We have been invited to a birthday party by my mother’s cousin Ginevra. It’s the birthday of George’s friend, a friend from prior visits. I tell George he’s super lucky to have a friend in Italy and to be invited to a party. He does think it’s pretty cool. I buy two little toy helicopters for him, only to realize he’s now 15—much more grown up than I remembered him. I apologize to everyone for the ridiculous gift, and of course everyone is gracious.
I have never been to Ginevra’s house so I need directions. I am to turn right into her road and go uphill, and then, “When you get to a little wall, call me.” I don’t see a little wall that distiguishes itself among all the other little walls, and of course this is a little tiny road, with no room to pull over anywhere. I find a little place to stop down a little side street, and I call her.
She asks, “Where are you?”
“I am on a little side street.”
“Where is that?” She has no idea and I have no idea.
After some back and forth she tells me she’s sending someone out for me. Sure enough, here is my mother’s friend Olivia greeting me. I was right there. There’s actually a little parking area at her building, and it’s among olive trees.
She had said it would be a merenda, a snack. When we get there she has a wondeful buffet, much more than a merenda. She has prosciutto and salame and figs, salad, a ham and potato tart, pizza, and other goodies.
The kids go upstairs and after a little while George comes back down and sits and sulks a bit. I ask him why he’s not with the other kids and he says they’re watching volleyball on television. I try to tell him he has to go hang out with them even if he’s bored, that he’s being unreasonable and unpleasant. He won’t budge. Soon enough Ginevra asks me why he’s not hanging out with the other kids and I tell her the truth—I probably should have lied, but I can’t think of a plausible lie right then. I try to be offhand and humorous about it, because really he’s being difficult and that’s his problem rather than everyone else’s. But she does what I knew she would do, she immediately heads upstairs to tell the other kids they need to entertain George. She puts the onus on them to be polite to him when he’s the one who’s being rude to them. This is the extreme politeness of Italians, it’s part of the social fabric.
She shows me her garden and her house, I’ve never been there before. This is her summer place, about twenty minutes away from her main home. Her garden is on multiple levels, there’s a patio, a lower lawn area, and a still lower area with trees that leads out to the street. There are olive trees in her garden.
The apartment is on three levels: there is a living room on the lower level, another living room upstairs, and then her bedroom on the top floor. From the bedroom window she has a great view of the mountains and the sea. It’s a very cheerful place.
She shows me large landscape paintings that she has all over and tells me that her husband painted them. He passed away, and she tells me it was 18 years ago. Such a long time. The paintings are nice, I don’t recall that he painted. He was a fun person, they never had kids and they had fun together, and I think she misses him every single day.
Her niece arrives. Although she’s my second cousin I have seen her just a few times in my life, but I do recall her as very nice, and she is in fact very nice as well as very well dressed in a modern and pretty outfit. She lives in Milan, is married with no kids. She keeps a sailboat in Savona. We chat and take each other’s pictures, all the niceties.
Ginevra tells the story about me that she always tells. One time I was in Milan, when we no longer lived there but many years ago, and they took me out to dinner and then drove me back home, where I was staying. When I got out of the car, I took off my shoes right on the sidewalk. My feet must have hurt quite a bit. And they thought that was absolutely a fantastical thing to do. I still remember the outfit and the shoes I was wearing that day.
I tell her that I have recently run into some people she knows. At a high school reunion in San Francisco I ran into three sisters who lived in the same building in Milan as Ginevra, back when she lived in Milan. I bring greetings from them and their mother, and she remembers them well and gets goose bumps. She tells me she had taken English lessons from their mother, who had told her, “I’m very proud of you.” She says the phrase to me in English, and I tell her she says it really well, and she’s pleased and laughs. These things don’t just happen every day.
The birthday boy is Filipino and his whole family lives in the area and is attending the party. They are cheerful and chatty and fun. Instead of pointing to George as the rude boy, as they should, they are enthralled with his blue-eyed looks and tell each other and then me that he looks like a movie star. I’m not sure about the looks, but he certainly has a primadonna attitude on display today.
As the party winds down, the kids are back upstairs, this time playing video games, and I have to drag George away.
