THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC

Anna missed her piano. For two weeks, her parents had been dragging her all around Europe, constantly telling her that this vacation was a wonderful experience and the trip of a lifetime. Worse, her brother, Orville, seemed to think he was some sort of language expert. Wherever they went, Orville kept getting them lost by misunderstanding directions and signs. He’d gotten them lost in Spain, France, and Portugal, so far. Now, he was in the process of getting them lost in Italy. To top it off, every chance he had, he made fun of her for not knowing any foreign languages.

Some vacation this was turning out to be.

“I’m sure it’s just down here,” Orville said, pointing to the corner ahead of them. “That’s what the man said.”

Anna hoped he was right. They’d been walking forever, trying to find this restaurant. Her parents had really wanted to go there. A friend back home had told them, “If you are ever in Florence, be sure to eat at La Fontana.”

So here they were, trying to follow directions that Orville claimed he understood perfectly.

“Maybe you should ask someone else,” Anna said as they found themselves at the end of another street that didn’t go anywhere.

“Why don’t you ask?” Orville sneered at her. “Let’s see how well you do?”

“Now, kids…” Anna’s dad said. “Let’s not fight.”

“I’ll ask,” Anna said. She’d had it with Orville and his attitude. But who could she ask? She looked around. There was an old man walking toward her. She went up to him, smiled, and asked, “La Fontana?” At the same time, she made eating motions, pretending to hold a knife and fork.

The man grinned, nodded, and then replied in a stream of rapid Italian. Anna shrugged. The man repeated what he’d said. Anna shrugged again. She wished he’d speak more slowly. If she could hear each word separately, she thought she might at least be able to guess some of what he was saying. More than that, she wished she was back home playing her piano.

“Slower, please,” she said.

It was the man’s turn to respond with a shrug. He didn’t understand her.

Anna thought about her piano again. That thought gave her an idea. She could see the word in her mind, just the way it was written on some of her music. She looked at the man and said, “Adagio.”

“Adagio,” he said, grinning at her. And then he repeated the instructions, but much more slowly.

It worked, Anna thought. She’d seen the word many times. It was used when music was supposed to be played slowly. As she listened to the man, she realized that there were other Italian words she knew from her music, like prima, facile, and tutti. Between the instructions on her sheet music, the names of many songs, and the words for parts of instruments, Anna discovered she had a great vocabulary. Italian wasn’t such a hard language, after all.

When the man finished giving her the directions, Anna turned back to her family and said, “We make the next left, then go over the bridge. The restaurant is four blocks away, on the right.”

Anna turned back to the man. She remembered another word. She hadn’t learned it in her musical studies, but it was the right word for the moment. “Grazie,” she said, thanking the man.

“Prego,” the man replied.

“This way,” Anna said. She led her family to the restaurant. Behind her, Orville was pleasantly silent for once. Apparently, he couldn’t think of a single word to say in any language.