemma: (Walks alongside) That must be where my mother gets her openness from. (Hesitates) I know this is a sensitive topic, but can I ask which side you were on during the war?

Zito: (Opens shirt with free hand to reveal scar below left shoulder) The twins and I fought with the resistance. Partisans stored guns in the big ceramic vats where we kept olive oil. (Laughs) They never rusted. We also hid two Jewish families in the cellar, scrounging rations to feed them.

Gemma: (Leaps over narrow gully; climbs hill, out of breath) You’re in better shape than me.

Zito: The work keeps me in shape. (Slows pace) Funny to think I’m only two years older than you, yet I’m your uncle.

Gemma: Having a brother and a child so close in age must have seemed strange to my mother too.

Zito: Growing up, I heard so much about the big sister who went to America. When I got older, I thought how she died in a fire, unable to breathe, when she’d literally given me the breath of life. (Sets down tape recorder; sits under olive trees)

Gemma: (Sits too; leans against gnarled trunks) These are so stunted and twisted compared to California’s giant sequoias. I’ll take you to see them when you visit.

Zito: These have been in our family over a century. It takes a few years for them to bear fruit, but then they can live for hundreds more, hopefully until my great-great grandchildren inherit the farm. (Strokes trunk) I wonder how they’ll harvest olives then. We still do it by hand. Three people per tree, one at the top of the ladder and two below. A mixture of green and black olives makes the most flavourful oil. You slide the fruit off the branches like beads off a necklace. (Motions) Then you drop the olives into the brucatura. (Shows me an empty basket)

Gemma: My mother’s patience for slow methodical work still amazes me. She must have learnt that trait in these fields. (Laughs) I’m not like her at all. There must be quicker ways these days?

Zito: Some pick by hand using nets and plastic rakes, which is a little faster, only less careful. Big growers harvest mechanically, but the machines pick unripe olives along with ripe ones and bruise a lot of fruit, which then has to be discarded before it’s pressed. It can also damage branches. Of course, large farms can afford the waste, but we coddle every olive we grow. (Runs hand through hair) I’m sorry. I’ve probably told you more about harvesting olives than you want to know.

Gemma: Not at all. I’m here to learn about my mother and work was a big part of who she was. Beginning here. In some ways, her life was as twisted as these trees, but also as deeply rooted.

Zito: I wish I could tell you more about her, but other than saying she saved my life, our family rarely spoke about Tazia. Italian tradition holds that doing so after the period of mourning invites the dead to return to earth instead of resting in peace. (Tilts head) Actually, since she’s not dead, do you mind if I ask you about your mother. A sort of reverse interview.

Gemma: (Laughs) Why not? Sometimes the speaker learns as much as the listener.

Zito: You said work was an important part of who Tazia was. After the fire, what did she do?

Gemma: More menial work, most of it awful. America is the land of opportunity, but for my generation, not hers. All the same, my mother kept her sense of pride. (Thinks) You know, in all my years as a labour reporter, I felt I had to defend helpless workers against their bosses, shame management into treating people better. Maybe I didn’t give workers enough credit for the dignity they already possessed, without any help from me. (Grins) See? I already learnt something.

Zito: (Looks up at feathery gray-green leaves and tiny fruits) I’ve always worked for myself and my family. I couldn’t stand to work for someone else. I’m too independent.

Gemma: Mama managed to stay independent too. No one controlled her spirit even if the work itself got her down. (Looks at distant hills; smiles) There was one job she enjoyed though, on a wheat farm. The land was as flat as rolled pasta dough, but the work reminded her of home.

Zito: Do you think liking her independence was the reason Tazia never married?

Gemma: Gee. I never thought of that. She’s not against marriage. She approves of mine so much she often gets along better with my husband than me. (Laughs) If I had to explain why my mother stayed single, I’d say it was because she devoted her life to me. I like to think it was enough for her, but now I wonder if my existence held her back. God, that’s an awful thought.

Zito: I’m guessing Tazia was fulfilled raising you and helping raise your son. It was her choice. From what you said, no one, including you, could make her do what she didn’t want to.

Gemma: (Smiles) Grazie, Uncle Zito. You make me feel better.

Zito: That’s what families are for. (Pats my hand) Now, tell me more. Did Tazia have hobbies?

Gemma: She was interested in anything Italian! Art and architecture. Cooking. The last two years she’s taken up embroidery again. Frankly, though, my mother was too tired most of her life to have what you’d call hobbies. Leisure was a foreign concept to her. (Hands Zito tape recorder)

Zito: (Walks toward frantoio) It’s the same when you grow olives. Never a break. As soon as one season ends, the next begins, although harvest time is the busiest. The olives should be at the mill within twenty-four hours of picking. (Points to small frame house on far right) Mine. (Points to large stone house at the other end of field) The original farmhouse, where Tazia grew up. Bianca lives there now. It’s also the family gathering place. The twins live in town. Fino owns a grocery store, Fredi’s a tailor, but they come home each fall to help with the harvest. (Mops brow) Here we are.

Gemma: (Enters cool stone building; dwarfed by equipment; shivers) It’s freezing in here.

Zito: So the oil won’t go rancid. (Plugs in tape recorder) The press isn’t running now. Harvest is late fall, just before cold weather sets in. But I can show you how the frantoio works if you like?

Gemma: (Nods; changes tape)

Zito: If the press were running, it would be so loud you couldn’t hear me talk. (Demonstrates) First the olives are washed, then this wooden shoot drops them into the shallow stone trough.

Gemma: It’s huge! (Estimates twelve feet in diameter)

Zito: These two stone wheels (each six feet across, turned on edge, yoked together) roll across the olives to grind them, pits and all, into a paste. The oil is pressed out, then a vertical centrifuge separates the oil from the vegetable water and sansa—pomace, in English. Finally, the pure oil is drained into basins.

Gemma: What does this do? (Points to large blade jutting out from centre of yoke)

Zito: It keeps the olives moving. Men, machinery, nothing stands still.

Gemma: Maybe that accounts for my mother’s restlessness.

Zito: It is nice to flip a switch, though, so motors turn the presses instead of donkeys, like back in Tazia’s day. (Flexes muscles) We do one pressing, but cheaper brands do several.

Gemma: Is that what’s meant by extra virgin?

Zito: For that classification, the acidity must be under eight percent. We still bottle by hand too and attach our own labels. The bigger farms mechanize all those steps from the mill, where they use steel drums instead of stone, to the final product they ship to market.

Gemma: It sounds like the meat packing plant where my mother worked when I was very young. People got horribly hurt all the time. Does that happen with the machines here?

Zito: Rarely. People are safe, but mechanization oxidizes the fruits’ enzymes which means the oil has less aroma and taste.

Gemma: Better bruised fruit than bruised men.

Zito: And your mother?

Gemma: A survivor. Intact. And she made sure I stayed safe too.

Zito: Buona or I’d never have met you or heard you talk about your mother.

Gemma: Five weeks ago, I couldn’t have told you as much about her as I did today.

Zito: I always felt bad that the older children knew Tazia better than me. Now I know more than they do. (Laughs) At least until tomorrow evening, when they interrogate you at Bianca’s house. (Hugs me) Meanwhile nipotina, addio e amore.

The interview ended at 8:30 AM.