“Che bello”: But do Italians mean what they say?
Lonely between the cities: What good is beauty without enthusiasm? Even small children in Italy have the appropriate theatrics, our author notes.
Berlin, he'd been there before. Berlino è una città molto bella , said the Roman taxi driver after asking me where I was going and where I was originally from. Well, I said, I wouldn't exactly call Berlin beautiful, more modern, green, quiet, relaxed. Well, he also wanted to know where I was born. When I say the name Wuppertal in Rome , it always sounds like Loriot to me, as if I were planning to open a men's boutique with the Pope someday.
He himself was born in Stuttgart. What would I say to that? he asked, watching my reaction to this revelation attentively in the rearview mirror. And now the man came to life. Stoccarda! So nothing against Stuttgart. He had no memory of this city. His parents had moved back to Rome with him when he was still an infant. A pause, then a loud laugh. Unbelievable! Just imagine. Non ci credo! He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand – Stuttgart instead of Rome!
How close that was, he had almost eked out a living in Germany instead of living in the most beautiful city in the world. He had been driving a taxi for thirty years, but Rome still amazes him, and he discovered something new every day. And since I couldn't join in his euphoria quickly enough, he now demanded energetically: Guarda, guarda! Just look, and he pointed rather randomly at various church steeples, the awning of a restaurant, the palazzi left and right, the cobblestones in front of us, the clear sky and the blooming star hyacinths in the loggias. Isn't all of this unimaginably beautiful? Of course it is, that's why I'm in Rome after all, for no other reason than this very beauty. As a Northern European, I sometimes have to dig out my temperament with as much effort as a ring of keys from the bottom of an overstuffed handbag.
Beauty, for me, is nothing less than pure consolation, I agreed, but that wasn't enough for the driver. La Bellezza , that was the meaning of life! To be honest, he was starting to get on my nerves, this beauty fanatic. But he was right, what use is beauty without enthusiasm. Even small children in Italy have a suitable theatricality. C he bello , they call when they see my little white dog with the black spot on its eye. That moves me time and time again. They then throw their hands up in the air or tear their hair, rolling their eyes heavenwards.
One of my youngest daughter's first words was bella"Mamma mia, come bello tu sei " is the phrase our dog, like all the other cute little creatures, hears several times a day. It's a miracle he hasn't gone crazy long ago. Incidentally, one of the first words my youngest daughter, who learned to walk and talk in Rome, said was "bella ." I can still see the little girl in the little dress, not even two years old. Looking at her reflection in the window of a pastry shop , swaying her hips and whispering "che bella, che bella" in appreciation.
My friend Gaetano knew no more than four German words when we first met in Rome in the early 1990s. He repeated them whenever they seemed appropriate: Ja. Das. Ist. Schön.
One at a time, slowly, and very reverently. A German woman on vacation must have taught him the words shortly before. It wasn't hard to guess the occasion for the language lesson. It was also only natural that the word "schön" (beautiful) had already appeared in the Italian's first attempts at learning German.
So , La Grande Bellezza reigns supreme everywhere in Italy? Even at Rome's airport, foreign visitors are greeted with Bella Italia gimmicks, handbags, and T-shirts that slapstick the old partisan song "Bella Ciao." Kitsch—this word exists in both Italian and German; it's spelled the same and used just as frequently as it is here.
"Bella, bella, bella Marie, stay faithful, I'll be back tomorrow morning." My grandmother used to whistle the "Capri Fishermen's Song" while ironing. If she looked out the living room window in our small Westphalian town, she could even glimpse the Blue Grotto. It adorned the dining room of the Pizzeria Miramare, across the street, as a photo wallpaper. Pizza Calzone – toppings on request: lots of Gouda, soft light-green pepperoni, canned pineapple, cooked ham, and whatever else came to mind. All slapped together for twelve marks. It wasn't cheap, but for me as a child, it was the pinnacle of culinary arts. The area I come from is certainly scenic, but it's not famous for good taste or the beauty of civilization.
Compliments in Italy are free of sarcasmIn Italy, where I've never eaten a pizza calzone, a "pants pizza," bello means both beautiful and good. If one toothless guy calls another centenarian in a bar bello, the old guys don't necessarily find each other incredibly handsome, but rather good. "My goodness," one might say at this point in Germany, one would tend to express pleasant feelings in daily interactions.
All well and good—we primarily use this phrase to prepare ourselves for contradiction. That's all well and good, but... and now we move on to the real issues. The good, the beautiful, and the true belong together. Which raises the question of the truth of these southern compliments. Do Italians mean what they say? Is it really true, am I beautiful? At this point, however, a broader definition of beauty is needed, one that encompasses kindness and charm as well as helpfulness, life experience, attentiveness, and poise.
"Well, lovely lady, what would you like?" was the question my elderly grandmother would always get from a cheeky fruit seller at the market in Unna, and she would suddenly get into a bad mood: "He's got to be kidding me." The compliments that the greengrocer pays the Signora and the Dottoressa at the Campo die Fiori , on the other hand, are free of sarcasm, simply an expression of appreciative perception.
A few weeks after the aforementioned Roman taxi driver had effusively wished me a pleasant evening, I was strolling along the Spree in Berlin-Mitte in the Aperol-colored evening sun. Cheerful people lounged in deckchairs by the water, and a band played boogie-woogie on the Monbijou Bridge. There was no trace of the loneliness that sometimes attacks me in Berlin like a starving stray dog that day. With the mild spring breeze at my back, and Museum Island in front of me, that anchored steamer made of limestone and sandstone, laden with art treasures from all over the world, I suddenly felt like sending the Roman taxi driver a photo. He was right. What a beautiful city Berlin is.
Berliner-zeitung
