Lorenzo’s Inn: A trip to Italy

He stood awkwardly, allowing his awkwardness to be known, unafraid yet not so. I felt sorry for him, as I turned my glance towards the stage, where dancers were performing waltzes and mazurkas in a raucous celebration. Their foot stomping and hand clapping seemed only to emphasize Lorenzo’s shyness.

He had not brought his girlfriend, and it did not surprise me. I knew her, and would not have brought her if she were mine: a rather quiet, unfriendly type, mostly seen lounging about his place. Entering the foyer of Lorenzo’s inn, I would find her sitting on a sofa or at a table, sour expression in full bloom. She typically returned my polite greeting by glancing away, unable to assimilate the intrusion of gaiety into her torn world.

What Lorenzo saw in her was a mystery, but not any deeper than Lorenzo himself. He was a blank canvas, I assumed, for her to project her gloom, and she, for his awkwardness, an unattainable antidote that said: “I don’t give a damn!” I knew, however, that deeper inside there was a yearning in Lorenzo to be more than just a blank canvas. Thus I found him standing awkwardly near the stage, alone, trying bravely to allow the evening to come to him.

He walked over to where the three of us, my wife, a friend, and I, were seated, and gave us a big smile. He was our innkeeper again, all smiles and formal grace. He offered to bring us wine. We declined politely; then asked him if he was going to dance. Where is your girlfriend, I teased, a serious look on my face. My curiosity was bursting. He answered evasively, saying something about her being somewhere else, which we took to be the same as “in some other state of mind”. I changed the subject, and asked him what dances he liked to do. He mentioned something about tangos and polkas, and then fell silent. We watched the dancers silently, as they whooped and swirled to the music.

I spotted Lorenzo later talking to a man and a woman, all awkwardness gone. Deena, our friend, confessed to us that his awkwardness was attractive, unthreatening. I couldn’t help smiling. She was in her fifties; independent, single, and not afraid to speak her mind. She had traveled like us from the USA, and had arrived in Tuscany the day before. Her first meeting with Lorenzo at check-in was unpleasant, for him. He had found himself on the receiving end of a stern lecture from Deena, whose main complaint was that she had asked for a smoking room. Lorenzo, forever the gentleman, had given in, and allowed her to smoke. Unknown to Deena, due to a mistake made earlier, she had been assigned the best (non-smoking) room in his inn, a room my wife Ersabet and I had reserved. That he was pained by this state of affairs was visible only if you looked closely at his face, but I doubt Deena knew or cared, as she had strutted off to light up in her spacious room with the wrought-iron framed king-size bed.

Lorenzo and Deena had since made up, but only after Deena had consumed his sumptuous breakfast, featuring thick homemade cheeses and jams, Nutella, toast and breads, 100% fruit juices, topped off with smooth, strong coffee. She found no need to dwell on the past, especially after hearing (from us, nonetheless) of his 5-course dinners costing a mere 15 Euros. She would forgive him, she decided.

Lorenzo was a man of much patience. In the two days preceding the dance, he had waited on our every desire, supplied us with every amenity and delicacy, and endured our every attempt to add haste and confusion to the occasions at hand. When we asked for cheese at breakfast, he supplied four types of cheese, some made at his farm. When we thought his amazing dinner was over, he produced five bottles of liqueur, all specialties of Toscana, one so strong I had to recover from just attempting a sip! While Ersabet and I discussed the merits and demerits of the six dessert choices, he generously offered us a sampling of all six. And each of his samples was almost a full dessert by itself! One afternoon, as I came noisily down the stairs, he was already looking towards me anticipating my question. His forever-unhurried transition had deprived the universe from registering an interruption! The questions never fazed him, even the ones he did not understand, at which he simply produced a charming smile, a downward glance, and another smooth transition to Receptive State. His command over English was just okay, leaving much room for his mysterious thoughts to go unexpressed. Our spacious hand signs (especially my wife’s), elaborately conceived to produce a crystal clear representation of our queries and observations, disappeared easily into the stoic void of his being, while his outer countenance maintained an expression of mild amusement. At the end we felt like lugubrious puppets, but this sorry state we arrived at purely on our own merit, with no part played by him. It was clear this was an unusual conflux of city folk and country folk, we from Los Angeles, and he from Monghidoro, set in the hills of Tuscany.

The night before our checkout, we had some boisterous friends from Ersabet’s conference over for dinner. We had foolishly revealed the secret of Lorenzo’s lavish dinners, and these were not the types who would miss out on such an opportunity. As course after course came and suffered utensil attack from six hungry and inebriated adults (Lorenzo had of course kept the wine flowing), I could not help notice the stark contrast from the Italian restaurants we had visited in Florence, where the service bordered on rude, and every request treated as a burden. At some point during the meal, Lorenzo the Magnificent even brought out his mother-cum-chef, a dynamo of an individual, master tortellinist, crafty stuffed-tomato artist, and a veritable Donatello of Gnocchi! (The next day, on a trip to his farm, I spotted her milking a cow! Did that woman ever stop!)? At the end of the meal, after the liqueur had been downed, and the coffee cups lay waste, we generously invited Lorenzo and his mother to sit with us and join what could only be described as haphazard conversation. And this too they did politely and with ease, even though the quality of our company was clearly questionable. Maybe Lorenzo had never met people like us, big-city educated types (some of us had PhDs, and two were professors), and perhaps had dreamed of the life. I could see myself in his shoes feeling trapped in a rural environment, especially if I had a yearning to travel and live an exciting unpredictable life. I had no trouble imagining him in a big city, although I shuddered at the thought of what the city restaurant business would do to him. Of course maybe Lorenzo just liked us, or simply wanted to brush up on his English language. As he was a mystery, and kept it that way, it was hard to tell.

After much insistence on our part, Lorenzo brought the check for the meal, an amazingly small amount for all that we had consumed. Not only did the three friends who were not staying at the inn discuss the tip in front of Lorenzo, they ended up tipping him an appalling sum of 2 Euros! I sank in my seat, unable to take in what I had seen. But Lorenzo, with a gracious bow, slipped the coin smoothly into his pocket and retreated into the kitchen, leaving in his wake nothing but politeness and grace. I opened my mouth to say something, but decide not to. I had planned to leave a big tip for his staff the next day, and I decided this incident had just made that sum larger.

I got another chance a few days later, near St. Mark’s square in Venice, when Ersabet and I happened to meet one of our boisterous companions from that fateful dinner. He immediately related to us how the same group had gone the very next night and had had another fantastic meal at Lorenzo’s inn, but this time had capped it off by getting Lorenzo to drop them off at their hotel. I asked him dryly if he had left another big tip. He looked puzzled for a moment, and then continued with his story of plunder and gratification.

I found that I had become protective of Lorenzo. He had made Ersabet and me a part of his family; showed us his farm and cheese-making process, invited us to join him in game of archery, and as a parting gift to us had packed two bottles of wine and a bottle of his extra-strong liqueur (I had grown to like that acid). Whether he just liked us so much, or simply had never forgiven himself for putting us in the wrong room I will never know, but whatever it was, his friendship, generosity, innocence, and professional equanimity amazed and touched us deeply. During the four days we had stayed, the mystery of his nature had become a reassuring constant into which all our digressions disappeared, to be reborn in grace.

I never solved the girlfriend mystery, and do not know if he is still with her (God forbid!). One day Ersabet and I hope to go back to Italy and stay at Lorenzo’s Inn.

I have a feeling about the room…