7. Fontanina della Selva, 1965

“...il 20 Aprile 1920 -- in occasione della collocazione di fontanelle provvisorie per tutta la citta’ alle diramazioni del nuovo acquedotto del Vivo – lanciava un’interessante proposta dalle colonne de “La Vedetta Senese”. Invitava infatti le varie contrade a “costruire ciascuna nel proprio rione una fontanella artistica con un emblema e qualche cosa di allegorico riferito alla contrada stessa”....La Selva ha voluto la sua fonte...all’ingresso della societa di contrada: su una roccia di travertino si accampa un maestoso rinoceronte bronzeo; in basso una vasca semi-esagonale con in cisi gli stemmi delle compagnie militari e il motto. Sulla parte posteriore piante verdi al naturale simulano una selva.”

M. Assunta Ceppari Ridolfi e Patrizia Turrini, Siena e l’acqua, pg 99-100

The twentieth of April, 1920 – on the occasion of setting up of temporary fountains for the entire city by the opening of the new aquedote, the Vivo – an interesting proposal was put forth by a column in the newspaper, “The Sienese Vendetta.” It invited the various contrade to “each construct in their own region an artistic fountain with an emblem and some piece of allegory referring to their contrada itself.”…The selva, or forest, had wanted its fountain at the entrance to the society of the contrada: on a boulder of travertino a masterful bronze rhino is camped out; below this is a semi-hexagonal basin with the seals of the military companies incised, as well as the motto. On the posterior part, native green plants simulate a forest.

It was Sunday, and already by ten in the morning I was restless. I had awakened early and had scarfed down a banana and a croissant. I had studied Italian, conversed with Riccardo in dulcet romance tones, and studied some of my Latin tome. I enjoyed the distance it gave me, the idea of being the future. Here were these Romans, living in the present and I was in their future, Italian and post-Roman Italy. I liked the idea of being someone else’s future. I also liked the fact that their lives were nice and done, flat and categorisable. Things they hadn’t felt like writing down had gone with them to the grave. I liked the mystery of that, too.

But I yawned, tired of sitting at a desk, and I tried to think of what I could do with the gaping expanse of time ahead of me. This was the worst part of the day, a weekend when there was nothing to do, and no way to feel connected to the world. I could float away, totally absent, unrecognised by anyone and never missed.

I thought about going to dance, but the idea didn’t satisfy me. I wanted to do something, I wanted to have a purpose, and to go into town and feel useful. Being a foreigner, I mused, sucks. For all intents and purposes, I am unable to live a normal life. I am forced into being on the fringes of life here.

I shivered. (get used to it, the alien said snidely.) I wondered if I would forever belong on the fringes of society, a social defect, already broken and unfixable at the insignificant age of 20. Finally I stood up, determined to go into town and walk around until I was ready to dance. I knew I couldn’t stay here any longer, I would, I snorted, resort to heroin to entertain myself.

The joke, almost unbidden, hit my consciousness and shattered, and I started shaking. How could I be joking about something so horrible? I had failed, Madri was gone, Madri was gone and it was my fault and now I thought heroin was something to joke about?

the alien started a high pitched keening in the top of my head, and I clambered up to the bed and curled into a tight fetal ball.

My first conscious thought was the silence. It was a post-storm sort of silence, but nevertheless I uncurled myself slowly and hesitantly, and looked around. Morning light shone in through the windows, the sunbeams warm and friendly. I looked at my watch and saw that it was still before noon. I still wanted to go out. With determination, I stood up and slung my backpack onto the bed. I looked around. What could I bring? I left the italian textbooks in the backpack, along with my battered miniature dictionary. I added a blank notebook, for vocab lists, a children’s novel in Italian – guaranteed to depress me with my incompetence, and one of the thick science fiction novels I had been saving for times of need. In English, needless to say. Over my jeans and plain blue shirt I added a navy sweater, then looked around the room, surveying it before I thundered down the stairs and away.

My desk was covered with Latin. There was the massive text, a great big dictionary and a sheaf of papers covered with notes. The light was pervasive, my third window shade constantly closed against the invasion of eyes from nearby apartments, but the other windows were uncovered. A hint of Tuscan hills was visible from one, and a survey of the garden visible from the other. My bed, covered with a blue and white pattered coverlet, was unmade. I wondered if I should start considering myself a messy person. I had flung all the unnecessary books from my backpack onto the bed, where they sat in a patient heap. Yesterday’s clothes were draped over a stray chair next to the bed, and the bedside table had a clock, a waterbottle, and two pairs of toe shoes on it. On the floor next to the terrace door there was a shapeless pink bag, spilling out of which I could see two ratty tshirts and a black leotard. I knew from memory that inside there were three pairs of holey pink tights, one pair of kelly green spandex shorts and another leotard, in white. Underneath all of that there was another pair of toe shoes and a pair of ballet flats. On the floor trailing away from the dance bag there was a ratty trail of toe shoe padding, yet to be collected, sorted, and stuffed back into the toes.

I turned away from this great mess, satisfied that at least in one room in all of Italy, I had made my mark. With this thought I clattered loudly down the stairs, doubtless waking Isabella, and dropped my backpack at the bottom. I meandered into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich.

“Out, out!” Dinah shooed me out of the busy and steaming kitchen. “Are you going out?”

I nodded.

“Okay, will you be back for pranzo? It’s at 2 today. We’re having farfalle with meat sauce.”

I sniffed the air appreciatively. The meat sauce, it was clear, had started simmering not long after my own early breakfast. I glanced quickly at the clock. It was just about 11, and I only had a few minutes to catch the bus.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll be back for lunch. I just need to go walk around for awhile.”

Dinah nodded, understanding, and I backed out of the kitchen. I laced my sneakers carelessly, fast, flung on my jacket and scarf, grabbed the backpack and ran out the door.

The bus stop was up a short hill. No one was there. Although this wasn’t unusual, I checked the schedule to make sure I’d gotten it right. This was Sunday, after all, and the buses seditiously changed schedule on Sundays to confuse the poor people who tried to go to town. However, from what I could decipher of the schedule, it appeared that the bus was yet to come.

I arrived at La Lizza with the four other people on the bus, filing out one by one to disperse in the chilly and empty city. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I followed them down the street and into the Piazza della Posta. I looked around, surprised by the greyness that I had gotten used to, a pervasive everywhere greyness of buildings and street and the vista ahead of me. Usually, heading to class in a herd of people, or heading home in a fog of what I might do with the free time ahead of me, I forgot about the grey. Or maybe I was myself so grey that I blended into it, and vanished.

Today there was nobody about. There was the street, and a bit of sun, and three other random people. I wondered where I might go, wandering down the street toward the turn off for the University. I looked down the street dubiously, thought about good old Pius II, and decided to keep walking. I walked past the piazza and up the hill, looking at the dead store fronts that, during the week, were open with brightly coloured merchandise in the windows. Now there were metal shutters covering everything. Around here, I thought greyly, you can’t even window shop.

I continued up the hill, staring at the Chigi palazzo in front of me. The grey stone was subtle, run through with speckles of colour, so every brick wasn’t quite the same. Yet after staring at it, at the delicate shades of each single brick, the only analysis you could admit to was that the stones were grey. The palace was majestic nonetheless. It had to do with the curve of the windows, the order of open spaces, story after story similar but not the same.

The road curved, up and up, and everything was still closed. The little grocery store on the corner was closed. I turned right, on a whim, and went to the Piazza del Duomo.

Even the great big piazza, with the great big striped Duomo, was nearly empty. A few people were crossing the piazza, one or two sitting on the steps on the far side, but the size of the giant L-shaped piazza struck me anew as I considered it without people or cars. The campanile of the duomo, a pert little black and white zebra striped bell tower, made me smile. It towered, in a delicate sort of way, over the gothic pink, white and black complexity of the duomo’s (front bit?) and the hulking hugeness of the entire thing. It was too cold to stay here, though, with a wind blowing through and chilling me. I turned and walked along the long leg of the L, the duomo on my left. Then I went through the great arch, a thirteenth century mistake, and down the slippery white steps that led to the baptistry.

Now, I thought, I need to find a bar. I surveyed the place. There was a souvenir shop on my right (closed)*, No, I thought, you mean chiuso, and past it another souvenir shop (ditto) and then past that, there was a restaurant. Ristorante. Not a bar.

This won’t do, I thought. In front of me there were shops (closed. Chiusi.) I walked past the restaurant and decided to go through the arch and down the street in front of me. I was hazy on where I was going in this geographical labyrinth, but I figured I had little else to do other than wander around looking for an open bar. I walked down a hill, peering into a tiny alleyway to my left. The desire for something warm to drink was starting to come upon me. It wasn’t extremely cold anymore, just sort of chilly and blustery. Tea, I thought, feeling like a traitor to the Italian love for coffee. I wasn’t really a coffee sort of person at the best of times.

I stopped at a sudden break in the corridor of buildings. Here, there was a low wall, just the height to put my elbows on, that looked across a great valley, Fonte Branda visible below, and San Domenico, a great brick coloured church hulking overtop. I could see the giant windows of the church, and I thought that in the summer this must be a tourist magnet, this fabulous view, even more stunning after the endless streets. Now, the colours were muted, but it made the orange of the church’s brick even more startling, and the dark inside the fountain even more evocative. I shivered, remembering the one time I had been down there, and the cold. il freddo, and la pioggia. Startled, I looked up, but the sky was blue with only a few clouds scudding about. Today, at least, it was not going to rain.

I kept going, and to my extreme joy, on my left ahead of me I saw the open door of a bar. What luck! I thought, at least one, in this entire city, is open. I scuttled inside, my hands already reaching to loosen my scarf as I walked up to the bar.

‘Uh ciao,’ I said uncertainly, uncomfortably knowing that my first words had already branded me as a foreigner. ‘Do you have tea?’

The barista looked at me as though I had asked for some cooked marijuana leaves. ‘Tea?’ he said uncertainly, perhaps hoping to have misheard me.

I nodded. ‘Tea,’ I assured, trying to pronounce the e with as much Italian openness as I could muster, ‘Teeeeeh,’ it sounded like to my Latin-isn’t-actually-a-spoken-language ears. I wished, one of an innumerable number of times, that I had studied French instead of Latin. At least I would have gotten used to hearing myself mangle the vowels.

‘And I’ll drink it here,’ I added hopefully, pointing to a table. The barista was already collecting mug and teabag, handling them with a certain incompetence. I must surely have been the only person to ask for tea in this bar, ever. I hoped the teabags weren’t dusty.

I settled myself at a table in the back of the bar. A few older men were sitting on high benches at a bar table against the opposite wall, but they were conversing frenetically and beating bits of newspaper in each other’s faces, so I figured they weren’t going to bother anyone else for a long time. I pulled the Italian text out of my bag first, and randomly opened it to one of the last chapters. This, I thought with a bit of indignation as I perused the unfamiliar grammar, isn’t any harder than the stuff we’re doing now in chapter 9! I shut the shiny pages with disgust, and pulled out the notebook, the dictionary, and the children’s book.

‘Allora,’ I thought to myself. ‘Here we go,’ and I settled in for a long and difficult first chapter. The barista startled me when he brought over the tea, but I set the book down (page 10! I thought with joy,) and then started to prepare the tea, pouring hot water from the teapot onto the tea bag, then adding sugar and milk in the proper concentrations. I held the mug tight in both my hands, feeling the warmth settle deep into my bones. warmth* The first sip scalded me from my tongue in a path all the way to my stomach, drawing out the cold greyness. I tried to let it in, and not think too much. After a bit, I set the cup down and picked up the book. My goal was to make it to page 15, the end of capitolo 1. Between sips of tea and assiduous dictionary assistance, I made it. I flung the book down with as much audacity as I dared in a public place, pleased that the loud Sienese were still yammering at each other and flinging bits of newspaper about. I wondered what could be so interesting. All of a sudden I froze, as one of them hollered, “blah blah blah di Gaspari blah!”

It couldn’t be the same di Gaspari, I thought. Not that refined looking businessman that I had first seen in the bar. On the other hand, I remembered,

Dinah had said that he held a pretty important position in the bank. Maybe they were arguing about that.

I put the book away and thought about this with some shock. My entire existence here, in a way, revolved around Signore di Gaspari, I concluded. Then I reevaluated. I don’t, I justified, actually care about them in the bar. I just occasionally pass by. It’s not like they really do anything for me.

But a piece of me intransigently knew that without the trip to Petriolo, without a faint hint of magic and of caring, I would be faring much worse in these cold and grey months in Tuscany.

But, I insisted stubbornly, I don’t actually care about them. I sipped the last sip of tea and set the cup down determinedly. Just as I did this, preparing to stand up, a figure walked in front of me.

“Ciao,” Luca from the ambulance said.

I sat back down hard in the chair, not expecting him. At least, I thought, he isn’t wearing an orange uniform.

“Were you about to leave?” he added, tacked on as an afterthought. It was clear to me now that I couldn’t leave politely. “Yes,” I said, “But I have time, I don’t have to be home until 2.”

Without asking, he brought me a coffee, as well as one for himself, and sat down. I tried to pick it up but all of a sudden, my hands were shaking.

(get out! the alien said ruthlessly.) I almost stood up and walked out, the impulse was so strong. My hands were gripping the table, hard, my knuckles turning white. I could feel my butt muscles tensing to run.

Luca looked at my hands, his coffee halfway to his mouth.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked incredulously. I loosened the hands with great effort, feeling blood return to my fingers. Slowly, meticulously, I picked up the sugar and poured it into my microscopic cup of espresso. I concentrated on the little spoon, stirring coffee into the silence. When Luca’s cup clattered back onto its plate, I looked up, to find his hazel eyes staring at me. I looked past them to a small golden shield swinging on a gold chain around his neck. There was something embossed on the shield but I couldn’t discern it.

“No,” I finally answered into the silence. “You make me think of …uncomfortable memories.” My voice tripped over the unfamiliar words and my desire to dance delicately around the edges of the topic. I picked up the coffee cup and swilled the pungent black stuff in one great gulp. His necklace swung back and forth in front of my, hypnotic.

“Are they about the ambulance?” Luca asked delicately, his long eyelashes giving him an angelic look.

I was suddenly reminded of Madri giving me the same look one day not long before the midterm, when she had said, “Co-ole? Can I come to the fire house in the morning, and we study for the exam?” and I had been so shocked, and pleased, because as always, it was I who needed help, not her. I had never done this badly on anything, and I didn’t want to admit that sometimes Madri’s help was more hindrance than good, giving me answers without the patience to explain them.

I had stared at her for a second, shocked. Once in awhile I suggested that we study there, or do the homework there, and every time, Madri wrinkled up her nose, batted her willow green eyes, and said, “I’m really sorry. I just don’t think I can wake up that early.” The stars and sparkles glinted in the light, her face shimmering and unearthly. This time, however, she looked distressed. “Of course, Madri,” I said soothingly, wondering why she was so worried about this exam. I was glad to be able to help, glad that finally Madri was asking me for something, and I could provide – especially after our hopeless study session at her house the previous week. “I’m there from six until noon. If you come around ten, we can study for a bit.”

“Will you be there? What happens if the ambulance goes out for a call?” Her green eyes were wide and apprehensive.

“Nothing, you just ring the doorbell. There’s almost always either the cleaning guy or the computer guy sitting around, they’ll let you up. You can start studying without me, or, I don’t know, look at the fireman suits.” I shrugged. “Anyway, this month has been pretty quiet, I bet there won’t be anything.”

I wanted to beat my head against something, remembering. Why, oh why hadn’t I understood Madri’s sudden interest? Had she been trying to show it to me? Had I missed such an important clue, from innocence and simple lack of understanding. I was an Emergency Medical Technician, and I hadn’t even been able to recognise Madri’s emergency. EMT, indeed, I thought deflatedly. Why doesn’t it say ‘killer’ on my EMT card? In big red letters: KILLER, CERTIFICATION REVOKED.

“Gaia? Are they about the ambulance?” Luca was repeating himself. Where had we been? I still felt shaky, trapped in the back corner of the bar.

“Are what about the ambulance?” I asked reluctantly, realising that I had frightened him with my sudden absence.

“Your memories,” he said. I nodded, looking past him into the bar, reminding myself that this was now and I was here in Italy, very far from ambulances and college.

“Did you have a bad trip in an ambulance?” he asked, frowning into the remains of his coffee cup. I stared at the top of his head, at his dark curly hair. The gold shield swung forward, catching the light, glittering. He was so far from right that it almost seemed comical, almost, for a gleaming second, and then

the alien suddenly started gittering, gibbering, muttering rubbish that I couldn’t understand, and filling my head with this incomprehensible noise.

“No,” I said, trying to remember to say it in Italian.

Wait, I thought, No is Italian too.

“No,” I repeated through the noise, getting louder and clearer, “I worked on one.” and then

Killer killer killer killer killer killer killer! he was screaming in my head, overcoming any conscious thought I could possibly have. I had my head in my hands, my backpack over my shoulder before I could think, my body already geared to run and I was running, back the way I had come, up the hill and past the view, and my jacket was open so the wind blew cold right in my chest, up my sweater and around to where the backpack was snug against me. I turned right, and ran down a street I didn’t know, through a great big arch and straight ahead, up a hill, around a bend away from the duomo and down a great flight of stairs. And I found myself in a piazza of sorts, a few cars in the center of it, and buildings in front of me. To my right, there was another street, clearly heading back the way I had come. I walked to the middle of the piazza, my unfamiliarity clearing away the chaos inside. I surveyed the buildings, and walked to the left.

I found myself at the wall, the great wall that circumscribes the entire city. A chunk of it right here had crumpled away into the fields below, and they had put only a simple piece of portable curb up to warn people. Under my feet, the asphalt was even gone, and I could see down to the field, full of fourteenth century brick rubble. The thought jarred, and I paused.

No, I frowned, thinking about that. This shouldn’t be fourteenth century, this is the newest wall. This must be seventeenth century brick rubble. I looked at the road ahead of me, ugly asphalt road – this must be one of the few paths for the cars that tried to enter the city, I mused. I looked back to where I had come from, and my gaze was snagged on something odd. In a corner, there was a fountain.

Another damn fountain? This was another of the strange artistic ones. I went closer to look at it. Water spouted out of the mouth of a rhinocerous into basin shaped like half of a hexagon. The rhino was perched on a giant white piece of rock, and behind him a few sapling trees sprouted. I looked around for a second, and then with a single smooth arabesque I hopped over the small metal fence and curled myself against the fountain. Above me, tree branches reached graspingly toward the light. I leaned on the edge of the basin, peering in, hoping to regain my composure enough to take the street back.

I left Luca waiting there, I realised with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I felt suddenly very very delinquent. I delicately put my finger into the cold water, looking around for the non potabile sign. Instead, around the bottom of the fountain I read prima selvalta in campo. Italian, I rolled my eyes, wishing they had the sense to stick with Latin for inscriptions. In campo, that was obviously the main piazza. Selvalta*, primo was first. The first something in the piazza, I puzzled. I wasn’t quite ready to go back. I leaned myself against the fountain, staring into the slightly murky water. No, I thought, you wouldn’t want to drink this, at least. Not until someone cleans out the basin!

Madri had come that day in the middle of October to the firehouse. It was sunny and warm, with a crisp and autumnal breeze reminding us that such days were finite. I was inventorying the ambulance: 9 nasal cannulae, 1 oral airway in every size, one nasal airway in every size, intubation tubes, suction tubing…I closed the cabinet and heard the doorbell ring. It echoed in the giant truck bay, and I scrambled out the door of the ambulance and along the wall toward the door.

“Cole! I’m here!” Madri seemed unusually cheerful. She was wearing her black shirt, and it wasn’t even a Thursday, but there were no sparkles. I could judge this as a good sign, by now. She had a battered skateboard in hand and a shapeless bag slung over one shoulder. “Can I come in?” she said eagerly. “Are you ready to study?”

“Actually,” I said with a grimace, “I have to finish this inventory.” I waved the papers in her face. “But you can come watch, or you can go upstairs to study if you want.”

Her face brightened. “Can I look at the inside of the ambulance?”

“Sure,” I shrugged. “But why don’t you leave your skateboard at the door? It might get in the way.” Madri set the skateboard against the wall, its wheels rolling slightly, protesting her defection. I led the way back to the ambulance, suddenly aware that I must look silly in my navy uniform. There was a giant 33 on the back of my navy sweatshirt in reflective silver, and I had on navy ambulance pants, with capacious thigh pockets. My heavy black boots clomped on the floor, and Madri walked silently behind me.

“Here,” I explained, motioning to a wall of cabinets behind me, “are all the supplies that go in the ambulance. I have to make sure everything is in the ambulance properly and then I resupply it from here. We had three calls this morning, so I have to make sure we put everything back that we’ve used.”

Madrigal nodded her understanding, and sat on the ambulance floor at the open back doors, watching me. I sunk back into the pattern, a box of 4x4 gauze, tape in all sizes, elastic bandages. 6 ice packs, 5 heat packs, saline, water, tissue, two kidney basins, two giant barf basins… After awhile I was aware that Madri had gone off wandering, and I heard the slamming of the wall cabinets. I figured she was peering into them, curious to see the contents. Then I heard her clamber up the stairs, and the murmur of voices as she introduced herself to Jack and Sadie, and engaged them in conversation.

(You think you were intelligent? astute? aware? the alien inserted venomously.)

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting upstairs, studying. I never made the connection, I thought angrily. I never never never thought, I sunk my hands wrist high into the cold and slightly slimy water, when two weeks later we had to go to the attic for another box of hypodermic syringes, I thought something was strange. I thought some were missing. I never made the connection. Could you have made it a little more obvious for me, Madri? I agonized. If you really wanted me to know, could you please have made a real mistake, just once? Could you have slipped, and let me see something of what was inside, so that I could get you some help? Just once, that’s all it would have taken.

Ironically, I remembered with chilly hands, she had been shockingly patient that day, calm and almost, not quite but nearly funny, as though underneath that little girl exteriour there was a beautiful butterfly trying to get out. She had been so patient that for the only time the entire semester, I received an A- grade on an exam.

I retrieved my hands from the cold water, feeling nervous and repentant about leaving Luca. I wondered if he were still there. Like that once, my mind flitting back and forth, past and present, Madri was doing me a favour. I, so uncertain of my friendship with such a quicksilver soul, took it as a sign of a growing connection between us, thinking that finally we had reached a calm middle ground. As always, the moment passed, and the next day Madri was decked out in full sparkles, the peter pan collar of a little girl shirt peering out over the top of her 1950’s yellow cardigan. She had finally met my crush object. She had teased me about him, taunted me about my lack of courage in the matter, and now, it was like we’d never discussed him. Or anything at all, really, her answers slithering away from my delicate probing, until I gave up, and listened to Professor Blum.

I walked reluctantly back the way I had come, up the great number of steps, down the hill, around the curve, past the baptistry and left down the street, past the view. I had left my scarf, anyway, I justified, so I had to come back.

I felt extremely awkward entering the bar. My scarf was there, but there was no sign of Luca. I smiled vaguely at the barman, waving my scarf at him, and darted back out. A quick glance at my watch showed that it was time to be rushing back to the bus, anyway. Farfalle and meat sauce, I thought, feeling as though I had just escaped some ancient torture. And then a long, fantasy novel in a world much better than this one, and some Latin, safe and dry.

As I got on the bus, my hair, fallen out of a hasty ponytail, spiderwebbed across my face. My hands were cold on my skin as I brushed it back away, an icy grip on my scalp as I rewound the elastic around the smooth brown strands.

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

The contrada fountains were originally thought up in the 20’s, when water was made available from the Vivo. The idea was put on hold due to political difficulties at the time, and was only reconsidered in the beginning of the 60’s.

The contrade liked the idea, and took to creating their fountains with great vigour and, of course, an eye to their enemy contrada. Each contrada has a fountain which is unique, from the older fountains of the Oca and the Bruco: the Oca uses water from Fonte Branda; the Bruco takes its water from the fountain of San Francesco, to the newer ones, created by artists to stand for the characteristics of the contrada portrayed. Thus, the giraffe has a modern fountain made of great white pillars, and a stylised sort of giraffe made in metal. The torre has a elefant, tower on his back, spilling water into a basin. The chiocciola is represented by a snail with a child on its back, and the enemy contrada, always trying to copy its more illustrious neighbor, is of a child trying to clamber onto the back of a turtle. It never succeeds, and the water pours out of its basin and into a second basin placed strategically on the ground.

Each of the fountains represents the identity of the contrada members. Each contrada member is baptised in the contrada fountain, generally at an age far too tender to recall. And each fountain is a piece of art, and mystery that can be sought out or discovered on accident, in seventeen hidden corners of the Sienese labyrinth.