BROLLE THE
EXCISEMAN
of Mauro Balani
There is always an explanation for the earthly things which are put at man's disposal. Chance and fate provide a reason for fleeting fortunes but do not sustain the greater renown that time establishes. There cannot be a mere fortuity in the indissoluble link between a place and its characteristic agricultural produce. The immediate association of lentils with Castelluccio, onions with Cannara and cherries with Capodacqua di Assisi has all the makings of a dogma. Tracing everything back to the conformation of the earth, to exposure, to the climate, is so banal as to be not worthy of taking into the slightest consideration, even though it may correspond to the truth. Less true but certainly not false, scarcely reliable but pleasantly believable, is the story which Brolle recounts as he sits resting in the shade of the highest oak tree of Col del Bensi. Class of 1910, last of seven brothers all of ugly appearance, moderate ignorance, used to making their living by bullying. Brolle had turned the defect of being-cross eyed into a virtue and seated there where he still sits, without moving his head, was able to keep a watch on anyone crossing the hill coming from Assisi and anyone in the opposite direction arriving from Spello. Nothing escaped him, and he was able to warn his brothers of any traffic of interesting appearance, whose contents they would then examine before either charging a correct toll or proceeding to loot them. The hard life of the excisemen had a turning point in 1930, on the occasion of the royal wedding of Boris III and Joan of Bulgaria. The bride and groom, after the religious ceremony at the Basilica of San Francesco and their salute to the town from the balcony of the Town Hall, were to move to the Villa Costanzi in Spello, today Villa Fidelia, for the wedding breakfast. The cars of the bride and groom and the august guests followed the plain route skirting round Santa Trinità , whilst the royal guards thought it a good idea to reserve for the transportation of the wedding gifts the alternative route of Capodacqua, for greater safety, this road not being indicated in the protocol. In fact it was the road which led right into the lion's den. For Brolle and his brothers it was a unique occasion and one which would not be repeated. Those cars, among other things, were transporting a ceramic by Basilio Cascella, depicting Christ and the Magdalene, a gift from the Senate, a sculpture by Arturo Dazzi, "The dying deer", a gift from the Chamber, and an embroidered hanging, a gift from the town of Assisi. When the automobiles were stopped for the ritual search, the improvised excisemen judged these goods as being without value, to the extent that they deduced from them that the royal families were in a state of absolute poverty and actually felt it their duty to provide in some way for the success of a breakfast which promised to be very austere. Whilst they proceeded to wring the necks of thirty-six guinea-fowl, all the royal guards inevitably remained in a state of immobility. Brolle tried to alleviate their wait with cherries in alcohol which he threw the required distance, one by one, towards the unfortunate guards, who were forced to open their mouths wide like fledgling sparrows. When the cherries were finished, having been invited to drink from the jar, from which all the brothers had already been swilling, they had recourse to a makeshift glass: the artistic cup in Murano glass, engraved with pure gold and enamelled with miniatures, executed by the artist Luigi Rossetti and presented to the bride and groom by the Buoncompagni firm. Brolle, too, became curious, and wished to drink from that extraordinarily valuable cup, imitated immediately by his other brothers. The guards, on their departure, with the guinea-fowl dangling from the windows, did not dare even to think of being able to restore royal lustre to the cup debased by those terrible mouths. They decided to abandon the gift, but news of the episode got out. Even though envy does not suit noble minds, the counts of the Marche offered the brothers, in exchange for the precious cup, the best farm in Gabbiano. Brolle, who is of few words, in recounting the event always stops at the cherries, now as seventy years ago. Everyone in Capodacqua has always believed that they will receive farms in exchange for growing cherries. No one else has been enriched by this fruit, and yet despite doing other regular jobs, just on the off chance, each person also tends at least one cherry tree.