A Semester Abroad

by Papa, Ariella

  I added olive oil to the skillet and scrambled the eggs right in the pan. I dried the halves of the bread and drizzled them with more olive oil. I found a clove of garlic and ran it along the open tops of rolls. I put the bread down on the skillet around the eggs. It was starting to smell good. I added some pepper and some pepperoncino for color and heat. What I really needed was prezzemolo. I cut a bunch, and as I finished cutting the parsley, my eggs were done.

  I considered eating it right there by the stove, but this simple meal deserved a little more. So did I. I put everything on a plate and added a few more splashes of olive oil, the rest of the parsley and a pinch more of the red pepper. I poured myself some almost flat acqua con gas that also belonged to someone else.

  I ate that meal, looking out the window at the countryside. I was okay being alone. Being alone didn’t mean I had to let my mind go anywhere I didn’t want it to go. When I was finished, I smiled at the meal I made for myself, enjoying the feeling of perfect satiation in my body. I decided to give the whole kitchen a thorough cleaning. I paused before I brought my plate to the sink, still smiling.

  “Biglietto,” I said quietly to no one, to myself.

  “Biglietto,” I said again louder, listening, understanding how subtle and important that g was to the word. How the two t’s created a different sound from just one. They all worked together. Without each letter making each sound, you might have a different word in a different language. Without them, maybe you wouldn’t deserve a ticket to go anywhere.

  “Biglietto,” I said again, now shouting out over those red-tiled roofs beyond my window.

  There was no one around to hear me. But I heard. And I knew that my accent was perfect.

  MAGGIO

  20.

  One Friday when Signora Filmona released us early Gaetano was there. I hadn’t seen him too much in the past two weeks because he had to study for exams. He gave me the thumbs-up sign so I knew that he passed all his tests. He held up a plastic bag. Inside it was bread and cheese and pesto.

  “I thought we could have a picnic and I could help you with your speech,” he said. “Now that I passed my exams, you need to pass yours.”

  I planned on going to the film class. I had only been to the class twice. Part of my grade would be based on a paper I wrote about Italian film. I couldn’t understand the teacher, who spoke fast despite the class being made up entirely of stranieri. Really, it was pointless. Arturo was going to grade my paper, anyway. The università was only responsible for our language grades.

  I didn’t know how to say, “Don’t twist my arm” in Italian so I got behind him on the bike.

  We went to the grounds of the monastery. It was nice there, with a lush green square next to the old stone church. We sat on the hill that led down to the field and ate our fine feast. We talked about my travel plans. In four weeks, I would leave.

  I told Gaetano about all the cities we might go to. Lately, every time I saw Olivia, she had a new plan for us to attack the entire continent of Europe and perhaps a little of North Africa. I was budgeting only a month of travel and coming back to Siena for the July Palio, which was the horse race that took place in the Piazza del Campo. This was when most tourists came to Siena. It was supposed to be amazing, with all the neighborhoods, dressing up in medieval garb, partying and scheming to beat each other. It was the big showdown. I wasn’t sure where we were going to stay. Hotels were supposed to be so expensive, but there was no way I was going to miss it.

  Lately, I had been toying with the idea of traveling more after the July Palio and then coming back again for the August Palio. I had no idea how I was going to afford that or what I was going to say to my parents to make them agree.

  “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’ve been here for four months already,” I said to Gaetano as he handed me a plastic cup of cheap red wine.

  “You have learned a lot. You have had a good professor,” he said, laughing. He considered himself my best teacher. “You are lucky, you Americans. You get to see so much.”

  “Yeah, but it isn’t enough. There’s so much more I still want to do.”

  “You can. You aren’t leaving tomorrow.”

  “I know,” I said. “The weather is just starting to get nice. It’s so strange how people are already starting to get their tickets to go back home. I feel like it’s ending. If I left when some people are leaving, I would have been here for only five months.” I stopped and smiled at him. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘I would have been here.’ Future perfect, right? Can you believe it?”

  He laughed. “Gabi, I’ve long since stopped being surprised by how well you speak Italian.”

  “Well, I’m surprised.”

  “I can see that,” he said

  “You know I only talk this well with you.”

  “I don’t think that’s true anymore. At first you were most confident with me, but I have heard you speak many times. You speak well.”

  “And now I’m going to lose it all.” He sucked his teeth and shook his head. His hands reached out to pinch a little of my cheek. Then he kissed his hand. It was all southern Italian mumbo jumbo that I had come to slightly understand like the future perfect.

  “Don’t worry so much. Worry about me for when you are gone.” I pouted at him. He swatted at me and then grabbed my notebook with the speech. He handed it to me. “Allora.”

  The speech was mostly written. I read it to him, and he occasionally corrected my pronunciation or told me how to rephrase something so it flowed better. When I was done, we smoked a couple of cigarettes and finished up the wine.

  Some of his fellow dormers called him from the field below. They were kicking around a soccer ball. He shook his head and shouted to them in dialect.

  “Why not play?” I asked. “You should go. I’ll work on my speech more. Go ahead. I never see you play.”

  “Okay,” he said. He stood up, dusted off his pants and cursed over an imperceptible stain. Italians were vain about their clothes. I threw on anything, but they wouldn’t dream of wearing something that was stained or ripped.

  I watched them play for a while. Gaetano knew how to play the game he called calcio. I clapped when he did this funny dribble with his legs. He moved the ball with both legs, almost like an airborne Road Runner. I laughed. I didn’t know anything about soccer, but this game meant so much to him. He spent so much time doing it, and I’d never seen it before. It was a change to be watching him without having him look at me.

  Then instead of working on my speech, I wrote in my journal. For the first time ever, I wrote the whole entry in Italian. Finally, I felt I could express myself better in that language.

  Gaetano came back up the hill, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. He shook his finger at me. “I thought you were going to watch me.”

  “I was watching you. I saw what you did.” I moved my hands up and down fast in front of me like he had done with his legs. Once again, I didn’t know the words.

  “You saw that,” he asked, pleased.

  “Yes, Renaldo, I did.” Renaldo was his favorite Italian soccer player. I knew nothing about this guy, but Gaetano’s eyes got a faraway look whenever he talked about Renaldo. I had no idea what the player even looked like, but it didn’t matter to Gaetano. He smiled at me for invoking the sacred name.

  Gaetano took me back to my apartment. He was meeting some of his classmates for dinner to celebrate the end of their exams. He said that he probably wasn’t going to be able to make the party that Janine decided to have, but he would try to come later.

  “Don’t get as drunk as you were last time if you plan to ride this vespa.”

  “Yes, Gabi,” he said and saluted.

  As we were standing at the door, Michelle came out.

  “Where you going?” I asked.

  “Duccio’s parents are going to visit his aunt. I’m going over there.”

  “You’re not going to Janine’s fe
sta?”

  “Mi piace sexa piu di festa,” Michelle said murdering the language for the humor and the rhyme.

  “Shit,” I said.

  Gaetano repeated, laughing, “Shit.”

  “What? I thought Olivia was coming,” Michelle said.

  “No, Olivia’s semester is done for the most part, but she has to finish a paper by Monday. I think Suzie’s coming, but I wish you were going to be there. I hate those guys Andrea hangs out with. They’re so arrogant.” I was speaking fast, so Gaetano wouldn’t understand. I didn’t like the way they looked at the American girls, but I didn’t want Gaetano to know that.

  “Yeah, well, Duccio’s no fan either. That’s why we aren’t going. It’ll be fine though. Listen, do you guys want to come to the stable with us on Sunday? Duccio’s friend has horses.”

  “I will, but Gaetano has calcio.”

  “Right,” Michelle said. “Senti, I’m sorry you are stuck here tonight. Just drink wine.”

  I nodded. “Of course, isn’t that the Italian solution?”

  “Ciao, guys,” Michelle said waving goodbye to us.

  “Please try to come tonight,” I said to Gaetano.

  “Okay, Gabi, I’ll try, but we may go to Arezzo.” He squinted at me and pinched my arm. “Tesoro, I’ll try.”

  I took a nap before the party, sleepy from the wine and the sun, and when I woke up, it had already started. There were girls from the group and wine bottles everywhere. It was going to be a night of “American drinking.” I wanted to bail on the whole thing and see if Lucy was around, but I had already, stupidly, invited Suzie so I had to stay. I prepared for a long night.

  When Suzie arrived, Janine looked her up and down. Then Janine shot me a look for inviting a girl who might have been competition for her. Suzie seemed less of herself, edgy and on the verge of tears. Somehow, it made her even more attractive and even more of a rival for Janine.

  Suzie dressed for the night, dressed for eyes of Italian men. Her arrival meant that I was going to have to be at the party and not retreat to my room. She was smoking like a fiend, which she never used to do. She brought two bottles of wine, and she opened one for us, offering it to the girls. Janine took a glass and continued to size her up but smiled the whole time.

  Then Andrea arrived with his friends. In their black leather jackets and hemmed jeans, they took over the apartment. Suzie and I polished off one of her bottles of wine then another. If I have wine in my mouth, maybe I won’t have to talk to any of these guys, I thought.

  I yearned for Olivia, Gaetano, Michelle or even Duccio. Someone who was real to me. No one in the apartment was saying or doing anything they really felt. Everyone must have had a script they were going by, but no one had given me my lines. I was sure they were acting, certain that every single person in the room was a fake. And to what end? I wasn’t sure.

  I hoped Gaetano was on his way. Alone. I worried about how he would get along with the men here. They were all local, Sienese, northerners. Duccio and Dino never made any regional distinctions that I could perceive. For them the issues of north and south were always made into a joke.

  These boys were different. They were passionate about their city like all Italians, but they were the bad eggs. They were the ones who started fights outside Il Barone Rosso. Southerners, stranieri, even the rest of Tuscany, they felt were beneath them. They managed to put their feelings of superiority aside for the soul purpose of fucking American girls and the American girls at the party didn’t mind.

  I wasn’t sure I could deal with it. I tried to remember the me of that afternoon. Now everything around me was false; Janine’s laughter, Pam’s intentional American accent, and the shadow on Suzie’s eyes. It was so wrong to me. This was not the Italy I wanted to see. This was created by us, by American women who thought it was what we wanted, thought we could control it. But it was empty and I was being filled up with emptiness.

  I thought about Jonas. If he were here, there would not be a script. We might sit in a corner with one of the bottles of wine and talk and laugh and not give a shit what anyone was saying. But he wasn’t here and I wasn’t sure I could do it alone anymore. Any of it.

  Then Lorenzo, urged on by the girls, took out his guitar. He toyed with them for a while, strumming bits of Nirvana and the Beatles. He laughed, showing white perfect northern teeth. Finally, he settled on a song. He started to play “Wish You Were Here.” The opening chords pulled me back to my dorm room.

  “How does it sound?” Jonas asked so long ago, when it was just us, before she got well and came back.

  “It’s good.”

  “You like it?”

  “Of course.” He put the guitar on the floor by my small bed. He was smiling. I crossed the room and sat on the bed. We kissed long into the night. He touched me. I held him and looked at him. I believed that he was mine. Never took it for granted, not ever. But believed.

  But what happened next? Did we go to the greenhouse the next day or was that the day we spread a blanket out on the hill? Which was it? Yesterday I remembered it too clearly as if it was happening at that moment, but now…

  The girls were singing the words they weren’t sure of, the Italians sang hesitantly, not wanting to look foolish in front of their future conquests. They didn’t understand what a sure thing it would be. I closed my eyes. This was wrong. I was not where I should be. Where was he? Where was my American boy right now? Was he thinking of me? He must be. Wasn’t he tired of this, too? Hadn’t he had his fill yet of being away from me?

  Why can’t I go home?

  I decided to call him. I could say his name to him and he would hear it and it wouldn’t be like whispering into the darkness anymore. I remembered that I had two 5,000 lire phone cards. That was enough to call the U.S. I could figure out what else to say on the way. No, I wouldn’t think. Just speak what came to my head.

  I went to my room, searched through my clothes, looking in pockets of pants and jeans. Where were the damned cards? Cazzo. I hadn’t used them up. Where were they? I emptied out my school backpack; I looked in the big travel backpack. They would not be in there, but I looked anyway. I looked in all my pockets again. Frantic. I looked everywhere.

  I couldn’t find the cards, but I had to call him. I was back at the party. Lorenzo was playing another song. I asked each of the American girls for a card. No one had one. None of them cared about me or what I needed. Only Suzie asked me if I was okay. What could I say to Suzie?

  I asked the Italians. They made a joke out of my request. They offered me coins, spiccioli. Lorenzo got upset about the commotion.

  “Che cazzo voui?” he asked, stopping his song to everyone’s dismay. What the hell did I want? None of this mattered to me. My purpose was clear. I put on a sweater and ran out of the building onto the dark street.

  The bits and pieces of my plan came quickly to me. The store across the street was closed. I could go down to the game alcove, but there was no way to get a phone card from there. All of the stores were closed. I crossed the piazza and went over to area just before one of the doors to the city where there was a piazza filled with phones. Maybe I could find a phone card there. I was desperate. I had two calling cards. How could I lose those cards? I bought them to call Kaitlin in Paris. I used a little bit of one to call Gaetano a few times, so I bought the other. They would have been enough to call the U.S. How could I lose them?

  I would find something. I had to reach him. I had gotten too far away from him, from his memory. I thought of what I would say when I heard his voice.

  I’m coming home. If you will have me, I will leave when my semester is done. I will forget about traveling. It will be done soon. I will come back. I miss you. I believe you miss me, too. I am starting to lose sight of you. All the wrongs we can right. We can be together for as long as we want. We can exhaust ourselves on each other. We can stay together till we don’t want each other anymore. You can decide. You can do anything. I’m tired of fighting this. I want to come back.<
br />
  There was a man by the phones. He finished his call. Perhaps he could help me. I was desperate but polite.

  “Scusa. Ho perso la mia carta. Per cortesia, lei ha una carta. Posso pagare,” I begged in the formal Italian.

  The man smiled at me. He wanted to show off his English. “I no ’ave dis, but you very beautiful. Why no we go dance?”

  Madonna! I didn’t want to be stopped. I shouldn’t have asked him. “No, grazie.”

  I walked away. I could try to find a Tabac. But I knew that none were open. It was late. It was too late for me. I had the cards. I lost them. I had lost everything. Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps he was not alone. Perhaps he was with his Mono Girl, touching her body, touching her hair making her believe him, without saying a word of truth.

  Doubt crept carefully into my mind. I could not say the things I thought I could. The card had been lost for a reason. I didn’t want to go home to Via Stalloreggi or to the states. I could not go to him. Never again.

  There was no place for me. There was not an us. I couldn’t go any further. That was the truth. I longed for Crazy. All the time I fought her, she was just trying to make everything okay for me. She was a friend who would protect me from the blackness I felt now. Crazy was my crutch. Anything was better than this, the truth was so painful and far from what I wanted. The truth I had to accept. It hurt my heart. Crazy would have taken that away, but for once she was nowhere to be found. I was on my own with this. At last feeling it all.

  I thought of going to the Piazza Tolomei to see the statue of the wolf, la lupa. What I wouldn’t give to switch places with that wolf. I could howl for her if she would turn me to stone.