Olive Harvest in Puglia – Part 1: Nets Under the Trees

The olive trees of Puglia were older than the village, gnarled and silver, their trunks split like old leather. Chiara stood among them at seven in the morning with a pair of borrowed gloves and a feeling that she had made a terrible mistake.

"You hold it like a handbag," said a voice behind her.

She turned. A broad-shouldered man was leaning on a long bamboo pole, his shirt damp with dew and his sleeves rolled to the elbow. He had a sunburnt face, dark eyes and a grin that suggested he had seen many city women make the same mistake.

"I'm Nico," he said. "I run the harvest. Your uncle hired me before he died. He said you'd come and try to sell the land."

"I'm not selling the land."

"Then hold the pole properly," said Nico, and handed it to her.

The first lesson was humiliating. She swung too hard, and two olives bounced off her head. The second swing sent a branch of leaves into the nets and nothing else. Nico watched with his arms folded and an expression of patient amusement.

"You're fighting the tree," he said.

"I'm trying to get the olives off."

"Then let the tree help you. Tap the branch, not the trunk. Listen for the sound."

She tried again. The pole struck the branch with a soft, rhythmic thud, and the olives came rattling down into the net like rain. Chiara stared at the falling fruit, then at him, delighted.

"You did it," said Nico. "Now do it again, and don't look so surprised."

By noon her shoulders ached and her hands were blistered, but the nets were full of green and purple olives. They sat in the shade of a stone wall and ate bread, tomatoes and sharp pecorino while the cicadas sang in the heat.

"Why did my uncle leave me the farm?" Chiara asked.

Nico was quiet for a moment, peeling a tomato with a small knife.

"Because you were the only one who ever came to visit," he said. "Every summer, when you were a girl, he'd tell me you'd be coming. He kept a room made up for you. Nobody else in his life ever got that."

Chiara's throat tightened. She had not visited in six years. She had sent postcards and told herself she'd come back when she had time.

"Can I ask you something?" said Nico, quietly.

"Yes."

"Would you stay for the rest of the harvest? Not for the farm. For the nets, the pole, and the trees that have been waiting for someone to listen to them?"

Chiara looked at the grove, the silver branches moving in the breeze, the nets glittering with fruit.

"Yes," she said. "But only if you teach me the press, too."

"Deal," said Nico, and grinned. "Green?"

"Green," said Chiara. "Very green. Now hand me the pole. The trees are listening."