A Moment in the Rain
In which Our Protagonist encounters a mysterious Moroccan girl
2003.
Generally, throughout my life, I have always felt like something of an outsider. As an American student abroad in Italy, however, these feelings were amplified substantially.
There were only seven of us Americans in the entire city of Modena, and, though I shared a native tongue with my classmates, we shared little else but circumstance. Most of the others rarely drank and rarely left the confines of their host families' houses, and when they did, they milled around in a remote corner of the bar waiting to leave. As a somewhat adventurous person in constant pursuit of an avid social life, I had little in common with the other students in my program, and it showed.
Sam, the only other guy in the program, and some of the girls were pretty cool. However, they were often overshadowed by a few rather mean-spirited girls who comprised the rest of the group, girls who apparently endeavored to make my life as difficult as they could. I thus spent most of my time hanging out with the Italian kids in San Damaso, the small township outside of Modena where my host family lived amidst a flat green swath of vineyards and fields, rather than hanging out with my American classmates. Though I had a great time in San Damaso, I oftentimes dreaded going to class, having no desire to share a classroom with one or more openly hostile shrews.
The cobblestone streets of Modena were bustling and vibrant, full of shops, good food, and beautiful women, and I quickly realized that my tense and hostile American peers presented not the slightest modicum of competition against the antiquated and colorful city that lay outside the classroom's somber walls. Accordingly, I once again nurtured my adeptness at truancy to the fullest.
I left class early, exaggerating the symptoms of my cold to my sympathetic Italian professor, the young Lorena. Coughing loudly, I exited the building, leaving the American girls to criticize me in my absence as I wound my way into the heart of the city of Modena. I breathed in the city's vibrant life, and watched the people and pigeons flit about Modena's beautiful and antiquated streets. The streets were wonderfully irregular, and in the heart of the city most were designed solely for pedestrian traffic. Occasionally one chanced upon an errant bust looming from the corner of a crumbling building, or beheld a stone goddess presiding over a fountain in a private courtyard. I fell in love with the city in no time at all.
I was feeling fresh and rejuvenated after I left the classroom, and my coughing subsided considerably. I spied the pair of Paciotti sneakers I had long coveted in the window of a store. They were still priced at €145, so I postponed buying them until some amazing half off sale, which I imagined would occur if I wished for it enough. My head was constantly turning, distracted by the abundance of beautiful Italian women of all ages, and I wandered the streets without an actual destination in mind, exploring Modena merely to learn more of its secrets. I was surrounded by graven images of satyrs, gods, angels, and lions as I walked, and I felt akin to each in turn. A soundtrack of triumphant music blared through my head as I strode, flanked in columns and archways, along the soft marble sidewalk.
I approached Il Duomo, "the Dome," the church that stood in the heart and center of Modena. Il Duomo was a medieval masterpiece combining Gothic and Romanesque architecture, yet not so sprawling as to seem distant and impersonal, but rather of a comfortable size. A pair of sneering stone lions, excavated from Roman ruins and added to the church's front columns by the architect Wilgelmino, greeted me with snarls as I approached. I passed through the smaller mahogany doors that flanked the looming gated entrance, which was no longer used.
Inside, a mass was being held, and I marveled at my luck, having explored Il Duomo before, but never having witnessed an actual mass inside. The priest was withered and old, posed in front of the gilded sepulcher that housed the tomb of San Geminano, his voice barely audible despite the microphone clipped on his robes. I took off my baby blue Adidas cap and dipped my hand into the cool holy water resting atop an aged column. I crossed myself and ventured deeper into the church, kneeling in the back row on the left hand side.
The pews were old, and the kneelers extremely uncomfortable. I marveled at the prodigious amount of elderly churchgoers who were willing to withstand the stabbing pain of the unforgiving and uncushioned kneelers upon their elderly knees merely in order to commune with God for a few moments. Many people hung over the pews, not fully kneeling but leaning heavily on the pew in front of them, in order to avoid subjecting their knees to the ordeal. When the congregation rose from their prayers and returned to a sitting position, I was exceedingly grateful, and promptly followed their example.
I sat in the Church for a while, oblivious to the sermons in Italian and Latin that flew about my head. I prayed for selfish things, like power, knowledge, and love, and complimented God on the fine work he had done in overseeing the beauty I found myself surrounded with in the city of Modena. Mostly I prayed for an abundance of beautiful women in my life, which has been a common theme in my prayers for as long as I can remember. I joined the congregation in communion, walking slowly to the front of the church and receiving the host from the father. After returning to my seat, I knelt and prayed again. This time I prayed for one thing alone: for a beautiful and interesting woman to fall in love with me. I soon picked up my backpack and exited the church.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was 11:25. If I started towards the bus stop now I could catch the 11:35 bus and make it to my host family's house in time to eat fresh pasta. I hurried down the streets on the marble sidewalks, out from the quaint heart of the city and towards the noisier car-ridden streets that surrounded it. I accidentally started thinking about the other Americans again, and I shook my head to myself in frustration. I walked past a multitude of stores and people, past the fat gypsy woman in bright scarves who asked me for money with a crinkled and toothless smile. I gave her some of the change I had in my pocket, though I figured she couldn't be that hungry considering how fat she was. Soon the tall buildings that surrounded me gave way to the bright sunlight that illuminated the bus stop, a rectangular strip of park surrounded by streets in front of a theater.
I ran across the street with my backpack bouncing against my back, barely missing a wave of oncoming traffic, and stopped short on the other side, breathless. That was when I saw her for the first time. She was sitting on one of the benches, sitting not in the traditional sense, but rather with her feet upon the seat and her seat upon the top of the back rest, perched above the others who sat nearby her.
She was dressed all in red, her shiny sequined glasses tinted pink, her dark brown hair tied loosely at the crown of her head, falling in tendrils around her face. Her skin was a rich brown, her face ovular with striking features. She stood out like a torch in a cave, and her outfit was the pinnacle of fashion, an interesting scarlet affair with a provocatively cut jacket and pants, with scarves dangling moodily from her shoulders. I slowly walked to a bench across from her and sat down, trying in vain to conceal my stares from beneath my tinted blue sunglasses.
She sat next to an older woman, dressed conservatively with her head wrapped in a scarf, and exchanged words with her from time to time. I gathered that the woman was probably her mother, and, judging from the old woman's clothes, they were Muslim immigrants. I soon abandoned all hope of concealing my admiration for the girl and stared blatantly, fascinated with her every movement. She seemed exceedingly confident, but was caught off guard when she noticed my scrutiny, though she quickly regained her composure and checked me out in a nonchalant fashion. I smiled at her and she laughed quietly and looked away, exchanging inaudible words with her mother.
The 9A bus rolled up, and I picked up my backpack and walked towards it. Peripherally, I saw the girl and her mother rise and walk towards the bus behind me, and I smiled to myself. I had just stepped on the bus when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned in surprise to find that the beautiful girl had actually approached me.
"Do you know what time it is?" she asked in halting Italian. I was blown away. It was obvious what time it was seeing as the bus had just arrived. She was looking for an excuse to talk to me. I couldn't believe my luck.
"It's 11:40," I replied in Italian that was just as halting. She smiled warmly and thanked me, and I smiled back at her, fumbling with my bus card as I slid it into the machine, distracted.
She boarded with her mother and I pretended to adjust my backpack to bide time as they passed me and sat down on the bus. I approached their seats.
"Con permiso?" I asked. May I?
"Certo." She gestured to the seat across from her. Of course. I took my backpack off and introduced myself.
"Mi chiamo Seamus," I said. My name is Seamus.
"Piacere," she replied frankly. "Mi chiamo Sara, e lei e Fatima." She gestured to her mother. My name is Sara, and she is Fatima.
I shook both of their hands, and began talking to Sara. Her mother, Fatima, remained quiet and smiled to herself as she gazed out the window. Talking to her was difficult; we both were still in the process of learning Italian. She spoke French and Arabic, and I spoke Spanish and English, so Italian was the only language we were able to communicate in.
"Where are you from?" I asked her.
"Morocco," she replied. "Casablanca." Her voice was low, sultry, and very distinctive, not girly in the slightest but rather womanly.
"How beautiful! Have you ever seen the movie Casablanca?"
"No," she responded with a shrug. "Is it good?"
"It's amazing," I replied. "You should see it, especially since you are from Casablanca."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty one. You?"
"Me too," she smiled.
"What kind of music do you like?" I asked.
"Hip hop," she replied. "You?"
"Me too!" I was amazed. Hip hop was not very popular in Italy; it had been long, too long, since I had met someone who appreciated it. "I am also a rapper."
"You are?" she seemed impressed.
"Yes," I replied. "I have a CD."
"How many songs?"
"Seven."
We talked for a while; at times it was fairly difficult because neither of us would know the words we needed to say, but we gradually figured each other out. Much of the conversation was spent listening to each other's voices, not fully comprehending what the other was saying, yet not caring that much either. Our eyes communicated well enough with each other. Her eyes were dark and mysterious; they laughed at me as she smiled.
"What is your second name?" I asked her.
"Rachipi. You?"
"Ryan. How strange, we both have the same initials!"
She laughed and I joined her. I felt like a fool, but I was already in love with her. She was my dream girl: a beautiful Moroccan goddess, confident and sexy, who liked hip hop and liked me. Her family had moved to Italy four years earlier, but she was still learning Italian because at first her parents had kept her surrounded exclusively in Modena's community of Muslim immigrants, where she only needed to speak Arabic.
"What stop do you leave at?" she asked me. I wanted to leave at her stop, go home with her, impress her family, and kiss her in the vineyards.
"Via Vignolese."
" Anche io! Me too!" she was excited.
"That's great... maybe I could walk you home."
She nodded and smiled at me, and all of my worries left my head. The bus came to a stop and people began clamoring for the exit. Her mother rose, taking Sara's hand, and pulled her towards the door. With horror I realized that Via Vignolese was an enormous street, and that my stop was not for another fifteen minutes. She stepped off the bus.
"Aren't you coming?" she looked at me, puzzled.
"No, this is not my stop..."
"It's Via Vignolese..."
"Yes, but my stop is further down this road."
I debated leaving the bus any ways, and catching the next one in an hour. Before I could act on this impulse, the translucent doors of the bus unfolded and closed like a wall between us.
"Wait, do you have a cell phone?" I called out to her through the door.
"No..." she replied. She had opened her mouth as if to say something more when the bus lurched and began to move again. "Ciao! I'm sorry!" she said, waving goodbye.
"Ciao!" I called out to her as the bus drove off and she became smaller in the distance. I catch a fleeting glimpse of her face; she seemed upset. I saw her mother tug at her jacket as they began to cross the street. My head hung low, I returned to my seat, while the Italians on the bus watched me with looks of puzzled amusement. I wish I had thought more quickly and had just left with her. What the fuck was I thinking? I don't need to go home immediately after class. So what if the pasta's cold when I get there?
I put on my headphones and dreamt of her as I gazed lucidly out the window at the brown flatness of the passing vineyards, out of season, and the crumbling estates that lay amidst them. It seemed like an hour had passed when I finally reached my stop. I hoped I would see her again soon. I had to see her again.
* * *
I went to the bus stop four days a week, but I never saw her again, and I had given up hope that I would. A month passed; I traveled to Rome, Naples, Sicily and Florence, and finally made my way back to Modena. My classes started again, and I sat through them, itching for my moment of freedom. Finally the clock struck noon, and I rushed out of the class to get to the bus stop on time. As usual, she was not there. I sat forlornly on the bench, my head lost inside my discman, listening to the words of distant American poets and feeling them speak to me across the ocean. The 9 bus rolled up at noon and I hopped on board.
I made my weary way inside as usual, my head buzzing from medicine, my face feeling bloated from the congestion of my seemingly perpetual cold. I looked up from the floor of the bus and there she was, sitting near the back, looking out the window. She turned and saw me.
"Ciao!" she said, smiling.
"Ciao," I replied, elated.
She moved her purse and I sat with her until she left at her stop. I gave her my number. She said I could not call her because her parents were crazy and did not want boys, least of all non-Muslim American boys, calling her house. She told me that she would call me later that afternoon.
When Sara called me, we made plans to meet in Piazza Grande, the huge plaza outside of Il Duomo, the following Tuesday at 4:00 pm. I waited for the 3:35 bus to take me into town on time, but, as was Italian custom, the driver was late, and didn't arrive until 3:55. I finally reached Piazza Grande, out of breath from running, at 4:15. People milled about the area, talking and eating, as grey clouds gathered over the spires of the castle-like Duomo. Sara was nowhere to be seen. I waited for twenty minutes, combing the area for her fruitlessly, until I finally gave up. I reached for my cellphone and called the number she had called me from previously.
"Pronto?" an older female voice answered with a thick accent.
"Hi, may I speak with Sara?"
"Sara?"
"Yes, Sara Rachipi."
The woman laughed. "There is no one named Sara who lives here."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," she replied. "You must have the wrong number."
Dejected, I hung up. The clouds, ripe with precipitation, burst, and a fine drizzle began collecting at the cobblestones beneath my feet. Above my head in an alcove, a halo of lights switched on behind a figure of the Virgin Mary, who looked down upon me with pity in her weary stone eyes. Mary perched upon the old town hall, which had since been converted into a jazz cafe, and I went inside and ordered a coffee spiked with rum.
The rain had picked up considerably when I finally arrived back in San Damaso, and I was the last person on the bus as it approached the final stop of its cycle, the San Damaso cemetery. My stop. I thanked the bus driver and walked out into the rain as the bus took off behind me, splashing through a puddle as it left.
I looked around me; the Italian countryside was beautiful in the rain. The brown expanse of San Damaso had since come alive in verdant green, and I beheld the green vineyards in the distance, passed flat emerald fields peppered with flowers. The black gates of the cemetery were chained shut, and I held them with wet hands, peering inside as the rain poured down my uncovered head. The graves looked beautiful among the clumps of grass, and flowers were strewn throughout the cemetery. I continued on my walk home, kicking a rock in front of me until I was bored. An old song was stuck in my head; I couldn't remember the words or the title, but I know Sinatra had covered it; it was jazzy and upbeat, yet tragic, and reminiscent of "Heart and Soul." Months later, I realized that it was, in actuality, "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin.
I paused at a brace of rose bushes that lined the yard of one of my host family's distant neighbors. I put my nose up to the roses until my face was tickled with the wet drops that had collected on the petals, and I inhaled. The roses smelled delicious, red, yellow, white and pink each, and I laughed out loud. No one else was about; this entire breathtaking world was mine. I felt like a young god about to shape the globe, about to conduct the miracles of life and growth. I was immune to sadness now; it was a beautiful day. I continued towards the house where I lived, where I was sure my host mother had a heaping plate of pasta and a bottle of sweet wine waiting for me.
* * *
The rainy season continued and I loved it; I loved seeing the statues and cobblestones of Modena glistening with rain, and I loved the warm respites offered by the city's cafes. After wandering the city as I tended to do, I once again found myself climbing on the bus back home to San Damaso.
"Ciao, Seamus!"
Sara Rachipi, the Moroccan Venus, had popped her head back into my life again. She sat in her usual seat near the back of the bus. I tried to feign stoicism, but couldn't suppress a grin as I approached her and sat down.
"Ciao, Sara. What happened with our date in Piazza Grande?"
"I was there! Where were you?"
"The bus was late, I got there at 4:15. How long did you wait?"
"I waited about half an hour, but I couldn't find you!"
"I couldn't find you! I tried to call your house, but the woman who answered said I had the wrong number."
"Was it 560-334-909?"
I checked my cell phone. "Yep."
"Hmm... that is my number. You probably talked to my aunt. My family is crazy, Seamus! They want me to be a proper Muslim woman. If they had their way, I would never leave the house."
She looked so damned gorgeous as she sat next to me, dressed in a colorful, airy skirt that hung to her ankles, a grey sweater, and a violet scarf. If she was my daughter, I'd probably be overprotective too.
"How terrible!"
"Yes, it is terrible," she said matter-of-factly. "I rarely get permission to leave the house. We should just hang out now."
"Yes, we should," I was elated. "Do you want to come over to my host family's house for lunch?"
"Sure, but I can't stay long, or my parents will ask where I was."
"That's fine."
I was happy enough that we were finally going to be able to hang out together. We talked and laughed, and I wondered how I had survived up until now, experiencing Sara in such small doses. Time flew by like seconds, until I finally looked out the window and realized that we had missed my stop and were headed to the next town over, Commachio.
"Dio mio! We missed my stop!"
"Putana di merde! "
I pushed the button for the driver to stop, but the stop wasn't for another few blocks. We finally exited the bus and were immediately covered in pouring rain, standing next to a grassy ditch alongside the road. We ran through traffic, across the street, until we were standing in front of a huge industrial looking warehouse.
"Oh no, my father works here!" Sara seemed worried.
"What does he do?"
"He is the boss of a group of truck drivers."
"Shit."
I imagined Sara's father as a scimitar-wielding brawler, and, if her family was as overprotective as she claimed, it would probably be a bad idea for him to see me standing with his daughter in the rain outside his workplace. As I stood in the rain, wondering what to do, a different bus passed us, going back in the direction of San Damaso.
"We need to catch that bus to get back!" I yelled. "Let's go!"
We took off, running through the rain. I sprinted ahead, waving my arms in the hopes that the driver would see. I heard a crash and I looked behind me to see that my discman had fallen out of my pocket and was dragging behind me, hanging from my pocket by its headphone cord. Sara was struggling to keep up with me, and I ran back, picking up my discman and taking her hand as she ran. Laughing, we ran together as the rain poured down on top of us. Traffic slowed ahead and the bus stopped; soon we were alongside it. I knocked on the door and it opened, letting us out of the rain.
We collapsed on a seat, drenched, breathless, and laughing.
"You are crazy," Sara said as she giggled.
"Just a little," I replied.
We sat and caught our breath, and I felt her lean on me as we sat on the bus, puddles pooling at our feet. Soon the bus arrived back in San Damaso and passed the familiar trattorias, cafes, and drugstores of my surrogate home. I saw my stop approach.
"Okay., this is my stop. Let's go."
"I don't think I have the time to now... my family will wonder where I am."
"You don't have the time?"
"No... I'm sorry! I wish we hadn't missed the stop... my mother is probably wondering where I am."
"Awww," I was a little upset, but couldn't help but feel good as she smiled apologetically at me. The bus came to a stop. "Okay. I'll see you soon?"
"Yes, for sure."
I leant in to kiss her farewell on both cheeks, as was the custom in Italy. I kissed her left cheek, and was moving to kiss her right one when she met me halfway and her lips found mine.
We kissed briefly and sweetly. She giggled mischievously at me as I looked at her in pleased surprise.
I love this woman.
"Hey, are you going to get off or not?" the bus driver called out from the front of the bus.
"Umm, yeah," I replied, not thinking. I kissed her again quickly.
"Ciao, bella," I said wistfully.
"Ciao, bello," she grinned, the dark pools of her eyes flashing.
I stepped off the bus and the door once again folded shut between us; this time I was on the outside, standing like a fool in the rain. I immediately felt like an idiot. I should've stayed with her; I don't need to go home right now. Didn't I learn my lesson last time? Why was I such a slave to my schedule?
"Call me!" I yelled out to her, making a phone gesture with my right hand.
"Okay," I saw her say, her face distorted through the raindrops on the door's clear plastic as the bus drove off in the rain.
I walked home, a wistful smile playing at the corners of my lips as I looked to the sky, watching the raindrops fall as if they were aimed straight for me, feeling in love with the world. I had no idea that I'd never see her or hear from her again.
