Our jars of sauces and dips from Genoa had served us well, though we'd been out of pesto for a while, attempts by my wife to sneak in substitutes from INA Market having been foiled by our daughter. But she had found a bakery in the city where the focaccia at least could be trusted. For a variety of reasons, our motley collection of wines included a sizeable selection from Tuscany. We had olives from Spain, true, reserved for family treats, but salads and strangers had to make do with Italian olives, no slur intended. And now here they were, packed into cartons that my wife said we were to give away.
"Wow," said my son surveying the spoils, "is Christmas early?" - exactly the sort of statement likely to get him in trouble with his mother. She'd been in a dilemma deciding what to do with the mozzarella made with Italian know-how, thanks to an enterprising businessman for whom the burden of friendship meant a supply line from his factory to our home. The milk for the cheese came from Indian buffaloes, but surely the rennet was Italian? She'd been sighing over the cultural state of the global economy when our son became the target for her ire. "You can jest," she turned on him, "when the Italians are insulting us," and though it broke her heart, she sighed, she wasn't going to have anything in her home with an Italian connection.
It was at this point that our daughter locked her cupboard on a collection of dresses acquired while we'd traipsed from Rome, across Florence and Venice, checking not so much the sights as the stores. "It's only Michelangelo," she'd protested over yet another visit to a church, preferring, alas, Valentino and Armani to him or Rafael, and she wasn't going to let her mother purloin her Longchamp on the pretext that it had been bought in Italy, even though we'd argued at the time that it looked less like an office tote and more like a toilet bag. Besides, you couldn't just give away expensive accoutrements on a nationalist whim, a sentiment I heartily endorsed, having paid for those brands.
But my wife had other considerations as well. Her business - and no, it had nothing to do with defence procurements, or helicopters - included Italian customers who'd stood by her for years and were known to be generous spenders. Should she ditch them? Or fulfil their orders? As she fretted, our son said he couldn't stand to be in a room that looked like a shipping office, so he'd take us out for dinner, provided someone would loan him the money to tide him through the rest of the month, which I knew from habit meant me.
On our way out, my wife said she loved Rome, which I knew to be true since she kept volunteering to accompany anyone headed thataways, whether for business, a girly group, even honeymooners, though her enthusiasm was rarely reciprocated. Now she wondered whether she'd ever see the Vatican again as our son steered us to a favourite Italian restaurant without any protest from my wife. As she made space for her Ferragammo on the table amid the antipasti, it was with a resolution to not confuse sentiment with common sense. The marines could stay or come back but the edibles in the carton weren't going anywhere, she decided, ordering the cook to prepare a bizarre breakfast of bruschettas with basil dressing and goat cheese - an Italian start to today's Indian morning.
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