Italian

Take Nonna's evening call and hear her story begin the way every Italian story begins: c'era una volta, in the days of the war.

Follow Nonna's first war chapter in the tense of stories, the passato remoto: arrivarono, si nascose, nessuno fiato.

Hear how the family kept its bread from the soldiers, and say what would have happened: se l'avessero trovato, ci avrebbero preso tutto.

Show Giulia the notebook and say what you are in the middle of doing: lo sto scrivendo, parola per parola, and hear the idea of a book.

Hear the village legend the way a village tells it: si diceva che, it was said that, and the one witness who saw the wolf with his own eyes.

Check the legend with Pietro and report what his grandfather used to say: mio nonno diceva che era un cane, leggenda o no.

Trade proverbs at the bar, chi dorme non piglia pesci, meglio tardi che mai, and ask how they say it where you are from.

Hear Giulia's news over a glass of water, aspetto un bambino, and promise to keep it quiet: non dirlo ancora a nessuno, bocca cucita.

Take the call from a Rome publisher, abbiamo letto il manoscritto, ci interessa, and accept the invitation: potrebbe venire a Roma?

Sit down in Rome with the contract, i diritti d'autore, l'otto per cento, le bozze entro marzo, and sign it.

On the evening call, Nonna refuses to have her name on the book, with chi vuoi che legga and fai come credi.

Nonna tells the evening before the ship, the house silent and her mother sewing money into her coat, in the tenses of a story.

Nonna tells the dawn she left Fontelupo, her father walking her to the square and not turning round, with the remote past in o.

Nonna tells her first years in America, the factory, the English learned from the other women and the nights, with the remote past in ai.

On Assunta's doorstep, a proverb for Laura's envy and one for an old bicycle, said by halves the way Italians say them.

In the publisher's office in Rome, the manuscript is cut and mended with the editor's conditional: taglierei, qui manca, il lettore deve capire.

Laura wants to read Nonna the chapter about the boy who never married; Nonna says no, it is not her story alone, and asks for a promise.

At the clinic down the valley, the midwife tells Giulia all is well, gives the due date and, when the room spins, the polite order: respiri.

On the bench in the piazza, the old man explains the words of Nonna's stories, la conca and il pagliaio, that nobody says any more.

The publisher on speakerphone in Giulia's kitchen, three people hunting for a title short enough for the cover, with che ne dice di.

Get Giulia to the hospital in the night: the waters have broken, breathe, call Pietro, let's go, slowly, it's not a race.

Take the news from the midwife at the hospital door: he is born, a lovely little boy, they are both fine, three kilos two, and ask to see them.

Call Nonna with the news: a baby has been born in Fontelupo, Giulia's son, after forty years, and his name is still to come.

Hear from Giulia what the baby is called, Vincenzo, after Nonna's brother, and what Nonna did when she heard: she cried, then she laughed.

Hear from the publisher that the copies have arrived, ask how the book came out, and fix the launch in Rome for the twelfth.

Read the first page of the book to Nonna on the phone and take her surprise: that's just how it was, did I say that, it sounds like a real book.

Present the book in a Rome bookshop with the publisher: it is born from a phone call, every evening a story, and the stories are Nonna's.

Take a reader's questions at the launch: why did you write it, what would your grandmother answer, is she still alive.

Carry the reader's question to Nonna and bring back her answer: tell her I'm alive, and that I'm coming back, I decided last night.

Tell Giulia and Pietro that Nonna has bought her ticket, at ninety-three, on her own, and close the story the storyteller's way; the end of Fluency Level Two.