An Evening With Giovanni

Sometimes, just before awakening fully, or perhaps in an idle, unprotected moment in the middle of my day, a longing sweeps over me to be back in that lovely land called Italy, whose beauty for me lies in her people.  I was lucky enough to have spent six months there when I was in my teens, and since then, no matter how often I revisit, I come home wanting more.  

Recently we were in Rome for five days, and when I think of that evening in Ristorante Giovanni on Via Marche, just off Via Veneto, I have to smile.  As I sat at table there, enjoying spoonful upon spoonful of tortellini in broth, my attention was riveted on the owner Giovanni, an elderly gentlemen with luxuriously full, snow-white hair.  There was something reminiscent about the way he circulated from table to table, greeting his customers as though they were honored guests in his home, exchanging a smile, a laugh, a word here and there with them.  At first I thought it was my own dear father he reminded me of, because my father similarly welcomed with true enjoyment all who frequented the small restaurant he had owned in Pittsburgh.  Yet, the more I watched Giovanni, the more I realized that he was familiar to me because, like my father, he was the quintessential Italian with a love affair for people.

As he approached our table, I abandoned my musing.  He must have heard me ordering in Italian, for he stood beside me now, and in his own tongue said, “But Signora, you are Italian, no?”​​​

Continuing the conversation in Italian, I answered, “No, veramente sono americana, but my father came from Tuscany, from the province of Lucca.”

“Ah, Lucca!  Si, si!  I know it well,” he said.  “So tell me, then Signora, what lovely places did you visit today in Rome?”

“We visited il Vaticano.”

“And did you speak with il Papa?”

I looked for a hint of smile on his face, for the joke is that the average tourist doesn't rate seeing His Holiness, unless on a certain Sunday afternoon, such a tourist should be so fortunate as to be in a crowd of people in 

Piazza San' Pietro, in a crush of humanity so dense that if the tourist were to faint, he would not touch the ground at all.  Even at that, his view of the Pope would be that of a distant figure in sumptuous robes and mitered hat, with arm upraised, blessing the populace from a window high up in a building to the right of the square – the building that houses the offices of the Vatican and is the Pontiff's official residence.

I don't know what made me utter the nonsense I said next.  Perhaps it was the  twinkle I thought I saw in Giovanni's eye.   Perhaps I was just giddy with the pleasure of conversing like a native with a native Italian.  In any case, what I said was, “Yes, I did, in fact, speak with il Papa, and he told me, “Listen, if you happen to go to Giovanni's this evening, say hello to him for me.”

Giovanni gave me a surprised look.  “Oh,” he said, and walked away, which made me worry and wonder if I had misread what I thought were his teasing overtones.  Was he offended by my silly remark?  Did he think I was making fun of him?  I knew from a lifetime of living among my kin, that the one thing one must never do is embarrass an Italian with ridicule.  Even if it's all in jest, Italians do not lose face gracefully. It has to do with pride, which they have in abundance.  

My concern, however, was unfounded, for soon, to my great relief, Giovanni was back to continue our playful charade.

“We were schoolboy friends, il Papa and I,” he said.

Now I was the one to look surprised.  “You were?”

“Of course not!” he said, the twinkle in his eye obvious now.  “How could we have been?  He is tedesco , you know, not Italian.”   Then by way of putting aside our joking, Giovanni looked around our table and asked, “Your family, Signora?”

“Si,” I said.  “My husband, and our daughter, and her husband.”

Smiling, he nodded to each of them, and said,  “Molto piacere.”   To me, he said, “Your daughter, Signora, she is bellissima.”

“Grazie,” I said.

Striding around the table then to where my daughter sat, he pointed to two tortellini she had left uneaten and floating in a little bit of broth in the bowl before her.

“Non sono buoni ?” he asked

Understanding what he had said, but only able to answer him in English, she said, “Oh no!  No!  They are really great!  But if I eat every bit of each of the many dinner courses served here in Italy, I'll go home fat as a barrel!”

He gave her a questioning look.

“I'll get too fat,” she said, puffing out her cheeks to illustrate.

Sternly he shook his head and, picking up her spoon, he ladled one tortellino into it and held it before her.  Like an obedient child, but not before rolling her eyes at me, she, who never, ever takes orders from anyone, opened her mouth and accepted the spoonful.  Without a word, he ladled the remaining tortellino onto the spoon and fed it to her.  Then, “Brava!”  he said, and with a flourish, clacked the empty spoon back into the bowl.

Timidly, tentatively, we smiled.  Then Giovanni laughed, so we four knew it was okay to laugh, too.  Then all five of us grinned at each other.  He knew we liked him.  We knew he liked us.  We were delighted all around

There in part lies the explanation for my longing. 

The Train

Speaking of the metaphor ..............................

Later when kin and I gathered
As we are wont to do
To weep and laugh and weep anew,
Back to mind came a haunting knell
I now remembered well.

How first afar then closer still
Through winter chill
A warning wail from each crossing.
Whistled down the track
And up the long line echoed back.

And remembering, in a shiver I knew
The whistler was none other than the shrew
Wailing as Banshees do,
Coming for poor Paddy McGrew.

December Frenzy

Christmas fast approaches

And all around me

Like surf of a stormy sea

It pounds at me

From voluminous lists

I cross off faîtes accomplis

Yet no end in sight

Do I see

Too fleeting, too short

The tide of time

Drives me, reminds me

To rest is a crime

So I bake

And I wrap

And I shop

Without stop

In desperation I swear

December next year

I'll bag the Santa thing

And sleep until spring

Norma

How you entered
No one knew,
Nor when.
But in the recesses
Of her mind
You hid.
Then what you did
Was steal memory away
And leave her life in decay.

Who Am I Really?

At home I am the real me

But away, I often speak differently

To different people, you see,

Which makes me a different me.

To my grandchildren, as a rule

I try to talk cool

So they will think me hep

And in perfect step

With the 21st Century.

With high school friends

I find myself dropping g's,

For that was how we spoke then.

It was how're you doin?, and like that

And even sometimes, where are you at?

To people I hardly know,

Especially if they are la-dee-da-da,

I try hard to show

How just as cultured as they I am.

But it's a sham.

And finally – 

To my mine own man

I speak the speech of the real me,

And he in turn 

Speaks his true self to me.

Golden Years

At her bedside, they hover and buzz and shake their heads.  “She never speaks,” they say.  “Poor thing!  It's depression, of course.  Ninety and bed-ridden, arthritis in every joint – who wouldn't be depressed?”    But they're wrong.  She doesn't speak because she knows they think her too old to have anything to say.  They talk over her, past her, as if she were not there at all, so she utters not one word in return.  She doesn't speak because, in her private, silent reveries, she's busy unfolding again the truly golden years of her life.

In her silence, she's back in her childhood home, in the small living room with her parents and siblings, grouped before the handsome Stomberg-Carlson radio,  listening to One Man's Family, and hearing wise old Father Barbour's unfailing response of “yes, yes” when one or another of his offspring asks, “What do you think, Father Barbour?”  She stays tuned to hear the honking of Mr. First-Nighter's taxi, and anticipates as before the story that Les Tremain and Barbara Lutty act out.  

She wills herself back to the movies of a Saturday afternoon, when for the admission price of eleven cents, she sees a feature, a serial, and a newsreel.  Through closed eyes, she watches the Pathé camera execute its turn from side view to squarely in the face of the audience. 

Excited as ever she used to be, in the bleachers with her friends, she lives again a Friday afternoon after-school football game.  They stand and sing together the National Anthem, and then their Alma Mater.  Sense of pride and belonging fills her, and for one brief instant, a sharp yearning for what is lost interrupts her reverie.    

The fantasies she treasures most put her again in the early years of her motherhood, with her little ones – at lunchtime, perhaps, or at bath time – the splashing, the laughing, the tears that shampooing invariably produced.    She's right there, reading to them once more, listening to them as they play, as they quarrel, as they tell her their woes, their triumphs.  The fantasies of newlywed days are next-best, or maybe her husband's and her time together after the family has been raised and sent out into the world to live their own lives and to occasionally return to visit with precious grandchildren in tow.   Too cruel to relive, though, are the days of  his illness and dying, for these commence the tarnished years and all the insensitivity that goes with  them.

So they talk of depression, do they?  She could tell them plenty about depression.  But then, she's not speaking.  She's too involved with happier days.

Fine Line

“How was the lunch?”his wife Clotilde asked

Rinaldo fluttered his outstretched hand, palm-down, in the 'so-so' gesture.  “Così-così,” he 

said, “but oh! You should have seen the tablecloth he spread out!  Hand-embroidered.  Beautiful cut-out work.  The whitest, finest linen I have ever seen!”  Rinaldo knew whereof he spoke, too, for he had seen many a piece of the finest of linen in his mother's palatial  home

....................................................

Upon his birth, no matter how much his mother, la contessa, young wife of the elderly nobleman il conte Lorenzino, wept and protested, Rinaldo was given over immediately to the care of a wet nurse and after he had been weaned, he was sent back to his father, a handsome, romantic contadino (peasant),  who worked on the count's vast estate, and who had had the audacity to woo and impregnate the bored young wife of a nobleman. When la contessa threatened her husband with suicide if he did not allow her some contact with her love child, he relented enough to allow Rinaldo one brief visit per week with his mother.  After a number of years, though, because the child came unaccompanied by his father, la contessa wearied of the weekly reminder of her transgression.  The weekly visits soon became monthly, and finally dwindled to none.  The child prospered, however, in the humble, loving care of his paternal grandmother, and ironically, he grew tall and regal, in the image of his mother's kin..

The townspeople of Rinaldo's father's village, although they referred openly to him as 

il piccolo bastardo, treated him with affection and respect, perhaps because they knew it was the closest brush any of them could ever hope to have with aristocracy.  Rinaldo, reasonably happy among them, learned the carpenter trade, and at nineteen married a lovely, pious daughter of one of the count's groundskeepers.

When within a  year Rinaldo, and his young bride Clotilde and their newly-born daughter  Serafina managed to secure passage to America, Rinaldo smiled ruefully to himself, imagining how the count must have sighed with relief upon learning that the manifestation of his wife's iniquity had deigned to remove himself far from their midsts.

In America, Rinaldo busied himself with learning English (which his quick mind absorbed easily) and making a living for his family.  It was not long before his skill as craftsman became known throughout the Little Italy section of town, and soon his fame spread to the very limits of the city.  He determined to never think of his mother again, but although he didn't mention her, she often invaded his private thoughts, and unrequited longing for her love darkened his spirit.  It was his daughter Serafina who, as she grew into a gentle, statuesque young lady, brightened it again.  To him she was the embodiment of the nobility he had been denied.  She was the reason he had accepted the invitation to lunch that day with Luglio Bruschini, prosperous proprietor of the finest fruit and vegetable store in the vicinity, a man of reputation in the community for good moral character and great devotion to The Blessed Mother. Luglio was seen going into the local church of San Pietro not only on Sundays, but many weekdays as well, to attend daily Mass, which placed him high in the pious Clotilde's regard.

..................................................................

“So, tell me, caro,” Clotilde continued, “what did il signor' Bruschini serve you for lunch?”

“An antipasto of no particular note,” Rinaldo said, “and a rather nondescript dish of pasta con pollo, and insalata mista.  The vino, though, was full-bodied, and the caffè that ended the meal was clear and strong, and laced with un' poncino of rum.  But as I said, cara, what impressed me greatly was the fine linen tablecloth.  Assuredly, his taste and instincts are of the highest caliber, and I  therefore did not hesitate to give my permission that his courtship of Serafina commence.  I will speak to her of it this evening.

..................................................................

In his modest apartment above his establishment, Luglio Bruschini that evening knelt and thanked The Blessed Mother for inspiring him to use the one bit of finery his loving contadina mother had insisted he take to America with him.  He had protested, because it was the hand-sewn bedspread his own grandmother had labored over for months to include in his mother's dowry years and years before.

“No, no, mamma,” he had said.  “It is your precious bedspread – never used, never even unfolded all these years – an heirloom to be passed from generation to generation.  I cannot take it!”

“Exactly!” she had said, with hand fisted on each ample hip, “To be passed from generation to generation.  So pass it on to your daughter when you have one, then!  Enough!  Not one word more!”

And so the argument came to its abrupt stop.  Luglio packed the bedspread in his suitcase, crossed the sea, made his minor fortune, spread out the bedspread as tablecloth for his future father-in-law that fateful afternoon, and in due time married the lovely Serafina.  They went on to have nine healthy, bright offspring – six girls and three boys.  The oldest, named for her grandmother Clotilde, inherited the bedspread upon her wedding.  What became of that fine piece of linen thereafter has since been lost to history.