September 99 in Varese, north of Milan:
We were coming back from a short trip to Siena
and were sitting on the porch at a friendīs house. A neighbour, Paolo, was also
invited - a self-employed economic lawyer (or something like that) with
humanistic educational background.
First of all, the guy himself was fascinating.
He could change his way of talking and the sound of his voice to Sicilian
dialect: slower, with soft, dark sounds, just like the old Mafia bosses sound in
my imagination. He told me - and he was not the showing off kind of guy - that
when he was negotiating about important and difficult issues on behalf of his
clients, he would give this sound to his voice and his negotiating partners
would open to his arguments as if by magic.
I was fascinated. When I switch to Bavarian, I never get
these results.
I donīt remember if this topic then triggered
the following discussion about the different systems in Germany and Italy. It
was mainly about law and order and reliability etc. Our hosts and friends, who
have lived in Milan for five years on behalf of a german federal company,
complained heavily about the "state of affairs" in Italy. And Paolo
defended his country, of course, with many arguments, but with even more
"passione".
I was relatively quiet that night, because I was on
his side.
