Season of Salt and Honey (32 page)

“
Buongiorno
,” the waitress sings at me. She's carrying a tray of dirty glasses in one hand. “I'm Carmelina.”

I smile and reply in Italian, “You're new.”

“First day back,” she says. “I was on vacation. Croatia.”

“Nice?”

“Very. You been?”

“No. Not yet.”

“You have to go. It's so cheap.”

“But it's cheap here.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Not like there. Believe me. And the sea . . . It's so clear. But can't be on vacation forever. Back to work, you know?”

I nod, but I haven't worked, not properly, for months now. I've picked fruit on farms, cleaned dishes and floors, even herded goats, all to help pay my board in the places I've stayed. In one place I looked after a pair of four-year-old twins. It had reminded me of Summer, helping out with her nephews.

Now I'm in Sicily I often stay with distant relatives, people whose faces I barely recall but who tell me they remember me when I was “this big,” gesturing to a height around their kneecaps. They have noses or eyes or expressions like the aunties and they mother me in the same way, bullying and pampering.

Work the way I think of it—the little desk at the council, my favorite mug, my notice board pinned with lists and old photos and a
Peanuts
cartoon about Mondays—seems a million years and a million miles away. Those things, at least, are a million miles away, and now someone else sits in my chair, her things on the notice board and her mug on the desk.

I inhale the Sicilian air, its heat and salt. “I'm Francesca,” I say to Carmelina.

“Hey, Francesca. What can I get you?”

“
Pasta alla Norma
.”

“Good.”

She takes the menu from me and I hear her sing out my order to the kitchen as she returns to the bar.

I consider reaching into my backpack for the book I'm currently reading but decide against it. Instead I sip my glass of water, look across the road, and stretch my legs out under the table. They've turned brown in the sun, browner than they've been since I was a kid.

My skin is browner everywhere, as dark as Aunty Rosa's chocolate
torrone,
and my hair is sun streaked. I got it cut short, just below my ears, before I left Seattle, but it's grown since then, back down to my shoulders. It's ragged and marked with sun-bleached, bronze-colored pieces, tied in a lazy ponytail. Sometimes I catch my reflection in the mirror and wonder who it is; I think I look more like Bella than myself, touching my cheeks with my fingertips, noticing new freckles. I wonder if Bella does the same with a mirror in the apartment. Staring at her face, questioning, seeing a new reflection and a different life.

She e-mails me most days after she's finished work, telling me about this patient or another, the art and yoga classes she teaches at the seniors' home. She has her favorites: Magda with the glass eye; Bert with the loud laugh who keeps a parrot in his room; shy Agnes who paints watercolors. She is happy being in the apartment while I travel; after living by herself in Portland she doesn't mind being alone, though the aunties and cousins like to drop by unannounced. She tells me about Daniel here and there too. The gigs he's been playing, a movie they saw. They have become friends and it makes me happy to think of them looking after each other. I'm happy about many more things these days, just as Papa promised. I'm happy to be here and happy she is there where she should be, both of us living our mirror lives.

On the beach, an older couple are coming out of the water. I watch them help each other over the stones, the man steadying himself against the little waves, gripping his wife's hand. She's
wearing one of those old-fashioned suits cut low on her legs, a rubber cap, though it doesn't seem as though she's put her head underwater, and pearl earrings. When she almost slips, her husband grips her elbow with his other hand, steadying her, and she turns her face towards him. His expression is stern while she laughs, showing the dark fillings in the back of her mouth.

I trace a finger through the condensation on the side of my glass and watch Carmelina moving between the tables of men smoking and chatting, eating, drinking beer. She's so easy with them, so comfortable in the sway and swish of her body; she reminds me of Merriem.

Merriem refuses to use e-mail so I have to send and then wait for postcards and letters in return. Whoever I'm staying with is always amused by her packages—large, recycled envelopes thickly stuffed with sketches, little boxes of chocolates and sachets of tea, tiny jars of honey wrapped in five or six plastic bags, dried flowers between note pages, pictures and paintings from Huia.

“Here you go,” Carmelina says, setting down my meal. It's steaming hot and fogs up my water glass.

“
Grazie
,” I reply.

“Pepper? More
ricotta salata
?”

“No, thank you, this is perfect.”

Once it has cooled, I pierce a stack of wavy-edged pasta with my fork and eat in silence. The fried eggplant is soft and rich, the
ricotta salata
subtle and salty. Though the aunties make this dish at home, it tastes different here in the place it belongs. Simple flavors, not too many, all working together,
accompanied by the heat in the air prickling my skin and sound of water against the stony shore. When I've finished, Carmelina delivers my bill.

“You're not from here,” she says. The lunch rush has cleared out and siesta's soon to begin. This afternoon I'll probably go for a swim or write a letter on the beach.

I unzip my bag to retrieve my wallet. “No.”

“But you look Italian. And you speak well.”

“My family,” I explain. “My mother's family are from Calabria and my father's family are from Sicily.”

“Ah,” she replies, nodding. “So where are you from then?”

I pull my backpack onto my lap, fingers still searching for my wallet. Instead I find something else. I wrap my palm around it out of habit, distracted. The charm I have carried with me on my travels. “Sorry . . . America. I'm from America.”

“Oh. Cool,” she says.

I watch her face light up and know what she's thinking. She's envisioning California, the sun and surf, the celebrities, fast cars, wide lanes, cheap nail polish. Or perhaps she's seeing her version of New York: the solemn, iconic lady in the harbor, the Empire State Building, lights on Broadway, and horse-and-carriage rides through Central Park. The America of sitcoms and Christmas-holiday movies.

She will not be thinking about the place I'm from. About the skies painted gray and the rain that rolls in, forewarning with that heavy, damp, sweet smell. The huge mugs of coffee. The trees as straight as columns that crowd out the light, the smell
of damp earth, and the first, hopeful spring trilliums. Merriem's radiant dandelion bread; Huia, shoeless, joyful, looking for morels; and Jack, his almost-black eyes, the way he laughs, sitting on his couch with him right beside me, almost close enough to touch.

I take a quick breath. I've been speaking Italian for months now, but the words suddenly vanish. Instead my head fills with the memory of his voice, deep and gentle. “Will you be gone long?”

“A while.”

“Are you running away?” Laced with worry.

“Not this time.”

Such dark eyes. Dark as a crow's wing, dark as espresso. Staring at me like a person looks at a rising sun. I reached out for him.

“There are people I need to come back to.” My fingers seeking the warmth of his.

I glance up at Carmelina. “Sorry,” I mumble in English.

She shrugs kindly, and waits.

I open my fist, which holds the little matchstick cabin instead of money. Carmelina peers at it.

I place it on the table and return to my bag, pushing the contents around. Towel, book, sweatshirt.

“
Scusassi
,” I apologize, my Italian coming back to me. “My wallet's in here somewhere.”

Carmelina points at the cabin. “What is that?”

I follow her finger to the log walls made of matchsticks, the miniature windows. The doorknob has fallen off along the way,
but other than that it's intact. A perfect, tiny replica of the cabin in the forest. I can almost hear the Steller's jay, imagine its flash of blue, smell the lemony resin of the cedars. See daisies looped flower to stem upon dark hair. Feel a hand with a broad palm and rough fingers linked with mine.

I smile at Carmelina. “That is home.”

Pasta alla Norma is one of Sicily's most well-known dishes. It was supposedly named by Nino Martoglio, a Sicilian writer, poet, and theater director, who compared the delicious dish to the opera
Norma
by Vincenzo Bellini. Penne is generally the easiest pasta to source for this dish, but if you can find
reginette
or
malfadine
(both are wavy-edged) or
sedanini
(similar to penne but slimmer and slightly curved), then feel free to substitute.

Serves 4

3 eggplants

Sea salt

4 garlic cloves

1 large sprig fresh rosemary (chopped into one-inch lengths)

5 plum tomatoes

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving

2 tablespoons
passata
or tomato puree

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups vegetable oil

14 ounces dried pasta (penne)

1 bunch fresh basil for serving (leaves simply plucked or torn depending on your preference)

³
/
₄
cup coarsely grated
ricotta salata

Cut 2 of the eggplants into 1-inch cubes. Sprinkle them with salt and set in a colander in the sink to drain for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

To make the sauce: Halve the remaining eggplant lengthwise, then place the halves, skin down, on a clean work surface. Score the flesh with diagonal lines one way and then the other to make
a diamond pattern. Thinly slice 2 of the garlic cloves and push the slices into the eggplant halves. Push rosemary pieces into the remaining slots.

Put the eggplant halves back together, wrap in foil, and roast in the oven until soft, 20 to 25 minutes. Unwrap, discard the garlic and rosemary, and scoop out flesh with a spoon. Let the flesh drain in a colander until cool and then finely chop.

Bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Dip the tomatoes into the boiling water for 10 seconds, then remove and rinse under cold water. Peel and discard the tomato skins. Halve and seed each tomato, then halve again.

Finely chop the remaining 2 cloves garlic. In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook very gently until soft and fragrant. Add the chopped eggplant flesh and cook gently to warm through. Add the
passata
, stir, and cook for another minute or so before taking off the heat. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and set aside.

To fry the eggplant: In a deep pan, heat the vegetable oil (the oil should not come higher than one-third of the way up the sides of the pan). To check the oil is hot enough, put in a few breadcrumbs. They should sizzle straight away. Gently squeeze the diced eggplant to get rid of excess liquid, then fry in the oil until golden, one handful at a time. Drain on paper towels and pat dry.

To make the pasta: Bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Salt the water and add the pasta. Cook until al dente (often about 1 minute less than cooking time given on the package). Reserving a little of the cooking water, drain the pasta. Add the pasta and
cut-up tomatoes to the eggplant sauce and toss all together. Add the fried eggplant and basil leaves and toss. Toss again with a small amount of the ricotta salata, adding a little of the reserved cooking water to loosen the sauce if necessary. Serve with the rest of the ricotta salata and drizzle with a little olive oil.

i thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping

greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for

everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

e. e. cummings

• • • •

T
his book was both troublesome and hugely rewarding—in that wonderful way that small children are—and, similarly, required an entire (very kind and generous) village to raise.

In order to create the setting I relied heavily on incredible people who work passionately to ensure beautiful, ancient forests like Frankie's exist, including: Ken Wu and team at the Ancient Forest Alliance, Mitch Friedman at Conservation Northwest, Larry Pynn, Adrienne and Jeff Hegedus, Elaine Graham, Elspeth Bradbury, and the volunteers and teams at UBC Botanic Gardens, Greenheart Canopies, Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre, and Lighthouse Park Centre.

I am truly indebted to the real-life Caputos and the other Italians and Italians-at-heart who tirelessly supported me with translation and the cultural aspects of this book. In particular: Melissa Caputo-Khan, Marcella Caputo, Francie Jordan, Laura Foster and her Sicilian sisters—Marcella and Chiara Gattuso.
Mille grazie.

Special thanks also to chefs Alfie Spina and Shane Schipper
who ensured food references were authentic and assisted in the creation of delicious recipes.

I feel very blessed to have a phenomenal work family of talented people who coach and encourage me and want the very best for my books. Sincere thanks to Miya Kumangai for her brilliant ideas and efforts and everyone at Touchstone for all their kind support. Big thanks to Alexandra Craig, Emma Rafferty, Nicola O'Shea, Rebecca Thorne, and all the gracious, hardworking team at Pan Macmillan Australia. Love and gratitude to my superb agent, Catherine Drayton, Alexis Hurley, and all the team at Inkwell; and to Whitney Frick who steered me and the manuscript in the right direction. To author plus friend Ria Voros and family plus friend Brianne Collins, who provide endless, professional advice and support seemingly just for the love or torture of it—my sincere thanks and love.