Bambina
Three years into our marriage, in 1973, we had the wonderful opportunity to tour Europe. One of our memorable experiences was with a family in the town of Padova (Padua), Italia (Italy). Here is how it happened.
When I was a senior in high school, there were three students visiting from overseas through the program called the American Field Service (AFS). Students spent a year with a host family. One was from Australia, one from Italy and one from Uganda. I have previously written about my experiences with Andy Kyeyune from Uganda and have had the happy opportunity to correspond with him recently. But I digress. This musing is on the subject of our visit to see Bernadino Vincensotti (we called him “Dino”) of Padua.
I had completed the orchestra season in Amsterdam, so we set out in our little Volkswagen “Rusty” to see Europe. Our plan was to spend about two weeks each in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy before returning to the United States. We were camping in the nicely appointed campgrounds dotting Europe. We had a small tent, some sleeping bags, a little propane stove and managed to make this trip on the cheap. What great experiences we had as a young couple exploring the world!
After we celebrated our third anniversary in Rome we proceeded to head South, first to Naples, then up central Italy to Venice. After seeing the sights in Venice, we thought we’d drive to Padua to see if we could connect with our friend Dino. Padua is about 50 kilometers from Venice and we managed to arrive about two in the afternoon. We pulled into a gas station with the swinging “aperto” sign in front and found a phone booth. This was in the days before cell phones. I found a phone book and looked up the surname Vincensotti. Amazingly, there was only one entry with that name. On the possibility that Dino would be home, I put the appropriate lire into the phone and dialed the number. Luckily, Dino was home.
I say luckily, because my Italian is extremely limited (mostly musical terms such as Presto, Vivace, Andante, Adagio, crescendo and piano). So Dino, who spoke perfect English, answered the phone. I told him who I was and explained that we were in Padua. Could we visit? He was excited about the possibility, since it had been seven years since he lived in Berkeley. As it turns out, Dino at the time was a medical student who had just completed his semester work. His plans for that afternoon were to go to the train station. He was booked on a train for his summer vacation in Sicily. However, his parents were home and would love to meet us. The rub was that they spoke no English whatsoever. We arranged to meet Dino at the train station briefly. We exchanged a few words of greeting and he gave us directions to his parents’ home. Dino’s brother would be able to come over in the evening to help with translation. He was a teacher and also spoke fine English. At that point, Dino boarded the train and we haven’t seen, spoken, written or heard from him since.
Here comes the interesting part. We made our way to the Vincensotti home and were met by Dino’s father and mother. For brevity I’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. V. They were the most friendly, warm, happy, encouraging people imaginable. Mr. V gestured and spoke at us in Italian and we tried our best to be understood. They were excited to visit with us and we enjoyed the many gestures of friendship. Mr. V kept looking at Roberta and saying “bambina” (baby girl). Dino’s brother came over for a few minutes and helped with the translations. We explained our trip, the fact that I had played violin for the season in Amsterdam and that we were touring Europe. We reminisced about Dino’s visit to California. We also were made a fine offer to stay the night, which was welcome, since camping in a sleeping bag gets a bit tiring after a while. However, Mr. V was not convinced that such a bambina could possibly be married and were quite perplexed that we might share a bedroom. We showed him our wedding bands and finally convinced him it would be all right. They had a rather small flat, but nevertheless offered us their bedroom. Then Dino’s brother left for the evening.
Dinner was spectacular. Mrs. V was a fine cook and did her best to make us welcome with a fabulous pasta and fish. The centerpiece was a large bottle, nay a jug, of fine local red wine, which was liberally poured during the course of the evening. Nevertheless, we didn’t finish the wine at dinner. When the meal with lots of gesturing and lots of “bambina” was concluded, Mrs. V showed us to the bedroom. I think that Mr. & Mrs. V may have slept on the couch that night. What lovely, courteous and giving people!
It was a very warm humid night. Mosquitoes were both abundant and hungry. The windows had no screens. Bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz. Presumably, Mrs. V knew that we’d be facing a problem because after a few minutes trying to get settled, we heard a knock at the bedroom door. As I said, my Italian was (and is) not so good. So, having seen the “open” signs on the gas stations I said, “aperto”. What I did not realize until much later was that the connotation of aperto is “open for business” rather than “enter”. More proper terms might have been “avanti”, “tra saluto” or “entrare” (I think). So perhaps she thought this young couple was open for business?
In any event, Mrs. V had a wonderful little incense device. It was a simple little sheet metal stand with a place for an incense stick, which had already been lit. She brought it in saying, “Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz” while moving her arms and touching her index finger repeatedly to her thumb to indicate the presence of the mosquitoes. She set the device on the nightstand, bid us good night (buonanotte!) and shut the door behind her as she went out of the room. Now the incense was a great idea to repel the mosquitoes and make the room smell pleasant at the same time. However, the odor became so strong in the still warm air that we felt we would suffocate if we didn’t put it out. Now we had another dilemma. Not only did we not want to be rude at her kindness, but we didn’t have any way to extinguish the burning incense. I tried to flick it, but didn’t want to set the place on fire. It was too hot to pinch with my fingers long enough to put it out. It was not proper to use the nice wooden furniture as an ashtray. So we suffered for several hours while it burned itself out. Meanwhile, even with the incense we got a few mosquito bites!
The next morning, we arose, dressed and got ready for a nice breakfast. Mrs. V served us a wonderful chocolate spread on toast and Mr. V finished off the wine from the previous night. We thanked our hosts profusely with hand gestures and started off on the rest of our adventure. And I’m still married to my little bambina.
©Frank Bliss 2010 All rights reserved
February, 2010
