or destroy.
Which might be what she sensed, ultimately, in the pitch and rhythm of the original city. Downtown, everything revved with savage pretending. On all sides, even in streets jammed from wall to scaffold, hustling couples and threesomes kept up a baroque and airy masquerade. The performing style, the hands perpetually in the air, manifested itself in the hustlers and executive track alike, whether you were wearing a hand-me-down soccer shirt or a glittering silk tie. Even the people walking unattached made small gestures, the same sort of scene-stealing business Barbara had noticed in Mr. Paul. In particular these people had a shrug that was more than a shrug, an effort of the entire body, requiring a pause between strides. In the moment of that pause, fixed in place with shoulders hiked, a Neapolitan would look like one of the plated ojetti .
Barbara, taking it in, itched with a fresh doubt. Could she indeed trust the obliterating vision sheâd had her first time through these spaces? Or had she become Italy-addled in spite of herself, bitten by some virus that incubated amid the clutter and breakage? For starters, it seemed unlikely sheâd ever gone unnoticed. These mornings alone, as sheâd dawdled on the Street of the Oil Cistern, or on the Street of Dried Grapes, the locals had known her, la Mama Americana , the one from the video. But theyâd made believe otherwise.
Also the ruling color, other than the gray spectrum from sulfur dust to tufa stone, remained the same blue as had confounded Barbara when sheâd first seen it on that map. Napoli azzura , half the street vendors wore it, whatever their skin color. Nor did it matter whether their cart was chockablock with DVDs or piled with the kind of sea salad theyâd been offering around here since Christ was a carpenter. The sea itself provided different colors, from scallop-white to squid-purple. Then the fish smell gave way to a citrus tang, the oranges and lemons like clowns hustling into the center ring before the elephantâs out of the tent; then all the rest would be shot through by the acid stench of metalwork, another shop turning out the ojetti .
Even the commerce going on, the bills unfolding and changing hands, struck her as part of the show. Another flutter of gladrags. This even though Barbara knew how hard it could be to get by, around the ransacked Bay, and though she didnât fail to notice the ill-nourished Senegalese or Eritreans who manned the more decrepit of the open-air markets. Nevertheless, to her the Euros could look like Monopoly money. A touristâs delusion, this was, and stupid of her, and whenever Barbara scolded herself for it, she had the impression that sheâd been deludedâinfectedâby history. She couldnât separate the buying and selling, and the false fronts that went with it, from the history. The displays shrieked for impulse buys, here as much as when she drove the Bridgeport bypass, but in so ancient a setting the pitch to feather your nest, your flimsy and rotting nest, looked inherently nutty. The very name of the city seemed at the same cross-purposes, an expression three thousand years old that meant, roughly, New & Improved! . Barbara thought of a hustler working in a museum. In fact the Museo Nazionale was close by, with a thousand imitation antiquities on sale. She didnât need Chris to tell her that, under all the daily deal-making, the foundations went back long before Christ was a carpenter.
âThis whole trip was an act,â she told her chosen priest. âThatâs what I realized, that first day. It was the old shuck and jive, when we came to Naples.â
âReally? And the refugees of the earthquake, the terremotat? Theyâre children of God, donât you know, neglected children.â
She shook her head. âIâm not saying itâs not good work, what Jay came here to do.â Back in Bridgeport, her husband had brought
Which might be what she sensed, ultimately, in the pitch and rhythm of the original city. Downtown, everything revved with savage pretending. On all sides, even in streets jammed from wall to scaffold, hustling couples and threesomes kept up a baroque and airy masquerade. The performing style, the hands perpetually in the air, manifested itself in the hustlers and executive track alike, whether you were wearing a hand-me-down soccer shirt or a glittering silk tie. Even the people walking unattached made small gestures, the same sort of scene-stealing business Barbara had noticed in Mr. Paul. In particular these people had a shrug that was more than a shrug, an effort of the entire body, requiring a pause between strides. In the moment of that pause, fixed in place with shoulders hiked, a Neapolitan would look like one of the plated ojetti .
Barbara, taking it in, itched with a fresh doubt. Could she indeed trust the obliterating vision sheâd had her first time through these spaces? Or had she become Italy-addled in spite of herself, bitten by some virus that incubated amid the clutter and breakage? For starters, it seemed unlikely sheâd ever gone unnoticed. These mornings alone, as sheâd dawdled on the Street of the Oil Cistern, or on the Street of Dried Grapes, the locals had known her, la Mama Americana , the one from the video. But theyâd made believe otherwise.
Also the ruling color, other than the gray spectrum from sulfur dust to tufa stone, remained the same blue as had confounded Barbara when sheâd first seen it on that map. Napoli azzura , half the street vendors wore it, whatever their skin color. Nor did it matter whether their cart was chockablock with DVDs or piled with the kind of sea salad theyâd been offering around here since Christ was a carpenter. The sea itself provided different colors, from scallop-white to squid-purple. Then the fish smell gave way to a citrus tang, the oranges and lemons like clowns hustling into the center ring before the elephantâs out of the tent; then all the rest would be shot through by the acid stench of metalwork, another shop turning out the ojetti .
Even the commerce going on, the bills unfolding and changing hands, struck her as part of the show. Another flutter of gladrags. This even though Barbara knew how hard it could be to get by, around the ransacked Bay, and though she didnât fail to notice the ill-nourished Senegalese or Eritreans who manned the more decrepit of the open-air markets. Nevertheless, to her the Euros could look like Monopoly money. A touristâs delusion, this was, and stupid of her, and whenever Barbara scolded herself for it, she had the impression that sheâd been deludedâinfectedâby history. She couldnât separate the buying and selling, and the false fronts that went with it, from the history. The displays shrieked for impulse buys, here as much as when she drove the Bridgeport bypass, but in so ancient a setting the pitch to feather your nest, your flimsy and rotting nest, looked inherently nutty. The very name of the city seemed at the same cross-purposes, an expression three thousand years old that meant, roughly, New & Improved! . Barbara thought of a hustler working in a museum. In fact the Museo Nazionale was close by, with a thousand imitation antiquities on sale. She didnât need Chris to tell her that, under all the daily deal-making, the foundations went back long before Christ was a carpenter.
âThis whole trip was an act,â she told her chosen priest. âThatâs what I realized, that first day. It was the old shuck and jive, when we came to Naples.â
âReally? And the refugees of the earthquake, the terremotat? Theyâre children of God, donât you know, neglected children.â
She shook her head. âIâm not saying itâs not good work, what Jay came here to do.â Back in Bridgeport, her husband had brought
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