The tourists exchanged alarmed expressions.
Magda sighed, quite pleased with herself. “You are so lucky. I almost did not write again, but then I decided to be charitable, and I referred you to the hotel in Girona, where I send guests when my apartments are full. As they so often are.” Magda nodded at her generosity. “Yes, I send many people to that hotel, and they always thank me. So does the hotel. ‘Oh, Magda!’ they say, ‘Before you sent us all these tourists, no one knew us! But now we are on the TripAdvisor with many positive ratings! All because of you!’”
Magda pulled her shoulders back and beamed at the tourists who smiled woodenly.
“Now, this castle you are looking at. It was built in the 1500s to protect the citizens of Santa Lucia from the constant battle between the Pope and the Baglioni in Perugia. The people of Santa Lucia have never wanted to be part of conflict, that’s why they built their town so far off the Via Flaminia. Hoping they could rest—how do you say? Uncorrupted?—away from the battling armies. In larger wars, like the salt war, not even Santa Lucia’s distant location protected the town from being pulled to support one side or another. So the castle was built by the Duke. As a castle, it is fairly small, but the walls circled the town, which makes it special. With the natural spring bringing water from the mountain caves, the people of Santa Lucia could live under siege for some time. Have you seen where the water was routed to create our famous falls?”
The couple shook their heads and the man’s arm wound around his wife’s waist. Magda failed to notice the man’s grip, the firm pull away from the scene. She droned on, “Yes, it’s not visible from the drive, the only real place to see it is from Bar Birbo’s terrazza. I am on my way there now. Come with me! You can buy me a coffee for all my wasted time helping you!” Magda laughed. This time the couple did not smile. Instead they both started talking about wanting to get something to eat at that charming bakery, so perhaps another time.
Magda stepped between them and linked her elbows with theirs, pulling them toward the bar. “No! Oh, I am saving you from a disaster. The forno, how do I say? It is too old, too antique. They bake their bread in the traditional Umbrian way, without salt, and tourists find it not possible to eat. And their pastries are too dry. Besides, Sauro the baker is not a good man. He plays the horn for the Santa Lucia band and refused to play at the party I hosted for my 70th birthday! Anyway, to understand Santa Lucia you must see the falls. People come from all over the world and say that the falls, though less sculptured than Trevi fountain in Rome, are more special, more beautiful.”
She led them firmly down the steps.
As the couple shared a moment of panicked eye rolling behind Magda’s back, their expressions changed. Where once they registered comedy-infused horror (“Just wait until we tell our friends back home about this!”), their eyes widened in confusion, before cringing with incredulity tinged with disgust. For Magda was passing gas with every few steps. Step, step, toot. Step, step, toot.
The tourists leaned forward and away, trying desperately to gain distance from any possible odor. Magda appeared not to notice as she directed the couple through the doorway of Bar Birbo.
“Ciao, Chiara, ho trovato clienti per te!” she greeted Chiara, congratulating herself on bringing customers into the busy establishment.
Chiara nodded and smiled at the tourists, gesturing that they were welcome to sit on the stone terrazza with a view of the falls. The faces of the villagers followed the tourists, pulled along by Magda.
“Poor tourists,” muttered the construction worker to the sindaco, the mayor.
The mayor, Dante, sighed and sipped his coffee.
The heavy iron bells of San Nicola carved the blurry sky in ten even strokes. The last stragglers from the morning rush stretched out their goodbyes before heading to work. Even the tourists left, Chiara distracting Magda by asking her opinion on the school system’s decision to keep to a six-day-a-week schedule, allowing Edo to gracefully escort the American couple out the door. He waved off their attempts to pay. He was just sorry that the final press of customers prevented him from intervening earlier. Nodding and waving them out of the bar, Edo offered up a prayer that they wouldn’t tell their friends back in America that Santa Lucia was full of blooming idiots. He remembered very little of his middle school English classes, but blooming idiots had somehow stuck. Probably because he and his friends had delighted in adopting mock British accents and announcing that the others were blooming idiots.
Magda finally bent her steps out the door, but only after haranguing the old man affixing a poster to the wall advertising the cinghiale hunt that presaged the town’s November festival. The man grumbled to himself, and continued hanging the poster. He called out a merry, “Ciao! Come state?” to Edo and Chiara above the continued chastising at his wasteful use of tape. Magda scowled before cinching her sweater around her narrow waist. Then she bustled out the door, head cocked to glare at the sky. The aged hunter followed with a harrumph.
The bar stood quiet.
Chiara ran a snowy linen under warm water and began scrubbing at the bits of dried milk on the La Pavoni espresso machine. She deliberated before asking, “Tutto a posto, Edo?”
“What do you mean? Of course. Everything is fine.”
Chiara chewed her right cheek and said
