An Opening in Rome

It’s fun learning a little Italian because if you get to Italy, people there encourage foreigners to speak their language. They don’t sneer at your hopeless accent, or at your improper declensions.

On a bus in Rome I actually attempted a little joke in Italian. The government had fallen, and the papers were reporting on a parliamentary effort to make an alliance with progressive parties or, as they called it, an “opening to the left.” In the local language this was “apertura a sinistra.”

On the crowded bus, with packed riders swaying together when our vehicle lurched to a stop signaled by a traffic policeman, a short woman was trying to work her way to the rear door to get off at the next stop. She wasn’t making much headway.

Seeing her plight I said loudly, in Italian that must have sounded like a mule braying, “please, good people, make an opening to the left.” The whole bus laughed, a way was made with a Latin flourish for the diminutive woman, who was soon able to go on her way. I don't know whether the parliamentary effort was as successful.