Anna of Naples.

I don't know if I have any children. But I've had a reason to
wonder because of Anna, a slight, dark-haired woman I met in
Naples, Italy, about 48 years ago. 
 
Naples is an ancient city. I miss its particular mystique. It had
a university when London was a settlement. The Romans spent their
summers in villas whose foundations now support many of the homes
on the Via Posilipo which overlooks the bay to the south. The
Greeks called it Neapolis at least 500 years before the Caesars.
Before that it must have been a trading city for all of the ancient
Mediterranean civilizations. 
 
Today's Neapolitans serenely accept the city's venerable past, but
prefer to live in the machinations of an animated present that's
tolerant of all intruders. There have been many alien intrusions
throughout history and as a people Neapolitans have experienced
everything the world has offered in hardship and joy, folly and
brilliance. 
 
I lived there from 1963 to 1966. From 1962 to 1963 I was a seaman
on the USS Saratoga, an aircraft carrier with the U. S. Navy's
Sixth Fleet deployed in the Mediterranean. I spoke passable French
then, and even served as the ship's unofficial translator when we
anchored at Marseille, an early port call after passing through the
Gibraltar straits. We made two port calls at Naples in early 1963.
Naples was my second taste of Italy after a visit to Genoa. Before
that we called on Palermo, Sicily, which official Italy likes to
think of as part of its turf, but isn't in any cultural sense.

In fact, Italy as a unified country is only a legal fiction and
remains today an amalgam of historical city states and tenuous
national governments. But that's not under discussion here. 
The story of how I met Anna had it's beginnings after we steamed
home to Mayport, Florida. As part of the ship's intelligence
office, one of my duties was to routinely scan messages from
Atlantic fleet headquarters. One innocuous message solicited a few
volunteers to transfer to "preferred sea duty" in Naples.

Thus, I found my `ticket' to return to Italy, learn Italian, and
live overseas. I applied, and was approved for transfer to the USS
Tallahatchie County, a converted LST that sat in Naples harbor most
of the time as part of the Navy's European command. The ship got
underway occasionally, spent the summers in Crete, and made good
will visits to the Balearic Islands and the French Riviera. Mostly
though, it meant a nine to five job in Naples, with the option of
wearing civilian clothes ashore, a privilege not enjoyed by sailors
of the visiting Sixth Fleet. It was also a chance to live in town,
go incognito, and submerse myself in Neapolitan life when Navy
duties ended. 
 
I was 21 years old when I arrived in late 1963 with almost three
years to go on my navy commitment. I relished the prospects of
getting settled. Sistemare La Vita. The first objective was to
locate a cafe I discovered on one of the Sara's earlier trips that
was run by a minor-Don named "Charlie" who spoke perfect English,
having been deported from America some years before for some
infraction of the common law. He remembered me vaguely between
various business consultations he was always having. When I told
him my tale, we became friends again as he held no bitterness, only
memories, and always welcomed direct news from Americans. 
 
I asked him if he knew of any rooms or small apartments that I
could rent so I didn't have to call the ship home on my own time.
In 1963, even a lowly seaman's paycheck went a long way on the
Neapolitan economy, and I could easily afford it. He immediately
picked up his phone and I was put in touch with one Alberto
Costanzo who also spoke idiomatic English. "Al", too, had been
invited to leave Providence, Rhode Island some 20 years before.

I never asked about their current business. Thus, in one quick
inquiry, I found a room to rent at 17, Vico Santa Maria dell'Aiuto
a few minutes walk from the port and the center of downtown Naples.
It cost the equivalent of $48 a month and I kept it throughout my
entire stay in Naples. 
 
With living space assured, clothes were next. I had always liked
the fitted European style, and found a tailor to cut two suits for
$38 each. The next step was to find the local Berlitz school and
begin lessons to accelerate my facility with Italian. The Berlitz
School in Naples was not used to Americans dropping in to learn
their language, so it took a few days to line up an instructor
where I would be learning one-on-one, the best of all situations. 

They produced Professor Mario del Giudice, a journalist and teacher
at the Instituto Orientale, a venerable liberal arts college
located just a few blocks up the narrow street from where I lived.
After a few weeks of lessons Professor Mario told me that since I
was progressing rapidly, it was useless for me to continue spending
lire at Berlitz.

He said I just needed to circulate more among the proper set, and
he would be happy to introduce me around. It seemed he knew
everybody and I quickly met an international group of historians,
poets, anthropologists, students, and others of no particular
prominence at the time. Mario took delight chronicling "nostro
groupo internationale" in the social notices of the city's morning
daily "Il Mattino". 
 
I was assimilating into Neapolitan life, meeting everyone from the
old nobility to bum boat operators. Meanwhile, in my official life,
I was meeting new shipmates of kindred spirit one of which turned
out to be a career navyman named John T. Moore who was also my
immediate supervisor. "J.T." had about ten years on me. I was now
in ship's supply and he relied on my newly-acquired Italian to help
negotiate the ship's purchases and contracts with vendors from the
local economy. I think he also felt I knew more about the local
night life, and we started to pal around together after official
duties. 

I diverted him off the usually beaten track of pricey bars, clubs,
and night spots that cater to foreign males in search of a good
time. We hit a few of those, to be sure, as I rationalized that any
chance to practice the language was good for me. But usually, we
visited less expensive and out-of-the-way places near the old port
that catered to visiting merchant seamen and Mediterranean
businessmen who had significantly less cash to spend on amusements. 
A couple of these became regular haunts when I wasn't going to the
opera, people-watching from a sidewalk cafe in the Galleria or on
the Via Roma, exploring the city and countryside, or having dinner
with friends. After a while, at our obscure haunts, the ladies
didn't hustle us because we became regulars and from their
viewpoint generally "simpatico". 

We'd talk with them when they weren't hustling visiting fleet
sailors and businessmen or when traffic was otherwise slow. Too, at
that time I was writing a girlfriend back in New York almost every
day, and was not easily tempted to spend money foolishly on local
beauties, despite their availability. Many of the women were young
and impoverished and needed money earned by whatever means to
support children, or family. Even if I wanted to be a
philanthropist, there were financial limits to what I could
support. 
 
One cafe we frequented late at night was called simply the
"Cantina" along the Rua Catalania, a gritty, narrow, street that
was fed by even tinier alleys and vias as it connected a large
boulevard at the port with Piazza Bovio, a grand plaza in one of
the more upscale neighborhoods. By day, the Cantina was a
neighborhood spot for espresso, pastry, and local gossip but when
the sun went down it welcomed the evening trade, and contracted
with an itinerant "sales force" to help encourage patrons and
drinks. There one evening, two new women showed up for work. 
 
It's said by some that Naples is a city of thieves and pickpockets.
Of pickpockets, perhaps, but I never experienced it. Of thieves,
yes, that's another matter. That night my thief was Anna. She
managed to steal a little of my heart, and a place in my memory as
I write this. She did it innocently. Her friend was "Doris", whose
real name turned out to be Filomena Fusschein, a generation removed
from the Netherlands, she said. Anna's name was real. 
 
Captivated, we invited them to our table for drinks, delighting
even the Cantina's management by our unusual financial
recklessness. If the Cantina at that hour had been a regular
Neapolitan cafe the women wouldn't have been there alone in the
first place. Thus, everyone knew the rules. I don't remember much
about that first encounter, except Anna had a red knit dress and we
all probably drank too much. 

J.T. liked the charming Rubenesque quality of Doris who was closer
to his age. Anna entranced me with an other-worldly aura of
intuitive intelligence that never had the benefit of much formal
education. Her big dark eyes projected a curiosity, depth, and
enough street smarts to try to do some business with me pro forma.
When I said I wasn't interested in such an arrangement, she was
somewhat taken aback, but allowed the rest of the evening to
proceed as it would have in any social encounter over drinks, as it
was a slow evening. We all went our separate ways that first night,
but not before closing the place. 
 
We found them there on subsequent evenings and developed into
familiar friends. We also came to a consensus where they would
hustle drinks from prowling customers and we'd calmly wait at our
table talking until they had a moment to join us. It was the
closest I ever came to being a pimp. Doris knew English fairly
well, so while I was struggling through my Italian with Anna, she
would interrupt us to have me translate something for J.T.'s
edification. I also leaned on her when I needed to present
something to Anna beyond my Italian syntax and vocabulary.
Initially, I became the indispensable link for the four of us. 
 
After several nights of late closing, we began to escort them to
the big cafe on Piazza Municipio that stayed open until four or
five in the morning to supply coffee, pastry, pasta, and provide a
meeting ground for all variety of nightlife from the big hotels,
bars, and clubs within a few blocks of the port. One such evening
our liaison took a different turn.

They took us in tow and we walked up the deserted Via Roma. Near
Piazza Carita we turned, and were led up the hill on ancient
streets that comprised an old very densely populated residential
district where, by day, multi-colored wash streams like banners of
life and family across the narrow streets. 

We strolled along the Via Lungo, a main artery of the district, to
the entry of the Pension Lungo, a small fourth or fifth class hotel
used by the trade and local businessmen who didn't need higher
class accommodations. It was Anna who indicated to me that this was
not to be a professional evening. From the street we entered a long
dark hallway that led about 25 feet to the pension's entrance and
registration desk. We all registered. Two doubles. The next
morning, which arrived in about two hours, J. T. and I hoofed it
back to the port. 
 
In ensuing weeks, the evening concierge of the Pensione Lungo
nodded recognition. One night with Anna was especially memorable.
I learned the woeful tale of her first marriage, and how she got
the scars she bore across her abdomen and chest. Our time that
night was magically close. Somehow, for reasons I can't explain to
this day, that night together was our high point, and our paths
abruptly parted.

One explanation might have been the bittersweet known to all
mariners as they part from loved ones. I remember having to sail
for Crete in the next few days and be gone for two months. In any
case, my feelings were mixed. How could I reconcile her with New
York? 

How could anything work? What was I doing? For me, the world and
life in general started to show its irony and poignancy in ways I
had never experienced. Anna was a couple of years older than I, and
I expect knew how to keep secrets better. Together, we were caught
up in something we couldn't understand. At least I certainly
couldn't.

Perhaps was too inexperienced to deal with the reality of a woman,
and, in any event, was reluctant to venture far from my role as a
pilgrim in a strange land. Many women, and a marriage later, I'm
only now beginning to understand the kind of depth I experienced
with her that evening. 
 
One night about five or six months after my last visit to the
Pensione Lungo, Anna and Doris showed up at the Bluebird Club on
Via Flavio Gioia just off Piazza Muncipio. The Bluebird was a club
run by the USO for American servicemen and often featured some top
flight entertainment. I rarely stopped by, to keep away from the
American community, but some big act was in town and we were there
that evening when they arrived. Anna was visibly very pregnant. 
 
The Bluebird was a big house reminiscent of a good New York
nightclub with stage and sound equipment to handle any act. The
room was packed and through the crowd and din I managed to get to
Anna. Her intuition could anticipate me. I must have exuded an aura
of "what do I do now?" as I asked her. She was tender with me and
assured me that I was "not responsible." I never saw her again
after that. The sea again called, and we sailed again within a few
days. But something inside told me I was not getting the whole
truth, she was holding something back. 
 
That nagging thought has plagued me all these years. In 1973 I
wrote J.T. through the fleet post office and after several weeks,
received a letter from him saying, among other things, he got
around to marrying Doris. It turned out they had a daughter, who
was conceived a few months after we all met, and were then living
in Rhode Island. My motive in writing was to find out about Anna,
but I never got around to following up.
 
Maturity makes the eternal moment congruent with the past, and now
I want to know about that one particularly touching evening Anna
and I experienced. Could she have had a private agenda to which I
was not to be privy? Is there a son or daughter now 45 who doesn't
know about their father?

Men tend to fantasize about sons, but like Billy Bigelow, the
character in Rogers & Hammerstein's musical "Carousel", what if my
child is a girl? What would I tell her if she exists? I, a 70 year
old American, she the 45 year old European. I would have to find a
way to bridge the years.