380 Memories of Italia/Sicilia - Part 2

[B]Continued from Part 1 - Memories of Italia/Sicilia[/B]

The train station had a small bistro-like café, which was open, and several Italians walked in, had their coffee fix and disappeared as quickly as they came. The man behind the cash register started to pay attention to us, as we both showed a certain degree of anxiety, and our speech was in tune with our feelings. I noticed his attention, and walked over to him explaining our dilemma. He assured me that there will be a train going back to Cefalu, but it would only arrive at 7:00 p.m. My wife and I looked around the small station and uttered the same words at the same time, as we often do, “what are we going to do all day in this place, in the middle of nowhere”. A young man working behind the bar asked us if we were hungry, I looked at my watch, it was 11:30 by now, and my wife and I agreed, food and drink will help us to kill a few hours we thought.

The Barrister ushered us into a backroom, which had a large, long table setup for lunch, and had a few smaller tables empty along the wall. He produced a tablecloth and proceeded to prepare a small table for us. Every time I asked him for a “Menù”, he assured me that we did not need one. So we put our trust in his good judgement. Before we knew it there was a carafe of red wine before us and a lovely plate of bruchetta, which we enjoyed with much pleasure. More wine was offered as the man behind the cash register inquired if we liked the wine. We assured him that it was absolutely superb, he smiled and indicated that he made the wine himself. Minutes after we finished the first plate, we were served two more large plates filled with prosciutto and frutti di mare. The arrangement, presentation and quality of the food looked like a photo out of the magazine “Cucina Italiana”. We were blown away! Needless to say, we thought we died and are in heaven.

Meanwhile, one by one, family members arrived at the large table, and we exchanged greetings with them as they arrived. Two little girls were among the family; their ages were probably four and five years, respectively. I stopped eating and performed some simple magic tricks for them with my coin and playing cards that they were playing with. Needless to say, we were a big hit. We continued with our lunch and ate the entire frutti de mare, but left some of the prosciutto, as we were getting slowly full. More wine came to the table, and to our surprise along came a bowl of heavenly pasta, the aroma of which I cannot erase from my mind. My wife and I wondered where we would put all this pasta? But, we agreed we had to make a go of it, lest we insult the host, and amazingly we finished the whole bowl. By now our stomachs were extended, but we had that happy feeling, the wine of-course contributed to the general feeling of well-being.

The man behind the register turned out to be the owner of the place, his name is Luigi, and he is the grandfather of the little girls. He joined in with us as we were dancing in a circle with the girls to some Italian tunes. I also played a little game with them by moving the circle close together and shouting “ buon giorno”, and when expanding the circle we would say “ariverderci”. Each repetition would bring laughter from the children, who could get not enough of this silly game. Meanwhile Luigi found out from us that we were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, and he brought a half bottle of Spumante to drink to our health and buòna fortùna.

No sooner did we sit down to rest from all that merriment, when Luigi brought us a plate with fish, fish he told us were still swimming a few hours ago. We were not only full to the gills, but we were also overwhelmed by this extraordinary hospitality. Luigi had all his family there for lunch, and still had time to look after some stupid tourists who did not know whether they were coming or going. We insisted that one fish was plenty for us, he smiled and delivered the rest of the fish to the large table gathering. My wife started to dance with the girls who meanwhile fell in love with our colorful Italian umbrellas and created a Renoir like painting as the umbrellas opened and the dancing continued. It was a beautiful picture!

I told Luigi that since the rain had stopped we would like to take a short stroll to work off all this food, and that we would like to pay now, but leave our things with him till we return. He smiled and went away for a while, only to come back with a small sugar bag, from which he started to read, as if to explain the charges. Obviously, he wanted no money, but I insisted to pay. He said 30 Euros he would accept, and I pressed a 50 Euro note into his hands. Again he smiled and went outside for a long while. My wife said, "he probably is getting some change from somewhere, maybe not having enough change in his register". I mumbled in agreement. When Luigi finally returned he handed me 20 Euros and a small gift rapped package, which turned out to be chocolate balls. As my wife and I proceeded to go out for our short stroll, Luigi walked ahead of us towards his car. He motioned to us to join him, not wanting to offend him we obliged foregoing our much-needed walk. Luigi not only showed us his town Barcellona, but also the adjacent town of Milazzo, it turned into a two hour sightseeing trip; he stopped at different places explaining important facts and to allow me to take photos. Luigi spoke no English and my Italian was all that I could learn in three months prior to our trip, we did just fine.

At 10 minutes to 7:00 p.m. we returned to the train station, just before the train arrived, we hugged and kissed, the little girls had tears in their eyes as they hugged us and waved arrivederci. We hugged and kissed Luigi, before we boarded the train back to Cefalù. We spent three weeks in beautiful Italia, and we met many pleasant Italian people on trains in boats, etc. and we had many good meals, but no experience moved us more than our visit to Barcellona, Luigi’s town. Luigi used to be a chef with one of the hotels, and the meal he served to us has been by far the best we had during our stay in Italia. His warmth and generosity is probably the “Clue” that Goethe was speaking of when he wrote about Sicilia. And, I have to agree with Goethe, Sicilia and its people are second to none.