Portrait

The first time I met Livia it was in front of the school, a rather peculiar looking building surrounded by trees and quiet and narrow streets, perhaps five minutes walk from the castle. She was by herself, looking at the lecture schedule, and as I approached the information board it was immediately apparent to me that she was as clueless as I was when it came to figure out how this bizarre place worked. It was the 30 of August 1997.

I had arrived the day before, around three thirty PM, after an endless drive with my parents from central Italy, where we had spent a few days visiting my relatives

We had been rather quiet during the trip, me pondering on the actual scale of what was about to happen and whether I would just crash and burn, my father focusing on driving, my mother wondering whether she was really about to lose me forever.

It was a hot day of the end of summer and as we passed the blue logo on the side of the road my heart started pounding in my chest in anticipation. I felt slightly sick. I rolled down the car windows and let the sea air brush my face. It all felt like it was always going to happen but I simply did not know it.

The whole place was filled with some strange energy, this electricity that hit me as soon as I opened the car doors. It was as though the summer afternoon bright light, the breeze, the green and the colours and the buzz of all the new comers arriving amalgamated together into what would form the bubble we were about to live in for the next two years.

I think I was captured since that very first moment.

Two hours later I was settling in a strange room in a place called Ples (which people said was haunted), I was about to say goodbye to my family in more ways that I could then understand and about to start an unpredictable chapter of my life. I had never been to London and could not start to imagine at that point that I would be moving there in less than two years.

When I met Livia that feeling that I was alienating myself from the rest of the real world had not subsided yet. In reality it would have lasted for my whole time there and somewhat beyond, it was just a matter of getting used to it. It is something that we all share and that we recognise in each other's eyes.

Livia was standing there, wearing an outfit of purples and ethnic looking fabrics that made her look like a mysterious gypsy with formidably large breasts. In reality she was just a socialist Southerner teenager. She was quite small, black wavy hair just touching her shoulders.

As I approached I could hear her swearing under her breath in a delicious Roman accent. 'Fuck''s and 'For God's sake''s alternated as she tried to figure out the schedule using her broken English. It was all about 'blocks' and 'double blocks' of lectures, and each subject had three different levels.

'How does this work?' I asked, almost surprising her. It was the best I could come up with. I felt awkward and lost, and desperate to start making allies. She gave me a quick glance and then went back to the grid. Her eyes were brown and distant, like the eyes of people that prefer to watch and listen.

'I wish I could tell you. I think this is a taster of what's to come', she finally replied.