BR(AVE TO)EXIT
by Giulia Medaglini
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The name is Julia but not as in the English spelling. Pretty Woman came out when I was born but it was dubbed in my country, you know?
Nyet. Not even Yulia.
It’s spelled with the “G” of grit and the “I” of incomer. Like that. Sì.
The skin is white but not British white — or Irish, or Scottish — the accent a bit slippery but enough to blend-in. Aye, I’ve dreamt of leaving my country since I was a wee lass.
Emigrata. Immigrant.
A meld of cultures, which is not enough yet to stay here but not enough anymore to go back. I eat avocado toast for brunch and a piatto di gnocchi for dinner; like the byproduct of a liminal space, which is not here nor there but exists nonetheless. Within the rented borders of my flat and amongst the million questions of why-Edinburgh-though.
The Government has reached an agreement with Y.OU.: pineapple can stay on pizza.
It’s a relief, really. Nobody will call me sleazy with this immaculate piece of cyber-paper tucked away in my inbox. No one will ask the tropical chunks for how long they can stay. They will ask them though for how long they’re planning on staying — it does taste ok, but pineapple really shouldn’t be on a pizza.
Sure, stale cliches might still roll down from self-entitled tongues from time to time, but I’ll be pre-settled nonetheless. All thanks to my four bank accounts shouldering the burden of a full-time job in hospitality and taxes that a language barrier never prevented me to pay. Ah, la dolce vita!
MyRota notification: ManagerX has accepted your holiday request.
The name is Giulia, I was born in the year of the Italia 1990 and yet I don’t shout my lungs out at a rolling ball. The skin is white but not the Italian-toned white — that turbid olive-oil colour. The accent perfect albeit too stained of foreign words to avoid long pauses of endlessly searches through a dusty mind-dictionary.
Un cappuccino, per favore.
Pop the “p”, roll the “r” at the back of the incisors. God forbid they latch onto what my backstory really is. To where I moved all my hard-earned underpaid wages. To my betrayal. The foam is too bubbly and the sugar too much and I drink it standing and chatting to a barista whose meddling demeanor didn’t use to irritate me this much. Or maybe it did but I was never brave enough to admit it before I escaped. Before the hatred building up in my guts had set legs and mind in motion and the passport suddenly had lost the smell of never-used plastic.
Sorry, there are no flights to Yourhometown from grandpa’s/dead to grandma/too
Y.OU. and British passports to the left, all other passports to the rights. You know, those rights they never had to begin with but which we might have to let go of instead. We, who are just pineapple chunks with a longer-than-usual life shelf, hiding under blankets of gummy mozzarella as expensive as those non-existent tickets.
Close the flights app, put a smile, move on. A bit further away from the smell of my mom’s lasagna, or the scent of sun-burnt papier mache skin hugging me hard on a salty beach when I was no more than a wee lass.
The first available flight is in three months. Dragged sluggishly by Apollo’s chariot in time for the summer, and the holidays and the oh, I’ll go to Positano in July! of that customer I never remember the name of. Just in time for my sister to grow a bit older and message me a bit less.
Y.OU. citizens to the left. For now. Until the seagulls will have a different sound and a withered rosemary in my grandparents’ garden will be the only memory of them lulling me back to my roots.
The name is Giulia. Sure, Julia. I was born in the year of the Italia 1990, when England was great and unforgettable. The accent is as good as your average citizen.
The surname though, you’ll never get it right. You’ll keep stumbling and tripping on that sound so unfamiliar it tightens your tongue in a knot. An aftertaste of exoticness smoothing the feeling of not knowing how-to-pronounce-this and my pliant smile watering down your discomfort.
Bless you, you tried.
Photo cover by Julia Dragan