Off the Rails

by Beppe Severgnini

  I’ve chosen Modena as our second stop, because it’s a concentrate of the chewiest Italy (prosciutto, gnocco fritto), the most precise Italy (engines, automobiles), and the fizziest Italy (Lambrusco, personality). Mark puts up no resistance: he seems to be won over; he doesn’t try to convince me that Wolfsburg is better.

  Struck amidships and sent straight to the bottom, Herr Spörrle! In Germany you explained the virtues of German organization. Now allow me to illustrate the characteristics of the Italian genius.

  1. Example. From art, business, and fashion to precision mechanics, literature, and fine foods: good examples bring good results. Imitation and emulation are forms of instruction. In Italy, we live in a double boiler of beauty and imagination. Our historic cities, our clothing, our dining. The surrounding environment is a stimulus and a challenge: we are forced to gauge the things we do against what preceded us.

  2. Effort. “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” In the peevishness of the statement (from the great film The Third Man, by the way), there’s still a grain of truth, and it has to do with us: challenges have never hindered our creativity. The results of Italian scientific research—done with limited funds and lots of red tape—prove it. Our university graduates do well outside the country in part because they had to measure up against Italian universities. Anyone who emerges from the labyrinth and finds the open highway will travel straight and far.

  3. Mixing. The Italians view uncontrolled immigration with understandable apprehension. But this they know: due to factors of history, geography, and national character, we have succeeded in obtaining advantages from our exchanges and encounters. From the discovery of America to that of the moka pot, from helicopters to typewriters, and from Ferrari (automobiles) to Ferrari (spumantes), Italian creations have never been isolated undertakings, but invariably the result of splendid hybrids.

  The Railway Is a Metaphor

  Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. “They change their sky but not their soul who cross the ocean,” wrote Quintus Horatius Flaccus, whom we know as Horace, two thousand years ago. All right, he was talking about ships, not trains. But you get the message. The Italy that travels is no different from the Italy that stays in one place.

  From Bolzano to Trento, I talk to the young man working the bar trolley, who loves Americans because they cleaned out his entire stock of alcoholic beverages (“I had to ask for a resupply!”). And he appreciates Austrians and Germans, who at least do their darnedest. The Italians, on the other hand, don’t drink much and when they do, they ask for a discount.

  Between Trento and Verona, I meet a retired general from the Alpini division. Having run through his complaints about the state of the nation, he mutters: “Never seen this train so clean in my life. Maybe they know that there are two journalists and a video camera. Come back more often, men.”

  The whole way from Verona to Modena, while Gianni films the tracks hurtling into the distance behind the train, I talk with Eleonora, a young disabled woman. She tells me that she was accompanied to the carriage, but that, disappointingly, there was no working wheelchair lift. Before becoming disabled, Eleonora drove to Beijing in a Citroën Méhari with a man she met on this very rail line. “We talked for three hours; then he said: ‘Do you want to drive to Beijing with me?’”

  It was harder than that to persuade Mark that, in order to travel from Modena to Naples, you need to go by way of Milan. To be exact, by way of San Siro stadium, where my team is playing a crucial match tonight. But in the end, I succeeded. Now I’m going to have to explain to him just what soccer is in Italy. I’ve been trying for the past three days. I prepared a quiz of basic minimum soccer competence, without which entry into a stadium becomes blasphemy. If he fails to pass it, I’ll just leave him at the baggage deposit.

  An Emergency, Bitte

  You’ve got to love him. This man just doesn’t know what to come up with anymore to enliven the trip. We get out of the cab in front of the main station of Milan (Stazione Centrale)—it’s just a few minutes until the train leaves for Naples—and Mark announces, beatifically, that he’s left his iPhone in the taxi. Italian Personal Solidarity (IPS) goes into action, the only form of emergency management that has never to date generated scandals of any kind.

  We call the number of the lost phone, hoping someone will pick up. Then the number of the taxi dispatch office, where they track down the young female taxi driver who deposited us at the station. She picks up on the third ring, understands the situation, and generously volunteers to turn around and bring the phone straight back to the Stazione Centrale, so that we can catch our train. The young woman shows up, out of breath, brandishing the object of Teutonic desire. Herr Spörrle is deeply moved. He has recovered his iPhone and we won’t have to miss another train. “L’Italia è meravigliosa!” he exclaims in Italian. “Italy is wonderful.” I think to myself: True. Give us an emergency and we’re phenomenal. It’s routine administration that we seem to have a few problems with.

  As does the Stazione Centrale these days, for that matter. No waiting rooms, just a bar, no Wi-Fi, token-operated bathrooms, automatic ticket machines out of order, escalators designed with shops in search of customers in mind, not travelers in a hurry. And it’s a pity, because Italy’s high-speed trains, the Alta Velocità, are something to be proud of. There’s an Italy, bigger and bigger with each passing day, that travels and works at 155 miles per hour. An Italy that’s well aware that improvisation is a fine thing, but that efficiency, too, has its advantages.

  We pass through Rome’s Termini station. We pass through Naples: an alluring female conductor appears who triggers Mark’s enthusiasm. He believes that she’s a fashion model traveling incognito. In the evening, we arrive in the city of Lamezia Terme, where I immediately realize something: Calabria is going to surprise me more than Germany did, perhaps because I’m less familiar with it. This really takes the cake: I’m going to have to thank the Germans for having convinced me to explore my own country.

  Lamezia is not a pretty sight. No one would dream of spending his or her holidays here. Buildings are bare; streets are full of honking cars; neon signs fail to give the place any warmth. But people are friendly. This evening a busload of children from Crotone will arrive in Lamezia to show us that they know tongue twisters in German; the event will be held in a club known as the Flying Baron. I wonder who could have dreamed up such a thing. The long trip and my general weariness have a slight hallucinogenic effect. I have the impression I heard Mark get to his feet in the restaurant and declaim the Italian tongue twister Apelle figlio d’Apollo. I ask the woman sitting beside me: it’s all true.

  Everything Slows Down

  At 7:30 a.m. we are displaying great discipline, waiting at the appointed hour with our baggage outside the Aer Hotel Phelipe in Lamezia, which proved to be very welcoming. Mark, no surprise, isn’t there. If you ask me, he does it on purpose. He’s been ready for half an hour, and he’s just hiding somewhere, anxious to prove that German punctuality is a mere stereotype. Which is all well and good, but it’s threatening to make us miss the 8:10 a.m. local train to Villa San Giovanni, the tip of the toe of the Italian boot.

  Our descent along Calabria’s Tyrrhenian (western) coast is slow and ceremonious. The railways around here aren’t used to going from one place to another. They’re evidence of a state presence and relics of industrial archaeology, which a few inhabitants, who have no alternative, insist on continuing to use. It seems almost vulgar to have a destination, obligations, and a timetable to stick to. Those are things you can do in Germany, if you’re so minded.

  Mark generously makes it clear: here there are aesthetic, literary, and human consolations, to
complement the stunning landscape. It’s true. And in fact we meet another beautiful and amiable female conductor, the fourth one in two days. At this point I begin to suspect that Trenitalia—knowing about the video camera—has decided to put out a casting call among its onboard female personnel. Luisa, smiling in her uniform, explains to us that we’re wrong: this is her usual route; this is her usual shift; no one assigned her to this run.

  We see her again that afternoon—in civilian dress—on the regional train from Messina to Palermo, reading The Odyssey. A Calabrian railway employee who looks like Nicole Kidman and loves Homer? It was worth the trip from Berlin, but it strikes us as statistically unlikely. She smiles again: “I’m going to Palermo to visit friends, and I chose this train on purpose. It usually runs late, but today you’re on board: two journalists and a video camera. I knew that it would be on time.”

  Getting there, aboard the Messina–Palermo regional train, wasn’t easy. At Villa San Giovanni a sign pointing to Sicily would have been considered far too obvious. The traveler is obliged to wander like a soul in limbo, in search of the ferry. The only indication is a small sign with the words “To the gangway—1st, 2nd, 3rd docking areas” (the word “gangway,” passerella in Italian, has to be guessed at because someone has erased the second e and the double l). “After all, everyone already knows,” they told us brusquely at the ticket window. The people from Reggio Calabria and Messina, maybe. But the people from Milan and Hamburg don’t.

  We depart at 10:35 a.m., but our ferry isn’t the 10:35 ferry: it’s the 9:30 ferry running late. Explaining this concept to Mark takes up the entire length of the crossing, on a Sicilian Strait swept by sun and wind. When we land, the German is in a lyrical mood and has already forgotten everything. We arrive at the Messina Marittima ferry station and push our luggage all the way to Messina Centrale train station, after discovering that there is no convenient transportation from ferry to train. Many trains go zipping by, destination Palermo, but they don’t stop: these are Intercity trains from Milan, Rome, and Naples. We come from Calabria: what else do we expect?

  The tiny regional train between Messina and Palermo seems like a toy train: little, green, bright, and slow. In its way, spectacular.

  Signora Cardani—visibly pregnant, holding a toddler daughter by the hand—is issued a summons for 216 euros for boarding the train without a ticket. It hardly matters that, before our eyes, she informs the conductor that at the station of Patti the ticket office was closed, and the automatic ticket machines were out of order.

  In the bathroom we find soft toilet paper emblazoned with butterflies. This, I explain to Mark, who fails to understand my astonishment, is scientifically impossible: in the history of train-riding humanity, no one has ever glimpsed soft toilet paper emblazoned with butterflies aboard a Sicilian regional train. “It’s the final, indisputable proof that Trenitalia knows we’re aboard this train, and is secretly staging the sets!” I claim in a loud voice in front of the closed door.

  “So much the better,” replies a young man as he leaves the bathroom.

  We pull into Palermo Centrale, right on time. Built in 1885 in an eclectic monumental style, it’s one of the oldest continuously operating Italian train stations. To shoot the last moments of our railroad adventure, as soon as we get out of the train, we try to cross Piazza Giulio Cesare. It proves to be the riskiest enterprise of the entire trip: buses parked on the zebra stripes, cars forming barricades, wailing motor scooters that appear out of nowhere and head straight for our ankles.

  I watch Mark Spörrle. He’s trying to make up his German mind: do I hate this place or do I like it? Thirty seconds. He turns around and smiles. He likes it. Good: let’s go have dinner. Food in Palermo is much better than in Berlin, my friend.

  3

  From Moscow to Lisbon: A Horizontal Europe

  The names of the stations begin to take on meaning and my heart trembles. The train stamps and stamps onward. I stand at the window and hold on to the frame. These names mark the boundaries of my youth.

  ERICH MARIA REMARQUE, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

  In Moscow

  I remember Moscow in the summer of 1986. Then I was anxiously boarding a train heading east: after traveling for 5,593 miles, without changing trains, I’d arrive in Beijing, China. This time I’m taking a train heading west. But the Trans-Siberian Express exists; the Trans-European doesn’t yet. That doesn’t matter, we’ll build it ourselves. After 3,930 miles and changing trains several times, I’ll reach Lisbon, Portugal.

  Back then I was on my honeymoon with Ortensia, my beaming newlywed wife. She hadn’t even lost her composure when we learned, at the Moscow Yaroslavskaya station, that we would be traveling and sleeping in a four-bunk compartment for the next eight days. Our two traveling companions were young Russian women accidentally assigned to our second-class sleeping compartment.

  This time, too, we would be traveling in a group of four, but intentionally. Departing with me are Mark Spörrle (fellow writer from Germany), Soledad Ugolinelli (our producer from Rome), and Gianni Scimone (videographer from Milan). The division of responsibilities is simple: Mark and I create problems; Soledad and Gianni solve them.

  This morning in Moscow, for instance, here’s what we talked about.

  A European journey has to be understandable to Europeans. My Italian and Mark’s German aren’t enough. The Goethe-Institut, which sponsors our trip, took care of our blog, organizing daily translations into the languages of the countries through which we’re traveling: Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, and Portugal. Plus English, which everyone claims to understand. But the videos? Not a simple matter. Do we go with silent movies? Subtitles? Dubbing?

  When presented with this last suggestion, our videographer, Gianni, turns pale. Daily translating and dubbing? I, ever the optimist, minimize: “Let’s just get started and see what happens!” Mark, ever the pessimist, analyzes, and requests a pause for reflection.

  I like German pauses for reflection: they’re useful to Italians, who can now go get an espresso and come up with something. Last night Gianni and I shot the introduction to the journey, on Red Square, where preparations are under way for the May Day parade and for the anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Second World War (May 9). I’ve lived in Moscow; I know that square, but every time I see it, it leaves me speechless: because of the interplay of the slopes, Saint Basil’s Cathedral always seems to pop up out of nowhere. Mark had argued against the filming: “They’ll never give you permission!” No problem, guy: we just won’t ask.

  Leaving Moscow

  The hotels in this city have three interesting characteristics. Two of those characteristics have remained unchanged since Soviet times: the presence of young ladies of beautiful appearance and less lovely reputation, and staff that is convinced that to smile would be rude. The third characteristic is relatively new and coincides with the rule of Vladimir Putin: Western music, played at full volume, echoing off the marble and the velvet, only to disappear again as quickly as it came. These are dress rehearsals for private parties: pop-rock is a sign of modernity, and the volume is proportional to the wealth.

  Another passion that seems to hold the Putinian Russian bourgeoisie firmly in its grip is the love of toying with memories of the USSR. It’s not a political nostalgia; it’s imperial and generational: deep down, these are childhood memories, from a time when they felt powerful. While the government might make patriotic use of it, others have discovered commercial applications. At the restaurant Mari Vanna, I sit spellbound at the sight of a screen that broadcasts exclusively Soviet television from the sixties and seventies; the waitresses wear long blond braids, and the interior decoration glorifies the achievements of Russian Communism. Even the bouncer is vintage: a guy in a tracksuit at the front door, listening to an old transistor radio.

  Russia, which we are preparing to leave today, knows ho
w to be grouchy. But it still remains a nation capable of passion and profundity. It’s a Slavic Italy, rough and Nordic: people spend their time looking for shortcuts and work-arounds, and it is parsimonious with the truth, but it’s capable of generosity, and resignation. The Russians, even more than us, can put up with anything. The stoicism of this frozen, alcoholic land is unrivaled in Europe.

  Because Moscow is Europe. It’s a far edge of Europe—in terms of geography, history, and personality—but it’s still a Europe we should neither lose nor abandon. A Europe that’s been through a long, obtuse Communist dictatorship, and which slid immediately afterward into the most slovenly experiment with democracy of the twentieth century, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, only to wind up finally in the skillful and rapacious hands of Vladimir Putin. A Europe tossed between new rules and ancient instincts that has been arguing, for centuries, about what it wants to become. In the Russia of Czar Nicholas I (1825–1855), the Slavophiles sang the praises of the values of an agrarian, patriarchal nation. The Westernizers (Zapadniki) wanted to continue along the reform path first taken by Peter the Great. Read Dostoevsky’s The Idiot: not much has changed.

  The first time I came to Moscow was in 1986; I lived there in 1991; I’ve come back a dozen or so times since then. I realize that I’ve become a public menace: there’s a danger I might bore everyone with my reminiscences. But I love to see places again, mixing familiarity and surprise. Today, I climb up the Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills) and find Sunday crowds and snow in May. At the belvedere on the top of the hill, overlooking the Moskva River, vendors are charging 150 euros (not dollars, like in the old days) for a small bust of Leonid Brezhnev that looks very much as if it was manufactured in China a month ago. I object: “Are you serious?” The vendors reply dismissively: “Don’t worry about it. It’s not meant for you foreigners. This is meant for us Russians, because we have the money.”