I didn’t know what he was saying, but I knew he was showing off. “I just mean, like, the vocabulary and stuff,” I said as I handed him the knife. “Your grandmother was talking to you about the old country and maybe how to make a marinara, but I’m guessing she never said a word about nuclear submarines.”
I watched him make an open-faced sandwich, fold it in half, and take a big bite. Then he said, “You know what the wordnuclearis in Italian?”
“What?”
“Nucleare.”
I swatted at his arm. “You know what I mean.”
“The commodore gets by okay. I think he just wants some extra uniforms in the room.”
“Why?”
“The PCI’s introducing a resolution to kick us out of Sardinia.”
I thought of the translated flyer, still tucked inside my Intercultural Relations Seminar handbook.Let Italian ports be ports of peace. Get atomic bases out of Italy.
“Can they do that?” I asked.
“Hell, no. I mean, they can try to pass a resolution, but whether we stay or go isn’t up to some rinky-dink City Council.”
“Who’s it up to?”
Paul shrugged. “The Ministry of Defense, the PM, NATO, the pope, who the fuck knows?”
He had finished the sandwich and was looking around for his visor hat. I handed it to him, then asked, “Is the meeting open to the public?”
Paul seemed confused. “Why?”
“Maybe I could come?”
“Why would you want to?” he asked, and I was so startled by the question, I started to stammer.
“I’m here all day, and I just thought—”
Paul looked at his watch. “Babe, I’m sorry. I gotta go.”
49.
AT MY NEXT ITALIAN LESSON,I asked Francesca about the City Council meeting. She said she hadn’t gone but her nephew had been there. Apparently, he worked forLa Spedizione, which was a small newspaper that covered northern Sardinia.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
We were sitting on her balcony, demi cups of espresso in front of us, and she was reviewing my homework, which I had put an absurd amount of time into because I desperately wanted to impress her. “Is it true that everyone wants us out?”
She smiled. “Noteveryone.”
I rolled my eyes at her because I was pretty sure she was splitting hairs.
“Okay, okay. The PCI and the PSI definitely want you out.”
“Those are the communists and the socialists,” I said, proud of myself for remembering the acronyms.
“Yes, but there’s also the PSDI and the PSIUP, and they’re also socialists.”
“Are all of them on La Maddalena’s City Council?”
“No, no,” she said. “There are so many political parties in Italy, it’d be impossible to have them all on City Council.”
