Tim Parks - An Italian Education

Ecco! Settled. There is a huge and understandable sigh of relief. At the same time I notice that one method Irma is using to teach the concept of difference is that of getting the children to draw a circle, probably round the base of a tin, and then a small figure either inside it or out. Then on these drawings she has written, ‘ME INSIDE THE CIRCLE’ and ‘ME OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE’. Very ominous. Though I’m pleased to reflect that class representative is one little circle I have always managed to keep out of.

With everybody feeling happy and relaxed and talkative (we have a candidate we can now, secretly, of course, all vote for!), Irma is invited back in. The blonde woman, who has assumed the authority of a spokeswoman, announces our decision. But Irma frowns. It’s her I-take-things-desperately-seriously frown, as when I quizzed her about what was taught in the ora di religione . She then informs us that the class representative is an official, legally recognized position and that the school’s statute makes no provision for the role of an assistant. This will not do.

There is something wonderful about watching people coming to grips with rules that are totally inappropriate to the situation in hand, as when one observes a gaggle of Germans waiting in pouring rain for the green pedestrian light that will allow them to cross a road where there is absolutely no traffic nor any sign of traffic. As the rain dribbles from their umbrellas to their shoulders, or bounces off the pavement onto their sensible shoes, you can see them hesitating, growing tense and wondering whether for just once in their lives they mightn’t cross a road (but it’s such a big road!) with the light on red. Which is illegal! Until at last the light changes anyway and they are relieved of this terrible dilemma, yet at the same time perhaps annoyed that they didn’t make up their own minds first, that they didn’t make that gesture of awful daring…

There was very little hesitation, however, when it came to Italian Montecchio and the Monte d’Oro’s second-year class representative. People are not so respectful of authority here. Nevertheless, it is remarkable to see quite how far some will go to get round a rule without actually breaking it. For cunning lies not in ignoring rules, breaking boundaries, but moving as it were in a different dimension, where they become irrelevant. I wish Stefano had come along.

What if, somebody said, the vote for the representative was a perfect tie? What would happen then? Surely the two candidates would have to share the job, either alternating, or one operating as the other’s assistant?

Irma was unsure. Perhaps in that case…

A tie was impossible, I pointed out, given that there were eleven of us and…

One vote gets wasted on a third candidate, I was quickly enlightened. My own most probably. How could I ever have imagined this was a problem?

We thus, in the absence of any known provisions for an exact tie, proceed as follows: half of us, and that is Miriam, Cristina, Anna, Silvia and Orietta, will vote for the first candidate, the blonde (fake blonde, I now realise) Cristina; while the other half, Monica, Mariuccia, Paola, Mariella and Daniela, will vote for the second candidate, the minute and nervous Paola; while I, and only I, will vote for a candidate of convenience. Who? Why not Daniela, a very dark young mother, who I find rather attractive? But to vote we must know the respective surnames, while the candidates themselves have to fill in the inevitable form giving particulars. Memories of childbirth. Still a lot to do…

We are in a hurry now, because apparently the teachers leading the various class meetings want to leave. Dinner time beckons. There is much busy laughter and joking, but also a lot of serious casting about for pens and jotting down of names and surnames on scraps of paper, and ‘Who am I voting for? Cristina?’ ‘No, Paola.’ ‘But I thought…’ ‘It’s Paola’s surname that’s Preti, not Cristina’s. Cristina is Chieppe.’ Organized at last, everybody quite sure now who they and everybody else are voting for, our teacher herds us out into the big open area between the classrooms where our children have been playing during the meeting, rolling about on big cylindrical cushions and falling off the climbing frame on purpose to plunge onto the mattresses below. We then cross to the kitchens, where three very serious ballot boxes are lined up on a big wooden-topped table full of chopping marks. The plump cook hands us our ballot papers and in great secrecy each scribbles down his, or rather her, decision, everybody now assuming exactly that formal hesitant concern people have as they make their way into polling booths. The papers are folded against possible intrusion and posted in the black box.

What would happen, I wonder, as I’m about to scribble down Daniela’s surname, Nerozzi, what would happen if I exercised my legal right to put down a different name than that agreed on, to jot down Cristina Chieppe, for example, and saddle the poor woman with the entire and onerous responsibility of being our rappresentante di classe? The problem is that if I break trust the others would know who had done the deed (there would be no vote for Daniela), whereas if any of the others decided to upset our arrangements there would be the secrecy of being one of a group. How could anybody know who had voted for Chieppe instead of Preti? Or vice versa. On the other hand, I am the only one in a position to ‘favour’ either candidate. On reflection, this is the most interesting election I have ever taken part in. And the most harmless.

Meanwhile, the children have gathered round, very impressed by this ritual of making a sign ( different signs, children) on a piece of paper, hiding it, putting it in a box. At what age, one wonders, will they realise what a farce it is? For the moment, the teachers will have their work cut out explaining the difference between Bashful and Dopey, between the variously poisoned apples, between the resurrection of Snow White and that of Our Lord — if they have time to get on to that part of their program this year.

‘ Com’è il tempo? ’ says the voice in the phone. What’s the weather like?

How should I reply to this? Outside a blue sky is just lightly curdled here and there in creamy flecks of cloud. Good, you would say, the weather is good. But no. Even my children already know that this is not so. The weather is decidedly not good. For the air is very moist. It is humid. The temperature is not much over sixteen or seventeen degrees. What’s more, there is a forecast of a light cloud cover for later on in the afternoon. Worst of all, it rained during the night, which means the ground is damp. Michele and Stefi are desperately disappointed. For today should be Michele’s school outing. He is now at the scuola elementare , the primary school.

‘ Com’è il tempo? ’ the voice repeats. It’s Stefano. I tell him cautiously, ‘Well, very much as it is where you are, I suppose.’ Stefano and Marta and Beppe, now Michele’s closest friend, live no more than half a mile away.

‘We haven’t opened the shutters yet,’ Stefano says.

‘Ah. Well, do.’

All in good time. The only thing is, he says, are we planning to let our Michele go on the walk, or not? Because they’re worried about letting Beppe go. He had a cold a couple of weeks ago.

Just as the Italian household must be perfectly clean before one can relax in it, so the sky must be scrubbed an immaculate blue, every smudge of cloud polished away, before one can feel safe, before one can feel that the universe is behaving as it should, that things are fair, that the celestial graduatoria hasn’t been fixed.