(This story was published in The Open Doors Review N. 7)
Italians believe Americans are optimists.
I like the stereotype. I am even starting to take pride in it.
So why is it that even as I tell myself that I will pick up my bed linens today, I’m mentally rehearsing how understanding I’ll sound when they tell me my laundry isn’t ready?
I am determined to learn Italian. I have no intention of going to school. I will simply insist on speaking Italian with everyone but native English speakers.
When I found an apartment, I started bringing my bed linens to the laundromat. At first, no one in the laundromat understood much of what I said. It took a while, but I can finally say pillowcase, sheet, and comforter cover in Italian. I also know to say Buona Sera at one o’clock in the afternoon, even though it means good evening.
The other day at the Apple Store, I discovered just how effective my ability to communicate was. I was explaining the problem with my phone cable and referred to it as a cavallo. I thought the woman next to me in line might be getting impatient, but when I glanced at her, she had a broad smile and seemed to be suppressing laughter. What was so funny? Then, it occurred to me that cavallo means both cabbage and horse in Italian depending on where you put the accent. Could it mean cable, too?
I asked the clerk, “Is a cavallo an animal or a vegetable?” He replied, “Vegetable.” Then I pointed to my cable and asked, “What is this?” He replied, “Cavo.” Isn’t that a cave?
Recently, I overheard a little Italian girl tell her mother that I spoke like a bambina, meaning little girl. She overestimated me.
I always look forward to going to the laundromat to gauge my progress in Italian.
When I picked up my comforter cover at the laundromat a month ago, I saw it was ripped. I brought it back with the rest of the linens (thinking to avoid further confusion by returning the whole lot) and left it for the tailor to repair.
I stopped in twice in the past few weeks, but my linens were still not ready.
I greet the beautiful blond, whom I have dubbed Persephone, wondering why she is in this sweltering inferno of a laundromat.
There is the odd, bearded man who emerges from the back room like one of those denizens who stoke the fires of hell. I feel too guilty knowing my linens are perpetuating his purgatory to acknowledge him.
Persephone examines slips of paper and brings out my laundry without the comforter cover. She apologizes. My comforter cover is not ready and explains that the seamstress had gone on vacation for the summer and had taken it with her.
She took it with her? I imagine the seamstress as another pretty Italiana on the island of Capri, lounging on a speed boat, hair whipping in the wind, my comforter cover warming her legs.
Persephone says she will text me when the seamstress returns, most likely in a month.
I tell myself I can live without clean bed linens for a little longer. After all, if I feel desperate, I can wash the set on my bed in my washing machine and hang it on the clothesline.
I know I won’t do that.
The weather here is as unpredictable as everything else.
I probably wouldn’t wash my linens even if I were sure it wouldn’t rain because I don’t trust my washing machine. Italian washing machines use so little water that the laundry barely sloshes around. The machine spins, changes direction, spins again, and requires three or more hours for one load. Even then, I am not sure anything is properly cleaned. I never put more than a minimum amount of detergent in the machine in case it doesn’t get rinsed out.
Besides that, I don’t have a dryer.
Most Italians don’t have a clothes dryer. I understand why. I once had one in an apartment I rented, made a test, and put clothes in the dryer and on the clothesline. Just as I suspected, the clothes I hung on the line dried much faster. The ones in the dryer were still cool and damp after an hour’s spin. The dryer did not even produce heat. Perhaps it wasn’t a dryer at all?
I decided to try a self-service laundromat once. I put my wash in and returned a few minutes before closing to pick it up. (This was when I first came to Florence and didn’t know better.) I peered through the slats of the blinds Italians pull down when a shop is closed and saw my laundry swirling around inside the dryer.
Why didn’t I sit inside the laundromat and guard my laundry like everyone else?
Walking away, incensed, I practiced telling the attendant that they needed to close at the time posted, not earlier! But that was the problem; there was no attendant to tell. The place was self-service. No service would’ve been a more accurate term.
I had a premonition that I would wait a long time for my comforter cover and linens. I was right. I made many sojourns to the laundromat and practiced patience.
A month turned into three.
Optimist that I am, I kept thinking my linens would be ready the next time I stopped in, so I never washed the extra set I had on my bed.
Thankfully, I had no visitors, so no one knew.
Lisa Yakobi 