The Broker

"So I’ve been dropped here?" Marco asked.

The waiter plunked down a basket of mixed breads and a small bowl of olive oil. Luigi began dipping and eating, and the question was either forgotten or ignored. More food followed, a small tray of ham and salami with olives, and the conversation lagged. Luigi was a spy, or a counterspy, or an operative, or an agent of some strain, or simply a handler or a contact, or maybe a stringer, but he was first and foremost an Italian. All the training possible could not divert his attention from the challenge at hand when the table was covered.

As he ate, he changed subjects. He explained the rigors of a proper Italian dinner. First, the anitpasti-usually a plate of mixed meats, such as they had before them. Then the first course, primi, which is usually a reasonably sized serving of pasta, rice, soup, or polenta, the purpose of which is to sort of limber up the stomach in preparation for the main course, the secondi-a hearty dish of meat, fish, pork, chicken, or lamb. Be careful with desserts, he warned ominously, glancing around to make sure the waiter wasn’t listening. He shook his head sadly as he explained that many good restaurants now buy them off premises, and they’re loaded with so much sugar or cheap liqueur that they practically rot your teeth out.

Marco managed to appear sufficiently shocked at this national scandal.

"Learn the word ‘gelato,’ " he said, his eyes glowing again.

"Ice cream," Marco said.

"Bravo. The best in the world. There’s a gelateria down the street. We’ll go there after dinner."

Room service terminated at midnight. At 11:55, Marco slowly picked up the phone and punched number four twice. He swallowed deeply, then held his breath. He’d been practicing the dialogue for thirty minutes.

After a few lazy rings, during which time he almost hung up twice, a sleepy voice answered and said, l’Buona sera."

Marco closed his eyes and plunged ahead. "Buona sera. Vbrrei un caffe, per favore. Un espresso doppio."

"Si, latte e zucchero?" Milk and sugar?

"No, senza latte e zucchero."

"Si, cinque minuti."

"Grazie." Marco quickly hung up before risking further dialogue, though given the enthusiasm on the other end he doubted it seriously. He jumped to his feet, pumped a fist in the air, and patted himself on the back for completing his first conversation in Italian. No hitches whatsoever. Both parties understood all of what the other said.

At 1:00 a.m., he was still sipping his double espresso, savoring it even though it was no longer warm. He was in the middle of lesson three, and with sleep not even a distant thought, he was thinking of maybe devouring the entire textbook for his first session with Ermanno.

He knocked on the apartment door ten minutes early. It was a control thing. Though he tried to resist it, he found himself impulsively reverting to his old ways. He preferred to be the one who decided when the lesson would begin. Ten minutes early or twenty minutes late, the time was not important. As he waited in the dingy hallway he flashed back to a high-level meeting he’d once hosted in his enormous conference room. It was packed with corporate executives and honchos from several federal agencies, all summoned there by the broker. Though the conference room was fifty steps down the hall from his own office, he made his entrance twenty minutes late, apologizing and explaining that he’d been on the phone with the office of the prime minister of some minor country.

Petty, petty, petty. The games he played.

Ermanno was seemingly unimpressed. He made his student wait at least five minutes before he opened the door with a timid smile and a friendly "Buon giorno, Signor Lazzeri."

"Buon giorno, Ermanno. Come stai?"

"Molto bene, grazie, e to?"

"Molto bene, grazie."

Ermanno opened the door wider, and with the sweep of a hand said, "Prego." Please come in.

Marco stepped inside and was once again struck by how sparse and temporary everything looked. He placed his books on the small table in the center of the front room and decided to keep his coat on. The temperature was about forty outside and not much warmer in this tiny apartment.

"Vorrebbe un caffe?" Ermanno asked. Would you like a coffee?

"Si, grazie." He’d slept about two hours, from four to six, then he’d showered, dressed, and ventured into the streets of Treviso, where he’d found an early bar where the old gentlemen gathered and had their espressos and all talked at once. He wanted more coffee, but what he really needed was a bite to eat. A croissant or a muffin or something of that variety, something he had not yet learned the name of. He decided he could hold off hunger until noon, when he would once again meet Luigi for another foray into Italian cuisine.

"You are a student, right?" he asked when Ermanno returned from the kitchen with two small cups.

"Non inglese, Marco, non inglese."

And that was the end of English. An abrupt end; a harsh, final farewell to the mother tongue. Ermanno sat on one side of the table, Marco on the other, and at exactly eight-thirty they, together, turned to page one of lesson one. Marco read the first dialogue in Italian, Ermanno gently made corrections, though he was quite impressed with his student his preparation. The vocabulary was thoroughly memorized, but the accent needed work. An hour later, Ermanno began pointing at various objects around the room-rug, book, magazine, chair, quilt, curtains, radio, floor, wall, backpack-and Marco responded with ease. With an improving accent, he rattled off the entire list of polite expressions-good day, how are you, fine thanks, please, see you later, goodbye, good night-and thirty others. He rattled off the days of the week and the months of the year. Lesson one was completed after only two hours and Ermanno asked if they needed a break. "No." They turned to lesson two, with another page of vocabulary that Marco had already mastered and more dialogue that he delivered quite impressively.

"You’ve been studying," Ermanno mumbled in English.

"Non inglese, Ermanno, non inglese," Marco corrected him. The game was on-who could show more intensity. By noon, the teacher was exhausted and ready for a break, and they were both relieved to hear the knock on the door and the voice of Luigi outside in the hallway. He entered and saw the two of them squared off across the small, littered table, as if they’d been arm wrestling for several hours.

"Come va?" Luigi asked. How’s it going?

Ermanno gave him a weary look and said, "Molto intense" Very intense.

"Vbrrei pranzare," Marco announced, slowly rising to his feet. I’d like some lunch.

Marco was hoping for a nice lunch with some English thrown in to make things easier and perhaps relieve the mental strain of trying to translate every word he heard. However, after Ermanno’s glowing summary of the morning session, Luigi was inspired to continue the immersion through the meal, or at least the first part of it. The menu contained not a word of English, and after Luigi explained each dish in incomprehensible Italian, Marco threw up his hands and said, "That’s it. I’m not speaking or listening to Italian for the next hour."

"What about your lunch?"

"I’ll eat yours." He gulped the red wine and tried to relax.

"Okay then. I suppose we can do English for one hour."

"Grazie," Marco said before he caught himself.

Midway through the morning session the following day, Marco abruptly changed direction. In the middle of a particularly tedious piece of dialogue he ditched the Italian and said, "You’re not a student."

Ermanno looked up from the study guide, paused for a moment, then said, "Non inglese, Marco. Soltanto Italiano." Only Italian.