My mother’s cousin, I will call him Paolo, comes to my aunt’s house for lunch every Wednesday. He is a widower. He comes around a little before lunch time and stays until late afternoon. He has selected the day of the week carefully to avoid his other regularly scheduled commitments, such as the weekly lunch in Ellera with his friend, and to avoid traffic on the Via Aurelia.
This week I mess him up completely because I’m away on Wednesday, but he would like to see us, and so the lunch is moved to Friday. I know he really wants to see us because Friday is bad traffic on the Aurelia. I feel loved.
I brought him a present from America, from my mother, a light green fleece zipper jacket. He opens the package and expresses immediately a concern that the sweater may be too big. He is a tall and very thin man, and he says that everything is always too big, that his aunt gave him a coat in extra large that makes him look like a palombaro—like a deep sea diver. My aunt confirms that in that coat, when he turns suddenly, he knocks things off tables. I tell him to try it on, and he does, and he is pleasantly surprised that, while roomy, it’s not too big.
The present comes with a letter from my mother where she recommends wearing the jacket not as outerwear but as a sweater—under a coat. I imagine it would fit amply under his deep sea diver coat. She also talks in her letter about all the wildlife she sees in her American yard, because she knows he likes wildlife. He says, “I like wildlife.”
“Yes, we know.”
To our Italian family our American life is peculiarly odd and intriguingly exotic.
We eat outside. Paolo is notorious for being an exceedingly picky eater, so even with impeccably selected and prepared foods, as you would expect at my aunt’s house, he will still not like everything. I remember from another trip that he loves stuffed zucchini, but not the stuffed onions and eggplant that are usually prepared alongside. That’s what we have today and he picks carefully to take only the zucchini. Normally this choosy behavior would offend the hostess and be disapproved of, but with him it’s understood and accepted. Paolo is a picky eater.
We tell Paolo he has been invited to join us to visit Olivia at her summer home in Naso di Gatto tomorrow. This is way last minute for him, way out of his comfort zone, not how things happen in his life. He immediately says, “I can’t. Tomorrow morning I have to go to Albisola.”
I quip, “It’s not in the morning, it’s in the afternoon. You will have to find another excuse.”
My aunt laughs and ribs him a little bit.
He thinks, feeling cornered at first, then he relaxes and concedes, “I will come along.” He considers further, “It will be nice.” Deal.
