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Published: January 6th 2007
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The plane touches down in Palermo on a mild, sun-spattered afternoon. As airports go, you can certainly do worse than this one. A sheer limestone cliff rears up on one side of the tarmac; on the other, the Mediterranean spreads its blue cloth out as far as we can see. Though Palermo was meant to be the briefest of stops en route to Tunisia, I’ve gotten used to the idea, in recent days, of spending a bit more time around Sicily. Watching a parade of dark-haired, high-heeled beauties boarding the plane before me, it’s an idea that’s quickly finding a cozy nook in my noggin.
It takes all of 20 minutes for events to settle the matter for me. Along with my heart and a long trail of credit card receipts, it seems my backpack’s been left in Barcelona, too. I shouldn’t be too surprised, given the reckless bonanza that is the European cheap-flight free-for-all. That I’ve entrusted my life and baggage to a fly-by-night Sicilian operation is only asking for trouble. And while I don’t yet regret not tacking on an extra €15 for Windjet’s travel insurance, I’m absolutely kicking myself for not paying that Mafioso surcharge.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if my backpack turns up at all, it’ll be buried somewhere in the end zone at Giants Stadium. Others aren’t nearly so defeatist. They’ve formed a long, unruly line in front of the lost and found. There’s an old man in a checkered shirt and neat, pleated pants who unleashes a few tirades in vigorous Italian. He appeals to us with his hands. “My father was a poor man from Ragusa,” his face suggests. “He cobbled shoes on a small bench next to my mother’s sick bed. In the winter, he sent us to fetch fresh milk from a cow that would only graze in a pasture 30 kilometers away. He was a brutal, unloving man; I have inherited some of those same traits. Often, I fear I will pass them onto my son.
“Now this.”
The desk clerk - a man whose yoke-sized neck seems suited, quite appropriately, to a beast of burden - takes our names, numbers and insults with grave dignity. I pass the time by making faces at a pink, gurgling baby, his blubbering lips and sputtering noises tidily summing up our feelings
for Windjet right now. When I dangle my Zapatista keychain above his carriage his eyes light up; when I pull it away, his tears are enough to make Subcomadante Marcos proud. His father eyes me warily - as grave a threat to the sanctity of the Italian family as any. When it’s my turn I describe my bag to the clerk with elaborate gestures, before he sighs mightily and asks in smooth English, “What color is it?”
Given what I know about Sicilian punctuality, I suspect I’ll have to pick up a few pairs of undies in town. When I get to my hotel,
Artepalermo - a cheerful place with a roof-top terrace, optimistically dubbing itself a “bed and breakfast” - the owner, Marjolien, clucks her tongue with a warm show of sympathy.
“I hate to say it, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened,” she says. Already she has the phone in her hand, ready to make whatever calls might be necessary. The next morning, when she rings the number I’d been given, the answering machine is already full - the grimmest of omens. She suggests a few flea markets in town where I
can buy a pair of pants for 50 centimos.
“I shop there all the time,” she says, fingering an extravagant sweater that wouldn’t look out of place in the Cirque du Soleil.
Though I prefer to tough it out until my bag turns up, Marjolien proves to be an invaluable host. In the sitting room, with sunlight pouring through a double-door and erupting off the face of a mirror, she unfolds a map of Palermo over a table. “We’re here,” she says. “The street’s not marked - it’s a terrible map.” She pencils in a few alleys and marks the hotel with an asterisk. Then she begins to draw a series of lines and circles, like an offensive coordinator prepping for the big game. “These are the good markets,” she says, darkening a few streets. “These aren’t so good” - darkening more - “but they’re alright.” She circles the best churches and plazas, makes inscrutable little marks where I can find a good bite to eat. The result - a handsome little Miró - gets neatly folded and tucked into my pocket, where I can easily consult it in the days to come.
For my
first day in Palermo, though, I let my feet guide me. I turn down narrow alleys where laundry flaps from the balconies; I pass old men in rumpled sportcoats playing cards on a barrel. In the markets I walk past crates of oranges and pears, and over the slick basalt flagstones where a squat, surly woman weighs fish on a scale. There are more shrines than I can count: icons of Jesus or some obscure saint, dried-up rose petals, flickering candles, testaments to a faith as long-suffering and undying as the city itself. And everywhere the buildings of Palermo - once among Europe’s finest - lean toward you with all the terrible weight of their decay, as if hope and hope alone are all that keeps them standing.
It’s through a leap of faith of my own that I don’t shell out €50 on socks and fresh underwear. Given some of the extravagant styles being sold around town, though - see-through designs by Armani, leopard-print by Roberto Cavalli - it might be more than just thrift at work. But after just a full day, my faith is rewarded: there’s a call from the airport that my bag’s turned up,
covered in security tags and stickers but otherwise unmolested. In a celebratory spirit that night, I treat myself to pizza and
arancini - the dense little rice balls that will become, in the days to come, an unwavering obsession. I drift off to sleep a happy man: fattened and tucked into fresh PJs, with an unexpected week in Sicily ahead, and all my material possessions just an arm’s length away.
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