Chapter Seventeen
Quinn sits in an aging train rattling across the less-than-picturesque inland of northern Italy. He thumbs his English-to-Italian translation book, quietly practices the words again: “Ero un amico di tuo figlio in Somalia.”
I was a friend of your son’s when we were stationed in Somalia.
The phrase elicits a glower from the old Italian woman who wears a headscarf, a plume of smoke hovering over her head from the elderly man sucking on a cigarette next to her.
Maybe the glower is because of Quinn’s broken Italian.
Or maybe it’s not a glower, but curiosity because he’s an American, a novelty on this train to a remote village on a Sunday afternoon.
Or maybe it’s the scar, still tender and fresh, that slashes from Quinn’s temple all the way down to the notch in his chin. That gets a few looks for sure.
He flips through more pages of the translation book, lets out a breath.
He’s never going to find the right words to say what he needs to say to Giuseppe’s mom and dad.
Maybe he’ll be in luck—the parents will speak English.
That’s how he met Giuseppe. The eighteen-year-old soldier spoke English fluently.
He was with the Italian Army, lent to the Americans periodically as a translator.
Who would’ve imagined that some regions of an African country would speak mostly Italian?
Somalia will forever remain an enigma to Quinn. Maybe enigma isn’t the right word.
The Army recruiter hadn’t lied to Quinn.
He wasn’t shipped off to serve on the front lines in a war.
The US was in Somalia on a humanitarian mission to help a people who were starving, serving alongside forces from Italy, France, Canada, and Belgium, among other countries.
There was no official war, but make no mistake, he was in a war zone.
He feels the headache creeping behind his eye and shakes the thought, returning to Giuseppe.
The two had been among the youngest in the encampment, so Giuseppe was a natural friend.
But more so, Quinn was drawn to Giuseppe because he was the funniest person Quinn had ever met.
He had an infectious laugh and played up American stereotypes of Italians, did exaggerated skits as Chef Boyardee or Super Mario.
Did spot-on impressions of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas and My Cousin Vinny.
He talked with his hands, his entire arms, and bragged that his village had the most beautiful women in all of Italy, that his mother’s pasta was the best in the Marche region, that its olive oil was the richest in the world.
Everything was bigger, better, than everywhere else. Italy’s version of a proud Texan.
“Recanati is the birthplace of Giacomo Leopardi, the greatest poet and philosopher of the nineteenth century,” he would say, and everyone would groan.
Quinn had never heard of Leopardi, but on those nights after their patrols, their sweat-soaked shirts hanging to dry, the heat unbearable, they would lie on the top floor of the roofless abandoned police station that had become their barracks and stare at the stars.
Giuseppe would recite the works of the poet from memory, his English translation clunky but sweet: “My thoughts are drowned, and shipwreck seems sweet to me in this sea.”
Giuseppe claimed that the stars in Recanati were even brighter than Somalia’s, which was hard to believe since those night skies are one of Quinn’s few good memories from his time in-country.
Giuseppe said he’d lie in the grass on the very hill where Leopardi wrote his greatest works and dream of finding someone to love.
Quinn suppresses a crush of sadness and closes the translation book.
He realizes there are no words in any language.
He tries to read a few pages from The Sun Also Rises; Hemingway is always good for a distraction.
But he keeps reading the same page over and over again, his eyes flitting to the photo of his family—the one from Mom’s desk—he uses as a bookmark.
It’s his only photograph of them, he should keep it somewhere safe, but he likes to look at it.
Maybe he should hope Giuseppe’s parents don’t speak English.
He doesn’t know what the Italian Army told them.
And he’s not sure he’s ready to say more.
Quinn’s going there for two reasons: to pay his respects to the man who saved him from certain death in Kismayu, and to give Giuseppe’s parents a letter from their son.