Lo and behold, that day has arrived. There you are minding your own expat business, when it finally happens and Italy becomes un discorso cellulare-an issue of the cells. It takes seven years, biologically speaking, for our cells to be completely renewed while the little buggers build us a brand-new body. This means that foreign folk sweet on acquiring l’Italianità, just have to inhabit the bel paese for little more than 63 moons before making a claim to biological citizenship.
Nonetheless, those preoccupied with the psychological implications of long-term Italian living will tell you that l’Italianità seeps into the psyche at a very different speed-either sluggish or breakneck-depending on one’s own ability to digest incomprehensible customs. Fluency is a measuring cup for checking assimilation, as native and acquired languages each try for the largest slice of the mind-pie. When you think in one language and argue in another, or your conversations become more misti than l’insalata, you’re well on the street to successo. Once you snack on both languages as if they are a sandwich made with two different types of bread and use them simultaneously whenever you want to talk turkey, the culture is yours, no matter your passport.
But other things count as well. If you take a shower to ‘stay in’ rather than to ‘go out,’ if you bring beach slippers for use in hotel bathrooms, if you need to protect all parts of your neck from any kind of wind-like exposure, the inevitable has probably already happened: you’ve crossed the cultural line.
The quest for l’Italianità is a journey whose signposts are purely florescent, like piccoli momenti rivelatori, which basically scare the begeebers out of you, once you’re struck by how similar to your hosts you’ve now become. That’s when you realize there’s no turning back-l’infezione culturale has reached your vital organs.
One of my most significant revelatory moments shone with blinding brightness the day I decided to rent central office space for no other reason than needing the noise. For who can work without the incessant chatter that characterizes all work space in Italy? Translating from home may be comfortable, but I no longer know how to be happy without the comfort of whatever tirade is going on in the hallway. Thus, I rent shared space. A lawyer, a psychologist, an architect and I-siamo in quattro. Nothing beats pretend colleagues with whom to disagree for entertainment’s sake, since all negotiations are free to go nowhere on purpose. The lawyer (and landlord) is absent often, and the psychologist is present at all hours, but my favorite is Massimo, because he builds word-houses much faster than he ever designs real ones. As the only one who really understands what I’m doing there, he does his best to humor me, or antagonize me, which, fundamentally, are one in the same.
Like all 39-year-old men on the brink of a crisi esistenziale, Massimo is pushed to fare il ganzo in very amusing ways, like when he employs English words I hardly know the meaning of in sentences that would sound much better in pure-bred Italian. The expression fare il ganzo, not to be confused with essere ganzo, is perfect for those who wish to act cool without authentically being it. Technically, the term ganzo is another word for ‘lover,’ yet fare il ganzo has nothing to do with courtship-unless you count the rooster-like strut that so often appeals to those who wish to be considered king of the courtyard. Massimo likes the words mobbing, globish, rough-and-tech and downshifting. To me, words such as these are much like weeds in the vegetable garden and they make me want to clobber him with a recently ripened stalk of celery.
‘Would you stop trying to fare il ganzo,’ I protested the other day, when he announced that he had to leave the office early to do un po’ di networking. It had been a drab day of translating a frightening booklet on dredging systems and I needed a healthy fight to unfreeze my blood, which, unfortunately, is additional proof that l’Italianità has gotten the better of me.
‘When Italians want to be cool, they pick English words out of the sky and pop them into unsuspecting sentences,’ I told my friend.
He looked at me, with an equal amount of friendly disdain. In this country, boredom can be overturned by a single smile that fails to be given. His grin was suppressed, his wit explosive. ‘When English-speakers want to “be cool,” they are simply cold,’ he answered.
That’s settles it. My pretend colleague is ganzissimo. And don’t nobody tell him, but our hallway talk is worth every cent of the rent money.
