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In Dante's Country - Page 2

© Billy Marshall Stoneking

I scooped up the phone, coins in hand, only to discover I needed a phone card. A phone card, I thought; where in hell am I gonna get a phone card? A passerby read my mind. Or maybe I wasn't Sinalunga's first tourist after all. He directed me towards the railway station, saying I should try the kiosk.

In the café, I made hand-signs and spoke baby Italian to a skeptical, middle-aged woman behind the counter. In desperation, I reached for my phrase book, but she waved it away with a brief remark before commenting loudly to a rather sporty, coffee-drinking couple at the other end of bar. The man replied in Italian, then all of them laughed uproariously. I smiled as if I understood, and tried my best not to look entirely helpless. The woman behind the counter pushed a 10.000 lire phone card towards me, then took my money and rang it up in one seamless motion. You can make your call now, she said in perfect English.

Someone else was on the phone when I got back - a small man occupying a very large conversation that went on for at least ten or fifteen minutes, despite audible sighs, groans and glowering looks from my side of the glass. When he was done, I inserted the card, and carefully dialed the number Ugo had written on a scrap of paper before I'd left Sydney - the number for Gianna, the cab driver.

The phone rang... and rang... and then it rang some more. Maybe it was the wrong number. Or maybe the cab company had gone out of business. Moments before, I'd been hoping that whoever answered the phone would speak English; now all I wanted was for someone to answer the damn thing. I was on the verge of hanging up when I heard a woman's voice. "You speak English?" I asked. No, no English," she said, and remained stonily mute while I struggled to explain my need. Her silence was broken at the mention of Gianna. No, nooooo, she said, Gianna not here. Is he coming back, I stammered. But it was useless. Where Gianna was I have no idea, though I'm sure she must've told me. He might as well have been dead for all the good my Italian was doing me. With false conviction in my mastery of the language, I set about trying to explain my predicament - enough to express my grave dismay at there being no cabs. I'm not sure it was so much what I said as how I said it that made the difference - a slight quavering in the voice which spoke volumes of dread and uncertainty. People usually respond to expressions of fear, and my friend on the other end didn't let me down. My howling lament set her to speaking, more quickly now, nervously, as if there was some urgency that I not be left to my own devices in the middle of Sinalunga with nothing more than sunset to look forward to. Pressing the receiver closer to my ear, I gathered together enough key phrases to imagine she was telling me to wait, someone would come.

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