Read Online All Over the Map by Laura Fraser - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Fraser
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course, has a dangerous reputation, with its mafioso underbelly, its petty and not-so-petty thievery, anarchic traffic, and casual attitude toward history and human life. But it’s no more dangerous, really, than New York or any other big American city; you just have to act smart, tuck away your jewelry, and look as if you know where you’re going.
A tough-looking boy, a hoodlum, maybe ten years old, approaches me, and I hold my passport and money tighter to my body. I glare at him, and he crosses his arms and opens his legs in a wider stance, like an annoyed Italian grown-up man, then calls my name. He’s here to meet me instead of his mother. Carlino takes my arm, a perfect little gentleman, steps off the sidewalk,and brazenly stops traffic with an authoritative hand signal, only the drivers’ hands moving in a vast repertoire of gestures of impatience. It’s sweet to be back in Italy, where even little boys look out for you if you’re a woman—not belittlingly, but protectively, in a courteous way.
Carlino leads me to a tall, narrow stone building, laundry hanging on the balcony above. Inside, I meet Giusi, a single mom who works to rescue sex-trafficked women. She seems frazzled but kisses me enthusiastically and makes me an espresso. We’ll need the coffee, because we’ll be up most of the night, scouting for immigrant women who are enslaved and forced to work as prostitutes. A neighbor drops by to stay with Carlino, who is watching soccer on TV, screaming and punching the air every few minutes when someone makes a play. He jumps to his feet, unprompted, when we leave, and shakes my hand.
Giusi and I meet up with two coworkers. Though their task for the evening is serious, they are Italians and hospitable, and so they first take me to a famous pizzeria, L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, before we set out at night. There is a huge crowd outside the pizzeria, and it seems like it will take all night to get a table. But somehow, with the right word to someone, the long line melts like mozzarella and we are sitting down. This is the oldest and best pizzeria in Naples and so the world. It’s a small place for all its glory, and its offerings are few, but the wood-fired pizza—with spicy extra-virgin olive oil and fior di latte cheese puddling among the fresh herbs and tomatoes—is enough reason itself to go to Naples.
Soon we’ve paid the check, maneuvered a van out of an impossibleparking spot, and then, abruptly, we’re in an entirely different atmosphere, cruising the roads near the train station. I’m not prepared to suddenly shift from the beautiful, dreamlike Italy to such a harsh, dirty reality. I wake up and realize I’m here to work. Suddenly, all the beauty of Italy has been swept aside like a curtain, revealing a dark and seamy underside, a side I’ve never seen, where young girls stand on the curbs, shivering, waiting for a strange man in a car to pull up and let them in.
The social workers spend each night offering the women working the streets a little warmth, some coffee, medical advice, condoms, and a ready ear to listen to their problems. When we slow down to approach the girls, most wave us away fearfully. We pass groups of girls from Nigeria, Ukraine, Albania. Most of the girls, Giusi tells me, thought they were coming to Italy to make money working in a hair salon or a bar or as an au pair. Maybe some suspected, but they felt they had no choice but to leave the poverty they were living in; nothing, they believed, could be worse. Most grasped it as an opportunity, a way out. “They were doing the best they could, taking the only chance they had, to help themselves and their families,” she tells me.
None of the women anticipated or could have imagined, in their darkest moments, what would actually happen: the people who had made those promises smuggled them into Italy; took away their passports; beat, raped, and brutalized them; and kept them imprisoned except for the hours when they
A tough-looking boy, a hoodlum, maybe ten years old, approaches me, and I hold my passport and money tighter to my body. I glare at him, and he crosses his arms and opens his legs in a wider stance, like an annoyed Italian grown-up man, then calls my name. He’s here to meet me instead of his mother. Carlino takes my arm, a perfect little gentleman, steps off the sidewalk,and brazenly stops traffic with an authoritative hand signal, only the drivers’ hands moving in a vast repertoire of gestures of impatience. It’s sweet to be back in Italy, where even little boys look out for you if you’re a woman—not belittlingly, but protectively, in a courteous way.
Carlino leads me to a tall, narrow stone building, laundry hanging on the balcony above. Inside, I meet Giusi, a single mom who works to rescue sex-trafficked women. She seems frazzled but kisses me enthusiastically and makes me an espresso. We’ll need the coffee, because we’ll be up most of the night, scouting for immigrant women who are enslaved and forced to work as prostitutes. A neighbor drops by to stay with Carlino, who is watching soccer on TV, screaming and punching the air every few minutes when someone makes a play. He jumps to his feet, unprompted, when we leave, and shakes my hand.
Giusi and I meet up with two coworkers. Though their task for the evening is serious, they are Italians and hospitable, and so they first take me to a famous pizzeria, L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, before we set out at night. There is a huge crowd outside the pizzeria, and it seems like it will take all night to get a table. But somehow, with the right word to someone, the long line melts like mozzarella and we are sitting down. This is the oldest and best pizzeria in Naples and so the world. It’s a small place for all its glory, and its offerings are few, but the wood-fired pizza—with spicy extra-virgin olive oil and fior di latte cheese puddling among the fresh herbs and tomatoes—is enough reason itself to go to Naples.
Soon we’ve paid the check, maneuvered a van out of an impossibleparking spot, and then, abruptly, we’re in an entirely different atmosphere, cruising the roads near the train station. I’m not prepared to suddenly shift from the beautiful, dreamlike Italy to such a harsh, dirty reality. I wake up and realize I’m here to work. Suddenly, all the beauty of Italy has been swept aside like a curtain, revealing a dark and seamy underside, a side I’ve never seen, where young girls stand on the curbs, shivering, waiting for a strange man in a car to pull up and let them in.
The social workers spend each night offering the women working the streets a little warmth, some coffee, medical advice, condoms, and a ready ear to listen to their problems. When we slow down to approach the girls, most wave us away fearfully. We pass groups of girls from Nigeria, Ukraine, Albania. Most of the girls, Giusi tells me, thought they were coming to Italy to make money working in a hair salon or a bar or as an au pair. Maybe some suspected, but they felt they had no choice but to leave the poverty they were living in; nothing, they believed, could be worse. Most grasped it as an opportunity, a way out. “They were doing the best they could, taking the only chance they had, to help themselves and their families,” she tells me.
None of the women anticipated or could have imagined, in their darkest moments, what would actually happen: the people who had made those promises smuggled them into Italy; took away their passports; beat, raped, and brutalized them; and kept them imprisoned except for the hours when they
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