After my first year in college, I strapped on a backpack, hopped on a cheap charter flight and landed in London to begin a European adventure. I sent home half my pack a day after I arrived, when I realized how hard it was to carry. That left me with my American Youth Hostel sleeping sack, a copy of Arthur Frommer’s Europe on Five Dollars a Day, and a minimal amount of clothing and toiletries. As I toured, I made it a priority to meet up with like-minded students. I sought out hostels which served as a young person’s travel bureau. In Amsterdam, I linked up with new travel buddies headed to Brussels. In Belgium, I found students headed to Paris. Often the traveling was by hitchhiking, which kept expenses down.
I wasn’t fond of hitchhiking, but having more money for food, the occasional club and sites, was always welcome. I practiced safe hitching as best I could and that meant hitching with a male companion. As an unattached female, I didn’t have much trouble finding male hitching partners at the hostels. Three females together was another good combination. In that event we’d forego hitching and travel by train which we felt was safer.
When I arrived in Florence mid-way through the summer, I was solo again. As I walked through the crowded piazza in front of the Duomo I ignored the catcalls and taunts of the local Italian youths. You can only hear “Ciao, bella!” so many times before you feel like throttling the next fellow and setting off an international incident. One young soldier approached me with a large picture of his girlfriend framed in a large crude, wooden, red heart. He followed me for half an hour, his buddies never far behind, tearily beating his chest and hugging the photo, begging me to talk to him; truly the most unusual pickup routine I’d ever seen. In desperation, I sought out two girls sitting outside the Duomo. “Please, can I join you for a little while?” I nodded over my shoulder at the teary soldier and his heart picture. They made room on the stairs for me. Miraculously, once I was part of a female herd, my admirer disappeared. Both the girls were from Florida, tan and trim. When they found out that the Rome hostel was full, they immediately invited me to share their room. Over our next couple of days together as we shared sites and incredible Tuscan pastas. Then we boarded a train to Rome, and Carlo.
The three of us checked into a small pensione with a flower-filled garden that was shielded by a high wall from the buzzing Vespas that zipped past outside. The desk clerk was a stunning young Italian fellow with dark hair and blue eyes. He bowed and introduced himself as Carlo. He was a student in Rome and originally from Turin. “At your service,” he said holding my gaze. Carlo asked me if I’d ever seen Rome at night. When I answered that it was my first time in the city, he told me that he wanted to show me around that evening. My roommates had friends to visit so I gladly accepted his invitation. He was as charming as the many flavors of gelato that he insisted I try, from watermelon to chestnut. His car was so small I didn’t see how he folded his tall frame into it. I liked Carlo, but at that time, wasn’t interested in taking any relationship beyond a few hugs and kisses. Carlo didn’t seem to mind when I explained my non-romantic self. He introduced me to his friends and I spent a couple of evenings teaching them English curse words. They in turn taught me how to cuss in Italian. At the end of each day when Carlo returned from work and I from touring, I’d tell him what I’d seen and eaten and he’d nod and make recommendations for my next excursion.
When my roommates left Rome for France, Carlo suggested I move into his flat in Rome. “Why spend your money at the pensione? My place is free all day long while I’m behind the desk. Besides, I don’t want to work anymore. I’m going to quit my job and travel with you in a few days.” He said this easily as though it made perfect sense and was something anyone might do.
I relocated to Carlo’s flat and explored Rome. As promised, he quit a few days later. While he put things in order to leave, he took me to places tourists rarely see; the inner narrow streets of Trastevere, the home of a relative where I drank grappa that made my eyes water and an unmarked club where the clothes were far more colorful than any I’d seen in NY. Each day there was wine, gelato, espresso, cheese, pasta, and pizza so good that I’ve given up trying to find its match.
In the mornings, Carlo brought me hot tea served in a small white porcelain bowl. He dropped a slice of lemon onto the surface then ruffled my hair. I remember thinking that the lemon looked like the sun floating in my cup. I enjoyed Carlo’s tea so much that I still drink it that way. Sunny Italy is never more than a cup of tea away.
I may have liked his tea, but I despised the cold water in Carlo’s shower which was nothing more than one of those hand held sprayers that never get your hair quite clean. “It’s summer. Who needs hot water?” he asked when I complained and jumped chattering out of the tub.
We settled on our itinerary. We would hitch south and take the ferry from Brindisi to Greece, visit some islands, then go to Istanbul. I could hardly contain myself. To have a traveling companion I liked go with me to Greece and Turkey would be wonderful. We made far better companions than I had ever hoped to find.
Our hitching south went well. When we became stuck, Carlo would hide from view and I’d stick out my thumb. It didn’t take long for a male driver to stop for what he thought was a solo female. Carlo would then appear and the driver would open the door for the two of us, sometimes remaining silent the entire ride. One day, a small Peugeot stopped and we raced toward it. I climbed into the back seat. Carlo and the driver chatted and their voices lulled me to sleep. I woke to loud shouts. I don’t speak much Italian but I could understand that Carlo was upset. The driver, a stocky fellow with a thick neck and thicker arms, yelled as vehemently as Carlo. A few minutes later the car drew to a stop. “Get out. Hurry!” Carlo shouted in English. I did as he asked and he joined me at the side of the road. He kicked the tire of the car and unleashed a torrent of words, many of which I recognized from our cussing exchange evenings. The car spat gravel as it drove off.
Carlo seethed. “Stupid idiot. That man was bad. Very bad.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what had happened.
Carlo shouted a few sentences in Italian and shook his fist at the sky. Then he sighed. “He wanted to buy you from me. As though I could do that! He kept arguing that all I had to do was agree on a price and he’d pay me and let me out. You were sleeping and would never know what happened.” He kicked the hard dirt, then spat on the ground.
Buy me? The words sunk in.
“He said he had a connection in Turkey. He could sell you there.”
In spite of the mid-day heat, a chill went up my back. I had heard about the white slave trade, had joked about it with my friends before leaving. I couldn’t believe that it was real and that I’d come so close to it.
Carlo looked at me. “So, what do you say we call it a day and find a nice pensione?”
“I don’t think I want to go to Istanbul after Greece.”
Carlo smiled and his blue eyes crinkled a bit. “After Greece we go back to Rome, eh?”
I linked my arm in his and looked up at the brilliant sun swimming in the sky. It never had looked so beautiful. And neither had the fellow next to me.
We traveled to Greece on local ferries from island to island. I found him a girl he went off with for a few nights, but he checked on me each day. Eventually we went back to Italy where he put me on a train from Rome bound for London and my return flight to New York. I’d saved enough money from hitching to afford the train ride. On the train, I met a girl from London who put me up at her parents’ home once we arrived. London was sunny that summer, but it wasn’t an Italian sun. The tea was always served with cream; a pale cousin of Carlo’s strong brew.
I haven’t seen Carlo since that summer. We wrote for a few years, then life intruded and we lost track of one another. I’ve always wanted to thank Carlo. For it was Carlo who put the sun in my tea, and also kept it not only in my world, but in its place.
Thank you, Carlo!
