From a story by Ginevra Barbetti on Balsamic Borgo (Taken from the true story!)
The wide-brimmed straw hat hides her face, but she must be my mother's age. She has been sunbathing in the shade since this morning, in one hand a book that is always in the same place and in the other a cocktail that has changed often.
She looks like one of those middle-class ladies who live in the English countryside and when they reach a certain point in life decide to enjoy Italy. She places her drink poised on her bony knee only to elegantly wipe away the trickle of sweat that also gentle but tenaciously slips down her temple. She does so with an embroidered cloth handkerchief which she then places gracefully in the hollow between her breasts. I look at her while I am still in the water, among the boxwoods of the Italian garden and the ancient fruits, my elbows resting on the edge of the pool holding my head in my hands.
I step outside and let myself be embraced by a soft cloth, so white it hurts my eyes. A few barefoot steps towards my room and I return to writing in the cool shade of those imposing trees. With the warm grass under my feet, I walk around the 19th-century greenhouse and stop in front of the chicken coop to watch the chickens moving rhythmically. They all seem to be headbanging to a heavy metal song, their heads bobbing back and forth and their legs outstretched to follow the beat. Then I too let myself go to the first Metallica thing that comes to mind, as free as if no one was watching me. Instead, a voice rises from behind the rose garden.
- Where are we with the book?
Cristina, the landlady, approaches with her hat and gardening shears.
- Tell me a little about these girls instead.
I ask, shifting the subject with the speed of a magician, red with more shame than the freshly picked roses in her wicker basket.
C: The ones with the voluminous hair and topknot are the Paduans, they are called Moira and Antoinette.
They have crazy feathers, they look like something out of a 1980s film.
G: Why are they confined over there in the corner, so far away from the others?
C: Because they pluck them.
G: What do you mean?
C: The others, they hate them.
G: What about solidarity between females?
C: It goes to hell. You know Cochi and Renato when they sang: “the hen is not an animal
intelligent, you can tell by the way he looks at people”? There.
G: What a story, it sounds like the pancrazio of ancient Greece.
C: The others are mere egg-layers, roommates, envious females full of animosity who at night ally, tackle them and pluck every single feather from their heads, until they are left bald. As you can well imagine, they remain a little wary of humanity afterwards.
G: I'm a bit upset. So how do you solve it?
C: With a male peacemaker.
G: But the rooster crows, at dawn, every morning. No digital, analogue or animal alarm clocks here. Only silence. Here is paradise, I understand, but I have to save them.
C: No. They must learn to make do. I tell them every day that envy resembles crabgrass: it never dies, and everywhere it grows.
Come and visit us!
