Read Online All Over the Map by Laura Fraser - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Laura Fraser
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translation of “loneliness” in Italian—or, for that matter, “privacy.” The concepts don’t quite exist in Italy.
Not that Italian women don’t have their own problems with men and relationships. Even more than Americans, they’re caught between expectations of being good, traditional Italian girls and wives, looking after men who have never washed a dish or made a bed, and being sophisticated professionals; the dilemma leaves a lot of them unmarried, without children, and the Italian birthrate is the lowest in the world. Somehow, though, they don’t seem to have the hardness that a lot of American women have, and even 1970s feminists like Carmen have no Puritan-inspired problems reconciling their ideology with dressing glamorously and provocatively. Italian women in their fifties and sixties just seem to be all that much sexier for how well they know themselves and how assured they are about their charms.
During the day, when Carmen is working, these friends invite me to lunch, one by one, as if they’d worked out a schedule. I’m never alone for a meal. Somehow, in Italy, you always feel held—if not by a man, then by a family of friends.
W HEN I ARRIVE at the Naples train station, I remember that this is where I said good-bye to the Professor after we first met on the island of Ischia and spent four sun-drenched days there, asweet reward for getting up out of my postdivorce depression and traveling by myself. At the time, I was sure I would never see him again but felt delighted to have been able to run into him, to have spent those wonderful days in his company—eating fresh pasta, making love, swimming in the sea, and starting all over again. Now it’s been four years, and I know this time that if I do see him again, it won’t be as a lover. But that’s fine, too. I’m moving ahead and haven’t lost those years I spent with him. All those beautiful moments—sipping wine and staring at the volcanoes in the distance, making love with open eyes, wandering around Moroccan alleys holding hands—don’t go away. The love in your life adds up.
I step out of the train station into soft light that shows off Naples’ faded Renaissance beauty at her best. Naples is sometimes called the northernmost city in Africa for its sultry air, chaotic humanity, and medinalike mazes of ancient streets. To be in Naples again is an unexpected pleasure, because the city is irresistible in its charms: perfect pizzas, splendid decay, crumbling treasures, and evening parades of tanned and meticulously turned out couples. The volcanic islands in the distance are silhouetted against the darkly shimmering sea. I have an appointment in front of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in a couple hours—enough time to wander the waterfront, explore the little streets and stores in Spaccanapoli, and marvel at the treasures of Pompeii in the museum.
I’ve never spent time in Naples by myself. This is the first time since my divorce that I’ve been to Italy without the Professor. Only a couple hours by train from Rome, where there aresingle women everywhere, like in any major industrialized city in the world, southern Italy looks upon single women suspiciously, with pity sometimes, and a whiff of disrepute. A woman dining alone in a southern Italian restaurant, relishing her food and wine, might be completely content with herself and her spaghetti alle scoglie but treated like prey by the waiter and as contagious by the Sunday-dinner guests. In southern Italy, women don’t often go out by themselves, at least not in the evening or to partake of a meal; their husbands, family members, or female friends almost always accompany them in public. This is true, to a lesser extent, of the men, too; Italians don’t like to do anything alone.
S TANDING BY MYSELF in the wide stone piazza in front of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, waiting for Giusi, a social worker who is going to help me do research, I feel nervous—a target. Naples, of
Not that Italian women don’t have their own problems with men and relationships. Even more than Americans, they’re caught between expectations of being good, traditional Italian girls and wives, looking after men who have never washed a dish or made a bed, and being sophisticated professionals; the dilemma leaves a lot of them unmarried, without children, and the Italian birthrate is the lowest in the world. Somehow, though, they don’t seem to have the hardness that a lot of American women have, and even 1970s feminists like Carmen have no Puritan-inspired problems reconciling their ideology with dressing glamorously and provocatively. Italian women in their fifties and sixties just seem to be all that much sexier for how well they know themselves and how assured they are about their charms.
During the day, when Carmen is working, these friends invite me to lunch, one by one, as if they’d worked out a schedule. I’m never alone for a meal. Somehow, in Italy, you always feel held—if not by a man, then by a family of friends.
W HEN I ARRIVE at the Naples train station, I remember that this is where I said good-bye to the Professor after we first met on the island of Ischia and spent four sun-drenched days there, asweet reward for getting up out of my postdivorce depression and traveling by myself. At the time, I was sure I would never see him again but felt delighted to have been able to run into him, to have spent those wonderful days in his company—eating fresh pasta, making love, swimming in the sea, and starting all over again. Now it’s been four years, and I know this time that if I do see him again, it won’t be as a lover. But that’s fine, too. I’m moving ahead and haven’t lost those years I spent with him. All those beautiful moments—sipping wine and staring at the volcanoes in the distance, making love with open eyes, wandering around Moroccan alleys holding hands—don’t go away. The love in your life adds up.
I step out of the train station into soft light that shows off Naples’ faded Renaissance beauty at her best. Naples is sometimes called the northernmost city in Africa for its sultry air, chaotic humanity, and medinalike mazes of ancient streets. To be in Naples again is an unexpected pleasure, because the city is irresistible in its charms: perfect pizzas, splendid decay, crumbling treasures, and evening parades of tanned and meticulously turned out couples. The volcanic islands in the distance are silhouetted against the darkly shimmering sea. I have an appointment in front of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in a couple hours—enough time to wander the waterfront, explore the little streets and stores in Spaccanapoli, and marvel at the treasures of Pompeii in the museum.
I’ve never spent time in Naples by myself. This is the first time since my divorce that I’ve been to Italy without the Professor. Only a couple hours by train from Rome, where there aresingle women everywhere, like in any major industrialized city in the world, southern Italy looks upon single women suspiciously, with pity sometimes, and a whiff of disrepute. A woman dining alone in a southern Italian restaurant, relishing her food and wine, might be completely content with herself and her spaghetti alle scoglie but treated like prey by the waiter and as contagious by the Sunday-dinner guests. In southern Italy, women don’t often go out by themselves, at least not in the evening or to partake of a meal; their husbands, family members, or female friends almost always accompany them in public. This is true, to a lesser extent, of the men, too; Italians don’t like to do anything alone.
S TANDING BY MYSELF in the wide stone piazza in front of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, waiting for Giusi, a social worker who is going to help me do research, I feel nervous—a target. Naples, of
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