At Home : Letters from Italy at the time of Coronavirus. Story Five : With Two Lagotti Romagnoli.

This evening at 6 PM, several of my friends did not have the heart to take out their trumpets and pot lids with wooden spoons, and participate in the daily flashmob concert that takes place at windows, on roofs, from terraces and balconies. This is because today brought the Italian coronavirus death tally to 2503, an increase of 345 in 24 hours. In a country that is trying so very hard to be profoundly disciplined during the national lockdown, it is a heavy blow to see that there is still such a long way to go until at last they have flattened the curve.

On February 21 I was in Assisi, and had dinner with a group of middle aged hikers from Veneto. They were enchanted, they told me, to have had the celebrated Giotto fresco series all to themselves at the San Francesco basilica.

“Not a tourist in sight ! Imagine !” said one. “Just us and the magic of Giotto !” another exclaimed, as she poured us all glasses of local Trebbiano. “Tourists are clearly keeping away because of coronavirus.” “True”, said a third. And then, recalling the frescoes which they’d had all to themselves : “Che emozione !”

That day there were only 20 diagnosed cases of coronavirus, and one death.

That evening, the mother superior at my convent hotel handed me my room key, looking up from the late night television news and said : “non promette bene. Che San Francesco ci aiuti.” (“It does not look good. May Saint Francis help us.”) But Saint Francis did not intervene on that matter, as the next day the death rate doubled, and diagnosed cases increased by a staggering 295%. 

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It is hard enough to confine yourself to home for a yet undefined period, exiting only very briefly for neighborhood shopping and a newspaper purchase. It is harder still if you are in lockdown in an apartment with two Italian water dogs whose energy is like rising sap in a springtime tree.

I met Nicoletta Conte when several years ago she hosted a truffle hunting session for young lagotti romagnoli (Italian water dogs.) Our then-puppy lagotto Teddy, with liquid eyes, a square snout and a bounce in his step, was a failure at the session, completely uninterested in the highly scented decoy truffles, preferring to chase his tail and bark at his more serious classmates.

From the start, I liked down-to-earth Nicoletta. It was clear that her dogs were her life, her very best friends. They sat on her feet, they followed her with their eyes. They were her partners in a small, dynamic company she founded called Ho Sognato La Mia Foresta which trains dogs to truffle professionally or simply for fun.

Nicoletta’s Lagotti are Grifo and Nebbio, each one as simpatico as is she simpatica. Each is a prodigy truffle hunter. This is partially the result of Nicoletta’s outstanding training, but also because they adore making her happy. Routinely they sniff out enormous truffles with significant value on the national and international truffle market.

And for the next weeks, Grifo, Nebbio and Nicoletta are all in lockdown just outside of Rome.

Nicoletta Conte, March 21

“Considerations on a Fourth Day of Quarantine“

I despise cleaning my house and if I am bored I hate it all the more.  If it were up to me, our house during lockdown would be a kind of 24 hour tavern but thankfully my partner (Gianni Limone) believes that compulsive cleaning is a trip. Today he polished the refrigerator while I ranted and raved from the sofa. 

I adore eating, but consuming food means going to the supermarket and lining up and waiting.  Breathing air and being outside on the other hand is free, and you do not need to line up for it.  When I tried to buy two hamburgers this week I lost a few years from my life.

I dislike my cat, who meows endlessly for the turkey that she adores, but this turkey comes only from the supermarket. I could put her out of her suffering by allowing my dog Grifo to have his wish and mine and undertake a feline assassination but my partner always interferes in our little plot.  Alas.

I have less tolerance than ever for people, people who crowd all together to go running.  Where the hell are you all running ? You are ambulatory mozzarelle who have never even put your feet outside of your home, and suddenly you are all running together in the same damn park ?  #restateacasalimortaccivostra. < #stayathomedamnyouall >

Some people are doing constructive things, like inventing recipes, balancing the family’s books, starting new projects. I have begun a new Netflix series.

I have discovered that if I cannot see trees or fields for more than a few minutes, I descend into a hysterical crisis.  Often I go out with the dogs, looking for deserted places to be, and fortunately I have found one or two. And there for numerous minutes I isolate myself and stare intently at plants.  I can focus forever on the details of the natural world.  In my next life I want to be a birch tree. 

I cannot go truffling, and this creates in me a progressive intolerance towards the entire terrestrial and aquatic world.  The up-and-down state of a hormonal woman is nothing compared to that of a truffle hunter who is in quarantine.

And it is only Day Four. 

Thank goodness for the dogs.