Digging for roots

18/06/07 (continued)
Since there are another ten hours left on this train ride, I'm going to continue to write about the rest of my time in Riace today. I wake up and realize that I slept past the alarm. Having told the woman at the restaurant that I would be leaving around 7:15, I had already paid for lodging and had received some juice and snacks for breakfast last night to put in the fridge. I fill up the old lemon soda bottle with Ace, and throw two chocolatey pastries into my bag. I should have taken the other packet of shampoo for good measure, too, but I forgo the shower and rush out the door. I walk down the highway and am at the bus stop around 7:30. The woman at the restaurant had told me 7:50, the man who drove me guessed 8:00, though the boy who hopped in the back said 8:30, and a man I asked near the bus stop yesterday said there must be a bus at eight-something (he had conferred with another, older man, who, though he was unable to give a more specific time for the bus, did tell me that Cuteri was not a name from Riace - Scuteri, yes, but Cuteri, no), so I, not wanting to risk missing it, and having miscalculated the time it takes to walk to the stop, patiently wait, hiding my shins from any more sun, until the bus comes at eight-something.
I hop on, and we cautiously drive a winding road up into the hills that I would never have wanted to walk in such heat. At the top, I pay the €0,85 fare and find myself in front of what be none other than the building I'm looking for. I enter, buzz, and a police officer greets me. I explain what I'm trying to do, and he takes me into the next room, where another officer does a quick search on the computer that yields nothing. However, they point me to a white-haired man in the piazza whose memory is as good as any computer. He's also dubious of finding a Cuteri, since it's Scuteri that's a Riace name, but he takes me upstairs to Carmelina's office anyway. We go over the known information (Maria Cuteri, mother was Virginia Onorata, married Nicola Campagna, born March 5, either 1907 or 1908). The white-haired man starts flipping through a fragile-looking card catalog. Each card he pulls out to examine is a no-go. He pulls another out, examining it longer and bringing it to the desk. Carmelina asks if he found it. My breath shortens, and it's a yes.
Cuteri Maria di Pasquale di Antonio e di Onorata Virginia. Nata nell'anno 1908 mese marzo giorno 5.
They photocopy the card, front and back, and hand the photocopy to me. The date of her wedding is only a few weeks after her fourteenth birthday. Her occupation is "casalinga". At the bottom, there is a note marking her emigration to the Comune of B'lyn, NY, Stati Uniti. And then on the back there are two addresses. The gears in the white-haired man's head are turning as he puts the pieces together. He says he's sure of it now - she must have lived at via Roma, 18. And there was an Adelaide Cuteri, who must have been a sister or something? Anyway, one of her granddaughters lives down in Riace Marina, in fact not too far from my hotel. She married the lawyer, Strati, and they live down there now.
There being plenty of time before I can get back down to Riace Marina on the bus, I ask if I can find the house. He starts to explain to me how to get there, then draws a little map, then just decides to take me there himself. It's barely 30 meters away, but I'm thankful that he accompanied me, since now I have a photographer! He's a little confused by the machine at first, but we get some good photos of me on the stairs to her door and by the address on the wall. Giving him many thanks, I'm off to explore more of town.
In my wanderings, I encounter toothless women, angry dogs, and two young men in neon yellow vests leading donkeys with baskets on their backs to collect the town's trash. I go back to Nonnie's building, and by this time the bar on the ground floor is open. I go in and ask for something to eat and drink. I receive cookies and pear juice. (Most of the bars I've been to in Italy serve paninis, pizza slices, and/or gelato - but this was just a bar-bar, and so there wasn't much there besides liquor.) I get a classy picture of the owner in his special white jacket, grinning toothlessly as he pretends to pour some wine. I also go in the local church to rest a while. A shop that sells artisan goods from Calabria and around the world looks enticing, but it's only open Monday-Saturday from 17:00-19:30, which are quite productive hours, I imagine, so I settle for a tabaccheria/souvenir shop. I get post cards and trinkets and then go to wait for the bus. Another €0,85 brings me down, and I begin the search for the wife of the lawyer Strati.
I wander the strip between the restaurant and the gas station, but not finding the name on any buttons, I go back to the hotel and ask the girl at reception where the lawyer Strati lives. Somewhere on this strip, but she's not sure exactly where. I go to the restaurant and ask the waiter (did I mention how cute he is? Probably a little it younger than I, he shuffles from table to table in his neat black pants and oversized white jacket with the most innocent devilish grin). He doesn't know, but gets the woman who seems to be running the show (although everyone refers to the establishment as "Bruno's", I've never seen said Bruno) and she knows! She starts to describe it to me, but, like the white-haired man before her, she just takes me there. Feeling like a trespasser, I salute the woman working in the garden and tell her that I'm looking for the wife of the lawyer Strati. She suspiciously points me to the ground floor door. I buzz, and another woman answers.
"I'm looking for the wife of the lawyer Strati."
"That's me."
"I think that we are cousins."
Not what she was expecting to hear, I'm sure. I see the husband in the background - she tells him that I say I'm an American cousin, and he tells her to invite me in. She seems a little embarrassed not to have asked me herself first, but I'm invited to the table and given a glass of water. We talk for a while, trying to figure out the family tree. The lawyer Strati, with their baby girl in his arms, helps out, and we deduce that her grandmother Adelaide and my great-grandmother must have been first cousins; it seems that their fathers were brothers. I think. It's all very confusing, and I might want to check the figures later, but we must be related somehow. She and her daughter are probably the only ones in the area anything less than fifth cousins, though, since all the others left for America, Australia, or Milan. I think that she herself was born in Milan, but married this man from Riace. Her mother and aunt still own the house at via Roma, 18 (but not the bar underneath), so it makes sense that she met her husband some summer in the south. I take some photos of the three of them, and say my good-byes. It's a strange pleasure, this whole experience. Now I'll try to sleep through as much of what's left of this train ride (another seven hours) and then one more train to Ferrara, where I will shower, check my e-mail, and eat and sleep to my heart's content.