The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo

Author:Louise DeSalvo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466851986
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

29.

Hailstorms

A few years ago, my husband and I were staying at a castle in Tuscany. This was a rustic place with few creature comforts—no heat, no air-conditioning, uneven ancient floors, generations of spiders, sagging furniture. And it was ten miles down a clay track, in splendid isolation on a bluff overlooking a river in the valley below. It was not for the fainthearted, so for most of our stay, we were the only people there.

The castle was protected by a gate, a dry moat, and battlements and surrounded by meadows, woods, an olive grove, and the owners’ vineyards. It was where I wanted to be after working on a book I couldn’t get right. It wasn’t my first; it wouldn’t be my last. I knew I had to put this experience behind me and move on. Still, I needed this time away. I’d been living with this book for too long.

The family who owned the castle was hardworking. They had to keep up an enormous, ancient, historically significant structure; tend to the accommodations; run the dining room. The mother and one brother cooked. The other brother took orders and served supper. The father fixed things, and there were many things to fix. The family, with helpers from nearby villages, worked in the vineyard and made wine, gathered olives and trucked them to a local press.

One evening, as we were getting ready to order supper—a dish made from local pork, listed as Groundmother’s Stew on the menu, which puzzled us and made us laugh (we soon realized they meant “Grandmother’s Stew”) there was a terrible rainstorm, accompanied by thunderous hail. When the storm was over, two inches of hail had fallen. The storm was beautiful, I thought, as I watched through the dining room windows.

We were safe and warm, inside a stout castle. We’d soon be well fed. Our rooms were a few paces away. As we awaited our meal, we didn’t realize what the hailstorm had done to the vineyard.

And then we did.

It was almost summer, and, on our languorous walks around the property, we’d seen tiny grapes growing on the vines. We knew that in autumn they’d be harvested for the year’s vintage. The evening before, we’d drunk a robust rustic red wine from the vineyard that paired so well with the simple, soulful food the family served.

A fifteen-minute hailstorm. The year’s grape harvest ruined. This year, there would be no wine. And there would be no income for the family from this year’s vintage.

Yet even as the hail fell, one brother took our order for supper, and his mother and brother cooked in the kitchen. We saw him glancing out the window, yet he seemed not to respond to the fact that the grapes were being pummeled by hail.

After supper, we talked. I didn’t want to intrude on what I assumed to be his great sorrow at the grapes’ destruction. But I wanted to offer sympathy. I knew I couldn’t possibly understand what the event meant to his family.

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