Learn to Speak a Little Italian

"IF YOU'RE SO CRAZY ABOUT ITALY, then how come you haven't learned to speak Italian?" David quizzed me, a few months before our September trip. "Don't worry," I said. "Someday I will."

How dare he remind me of something I'd postponed on purpose. Can I help it that my best response to intimidation is procrastination? Besides, I had taken the first step. I'd placed it on a list. Long ago penciled between "clean out refrigerator" and "rotate tires--find warranty first," the words "learn to speak Italian" were scribbled on a pad.

If I were traveling alone, I knew I'd be okay--I wouldn't mind embarrassing myself with the language. But making the journey with my husband was exhausting to think about. David was counting on me for omnipotent communication the way a soothsayer is expected to predict the future.

It finally took an ultimatum. David threatened to back out on our anniversary tour if I didn't learn enough Italian to "get us by," as he called it. His better-learn-a-little-Italian threat scared me, but only because I realized how soon we were scheduled to leave. I wasn't really worried about David not going. He was always backing out. Like the last time he said he wasn't going to Italy and he suggested someone else take his place: "Why don't you go with a friend--someone who likes to travel more than I do?"

But in a heartbeat I'd replied, "Oh, no. You're not going to have that to hang over my head later on. I'm not about to take somebody else on our anniversary trip. I'll simply save your ticket and go twice!"

It was an answer he hadn't expected.

It took only a few days in Italy before I revised my expectations. In lieu of expecting to devour the language, I settled for nibbled morsels. Fresh words through osmosis were welcomed with awe. (Where did I pick up that phrase?) But my new plan of action was to implement the old, the skimpy vocabulary I'd supposedly memorized before leaving home.

For starters, there was bed and bath terminology to contend with.

My greatest bathroom-challenged accommodations were in Venice. I'd not booked early enough and was not spending enough buckets of lire to get a room on a canal, but I was close. The tiny albergo fronted on a quiet street of water.

Reminiscent of a college dormatory room, my Venetian cubicle was surprisingly cheerful, with its single green-shuttered window looking out onto a tiny courtyard of inactivity. Predictably peaceful. But the bath situation (always a surprise in Italy) was less obvious. Puzzling. Nothing looked like my sticker-clad objects at home! [I had stuck Italian identifications on bath fixtures at home.]

The first thing to catch my eye was a plastic, one-piece, mini-bidet you could move around the room. It came with its own plastic cup for carrying water from the lavandino near the window. Should I move it to the window and toss any dirty water outside? Or should I pour dirty water down the only drain in sight--the one in the basin where I'd wash my hair and brush my teeth?

Then, above the sink, catching my reflection in a mirror, I instantly realized I'd wasted precious mental real estate by memorizing the word for a "looking glass," specchio. I could think of no reason now or ever to talk about this mirror or any other.

And when I finally found the toilet, the label on the door was simply toilette, not the strange gabinetto word that was stuck on my white ceramic tank back in Austin.

But the real challenge in my bed and bath situation had nothing to do with words in any language. It dealt with location and distance, physical attributes rather than appellations. My bed was on the third floor; the toilette was on the fourth floor; the bagno (spelled like the sticker on my tub at home!) was on the second floor; and if you wanted a doccia, or shower, it was on floor number one. Like guessing the winning door in a game show.

Booking a vacant room in Venice in early May had been tougher than anticipated. Somewhere between faxing and calling a dozen alberghi from home, I'd forgotten my nightly routine--my habitual rising five times a night. I'd forgotten to ask, "How far to the toilet?"

Copyright © 2000 by Darlene Sheldon Marwitz