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Naples was a revelation. People had warned me about the dangers of thieves and scam artists who haunted its medieval stepped alleys and crooked streets, but I never felt vulnerable there. We explored the entire hill of humanity together, wandering hand in hand through the Spanish Quarter and Spaccanapoli, or along the seafront area called Lungomare. We handed coins to accordion players in the Funiculare, fended off hustlers and explored the breathtaking antiquities of Pompeii and Pozzuoli. At a candlelit chapel, a sculpture of the Veiled Christ moved me to tears, and at a cameo factory in the Sulfatara, he bought me a pair of earrings. I swore I would treasure them always.
The Italians are a demonstrative people, and around every curve in the hilly streets, we found embracing couples lost in each other. Our new marriage and the wonder of discovering each other made us fit right in with these postcard lovers.
I learned enough Italian to go from shop to shop each day, preferring this to the commissary. I bought milk and butter at the cremeria, bread at the panetteria, vegetables fresh from the earth, sold by a farmer in a three-wheeled flatbed truck. As the weeks flowed by, I grew bold enough to brave the pesceria, where mounds of gleaming fish, shells and octopus lay in big tubs. Buckets of silvery sardines, tanks of clams and whole swordfish inspired me to try my hand at cooking, with decidedly mixed results.
Steve seemed proud that I’d learned Italian. He devoured plates of spaghetti alle vongole and melanzane parmesan. We celebrated the successful attempts and weathered the failures with humor and a soothing glass of vino di tavolo, and each night we made love for hours. With no television and spotty phone service, there was little else to occupy us.
I developed a passion for taking photographs. I took snapshots of the old men outside the tabacchi. They were immaculately dressed in pressed trousers and freshly shined shoes, hands resting atop their canes. I made shot after shot of the swags of laundry strung across narrow alleys, women bringing up their groceries with buckets on ropes. I also pursued darker subjects, things that troubled and frustrated me. I disliked the preponderance of litter on the streets, and it hurt to see the tiny children forced to beg for coins. The stray dogs, rummaging in garbage and dodging taxis were a heartbreaking fact of life.
And I phoned home, for what it was worth. In Italy, the phone system was so poor that our home phone was all but useless and I’d make a weekly quest out into the city to find a pay phone that worked better. My parents gave me nothing but warnings about traipsing around the globe like a gypsy, but Gran, bless her, got it right. “Such an adventure,” she would say. “You’re making memories for a lifetime.” I hope she knew how much that meant to me as I stood in the rain at the waterfront, hunched against the wind, shouting my greetings to her into the cold steel receiver of a pay phone.
One day I tried to rescue a dog that followed me home. It was a little lop-eared mutt, typical of the street-smart dogs of Naples. And, in the way of dogs, it never lost its innate happy-go-lucky trust in humankind. Over the weeks, I’d learned not to encourage dogs by petting or talking nonsense to them, but this particular dog followed me anyway. At a busy piazza, a delivery truck nearly ran over him, so I snatched him out of harm’s way.
That night, Steve came home to find us both waiting for him. The dog had been freshly bathed and given its shots at the vet, and I was excited to show him our new addition. All day long, I’d imagined the companionship a dog would give me. By the time he walked through the door, I’d almost settled on a name for him.
His reaction was less than delighted. “Ah, honey. Dogs aren’t allowed on base. There’s no grass for them.”
“He’s just a little thing. He doesn’t need much.”
“I didn’t make the rules.”
“Then let’s move off base.”
“We can’t do that, either. I don’t want you alone in the city when I’m away.”
“But you’re here with me. You’re not away.”
“Gracie. Sometimes I have to go. It’s my job.”
“If I keep the dog, I won’t be alone,” I pointed out.
The logic didn’t work on Steve. “We can’t keep it. You’ll have to give it up or you’ll get hurt,” he said. “I don’t ever want to see you hurt, Grace.”
