2. Fontebranda, 1081

Sorge qui, a breve distanza dalla porto omonima (secolo XIII) la piu’ celebre e bella delle numerose fonti senesi, ricordata fin dal 1081, ampliata da Bellamino (1193), quindi rifatta nel 1246 da un Giovanni di Stefano che la diede l’aspetto attuale, a tre grandi arcate ogivali coronate da merli; sul davanti, quattro doccioni leonini e, nel mezzo, lo stemma di Siena. Era formata da tre vasche: la prima conteneva l’acqua da bere, la seconda (oggi interrata) era alimentata dalla precedente tramite il trabocco e serviva all’abbeveraggio degli animali, la terza fungeva da lavatoio; le acque di refiuto erano utilizzate dai tintori, dai conciatori e dai mugnai.

Marco Ausenda,ed. Siena e il Senese, pg. 103

Found here, at a short distance from the arch of the same name (13^th century) is the most famous and beautiful of the numerous Sienese fountains, recorded first in 1081, enlarged by Bellamino in 1193, then redone in 1246 by one Giovanni di Stefano who gave it the current appearance, of three great arcades crowned by crenellations; on the right, four gargoyle lions, and in the middle, the seal of the city of Siena. It was made up of three great basins: the first contained drinking water, the second (now interred) was fed by the overflow of the first fountain and served to satiate the animals, and the third functioned as a washing house; the refuse-water was used by dyers, tanners and millers.

It was the second week of classes, and it was still cold. I had never presumed that Italy would be cold in January – in my imagination it was always warm and sunny and full of tan people. At least, I contemplated wryly, I was right on one count. I left class with my head full of strange new words, confused and bedazzled by their sinuous similarity to Latin. Ciao, mi chiamo Gaia. Ave! Nomen mihi est Gaia. How was I ever going to speak this language? Whenever I opened my mouth I half expected Latin vocabulary lists to come out. Yet I still felt driven to get it right, to walk down the street and know the words that belonged with the very air of Siena.

I wrapped my scarf more tightly around me and wandered down the now familiar street. I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so I allowed my feet to lead me down yet another unfamiliar street in this labyrinthine town. I entered a large piazza with a small orange bus sitting in the middle of it. Ugly, I thought, wrinkling my nose. I bypassed the bus, noticing another loggia on my right, and continued down a small street lined with shops. It didn’t look very interesting, lapis, the everpresent greyness of the stone, taberna, the shops which lined the streets, **so with a bewildered glance at the street sign, Via dei Termini, I began the descent down a very steep hill. The grey stones of the road looked worn, as though in the past 800 years (Ilaria’s lectures, as well as 8 hours of history lecture, had begun to fill in my understanding of the world around me), they had never been replaced. As though medieval Sienese had walked on these same stones. How odd, I though, that dead people can have walked here, and seen these same buildings the same way I see them.

(Dead! Dead! Dead!) the little alien wailed, and I wondered what Madrigal would have made of this world. What sort of magic would she have seen in it? I could see her here, mingling with all the dead of the Dark Ages, them with their swords and passion and danger, her with her despair and the reckless brink between danger and adventure.

I turned down an alley, completely lost. At the end of it I had to pause. From here there were four ways to go, and three of them led up. I went down. Down to the bottom, to whatever might be at the very depths of this mysterious town. I came around a bend and found myself facing a genuine paved road. I had almost forgotten that in most of the world it wasn’t uneven stones that we trod underfoot. The pavement seemed strange. Across the street there was a wall made of stones, and on top of the wall there was a park. At least, a tree with a bench under it. I shivered as I stood still, my sweat freezing in the wind. The sky was an ominous grey, and in the silence, I heard a splashing.

Splashing?

I turned around, and to my shock saw three huge arches over what looked like a gigantic swimming pool. Shallow brick steps led down to water. Acqua, I thought, testing the word. This was Latin, easy to remember. Arch, arco. I wondered what bricks were called in Latin. Then I frowned to myself. Gaia, I thought cruelly, the word still ringing ironically, Latin won’t do you any good here. Latin’s dead. Latino mort est.

(DEAD! Dead! Dead! The alien shrieked.) The first drops of rain hit my head and were cold (pluvia….my brain whispered.) Then more of them. I raised the collar of my jacket, zipped it all the way to the top, and walked down the steps towards the great basin of water.

It got colder inside the arches. It was, however, just what it looked like. One huge basin of freezing cold water. A trickle of water slid toward me over the edge and into a trough, which continued across the entire width of the three arches, and vanished into a tiny drain on the far side. The splashing was from a small spout deep inside the fountain, which disgorged water from the wall. I was awed, staring up at the slightly pointed arch. How ancient was this place? I was relieved to be away from Ilaria, but I missed some of her information. As predicted, she had found a large herd of acceptable Italian boys, and spent her time running from one to another, partaking greedily of her ‘Italian lessons.’ And whatever was this huge vat of water doing here, the bricks worn with use and time, the stone worn from centuries of water beating it and eating it away?

I went to stand at the second arch. The rain was getting harder. I tucked my backpack in front of my to shield it from the rain, but I could see it was already wet and had nearly reached its limit. Carefully, I stepped up onto the white stone edge of the pool, nearly parallel with the water level. I looked down into the depths. The water was clear and I could see that the pool was deep. At least four feet, I calculated, and possibly a bit more. The bottom looked like uneven stone, dark and unsquared. Not at all like the bottom of a swimming pool, aqua colored and cheerfully bright. At the far wall of the fountain there was an inscription in Latin. I attempted to read it, frowning. hec…beati…and then near the end, dictiofervet. I tried to piece together the visible fragments into something coherent, but too much of the stone was worn away, and across the dark expanse of gleaming water it seemed even further.

I backed out of the fountain and stepped down to the ground, then stepping carefully over the drain in the middle of the brick pavement, I passed on to the third arch. It was the same as the others. Inside the fountain, another spout in the wall dispatched water into the pool, the sounds from each spout intertwining and echoing in the great space into a huge and cool splashing sound. My eye was caught by a tiny white plaque on the wall to the left. ‘Acqua non potabile,’ it said. ‘Water not potable.’ I shivered, both from the mysterious silence and this contradictory plaque, and from the freezing rain that was seeping into my jacket and onto my back. Around the side of the fountain I found three arches that were deep enough to keep the rain out. I heaved my backpack up and followed it, to lean in a spiderwebby and pigeon-crappy corner, and stare out across a great expanse of flat stone. In front of me there was nothing. The world was a dead grey, and what seemed to me like a useful piece of space was instead paved with rocks. Grey rocks. In the middle of all these rocks I could distinguish a rectangular outline – a house? No house now. Another dead thing, another mystery. Undrinkable water. I wondered if people had died in this fountain in the middle ages, trying to drink the poisonous water.

What is it about us, I wondered bitterly, that we spend our lives trying to kill ourselves? Why are we always seeking annihilation? We’re only happy when nothing remains, of ourselves or of our mistakes or of our past. I felt bile rising in my throat at the thought, anger and sadness and the silence of the rain padding to the ground around me. I couldn’t stop shivering. Here I was, in the middle of a foreign country for no good reason. Language had dried up in my head, and I had little desire to speak to anyone, but instead I spent my days learning Italian so I could – not use it. I knew nobody. I cared for nobody.

Instead of cheering me up, instead of the calm safety of being alone, I felt like a single sheep standing alone on a cliff in the rain. My jacket smelled like rancid wet feathers. I wanted a hug.

(won’t you ever learn? The alien said coldly, brutal.)

Ovis, I thought. Madida. Madida et sola ovis sum. I am a lonely wet sheep. It sounded silly; Romans never talked about sheep. I was too wet to find the thought funny.

I ran my hand contemplatively up the bricks of the arch, noticing how they were squared off at the corners. These couldn’t be as old as the other parts of this pool, I thought. But what was it for? Why had someone bothered to make poisonous water so beautiful?

Madri said once, when I asked why she was wearing glitter eyeshadow and small decorative stars on her cheeks, ‘When I feel the worst, I use it to cheer myself up.’ She smiled, and her storm green eyes shone, but she never stopped looking ten years old. Glitter, so much white powder, I thought. It all comes down to poison.

I asked her, then, why she felt down today, and she gave me a Mona Lisa smile and said that she had good days and bad days.

‘But nothing in particular?’ I persisted. She stared meaningfully out the window, looking down onto the green expanse of the manicured college lawns. ‘I want to be outside today. Don’t you want to go lie in the sun instead of being here?’

I nodded, pouting. ‘Of course.’ Of me, that was always true. The brilliant October sun shone down on the passionate russets and golden hues of a Pennsylvania autumn, and every day it was harder to tear myself away from the gardens where I read Latin, basking in the smells and the light breeze that would soon turn cold. Even in the dance studio I felt in the middle of the forest, light filtering in through huge windows in the studio with the colour and texture of fall.

Only this one terrible class closed me into a circular room in the middle of the astronomy tower and forced me to attend lectures at 11 pm.

The rain seemed to be letting up, but I was still shivering. I didn’t want to move. Non se movere. Collis, Collem scandere. Vorrei…I thought, trying to recall something from my hours of Italian class, hours I spent hypnotised by the instructor’s white smile and gold jewelry. I gave up. Velim ne pluat. Latin which I had never spoken came whenever I tried to call up Italian. It was useless to try to learn it. What was I ever going to do with Italian, anyway?

The first night time lecture was held at the top of the astronomy tower. On the balcony, naturally. All fifteen of us were lying on beach chairs, fully reclining.

‘I think I’m going to sleep,’ I whispered to Madri, next to me. That night she wasn’t wearing any glitter, but was dressed all in black.

‘Don’t fall asleep,’ she said to me. ‘This is the only interesting part. Look!’ She pointed at the sky. ‘Do you see Orion? Remember what Professor Blum said about the Orion Nebula?’

I was angry that she could be betraying me, enjoying something about this class. But I looked. I didn’t recognise the constellation or its striking nebula, until Madri pointed it out to me. I could never forget Orion afterwards: four stars in a long trapezoid, Betelgeuse shining brightly in the upper left, Rigel the lower right. In the middle was a diagonal belt of three stars, and hanging off the belt was the nebula, dark and ominous. Orion looked like a giant spider in the sky.

I could feel sleep setting in, though, and the drone of the teacher’s seldom intriguing voice lulled me off before Madrigal could point out the planets.

The rain was slowing to a drizzle, and I dragged myself out of my somnolence with great effort. I felt wet completely through. My books were still intact, luckily. I wished I had an umbrella. Or that I were at home, safe in a dorm room in my safe university.

Now the shivering wasn’t entirely from cold. I remembered the weeks when I had hidden away in my dorm room, petrified. I stood in the dormer window and thought about jumping, and couldn’t. I tried to read Latin, but they were no comfort when I had to get up in the morning, put on clothing, go to class, brush my teeth, remember to eat. They were dead, too.

I thought about home home, home in Seattle far from studying and ambulances and the recent past, but all that came to mind was a dead looking Christmas tree, and my parents looking at me fearfully, as though I might molt right in front of them into a slug. I wished I were a slug.

What did I expect to change in Italy? I wondered. There is still nothing I can do to fix things. I am still terrible, and I deserve to be alone forever.

The three arches stared blackly at me, all shadows inside. I started to trudge up the hill, not sure where to go, but certain that it was up all the way.

After that first episode of sky watching, while I was still stretching and blinking the sleep out of my eyes, Madri said bizarrely, ‘I can never sleep anyway, not at night. I have insomnia.’ We walked down the spiral stairs of the astro tower together, and I read the white writing on her shirt. ‘Black Thursday,’ it said. ‘to stop rape and violence against women.’

‘What’s your shirt about?’ I asked curiously.

Madrigal looked down for a second, and then said, ‘Oh, I wear black every Thursday. This is from an organisation, we wear black to remember all the women who have been violated in the world.’

I wanted to say, ‘Have you?’ but she had already brushed past me like a small dark ghost, and vanished into the night.

I walked straight up the hill, and to my shock, I recognised the piazza at the top. To my right, there was a bar. It was empty. The emptiness was the only thing that induced me to enter it. I still felt oddly against bars, against these concepts of Italianness as a tangible part of my universe. I eyed the selection of panini and triangular sandwiches, crustless, as the barista stared at me curiously. I supposed that I was supposed to greet him. Or maybe I was just surprisingly wet.

I took a deep breath, and looked at him at about mid chest level. ‘Buon giorno,’ I said. ‘Buon giorno,’ he responded, following the script as though my instructor had instructed him as well as I. ‘Un cappuccino, per favore,’ I returned, and he turned to busy himself with its creation.

Do I pay now? I wondered, slightly panicked. Or do I wait? I had no idea what Isabella had done. I had no idea what Ilaria would do. My eyes snaked hopelessly up the man’s chest and I stared pleadingly into his green eyes. ‘Pago?’ I offered in a small voice, my confusion doubled by the realisation that he didn’t look quite Italian. He smiled encouragingly and said something complicated, his hands emphasising his point. It did start with No, I thought, but I could feel the flush sneaking up my neck, inflaming my cheeks and forehead. I dosed the cappuccino with sugar and began to slowly eat the foam with a spoon. My hands were still so cold and wet that they were trembling.

I could still smell the wet feathers of my jacket. It suddenly seemed like such a huge and terrible smell, I wondered why the barista hadn’t vanished to hide at the far end of the bar, by the sandwiches. His eyes were on me.

No, I pleaded in my head. No, no please don’t talk to me. Please, please don’t say anything, don’t make me talk. No no, non loquere mi, non loquendi!

I finished the foam and dropped the spoon with a clatter. My cheeks were still red, but perhaps it was because they were finally beginning to thaw. (I let myself think.) I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep into them and slow my shaking. The bar door creaked open and a blast of damp air swarmed into my jacket, freezing cold and terrible.

Italy had definitely been a bad idea.

‘Straniera?’ the barista said with an eyebrow raised, and I thought about it. Externa. I knew this from class. I banished the Latin. ‘Si,’ I said. I sipped the cappuccino and finally put the cup back down. I was still freezing, my jacket and sweater plastered to me. I wasn’t going to sit down on the bus, for fear of dampening the seat.

‘Di dove sei?’

As long as he stuck to the script, I was in no danger, I reminded myself. Besides, it didn’t matter. Here, I wasn’t a killer. And I wouldn’t know how to say it if I were. Causa mortis sum.

I had a sudden image of myself standing in Ancient Rome, wearing a toga, telling this to a herd of philosophers. Then I realised I was staring into space. (again, snickered the alien, a bitter taste in my brain.)

Where are you from, the barista had asked.

‘Gli stati uniti.’

‘Di che città?’

That was harder. Was I from Seattle, where I had lived for the first 18 years of my life? Or was I from Philadelphia, where I currently studied? (Philadelphia! the alien shrieked. If they let you back in, murderer!)

‘Seattle,’ I said unevenly, trying to make it sound like a Latin word so my American accent wouldn’t frighten him. The barista smiled and nodded and said something that was probably nice about Seattle. But even in the warm bar, I was cold and wet and couldn’t quite stop trembling.

Squeaky footsteps of wet rubber on the floor, and there was someone standing next to me. ‘Cafe!’ he demanded of the barista, then sniffed at me and his eyes opened wide. ‘Federico!’ he hollered, and the barista turned with the coffee and a frown in his eyes. The rest of his diatribe was impossible to follow. I understood ‘questa ragazza,’ which meant ‘this girl’. He was talking about me? This was horrific. I was surely never going to come into a bar again, even an empty one. Then he motioned to me, and Federico nodded. He in turn hollered out a name, this time ‘Caterina!’

A petite woman with dyed blond streaks in her chestnut hair, following popular fashion, emerged from a doorway that I hadn’t noticed before. Federico suddenly looked rather ashamed. He gestured at me, and said something to her. I looked from one to the other, and to the man who had started all this. He seemed rather undistinctive. A lawyer type, tall and with a five o’clock shadow. His stylish suit was offset perfectly by his Italian silk tie. He had left his umbrella at the door, and for a moment my eyes rested on it, dripping in a small, skeletal puddle. I wondered if this was standard practice. I returned to my silent perusal of the new arrival, noting that his black kneelength raincoat was only slightly damp. He had missed the worst of the rain. He put down his coffee cup with a clink, and took a second look at me. His eyebrows raised, he said ‘ahh! Una straniera!’

I nodded miserably.

‘American?’ he guessed, and I didn’t even care that he was speaking in English. I nodded again.

‘You study here in Siena?’ Another nod.

‘And you are all wet!’ I couldn’t go this long without an explanation.

‘I was out walking. And I don’t have an umbrella.’

‘Ahhh,’ he nodded with great satisfaction. ‘Federico should be more polite, he should have thought of this when you come in with hair all wet.’ He touched my hair for emphasis, his hazel eyes widening in his tan face. I placed him around thirty. ‘But now,’ he nodded toward the door where Federico and Caterina had vanished, ‘they help you dry off. Ok?’

I didn’t know what to say. I nodded. He patted me on the head, retied his jacket, and then paused.

‘I should introduce myself. I am Marco Di Gaspari. What are you called?’

A sudden minute of total panic. What am I called here? What is my name? Who am I? Followed by a light, wheeling sensation of liberty. I am nobody, I can be anybody. ‘Ariele,’ I said, enjoying at least the open e’s, and the flick of my tongue on l, after my failure to roll the r. Marco Di Gaspari held out his hand, and I placed mine, still cold and clammy, into it. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he intoned seriously, and then turned and before I could blink, vanished out the door.

Caterina was already at my back, shuffling my backpack away and motioning me to follow her. I went through the mysterious doorway and into a hallway. She motioned me into the third door, which appeared to be a private bathroom. Before I could possibly say anything, she had unzipped my jacket and unwound my sodden scarf, which she draped across the back of a chair. It was followed by the coat and sweater. The entire time, Caterina spoke in a soothing voice, and although I couldn’t understand a thing, occasionally I recognised the Latin in it and was tempted to respond.

“What do you think?” Caterina enunciated carefully. “Are we the same size?” I looked her over and started to shake my head. She stood at least 7 inches shorter than me. Then she giggled and I could tell she was near my age. She was shaking her head, teasing me. “You and Federico same size!” She pulled a towel out of the cupboard behind her, and then began to rummage furiously. I stood still, waiting.

‘Dry! Dry yourself!’ she turned to me, motioning for me to use the towel. I could feel my eyes wide open with shock, but in this small room it was already warm and I felt tired after all the cold. I took off my shoes and my jeans, which weighed a ton. I began to enjoy myself, just a little, as I rubbed the towel on my legs and the blood returned to them. I wiggled my toes joyously.

Caterina had found what she was looking for: a pair of men’s jeans which would certainly fit me, a tight long sleeve shirt and a heavy sweater. I look at her beseechingly. What did this all mean, anyway? Strangers are not supposed to be this nice, especially to random wet people in bars. I was indignant.

I put on the clothing anyway, and let Caterina brush my hair and dry it with a hair dryer. I thought I would fall asleep, and I wasn’t sure this wasn’t a dream.

Sitting on the bus as I stared out at the rain (it had started again), I still wasn’t sure what had happened. Only when I looked down at myself in fully borrowed garb, down to a masculine black rain jacket, was I sure that something had transpired. It was Thursday, I thought, checking my digital watch to be sure.

Thursday, the day to wear black for women who have been violated. This world suddenly seemed far too complicated to understand: rain and Italian and mysterious silent fountains, Latin and death and these terrifying offers of friendship.

*

Excerpt from A History of Siena through the Fountains, by Cole (Gaia) Ostrovsky.

Fonte Branda both in the middle ages and now, is the most famous of Siena’s fountains. Although the earliest record of it is in 1081, the fountain in some form probably dates from rather earlier.

Fonte Branda is stunning both for its incredible size and for its depth. Unlike the other fountains of Siena which still contain water, it does not have a regular square basin lined with marble. Instead, the main, three arched basin has been hewn out of the rock, creating a dark, swimming pool sized maw which ranges from 1 meter deep on the far right side to three meters deep on the far left. It is full of orange and purple carnivorous looking fish, which hide in the corners and swim lazily along the bottom. Fonte Branda, although it was originally frequented because of the desperate need of the leatherworkers, millers and dyers for water, is now maintained as a tourist attraction.

Fonte Branda was also remarkable because of the quantity of water found, which is not passed on to any other fountains. It is fed partially from natural springs, and at one point may have been fed also by water from Fonte Rucoli, 10 miles away. Great underground passageways transport this precious water from one location to another.

Now, this breathtaking fountain is a single basin. Previously, overflow water ran into another basin, which is now a flat, swimming pool sized open area to the left of the fountain. Water from this overflowed into a third basin, where women went to do laundry. This is still visible – it is a huge roofless house, full of what look, from the doorway, like rotting metal basins, cobwebbed, rusty and unused. To imagine this giant area full of water requires extreme mental persuasion; to imagine the entire complex is to understand the wonder that medieval visitors to Siena must have felt when seeing such an expanse of available water at hand for themselves, their animals, and their dirty laundry.