An Acquired Taste

A well-dressed Giorgio met me at the train station in Bergamo and carried my bag around the block to his distinctive sports car, a unique specimen manufactured somewhere in a nearby village, whose name I couldn't repeat for lack of proper pronunciation of the local Italian dialect. The antique car itself was a cross between the Alfa Romeo and the British MG lines of the sixties, though somehow, this vehicle seemed a more distant make; the car made almost no sound as my driving host revved up the engine and sped us off down country roads lined with cypress trees. As the classic Italian auto weaved its way around bends at speeds well over the 40km/hr posted rate, under Giorgio's direction, it gently purred and clung fast to the sleek asphalt.

It was a cloudless late spring day, and I asked Giorgio to let the top down on the convertible, but he insisted that we leave it up, pointing to his hat. I supposed he didn't want to risk losing his stylish fedora in the wind. He had chosen to wear a full suit with a hat and sunglasses, looking like something out of an Italian film from the golden age of noir or perhaps out of The Godfather. As I said, I know of no films depicting this region, so I have to steal from outdated American renditions of Sicilian dress to even attempt to convey his style. Why he had chosen such a dark suit and in fact insisted on wearing one at all was beyond me, and he looked slightly uncomfortable in the heat.

Giorgio was my first contact with my distant relatives. I had first found the name in an old family album that dated from their first Atlantic crossing in 1825, Giorgio had offered me a ride into Carpaccio, since the town itself didn't have a train station, partially due to the steep hill that served as part of its Medieval defenses, and partly because the entire city was surrounded by a weathered wall of stone, another faded line of defense. The name Giorgio itself was passed down from generation to generation in the half of the family that remained in the mother country. It was interesting that the same name would make its way down the line, but then Lombards are a proud if reserved people, and the preservation of family names conveys this tradition.

After providing an extensive history of the region, during which he only arrived at the present day after thirty-five minutes, he pulled off the two-lane road onto a dirt path, the only trail into the village, and one that, given its overgrown look was not often traveled. The path through the hills was framed by age-old oaks, and we passed by nothing but natural surroundings until we came upon Carpaccio, its iron gate bridging the space between fitted stone walls.

The family, and thus the village itself, for the entire family lived within its walls, was surrounded by low-lying juniper, which served as a overt metaphor of the insular nature of the hamlet on the hill. I could find no mention of the place in the online research that preceded my journey into old Europe. No tourist guides spoke of it, and no post office had ever heard of it. Giorgio had answered my postal mail delivered to a PO box in Bergamo. I was excited to finally see behind the family walls.

Pulling just inside the gate, he parked the car next to three others of its strangely manufactured ilk, and, retrieving my suitcase from the trunk, passed under the shade of a nearby awning and carefully removed his hat and glasses. These modern Italian men define themselves with their style, I thought to myself; no doubt the influence of Milan was felt in these rocky hills. He bowed gently, mentioning some amount of important business he must attend to in an accent that made his English hard to understand much less reproduce, and pointed up the cobblestone street toward my hostel.

I followed his rushed directions, left at the piazza, then the first right, down the alley, and after a few blocks, set cattycorner, under an arch was the entrance, denoted by a hand-painted sign that had like the village itself, faded with age. However, it seemed that with each turn, the directions were more and more incorrect. It took until almost sundown for the proper directions to manifest, which might explain or be explained by the lack of tourism literature.

Upon arrival, in the ad hoc pidgin that represented the intersection of our linguistic capacities, the innkeeper informed me that he could only take cash, that no travelers checks nor credit cards would suffice. Since I had only a few hastily folded bills, I agreed to travel the next day to the neighboring town to acquire the cash to cover the bill. He reluctantly allowed me to stay the night without complete payment.

When I conveyed the totality of the day's adventures to Giorgio later that evening when he checked in with me at the hostel, he assured me that in honor of our relation, and to make up for the incompleteness of his hasty directions, he would make up the difference on the bill, and retrieved a decanter of wine from his satchel, and handed this to the innkeeper, who nodded solemnly and placed the unlabeled, ornately-colored bottle in his empty wine rack behind the counter. He returned to twisting his moustache, a smirk crossing his lips. As I turned to leave the desk, I could hear him begin to fumble around in a drawer in search of a corkscrew.

Worn out from the day's travel, I retired to my rented room for the evening. Sometime overnight, I lost track of time in my jetlagged state, I heard strange mumblings out in the town square. The room's window did not provide a clear enough view, partly due to the location of the room around the corner from the square, and partially due to the centuries of soot and grime that had built up on each of the segmented panes. I tried opening the window, but it appeared to be rusted or welded shut, I could not tell which. The low mutterings soon subsided and I thought nothing more of them, drifting off into a deep yet uneasy sleep, wherein I dreamt I was drifting through the night sky over an ancient town, flying so as to not get lost in the maze of cobblestone streets. Flight would be a traveler's dream mode of transportation, making avians the most touristy of us all. But, as all dreams are wont to do, I digress.

The next morning, I awoke in an uncomfortable position at the edge of the bed, the covers on the floor, the memory of the night before behind me. The smells wafting upstairs from the expansive breakfast room of the hotel beckoned me to unravel my sore limbs and wander downstairs, and the eggs, cured ham, and freshly-squeezed juices filled me with much-needed energy for the day's exploration. With renewed spirit and confidence, I set off to explore my family's ancestral home, despite my still-sore shoulders.

The arched walkways delineated the village's many spaces, from narrow streets to broad piazzas, both of which I explored this first full day in town. Though the village couldn't have covered more than five hectares, as the day before, with each attempted circumnavigation I found myself increasingly frustrated by the moebius-like nature of the walled Medieval town; the place seemed to derive from the mind of M.C. Escher!

Under the confusing shadows of the mid-afternoon sun, as I ambled through the cobblestone streets, I spied a giant raven overhead, and, turning to watch it make its way steadfastly across the sky, its swooping elements of bird of prey, I slipped on a wet stone and twisted my ankle on the rough-hewn stone walk that had been left under construction while the workers took a long lunch. Hobbling my way to a nearby café, I sipped a cappuccino and snacked upon a cherry tart as I alternated between examining my wound and absorbing the peculiar nature of the architecture, the design of which was such was that a path passed from doorway to doorway without intersecting the midday sun. Italians have always been known for their mastery of architecture, and this square, though subtle in its conception, was no exception.

As I sat in the one sun-soaked space in the center of the square, framed by sunflowers, I surmised that I must have missed the tourist season, if there is such a high-time in this remote and unknown hilltop village. I appeared to be the only foreigner in the hamlet's streets in the heat of the afternoon and the only person at all sitting on the stony ledge in the delightful sun. These locals seemed to make the same observation, eyeing me from their enshadowed nooks under the climbing oleander. After my rest, I determined that since my injury didn't seem too serious, I would continue my exploration of the labyrinthine passages under the linens dangling across the dusty alleys.

This land of Dolce Vita -- how it hides its sublime treasures beneath so many layers of laundry, dessert, and suspicious gazes!

In the very center of the village, I found a broad tower, along the roof of which ran ancient crenellations -- built merely to symbolize the Renaissance power the ancestors of this village once held over the rest of the regional Italian city-states. Though spanning many generations of continuous habitation, the city's façades were mysteriously left unfinished, the exposed inner walls of the village providing a skeletal counterpoint to the guarded lives of the denizens within.

I visited the nearby central cathedral, which incorporated elements of Gothic, Rococo, and Baroque in a single, unified structure that towered over the rest of the fortified city. Within its walls on display were reliquaries, detailing the rise and life of the savior. Despite these many centuries of relics, there was a single image missing from the entire church -- no image of the crucifixion in the spaces where one would expect these ultimate images in the life of Christ. There were no signs of any recent removal of the images -- age-old wax and dust had settled in the shallow alcoves. As I exited the structure, I noticed something strange in the shadow of the steeple. I looked back over my shoulder, realizing that no cross graced the pinnacle of the ancient chapel. This was a unique lack of such a prominent feature, contrasting in my memory with all my previous travels throughout Europe. I pondered the significance of this lack of Christian symbology as I wandered my way back to the hostel.

When he dropped me off the day before, Giorgio had offered to provide me with a tour of the family winery and restaurant. I had thought nothing odd about the restaurant name, Carpe Noctem, considering it a playful turn of phrase, but due to the strange events that soon transpired, the name had taken a sinister bend.

Around dusk, I arrived at the winery, which was, with the exception of the cathedral, the highest point in town and by far the eldest edifice. Giorgio welcomed me in the same black suit he had worn the day before, sans the hat but including the shades. He too it seemed had experienced trouble sleeping the night before, willingly or not. When I broached the subject of the prior evening's disturbance in the square with him, he quickly directed the conversation to the upcoming dinner, but I assumed that he had consumed too much of his family's ancestral wine and was simply too cultured or macho to admit it. A few of my other distant relatives entered the stonewalled dining room, greeted us in their native dialect, me formally and Giorgio in a tone that sounded inappropriately more formal, including a kiss of his hand, and then took what seemed to be assigned or well-understood seats at the long mahogany table. I took my seat at the foot of the table. A lit candelabrum was the only source of light in the room, casting shadows upon the antiquated and burnt-out chandelier which at one point must have serviced the room. Giorgio took his place at the head of the table, at which time the conversation stopped rather abruptly.

Italians are known for their gracious appetites and multi-course meals, and this one was no exception. The staff brought in course after course of fine comestibles, from sausage and cheese, to gherkins and pears. I remember thinking that I would enjoy the meal even better if I could properly note its form in more appropriate lighting in this modern age. Though over many of the courses I largely ate alone, they each took their share in consuming the veal course, which was ever sweeter than any meat I'd ever tasted. They must have known that I was not fond of meals that taste too strongly of garlic, or perhaps this was not a staple of this region's diet. The other patrons carried on in their foreign tongue which sounded ever less Italian as they broke into laughter and song. With each course and each bottle of wine, their harmonies grew ever more discordant along with their antiquated cadences, in an unresolved Dorian mode, perhaps like those in Slavic folk songs, but in a language with more morose meter. Over their dim incantations, Giorgio claimed the food was grown and the cattle raised on a local farm; of the music he spoke not of the origin.

On the walls were paintings of Giorgio's esteemed family line, a family whose features remained very similar through the ages, likely owing to the isolated nature of the hamlet on the hill. I stopped short of suspecting an advanced stage of inbreeding, but the lack of genetic diversity was astounding. The day before, he spoke of his father and grandfather, who had restored honor to the family line after many generations of mysterious accusations brought about by the priests from neighboring villages. Giorgio would not elaborate, calling them too preposterous to even repeat. Though the wine flowed freely in those days, the buildings were in much need of repair when his grandfather took ownership of the winery, restaurant, and family home. His father had had thirteen children with the same wife, of which Giorgio was the eldest. This explained the self-similar complexions of my evening's companions at the supper table.

As a dolce, they served a tiramisu to die for. The lady fingers were soaked with a amaretto-like liqueur, the quality of which I had never before tasted, and which Giorgio proudly proclaimed to have distilled with the help of his younger brother. I thought to myself that with this meal I had sampled true Italian cuisine, and couldn't wait to boast of the evening's culinary experiences with friends back in the States. After dinner, Giorgio offered to walk me through the wine cellar, showing off centuries of the family's vintage tradition as fine vintners.

Were it not for the unusually large number of visible fingerprints on the casks, the family's dank wine cellars appeared to have been untouched for centuries. The racks and presses contained but a few antique glass bottles, and covered with a stale layer of dust, though the casks seemed to be in use. Giorgio pointed out one particularly bulbous one, a specimen of fine cooperage, from which he pulled a pencil-sized plug out from the flat end, the rich liquid within bursting out in an arc into a wine glass that he held at an angle, starting at forty-five degrees and slowly tilting more and more upright as the glass drank up more of the wine. He swirled it with the deftness of a professional taster and held it up to the wavering amber light of the lantern which illuminated the back end of the wood-paneled chamber. He noted the richness of the texture and color, muttering something under his breath about it having great legs. I had never seen a wine of such a deep red. But then again, back home my friends joked that I had to buy my wine in the children's aisle; the deeper hue made me want to taste it all the more. Standing in among the grand oaken casks, he raised his glass and intoned, "por Italiano!"

I took a sip of the vintage wine, first gingerly, in an attempt to show more sophistication and understanding of the fermented beverage than I had. It seemed simultaneously sweet and salty, with the refreshing smell of fresh ambergris and licorice. With lack of a more astute description, I muttered out what cognates I could muster, "Fantastico! Perfecto!" in response to which, Giorgio chuckled out of a forced politeness. As we retraced our steps out of this subterranean warehouse, I felt a bit light-headed, but thought nothing of it, chalking it up to the dustiness of the ancient space, since once I hit the fresh air of the evening streets, I felt wholly rejuvenated, even invigorated.

Yet that night, I found it difficult to sleep, and opened my journal in the hopes of penning some brilliant notes by which I could immortalize my trip. There were none. My head was completely empty, and I began to think I was thinking I was hallucinating. That many levels of indirection provided enough evidence that I was convinced of it. I hadn't felt so euphoric since my sleep-deprived nights as a carefree undergraduate. Since I had already established that I could not open the window, I slipped on my robe and stepped out into the night.

The Medieval streets wound on and on, switchbacking up and down the rocky hillside that evening, and I found myself wandering them under the dim moonlight until the sun began to rise in the morning. As I cursed my protracted jetlag or perhaps low-tolerance hangover over breakfast, out from behind my sunglasses, I felt the stony gaze of other two traveling diners, an elderly married couple, staring me down. I then realized that I had not seen more than two others in the hotel at a time, and even in the streets, had encountered but a single digit number of fellow wanderers, and almost no locals during the day, save those that kept silent watch over my footsteps. They noted my every move, and she leaned over and whispered something at him, to which he purposefully looked away, as if to downplay their obvious surveillance. With little appetite left, I departed the dining room, leaving my breakfast unfinished.

Giorgio had spoken highly of the agricultural wonders of the hamlet, yet on the road in to town, and in my days and now nights of wandering, I had seen no sign of agricultural manifestations, nor could the rocky plateau upon which the town stood support even a subsistence farm, much less a full fledged agricultural endeavor. Still, in foreign lands, cattle has been raised on less, and city dwellers back home have cultivated vegetables in terra cotta gardens overlooking broad avenues or alleys. Yet there were no signs of vineyards for miles, no Carpaccio grapes to convert to wine.

I returned to my room and slept until well after the sun had set, when I was awakened by the droning drum of a procession somewhere outside the window over that same square as two nights before. Quickly changing into the clothes from the day before, I walked to the street. The town seemed alive, as everyone was out, a contrast to the afternoon hours. After a minute of standing by the street as a bystander, I was displaced by six elderly men struggling to wield an oversized wooden coffin, ornately decorated in brass or gold, which specifically I could not tell. I stepped aside to let them pass, and it was then that I realized that everyone in the town was middle-aged or later in their years, and almost all were men. No children ran through the streets, playing hide-and-seek and reciting nursery rhymes. The villagers it seemed had aged like the wine they so vigilantly consumed, and I overheard their arcane ramblings as I made my way through town that night.

As I pieced together my other observations, I realized that the townspeople only seemed to roam the streets at night or in the deepest shade from the light, and I began to suspect an organized conspiracy. I then decided that that night, I would return to the restaurant without Giorgio as a guide and have another taste of that deep wine. I thought if nothing else, I should record the name of the vintage so I could find it once more in some store back home. Sneaking away from the dim procession, I crept to the back of the restaurant and slid open the back door, which had been left unlocked.

In a village where everyone is so advanced in years, and everyone is family, it makes no sense to lock doors or keep secrets; everything gets out eventually. I crept across the uneven floor and stood up on the steps hewn of ancient stone. I popped the cask and caught a small amount of the wine in a glass. I drank it in one large gulp and immediately felt clearer headed than I had all day. I was beginning to foster an appreciation of the wine, albeit in that children's section manner of which I previously spoke.

Returning to the central town square, the sound of the drums stopped bothering my head. Giorgio was delivering an emotional speech, or perhaps more of a rally. I noticed he wore a red vestigial tab along his collar, at the center of which was a brooch, though I could not make out its details in the lantern light in which he delivered this address. I can only remember certain key words from the speech, "Ao licensià, molà curtilù fontanì mortadèla purús," though these were likely not in the same phrases or even the same sentences. It is hard to know where one thought ends and another begins in such a foreign tongue. Despite my lack of understanding, listening to his rally, or perhaps sermon made me thirsty for more wine. Some events are better experienced with a few drinks, for instance your best friend's wedding when you are still a bachelor, or some foreign gentleman's funeral. I found it odd that Giorgio hadn't mentioned this evening's event in our previous discussion earlier that day over the multi-course meal.

I returned to the restaurant, sneaking my way through the back door that I had intentionally left unlatched from my last visit. In my haste, and possibly due to my still-sore ankle, I slipped on one of the bottom steps, landing wrist-first on a broken glass. I sat there cursing my desire for a drink and removing pieces of glass from my hand with my teeth, when I happened upon a taste that led to a suspicion which I simply had to either confirm or emphatically deny with the happily ever after of a fairy tale. I popped the cask and caught the semi-viscous semi-opaque liquid within a fresh glass. I took a second one and broke an empty bottle across an empty rack. With the broken bottle, I slashed a gash in my forearm, carefully avoiding the most important arteries, and caught the burgundy runoff in a second glass. I held the two side by side, and to my horror, I noticed they were of the same consistency and hue! I took a sip from the second glass, savoring that now familiar taste. Oh god, no, the cask was filled with blood! Cruor humanis!

I could not determine whether I was more aghast at my discovery in the casks under the ancient manor, or that I had willingly consumed and even enjoyed the sanguine wine, I turned to leave, noticing the distinct profile of Giorgio under the arch in the darkness. It then became very clear which was the more frightening! He had witnessed my horrific discovery, appearing first as a shimmering outline, an apparition of a man, then taking on a more sinister form as he leaned into the torchlight.

"Goo' devening, great, great, nephew," he said, his voice now tinged with an accent that sounded like no Italian dialect I could imagine. "Have another drink. You didn't think I summoned you here simply for a nice little family reunion, now, did you? Have some more, I insist. I too thirst. All Carpaccios thirst. You understand that eternal thirst -- you have it too. That taste that takes generations to refine. That's why you're here." Pacing as he spoke, he eyed my dripping wound, licking his lips.

I panicked and turned to run, but he blocked my escape with a deft leftward lean, so I thought as quickly as I could -- I pulled hard on the stopper from the bulbous cask, and as he lunged to plug it, I jumped over his crouched form. Up the steps and into the street, but the villagers were waiting for me, assembled for some occult ceremony. The cask was open, unoccupied! Now the activity the nights before made terrible sense!

To counter their incessant groping amidst a choral sea of swaying bodies, I grabbed a lone torch from a sconce along an exterior wall and waved it in arcs to clear a path, sparks drizzling from the oily wood. By the dim, wavering light of the torch I somehow found my way to the edge of town, where I discarded the light and quickly jumped into one of the strange mid-century automobiles, driving up to the gate that had up until that evening remained open.

The portcullis was down!

Slamming on the brakes, I pulled the car up against the wall. I leapt up onto the hood and cleared the stony fortification, running off into the night, holding my arm tight for dear life. In the distance I could hear the engines of the cars firing up like bats out of hell as I made my way on foot down the dirt road. Then came the series of twin headlights bearing down on my tenuous, exposed location. I thought back to all the action films I'd ever seen, noir classics and modern blockbusters, they all have the same scene, where the chased hero never veers off the road for the sake of building an intense suspense for some sadistic audience. I never had much patience for such films, and, fearing for my life, was now certainly in no mood for such action, so I quickly darted across the open terrain, my feet dampening in the tall grasses.

I collapsed between two rocks as the dim light of dawn crept upon the horizon.

Of the next few hours, I remember precious little, save a writhing feeling that rose up from deep within my intestines through my various tracts and wrapped around my head. I felt moist and cold, and for the first time I realized I was made of meat.

I awoke in a Bergamo hospital covered in bitemarks and soaked in blood, licking my lips and muttering something about legs and casks filled with sanguinous nectar. There's nothing more frightening than the staff at a foreign hospital. What were they saying? The nurses shouting their Italian commands, the loud clanging noises, and the heavy straps which kept me tightly bound to the bed as the doctor inserted a long syringe into my arm, the blood filling the chamber filling the bag, the cask, the bottle, the glass. I wanted a taste. Just one more and the headaches would subside...

I had once thought I would never reconnect with my ancestral roots. Given what I'd become, I knew that I could now never return home to my life. Not without a bottle of that sanguine wine.

THE END

Bio: Stephen Hilderbrand lives in Austin, TX with his wife Kristin and three dogs. He has acquired a taste for sleep deprivation, working as a lead scientist in a local software firm and working on a thesis as a graduate student in the University of Texas at Austin Department of Linguistics. He hopes to visit the city of his old-world ancestors again this summer.

E-mail: S. D. Hilderbrand

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