In winter, the chilling mistral comes scything down the Rhône valley and the Massif central, lifting tiles from the roofs and screaming across the Gulf of Genoa to Corsica, where it is sometimes joined, or followed, by an easterly companion called the tramontana, which blasts in off the plains of the Po and is the bane of those living along the northwest coast. The scirocco charges up from the Sahara, carrying desert sands and hammering at Bastia as many as one hundred days a year. The grecale brings rain from the Apennines every winter. The levante storms in from the east, the ponente from the west. The mezzogiorno comes at midday and the terrana at dusk. And finally there is the libeccio, the sickle of the northwest coast. It crosses the Mediterranean and comes cutting in from the southwest, slamming itself against Cap Corse and beating the sea to a froth. Very late one windy night, when the libeccio was blowing, after the dinner was served and the players had gathered for cards, we saw the local taxi come bouncing off the causeway.
