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“Stanza de puzzle,” she called out as I made my way up.
I nodded but had no clue what puzzles had to do with anything. My sight on the collection of small oil paintings on the wall as I climbed. There must have been two hundred, each about the size of a postcard and framed in cherry wood frames with fine filigree. Slowing to study them, I noted that each one was a landscape, probably of the city of Florence. I knew little of the city to be honest, but I did pick out a few famous sites such as the Florence Cathedral, the Uffizi Gallery, and the Basilica of San Lorenzo. As a child, I was sure my mother and father had dragged me to all the sites, but as an adult I recalled nothing of them. Whoever had painted the tiny oils had done a wonderful job. The scenes were crisp, bright, and detailed. As I moved up, I found paintings done in other parts of Italy. Many from Pisa and the famed tower, some from Rome, and a few of Venice. I was at the top of the stairs before I knew it. The air up here was warmer than on the ground floor. The smell of a pipe wafted by my nose, a sweet tobacco smell that I found not to be as horrendous as cigarette smoke. There were four doors, all opened, with shuttered sunshine flowing into them.
“Señorina Capello?” I called as I took a cautious step in the direction of the smoke.
“Come,” a croaky voice called out from the room directly in front of me. I gimped closer, peeked into the room, and saw a stately woman in a turban smoking a pink Meerschaum pipe. She had been tall at one time, but age had bowed her badly. Smoke from the pipe clenched between her teeth floated upward in rings that lingered a scant moment before floating to the shuttered windows. “You are the Bonetti boy?”
“Yes, I am,” I tentatively replied, easing into a room filled with tables holding jigsaw puzzles. A dozen at least. One table was cleared, a round one beside the woman in the turban. Upon that one was a pencil, a notebook, and an orange.
“You look like Ginerva,” she said, smoke leaked out of her long nose as she spoke. Her eyes were narrow, lost behind her spectacles, but they seemed to track me as I made my way closer. “Sit down over there. Have an orange.”
“Thank you,” I said, lowering my backside into a wooden chair. “My aunt fed me before I came. “
“Hmm, rude. She is rude. She knew I would have an orange for you.” I couldn’t quite place her accent. It was not pure Italian. “Take it with you.”
“I will. Grazie.” I reached out to pull the orange to me, easing it around the pencil and notebook. “If you wish, we can use my phone to access a ton of language apps that—”
She spit on the floor. Oh-kay. Guess that was her opinion on that.
“I have your book.” She proudly handed over a primer that probably belonged to her as a toddler. Did toddlers read? Not a clue. I did my best to stay away from children and their snot. “This was mine when I first come to Italy as a child.”
Bingo.
I lifted the worn cover with the small boy in short pants. The first page was numbers in Italian. Uno, due, tre, and so on to a hundred. The next page had drawings of animals and then their names: gatto next to a line drawing of a cat, cane next to a dog, and mucca beside a cow. Further in were foods, colors, and then simple words such as they, then, there, she, and he.
“It’s charming,” I said for lack of a better word. She inclined her head in the way a duchess would. Not unlike what Ginerva had done.
“You will study and write. Each word one hundred times each. To memorize.” She tapped her brow just as two mangy raccoons aka hairless chihuahuas appeared, each wearing a sweater to match their mistress’s yellow turban/ jumpsuit ensemble. “When you come back in two days, we will review. In Italian. If you do well with numbers, you will get an orange.”
Right. I glanced around, sure that Donvino had delivered me to the Twilight Zone. “A hundred times for each word?”
“Correct. Memorization is key. Now begin.”
“Oh, right now?”
“Yes, right now.” She gathered the dogs into her lap, puffed on her pipe, and watched me intently as I picked up the pencil. This was without a doubt the weirdest damn tutor I had ever met, and I’d met some doozies during my younger years. Like Mr. Maple, who was with us exactly one week and then was fired for being found stoned off his ass on mushrooms, naked, up in an olive tree, was probs the top of the list. It was after that that I was sent off to a private school in Redwood City to continue to be a pain in every teacher’s ass for years to come. Seems Dad would have made a few of those parent-teacher conferences instead of sending Nanny Ingrid. Maybe if he had, I’d not been such a shitter. Just saying…
Someone tapped my shoulder. I startled out of my revelry to find Signora Briffa at my side, holding out a small tray with some antiseptic spray, a few cotton balls, and one single bandage.
“Thank you,” I replied and laid down my pencil.
“In Italiano,” Señorina Capello reminded me. I thought to roll my eyes, but the dogs were staring at me as if I were a lost child in the Australian outback and they dingoes. So, I kept my expressive face neutral to avoid being pounced on by sweatered-clad wild dogs.
“Grazie,” I replied, got a smile from the lady in the green dress, and then set about cleaning out my goose bite. Did geese make spit? If so, would that spit now be in my bloodstream? On the next full moon would I transform into a were-goose who roamed the Tuscan country roads in search of innocent men—I had no interest in stalking maidens—to pinch? Would I soon turn the entire Italian population into waddling fiends, our honks heard in the dark of night sending those poor souls who were yet unturned fleeing to their villas?
“It is clean. Stop stalling and begin your lesson.” I heard as a puff of smoke drifted under my nose. “You are easily distracted, Signor Arlo.”
“I prefer to say that my mind likes to spin fanciful tales when it wishes,” I answered, dropping the puff to the platter and then dressing my wound. “Do you know if geese make spit?” The old gals looked at me as if I had a mango reciting Hamlet atop my head. “Never mind.” I nodded in thanks to Signora Briffa, sighed, and picked up my pencil.
Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno. Uno...
***
One hour later—and not a second before or a second after—I was dismissed. My hand had cramped after I had written my one hundred fours—pardon, my quattros—so I was given an orange break to recover. Which was nice. I tried to stretch out the break by asking my tutor about herself, but she shook her head, handed me a wet wipe, and told me to stop faffing about. This gave me a slight clue as to her heritage. British, or at least from the British Isles. Did any other country use faffing? I’d have to look it up as soon as I found a Wi-Fi hotspot. Imagine me, Arlo Bonetti, relying on free Wi-Fi. My followers would be shocked and likely sickened. I’d have to set up my own account in my own name since my relatives were being pickles about internet usage.
I’d gathered up my primer and then bolted out the door, exploding into the heat like a cheetah being released back into the wild. Like a shot, I darted through the front gate and to the curb, skidding to a halt to allow a red car with a dented fender pass. My sight went to the small caffè across the street as I waited to cross. There in all his glorious glory sat Donvino with some leggy brunette wearing a summery floral dress, sunglasses, and long dark hair. Thick hair, glossy, healthy. Humph. Why did all Italian women have to be so pretty?
Donvino spied me. The young woman turned, lowered her glasses, and then left as if she had seen a frothing platypus crossing the street. What was my thing with Australian wildlife today?
