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Each word sounded out songs and promises.
He gripped the tasso da caffe and watched her leaving. She wore a red wool pencil skirt, a little too tight across the hips but not unattractive for all that. From inside the cafe he glimpsed a flash of thigh as she climbed awkwardly into a yellow cab.
Then it was a white mug again, the day was a little less bright and the coffee when he sipped it had turned cold.
“La prossima settimana.” He outlined the words silently with just his lips, his tongue curling luxuriously and jaw working. Another week. The sibilant ‘s’s escaped his soundless mouthing, so that the angry young man at the table beside him in appearance more a protester than a student glared in full protest before bowing his head again over a well-worn copy of Ulysses.
No wonder he’s angry, Charlie thought to himself. He remembered reading Joyce in college, arguing into the night with Anna who had been the loveliest thing on the planet then all pale gold curls and chubby cheeks.
For a second the vision again: the hospital bed, the body curled up into itself like a shrimp’s, the generalizing mask of death, withered lips and hoarse voice speaking slowly, so much slower than ever in life; Anna’s voice rattling from the bed: “I want to smell your hair.”
The nurse stiffened. Charlie thought she would refuse, would say this is highly irregular, Mrs. Stevens, or something official-sounding. She only put a diffident hand to her loose bun of hair.
“I didn’t wash it,” the nurse said almost apologetically. “It smells like hairspray I think.”
Anna’s hand made a brusque movement as if to say who cares. Her beautiful hand thin like a claw.
The nurse let her hair loose; it was long and brown and surprisingly pretty. Anna always had an eye for that sort of thing. She had hated her own curly hair. The mask inhaled deeply. She touched the nurse’s cheek, then settled back into the bed: “So beautiful,” she said.
The nurse was an ordinary-enough nurse, brown hair, brown eyes, but beside Anna she glowed with vitality. With her hair down she was softer. The two women smiled at each other.
Charlie whispered aloud this time: “Bellissima.”
The young man beside Charlie cleared his throat loudly, shut the book with a bang and began to pile his papers into a haphazard stack before unceremoniously stuffing them into his bag. He’d have to sort them later. But he had all the time in the world to read Ulysses, to piece together meaning for himself in Joyce’s strange, disjointed prose.
All the time in the world.
Then in the flash these longings and visions arrived in Charlie, he longed to give the boy a kiss.
A non-sexual but very tender and specific kiss on his young lips.
These horrible strange impulses came over him all the time these days. He had to clench his fists, shut his eyes tight and hold on to the new words and meanings:
“Il mano, la prossima, una settimana, il tasso da cafe.”
His lips moved, they had to move for it to work– his tongue tasted as much as sounded out the words.
He still stood beside his wife’s bed. When he shut his eyes, he would always stand in that room no matter where he was,but now there was sunlight pouring in through the dusty curtains. The words pushed the curtains aside. The sunlight was blinding.
His teacher in her red pencil skirt stood beside him holding a glass of wine. Through the glass the light shone until the wine sparkled like rubies. He could sense the bed behind him, but he could no longer see it. The darkness veiled with light.
“Il vino?” she said to him offering her cup, arching one eyebrow meaningfully. At his level that’s all he could make her say.
Even in his fantasy he could hear Anna’s stertorous breath behind him.
“IL VINO,” he repeated aloud. The worse it got the louder he had to become.
Then she vanished as she always did when he could think of nothing more to say to her.
Anna looked at him from the bed.
“You always wanted to learn Italian,” she said.
He was tearing up now and ashamed.
When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see the boy was still there staring at him.
He no longer looked angry: “Do you need help, sir?”
Charlie wondered when had he become a sir? Then he remembered his hair was white now. He would not have thought to put that word into this boy’s mouth; he felt badly having imagined him as some kind of hoodlum.
“Hai bisogno di qualcosa, signore?”
The translation just came to him. His first.
He smiled to himself.
“No, but thank you,” he said.
He had never been so conscious of words before. Thank you. It was a richer phrase than he’d thought. When you said it the Italian way with your whole mouth and jaw and tongue, the “th” forced you to smile wider, wider.
So he repeated it again: “Thank you.”
The boy echoed his smile.
Izzy David is an actor and writer living in New York City. She attended UVA where she crafted a major reflecting both her interests and continues to try to meld the two pursuits into one career. She recently wrote and starred in a short play for Centerstage’s Friend Me Festival and is working on a longer play. Her stories, essays and poetry have appeared in The First Line, Apollo’s Lyre and Every Day Fiction.
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25 Responses to “THE ITALIAN LESSON • by Izzy David”
Comments
« ELLA HART’S MOTHER • by Elizabeth Holden | Home | BACK ROADS • by Madeline Mora-Summonte »
March 25th, 2012 at 1:25 am
What was he tearing up?
And I think “arguing into the night with Anna who had been the loveliest thing on the planet then all pale gold curls and chubby cheeks” could use a comma after “then”, to avoid being read as having a break before it.
March 25th, 2012 at 3:10 am
I found this a little hard to follow.
March 25th, 2012 at 4:58 am
I agree with the above comment from Paul A. Freeman. Specifically I wasn’t sure if the red-skirted woman was actually his Italian teacher or if that was the main character’s fantasy.
A lot of cliches here: the girl with curly blonde hair who hates her curls; the Joyce-obsessed young man who reads in a public place but gets annoyed by the slightest distraction; even the widower who wants to learn the language of love. I feel as if I’ve already seen these characters.
Also, perhaps rather than a flashback to Anna’s death bed, we could see Anna in her prime. I feel like there are too many characters for such a short piece.
March 25th, 2012 at 7:14 am
I agree with Lawrence’s second point. As to his first: there is something called idiomatic American English. “Tearing up” is standard English, at least in the US. Personally, I’d use “he was in tears”, but this is not a dissertation; it’s a short story, and it is supposed to emulate the way in which people actually speak.
March 25th, 2012 at 7:19 am
Now that I think about it, one might argue that “he was in tears” means that he was literally submerged in a pool of tears. So what phrase should one use? “He was secreting tears”? That’s ridiculous. The point is that for fiction, clarity rules, idioms are standard, and “tearing up” is OK.
March 25th, 2012 at 7:24 am
I’m afraid I got lost due to the woman in the red skirt. She got in a taxi and left, then reappeared beside his table with a glass of wine. If I mentally cut this woman and all references to her from the story, I rather like what’s left: A heartbroken man and a compassionate stranger reading the most boring book in the world. Their brief exchange (the concern, the smiles) are what make this story real to me.
March 25th, 2012 at 8:25 am
I loved this story.There were so many things that I found simply beautiful in it. Five stars.
March 25th, 2012 at 9:09 am
I’ve watched family members waste away and die, had a cute German teacher when I lived in Bavaria, and have been around crabby readers in public places (in the pre-texting days)so all the characters just seemed like normal people to me. So the characters and the idea to travel and learn another language seemed very real. It also seemed real for the MC to be somewhat lost in fantasy once he was there. I think the writer chose a good subject and captured some of the frustration and loss of the MC.
I do think finer clarity in prose and punctuation would’ve helped, but I still enjoyed it.
March 25th, 2012 at 10:06 am
I like this a lot. It’s rich, subtle, and it rewards multiple readings. The author has laid out the situation and left the reader to do the hard work, and for me it pays off.
Having said that, I think it could be made a little clearer by separating the sections dealing with present time / memory / imagination, using a marker such as “#”.
March 25th, 2012 at 10:20 am
I ‘m afraid I got lost. But I can appreciate there’s some very good turns of phrase. well done.
March 25th, 2012 at 10:49 am
I liked the fact that in his fantasy he couldn’t get the teacher to say anything but “Il vino.” That’s funny.
March 25th, 2012 at 11:22 am
good story. the image of the wife contrasted to the nurse, and just the image of the wife itself, made this story well worth reading. i did not mind that i had to do some thinking to distinguish the MC’s reality from his fantasies. doing that kind of work makes a story stick longer in my mind. this story will stay with me for a long time.
March 25th, 2012 at 11:58 am
Beautifully sustained mood of rueful tenderness. A little awkwardness of phrasing doesn’t diminish the power of the whole.
March 25th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
This is a lovely story. I enjoyed the word-play and sound-play, and sympathized with Charlie on a variety of levels.
Good one.
March 25th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
Izzy has captured subtle emotions here and bottled them magically with her words, despite the confusion that others have referred to above. That amazing moment when the first translation of a phrase into a foreign tongue happens without obvious conscious thought is one example. It is a shame about the colloquial US usage of ‘tearing’, which naturally reads as a synonym of ‘ripping’ to the UK reader’s eye, and a necessary instant of adjustment breaks the flow. With a little editing and adjustment this will be a very special story, IMO.
8) scar
March 25th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
I love the imagery of the red-skirted teacher who appears both in real life and in fantasy. Personally, I love the layers of time and place, of similar and contrasted characters. I’m happy the author didn’t distinguish between the images more (and in fact, I didn’t find it hard to follow.) If it were more clear, there would be nothing to talk about, nothing to interpret from your own personal space. The rhythm, the Italian phrases, the bittersweet story of a separated partner living a dream without his closest confidant moved me. I felt an attachment to them even in such a short time, and wouldn’t mind reading more.
March 25th, 2012 at 10:06 pm
Thank you all for the feedback and comments. It’s interesting how many people picked up on a last minute change I made to the story. I’d have to refer to the original draft for the exact wording, but I ended up changing “Charlie was crying now” to “tearing up” and perhaps I should have trusted my original instinct. It’s obviously a challenge for me to write a story from an older man’s perspective although I’ve been experimenting with that voice a lot lately. It’s an aspect of the story I might have to think about some more now that I’ve gotten your feedback. And Oscar: thank you so much for the explanation about that phrase. I had no idea it might read differently to people in other parts of the world.
All the best,
Izzy
March 26th, 2012 at 7:42 am
A perfectly beautiful story.
March 26th, 2012 at 9:40 am
I like this. I like the way he’s moving on, learning something. It’s a good way to handle loss, and he’s eventually going to be able to handle it, I can feel that. And hey, when he learns a little more Italian, his fantasies can expand a bit. That’s something to look forward to, and we all need that.
March 26th, 2012 at 12:00 pm
The deathbed ………….
brought memories………..
tears……….
5 *****
March 26th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I love this story. It is honest, simple and beautiful. The emotional truth is a feeling, which might explain why those who tried to understand this story analytically failed to experience its beauty.
March 27th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
I posted my comments immediately after reading this story on Sunday morning, then went about my day. While I had some reservations about the characters, I can honestly say that the story has crossed my mind several times over the past couple of days. Especially that red-skirted lady and the main character, Charlie. There is something about this story that has stayed with me. I teach literature and am always telling my students that the best writing has layers and textures, and holds up to repeated readings, giving you something new every time. Sure enough I came back to reread this haunting story and found that — while the Joyce reader still hasn’t captured me— the red-skirted lady and Charlie certainly have.
March 28th, 2012 at 7:21 am
I liked the complexity of this story. There’s a lot here to think about and experience.
March 30th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
coping with loss, and the moment when life starts to move forward again. The guilt, the excitement, the pain. This story captures it beautifully. That moment stays with you, just like this story. Great work.
July 9th, 2012 at 12:02 am
[...] “The Italian Lesson” by Izzy David was originally published on March 25, 2012. [...]