“This is the nicest one,” Luigi said. “Nothing fancy, but adequate.”
“You should’ve seen my last room.” Joel tossed his bag on the bed and began opening curtains.
Luigi opened the door to the very small closet. “Look here. You have four shirts, four slacks, two jackets, two pairs of shoes, all in your size. Plus a heavy wool overcoat—it gets quite cold here in Treviso.” Joel stared at his new wardrobe. The clothes were hanging perfectly, all pressed and ready to wear. The colors were subdued, tasteful, and every shirt could be worn with every jacket and pair of slacks. He finally shrugged and said, “Thanks.”
“In the drawer over there you’ll find a belt, socks, underwear, everything you’ll need. In the bathroom you’ll find all the necessary toiletries.”
“What can I say?”
“And here on the desk are two sets of glasses.” Luigi picked up a pair of glasses and held them to the light. The small rectangular lenses were secured by thin black metal, very European frames. “Armani,” Luigi said, with a trace of pride.
“Reading glasses?”
“Yes, and no. I suggest you wear them every moment you’re outside this room. Part of the disguise, Marco. Part of the new you.”
“You should’ve met the old one.”
“No thanks. Appearance is very important to Italians, especially those of us from here in the north. Your attire, your glasses, your haircut, everything must be put together properly or you will get noticed.”
Joel was suddenly self-conscious, but, then, what the hell. He’d been wearing prison garb for longer than he cared to remember. Back in the glory days he routinely dropped $3,000 for a finely tailored suit.
Luigi was still lecturing. “No shorts, no black socks and white sneakers, no polyester slacks, no golf shirts, and please don’t start getting fat.”
“How do you say ‘Kiss my ass’ in Italian?”
“We’ll get to that later. Habits and customs are important. They’re easy to learn and quite enjoyable. For example, never order cappuccino after ten-thirty in the morning. But an espresso can be ordered at any hour of the day. Did you know that?”
“I did not.”
“Only tourists order cappuccino after lunch or dinner. A disgrace. All that milk on a full stomach.” For a moment Luigi frowned as if he might just vomit for good measure.
Joel raised his right hand and said, “I swear I’ll never do it.”
“Have a seat,” Luigi said, waving at the small desk and its two chairs. They sat down and tried to get comfortable. He continued: “First, the room. It’s in my name, but the staff thinks that a Canadian businessman will be staying here for a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?”
“Yes, then you’ll move to another location.” Luigi said this as ominously as possible, as if squads of assassins were already in Treviso, looking for Joel Backman. “From this moment on, you will be leaving a trail. Keep that in mind: everything you do, everyone you meet—they’re all part of your trail. The secret of survival is to leave behind as few tracks as possible. Speak to very few people, including the clerk at the front desk and the housekeeper. Hotel personnel watch their guests, and they have good memories. Six months from now someone might come to this very hotel and start asking questions about you. He might have a photograph. He might offer bribes. And the clerk might suddenly remember you, and the fact that you spoke almost no Italian.”
“I have a question.”
“I have very few answers.”
“Why here? Why a country where I cannot speak the language? Why not England or Australia, someplace where I could blend in easier?”
“That decision was made by someone else, Marco. Not me.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I don’t know. Can I apply for a transfer?”
“Another useless question.”
“A bad joke, not a bad question.”
“Can we continue?”
“Yes.”
“For the first few days I will take you to lunch and dinner. We’ll move around, always going to different places. Treviso is a nice city with lots of cafés and we’ll try them all. You must start thinking of the day when I will not be here. Be careful who you meet.”
“I have another question.”
“Yes, Marco.”
“It’s about money. I really don’t like being broke. Are you guys planning to give me an allowance or something? I’ll wash your car and do other chores.”
“What is allowance?”
“Cash, okay? Money in my pocket.”
“Don’t worry about money. For now, I take care of the bills. You will not be hungry.”
“All right.”
Luigi reached deep in the barn jacket and pulled out a cell phone. “This is for you.”
“And who, exactly, am I going to call?”
“Me, if you need something. My number is on the back.”
Joel took the phone and laid it on the desk. “I’m hungry. I’ve been dreaming of a long lunch with pasta and wine and dessert, and of course espresso, certainly not cappuccino at this hour, then perhaps the required siesta. I’ve been in Italy for four days now, and I’ve had nothing but corn chips and sandwiches. What do you say?”
Luigi glanced at his watch. “I know just the place, but first some more business. You speak no Italian, right?”
Joel rolled his eyes and exhaled mightily in frustration. Then he tried to smile and said, “No, I’ve never had the occasion to learn Italian, or French, or German, or anything else. I’m an American, okay, Luigi? My country is larger than all of Europe combined. All you need is English over there.”
“You’re Canadian, remember?”
“Okay, whatever, but we’re isolated. Just us and the Americans.”
“My job is to keep you safe.”
“Thank you.”
“And to help us do that, you need to learn a lot of Italian as quickly as possible.”
“I understand.”
“You will have a tutor, a young student by the name of Ermanno. You will study with him in the morning and again in the afternoon. The work will be difficult.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes. That depends on you. If you work hard, then in three or four months you should be on your own.”
“How long did it take you to learn English?”
“My mother is American. We spoke English at home, Italian everywhere else.”
“That’s cheating. What else do you speak?”
“Spanish, French, a few more. Ermanno is an excellent teacher. The classroom is just down the street.”
“Not here, in the hotel?”
“No, no, Marco. You must think about your trail. What would the bellboy or the housekeeper say if a young man spent four hours a day in this room with you?”
“God forbid.”
“The housekeeper would listen at the door and hear your lessons. She would whisper to her supervisor. Within a day or two the entire staff would know that the Canadian businessman is studying intensely. Four hours a day!”
“Gotcha. Now about lunch.”
Leaving the hotel, Joel managed to smile at the clerk, a janitor, and the bell captain without uttering a word. They walked one block to the center of Treviso, the Piazza dei Signori, the main square lined with arcades and cafés. It was noon and the foot traffic was heavier as the locals hurried about for lunch. The air was getting colder, though Joel was quite comfortable tucked inside his new wool overcoat. He tried his best to look Italian.
“Inside or outside?” Luigi asked.
“Inside,” Joel said, and they ducked into the Caffè Beltrame, overlooking the piazza. A brick oven near the front was heating the place, and the aroma of the daily feast was steaming from the rear. Luigi and the headwaiter both spoke at the same time, then they laughed, then a table was found by a front window.
“We’re in luck,” Luigi said as they took off their coats and sat down. “The special today is faraona con polenta.”
“And what might that be?”
“Guinea fowl with polenta.”
“What else?”
Luigi was studying one of the blackboards hanging from a rough-hewn crossbeam. “Panzerotti di funghi al burro—fried mushroom pastries. Conchiglie con cavalfiori—pasta shells with cauliflower. Spiedino di carne misto alla griglia—grilled shish kabob of mixed meats.”
“I’ll have it all.”
“Their house wine is pretty good.”
“I prefer red.”
Within minutes the café was crowded with locals, all of whom seemed to know each other. A jolly little man with a dirty white apron sped by the table, slowed just long enough to make eye contact with Joel, and wrote down nothing as Luigi spat out a long list of what they wanted to eat. A jug of house wine arrived with a bowl of warm olive oil and a platter of sliced focaccia, and Joel began eating. Luigi was busy explaining the complexities of lunch and breakfast, the customs and traditions and mistakes made by tourists trying to pass themselves off as authentic Italians.
With Luigi, everything would be a learning experience.
Though Joel sipped and savored the first glass of wine, the alcohol went straight to his brain. A wonderful warmth and numbness embraced his body. He was free, many years ahead of schedule, and sitting in a rustic little café in an Italian town he’d never heard of, drinking a nice local wine, and inhaling the smells of a delicious feast. He smiled at Luigi as the explanations continued, but at some point Joel drifted into another world.
______
ERMANNO
claimed to be twenty-three years old but looked no more than sixteen. He was tall and painfully thin, and with sandy hair and hazel eyes he looked more German than Italian. He was also very shy and quite nervous, and Joel did not like the first impression.
They met Ermanno at his tiny apartment, on the third floor of an ill-kept building six blocks or so from
Joel’s hotel. There were three small rooms—kitchen, bedroom, living area—all sparsely furnished, but then Ermanno was a student so such surroundings were not unexpected. But the place looked as though he had just moved in and might be moving out at any minute.
They sat around a small desk in the center of the living room. There was no television. The room was cold and dimly lit, and Joel couldn’t help but feel as if he had been placed in some underground highway where fugitives are kept alive and moved about in secret. The warmth of a two-hour lunch was fading quickly.
His tutor’s nervousness didn’t help matters.
When Ermanno was unable to take control of the meeting, Luigi quickly stepped in and kicked things off. He suggested that they study each morning from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., break for two hours, then resume around 1:30 and study until they were tired. This seemed to suit Ermanno and Joel, who thought about asking the obvious: If my new guy here is a student, how does he have the time to teach me all day long? But he let it pass. He’d pursue it later.
Oh, the questions he was accumulating.
Ermanno eventually relaxed and described the language course. When he spoke slowly, his accent was not intrusive. But when he rushed things, as he was prone to do, his English might as well have been Italian. Once Luigi interrupted and said, “Ermanno, it’s important to speak very slowly, at least in the first few days.”
“Thank you,” Joel said, like a true smartass.
Ermanno’s cheeks actually reddened and he offered a very timid “Sorry.”
He handed over the first batch of study aids—course
book number one, along with a small tape player and two cassettes. “The tapes follow the book,” he said, very slowly. “Tonight, you should study chapter one and listen to each tape several times. Tomorrow we’ll begin there.”
“It will be very intense,” Luigi added, applying more pressure, as if more was needed.
“Where did you learn English?” Joel asked.
“At the university,” Ermanno said. “In Bologna.”
“So you haven’t studied in the United States?”
“Yes, I have,” he said, shooting a quick nervous glance at Luigi, as if whatever happened in the States was something he preferred not to talk about. Unlike Luigi, Ermanno was an easy read, obviously not a professional.
“Where?” Joel asked, probing, seeing how much he could get.
“Furman,” Ermanno said. “A small school in South Carolina.”
“When were you there?”
Luigi came to the rescue, clearing his throat. “You will have plenty of time for this small talk later. It is important for you to forget English, Marco. From this day forward, you will live in a world of Italian. Everything you touch has an Italian name for it. Every thought must be translated. In one week you’ll be ordering in restaurants. In two weeks you’ll be dreaming in Italian. It’s total, absolute immersion in the language and culture, and there’s no turning back.”
“Can we start at eight in the morning?” Joel asked.
Ermanno glanced and fidgeted, finally said, “Perhaps eight-thirty.”
“Good, I’ll be here at eight-thirty.”
They left the apartment and strolled back to the
Piazza dei Signori. It was mid-afternoon, traffic was noticeably quieter, the sidewalks almost deserted. Luigi stopped in front of the Trattoria del Monte. He nodded at the door, said, “I’ll meet you here at eight for dinner, okay?”
“Yes, okay.”
“You know where your hotel is?”
“Yes, the albergo.”
“And you have a map of the city?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You’re on your own, Marco.” And with that Luigi ducked into an alley and disappeared. Joel watched him for a second, then continued his walk to the main square.
He felt very much alone. Four days after leaving Rudley, he was finally free and unaccompanied, perhaps unobserved, though he doubted it. He decided immediately that he would move around the city, go about his business, as if no one was watching him. And he further decided, as he pretended to examine the items in the window of a small leather shop, that he would not live the rest of his life glancing over his shoulder.
They wouldn’t find him.
He drifted until he found himself at Piazza San Vito, a small square where two churches had been sitting for seven hundred years. The Santa Lucia and San Vito were both closed, but, according to the ancient brass plate, they would reopen from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. What kind of place closes from noon to four?
The bars weren’t closed, just empty. He finally mustered the courage to sneak into one. He pulled up a stool, held his breath, and said the word “Birra” when the bartender got close.