Silent Gondoliers A Fable

Until his first day at Gondoliers School, nobody knew that Luigi was anything out of the ordinary. The reason nobody knew he was anything out of the ordinary was this: nobody really knew Luigi at all. Oh, he was popular enough. He was eighteen and slender and taller than most, with black hair and eyes. He would have been handsome except he had this smile the Italians called "tontone" which is hard to translate--there is no exact equivalent in English. The closest I can come is this this: "goony." He had a goony smile. He was strong but very gentle, and no one could ever remember his having done a mean thing since he was five and, in truth, it couldn't have been that mean, since no one could remember what exactly he did back then. "Oh, yes," his mother would say; "Luigi has a fine disposition and except for once when he was five, I have no complaints." When pressured as to what he had done she said, "Oh, something, you know how boys are." Gondoliers' School deals strictly with seamanship, and it is a three-year course. That's the minimum. Some young men take five ore even six years to get their Gondoliers Diploma. The school is run by a small staff, all retired gondoliers, and it is an honor to be a teacher. The only requirement to be on the staff is this: you must not just be a retired gondolier (preferably with thirty-five years or more of service), you must also be bad tempered. Only the cruelest quality for teaching positions. The reason is this: it is extraordinarily difficult to make a gondola go smoothly, and only experts get diplomas. If you had a sweet-natured fellow running the operation, he might pass a young man who wasn't good enough and once word got out that there was an incompetent gondolier working the Grand Canal, rumors would surely spread that the caliber of gondoliers was down. The reason the rumor would surely spread is this: everyone in Venice is jealous of the gondoliers. It is the finest job in the city if not all Europe, and the highest standards must be upheld at all times. The reason it is difficult to make a gondola run smoothly is that the gondola is weird-looking boat. It is very long--twenty-five feet--and very heavy--thirteen hundred pounds. It is also shaped like the bottom of a coffee saucer, like a mild "U." The shape is necessary because the gondolier stands on the back of the boat and steers with his single oar, and if the gondola were shaped, say like a canoe, the minute the gondolier stood on the back his weight would make the boat capsize. There are many tests along the way during the three years, but for centuries, there has only been one final exam--"Tombolon Corner." Again, there is no exact equivalent for "Tombolon"--the closest I can come, I am embarrassed to say, is this: "SPLAT." SPLAT Corner is the final exam. SPLAT Corner got its name because so many gondolas go SPLAT when they try and navigate it. It is in a very out-of-the-way part of Venice, one, in fact, that few natives even know about. The two narrowest canals in Venice intersect, and the total turning space has been measured exactly at seven feet eight inches. To take a twenty-five-foot boat and make it turn a corner seven feet eight inches wide is not the easiest thing in the world to do. On the first day of Gondoliers' School, in order to frighten the students, the cruelest teacher available takes all the young men and says, "Follow me." The students don't know where they are going, but after an hour's trip, the teacher suddenly stops, and points, and says, "That, you miserable idiots, is your final exam." One-third of each class, on the average, decides then and there to seek other formGoldman, William is the author of 'Silent Gondoliers A Fable' with ISBN 9780345442635 and ISBN 0345442636.