A Legacy Project

Hey, that’s me in San Marino, with Tizi’s uncle Giuseppe, aka Zio Pino. It’s June 1978. I’m riding in his Mercedes. We’re going down to the Sacramora spring to fill water bottles. He’s loaded three cases of empty bottles into the trunk of the car.

Tizi and I have been married six months. It’s my first ever visit to Italy. When we arrive, we see that Zio Pino has brought a case of bottled water to our apartment. The water customs in San Marino, in all of Italy, I will learn, seem crazy. In the apartment kitchen there is a tap; also in the bathroom. From both of these taps you can conjure cold and hot water.  Just like back in the United States, there’s water on demand. (Bottled water has not yet taken the US by storm.)

“But I want to drink the tap water,” I say. “It’s what I’m used to.”

No one, I’m told, drinks water from the tap.

For the duration of this trip, I feel recurring water anxiety. I want to fill a glass, chug, fill the glass again, chug. I want to open the tap, let the water run, wait for it to get cold. Fill a glass and chug. Looking at the bottles, I see scarcity.  

On the way to Sacramora, Zio Pino tells me the story of martyred Saint Julian of Antioch. In 305, for refusing to recant his faith, Julian is tied inside a bag full of snakes and scorpions and tossed in the sea. Six hundred years later, his body comes ashore on a marble arc–in Italy. When the Christians in Rimini attempt to move the marble sarcophagous, pulled by two heifers, to the church, a spring gushes forth. 

That’s where we’re going today. It’s good water. Better than tap water.

He tells me all of this in Italian. I’m holding an English-Italian dictionary in my lap. I bought it at the airport. It’s the same dictionary I’ll hold in my lap when I go for a ride later this week with Tizi’s cousin Domenico. I don’t understand anything either one of them says, and I’m unable to say anything in Italian, except for “I don’t understand.” The likelihood of my ever understanding Italian, it seems to me, is about the same as the likelihood of a marble sacrophagous floating and traveling by water from Antioch all the way to Italy. 

Zio Pino and I fill the bottles. I load the heavy cases into the trunk of his car. “Grazie,” he says. I nod in return. I’ve forgotten how to say “you’re welcome.”

Back in San Marino, I sample the Sacramora spring water. It tastes good. It tastes like . . . water.