Chapter 38
MARY LOU JENKINS HAD LEFT word at the hotel that I was registered for the Intercultural Relations Seminar that began the following Tuesday, so on the appointed morning, I was up early, pleased that I had somewhere to be.
It took me only a couple tries to find the Human Resource Management Office, which was on the ground floor of a commercial building on the Piazza Bambino Gesù.
Inside was a small reception area and a suite of offices, but I didn’t have a chance to do much poking around before I was intercepted by a well-dressed woman in her mid-to-late thirties who spoke with a heavy Italian accent. “Can I help you?”
I explained that I was Eileen Archer and that I was registered for the Intercultural Relations Seminar.
“Oh, good,” she said, and extended a hand. “I’m Angela Bornemann.”
The last name threw me. I couldn’t figure out what an Italian woman was doing with a German last name, but I wasn’t about to ask. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“We sent a car to meet the ferry, so we’ll get started as soon as it’s back.”
She directed me upstairs to a large community room, which was configured to look like a classroom. It had folding tables and chairs, a blackboard, a TV cart, and a bulletin board that read TUTTO IL MUNDO è PAESE in bright blue bubble letters.
Immediately, I spied Laura, who gave me a big wave.
She was sitting next to another woman about our age, whom she introduced as Siobhan King.
Siobhan lived in an apartment complex called Il Paradiso, and her husband was a tugboat operator, but we didn’t get much further than that before we heard Angela greeting what I could only assume was a whole carload of people down in the lobby.
“Isn’t it fun that we get to do this together?” Laura said as I took the chair next to her.
Soon all the women were trooping up the stairs, and Angela was shepherding everyone into the classroom and telling them to sit wherever they liked.
“What’s that mean?” a woman asked, pointing at the same bulletin board I’d eyed on my way in.
“All the world is a country,” said Angela. “It’s an Italian expression that means wherever you go, we’re all the same.”
“I like that,” said Laura, and we all nodded in agreement.
We did a round of introductions, and I knew I’d never remember everybody, but I gave it a good try. By the time we’d gone around the room, I knew that Betsy McLynn was living all the way out in Santa Teresa and that Maureen Buchanan was so homesick she’d puked every morning for the last week.
“Do you think you could be pregnant?” Siobhan asked, trying to be helpful, and Maureen went white as a sheet.
“I was so sick with my little Jason,” said a woman who lived in Palau but whose name I couldn’t remember.
Angela clapped her hands, trying to get us back on track.
“Okay, that’s enough with introductions.
As I mentioned, I’m Angela Bornemann, and I’m a manpower development specialist with the NSO’s Human Resource Management Office.
The Intercultural Relations Seminar is one of our department’s flagship programs, intended to help smooth your transition to living among host nationals. ”
“What’s a host national?” I asked Laura under my breath. The question was clearly intended for her, but Angela had eagle ears and answered instead.
“The Maddalenini. This mission is sensitive, and we cannot remain in La Maddalena without the support of the island’s residents.
Your goal,” she said, looking directly at me, “is to conduct yourself with dignity and to always be a credit to your husband, the navy, and most importantly—the United States government.”
I wanted to die, and the feeling only worsened when Laura gave me a sympathetic nudge.
Angela passed out stenographer pads, ballpoint pens, and these coil-bound booklets that read Benvenuti a La Maddalena.
For a minute I thought it was the same Welcome Aboard packet Paul had been sent back in Charleston, but then I opened it to the first page and realized that, no, this was something different.
It had a lengthy table of contents that covered everything from “Italian Holidays” to “How to Call Home,” which would have been helpful back at Bar Sanna.
While Angela launched into a lecture on the differences between Italians in Northern Italy and Southern Italy, I scanned the booklet’s introduction, where the names of all personnel in the Human Resource Management Office were listed.
There were only five, and right underneath Angela was another Bornemann: AGI Daniel Bornemann, HRMS and PAO.
I pointed the name out to Laura. She nodded, then reached for her stenographer pad.
Husband and wife, she wrote in the corner of the first page she flipped to.
I reached for my own pen. What’s PAO stand for? I wrote.
Laura waited until Angela had her back turned. Public Affairs Officer.
AGI?
Auxiliary General Intelligence, wrote Laura.
I was becoming more and more interested in the Bornemanns by the second. Like a spy? I wrote back.
Laura rolled her eyes in amusement. I think if he were a real spy, it wouldn’t be in his job title.