Cold Cuts

Denounced for an underground tractor shelter ( putting agricultural machinery close to the house is very noisy very early), it is not permitted to know by whom. Three Forestale in green fatigues and heavily armed, at least by any reasonable standard of what arms might be worn on a farm visit, photographed a dry stone wall supporting a raised field of olives with a pair of dark wooden doors let into it; nothing else can be seen.

The whole village is dying to tell who did it, a full scale game of fire,fire, ice,ice has been going on for days every time we speak to anyone. The reason no-one will say the name (because that in itself would be enough to generate a mini affront) is because of Revenge.

Revenge in Italy is an art form. It is extensive (hitting any known relative and sometimes relatives who are officially unknown, just for the added pleasure of Embarassment), it is inventive, (unforgettable the man who presented his wife with a dish of figs tastefully arranged around her lover's severed head), it is reverberating (there are repeated reassurances that the denunciation is part of a generalised denunciation to irritate other landowners altogether ), it is required.

The first and immediate action was to deal with the authorities. Italian authorities are slow to anger but once roused ... so the architect has been disturbed from the seaside, the lawyer is sweltering in Florence instead of sitting with his feet up in the hills, appropriate delicate discussions have taken place with a charming (armed) chief forester, the town hall has given an entirely off the record view of its view, and the tractor shed remains, tucked away displaying only its discreet wooden doors while the agricultural plan gains a clause or two and we pay 500 euros for il processo.

Required, though, really means what is to be done in revenge. The getting of things by 'raccomandazione' - jobs, contracts, permissions, connexion, standing, opens a broad field of fire. Allies are coming forward, kinship links reviewed, discreet gestures of support made, distaste at this treatment of the family (ours, not the institution) is being intimated by those families with ours for generations (in this kind of matter) as kindnesses and courtesies from decades back are acknowledged. There's no hurry - we'll get him.