Roman Daze. Brontè Dee Jackson
to make calls if you didn’t pay. But you could still receive calls for another two months before they would cut you off completely. That always gave us around five months to pay the bill. At the end of three months we would inform our friends that they would have to call us as we could no longer call out. Most people were in the same situation so it was taken for granted that we would all have to do this for each other at different times.
Once we were sure we had used all the time possible and had scraped together enough money to pay, one of us would go down to the main office in Trastevere. Our phone would be working again within twenty-four hours. This system worked well for several years.
One time, however, something went horribly wrong. We had paid our bill and could call out again, so joyously announced this to all our friends. Then we noticed that we weren’t getting our usual quota of calls back. We got the occasional person telling us that they had tried but there was no answer. Then we started getting the occasional person telling us that a guy named Marco answered every time they called our number. Then we started getting Marco’s friends calling us. We called the telephone company on numerous occasions, telling them that somehow the phone lines had been crossed because our number no longer led to our telephone. They kept telling us we were mistaken.
At one stage, I tried yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs at the main office. I was led quietly and firmly up to the Head Office, where a very nice woman showed me on her computer screen that our number was linked to our phone.
‘I don’t care what your computer says,’ I told her, ‘it is wrong. When we dial our number it goes to someone else’s house and when they dial their number it goes to our house.’
‘There is nothing we can do,’ she said, ‘the computer says it’s all okay.’ According to the Italian State telephone company there was no problem, so there wasn’t.
Frustrated beyond belief and realising there was nothing we could do, my flatmate and I manned our phone day and night. The next time we had a call for Marco, we explained our situation. We asked what number they had been calling and then gave them our number as the new number on which they could get Marco. We then told our friends and family our ‘new’ number and got on with life. We continued using our phone as always and were heading towards the usual enormous bill of over $1,500, when one day a sheepish telephone company man knocked on our door. He had come to ‘adjust’ our phone. Nothing unusual, just routine, but he couldn’t quite explain what it was, just an adjustment.
The next day our original number was back, no explanation, no apology, no acknowledgement, but also no bill. Their computer had no way of tracing our bill. Our number was registered against this phone as not having been used because their computer said so.
The same Italian telephone company now has competition, lots of it. I was one of the first people in Italy to take advantage of that. They ring regularly, trying to get my custom back and offering me all kinds of deals. When they ask why I won’t sign up with them, I tell them the above story. There is usually a short silence and then they hang up.
In spite of all this chopping and changing that occurs within Italy regarding numbers, facts and allegiances, I am in awe of this Day of Liberation as I sit in my usual bar sipping on my second morning cappuccino. It feels strange to be in a country that was once occupied and is now celebrating its liberation from that occupation, because I see Italy as the country from which high fashion, divine food, exquisite glassware and furniture come. It is a nation that houses some of the world’s greatest art, buildings and Roman ruins, so I sometimes forget that it suffered the ultimate humiliation a nation can suffer, that of being taken over by an enemy. Of seeing them drive down the main streets, circling the Coliseum with their tanks, triumphant in their victory. Of having their beloved buildings and masterpieces adorned with another nation’s flag, within living memory of many of the people I am sipping my cappuccino with.
All around me are people who can sit and enjoy this day of celebration and appreciate what it means to have your country back. They are people who can revel in the relief and reward of overcoming such a humiliation, and have a sacrifice mean something, even sixty-five years later. I understand that, after that kind of experience, getting a few numbers mixed up every now and then is really nothing to cry about.
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