A Piece Of Laundry (Un Pezzo del Bucato)

The design of Italian washing machines seems to express the cherished idea that in Italy the simplest activities of life are an art form. I spend three hours watching my laundry in the process of cleansing while at the same time, at the kitchen table, I cut and wash mushrooms for the risotto I will make for dinner.

Unlike my American washing machine which agitates in pit-bull furor, shaking the dirt out of the clothes then spinning them wildly as if wringing their necks in revenge, this Italian version gives our clothes a gentle-half turn and then pauses for what seems three minutes before it gently shimmies them about again for a few seconds. A cluster of soap bubbles appears in the round glass window and then vanishes while the clothes rest or gather strength for the next little jiggle. At this rate, the sun will have set before I can even hang them outside.

The September sunlight streams into the apartment while below, at the Fiat body shop, a chorus of pneumatic screwdrivers punctuates the quiet morning with its roar. This is clearly a laundry day in my neighborhood—from every rear terrace hangs a load of wash blowing brightly in the breeze. On the terrace opposite mine, a woman, wearing what looks like pajamas, cigarette hanging from her mouth, is ironing men’s shirts; she’s fierce and fast about this. From time to time a dog wanders outside and gets tangled between her legs; she barks an order and he goes back inside.

On the terrace below hers, the old man is out with his pruning shears, delicately clipping a leaf or two from his potted plant. Beside the plant, on a little table, his canary is singing. Its notes echo across the courtyard and hang in the bright air.

I count my clothespins. Clearly, I am short. I will have to buy some at the Conad next time I shop. For now, I’ll have to double up, hang two socks on one pin. I seem to be short of everything here. We have only a few pots, a few dishes, and just one set of sheets. This means I will have to wash the sheets early on a sunny day and hope they will dry by nightfall. The sheets are made of the kind of thick cotton that doesn’t dry fast, even in sun and wind. Today I am only washing Joe’s underwear and my own—plus our two bath towels and two dishtowels—all that we have been entrusted with.

On the terrace just below mine someone has set out a large wooden crate filled with grapes. Beside them is another crate of root vegetables of a sort I can’t identify. Again, I understand that space on a terrace is simply an extension of the family home—and what’s on it is not my business. When I go inside to check the clothes, they are still in a peaceful limbo; not finished, not washed, not wrung out. Just hovering there in a bath of soapy water.

I turn my attention to the mushrooms. They are still fused at the root, two at a time, with clumps of dirt clinging to them. They’re beautiful, large, and white—twice as fresh as can be found at home and half the price. My receipt from the Conad says “Funghi Champignon 2360 lire”—which computes to $1.57 for two pounds. The “pomodori maturi” I bought—ripe tomatoes still attached to vine and leaves—cost 515 lire, about thirty-four cents for a cluster of heavy, fragrant delicious tomatoes, nothing like the cardboard-tasting ones we so often get in California.

The washing machine is now producing a notably different purring sound that is followed by the draining sound of water running through the pipes. This must be the spin cycle. I peer into the glass window and see that a gentle whirling has begun, slow and languorous, a sleepy, delicate spin. It stops after a few seconds. Shuts down. Rests again. Begins to whir and drain once more. I wait and daydream in my Italian kitchen. My mushrooms are washed clean, my onions and garlic ready for the knife before Joe gets home for dinner, the rice ready to be cooked in a liter of water (uncovered, not as we cook it at home), and now at last, the light goes off on the washer signaling that my clothes are ready for the line.

When I open the round glass door, a cup of water spills onto the floor. I pull the knotted and twisted clothing out and let it fall into a shallow yellow basket provided by my landlady. The clothing feels heavy with water if not exactly soaking wet. I make two trips to the terrace with my clean laundry and begin attaching it to the line with the brightly colored plastic clothespins. This hanging out of clothes on the line is a new skill I must learn—at home everything goes into the dryer.

We are five stories up here. Below me are four lines of laundry, already hung out and drying. From the water dripping at my feet through the grids of the basket, it’s clear that my clean clothes are going to drip upon the lines below. This is very tricky business—holding and pulling taut the garment with one hand, quickly putting on the clothespin with the other. As I try it, a pair of my underpants falls from my hand, flies through the air, and lands—a purple cotton clump—square on the clothesline below. What do I do now? The line below billows with men’s work pants, with bed sheets of pink floral cotton, with delicate, lacy underwear. And there, on top of something pink and silky are my purple underpants.

When Joe gets home, I tell him how one’s entire wardrobe of underwear can fly away and land on the lines below, or worse, in the dirt of someone’s garden which is not accessible from anywhere but from that person’s apartment. What is to be done?

Joe says we must write a note. We sit down at the table and he dictates to me, looking up a word or two in the dictionary.

“Per favore—Mi dispiace, un pezzo del bucato è caduto. Puó restituirlo al apartamento al quarto piano. Grazie.” I sign my name, and under it add, at Joe’s instruction, “al quarto piano.”

Joe takes this opportunity to suggest I should learn more Italian. This is only the first of many emergencies during which I will need it. Yet he is kind enough to translate the note for me: “Forgive me, a piece of washing has fallen. Kindly return it to the fourth floor apartment.”

And lo and behold, the next morning, the pair of underpants arrives, without fanfare, by an invisible messenger, at my front door. It is left neatly folded on the floor. To my dismay, when I retrieve it I see it has a hole in it. What will the Italians think of me? Look what shame I have brought upon my country.