Eavesdropping

Gilda eavesdropped on her unfaithful lover through a crack in the wall. I watched her from the last row of the thin-air section of Rome’s opera theater, transfixed. I could relate.

Understanding overheard conversations has become a measure of progress on my must–become–fluent campaign in Italy. And sometimes like Gilda in Verdi’s opera, I’m surprised at what I overhear.

A few weeks ago, I took a break from the city and visited a friend who’d enrolled at a language school in Tuscany. While my friend finished class, I toured the town’s medieval churches, gorged myself on a porchetta panino, and checked my email at the local Internet spot.

At dinner I asked my friend, “Did you know that the guy who runs the Internet café is selling his shop?”

“What? I just bought a discount card for 40 euro,” my friend said, dropping her fork. “It was supposed to last all month.”

I’d overhead the owner of the Internet spot talking about selling his shop, auctioning his valuable furniture, and moving to Brazil. Not realizing I understood Italian, he was surprised when I asked when he was moving. The students at the language school who’d also bought discount passes were surprised as well.

Returning from my country weekend, I shared a cabin on the Milan to Rome train with three elegantly dressed travelers. One read Corriere della Sera, one typed on her laptop, and one had a fight with her boyfriend on her cell phone.

“You don’t even remember what you said last night,” the raven–haired woman whispered. “Don’t even bother calling me. I don’t want to talk to you.” With that, she snapped her phone shut. Unfortunately ten minutes later, the phone rang and the one-sided dialog began again.

Most overheard lovers’ chats bore me now that I understand them, but I overheard an interesting one the day I went to buy opera tickets.

I’d squeezed onto the bus next to a woman with curly–as–fusilli hair, dressed in a red–violet coat. The woman’s telefonino rang as soon as we pulled away from the bus stop.

“Buonasera, tesoro. Come stai?” My eavesdropping ears perked up. Why was this Italian woman greeting her lover good evening at nine o’clock in the morning?

Her back was next to mine and she continued, “No, no. I’m in Rome on my way to rehearsal. We’re taking Rigoletto to Japan next week.” Then she was going to take a vacation in Singapore after Japan. “Can’t wait to see you, tesoro,” she said, shutting her phone and descending from the bus at the opera house.

The night of Rigoletto I couldn’t wait for the curtain to rise. I scanned the stage and tried to find woman from the bus. Thanks to the disguise of costumes, I’ll never know if she was the unfaithful Countess Ceprano, the fickle Maddalena, or the young heroine Gilda.

While I watched Gilda fall in love with the Duke, break her father’s heart, and march toward her tragic destiny, I tried to calculate the time zone of the curly–haired woman’s boyfriend. Tokyo? Aukland? Shanghai? But why hadn’t he known she was in Rome? Was he going on the vacation after Rigoletto?

Sometimes I want to hear more.

About the Author: Bonnie Smetts first fell in love with Italian when she decided to take a few classes before visiting a friend who’d moved to Umbria. Five years later, she’s studied all the grammar, read stack of classics, and participated in myriad conversation groups. The time has come for her to be fluent in Italian.