ALBERTINI! FAI FINTA! Guarda, non e successo niente… Dai, dai, ah… Molto migliore, Albertini, molto migliore, si si si, eccola, bello, bravo, anima mia, ah, ottimo, eccola adesso… nella porta, nella porta, nell-VAFFANCULO!!!!!!!
Which I can attempt to translate as:
Come on, come on, come on, Albertini, come on… OK, OK, my boy, perfect, brilliant, brilliant… Come on! Come on! Go! Go! In the goal! There it is, there it is, there it is, my brilliant boy, my dear, there it is, there it is, there-AHHHH! GO FUCK YOURSELF! YOU SON OF A BITCH! SHITHEAD! ASSHOLE! TRAITOR!… Mother of God… Oh my God, why, why, why, this is stupid, this is shameful, the shame of it… What a mess… [Author's note: Unfortunately there's no good way to translate into English the fabulous Italian expressions che casino and che bordello, which literally mean 'what a casino,' and 'what a whorehouse,' but essentially mean 'what a friggin' mess.']… YOU DON'T HAVE A HEART, ALBERTINI!!!! YOU'RE A FAKER! Look, nothing happened… Come on, come on, hey, yes… Much better, Albertini, much better, yes yes yes, there it is, beautiful, brilliant, oh, excellent, there it is now… in the goal, in the goal, in the-FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU!!!
Oh, it was such an exquisite and lucky moment in my life to be sitting right in front of this man. I loved every word out of his mouth. I wanted to lean my head back into his old lap and let him pour his eloquent curses into my ears forever. And it wasn't just him! The whole stadium was full of such soliloquies. At such high fervor! Whenever there was some grave miscarriage of justice on the field, the entire stadium would rise to its feet, every man waving his arms in outrage and cursing, as if all 20,000 of them had just been in a traffic altercation. The Lazio players were no less dramatic than their fans, rolling on the ground in pain like death scenes from Julius Caesar, totally playing to the back row, then jumping up on their feet two seconds later to lead another attack on the goal.
Lazio lost, though.
Needing to be cheered up after the game, Luca Spaghetti asked his friends, 'Should we go out?'
I assumed this meant, 'Should we go out to a bar?' That's what sports fans in America would do if their team had just lost. They'd go to a bar and get good and drunk. And not just Americans would do this-so would the English, the Australians, the Germans… everyone, right? But Luca and his friends didn't go out to a bar to cheer themselves up. They went to a bakery. A small, innocuous bakery hidden in a basement in a nondescript district in Rome. The place was crowded that Sunday night. But it always is crowded after the games. The Lazio fans always stop here on their way home from the stadium to stand in the street for hours, leaning up against their motorcycles, talking about the game, looking macho as anything, and eating cream puffs.
I love Italy.
24
I am learning about twenty new Italian words a day. I'm always studying, flipping through my index cards while I walk around the city, dodging local pedestrians. Where am I getting the brain space to store these words? I'm hoping that maybe my mind has decided to clear out some old negative thoughts and sad memories and replace them with these shiny new words.
I work hard at Italian, but I keep hoping it will one day just be revealed to me, whole, perfect. One day I will open my mouth and be magically fluent. Then I will be a real Italian girl, instead of a total American who still can't hear someone call across the street to his friend Marco without wanting instinctively to yell back 'Polo!' I wish that Italian would simply take up residence within me, but there are so many glitches in this language. Like, why are the Italian words for 'tree' and 'hotel' (albero vs. albergo) so very similar? This causes me to keep accidentally telling people that I grew up on 'a Christmas hotel farm' instead of the more accurate and slightly less surreal description: 'Christmas tree farm.' And then there are words with double or even triple meanings. For instance: tasso. Which can mean either interest rate, badger, or yew tree. Depending on the context, I suppose. Most upsetting to me is when I stumble on Italian words that are actually-I hate to say it-ugly. I take this as almost a personal affront. I'm sorry, but I didn't come all the way to Italy to learn how to say a word like schermo (screen).
Still, overall it's so worthwhile. It's mostly a pure pleasure. Giovanni and I have such a good time teaching each other idioms in English and Italian. We were talking the other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say, 'I've been there.' This was unclear to him at first-I've been where? But I explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
'So sadness is a place?' Giovanni asked.
'Sometimes people live there for years,' I said.
In return, Giovanni told me that empathizing Italians say L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means 'I have experienced that on my own skin.' Meaning, I have also been burned or scarred in this way, and I know exactly what you're going through.
So far, though, my favorite thing to say in all of Italian is a simple, common word:
Attraversiamo.
It means, 'Let's cross over.' Friends say it to each other constantly when they're walking down the sidewalk and have decided it's time to switch to the other side of the street. Which is to say, this is literally a pedestrian word. Nothing special about it. Still, for some reason, it goes right through me. The first time Giovanni said it to me, we were walking near the Colosseum. I suddenly heard him speak that beautiful word, and I stopped dead, demanding, 'What does that mean? What did you just say?'
'Attraversiamo.'
He couldn't understand why I liked it so much. Let's cross the street? But to my ear, it's the perfect combination of Italian sounds. The wistful ah of introduction, the rolling trill, the soothing s, that lingering 'ee-ah- moh' combo at the end. I love this word. I say it all the time now. I invent any excuse to say it. It's making Sofie nuts. Let's cross over! Let's cross over! I'm constantly dragging her back and forth across the crazy traffic of Rome. I'm going to get us both killed with this word.
Giovanni's favorite word in English is half-assed.
Luca Spaghetti's is surrender.
25
There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great twenty-first-century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed, exuding an air like: Hey-do whatever you want, but I'm still Rome. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this town, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing that she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.
I take myself on a six-hour walk through town today. This is easy to do, especially if you stop frequently to fuel
