The Wedding Officer

3

SOMETHING UNPRECEDENTED had happened: Livia had burnt the onions. And not just any onions, but the ones in her famous sugo alla genovese, that wonderful sauce of reduced onions, flavored with beef stock, celery and chopped parsley, that together with pummarola and ragù form the holy trinity of Neapolitan pasta sauces. To make a true genovese the onions have to be cooked for around five hours over the gentlest heat, stirring occasionally to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan and splashing them with water whenever they look like they are drying out. Onions are remarkable things, for cooked like this they lose almost all their familiar oniony taste and become an intensely sweet, aromatic jam, yet if a single piece happens to burn in the cooking, the acrid taste will permeate the whole dish.

Not since she was a child had Livia burnt the onions in her genovese, yet today the customers at the restaurant were all too aware of a faint, bitter aftertaste in the sauce as they forked the pasta into their mouths. They exchanged glances, but nobody said anything.

“How was the meat?” Livia said, coming out to collect some dirty plates. She did not wait for an answer, but started stacking the dishes up on her arm.

“Livia,” an old farmer called Giuseppe said gently, “we haven’t had the meat yet.”

“Haven’t you?” She looked surprised. “Oh, nor have you. I’ll get it.” She went back into the kitchen.

After ten minutes someone stopped Livia’s father as he brought in more wine. “Nino, what’s wrong with Livia? She’s acting very strangely. That pasta didn’t taste right at all. And she still hasn’t brought out the secondo.”

Nino sighed. “I’ll go and have a word.”

He went into the kitchen and found Livia staring out of the window as she absentmindedly stirred a saucepan. “Livia. Are you all right?”

“Mmm? Yes, of course.”

He glanced into the pan. “I never knew you had to stir boiling water before.”

“What? Oh, of course. Well, I’m boiling an egg. Only I forgot to put in the egg.”

Nino tapped his forehead. “If you ask me, it’s your head that’s boiled. There are people out there waiting for food.” He suddenly noticed that her hair, which was tied back with a red ribbon he had never seen before, smelt of rosemary, and that there was a rhododendron flower tucked behind her ear. “Are you waiting for that boy to come back?” he demanded.

Livia blushed. “Of course not.”

“Livia,” he said gently, “he’s a soldier. He’ll probably never come. And if he does, what happens when he gets posted somewhere a long way away?”

“Wherever he goes,” she said, “he’ll come back eventually.”

Nino raised an eyebrow. “So you’re thinking seriously about him?”

“Perhaps.”

He watched her thoughtfully for a moment. “I think,” he said, “that when this lad does turn up I’d better have a word with him myself.”

When Enzo returned to Fiscino the next day, having toiled in the sun all the way up from Torre del Greco, he was slightly perturbed to discover, first, that he had to have a discussion with Nino before he could see Livia, and second, that the interview was to take place in the field where Nino was supervising the mating of Priscilla with another farmer’s bull.

“Come on, boy, you can give me a hand,” Nino said, looping the bull’s halter around his own wrist as he led the way. Enzo followed at what he hoped was a safe distance. He had thought Pupetta and Priscilla were huge, but they were positively svelte compared to the buffalo bull, whose vast, muscular shoulders were covered in a shaggy pelt like a lion’s mane, and whose forehead resembled nothing so much as a massive rock crowned with two fearsome spears.

Nino thumped the bulging muscle on the bull’s neck appreciatively. “He’s called Dynamite,” he told Enzo. “Best damn buffalo sperm this side of Caserta.”

Enzo nodded thoughtfully, trying to look like a connoisseur of buffalo semen. It was hard enough picking his way through the vast buffalo cowpats without getting any splatters on his uniform.

Nino led the bull into the field, then shouted to Enzo to shut the gate. Dynamite trotted forward on surprisingly dainty legs, then opened his mouth and bellowed, causing Enzo to look around apprehensively as the huge sound echoed off the woods around them.

“He’s scented them,” Nino said with satisfaction. “That’s good.”

“How often do you do this?” Enzo asked, eager to make a good impression.

Nino gave him a surprised glance. “Every year, of course. The females won’t produce milk unless they’re in calf.”

That the production of milk was directly related to calving had never really occurred to Enzo before. “And what happens to the calves?” he asked.

“We eat them,” Nino said bluntly. “Eat them before they’ve even tasted grass. I cut their throats and bleed them myself, in the barn. They’re sweetest like that. Good, he’s interested.”

Enzo watched, slightly overawed, as Dynamite’s interest manifested itself all too clearly beneath the beast’s shaggy belly. With another almighty bellow, the buffalo levered himself onto Priscilla’s back, jabbing at her hindquarters with his enormous pizzle until he managed, more by luck than judgment, to lodge himself inside her. Priscilla grunted, and lowered her head to chew at the grass.

As the bull rutted, Nino turned his attention to Enzo. “So you’re the lad who’s got Livia in such a spin,” he commented.

“Yes, sir,” Enzo said, his heart lifting at this confirmation that Livia really did care about him.

“Going to marry her?”

“Er,” Enzo said, “I’ve only just met her. But I hope to. Assuming she’ll have me, of course, and that you give me your blessing.”

Nino looked at the young man shrewdly. “You probably think that’s what a marriage is all about,” he said, jerking a thumb at Dynamite’s energetically swaying hindquarters.

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Of course you do. Every boy does, at your age. But watch what happens.”

Dynamite’s forehooves scrabbled at Priscilla’s sides. Then, with another almighty bellow that sent birds shooting from the trees, his buttocks shuddered and he slid off her. A few moments later, both animals were contentedly grazing the lush, humid pasture, Dynamite’s pizzle drooping onto the grass.

“Doesn’t last long, does it?” Nino commented. “Bit of a stupid reason to get married, really, when you think about it. If that’s all you’re after, you’d do better to visit the widow, Esmeralda.”

“That’s not what I’m after at all, sir,” said Enzo, who together with his friends had visited the widow Esmeralda on several occasions already. “I love her.”

“And as for a dowry, forget it. I’m just a poor farmer who keeps a little country bar.”

Enzo scratched his head. “No dowry at all?”

“Well, maybe just a token one. Say a thousand lire.”

“What about two thousand?” Enzo said, desperately trying to negotiate.

“I thought you said you loved her,” Nino said.

“Oh, I do. It’s just that—”

“Well, if it’s love, where does money come into it?” Nino demanded belligerently.

“It doesn’t,” Enzo assured him. “Er—a thousand is fine.”

Nino regarded the young man anxiously. He was handsome, certainly, but his negotiating skills were nonexistent. Here in the countryside, where even settling the price of a chicken could take all day, such things were important. He suspected that Livia might end up wearing the trousers in this relationship. Still, he knew his daughter well enough to know that there was no point in trying to change her mind.

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said grudgingly. “And if it ever occurs to you to dishonor her before her wedding day,” he added, looking the boy hard in the eye, “just remember what happens to the calves.”

Enzo and Livia spent the afternoon together, and that evening the first customers at the osteria were pleased to hear the sound of singing coming from the kitchen.

Livia was so happy that she was barely aware of what she was cooking. But everyone remarked on how her lemon pasta seemed even sweeter than usual, whilst the baked mozzarella with roast peppers was a triumph. Admittedly, Livia absentmindedly ate all the cheesecake that was meant to be for dessert herself, while she was sitting in the kitchen daydreaming about Enzo, but as the customers later agreed, it was worth it just to see her so happy, not to mention to avoid the risk of any more burnt onions.