Tutti Italia: A Novel (4 page)

“Do you have your driver’s license with you?”  Elena asked
suddenly.  Rachel nodded and dug around in her fanny pack to find it.  A note
to herself, fanny packs were obviously NOT a fashion statement in Italy.  She
would have to invest in a purse.  She handed the piece of plastic to Elena and
waited to see where they were going.  They drove along a half concrete wall
that had barbed wire on top of a fence attached to it.  It kind of gave her the
creeps.  It felt like they were entering a prison and she didn’t know if they
were going to make it back out.  Elena rolled down her window and got in line
behind a short queue of cars, waiting to get past an armed guard.  Rachel was a
little shell shocked.  She’d never been anywhere that required someone to check
your credentials upon arrival, and she’d never been anywhere where they were
authorized to shoot you first and ask questions later.  She was on pins and
needles when their turn came up.  An Italian man spoke to her for a few
minutes, and Rachel felt like she was invisible.  Not that she was
complaining.  Then Elena said her name and gave him the driver’s license.  He
took it from her and held it up, presumably to match Rachel’s face to the
picture.  She could see past him to a young man in an American Army uniform,
who was sitting down to eat his lunch.  It was a good thing that she had Elena
with her, because she never would have made it through alone.  The man was
apparently satisfied with the outcome of her identity, and gave the driver’s
license back to Elena.  As they drove off, Rachel waited until the window was up
all the way before she spoke.

“So, I’m confused.  Is this an American base or an Italian
one?”  Elena laughed.

“You mean because there were both at the gate?”  Rachel
nodded.  “The base belongs to the Italians, but the Americans rent it out. 
Does that make sense?”  She looked at Rachel sideways and waited for a nod. 
“So, the Americans post their security, and the Italians do, too.  It’s part of
the contract that they worked out.  Sometimes it’s a really good thing, because
you get contractors that come to work from different countries that deliver to
the base, but the soldiers can’t speak to them because they don’t know enough
Italian.  That’s when it comes in handy to have a security guard that speaks
the same language.”  That made sense to Rachel.  Especially since she was one
of those people that couldn’t speak both languages. 

“So anyone can come on the base if they have a driver’s
license?” Rachel asked curiously.

“No.  You don’t have a base ID yet, so I can sponsor you as
long as you have picture proof of who you are.  Once you get the hang of
things, it will all go by easier, I promise.  For now, just worry about the
small things, and on Monday more of your questions will be answered.”  That
sounded like a good plan to Rachel.  What small things was she worried about
right now?  Where she was living and how soon she could get a shower and into
her bed.  That just about covered it.  Elena pulled up into the parking lot of
a large dorm.  “Your room is on the second floor, but I recommend walking. 
Some of the American soldiers are in this building, too, and when they get
drunk, they piss in the elevator.”  Rachel wrinkled her nose in disgust. 

Chapter 5

What Elena had said was true.  As the passed the
elevator to get to the staircase on the other side, Rachel could smell the
strong odor of sweat and urine coming from the open door.  There was also a lot
of bird poop on the floor of the elevator.  She made a mental note never to use
it.  Then another thought hit her.

“Wait, so this isn’t an all female dormitory like in
college?”  Elena shook her head.

“No.  Sorry to disappoint you, but you will have a
suitemate that you share the bathroom and the kitchen with, they will be
female, but the neighbors to either side of you could both be some of those
drunken soldiers that I told you about.  That’s the only problem here.  No
boundaries.”  She showed Rachel the laundry room that was right in front of
them when they exited the staircase.  Elena explained that there was also a day
room, which was sort of like a lounge if she wanted to go up to the third
floor.  After seeing some of the residents that were walking around, she
decided she would rather be behind closed doors, alone with her thoughts.  She
told Elena that she would explore it later, and that she would like to see her
room.  “I can understand.  This isn’t the best place to live.  It’s free,
though, because your job pays for it, and it’s in a good place.  If you have
visitors, the hotel is right across the grass. The post office, the movie theater,
and the little mall are across the street.  The only place that is not so close
to you is your work building, but by then it will be ok.”  It was maddeningly
infuriating to Rachel that everyone kept telling her it would be ok. 
She
would decide that for herself once she figured out where everything was and got
into a schedule.  Then she could let them know just how ok it was or how much
was lacking.  But Rachel was a polite girl and she didn’t want to intrude on
Elena’s speech.  “Here, is your room.”  Elena stopped in front of a door, and
slid a card key into the slot above the handle.  It looked like the type of key
that you would get at a hotel, but this place was far from being compared to a
hotel in any other way. 

The door opened up into a small kitchen that had a stove, a
microwave, and a decent sized refrigerator.  There was also a small table with
two chairs, and a lot of cabinets.  She would go through the ins and outs of
the kitchen later.  There was now a door branching off to either side.  Elena
walked up to the door on the left and slid the key card in.  The light turned
green, and the two girls entered the room.  There was a window, with a desk
beneath it, a bed with drawers under it and shelves as a headboard, and a small
closet in the opposite corner.  Next to the closet was a sink with some
cabinets above and below it, and there was a red recliner sitting by itself in
another corner.  As she looked at the chair, she saw that there was another
door behind it.  Elena went over and opened for her.  She saw that it was a
bathroom, with a long shower that two or three people could easily fit into, a
toilet, a few towel racks, and a small cabinet hanging on the wall.  So the
whole apartment was essentially a circle.  That was a little bit on the
interesting side for Rachel.  She’d never really been in a dormitory before. 
She had of course seen them in movies where college students lived in them, but
as for in person?  This was her first experience.  So far, it looked nothing
like the ones she’d seen in the movies.  On the plus side, she didn’t have to
walk down the hall in a co-ed dorm in a towel to take a shower.  Elena walked
back to Rachel’s personal front door leading into the kitchen. 

“You can explore and do what you want to this weekend,
Monday morning all you have to do is walk across the street to that building
over there,” she pointed out of the window, “and make sure that you’re there by
eight in the morning.”  Elena waved as she walked out, and Rachel closed the
bedroom door behind her as she looked around her new room.  Well, Elena had
been right about something…she was going to put the clean sheets on her bed and
go to sleep.  She didn’t know what time it was locally, but she’d been awake
for over twenty-four hours, and she was ready to drop.  It took her five
minutes to put her sheets on properly, step out of her jeans and sweater, and
crawl under her blanket.  That was all she knew for the rest of the night. 

Rachel woke early the next morning, due to the fact that
she’d slept the afternoon and more than most of the night away, and looked out
of her window.  The sun was just rising, and the rays were coming through the
blinds, stabbing at her face.  She got up, still a little groggy, and adjusted
the shades so that it was dark in her room again.  She went back to the bed and
crawled under the blankets for a few more hours.  When Rachel woke for the
second time on Saturday, she decided she had to get up.  She’d slept quite a
lot, and now it was somewhere near noon, but she couldn’t tell which side of
noon it was on.  She put on the same jeans and sweater that she had had on the
day before, and went over to her suitcase to unpack her hygiene bag.  She
brushed her teeth, combed through her hair and put a little makeup on so she
wouldn’t look so haggard.  She put her fanny pack on the bed when she was done
and dug through it for her wallet.  Once she had everything she would need, she
added the card key that Elena had left her the day before, and made sure that
the door was locked behind her.  She ventured out, and went down the stairs,
which didn’t smell any better than they had last night, and made her way to the
sidewalk that would take her across the street to the mall.  She saw a bus stop
as well, and she was bound and determined to get a base map so she could see
what was where and how she could get there.

The first building she came to was where she was supposed
to go on Monday.  The next stop was the post office.  When she saw that it was
still open, she made her way inside and got a post office box that she could
send home to her parents.  She’d brought a substantial amount of cash with her
until she could get a bank account opened, and a paycheck coming in.  Her
accounts in the states were still open, and her mom had already told her she
would wire her whatever she needed, provided she had an account to wire it to. 
That would have to be done next week, because the clock in the post office had
told her it was two in the afternoon, and the bank was never open past noon on
a Saturday.  She saw the movie theater and was very surprised by the prices she
saw on the board.  For an adult to see a movie, it only cost four dollars.  She
definitely would be going to the movies every now and then.  When she continued
to curve around the walkway, she saw what looked like a food court through the
windows.  When she got in the main doors, she went to take a look.  There was a
Burger King, a Taco Bell, an Anthony’s Pizza, and a Popeye’s Chicken.  All the
fast food families were covered.  Directly in front of her was the main
exchange, and it looked like a smaller version of a Walmart.  She went through
and looked at everything they had, but she didn’t want to waste her money on anything,
when she didn’t know how long it would take to get money.

She kept walking down the hallway, and came to a few
souvenir stores, and a phone store.  She joined the line in that small kiosk,
and waited her turn at the counter.  The nice lady asked her if she was new
here, and Rachel replied that she was, and that she needed a phone that she
could call the states with.  The woman got her the cheapest one, and told her
that she could buy time by the unit.  Almost like a prepaid phone back in the
states.  She paid out two hundred dollars, since she hadn’t gotten euro yet,
and was going to call her parents as soon as she got back to her room.  The big
store at the very end of the hallway she’d been walking down was the
commissary.  It was essentially, a grocery store.  She bought herself some
things that she could make in the microwave until she could figure out what the
kitchen situation was with her roommate. Then, she could look at getting more
tidbits for cooking.  She made her way back to her room, with some bulging
bags, and had to make room in the fridge for her own things.  She still hadn’t
heard any signs of life coming from the opposite room, but she wasn’t going to
risk being loud, just in case.  When she got into her room, she sat down and
read the instructions on how to turn her phone on.  She added the time to it,
and plugged it into the wall so it could charge as she talked.  She dialed her
home number with the codes that the woman had given her to dial first, and the
phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, mom.  Sorry I didn’t call yesterday.  There was a lot
going on, and by the time it was over I was dead tired.”

“It’s ok, honey.  We were a little worried when we didn’t
hear from you right away, but we don’t want you to spend all your money calling
us all the time, either.  I know it’s really expensive.”

“I know, but I just wanted to check in.  The bank is over
in another area, I guess the base is split into pieces, so I’ll have to get
over there when I can.  Maybe I can have Elena pick me up during lunch one day
and help me to open an account.”

“Who’s Elena?” her mother asked curiously.

“She’s the girl that was waiting for me at the airport. 
She’s Italian, but she works in the same company I do, and I think maybe even
in the same building.  She showed me where most of the essentials are, and it’s
really right across the street.  I have an address for you, too, if you want to
pass it on to anyone.”  She rummaged around for the little slip that the post
office had given her and waited while her mom got a pen and paper.  When she
was ready she read it off.  “I’ll let you know when I get a bank account, and
I’ll have my wireless internet set up in a week or so, so I’ll be able to email
you, too.”  There was also an internet installer that worked out of the phone
kiosk, and she’d set up an appointment with him while she was there.  “Ok, mom,
well, I’m going to let you go and try to get some things unpacked before I pass
out again.  I love you both.”

“We love you too, honey.  We’ll be thinking about you!” 
Rachel hung up the phone, and looked at her two suitcases, staring at her
accusingly.  “Oh, I will get to you, tomorrow.  I’m too tired.”

Chapter 6

Rachel woke up on Monday, still a little disoriented,
but she was on a mission.  Today was the first day of the weeklong course that
would help her to get acclimated to Italy. She was determined to learn as much
as she could.  Rachel wanted to fit in well, since this is where she was going
to be spending the next few years of her life.  She put on a black pair of
slacks, and a red and white blouse with a star pattern on it.  She looked down
at herself and sighed.  Compared to what she’d seen at the airport, she was
nowhere near as dressed up as the Italians were, and she was sure that they
would notice it.  She ran her brush through her long hair and left it hanging
down in waves.  Her hair was her best feature, in her opinion.  She put on a
little bit of makeup, then grabbed her purse, added some pens and pencils to
it, tucked a notebook under her arm, and left her room.  She heard no sounds
coming from her roommate’s bedroom, but she was quiet as she left, all the
same.