A Very Italian Drive to Work

This is a laugh: an Italian drive to work, according to Vincenzo Cerami’s by turns witty, delightful and vicious A Very Normal Man, translated into English for the first time in 2015 by Isobel Grave.

 

Giovanni’s 850 was parked at an angle over the footpath outside UPIM, a big department store. He had to be in the office by half past eight. The Ministry was only a short distance from Rome’s central station and since Giovanni lived at the far end of the Tuscolano district, he would come as far as San Giovanni in Laterano, from there he’d cross Piazza Vittorio and then skirt the entire length of the station from the regional lines to the terminus. Once he’d crossed Piazza Esedra, he was at the Ministry.

That morning was not the same as all Giovanni’s other mornings. Normally he’d be swearing from the second he got into his car till he was inside the doors of the Ministry. He’d bawl out drivers and pedestrians, lean on the horn furiously, deal out vicious abuse to anyone he thought was trying to get in his way, rant and rave against everything and everyone—the Council, the National Roads Board, the government and the nation.

But that morning he kept to himself, nice and quiet, and made the trip in an orderly manner—no horn blasts left, right and centre, no yelling, all traffic signs observed.

This was behaviour to incense other road users: distorted apefaces screamed abuse at him from the small but comprehensive morning rush-hour repertoire. Inside his little metallic refuge Giovanni was blind, deaf and dumb, oblivious to everything, not of this world.

On either side of him score on score of cheap runabouts ripped past at full speed, mounting the curb freely, driving along the tramlines, young thugs at the wheel in a breakneck charge, horns blaring as if they were delivering road victims to Emergency at San Giovanni.

The old man felt confused. He kept thinking about his son and the dream he’d had the night before …

An Italian drive to work, from A Very Normal Man by Vincenzo Cerami, trans. Isobel Grave

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