MANUEL AND ME

This post of Ellee's yesterday reminded me of what happened when I went from Modica to Siracusa [Syracuse] by bus - a journey of about two hours - during my first visit to Sicily in 1992. I was being rather British, minding my own business and gazing out of the window, for the scenery was all new to me then, when a small, fairly scruffy man got on and sat next to me, a little too close I thought. He resembled no one as much as Manuel from Fawlty Towers! After a few minutes, he uttered the conversation opener that someone of obvious Anglo-Saxon appearance gets used to here:

Lei non è di qua? ["You're not from here, are you?"]

Me: Non - thinking that a curt reply would silence him, as by now it was becoming rather obvious that he was not over-attentive to his personal hygiene. And that would probably have worked in Britain. However, he was not going to be so easily put off and before we reached Ispica [the next town] I knew that he was a widower not averse to the idea of marrying again and a blond foreigner, he thought, would do very nicely , provided she could cook and would tend to his chickens! I kept my replies as monosyllabic as possible but he kept on asking loud, quite intrusive questions [which is not, to be fair, as rude as it sounds as Italians will ask you about matters which are taboo to the introverted British, such as how much you earn, your age and how much rent you pay, very early in a first conversation] . In Britain you would get up and move to another seat [but they were all taken anyway] or someone would notice that he was edging up to you too cosily and ask if you were all right, but here if I'd told anyone the man was bothering me it would probably have provoked laughter and hands flung up in the air. Not until the first stop in Siracusa did he leave the bus and after I'd breathed a huge sigh of relief, I reflected upon the fact that Shirley Valentine immediately makes the acquaintance of a waiter in the form of Tom Conti abroad, whilst it was my luck to meet Manuel! [I do not judge by looks, by the way, reader, but hygiene and conversational skills do matter to me, yes! And I'd never have been any good at feeding chickens!]

Siracusa is a city that means a lot to me, not only because of its beauty, and if you have not been following the blog for long, you can read why here if you wish.