3. San Giusto, 1411

and il Vicolo della Fortuna 1923.

La fonte fu eretta a spese degli abitanti della contrada di San Giusto e di quelle vicine, che dal 1406 avevano rivolto una richiesta in tal senso al Comune. I governanti, nell’autorizzare la costruzione, imposero che la fonte non avesse traboccatorium e soproattutto pretesero che fosse mantenuto integro l’acquedotto proveniente da Fonte Gaia e diretto alla fonte di san Maurizio…Oggi l’aspetto originale e in gran parte mutato: e’ sparito l’arco sotto il quale si trovava il fontino ed e’ stato chiuso il muro; l’acqua puo’ essere prelevata soltanto tramite due cannelle in bronzo di una certa eleganza decorativa. Si tratta di cambiamenti avvenuti nel 1874, in occasione dell aristrutturazione del vicino Palazzo Trallori. Della parte antica sono rimasti solo I due vecchi stemmi: la balzana e il Leone, ma in pessimo stato di conservazione.

M. Assunta Ceppari Ridolfi e Patrizia Turrini, Siena e l’acqua, pg. 60

The fountain was erected at the expense of the inhabitants of the contrada of San Giusto and those in the neighboring areas, who had put a request in to the Commune in 1406. The governing powers, in authorising the construction, inisisted that the fountain not have an overflow basin and demanded overall that the fountain be maintained together with the aqueduct from Fonte Gaia, which leads to the Fonte di San Maurizio…Today the original appearance has been greatly changed: the arch under which the fountain was once found has vanished and the wall has been closed; the water can be obtained only by means of two bronze spouts which do have a certain decorative elegance. These changes came about in 1874, during rennovations done to the nearby Palazzo Trallori. Of the antique fountain, the only remaining elements are two old coats of arms: the ‘balzana’ of Siena and the lion, but both in a terrible state of preservation.

My host mother and my real mother had been friends together in college at the University of Washington. My mother had studied Arabic and met Dinah, who was half-Egyptian, when they were placed together as conversation partners. They had stayed in touch over the years and it was due to this that I ended up in Siena. As a child I had met them when Riccardo, the Italian husband, took a yearlong sabbatical and the family came to Seattle. Isabella and I were only a year apart, although judging by her fantasically sophisticated Italian exterior, you would never guess I was the elder.

It was a great relief to know at least somebody here in Siena. At least as long as I succeeded in boarding the number 5 bus going in the proper direction, I was going to arrive at a comfortable, English speaking haven.

They treated me rather delicately, and for that I was also glad. Even from Riccardo there was a dearth of the classic Italian prying questions. However, walking into the house in a men’s trenchcoat and jeans caused a remarkable stir.

The key snicked in the lock after a short struggle – I still couldn’t get used to these ancient looking skeleton keys, and I dropped the dripping umbrella and my still wet backpack in the entranceway. I walked into the living room, sniffing the fantastic odors emanating from the kitchen. Riccardo was cooking, and Isabella was assisting – I could hear them arguing. “Ciao Dar-ya Cole!” Isabella called out to me in the combination that never failed to make me laugh. “Ciao tutti!” I responded, peering into the kitchen. Isabella looked up from where she was slicing vegetables, her makeup still perfect after a full day of classes. Her expression changed. “What are you wearing?”

I looked down at the raincoat, dripping around the edges. I frowned. “It’s raining,” I said, “and my jacket got wet, and someone in a bar lent me their coat.” I opened it up. “And some other clothing.”

Riccardo had stopped stirring the pot on the stove. His expression was inscrutable. “Are you sure that’s what happened, Gaia?” He had taken to my new class name quickly, as though the years of calling me Cole had been a trial. I couldn’t have kept it a secret though, as Ilaria called me every night after dinner, asking in English-accented Italian for ‘Gaia.’

I hoped I wasn’t going to have to explain my newest chameleon-name. But for now, I stuttered, “It felt like some kind of dream. It was the strangest thing ever.” And suddenly I felt strangled by so much attention, and shocked by the fact that I was indeed wearing clothing that belonged to Italian strangers, and I had no idea why. I blushed, and backed out of the kitchen back to the entranceway. I deposited the coat on the rack and grabbed my backpack, heading up the stairs to my tiny bedroom.

The apartment was on the top floor of a four story apartment building. The main part had an entrance and a living room, the kitchen, two bathrooms and two bedrooms. A small staircase led from the entranceway up to a single room, basically on the roof of the building. One of the bedrooms had a terrace – that was naturally Dinah and Riccardo’s suite, and from the terrace another staircase led up to the roof. They had created a sumptuous greenhouse garden which never ceased to amaze me. There were four potted lemon trees, an orange tree and a forest of herbs. From my top of the world window, I could see in one direction this glassed-in explosion of green, and in the other direction I could look north across the rolling Tuscan hills. The third direction – I kept this curtain closed – looked across the street more or less directly into other people’s windows. The fourth wall backed onto the other ‘penthouse’ apartment, which had the same layout as ours. When I wasn’t around, this was a guest room, but it was obvious that Isabella used it often to escape from her parents.

I was glad not to be Italian when I saw Isabella’s trouble with her parents. My American upbringing made it seem almost imperative to move away from home at 18 years of age, returning only for summer vacations and holidays, and then perhaps occasionally to sponge off the parents and not pay rent during those troublesome post-college years. Isabella, on the other hand, was stuck living at home until she was 26, or finished her university degree – if she could manage to finish it faster than that. Whereas I, at 21 was a junior in college, she at 20 was in her second year of a six year university. Isabella was studying Arabic and German, and had commented to me that she was going to be extremely relieved to spend time in Egypt and Germany, even if Egypt was full of other relatives keeping an eye on her.

Trudging up the stairs, I wondered what I was going to have to do next. Wash the clothing and return it, I assumed. The idea of going back into that bar was horrible. They already knew my name, sort of. They knew who I was.

What unfairness. All I wanted was to be left alone. I thought bitterly of Madri and her icy comments to leave her alone, whenever something was wrong. When people truly have problems, I thought, they are all the more careful to protect them. As though Madri were afraid to resolve what was wrong. Or was I supposed to have insisted? How can you insist that people tell you things, when they become rude and lash out at you, and then vanish? If that was supposed to be a hint, it was an awfully extreme one.

The topic returned at dinner time. I had changed back into my own clothing – with an odd regret. It made me feel like an adventurer wearing Italian clothing. Even though it had been manly clothing, which no Italian girl would ever wear, it had made me feel like for a few hours I could masquerade as an Italian.

Now, in my ratty jeans and sweatshirt, there was no danger of that. Dinah started the conversation over spaghetti, the television a quiet backdrop. “Was that your jacket on the rack in the hall, Cole?” she asked. I nodded, then paused and frowned.

“I mean, it’s not MY jacket, but I was using it. I have to take it back tomorrow.”

“But to whom, Cole?” Isabella broke in. “Who lent you all that strange clothing, some man?!” she was teasing me. “I never meet nice men on the street!” I was constrained to reply.

“I really don’t know,” I said. “It was in a bar, I was all wet from the rain and some guy came in and told the barista something, and all of a sudden they told me to put on some dry clothing they had lying around.”

Everyone was exchanging strange looks. I ate my spaghetti and hoped that they were done with the topic. But Riccardo continued,

“It’s just that things like that don’t happen in Siena! Maybe they weren’t Senese…”

I shrugged. I certainly couldn’t tell the difference. “Riccardo, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether they were Sienese. But the man who started it all told me his name…” I tried to remember it. “Something…di Gaspari, I think. He looked like the sort of person who works in the bank. You know, the suit and tie and everything.”

All three of them were silent for awhile. None of them were eating. I took a sip of my watered down wine, and sprinkled some cheese on my spaghetti. It was a huge relief to feel dry and warm and fed, and I would have been supremely relieved if they just dropped the topic.

Dinah cleared her throat. “You could say he works in the bank, I suppose.” Riccardo responded in Italian, and they laughed. Isabella turned to me. “It’s an understatement. He’s the vice-president’s protege.”

I looked at them all, confused. “Why did the…the almost vice-president of Monte dei Paschi come walking into THAT bar and tell the barista to dry me off?” I asked, summing up the situation. They looked back at me.

“Very strange,” Dinah said. “You’ve never met him before?”

“I’ve been here two weeks!”

“Well, when you go back to the bar, you can ask them.”

“Right, in what Italian?”

Isabella broke in, “Cole, have patience. It’ll come to you. You already know so much, you just don’t feel like meeting people!” There was an awkward silence. Riccardo rose and brought the pots full of our second course, but for awhile the only sound was the news anchorlady reciting the current events and expected temperatures. That and the clattering of our forks.

I finished my chicken and knew I couldn’t tolerate any more conversation. I wanted to cry and I wasn’t sure what had provoked it. The events of my day, it seemed, had been too much for me.

A few days later, in history class, the teacher announced that weather notwithstanding, we would begin our walking tours the following week. I was pleased. Two four-hour sessions seated as he recounted to us the history of the Sienese Republic had certainly been useful, but in fact the textbook recounted the same thing and was less tortuous to sit through. It was mid afternoon, and I wanted to be dancing.

(there you go again, the alien warned me.)

I had always wanted to be dancing during astronomy class. There was absolutely no moment when my attention was fully on the professor. Half my being was a dust mote, lusting after the sun that shone sadistically through the window all the way until the middle of November. By then it didn’t much matter anyway, and that was the last class I bothered to go to.

“But,” the professor intoned in his sharply accented English, “now I will give you your final project assignment. You must think about this during these next few months!” There was a sudden scrabbling as all of the students opened notebooks to write something down. “Each of you must complete a final paper, of at least 10 pages, regarding one aspect of the history of Siena that interests you. This can be a particular time period, an analysis of the architecture or certain buildings – and you must do original research! Those of you who speak Italian, make use of it to read the original source materials! Go to the libraries and seek out the wonder of the past.”

I took careful note, and tried not to roll my eyes. Ilaria wasn’t in this class but she would have been ecstatic. She was taking two history classes in Italian within the University itself – she insisted that she understood the history fine, even though she didn’t know much Italian. I, on the other hand, was taking the English language “Sienese history for Foreigners” course. It suited me fine. But what, I contemplated, could I write a history about?

Suddenly an image came to mind. That was it, of course. The three arches into darkness, plashing of water, the small plaque. “Acqua non potabile.” I would write the history of the three-arched pool. Clearly the first step would be to find out what it was called.

I thought such thoughts all the way out of class, as I wandered aimlessly past the Logge di Papa. Then, as though I had planned it, I noticed a movement on the left. My subconscious must have driven my here, I thought through growing panic, as I watched the ambulance coast carefully out of a microscopic garage, turn on the flashing lights and siren, and with a loud wail, turn right in front of me to go down the street.

The alien was screaming. I went through the first archway I saw, down a street, across, and suddenly I was standing in front of a small park that was completely empty. I collapsed onto a bench, shaking.

I never used to shake, I thought with a strange lucidity. I thought of the pale blue interior of the ambulance, Wallingford 33-7, shiny clean, sheets tucked around the stretcher and the blankets secured to the top.

Sitting in the ambulance, excitement coursing through me as the garage door opened, my hand reaching for the radio. “Fireboard, 33-7 responding,” and then a twist to the left to grab gloves from the glove holder. The computer printout sitting on my lap, all the details in black and white. “You know where you’re going?” I always asked Sadie, the driver. She always knew, unless it was an out of town call. Sadie was a townie and had been working on 33-7 for ten years. I was a college kid, but she grudgingly admitted that I wasn’t too bad. After three years doing 6 am to 11, we had a certain pattern.

Then, the arrival. Eyes glancing for the paramedic, who might or might not have arrived. Police car usually already in the driveway. I could judge a great many situations by the location of the policeman. If he was standing outside waiting – that was bad. If he was standing outside talking to someone, life and death wasn’t in the balance. But if the policeman wasn’t around, if he were inside – that could be ominous. “Fireboard, 33-7 on location.” I grabbed the first-in bag and strode to the front door, knowing Sadie would pull out the stretcher and then follow me.

A gust of cold air made me shiver and stopped my remembering. I touched my face and realised I had been crying. I missed feeling useful. I missed working every morning, watching the early morning light change with the seasons. In between calls I sat in the station and did homework, occasionally talking to the volunteer firefighters as they passed in and out, flirting incessantly with my crush object, Jack the paid fireman. There was a relief to know that I could go back, that Wallingford was still there and that my job on the ambulance was there for me whenever I was ready to take it back.

the alien was screaming. I was shaking again. How could I, after all, ever run on another ambulance call? How could I possibly pull out that first-in bag and jauntily walk into the middle of other people’s pain, knowing that I might fail them?

Now I cried because I couldn’t imagine ever being confident again. I had lost myself as well as my best friend. I dug through my backpack for my Nalgene water bottle, but it was empty. I looked around hopelessly. At the far end of the park, I noticed something odd. It was a water spout. Was it? I stood up with the Nalgene and made my way past the seesaw and child’s slide.

It certainly looked like a water spout. It was an elegant 8-sided metal structure. Grey, two feet tall, maybe a little more. The spout was an animal head. Maybe a wolf? I analysed. On the side there was a handle. I twisted it.

Deep inside, there was a clacking noise. I twisted it the other way. Another mechanical clacking. Back, forth. I pulled the handle out. I twisted. Water gushed onto a grill at the bottom, and splashed my toes. I jumped back in surprise, and when I regained my balance, I held my water bottle under the spout.

When it was nearly full, I reached back out to the handle. I had to twist it back and forth and withstand a great deal of mysterious clacking, but at long last, it shut off. I circled the small spout, but there was no plaque saying anything. I shrugged and took a sip. The water was cold and fresh and did not taste like anything terrible.

I went back to the bench and sat down. I was cold from sitting for so long, although today it was sunny. It was still January, at any rate. I zipped the backpack shut. As long as I was moving, it wasn’t that cold.

(As long as you’re moving, you don’t have to face things) the alien insisted.

We met in Jenkins Hall to do the dreadful homework. This was because the main room in Jenkins Hall was a cavernous space sprinkled with tables and comfy chairs, and at the far end there was a café. As though being in a nice place, with a chocolate bar and a cup of steaming hot chai, was enough to counteract the wonders of Kepler’s laws. Madri was usually stunningly prepared. She insisted that she hated the class, but when it came to working out the formulae, she had no problem at all. She said she couldn’t stand the homework, but even working together, she got As and I got Cs.

Today, however, she looked wretched. She had dark circles under her eyes and her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. Her green eyes were even greener in her pale pale face. I wondered if she was losing weight. She had on a tattered grey sweater over a collared shirt, following her 10-year old theme, and a pair of ratty sweatpants. There was no attempt at sparkles on her eyelids. “Madri,” I said worriedly, “did you get any sleep at all tonight?” She had admitted to her insomnia. Usually it meant that she had already done half the problem set on her own.

“I couldn’t manage, but I…” she shook her head. Then looked up at me, her eyes big and green. “I didn’t start the problem set, I don’t know if I can manage it, I…” I looked at her carefully –

(You should have known THEN!!) the alien shrieked.

wondering why she was so shaky, so tearful.

“Do you want something to eat?” I asked, nodding towards the coffee bar. Madri lived off campus and wasn’t on a meal plan. Maybe if she ate something she would settle down. Instead, she just looked nauseous.

“I couldn’t possibly eat,” she said.

“Well, let’s start the problem set and see how far we go. Okay?” I felt oddly mothering, worried. My solution seemed to be acceptable, because Madri obediently opened the textbook and began to copy down the salient information.

We worked in silence for awhile, in between me masticating my Twix and Madri twiddling her pencil thoughtfully. “Can I see your calculator?” she asked, looking up at me. I dug through my bag for the TI-85, and handed it to her.

I finally was completely stuck. I had sketchy solutions for all the problems except one, and a few that even I knew were wrong. However, I hated this class. I hated the homework, I hated everything about it, and I had no interest in doing well on the homework. All I have to do is pass, I reminded myself. I looked up at Madri, but her eyes were glazed over the calculator. “Madri?” I asked hesitantly.

She started, and looked up at me with a hunted look. “Cole? I really think I…” she stood up and started walking toward the bathroom. Now I was really worried. Was she sick? She certainly didn’t look well.

When she came back, I looked at her carefully. “Madri, are you sick? Is there anything I can help with?” The last I remembered she had been planning to go snowboarding all weekend. Now she looked the very opposite, tired and sallow. “Did you go snowboarding?”

“Yeah,” Madri responded tiredly, “we got back late last night. And then I couldn’t sleep.”

“Is something wrong?” I asked it hesitantly, worried that such a blunt question wouldn’t get an answer. Madri was like that, twisting away from anything too direct.

“Cole, I don’t think I can do any more homework. I know it’s due tomorrow, but I’ll do it at night, I just can’t think now.” This came all out in a rush, and before I could respond, she was collecting her stuff in a frenzy, hurrying to leave. I watched her, shocked and wordless and worried, unable to do anything.

I looked down at my homework, upset. I knew that I shouldn’t be so awed by Madri, by her pertness and her difference, her shiny green eyed smiles, and the mysterious wisdom in her eyes on Thursdays. Madri was a complete mystery to me. I was fresh and simple and genuinely naïve in comparison to her. I wondered whether she had been raped. I longed to have an idea what made her moods so tumultuous. I wished she would tell me something. But instead she came to me to, I assumed, be normal for awhile, instead of showing me how to be offbeat and adventurous.

My greatest adventure was my hatred for astronomy, which led me to do irresponsible things like not finish my homework. I took the last gulp of my tepid chai, slammed the book closed, and wondered whether Karen would explain the solutions to me.

Walking warmed me up, but my thoughts left me stranded in the middle of a strange intersection, with no idea how I had gotten there. I looked around. There was a small shop right in front of me, and I was hungry. I entered it, testing the information that my host family had given me – the Sienese are a snobby, closed society. Under very few circumstances will they interact with a stranger. This had been their final response to my bizarre bar incident. I was trying not to think about the day when the washing would be done and I would have to return the clothing.

I entered the small shop and looked around, testing my hunger. Cookies…bread, yoghurt…I stopped at the fridge section and chose a small bottle of drinking yoghurt. Good for carrying around, filling. I paid the cashier, who sure enough said not a single word, and I left the shop in silence.

I stood at the intersection again. Below me, there was a church like thing. I was pretty sure I hadn’t come from down there. To my left, the road curved up. I figured I hadn’t come from there either. I went back down the street to the right.

Unfortunately, it immediately split into three parallel streets. But fortunately, there was a little sign. It said: Duomo, with an arrow to the left and one straight ahead. It said: Piazza del Campo, with the same two arrows. Well, I thought analytically, if they are parallel, then they should end up in the same place, right? I chose one. Via di Salicotto, the street sign said. I walked and walked, and then stopped, stunned by the view. It was a small piazza with some bizarre bench thing inside it. The view was fabulous, it swooped down into the valley that I assumed was behind the Palazzo Comunale, in the Piazza, and then way far away from me there was a church or cathedral or something perched on the hill. All along the ridge as far as I could see, there was a two dimensional wall of houses, as though it were a painting by the ancient Egyptians, before a third dimension had been invented. I couldn’t quite believe that streets threaded their way through such a vision, and that it might be conceivable for me, myself, to get somehow from here all the way to the church-thing on the other side of the valley. To my right there was an odd looking little statue, of an elephant with a tower on its back. I stared at this for awhile, but I couldn’t conclude anything. Italians and their strange art, I finally shrugged.

Then how to get back to the Logge? From here I figured I had to turn right, so I did, and I went up a bunch of stairs and then hit a wall. I turned right again, this time unwillingly, and found some more stairs.

Great, now I was in a parking lot. Annoyed by this entire town, I looked at my watch and wondered whether I would have a nice long session to dance in if I kept up this lost wandering. But I’m LOST! I thought hopelessly. I can’t stop wandering until I find myself!

In the middle of the parking lot there was something strange. I would never have noticed it if I hadn’t suddenly stopped dead at the idea of finding myself. In my shock, my eyes wandered toward an empty spot. It had painted lines on it – no parking zone, and a small chain link fence.

It was a water faucet, spouting water out of the wall. There was, however, no way to turn it off. How bizarre, I thought, insolitus lilting latinly behind. This entire town is full of ridiculous, bizarre things. Resolutely, I turned to the left and started walking. After a number of dead ends and a large hill, I spotted the Logge del Papa, its delicately lit arches a source of beauty and terror, through the arch ahead of me and I sped up. From here, I thought with frustrated relief, I can get back to the bus.

And the next day, of course because it had been sunny, the clothing was dry. I folded the jeans carefully, settled the shirt on top and even folded the coat into a neat square. I put them all into a shopping bag, and tried to think of when there would be the least amount of people in the bar. After class, at 12? Before class at 8.30? Finally the idea of carrying the stuff around all day made me decide to go before class. I took an earlier bus, my morning coffee and cereal churning in my stomach fretfully. Terribilis terribilis, singsonged in my head, the s hissing and writhing in my gut. I didn’t bother to turn it into Italian.

I followed the throng of people into the middle of town, and when I saw the piazza of the bank, I turned right. I was mildly pleased that I knew where to go. My stomach churned all the more. I walked down a hill, down a little more of a hill, and there was the street on the left. I ducked into it, and into the first doorway. I was here.

My first thought was relief. Of course there is more than one barista! This was someone I had never met, I could leave the clothing and be entirely unmolested, and never have to deal with the situation again! A few people were at the bar, sipping their coffee. Others were seated at the table, leisurely reading the morning papers. I had had no hope of finding an empty bar at this hour.

Then, to the greater sinking of my stomach, Federico appeared from the inner doorway, and saw me at once. His eyes lit up with a smile and I wondered why I deserved it. I walked toward him, hoping to get this over with quickly. At least I have an excuse, I thought. At least I have to be in class at 9.

“Buon giorno,” I said in a louder voice than I wanted to, to be heard over the general bustle. Federico responded in kind. I proferred the bag, and said the words Isabella and I had practiced. “I washed the clothing, grazie…thanks for lending it to me.” It all came out in an uneven rush, but I could tell by his smile that he understood. “Uh…ciao?” I said uncertainly, backing away.

“Ciao Ariele,” Federico responded, grabbing my arm before I was out of reach. He gave me the classic Italian cheek kisses, and then said, “Quando torni?” I frowned. I understood, I thought. When was I coming back? Never! “Soon,” I hedged, but it wasn’t enough. “Ah, you have class!” he said, understanding. I nodded, I had understood. “Ma, dopo lezione – torni?” After class, come back? I was panicked. Finally I nodded, handed him the bag, and ducked out of the bar as fast as I could.

It had not been a dream. Sienese or not, the people in this bar were far too friendly for comfort. Maybe, I thought, I should foist Ilaria off on them. Then they would never notice me again! I felt relieved at the thought, and headed off to class thinking I may have found the best solution.

“Yo, Ilaria,” I hissed across the aisle during a lull in Signora Santorini’s grueling vocabulary lesson. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Male and Italian?” Her expression brightened at my nod. Then her eyes narrowed. ‘How did you meet him?’ I shrugged, giving her something to think about.

When we finally escaped from class, endless conjugations of irregular verbs floating in my head, Ilaria pounced. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked. I supposed it was a little unusual for me to be taking the lead. I tried not to, too much. I didn’t want her to get too friendly. (which was a lost cause, really.)

‘A bar,’ I said.

‘Does he work there?’

I laughed. ‘You’ll see, Ilaria! Don’t worry.’ We walked up Banchi di Sopra, finally so familiar that I knew its name, and down the great hill and into the small vicolo. I opened the door, feeling victorious. If all went well, Ilaria would hit it off with them and I could escape. And go dance, alone and peaceful.

Caterina was at the bar, and she greeted us as we came in. I looked around. Now it was nearly empty, there were only a few people loitering at the tables. I asked for some juice, and she poured it out with a flourish. I was almost impressed with myself for managing the simple phrases. ‘I promised Federico that we would come at noon,’ I said to Caterina, slowly and clearly. I probably had totally dropped both the past tense and the conditional, but I figured she would get the idea. She nodded. ‘A friend?’ she nodded at Ilaria, who promptly smiled sweetly and held out her hand. ‘Ilaria,’ she introduced herself, and Caterina responded in kind. Ilaria ordered a coffee, something I couldn’t possibly stomach again today. One was enough for me. Caterina set it on the table and then went to the doorway. ‘Federico!’ she hollered into the depths.

Ilaria was staring around at the bar as though she had never been in one before. All of a sudden I felt possessive, as though this were my bar, and my people. I frowned at myself. Don't be difficult, I thought. You don’t deserve friends. Federico smiled at us, wiping his hands on his apron. He immediately started talking in Italian, his eyes crinkled as he laughed at the look on my face. But Ilaria understood, and she cleared her throat to respond.

I tuned them out as they started a conversation about calcio. Soccer? Definitely not interested. I sipped my fruit juice and stared around the bar. This was going just as I had hoped. They were all interested in each other, and I could leave. So why did I feel let down? None of that wishy-washyness, Cole, I admonished myself. I put down the glass with a clatter, prodded Ilaria, and said, ‘I have to leave, I have to get home to practice. I’ll see you tomorrow!’ To Caterina and Federico, ‘Ciao!’ and I turned and rushed out the door.

I almost bumped into the mysterious Signore di Gaspari in my rush to leave the vicolo and storm up the hill to safety. He held my arms firm to keep me from barrelling into him. ‘Signorina!’ he said to me solemnly, but I could see a twinkle in his eyes. ‘You must be more careful to watch where you are going! In such a hurry to leave?’ He raised his eyebrows at me.

‘I, uh, I left my friend there, to talk with Federico. But I have to go.’

‘We shall see another time then, Ariele. But,’ he paused and plucked at my yellow ski jacket, ‘you looked quite well in the rain coat of Federico. You prefer the American style?’ I stuttered and didn’t know how to respond. Finally, I shrugged.

‘It keeps me warm, usually,’ I said. He smiled and let me go. ‘Arrividerci,’ he said to me, and patted me on the head as he passed.

*

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

Contrary to its modern appearance, San Giusto was once a genuine fountain like other fountains in Siena. It had a single basin under an arch, and was found underneath the street above it. However, San Giusto wasn’t strictly necessary as a fountain. Members of the contrade in the area, now Leocorno (unicorn) and Torre (tower), paid to have it created, and it used overflow water from Fonte Gaia as it passed on its way to San Maurizio, near the Via Roma. When the fountain started causing problems – leaking water into houses on the street below, the most convenient thing to do was shut the fountain up.

This is what they did. The road overtop this fountain now boasts a blank rectangular lookout area, about the size of a single basin fountain. If you continue down the steps, and scan carefully through the cars, there is a single, 1 meter wide area painted with orange no parking lines. Along the wall, there is the single faucet, constantly pouring into a small marble basin in the ground, a single trickle of water.

What might still be behind the wall, is a mystery. Further rennovations of Salicotto, the street below, made control of this waterflow particularly important to prevent any more leakage from the fountain. A fountain that was original a passing fancy of the contrada – and also of some use to the Misericordia, nearby, passed quickly out of use.

In the Vicolo della Fortuna, there is a small gravel park, with trees and a few benches. At one end of this long, narrow park there is a distinctive octagonal fountain with a brass wolf’s head and a brass handle. The water that escapes from this and other ‘wolf head drinking fountains’ is potable, made use of by thirsty tourists and dusty children. These fountains were first conceived of in 1920, when a new source of water was found, the Vivo. This water arrives from a mountain halfway between Siena and the ocean, Monte Amiata, and was chosen because of its superb clarity and taste.

In 1923, the mayor Bargagli-Petrucci, the only mayor ever obsessed with Siena’s water, decided that the tubes of Vivo water – then literally nothing more than a piece of tubing and a pull string -- found in the street were poor looking, and that for a city of Siena’s wealth and pride, they should be made to look more suitable. Thus, a design was created for the octagonal fountains, the water escaping from a wolf’s head, and turned on and off by a brass knob. One such fountain is found in some niche or hidden corner in every contrada, although not all of them are currently functional.