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Where to Brutus?
We stayed a pampered two weeks with Bruno and Iole, enjoying hot showers, clean clothes, and pastel sunsets from our private balcony. We spent each day with Bruno and Iole, sightseeing, going to the market, and having lunch at their apartment. Each evening, we would saunter down to their apartment for coffee, dessert, the nightly news on satellite tv, and a multitude of joke-telling. Bruno had a great sense of humour and loved stories of all kinds. During one of our conversations, I mentioned that we had seen a family standing alongside the road by a chicken coop, getting a hen for that night's supper. The father was inside the enclosure, while the wife and two young children were outside, pointing and yelling, "Get that one, Dad!" (Talk about fresh!) Our story reminded Bruno about his friend, Marcel. One day, Marcel was driving along a peaceful rural road when a chicken darted across in front of his car. I'm going to have chicken for supper, tonight, thought Marcel, and promptly ran over the wandering fowl. As he retrieved his freshly-slain meal, an old woman came running towards him. "You killed my chicken! You killed my chicken!" she shouted hysterically. "You're going to have to pay!" Marcel leaned down and looked under his car. "Your chicken damaged my car," he countered. "Take the chicken," the old woman grumbled. The story reminded Bruno of another Marcel caper. In Italy, nothing is free. It even costs money to use the toilet. A matronly woman sits at the entrance of most washrooms (which are doorless) and collects the admission: a thousand lire for the big business job, or 500 lire for a pee. Marcel dropped a thousand lire note on the tray and went in. The matron noticed Marcel only took a leak, so, as he exited, she tried to give him change. "Keep it," Marcel grunted. "When I was in there, I let a fart go too!" Our two weeks zipped by. Just when I had gotten used to sleeping without all my clothes on again, it was time for us to leave. (Truth be known: if it hadn't been for Sharon pushing me, I would have gladly stayed another two weeks!) But Arbatax's biweekly ferry was due to depart that evening and we (ahem) had made up our minds to be on it. "If we want to be in Holland to see the fields of tulips in bloom, we had better get a move on," Sharon reminded me. I had to admit, I was growing a tad restless. After cycling nearly every day for the past eight months, we were both missing the exercise. And, we wanted to get underway to find out where our crooked path would lead us next. (Goats weren't the only ones who sometimes veered off.) Even so, we still felt a tinge of sadness when we extricated our trusty bicycles from behind Bruno's car. The sight of them caused us to begin recollecting our interesting times on Sardinia. I glanced at my odometer. We had cycled over two thousand kilometers on Sardinia. And I supposed we had a story for each one of those kilometers. The island may have been tiny, but its people had been wonderfully big-hearted, so hospitable, thoughtful, and generous. I felt fortunate we had slowed down enough to take it in. It was dark when Sharon and I mounted our bikes and pedalled towards the ferry terminal. Bruno, Iole, and Nino, followed in Bruno's car, lighting the roadway for us. Then, while the cars for the ferry loaded, we visited one last time with our "old" friends. Nino declared that any time we were in Naples, we should drop in to visit him and his family. Bruno and Iole extended open invitations. And we told them to come and visit us in Canada anytime. With all the hugs, terms of endearment, and promises of future visits, it wasn't long before tears were staining Sharon and Iole's faces. We weren't even off the island, and already we missed them dearly. The ferry attendant whistled, and signalled for Sharon and me to board. "Keep us up to date on all your adventures!" Bruno called enthusiastically, as Sharon and I pushed off. On the loading ramp, just before we disappeared into the hold, we heard Nino's voice sing plaintively above the din: "Change your mind, Louie?" I had to smile. Little did I know what lay in store for us next. |
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