II.iii. No Rest, not even Light

"As for me, I am astonished that they [the Bolognese] aren’t even more insane"
- Stendhal

This weekend I was supposed to follow Dante’s path, voyaging first to Verona then to Ravenna. However, like many plans in Italy (such as national unification and roadwork), mine was stymied by unforeseen complications. Upon returning from a long but truly inspiring day in Verona, tired from visiting at least a dozen churches and museums, I was somewhat distressed to find that the apartment was without any electrical power whatsoever. Thankfully, a friend from Toronto had given me a pocket sized reading lamp as a gift before I left for Italy, and now seemed a perfect and fortuitous time to put it to use. Checking my watch with this light I found that it was far too late to call Dr. Caramori, even on a Saturday night.
    I woke up the next morning, cringing at the thought of having to call poor Dr. Caramori and break the bad news. I imagined him doing some suitably important Sunday morning activity while I dialed his number. Sponsoring a child at a baptism or marrying off a daughter or something.
    As it turned out, poor Dr. Caramori was alone at his country house, 30 kilometers from Bologna, working in his garden on this beautiful October Sunday. Perhaps this didn’t necessitate perturbing his green thumb, so we attempted to resolve things over the phone. I was convinced that the bill had somehow not been paid (this was officially his responsibility), likely due to the fact that we had still not found the key to the mailbox downstairs and were therefore unsure as to what bills had arrived. "Anyways," he said, "they would not cut the power off on a Sunday." This had to be a local problem of some sort.
    "There is a panel in the corridor downstairs, Nicholas," he said in an English that had for once seemed to have gotten worse. I descended the stairs to the corridor, wearing my bathrobe, and eventually found the panel. The electricity for each apartment was controlled by a separate complicated looking white plastic box. The box marked "Caramori" had two red lights flashing.
    Suddenly, a very short, lively Italian woman arrived on the scene smoking a cigarette. She gestured for me to hand my phone over to her.
    "Ciao, Giorgio" she said at once, and then began to engage in a conversation heavy in Bolognese dialect, which is impenetrable at the best of times. Finally, she hung up and informed me that the problem was a fairly complex one, and that Dr. Caramori would be arriving shortly to see what could be done.

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    Poor Dr. Caramori drives a large Audi. Once he had arrived and we established that the solution to our problem lay beyond us, he called Enel, the electricity company. After dialing through an automated sequence at least twice as long as any I have ever witnessed in North America, he spoke with a representative who informed him that a technician would be coming alquanto subito, or, roughly translated, rather soon. Surprisingly, the technician arrived in an hour, but promptly told us that everything was in order regarding the supply of electricity, and that the problem lay on our side.
    Frustrated but still in good spirits, Dr. Caramori called his electrician, who had doubts about being able to make a house call on a Sunday. Finally, he agreed to come at four thirty, in about three hours. Until then Dr. Caramori would run a few errands, then return to meet the electrician. After a relatively short time, the electrician was in fact able to find the problem, which was a defective resistor that needed to be replaced, and the lights came back on. However, soon after Dr. Caramori left to return to the country and his garden, I noticed another problem; the hot water heater, a brand new device mounted on the wall in the kitchen, was not working. After pondering my options for several minutes I decided to go down to the corridor to check if perhaps the fuse for this particular device was off. I left the door open and went down the stairs when…
    Slam! A quick breeze blew through the apartment and the door closed abruptly. I was now locked out, and inside there was no hot water. Dr. Caramori was the only one who had another set of keys. Luckily, I had my phone with me and was, mortified, able to call Dr. Caramori to inform him of the two other problems that had cropped up where one had been solved.
    "I hope it isn’t too much of a problem for you to return…"
    "Well, your problem is bigger than my problem, Nicholas."
    "Really, Dr. Caramori, I feel terrible. I don’t mind waiting if necessary."
    "Well, I believe you will have to wait. You shall wait," he said emphatically, laughing all the while and pleased at being able to use the future tense correctly. He was in fact the first Italian I had met who understood irony in proper terms.
    Soon enough, Dr. Caramori returned, still smiling, still jovial, and we entered the apartment. After a few minutes of uninformed speculation we were able to locate the problem- some loose jury-rigged wiring that we had fiddled with earlier in the day while attempting to solve the first problem. "I am no electrician," said Dr. Caramori, and I believed him.
    "Maybe I should shut off the power first?" I asked.
    "Yes. I agree." One of the connections that had been affixed to a wall socket with hockey tape had come loose, but we weren’t sure where to reattach it. "This could be dangerous, but I need the thrill," Dr. Caramori added sarcastically. Eventually, by putting two brains together we were able to fix the problem, and the hot water heater began to function again. We shoved the mangled assembly of wires back into the wall, and all was in order. After assuring me that he would have an electrician come and do things properly sometime in the next week, Dr. Caramori left and all the problems of the day seemed to have finally been solved. It was now 7:30 P.M. So much for Ravenna, its mosaics, and Dante’s path; those would have to wait for another day. I went to bed early and prepared myself for Monday, October 4th, which was to be a very special day in Bologna…


The Water Heater, cause of so many problems…