Tim Parks: An Italian Education

‘Won’t you take us to the patatine ,’ Stefi simpers. ‘It’s our last night, Nonno. Please take us to the patatine .’

Patatine are chips. There’s a man who parks his van along the front near the Medusa and sells chips and Coca Cola, beer and hamburgers.

‘I’ll give you a kiss,’ she says, ‘if you take us to the patatine .’

And whereas children hate it when they’re being blackmailed, when they have to give something to get something, adults love it. Nonna is most impressed. ‘ O la ciccinina! ’ she laughs. ‘ O la civetta , the little flirt!’ And she says her grandmother used to say that while everything had its price, a kiss is always priceless. This seems somewhat inappropriate when Stefi has just indicated the tag with such cynical precision: about seven thousand lire for two portions of chips and two Coca Colas. But of course, if I say something to that effect, I will be accused of la tipica freddezza anglo-sassone , typical Anglo-Saxon coldness. I know that this is what is said about me among other members of the family…

As it turns out, not only has Nonno got the price of a kiss, but actually thinks it’s cheap. He stands up, thrusting back a chair held together with rusty bolts, and in all his tubby majesty raises a dramatic arm, as if ordering a charge.

‘To the patatine !’ he cries.

Stefi echoes, ‘To the patatine !’

Michele shouts: ‘ Avanti popolo !’ which is how the Red Flag goes… He raises his water pistol and aims at one of the chickens grubbing along towards him. Nonna is furious.

So it’s back one last time along Luigi Cadorna, by the freshly painted circles for the cyclists to avoid, over the railway line, across the lethal road to the front, where the man in his van has rigged up a portable TV to watch the World Cup and gives a running commentary on something like Switzerland — Spain while forgetting whether we wanted ketchup or not, whether we wanted Coca Cola or not, and how many beers. How many beers? Because Nonna and Nonno and I are all having beers. ‘Give me a portion of chips too,’ Nonno confuses the man further. ‘Me, too,’ says Nonna. Once a festive spirit has begun there’s no end to it. Michele reaches for his chips, and as he does so, I remember how high up, as a child, how very high up, ice-cream men and hot-dog men always used to look in their vans, and how this somehow gave one the impression that they were bestowing largess, that they were toweringly generous. Whereas the generosity in this case is…

‘Mine,’ Nonno says, going for his wallet. But I’m Italian enough now to know this can’t be allowed. This would put me in a very bad light.

‘No, I’ll pay.’

There follows the usual back and forth, conducted with the usual over-the-top insistence, and always with the implication that the other person is being ridiculous making an offer. ‘Oh, come on, don’t be silly.’ ‘Not at all, not at all. It’s my invitation.’

Grabbing their chips, the children ignore us. They are asking about who should have the blue plastic fork and who the pink. Did the patatine man really give Stefi a pink fork and Michele a blue on purpose? Surely he is too distracted by his game. Someone has scored, or nearly.

‘Porco Giuda!’ Michele shouts.

Nonna laughs indulgently. But she could have killed him for spraying her chickens.

And I pick up the tab, as I always knew I would. It’s risen to fifteen thousand lire since the earlier estimate. Extortionate. The price I’ve had to pay, I somehow can’t help thinking, for the kiss Stefi saw in the sea, or all the kisses of all the Marcias and Amalias that appear to have inspired her.

Tengo famiglia .

Tradition has it that you eat your chips sitting on the low seafront wall by the six-a-side football court. One might think that a better place would be the terrace of the Medusa, but as if to show that Italians don’t always have good taste, this is lit in the evening by low-slung fluorescent lights, which, like Gorgon’s eyes, turn all to stone beneath them, while the lovely trees and all the soft rustling shapes of the place are lost in ink above.

So we sit and eat and drink and watch the floodlit six-aside teams. They are brilliant. They play with such style, such panache, and so cleanly. You wonder if some of these local boys shouldn’t be immediately enlisted among the azzurri . Everybody gets excited by the game, and the children want to know who you’re rooting for so that they can root for them too, except that mostly Michele wants to root for the team that will win.

‘ Evviva i rossi! ’ he finally decides when they score a goal.

The crowd is still sauntering back and forth along the front, as it has since eight this morning. The traffic is still booming. People are still in their bathing costumes, perhaps on bicycles weaving in and out, or in each other’s arms, or holding the handles of their two-year-olds’ tricycles. Only towards the fatal hour of ten, does the crowd suddenly disappear, the evening suddenly grow quiet. It’s time for the big game. The patatine man is left in peace…

And of course, Nigeria score first. And Italy don’t score. And the game goes on and on and on, and still Italy don’t score. And don’t even look like scoring. Until Nonno and Nonna begin to say the same things about the azzurri they have just been saying about their children. That they’re all spoilt kids. That they’ve been given too much. Too much money. They think everything’s due to them. They don’t try. Everybody in Italy has got too rich since the war. They themselves stayed away and travelled the world and didn’t get rich at all, and then when they come back, what do they find, they find everybody is rolling in it, everyone’s rich and spoilt and the national team can’t beat the Africans…

Still the azzurri don’t score. I fear this game bodes ill for the twins and their financial requirements. I try to distract my in-laws with some linguistic reflections. ‘Notice how the commentator always says intervento regolare — fair tackle — when an Italian makes a dubious tackle that the referees lets by, and then intervento giudicato regolare — judged fair — when the others do it. With the obvious subtext…

But nobody wants to hear this kind of remark. For still Italy haven’t scored. It’s nail-biting. It’s unbelievable. The azzurri are going out. To Nigeria! Michele starts to get quite angry with me because I don’t care enough, because I probably want Italy to go out. I’m not Italian. But he is. He’s Italian, and he wants Italy to win. He’s in tears. I actually feel guilty — it’s the first time he’s shown any national feeling of this intensity — and I have to insist that I do want Italy to win, though the truth is I find the commentator so unpleasant and smug I’d just love to hear what he’d have to say when…

More sensibly, Stefi has lost interest and is trying to stand on her head on the couch, perhaps to show off her pretty pink knickers. About every ten seconds she says, ‘Has anybody made a goal? Has anybody made a goal?’ Which only gets Michele the more furious.

For still Italy haven’t scored. With five minutes to go the commentator has started talking about the team as them rather than us . This is ominous, indeed. And now he uses the word Caporetto! Yes, there it is. Defeat, disaster. Shame. Beaten by the Africans, the immigrants. These exact words are not said, of course, but the sense of imminent humiliation throbs with racism. Nonno and Nonna are silent, staring. The whole of Italy is silent.

Until GOL! GOL! Baggio’s scored. No, we have scored. Our boys have scored. The azzurri have scored. Bravissimi azzurri . The TV explodes. The room explodes. The world outside explodes. Half the team cross themselves. And Stefi too, upside down on the couch (is this sacrilegious?). And later, when Italy win the game with a dubious penalty in off the post, it will be horns honking late into the night and fireworks and people getting killed driving their cars too fast or trying to get ten people on a Vespa…