Only in Naples (20 page)

Maybe he wouldn't see me! Hope! I ran onstage and tried to blend in with the other members of the cast.

“Americana!”
he screeched. The sound of his voice was not tempered by all the red velvet. But, looking on the bright side, at least this time he remembered who I was.

“Multa!”

A fine? For being late? But just a few days before, the director had failed to show up! Twenty people waited for him all day long! And he never even explained his absence when he came to rehearsal the next day.

So it went that I had to pay a twenty-euro fine for my tardiness. But at least I was saved the humiliation of being the object of a ten-minute tirade. On another occasion, the director, instead of suggesting that I move a few feet stage left, screamed, “Girl with the nineteenth-century ass! Move over! You're blocking the people I
really
want to see!”

I learned the hard way that stage actors in Italy have a tough lot. Very little money. Exhausting tours. School matinees where high schoolers throw food onstage and shout “Take it off!” and teachers stand up every few minutes to shout
“Basta!”
This, compounded with Tonino Reale's howling onstage and off (and his regular groping of the actresses) persuaded me to take my wobbly soprano voice, bizarre accent, and nineteenth-century ass to a dubbing studio.

If an actor in Italy is not interested in being on a reality show, perhaps his or her most promising (read: most lucrative and stable) future is in the world of dubbing. All foreign films in Italy are dubbed into Italian. “Subtitles cause headaches,” Italians often say. And so each big American star is dubbed by one Italian voice. The voice of Tom Cruise is a friend of mine and a phenomenal actor. Sylvester Stallone is dubbed by a fat character actor famous throughout the country. The Italian public is very attached to these voices, particularly the voices of stars like Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Sharon Stone. There was an uproar when Tom Cruise's dubber was replaced in one of his films because of a contract disagreement. My friend Roberto, the Italian Cruise, was
tranquillo,
however. “They will rehire me. I am Tom.”

Italians are so attached to the stars' Italian voices that they can be greatly disturbed when they hear the Americans' real voices. “The voice of
our
Robert De Niro is so much better than yours,” someone told me recently, apparently not concerned about the fact that the English-language version is the man's real voice. But I agree that some performances are greatly enhanced by dubbing. Not the Fonz, and most definitely not Meryl Streep, but Jean-Claude Van Damme, for example, and Keanu Reeves.

Good dubbing is an art form. Not only do you need to understand the character and “find” the voice, like any good actor, but you need to pay close attention to “synch”—the ability to start speaking the second the actor opens his mouth, take breaths when he or she does, and keep the rhythm so that you finish the line exactly when the actor does. Dubbing successfully depends of course on having a translation, or rather an adaptation, that works. But it also takes talent and skill.

I started to get calls from studios in Rome to dub in English. Since Italian dubbing studios are some of the best in the world (and cheapest to use—you could pay dubbers and technicians under the table), we would get all kinds of work: Chinese martial arts films, Philippine horror movies, Brazilian cartoons. Basically anything that was headed for distribution in English-speaking countries, or that needed an English version on DVD. I immediately fell in love with cartoon dubbing. I could go crazy with my voice without having to worry about following the mouth of the actor onscreen. Although a dubbing director might suggest that I could let my British woodchuck get in touch with her anger, or that my melancholy marshmallow could incorporate a touch of bitterness, I generally was not told “you suck.” That was important for someone as
permalosa
as me.

So I was happy when I got a call for a turn (three hours in a dubbing studio) for the English version of
Snow White and Her Seven Dwarves.
I hopped on a train for Rome excitedly. Snow White! My voice would be perfect. I should have paid more attention to the possessive pronoun in the title, though.

I soon realized that this Snow White was not a cartoon. The film was intended, in fact, for a very adult audience. The director came into the studio, fitted me with my headphones, and put a chair behind me. “In case you start hyperventilating,” he told me.

Hyperventilating, in fact, is the greatest risk in porn dubbing. Fortunately for the dubber, the director can usually use the heavy breathing in the film's original language. But every once in a while, along comes an
“O Dio!”
or some such cry. The dubber has to record an “Oh God!” and all the cries and breaths surrounding it. I'm telling you, it's exhausting.

Snow White
's director listened behind the glass division, looking bored and sleepy. He'd watched these scenes thousands of times, having already dubbed the dwarves into English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. He stopped me mid-wail, and with a tone of voice that I'm used to now with Italian directors, told me that I sounded like I was tired and in pain. Biancaneve (Snow White) isn't in pain, why should I be? Relax and enjoy it,
Americana.

“
B
efore we go, Ketrin, could you cut my fingernails? It will only take a minute.” We were walking out the door, late for the service. The baptism of Benedetta's newborn son, Emilio, was to begin at ten o'clock, and it was now 9:55. The organization was difficult because there were so many of us: Benedetta and her husband, Nino and Raffaella, Salvatore and myself, Zio Toto (owner of the aforementioned fingernails), and Benedetta's Sri Lankan nanny and housekeeper, who was the only one sitting in the car downstairs ready to go.
“Mi raccomando!”
Raffaella had announced that morning, meaning I trust you all will listen to me. “Don't be late. We must leave the house no later than nine-thirty!”

I was in Naples on break from tour. I had been cast in the Italian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's
Jesus Christ Superstar,
and had been traveling for months with a group of thirty dancers and singers throughout Italy. We hopped from city to city, baroque opera house to baroque opera house, seedy hotel to seedy hotel. When there were breaks, I would come to Naples and stay with the Avallones. Salva had a few more exams left, and I awaited his graduation eagerly. It was time to begin our life together as grown-ups. It was time to stop sleeping together in a room with stuffed Garfield toys.

On the day of Emilio's baptism (my hair done, toenails painted, and ever the punctual American), I searched the apartment at 9:30 for any sign of life. I found it in the kitchen, where Raffaella was, believe it or not, grilling squash. And talking on the phone. With curlers in her hair.

“Raffaella,
basta.
Enough. We have to go.” I was beginning to behave like a
mamma
myself, even with the older generation.

“Ah sì! Sì! Sì!”
She hung up the phone and turned off the stove. Before scurrying off to get dressed, though, she had to tell me something. “Ketrin, when you're grilling squash, remember that it's always better to—”

“
Basta
. We're late.”

“You're right, you're right.” And she was off to her walk-in closet, a Never Never Land that would become the favorite place of her four grandchildren. Rosary beads hang next to bright pink and purple belts, alongside a crucifix on the wall. There are five- and six-hundred-euro Valentino suits, luscious furs, and enough rhinestones and beads to make an adolescent girl flip out.

I would have preferred to hang out in Raffaella's glittery closet, but Zio Toto was summoning me to the guest bathroom for his manicure. I knew about Zio Toto's missing hand but honestly had never thought about how he managed to trim the nails on his other hand. And I don't think it ever would have occurred to me had he not asked me to do it at 9:55 on the day of Emilio's baptism.

Why me? Why now?

“Come on! Here are the scissors!” he was telling me. He was sitting on the closed toilet, so I balanced my butt on the bidet and got to work. The nails were very tough, very yellow, and very long. The job was not easy. And it didn't help that I had a nervous fluttering in my stomach because of our lateness. This was a rite of passage, a sacrament! For Protestants as well as Catholics. And we were going to sail in during the Apostles' Creed. Father Giampietro, complete with spurs, was probably already beginning the mass at Santo Strato. My hands were shaking.

Zio Toto was humming, relaxed, oblivious. “Ketrin!” Salva was calling me from the other room. “I'm coming! I'm coming! Just a minute!” I yelled. Somehow I managed to finish the job, leaving little yellow pieces of Zio Toto's nails littering the floor, and flew down the steps of the palazzo to where the others were waiting. I was anxious and annoyed and bitter. And then I saw my nephew.

He was already in the car, in his mother's arms (car seat? no car seat?), wearing a long white baptismal robe. Proud tears sprang to my eyes. It had been less than a year before that Salva had called me in Milan (where we were performing
Superstar
) to tell me,
“Zia! Sarai una zia!”
I hadn't understood. An aunt? I was an aunt? What was he saying?

“Capito, Showgeerl? Benedetta è incinta!”

Benedetta was pregnant and I had a new title in the family:
Zia.
I was confused. Salva and I weren't married, so how could I be an aunt? Was something expected of me? Salva was so excited to tell me my new title, though—repeating
Zia Ketrin, Zia Ketrin—
that I didn't tell him what I was thinking: Congratulations to Benedetta, but I don't have anything to do with it. I'm not even a blood relative, I'm just the little brother's girlfriend.

The feel of Emilio's tiny black head against my chest exactly nine minutes after he was born changed all that. Since Benedetta's husband was a cardiologist, she got a private room in the hospital. The room was filled with about ten people when mother and son were rolled in immediately after the C-section. The baby was still crusty and blood-streaked; Benedetta looked pale and nauseous. Raffaella was opening a bottle of champagne and fumbling with fifteen plastic cups. She left the job to one of her sisters when she saw her daughter and grandson. She strode over to grab the baby out of Benedetta's arms and lift him for all to see.
“Ma quanto è bello!”
How gorgeous he is!

I thought, There's no easing into this, Emilio. You've had your nine months of peace and quiet and personal space. Now, as they say in Neapolitan,
“T'è scetà!”
Gotta wake yourself up.

I was about to slip out to visit a bathroom (if nobody else washed their hands or used disinfectant, at least
I
would) when the baby was literally passed to me like a football. These women of Salva's family had handled newborns and knew something about it. I had never held a baby in my arms, let alone one that still had his plastic ID bracelet on and umbilical cord attached. But there was no time to protest, the fuzzy black head was resting against my chest and everyone was talking about something else. I was a kinswoman, and my body was forced to grasp that concept immediately even as my brain needed a little more time.

And so it was, packed in the car going to mass, that I transformed from a punctual priss to a gushing, emotional mess of a
zia
. Toto, apparently satisfied with his manicure, came out to find that there was no space for him in the car.
“Che problema c'è?”
He grinned. He had his motorbike. Raising his plastic hand, he called out, “See you in church!”