Neither Here nor There by Bryson Bill

Author:Bryson, Bill [Bryson, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1991-04-06T07:16:44+00:00

14. Naples, Sorrento and Capri

I checked out of my hotel and walked to Roma-Termini. It was, in the way of most public places in Italy, a madhouse. At every ticket window customers were gesturing wildly. They didn’t seem so much to be buying tickets as pouring out their troubles to the monumentally indifferent and weary-looking men seated behind each window. It is amazing how much emotion the Italians invest in even the simplest transactions.

I had to wait in line for forty minutes while a series of people ahead of me tore their hair and bellowed and eventually were issued with a ticket and came away looking suddenly happy. I couldn’t guess what their problems were, and in any case I was too busy fending off the many people who tried to cut in front of me, as if I were holding a door open for them. One of them tried twice. You need a pickaxe to keep your place in a Roman queue.

Finally, with only a minute to spare before my train left, my turn came. I bought a second-class single to Naples – it was easy; I don’t know what all the fuss was about – then raced around the corner to the platform and did something I’ve always longed to do: I jumped onto a moving train – or, to be slightly more precise, fell into it, like a mailbag tossed from the platform.

The train was crowded, but I found a seat by a window and caught my breath and mopped up the blood trickling down my shins as we lumbered slowly out through the endless tower-block suburbs of Rome, picked up speed and moved on to a dusty, hazy countryside full of half-finished houses and small apartment buildings with no sign of work in progress. It was a two-and-a-half-hour journey to Naples and everyone on the train, without apparent exception, passed the time by sleeping, stirring to wakefulness only to note the location when we stopped at some drowsing station or to show a ticket to the conductor when he passed through. Most of the passengers looked poor and unshaven (even several of the women), which was a notable contrast after the worldly elegance of Rome. These, I supposed, were mostly Neapolitan labourers who had come to Rome for the work and were now heading home to see their families.

I watched the scenery – a low plain leading to mountains of the palest green and dotted with occasional lifeless villages, all bearing yet more unfinished houses – and passed the time dreamily embroidering my Ornella Muti fantasy, which had now grown to include a large transparent beach ball, two unicycles, a trampoline and the massed voices of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The air in the carriage was warm and still and before long I fell into a doze myself, but was startled awake after a few minutes by a baleful wailing. A gypsy woman, overweight and in a headscarf, was passing along the carriage with a filthy baby, loudly orating the tale of her troubled life and asking for money, but no one gave her any.

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