A Semester Abroad (9 page)

I was learning to cook for myself, too. My meals were simple, pasta with fresh vegetables or vegetables on the pizza crust I got at the supermarket. I relied heavily on the delicious Tuscan olive oil. It made everything taste better. I stopped at the COOP supermarket once a week to stock up on basics. Every other day, except Wednesdays when everything was closed in the afternoons, I went to the
forno
for bread or the
frutti vendolo
for vegetables. I tried not to say too much and double-checked in the
dizionario
how to ask for exactly what I wanted.

Sometimes, I felt normal, almost hopeful. But other days, because of the weather and because of the strange looks people gave me when I spoke, I felt like an alien. Sometimes, several people would gather behind a counter and try to guess what I was talking about. Once one of the men at the
frutti vendolo
started speaking to me in German, assuming that was my accent. When I explained that I was
americana
and not
tedesca
, he looked at me like I was just stupid and didn’t even understand my own language. The easiest thing to do on days like that was to hide out in my room, write in my journal and contemplate what I would make to eat the next day and if I would feel better.

But often, I couldn’t take the cold apartment. I felt stifled and so I walked in spite of the weather. My walk was no longer my own. I used to walk with confidence. Jonas said he could see me all the way across the quad. My walk was something he liked about me, and now I didn’t have it anymore.

Instead of swinging my arms, I clasped my hands together. I didn’t trust Crazy not to sneak up next to me and take my hand as she once had. I didn’t trust my actions. I no longer believed I could gauge who people were. My instincts had failed me before.

My roommates and I usually didn’t go to class together. Janine cut class and had a habit of trying to convince everyone else to do the same. Lisa was always early. Michelle ran in the morning to avoid the attention she got from men when she ran in the afternoon, so she was always late.

I felt like my class was pointless, that I was never going to learn the language. The words I heard, the grammar rules were all white noise floating around me. I wondered if babies felt like this when they didn’t know what the adults were saying.

I liked my
professoressa
Signora Laza. She was
sienese sienese
, truly from Siena. Her neighborhood was the
contrada
of
bruco
, the caterpillar. She prided herself, as most Sienese did, on her
contrada
and on the fact that in Siena, the Italian language was truest. While other regions had dialects, the Italian they spoke in Siena was closest to standard Italian.

Signora Laza must have thought I was pretty dumb. I was never a bad student in my language, but in her class I dreaded being called on. When I had to read aloud, it was a disaster. Signora Laza constantly corrected me, looking at me over her glasses. It was humbling to be one of the worst students in her class.

In the language lab, we all wore headphones, listened to lessons, and repeated words into microphones. We sat in our separate cocoon of desks, connected to our weird audio players. It was bizarre and Big Brother-ish. Signora Laza could listen in to whomever she wanted, and her voice often came into my headphones, correcting my pronunciation. I was always on edge and ready. I constantly snuck glances over my partition at the top of Signora Laza’s head, but she was busy bent down, trolling for mistakes. And there was no warning when she would get to me. I was a language experiment gone wrong.

In addition to Lucy, there was another American, Pete, in my class, but he wasn’t from my group. There was a Greek opera singer, a beautiful aging German car saleswoman, a married artsy Japanese couple, three Koreans and two women from Spain. I tried to talk to them all at the obligatory
pausa
where we went to the café for cappuccino. I was constantly amazed that we could communicate in a language that belonged to none of us. Though I wanted to get to know all these new faces, I mostly spent the
pausa
chatting with Lucy and trying to secure from her that I understood what was going on.

After the
pausa
, class went quicker. Sometimes we had a surprise quiz that I suspected gave Signora Laza a thrill. And then class was over by noon and I had the day to myself unless I had my culture class with the group.

The culture class was led by Arturo and was either an hour and a half lesson on Sienese culture and history or a brisk walk to one of the myriad freezing churches to stare at frescoes and Gothic architecture.

Kaitlin would have loved it, she was an Art History major, but to me, it was all dates and names and different meaningless design eras. Sometimes I wanted to block out all the facts that were constantly provided. I would have been just as happy to walk around and look at the churches without knowing anything. I would have liked to stare into the eyes of the various depictions of Mary and Jesus and try to draw my own conclusions.

Slowly but surely, however, almost by osmosis, the names of these artists became ingrained in my head. I could have led a tour around Siena and wowed people with my knowledge. But as far as I knew, no one was coming to visit.

Everything came to a boil one day when I was sitting at the dining room table trying to conjugate verbs into all the nineteen different tenses. My quiet was shattered by the sounds of pots crashing onto the floor. It was Janine, who had discovered Lisa’s dishes in the sink and threw them across the kitchen.

“Lisa, you fucking
porca butana
, can’t you clean up your shit?” I had to give Janine credit, she spoke Italian for shit, but she knew how to curse in a variety of dialects, thanks to the men she fucked. Half the time I had no idea who she was calling what, but she managed a convincing accent.

Lisa ran out of the hall that was her room. She was shaking and on the verge of tears. She was not used to conflict. This kind of venom and volume intimidated me, too. “I was going to clean them.”

“Fucking when?” Janine screamed. “You need fucking twenty pots to make that shitty canned soup you buy, and I can’t even have a plate of pasta.”

“Could you guys lower your voices? I’m trying to study,” I said. Janine barely glanced at me.

“I’m sick and tired of everyone being such a slob around here.”

“I clean my dishes,” I said. This was true most of the time and luckily, had been that night. “And be careful with those pots. I don’t want to have to buy more.”

“I know, I know, you’re on a budget,” Janine said, smirking. I shook my head and turned back to my book, trying to decide if I should just go hide out in my room like Michelle was doing.

We had been letting things go for a while at Via Stalloreggi. Anonymous messages were left around the apartment about the state of cleanliness. Our floor was sticky and dirty. Occasionally, one of us got fed up and bitterly cleaned up for someone else. I knew this row had been coming for a while. I just didn’t want to deal

“Well, you take toilet paper out of our bathroom so you won’t have to buy it,” Lisa said. She sounded like a child tattling to her kindergarten teacher. This comment was directed as much to me as to Janine. I was supposed to rise up and join forces against Janine.

“You are such a cheap ugly bitch, Lisa,” Janine said before I could decide whether or not I was going to join in. Then Janine stomped to her room and slammed the door. Lisa looked at me for a second and then went to the kitchen to clean up all her pots and wonder if what Janine said was true.

After that, we had a tense house meeting to set up a schedule for cleaning and supply buying. We divvied up responsibilities and vowed that everyone would clean their own dishes. We stuck to it for about three days before we all started slipping.

And someone started stealing food. We were all buying our own food. And we all complained of food theft, but someone was lying. It wasn’t me. It could have been Michelle, who was always making excuses not to eat. I doubted that it was Lisa because she had an annoying habit of asking to sample whatever anyone was eating. Whether it was a freshly made meal or a piece of bread that I was certain she knew the taste of, she wanted to try everyone else’s food. Behind her back we called her the “Can I have a bite?” girl.

I started thinking about carrying my food around in my backpack the same way I carried my journal, but it seemed a little extreme.

Every day, I longed for letters from home. Finally, the first group came in a giant batch. I get seven letters at once at the university. They were all sent on different days; two were sent ten days apart. I got news of Kaitlin settling in to Paris and other letters from friends back at college.

From then on, I got mail a lot. Sometimes letters came twice a day and at other times there was nothing for days.
Sciopero,
said the constantly changing person behind the desk when there was a drought. They used the word for strike as if it could explain away anything.

“How can they go on strike so often?” I asked the roommates.

“All of Italy goes on strike all the time; it’s very political here,” Lisa explained pretentiously. She fancied herself in touch with the political climate of Italy. She flaunted that she read
Espresso
, the newsmagazine, while the rest of us—when we had extra money—picked up Italian women’s magazines that gave you freebies like lip gloss. I didn’t believe that anyone in Italy understood the political situation, including the Italians.

My roommates resented all the mail I got. Sometimes, they checked under my name at the
università
and reported I had four letters waiting. I started to enjoy sitting at the table with my letters piled beside me, fingering them as Janine sipped cups of tea, watching me because we had no TV. In a way, I flaunted the letters. It was proof that people back home missed me. It was almost a challenge to the rest of the roommates. A reminder that eventually we would be home and I would be back in the circle of people who loved me. I didn’t like those thoughts I had, but this weird female way was becoming a part of my world. I was turning again into someone I didn’t know.

In the letters I wrote back home, I focused on only the good things. I described how beautiful my apartment was and my classes at the
università
. I told them that people were nice. That really meant nothing, it was so abstract, but I knew this was what my friends wanted to hear. I mentioned that I was constantly at a bar or eating a delicious meal. These little tidbits I would like to get back to Jonas. I want him to hear in passing what a good time I was having, how wonderful it all was.

I wanted to believe that across an ocean, I could still affect him.

One day, Gaetano was waiting for me outside of the
università
on his
vespa
. It was freezing, and I wondered how long he’d been there studying the
studenti
, looking for me. His leather jacket couldn’t possibly keep him that warm.

“
Ciao
.” I said.

“You didn’t call.” He revved the bike.

“I know. It was Olivia that had your number. Remember? Because I don’t have a phone.” I offered him excuses in my muddled, confused Italian.

“
Quanto sei forba
,” he said and I didn’t understand. “Let’s get
panini
.”

“I have to some stuff to do,” I said, trying the Italian. “Plus, I need to do my homework.”

“Dinner, then. I can help you with your homework,” he said slowly so I would understand. “I will pick you up at your apartment at eight.”

Before I could think of a reason not to go, Lisa was beside us, speaking to both of us in Italian. She was managing to work the
passato remoto
that she learned in class into the conversation, even though it didn’t seem appropriate. When I looked at Gaetano, he rolled his eyes, which made me laugh.

“
Devo andare via, ragazze
,” he said to us, making an excuse to leave. He looked at me. “
Ci vediamo stasera
.”

“Okay, see you tonight,” I agreed. Lisa reminded me of all the reasons I didn’t want to be home. “I’ll bring my homework.”

He came early and laughed at my bare feet when I opened the door. Michelle and Lisa had just gotten into a fight about Lisa making a mess of the stove. A large part of the fight consisted of slamming pots and sighing. I couldn’t wait to get out the apartment.

“I’ll just get my shoes,” I said, leaving him in the dining room to be interrogated by Lisa, who perked up at the prospect of showing off more Italian. He looked me up and down, approvingly when I came back to the kitchen, but I ignored it.

He took me to a brick-oven pizzeria on Viale Cortatone, near the Upim department store. We ordered a pizza with a fried egg on top, and he got a bottle of wine. He stared at me the whole time, even when he was eating, but he spoke to me in a way that I could understand. He spoke slowly, pausing to see if I followed, attempting to find the English word when I didn’t. He used his hands a lot.

He described his medical studies. It seemed kind of easy compared to what I thought American universities were like. He didn’t have class all the time. And it was hard to believe that someone who chain-smoked the way he did could ever be a doctor.

He told me about his town in the south of Italy. It was at the arch of the foot, he said (well, showed me, tracing the boot that is Italy on the white tablecloth with his fingers). In his town, life was simpler he said, people were kind and more open than people up north. There were never any plans made; you just saw people walking in passing,
in giro
, and you were happy about it.