So we get to Naples yesterday and it goes something like this:
We’ve been warned not to take gypsy cabs, but somehow we manage to get in one anyway, despite our best intentions at the train station. After a 10-minute ride with no meter running, our driver hits a button and the number 20.50 appears on a screen. He demands 20 euro and tells us that we have to walk a block to get to our hotel because the street is too narrow. We meekly pay him and start walking, only to discover that we are at least 4 blocks from our hotel and on the wrong street.
We call our hotel keeper who comes and finds us in the narrow unmarked streets, then asks (in his outrageous Italian accent but excellent English) why we didn’t call a cab using the number he gave us. We have to confess that we are just plain lame. He is sweet and voluble and named Rafael Festa (“my last name means party” he tells us, laughing) and completely ambiguous. He touches me too much and comments on my tattoo. “Mi Corazon,” he reads, and I point at Theresa and say, “Le e mi Corazon.” She is my heart. Just to be clear. He continues to touch me too much and we start to climb the many, many very steep, worn stairs to our room. He tells us, “After this you will have a beautiful Brazilian butt!” We have to stop because we are laughing too hard to climb the stairs.
We get to the room, which is one of four--a small apartment, really--and is decorated perfectly. You know, wink wink, nudge nudge, that kind of perfectly. And Rafael gestures wildly and wears a scarf. But he continues to touch me every time he talks. He tells me he will show me where we can leave our luggage during the day on Thursday after we’ve checked out but before we leave. Theresa stays in the apartment and Rafael leads me up more stairs. He shows me a nook on the next floor where we are to leave the bags. Then we climb some more. “Come, I will show you something,” he says and leads me to a rooftop terrace. I’m certain a) that Theresa is wondering where we are and b) that he is going to try and kiss me. He shows me the view and I admire it. He tells me that Italian food is good and I tell him I know, that my jeans are too tight after 3 weeks in Italy. He says climbing the stairs here will fix that. I tell him we were in Cinque Terre a few days ago and that there were many, many stairs. “Let me see,” he says, and peers around me, pats my ass and says, “Nice Brazilian butt.”
We go back downstairs where he shows us our room. It is beautifully decorated, including a large bamboo pole on iron brackets over the bed with a tapestry hanging from it. As he is telling us about the room he stops and looks at the pole. He goes over and begins to straighten one of the brackets, which is bent. “Someone had wild love here last night!” he says and laughs. Then he looks at us and adds, “You don’t use, what do you call them?” and gestures. “Handcuffs?” I guess. “Ah!” he says, and leaves the room, muttering, “must write that down. Handcuffs.”
Then he tells us about a nearby café, “where people like us go,” he adds and I am back to thinking that between the meticulous decoration, his slightly swishy manner and the “like us” that he is part of the family.
Who knows? We went to the café and he was there but besides smiling and saying hello, he completely ignored us in favor of a bevy of cute and likewise ambiguous young women. All I know is that I am madly in crush with Naples and its loud, passionate, slightly crazed inhabitants.
