A Semester Abroad

by Papa, Ariella

  “What a face!” He laughed. “What are you thinking with that face, tesoro?”

  “Nothing. What are you thinking with your face?” He waited until Olivia and Dino looked at him to answer me. He did that a lot. When he thought he had something funny to say, he needed all eyes on him.

  “Senti. We are Italians and Americans, who are Irish today in a Mexican restaurant. It’s strange, you think?”

  We toasted this with a chin-chin. It occurred to me that that was a Chinese expression taken by the Italians to make a toast.

  On the way to the club, they insisted on showing us the transvestite prostitutes of Firenze. They were tall and blonde, striding around in stilettos and skimpy outfits. They all had fake breasts that they took out and jiggled at the passing cars. This made Dino and Gaetano howl. In the backseat, Olivia and I got impatient.

  “Okay, are we going to the club?” I asked.

  “You don’t like the transvestites?” Dino asked.

  “Are we supposed to like them?” Olivia asked back.

  “It’s not like we’ve never seen transvestites before,” I said.

  “I forgot you’re americane,” Gaetano said, mocking. There was the first hint of bitterness.

  “Remember on St. Patrick’s Day, we’re supposed to drink,” I said.

  “Excuse me, Gabriella, I also forgot that you go into convulsions if you don’t get a drink into your liver.” This was one of the times he successfully waited for everyone to listen, because everyone laughed at me, including me.

  “So can we go to the club?” Olivia asked the front seat.

  “Andiamo.” Gaetano said. He waved at the transvestites as we went by. They shook their bare fake chests in response.

  The club was another giant warehouse but bigger than Tendenza, the club outside of Siena. There was a giant dance floor, a stage and several levels surrounding them with small tables. We climbed up a couple of levels. Dino and Gaetano wanted to get a table so they could have a good view of the Brazilian spettacolo that was set to come on at eleven. I liked that word, spettacolo. It seemed so much better than a show.

  “You are beautiful tonight,” Gaetano said so that only I could hear.

  “But not as good as the transvestites, right?”

  “Stronza. I’d do better with a transvestite.”

  “Probably,” I said to make him laugh. He didn’t.

  We ordered Brazilian drinks–mojitos and cuba libres. We drank for a while.

  Gaetano was being especially touchy-feely with me as Olivia and Dino flirted. I thought we already covered that. But maybe, now that he saw me with another Italian, he thought things had changed.

  The spettacolo was a bit disappointing compared to what I had in mind. It wasn’t really a show at all, just scantily clad dancers who came out shaking all the parts of their bodies and blowing whistles. The rhythmic Brazilian drum livened the place up. In their seats, Dino and Gaetano shook like the dancers. Behind them, Olivia and I smiled at each other.

  “Why are you laughing?” Gaetano asked me.

  “I’m laughing at your dance. You’re dancing in the chair.”

  “Do you want to dance?” he asked me, already starting to get up. I shrugged. “C’mon, let’s dance.”

  On the dance floor, he pulled me close, too close. I stepped away from him, as far as I could against the crowd. I raised my arms and moved my hips, trying to go with the beat. He was staring at me.

  “The dancers are better than the transvestites, too, no?” I yelled over the drums and whistles. I wanted him to look at the dancers, at their hips, not mine. I looked back up at Olivia laughing at whatever Dino was saying. All the people on the dance floor were just letting go. I wanted Gaetano to look anywhere but at me. I would have danced by myself.

  He smiled a little at me. He still wouldn’t look away from me. He wouldn’t even joke with me. It was just the same look. He was pushed toward me. It wasn’t really him, it was the crowd, but he reached out to touch my waist. He grinded against me. I could feel him still staring at me. We could never be true friends. I was naive to think we could.

  I stopped dancing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m tired of dancing. Let’s have a drink.” He was still moving to the music, still looking at me the same way. I again tried to joke with him. “I am getting the shakes.”

  Now he stopped dancing. Bodies around us still moved, jostling against us, swinging, oblivious. He didn’t smile at my joke. Instead, he reached out to me. He grabbed the top of my arm, so I had to look up at him. Then I looked away, beyond his hair. He pulled me closer, put his thumb to my lips and pressed hard.

  “Gaetano,” I said.

  “I just want to look at you like this.” He spoke quietly, but I heard him in spite of the music. There was desperation in his face. I realized I was wrong to even do this, to hang out with him, when I knew how he felt. None of this was fair to him. I liked having him as a friend, having someone to hang out with, but it wasn’t going to work with the way he felt.

  I finally looked back up at him.

  “Gaetano.” I tugged my arm away from him. “I am going back up.”

  I walked away from him on the dance floor, back up the steps to the little tables. Dino and Olivia were talking with their faces close together. I regretted that I may be busting up the vibe between them, but thankfully, Gaetano was right behind me.

  “We can sit here,” he said into my ear. There was a table not too close to Olivia and Dino.

  “Grazie.” I don’t know why I said it. He hated when I thanked him. The waitress came. I ordered more drinks. Still trying to keep things afloat, I smiled over at Olivia to try and change the subject.

  “I think it’s going well with Olivia and Dino.” He nodded. I couldn’t say more than I already had. I knew what it was to want someone and usually not much can dissuade it.

  “I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, linking verbs as I had just been taught to do in class. I was struck by the fact that even my social life was a language lesson. I said it again. “Non voglio farti male.”

  “It is me,” he said. “I have been feeling strange lately. A little down.”

  “Because of me?”

  “Partly because of you. Partly because of me.”

  “I’m sorry for my parts.”

  “I miss the sweetness.”

  “What sweetness?”

  “Sometimes you are a bit cold to me.”

  “I know. It’s true. I don’t want to be. But sometimes I feel that I have to be or you will get the wrong idea.”

  “The idea that you don’t have a boyfriend.” He looked at me hard. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be cruel. Maybe I deserved it for letting him see me with Luigi.

  “Is this about what happened at the Le Colonial? I’m sorry you were upset. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “But you didn’t have a boyfriend then?”

  “No, I wasn’t really thinking about anything then.” I felt all the mixed liquor but still wasn’t sure I wanted to fess up about the imaginary boyfriend. “It’s got nothing to do with my boyfriend, Gaetano. My boyfriend has nothing to do with us. You said you didn’t care that I wanted to be your friend. You said you liked spending time with me.”

  “Would you be upset if I had a girlfriend?”

  “Why do you ask me that? No, I wouldn’t be upset.”

  “Why?” I inhaled before I answered. It was hard to know how to be delicate in Italian, if it was possible to say things better than I was able to say them.

  “Because, Gaetano, I don’t want to be with you.”

  He nodded, swallowing. I reached across the table to touch his hand. He pulled away, almost knocking his glass over, but he steadied it in time with his other hand.

  “I don’t want to be with anyone. Not the boy in Le Colonial. That was just dumb. No one. Not now.” I wished I could make him understand. He didn’t say anything for a long time. He looke
d down to the dance floor, not really seeing it.

  “I must return home for a while. I’ll go south in a couple of weeks.” He nodded to himself. “I’ll feel better. I will feel more up.”

  I sighed. It made me sad to think of him having to go home. I wondered if I would see him again when he returned. I wondered if he had gotten tired of me. I wouldn’t blame him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Then he looked at me and smiled. The smile was startling. Perhaps he was better at changing the subject or mood than I was.

  “You must never say sorry. You must never say thank you and never say sorry. Friends do not do this.” I didn’t detect irony in the word friends, amici, but perhaps in this language, I missed the subtlety.

  “Okay,” I said. I looked over at Olivia. Dino motioned for us to come over to their table.

  Later, we danced again, all four of us. It was different. There were still a lot of people on the dance floor, but we allowed some space between each other somehow. I was expecting Olivia and Dino to be closer than they were.

  “Did we ruin the mood?” I yelled in quick English to Olivia over the music. She shook her head.

  “I’m not sure what he wants. He’s confusing.” She faced away from Dino when she said this. His English wasn’t bad. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  When the club closed, we piled back in the Alfa Romeo. This time Olivia got to sit in the front with Dino. She finally understood the terror that was Dino’s driving. When she turned around to look at me, I warned her about getting whiplash.

  Gaetano said little to me in the backseat. When we dropped Olivia off, he got into the front seat. I closed my eyes and dozed a bit, the jerky zigzags of Dino’s macchina lulled me to sleep.

  “Bella,” I heard Gaetano’s voice from the front seat. He didn’t touch me. “We’re here.”

  They drove me to my door. Late at night, you could do this. You weren’t supposed to drive cars into the streets of Siena past the walls, but you could sometimes. It was frowned upon but done anyway.

  I leaned up in the seat to thank Dino. “Let me know if you want Olivia’s number.”

  “I already have it. Ciao bella.”

  Gaetano got out of the car to let me out of the back. He kept his arms on the door and the roof of the car, so I had to lean in to him to kiss him.

  “So when will you go to the south?”

  “In a few weeks.” The way he said this, quick and dismissive, made me think he wanted me to just go away.

  “Should I call you?”

  “Do what you want, tesoro.” Still his treasure.

  “Then I will call you.”

  “Okay. Ciao bella.”

  “Ciao, ciao, ciao.”

  Back in my room, I felt un po’ giu, a little down, like Gaetano. Maybe I should have cut it off. Maybe I should just give in. He doesn’t know what he would be getting into with me, I thought. He wouldn’t want it. He cared too much. It’s not good to care too much. Shit.

  I remembered how one time back at school when the Stalker girl was waiting down the hall for the boy that was never coming out, Kaitlin shook her head.

  “I know, it’s ridiculous,” I said when we were back in our room. I was, at the time, firmly in control of my emotions and relationships.

  “She reminds me of someone who can’t get out of her own way,” Kaitlin said. I didn’t really understand that expression then, but I got it now and I wished I knew how to say something like it in Italian to explain to Gaetano why I just couldn’t get involved with him. I couldn’t get out of my own way. And I didn’t want to get in his.

  “You aren’t going to be able to just ignore me,” Jonas said. He said this after I stepped through the distance of his dancing circle. It was before either of us understood the strength of my will or how deep my hurt could go. “You can’t do this, not after all this.”

  “But you can go back to her?” I asked, my mouth a thin hard line. “You’ll touch her like you touch me.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Right, you haven’t. So I will. I’ll make it easy.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “No, it isn’t, but I’d like to be spared your little soap opera.” It was hard to be that cold to him. I turned to the window and looked at his face in the glass, looked at him watching me so I wouldn’t have to see what my words had done to his eyes.

  Sometimes we looked at each other’s reflections in windows or mirrors when we were smiling too much. We could never understand how well we got along.

  My memory was not to be trusted. This was another rule I made. I must never trust my memory. It could not have been either as good or as bad as I remembered. It was impossible for me to remember it in pieces. If I could separate out the pieces I would be okay. I could do things to make me okay.

  No, no I would never be okay. Even the pieces hurt.

  I remembered sitting on the bus and making him laugh. I remembered his face exploding with a smile, body convulsing, rolling his head around in happiness. What did I say? Something stupid? Something wonderful? It didn’t matter. I cannot imagine that I had the power to do that to him, to anyone. To have that power over someone else. Surely if I’d had it, we wouldn’t be apart. None of that can be true.

  But if I get his face smiling I have to see everything. I have to have it tinged with hurt. I did some bad things, too. I must not remember those.

  I am not a violent person.

  13.

  Finals week for my first Italian semester came when I would be taking midterms at college in America. Afterward I had a whole week off to go visit Kaitlin in Paris. For the whole week, I studied hard for the final.

  There would be multiple choice and written essay questions. There would the requisite Italian oral examination attended by both Signora Laza and another professor. The oral test would be given to two students at a time.

  Normally, I would ask Gaetano to help me study. I counted on his help, but I called him only once since the night at the club. He made no attempt to see me.

  Instead I spent a couple of afternoons studying with Lucy at her apartment outside the walls. Lucy was a far superior student. She had no fear about the language. She was willing to say things. She let herself make mistakes. She learned more that way.

  At her house, she made us cups of espresso and in return I bought her packs of Dunhill Lights. Lucy was much more sedate than the rest of the girls on the program. She was almost twenty-eight and mature. I was flattered that someone like Lucy enjoyed my company. It was a bit of a privilege that I had another person to help me escape my apartment.

  At Lucy’s house we ate plates of fresh vegetables and the saltless Tuscan bread with tangy cheese made from sheep’s milk. One afternoon Lucy whipped up a crepe. There was always wine. This was the special excess of living in Italy–that there was always wine.

  Lucy hinted about her past wildness, but those days were over she told me. Lucy alluded to all this through a cloud of cigarette smoke, but never gave away too much. All I knew was that this was not her first time in Europe. I liked her mystery and felt flattered that I might be the one to someday figure it out.

  On the Tuesday before the final, Signora Laza came up to me as I was getting ready to go for the pausa. Most of the class was already out the door. As always, I tensed up in her presence. I lived in constant fear that Signora Laza would tell me that I couldn’t speak the language and never would be able to.

  “Have you been studying for the final?”

  “Yes,” I said, hesitantly. I felt my underarms begin to sweat. “A lot.”

  “I suggest you study very hard.”

  “Okay,” I said. My tongue was thick in my mouth.

  “I’m not sure you are going to pass.”

  “Okay.” What was I supposed to say to that? Signora Laza nodded and buttoned up her coat.

  “I’ll see you in the café.”

  “Okay,” I said again. I pretended I still had to collect something before
pausa so I would not have to walk out with Signora Laza and hear more about how I was going to fail the final. I never failed a class in my life. My parents were disappointed when I got a 3.0 in my first semester of college. Now Signora Laza thought I wasn’t going to pass. Way to inspire confidence, Signora Laza.

  Shit.

  That afternoon, I didn’t take a nap. After I made lunch, I began studying furiously. I managed to commandeer the dining room table, so that Lisa had to work around me. She finally gave up and went to sit at the desk in the foyer.

  Michelle and Janine also had finals, but neither one of them were too nervous about it. Michelle was doing surprisingly well, just learning the basics from scratch and from Duccio. It was not in Janine’s nature to care. Lisa, on the other hand, was holding out hope that she would be so fluent during her oral exam that they would automatically skip her a level.

  When Michelle came home, she immediately burst into tears. I got up to meet her at the doorway of the dining room. We hugged.

  “What’s wrong? What happened? Is it Duccio?”

  “No, it’s my grandmother. She’s been sick, you know.” I didn’t.

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  “No, she doesn’t have much time. If I want to see her again, it’s now or never.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said. I squeezed her arm.

  “I’ve been at the office at the università all afternoon trying to book a flight, so I can just go home since we already have a break. I got my professore to give me the exam early and I’ve got to take it tomorrow and then I catch a flight out of Pisa at four. Jesus, this is going to be a hell of a night.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your grandmother. I’m going to be up all night, too, if that’s any consolation. My professoressa told me she doubts I’m going to pass.” After I said it, I wondered if I should have. It wasn’t at all comparable to Michelle’s problem. But Michelle was smiling.