King of Figs
Excerpt from a portrait of Salverio Fiorenza

Written by Tamar Kupiec
Translated by Graziella Macchetta
Photography by Stefanie Klavens

There are nine fig trees in Salverio Fiorenza's garden. One presides over the others: its trunk is sturdy, covered in smooth, silvery bark, obscured by low branches and perfectly green leaves. Leaves like massive hands with outstretched fingers. With a passing breeze a faint applause flutters through the branches.

From the Osco parking lot just two blocks away, all I could make out of the Fiorenza's corner garden was an emaciated skyline of stakes extending above a chain link fence, only the dense mass of foliage to one side. The fig tree, I would soon learn, hinted that there might be something more to this squared off plot of land. Pressed close to the side of the house, careful not to crush the plants that graze our legs, we stand and admire this king of figs. The dirty breath of buses that head toward the Fiorenza residence and then, thankfully, veer left at the Davis Square T station cannot be detected in the cool enclosure of the garden. "If the fig trees were not here," Mr. Fiorenza admits, "I would have more sun and more room for the vegetables, but the fig trees are here and I care about them.... I plant tomatoes anyhow. If they produce a tomato, fine; if not, that's okay too. I'm not going to cut down the tree." The tomatoes don't cost as much as the figs, he begins to justify, and with that said, concludes, "I love the figs...."

The inspiration provided by the fig trees is like a coiled rope of humour and stories high up on a shelf; at the slightest tug the rope rapidly spills into a pile of laughter and memories....

Mr. Fiorenza is as much a scientist as a gardener when it comes to keeping the two mature fig trees alive in such limited space and in the foreign New England climate. In November, to protect them from the winter cold, he erects a shanty of sorts around each tree by securing high beams around the base, wrapping the structure with plastic and cardboard for insulation, and finally inserting two pipes to ventilate and prevent overheating. "People stop by all the time and... they ask questions all the time. Sometimes I see people coming and I leave," Mr. Fiorenza laughs. "Especially when winter comes and I start covering up the trees. They see it in the morning, and they come back in the afternoon because they take the T from here, and they go by, and they stop and they say, ‘What happened to the trees?'"