Walking in Italy Read online

  Just as it happened in the Cafe, now the cute American girls went to the bathroom together, and I believed this time they had the same talk on what Emiliano suspected an hour before as soon as they got out they had a completely different expression.

  I was sitting on a stool found somewhere, while my friend was looking out of the window enjoying the view.

  Corinna got near him while Gail stayed on a side, she moved from the bed taking a cigarette on the table drinking some water directly from the sink next to her. I didn’t have the slightest idea on how to behave in that situation, already been defined, in which there’s nothing more to uncover.

  I told her that it was probably the case of leaving our friends sometime alone , having seen the growing feeling rise between them , so we decided to move on the landing, she smiled and agreed.

  While we were talking away, slowly, I found myself ever more surprised by Gail , by what she was saying and how she was saying it , maybe for the reason I didn’t have to be the simultaneous translator I had the chance of looking more deeply and with more care; gosh she was damn beautiful , with her blonde hair flowing down long to her back and her clear blue eyes.

  She was wearing a simple dress knee long , very light, like those past times ones that my gran wore; she was simple , little shape and loads of substance; the well-known equation that has always made me crazy in everything in life I ever ventured.

  Suddenly she looked so attractive , while she was touching her hair with her lock falling always on her forehead, and shy, I slowly got near her lips.

  Hesitating for a moment, she was holding back a smile.

  The wavy moves of our tongues crossing continuously started a wellbeing feeling running in our bodies, our hands seeking the touch, then moving away and still back again , with more confidence, the one you have when you’ve known someone for quite a while, not only two hours, for sure.

  When, after a while they stopped seeking each other's touch, my hand disappeared under the light see-through skirt, leaving her athlete legs appear, completely shaved and with that pure color as they could have come out of a milk bath.

  Her skin’s scent was so particular, you could have been surrounded every time you kissed her on her neck, just beside the ear; and so we spent the following hours, right then we could have been nowhere, forgot our friends and lost track of time.

  Midnight was gone just a few minutes past, when Corinna and Emiliano’s loud laughs coming from the room made us smile, and we decided to show up, knocking politely we all got together back again inside the room.

  What a weird feeling, we were all avoiding each other's gazes, the situation we found ourselves in was so funny; we go out for a beer and then instead...

  We drank another shot and exchanged telephone numbers, in 1992 mobiles were not so common so I gave my home number and they gave us the Cafe’s number below where we could have called up if we wanted.

  We left on that evening with a date for the next day, I was on vacation so I could have gone to Venezia Square around 4pm, while Emiliano, who had his Cafe to run, could have reached us for dinner.

  To be honest I didn’t believe to find them again in the place we agreed to meet, but I went anyway.

  The return journey was like undergone by whom victoriously returned after having been drowned by the city lights and it’s many dangers, from which they drew something good also for themselves.

  ‘Tomorrow it’ll be the hit Massi...’ Emiliano loudly declared when he left me at home.

  ‘For me...’ I said ‘the incredible has already happened...

  With a smile we parted to meet again at 9pm the following day at Trevi Fountain, taking care to say that if we didn’t find them at the afternoon appointment I had to call him straight away to cancel everything.

  Monday 17th of August

  I will not tell you in what way I woke up that morning, the wait for what could have happened that afternoon scattered drops of happiness all around me

  Though there was a problem, Emilano couldn’t come with me as Emiliano didn’t have a mean to reach me to the center of Rome, I asked my grandfather to lend me one, as it often happened , but that afternoon he needed the car and as he was a countryman he had to reach our field we had in the Frascati area.

  My father worked all day and so my uncle was the last chance for me.

  I knew in that time he was on vacation so ... I asked myself let’s give it a go.

  I really wasn’t that optimist about it all but the car was brand new, and it had costed a fortune, it was a Lancia Thema Turbo black, beautiful.

  I sorted out the car problem in only half an hour , my uncle was strangely comfortable with that my request, and so I went back to my grandfather so ask me to lend me fifty thousand lira for the fuel to pay, my share of dinner.

  Around three o clock in the afternoon I started shy to get near that Lancia, it was enormous, you couldn’t see the end from the rearviewmirrors, I needed only to smash the car so I would have ended up in the public square, with a punishment in pillory.

  I pushed off those thoughts, I fired up the engine and went off.

  The journey turned out to be more easy than we had thought. By that time of year Rome’s streets were more or less deserted, I was strangely serene and relaxed, so I had the time to play around a while with the air conditioning.

  The girls were twenty minutes late, a lapse of time which made me wander to fetch the car and go back to them , after all what would you expect by two girls met the night before by chance?

  Gail got near me suddenly and she shook my hand , she greeted me trying to say my name but with such bad outcome in return I tried to make her feel more at ease.

  ‘You can call me Marcello, if it’s easier...’, I said so, as Marcello Mastroianni already was in my body! In his role I was the night before, what problem could it be if I played his part with great pleasure for the American girls for there was an easy spelling name?

  The simple way of Gail struck me deeply , she was behaving in my respect just like she had known me for ages, she trusted me and finally I felt free to be who I really was, to do everything more naturally without that commitment in always having to show and demonstrate something, without mind games.

  I was a tourist guide on that afternoon, from the Coliseum to the Pantheon ending up in Navona Square, under a beating Sun, and always at 35°also in the shade, after two hours I was worn out but yes, very happy.

  That situation gave me the feeling to be a leader for them , to be useful to someone, even if it was a simple matter just as showing some marvels of the eternal City like Rome to two tourists.

  Returning in their room after the night just gone by, I found that lovely scent of fresh washing and some other alluring perfumes that I couldn’t single out, very particular.

  While Gail was having a shower, Corinna was telling me she was going to get down to the shops to get some food, the typical things a tourist needs, soaps, shampoo, water etc...

  So I stayed in, lying in bed waiting for Gail to come out of the shower, I was still staring at the ceiling with my clothes on , that day I wore a black polo shirt and a pair of white linen trousers, I seemed to look like Gheddafi, or at least this was the impression passed on to the friends at the Cafe!

  She came out of the shower coming out with a towel wrapped around and a shiny smile, not one of those full of malice and charm but, instead, it made her look a bit vulnerable, something far from the truth.

  She got near me and laid next to me and when gazing at each other we started laughing as I noticed that the towel was loosening up a little leaving me to see through her breasts.

  We started to have a chat staring at the ceiling , just like two old mates, then she came close kissing my lips and reach out for a cigarette.

  She asked me if I wanted one, instinctively I accepted, those there were those famous white fags usually seen in American movies; so I lit it up, and while breathing in I felt kind of a James Dean or Don Johnson, and, beli
eve me, it was truly like a movie, only subtitles were missing.

  Kisses then sparkled round our lips, we were trying to return to what was interrupted the night before; you always start in a shy way to feel just how passion and breathing mount, then you start tasting each and every kiss, you feel the skin’s perfumes more clearly, you let go. We made love, in indefinite time, and soon Corinna was surely to be back.

  What a strange feeling my body sensed, I didn’t seem at all to behave in a way you could feel after some fun moments with a girl, It reminded me instead the sensation I felt only once before this night, when I was making love with a girl almost every night a couple of years before, a girl I was in love though.

  The door opening up and Corinna coming in cast away those thoughts and we spent an hour talking all of us three together before deciding to go out. It was nearly time to meet Emiliano at Trevi Fountain.

  I found him there, in the same place where we stopped the night before shooting pictures, he was looking at me, smiling.

  ‘All fine mate...’ guessing what had happened just before.

  ‘Yes, sure boss...’ I answered back smiling calling him “boss” as I often did as he was the oldest among us, 34.

  I tried not to make him guess that a strange feeling was pervading me, I tried to hide it to myself also to be honest, talking to myself trying to justify that it was all fine and there was nothing other than normal.

  We found a little restaurant behind the Fountain , the fact it was cheap was the main thing but especially here we had the intuition the food was also very good.

  Midnight come forth and we didn’t realize, strange, we were all together laughing , eating, with the usual me trying to play the simultaneous translator but I was out of my head since.

  We made up weird translations to explain Italian dishes, for instance pumpkin blossoms became "zucchini flowers" and the olives meatballs became "Ascoli's olive".

  We were kissing all along, me and Gail, we couldn’t stay away from each other not for a second, and we didn’t care about others watching, this fact was adding color to our affair.

  So it went, kissing along we arrived to the building’s landing, Emiliano and Corinna went in, we strolled along for a walk surrounded by a silent Rome, gently swept by a fresh wind, deserted.

  He talked about his dreams, at thirty three you still have a lot to go, he would have enrolled in an academic course when she got back in the States so to become a good elementary teacher.

  I talked about my life, on how life now was a bit harder for me, on how I found hard to follow my dreams, I confessed none was left in me.

  I liked talking to her, Gail knew how to listen and she never talked over you while talking, not even if you were silent some time to think of the right word or more simply you had to find the right word and couldn’t figure it out not even in Italian.

  I found how Gail was so different from the girls I knew and went out before nearly in the same places and walked on the same streets where in those two days I showed Rome to this really nice blonde girl coming from the States.

  Only that with Marianna, the other girl I couldn’t feel at all just the same way so we got back nearly right away, and in the evening when I found myself alone , at home, I thought that maybe I was the wrong one not to be able to feel some emotions.

  You know, those events look like the sound of a symphony, there are various ones of which most not worth a penny. But... sometimes almost by chance a certain orchestra starts again to play and what stems from it is something extraordinary.

  Being part of it makes you proud, makes you feel alive, you realize that you are the director of that harmonizing sound and it’s truly one of those exceptional satisfactions being part of this makes you deeply proud, alive, knowing you conduct that orchestra is one of the most fulfilling experiences you live in life; as I heard some time ago, the director is the one who has music in his mind, not the stick in his hand.

  In all this emotional turmoil, I tried not to remember that the following day they will be leaving again from Rome to proceed in their Italian tour and probably that was our last night together, but anyone else seemed to notice.

  When we got back in the room we found Emiliano and Corinna waiting for us, welcoming us smiling and by a merry contagious feeling among us even if we were about to part.

  ‘Ehi bud...’ Emiliano trying to catch my attention

  ‘Here I am...’

  ‘Maybe it’s time we should go...I’m busy after...’

  ‘What the hell you’ve got to do at 5 in the morning?’

  ‘I should open the bar...’

  Damn he was right, I was on vacation but not him and he had a bar to run; when we told our American friends they couldn’t hold in mad laughs.

  For an American , on average dedicated to his job, it’s something unthinkable hanging round till 5 in the morning revelry and then soon remember the time was ticking to start work.

  When the situation reprises It had a normal outlook, Corinna asked me some information regarding train stations and so on, regarding some train they had to catch the following day to head for Salerno.

  ‘Sorry but where about are you heading for?’ I asked with subtle curiosity.

  ‘Praiano, the Amalfi coast’ Gail answered after having gone through her notes to make sure to spell the name correctly.

  The Amalfi Coast, a place I had considered the most beautiful and fascinating in the World, I remember having gone by one time by chance and soon got back to stay a whole month. Since then I kept going back there. The last time was exactly a month before going to pay a visit to an old friend, Patrizia, I met her during that vacation than we started to see each other more or less regularly, she was married with two children, so weirdly she was kind of always ‘available’ for an afternoon casual affair with me once in a while.

  With this type of women there’s no misunderstanding, as classic problems are a long gone memory, I was surprised she sustained me when I was out of work. Usually postal orders arrived home sometimes, till my mother noticed and started menacing to kick me out if my ‘bitches’ as she called them kept sustaining me.

  ‘I would have loved if you came with us..’ who knows why Gail kept talking in past tense when she spoke.

  ‘Well, I can try...’I replied confused, I was captured by the Coast’s allure, It just wasn’t a place like any other.

  ‘If you’re coming along we can meet tomorrow afternoon and then leave...’

  ‘We should get some information if there’s a room available in your hotel...and if the boss allows me another day in this vacation, I could stay till Thursday’.

  If the boss accepted I had no doubt, the matter now was providing lodging and obviously try and get a hundred thousand liras to arrange everything. I could try to ask my grandpa; yes, It could be done I thought.

  We parted around five in the morning, agreeing to meet by phone around eleven to make a point.

  Emiliano though couldn’t, there was always the well- known bar to run...For Corinna and himself that would have been the last dawn together.

  Tuesday 18th August

  Telling on that morning I woke up early would have been an euphemism, I opened my eyes at ten but it was still too early having acknowledged the hour we got back.

  I called Praiano hotel where the girls would have stayed, to know if there was room and how much would have costed, to ask my grandfather to lend me some money; they were full just as like the other hotels nearby till the end of the month.

  Striking eleven I called the Cafe below and the Campo de Fiori building as I had to tell our friends there was no way for me to leave. I thought it would have been a less nostalgic goodbye, after we were together the night before, thinking it was the last time. But I was ready to go anyway.

  Corinna suggested to ask to add another bed in the room, so I called up the hotel once more.

  ‘Good morning...I’ve called a while before, I’d like to know if it’s possible to add another bed
in Mrs Williams’ room...’

  ‘Sure....’ a voice in a marked Neapolitan accent replied.

  ‘Come anyway, we’ll arrange a solution...’

  ‘Ah fine...but for ...It’s going to be a four hour drive...I don’t want to sleep in the car...ok?’

  The man on the phone seemed to be offended and kind of jacked off when he answered.

  ‘But listen, if I told you we can arrange the room for you...you come down here’.

  ‘Ok, ok, but how much would it be this bed cost...’

  ‘Nothing more than cheap...thirty or forty thousand liras a day’,

  ‘Well, so start preparing it...’

  Now one more thing, call the office manager.

  ‘Good morning Mr. Minzolini...’

  ‘Tell me dear Catellani tell me...’

  ‘Well, nothing...only one more day of vacation for Thursday’

  ‘Eh...is it really necessary?’

  ‘...let’s say it would be very useful’

  ‘As you know...we’re running short of staff...you know...’

  I decided to tell him the truth, I knew Minzolini, there’s was a chance.

  ‘Well, the case is that I met an American girl, blond, tall, etc...she asked me if I could go with her till Thursday on the Amalfi coast...’

  ‘What the...are you serious...you’re great Catellani...I’ll give you two days, don’t worry, so see you on Monday!’

  ‘Thanks, I owe you one boss...’

  ‘Yes, yes, If you need a hand call me...’

  ‘For sure I will...’

  So I had to take care of one more thing now, money and the car, I didn’t expect one more present from my uncle, my grandad I wanted to pressure...just like one of those vacation packages, car and money included.

  I returned home just like a thief, with tail between legs, near my grandad’s table, where he smoked some cigarettes before lunch.

  ‘Hi grandpa, how are you doing?’ I asked enthusiastic,

  ‘How much do you need?’

  What did you say, sorry?’

  ‘I’ve just asked you...how much money do you need?’