Sicilia, pt. 4: The Great Escape

Woke up the next morning having slept like a rock. Soundly, solidly, warmly; whatever that untitled liquor was had done the trick. Was nibbling cookies and giggling at the breakfast table with Chris over the home-made nyquil when Christopher, who had been silently pondering his orzo over by the sink, his stained mustard yellow hoodie pulled up over his head, set down his cup pointedly.

"You have to ask before you open things in this house. This isn't your house, you didn't have permission".

Wellll, sorry charlie. It was in the cabinet with the food stuffs, and I hadn't been told that anything there was off limits, in fact the opposite, so...

I apologized anyway, explaining that we were only looking for vinegar to use for dinner, and we didn't take that much, so oops.

"Well, ok," he whispered seriously, as though this were, like, some sort of big deal, "just ask, next time."

He loped out of the room and I promptly forgot this weird exchange, figuring that he was just having the morning grumps, or maybe was feeling a little paranoid that his post as Sicilian-of-the-House was being usurped by other non-Sicilians who were not fooled.

Work that morning was wonderful! Everyone was apple-cheeked and pleasant, chatty and eager to begin. Zoe worked with Marianne and me, and Chris orbited cheerfully around the base of our tree, a true gentleman, swooping in when the heavy lifting parts began.

About 10am Eleonora arrived to help harvest. She had brought another WWOOFer, a cute Italian named Tomasso from Puglia, and some friend of hers from Palermo. They greeted us all kindly and took up their posts at another tree nearby.

The mama gave the signal for lunch around noon, and we all swept into the kitchen, hungry and dirty but so happy. As there were now 12 of us (all the WWOOFers plus family plus friend) the kitchen was packed. We passed plates to the mama, who had made some sort of rice casserole with peas, cream, and a wafer thin slice of ham. She cut us servings and one by one we graciously took our plates and plopped down to eat at the table, packed in like sardines. The family and their guest took their food outside, leaving us in kitchen alone.

About 5 minutes into our meal, Eleonora came in to the kitchen for what seemed to be no real reason other than to say, "Did you tell my mother thank you for the lunch?"

This was met with silence, and blinks. Our mouths were fool, I was mid-chew. We looked at her patiently, waiting to see where she was going with this.

"You have to thank my mother, because she stayed up all last night working very hard on this, yes? All day she worked hard over her hot stove, so you must say 'thanks'."

With that she turned and walked out of the kitchen. Glances were exchanged, chewing recommenced. That was weird. I mean, absolutely we said thanks when our plates were handed to us, and I don't know of anyone in that kitchen who had been brought up not knowing how to behave, not knowing to thank the person who cooked and then, at least, clean the kitchen for them, which is what we did everyday, anyway, so...

Void of formality, registering immediately the absurdity of this accusation, I think the look on Chris' face, who had his back to Eleonora, said it all: this rice casserole with boxed cream did not take all evening over a "hot stove". Give me a break.

We were all too polite to say anything like this, though, and anyway, we were hungry, so we kept eating.

The weird thing about the way the casserole had been cut was that some people had full plates, and others had a portion half that size. My portion was in the latter category, so i went to the little fridge to see what there was. There was a new loaf of bread on the table, and an opened jar of olives, fresh oil and even some grapes. Someone had been grocery shopping! Inside the fridge I found yogurt, a whole drawer full! and MEAT! Wrapped all together in a COOP deli bag (with a price tag, I noted, that read 3,50 euro, total), I found a package of sliced salami and mortadella. PRAISE JESUS, I cried, maybe more from the depths of my heart than audibly. I opened the salami and took a slice, savoring its saltiness. A few more slices were taken from people around the table, and we all leaned back in our chairs, relatively content and thinking of making coffee.

The cleaning of the kitchen started directly, everyone doing their part to either wash, dry, put away, or make the coffee for everyone assembled. Nina Simone was playing (for about the 80th time that week), and the mood was high: I think, for once, we were full, and ready to head back out to the fields.

Suddenly, the kitchen door flew open and Laura ran through the room, grumbling angrily in Italian. On her way back out she paused a moment to rant at Eleonora, who had entered behind her, flailing her arms and motioning toward us and yelling about something I could not understand. Or something I did understand, actually, but I had to look over at Zoe to see if I had really heard these things, if she was hearing what I was hearing.

Laura was saying things like, "no respect!" and "if you want something you have to ask!" and "what we put on the table is what there is to eat, this is our house and family's food" and "cannot deal with this anymore". etc.

She finally ran outside, leaving all of us in shock. No one but me or Zoe could have understood her words, necessarily, but it was clear to everyone that she was angry, and angry at us.

Eleonora, is her faux-Buddhist, air-of-calm, patronizing manner, folded her hands and started off with an apology.

"Laura is too young, she is my little sister and she is not old enough to be able to express herself maturely. I will be here now to manage all of you."

We all sat rigid, in utter confusion.

"Things here are bad. We do not have time to waste, there is too much disrespect and we are losing harvest time", incoherently said the woman who had not been present to help harvest but 2 hours so far.

Someone, I don't remember who, asked for her to clarify. What exactly was the problem?

Eleonora seemed to skirt around the issue, citing the stress of the new house being incomplete and the bad weather delaying the harvest and her unattached jaw and Laura being "too young" (29).

"People take things without asking and no one is abiding by the rules of the house. Laura had told me that everyone is taking advantage and someone is slowing down the work and making us lose time and who broke this cup??"

She picked up a ceramic espresso glass off a tray on the table, incidentally one that none of us ever used: it seemed to be part of a set, and as only the larger mugs or the espresso cups that we were offered espresso in initially by the family and Christopher were in rotation, no one ever touched this tray of cups, no less drank from them. The cup in question had a tiny kittens' incisor-shaped chip in the rim. We squinted to identify what she was talking about.

"We don't use those cups," someone said, remembering reality (probably chris). "We always use the colored ones".

It was at this dreadful moment that her eyes fell on one of those "colored ones" standing by the sink, broken. In all the confusion of 12 people eating and cooking and washing dishes, it had broken, though it was impossible to tell when or how. It was a fallen soldier, the obvious result of a days large lunch. Delicate dishes by busy sinks get cracked.

I thought she was going to turn purple.

"It is this sort of disrespect that we are trying to make clear. We have never had trouble like this ever from WWOOFers!"

This was too much. What trouble? It was an accident. And what disrespect? We cook and clean after every meal, go to sleep at 10 fucking pm, work all day, never complain. As far as we could see it things were going great with us. We all got along, helped out. No one was walking on eggshells, but this was the first we were hearing that we needed to be.

David asked her to clarify the "someone" who was "not pulling their weight, slowing everything down". He was trying to encourage some sort of clear-headed discourse, perhaps in manner of, well if you tell us the problem and person that you are upset with we can all work to fix it, but this went right over Eleonora's head. Or maybe she was waiting for just this moment.

"Well," she began rambling, "I mean I don't want to say it's not that it's a problem that- it's her!"

She pointed dead at Zoe, and now our mouths were really hanging wide.

"But, wait," I said, through the knife-cuttable air, "Zoe works great, she's doing just like we are."

"Well that is just what my sister said, so maybe Zoe should go if she doesn't want to be here."

No one knew what to say. Eleonora eventually left, leaving us to say "what the what?" over and over.

We all tried to piece it back together. Was it the booze? David said that Christopher, in British confidence, had told him that the booze was some sort of homemade treat, but that a) it was not aged enough and b) that was all the family had for the year. Understandable that this would tick the family off, but it was an honest mistake, and it was booze. Surely the bottle could be resealed again, or left as so, it wasn't going to go bad- it was grain alcohol! And there were 6 bigger bottles anyway, not just the smaller one we had experimented with. David then said that Christopher hadn't told Laura that it had been opened (though I don't know how she could have missed it- it had been sitting out on the counter all day), more out of fear for himself than for us. So that was ruled out.

Was it the Salami? Was it really, as I had understood, for the "family", and not for us weasly WWOOFers? I found it hard to believe that all of that was over them begrudging us a few pieces of luncheon meat.

Was it that we had sat immediately at the dinner table, forcing the family and their guest to eat outside in the garden? If they took offense at that they should have said something, like, "slaves! Eat your meal al fresco, we own this kitchen."

And what in the world was their grudge against Zoe?

Still completely confused, we returned to work, our spirits dampened. It wasn't fun being out there with them anymore. Laura was icy and wouldn't make eye contact and Eleonora tried to make small talk and pretend nothing had happened. I was just pissed, to be honest, and completely shocked. Though things had been weird, I really liked Laura. We had talked and laughed even just the day before, I had thought that she was happy to have us. Something must have set her off, but with their notoriously Sicilian communication skills- i.e. horrendous- we would never know what it was.

After work, the family went over to the not-yet-finished new house, leaving us at the old one. It had suddenly turned into two different camps, and tensions rose.

Evening came, and the discussion turned to the now awkward trip to town. All week we had been planning on this night, as Saturday night this far South in the Catholic world is the evening for mass. Mass meant, for those of us less pious, a trip to town. And town meant provisions. Meat, wine, chocolate, cigarettes, razors...our list had patiently been compiled all week. Naturally, seats would first be given to family members who desired to attend mass, and secondly to filthy WWOOFers who wanted to buy objects of sin and gluttony. We sat at the dinner table and put our indignation and hurt feelings aside in order to determine who would head in with the family. Pizza could be eaten out, a cold beer could be drunk...it was a hard opportunity to pass up, and we were all vying for it. Zoe had already opted out; she had been the first to go with the father to the Oleificio, the olive oil factory, to observe the process. As time to depart came to a close, and we were finally getting down to drawing straws for the trip, Christopher came in. He told us point blank and without the slightest sign of shame or apology that Eleonora and her friend would be going to town alone. Leaving the three seats in the back of the car empty, and not filled with the three WWOOFers who had so been looking forward to this tiny trip. They would be happy to take our money for anything we needed from the grocery store, though. All I could do was laugh, and go out into the yard to call FL.

FL, btw, had been FABULOUS all week, calling to check in, commiserating, answering my texts of despair and confusion with encouragement and sweet nothings. I had had him poised on the phone with my airline twice already, at times when I was so ready to come home I couldn't stand it. At one point my phone ran out of minutes (they have a pay-as-you-go system here, and one must recharge at a tabaccheria or grocery store in cash), and as I was too far from civilization to do anything about it, I fretted. Should have known better, though. 30 minutes after I didn't respond to an evening text from FL I received another text, telling me that my phone had been recharged. And just in time, too.

As I returned to the house from talking to FL, I saw Chris sitting out in the garden.
"Might not want to go in there," he warned empathetically, "I heard Laura yelling your name, and pointing at something".

Seconds later, Laura ran by me in the back yard. I stopped and said, "hey, are you ok?"

She would have spit nails at me if she could. Going off again about how "no!", she's not ok, and how I have no respect, and blah blah and then something about that stupid broken espresso cup. Days before she had mentioned these cups to me, telling me that Eleonora (who I was starting to suspect had some sort of bizarre older-sister-imperialism-thing going on in the house) had gotten the cups from Tunisia, and that they were very special. They were multicolored, with silvery designs, the kind of glasses that you see in Moroccan restaurants and the like. As we were currently drinking out of the glasses, and they were the only glasses I ever saw the family use or was offered, I understood that, while precious, they were not invaluable. Somehow now, however, because we had had this conversation, the broken glass was my fault. I knew better, she screamed. And I was disrespectful to boot.

She stormed into her house, Christopher padding beside her. It was at this point that I looked Christopher squarely in the eye and tried to zap him out of whatever spell it was he was under. "You are not one of them," I wanted to scream! What the hell is going on?

Trying to get him to explain rationally the mind of his girlfriend and her weird family was futile. He backed her up, saying stupidly, "well, just know that this is her house, that's all". I couldn't believe it. Chris got up and followed me supportively into the house. Not being nearly as resilient as Zoe, I went into the living room, where David had poorly lit the stove sending billows of smoke throughout the house, and Marianne sat patiently on a cot. I started to cry. Not a lot, just a whimpering cry of confusion and exhaustion. I was totally lost.

"I think we should leave," Marianne said.

We went into the bedroom and pulled out the list of WWOOF farms. Marianne had had the foresightedness to print out all 40 pages, wise enough in her travels to never trust in the existence of internet or confirmed plans.

We began looking at farms in Sicily that needed help with the harvest. Surely, we knew, other farms were picking olives, and somewhere on this island people both needed and wanted WWOOFers in their home. We were very calm about this. We were not mad or rash. We sat and discussed for a long time the pros and cons, the risks and opportunities, and the reasons to support our decision. It was clear that this situation had come to a head. We were adults, and we did not, be it over salami or broken espresso cup or base "disrespect", deserve to have people yell at us or talk down to us. We were already working over the required load stated in the WWOOF charter, and the living conditions were getting stranger. Neither of us had come to Sicily for this; we had come to learn and experience and work hard, and to be treated kindly in exchange. There were only so many days of our time here, and it was precious, so we deserved the right to spend it how we wished, how we were happy. Besides, we were not in contract to anyone. Marianne was wise and insightful about the whole thing, and it warmed my heart. She had not personally been attacked, she said, but how could she stay knowing that others had?

At some point later, Eleonora and her friend returned from town, with a bag of what sweet Tomasso had requested. Being from Puglia, he likes his wine, dark and strong. He had given them 10 euro, and with all of Eleonora's babble about the prestige of Sicilian wine earlier (how she filled the silence in the olive grove), he had assumed he could trust her choice. What she brought back sent Chris into wild laughter, though it was not from the product itself: it was from the look of sheer disgust and astonishment on Tomasso's face when he saw it.

Boxed wine, the lowest of the low.

"Never," Tomasso whispered, holding the box out away from his body like a rat, "would I purchase vino like that. Never. And to drink! No. Never."

For the first time all day he looked at us like perhaps he understood why we were all in cahoots.

Chris came and sat on the bed in Marianne's and my room, and let out a sign.

"We're leaving," Marianne told him, "tomorrow".

His face lit up. "Can I come too?"

And then we were three.

We had all been waiting around for dinner, not sure if we were supposed to cook ourselves or wait for the family. They finally came in from the other house, Laura not looking anyone in the eye, and seemed genuinely disappointed that we hadn't already eaten. Pork and roasted potatoes was made, and it was pretty good- I think they were trying to impress Eleonora's friend. It was an awkward dinner to say the least. The family talked amongst themselves, and the WWOOFers were silent, except for David who made a puppy-like jovial attempt at conversation.

At one point, Eleonora lifted some sort of wicker basket from the cabinet behind her and held it up to us. "This was my great grandmother's," she said, "it is very important to our family."

"Ah," said good ol' David, "it's wicker. We won't be breaking that!"

I don't think she was amused.

The odd thing was that even after everything, throughout dinner I felt nervous, guilty even. I knew things were bad, but I didn't want to leave the family with so much work. Without us, they would be totally lost, they would never get the harvest done on their own. I couldn't decide whether things were really so bad as to just walk out, or if we should wait it out another day.

Eleonora answered this question after supper, as all of us WWOOFers were cleaning up. She had boiled water for tea, and, in an effort to be helpful, I poured the water into the mugs that were sitting on the wooden table. She picked them up after a moment and scolded me calmly, pointing out the white rings that had appeared in the wood from the heat of the ceramic. I felt awful, mumbled an apology, and made myself scarce to the other side of the table, reading my book. She took a bottle of olive oil and poured some on a rag. Wiping the table down, she explained to all of us around the table in her bizarrely monotone voice-of-calm the benefits of olive oil on wood, how this was her grandmother's table. I already knew this, so i nodded and kept reading.

"Are you laughing at me?"

I looked up after a second of silence and saw that she was staring at me.

"um, no," I said.

"Well," she said sweetly, almost syrupy, quiet enough so I could just catch it, "maybe in your life you don't care about important old things, maybe you just buy everything brand new, but here we take family things seriously".

She turned immediately and left the room, leaving all of us, once again, agape.

"Wait, what?!" I cried.

"Well," Marianne said calmly, "I guess that settles it".

Certainly did.

Zoe returned from the oleificio late that night, almost midnight. We let her tell us all about it, and show us her photos and eat some cookies, and then we filled her in. The night was recounted, rehashed, constructed, theories devised and odd happenings pointed out in retrospect.

"We're leaving," Marianne said, when it was all out there.

Zoe swallowed her cookie and smiled.

"Can I come, too?"