I've been staying very still and quiet, moving and speaking as little as possible. You know how it is after a brush with chaos: you resolve not to be the butterfly that causes the next hurricane. Now things are looking up, so I can tell the story in the past tense, where it belongs.
So. Rita threw me out on the street at two a.m. with all my stuff. I called a taxi, slept in the school and moved into a new place, which thankfully I had lined up already, the next morning. I was kind of expecting something like that because, unfortunately, I've encountered people like Rita before. When someone is unbearably miserable, they occasionally fix on another person whom they can blame. Everything that person does becomes evidence of their guilt, and--ecco la--the misery guts has found an external object for their unhappiness.
Problem is, the other person doesn't always cooperate. And if the misery guts sees that their victim's hour of escape is getting closer, they tend to kick their aggression up a notch, out of desperation. After all, if you go, and their life still sucks, they've lost their excuse. So if they can't stop you from getting out, they'll do what they can to ensure you don't get out unmarked. She stole my money, and she called me names, and she put me out on the street--two nights before I was due to leave anyway. No big surprise. I've written off the lost money, which wasn't so much in the end, and I've found a lovely new apartment, and success is the best revenge, and all that.
As for Rome: I went back to Reggio last weekend and saw my friends there, two of whom are enormously pregnant, hurrah, and did exactly nothing except eat and drink and watch TV. Bumbling my contented way home, I made the mistake of taking the advice of Italian train guards, and got on a train to Rome instead of to Florence. Not the nice, big, central station, mind you, from whence I might have made a nice little Before Sunrise sortie into the town, but some abandon-all-hope place in the periferia constructed out of chewing gum and lavatory tiles. I stayed awake and read
The Good Soldier, which I enjoyed very much (I should read more tragedy, it's--well, you know--cathartic), and got home on Monday morning, with time to prepare my lessons and all. Wouldn't mind going back to Rome, though: I'm not sure I experienced all it had to offer.
Anyway, as I said, after Rita bade me a fond farewell I moved in with this excellent old lady who billets students all the time. I got through my first morning with the help, oddly enough, of the dialogue from chapter one of my Teach Yourself Italian book. I hadn't studied it since that day in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont with Macgregor. Ah, sigh. Well at the time it made me laugh: 'It is a lovely room, signora. Very light. And there's even a shelf where I can put my books.' 'Indeed. It isn't large, but look: there is a fine view of the cathedral from the window.' 'Thankyou, signora. Now I can put away my things.' Luckily, it turned out to be exactly the conversation I was required to have that morning, right down to the cathedral spire that can be seen if you open the window and crane your neck.
Today, on the other hand, we sat in the kitchen having espressos and chocolate truffles for breakfast (she's as golosa as I am), and gossipped about all the crazy people we've ever known. She told me about the junkie who stole everything from anybody he lived with and was constantly in and out of prison, all the while dressing in tailored suits, cashmere coat and silk socks (worn longish, to cover the track marks around his ankles when he crossed his legs). 'Twenty years on junk,' she said, 'and--you probably don't know what I'm talking about, but I swear he looked just like Marcello Mastroianni.' 'Get right out of town.' 'No, really. Cosi' raffinato. Just goes to show.'
In other news, most of my classes have invited me out to Christmas dinners this month, which is very nice, and I'm looking forward to the holidays (English teachers don't have that pesky life-reevaluation pressure at new year, since our contracts, our post codes, our furniture and many of our friendships last exactly from September to June) and I'm planning a little trip to Ikea. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good year: you bloody deserve it.
