So what comes next? After these young people—call them mongoloid the old way, Down the new way, or trisomics the scientific way: the reality doesn't change with the name—after school or specialized programs, what then? What can they do?
Gianni works at a pizzeria, someone told me. Go talk to him.
But is it sheltered work? I asked.
Well, sort of. The pizzeria belongs to his sister.
Ah, his sister's place.
His sister is practical, decisive, warm but no-nonsense.
The place is well kept. Pizza Rustica, says the sign outside. To pay for it, you have to work hard. And they do. You can hear pans clattering, cupboards slamming, dishes rattling, and every so often Gianni peeks out from behind the curtain, dishcloth and a bowl in his hands.
He'd been told someone was coming to talk to him, take photographs. So he's all excited, his sister tells me.
"He feels important." You can hear in her tone a mix of affection and firmness—adopted, whether by instinct or deliberation, in how she handles Gianni.
"I treat him normally," she explains. "Not like he's sick. He works roughly the same hours we do. I hired him legally and he does his job.
And when he gets tired, does he refuse?"
He feels tiredness like we do. We push through. He says "I'm tired" and sits down. So I yell at him and Gianni gets back to work. I can see that when we treat him like an adult, he acts like an adult—he improves. When he's with children or people treat him like a child, he regresses. I'm almost sure of it.
At first, of course, we gave him the simpler tasks: cleaning, washing, shredding mozzarella. It takes him longer, but he learns. Now he can slice mushrooms and stretch pizza dough too—even if it's not perfectly even.
And when he makes mistakes?
He makes them! I scold him and little by little he learns. How does he react?
He feels humiliated. At first, he used to—how do I put it—he'd go rigid all over. Not after the chicken incident. Not anymore.
What happened with the chicken?
We'd just pulled them out of the oven—they're delicate when they're hot. Lifting them from the pan, Gianni dropped them because he doesn't know how to gauge his strength yet. I almost cried when I saw them. He understood, and he started to go rigid. "Don't you dare," I told him. "You know you're wrong. You only do what you know how to do, what I tell you to do!" From that day on, he hasn't had those episodes again.
Gianni works at a pizzeria. He started with simple tasks: cleaning, washing, shredding mozzarella. It took him longer, but he learned. Now he can slice mushrooms, stretch pizza dough, fry. Gianni is proud of his work.
Gianni works at a pizzeria. He started with simple tasks: cleaning, washing, shredding mozzarella. It took him longer, but he learned. Now he can slice mushrooms, stretch pizza dough, fry. Gianni is proud of his work.Her reasoning convinces me. She brings him with her; teaches him the work step by step; treats him like an adult, even roughly sometimes, but with attention.
Gianni comes to work on his own, even though there are two streets to cross and his mother would like to walk him over. Better not, his sister says firmly.
Every evening he gets his pay—not much, all things considered, and he's learning the value of money, which is hard to understand. At first he complained when I gave him a five-thousand-lira note instead of three one-thousand ones.
Her plan seems right to me. All the same, it's easy to approve of other people's tough-love parenting, especially when they have limited capacity to tell you what they really think about it.
I Want to Speak Well
Gianni, are you happy to be here?
He smiles sweetly, beautifully—I say this without exaggeration.
"So so so much," he answers, bringing his hands to his chest like an actor in a community play.
These people still surprise me with their capacity for joy and tenderness—expressed so naturally that to us, bound by our culture to hide our feelings, it looks like mime theater. But it's authentic.
What do you like to do?
"I like mushrooms, washing plates, pans. I make tomato sauce, I make food, everything, everything."
He understands well. Let's be honest: I haven't seen many who look this good, move this freely, are this lively and affectionate, like Gianni.
"I like my life here. This is my place. I love it so much."
Do you love your sister? It's a more loaded question than it sounds—I'm fishing for a reaction to her harshness, her scolding.
The gesture of his hands, the radiant smile, the nodding, the "so so so much" after "I love"—all unmistakable, unguarded, emphatic like comedy but true.
"I feel happy in this work. All my brothers and sisters, they're all here, they're all happy and they love me."
Someone this happy—isn't he *too* happy? You start to wonder if all that joy comes from not understanding.
But Gianni expresses sadness too. His deepest sadness is about the way he speaks—he's aware of it. You can see ideas pressing inside him, pushing to get out, but only a few slow, clumsy sentences come out, and he tries frantically to enrich them with gestures, smiles, expressions of sadness.
"I find the words inside me. But I speak badly," he says sadly, shaking his head. And when he tells me he goes to church, I ask "What for?"
"To pray to Jesus."
"And what do you tell him?"
"I want to speak well."
This passion for speaking well runs into Gianni's second sorrow. "I'm a good boy, I'm becoming better, I can talk, I like a girl. I'm grown up, I'm twenty-two, I'm getting married. I'm leaving. My family."
He says it with anxiety and at the same time certainty, laying out what sounds like a precise plan, a sure future, and it breaks your heart to hear it, because you know this probably won't happen. It's a shame, because Gianni is capable of care, of great tenderness, of joy, of deep affection.
The sadness fades quickly from his face and hands. There's mozzarella to shred. Back comes the beautiful smile: "I like making mozzarella." Gianni gets up quickly, takes the mozzarella from the fridge, turns on the shredder. He goes back to his work, efficient, proud to show it off. ■