Catching the bus in Chinatown this morning to come here to the Kaimuki library (open Sundays, even on this Fathers' Day) to blog, I sat up front in the first available seat next to a slender, ratty gentleman about my own age, with most of his front teeth missing, and the few that remained badly decayed. Nor, as I recall, was he particularly clean. So, ignoring him, I fished a recently acquired copy of a Suzuki comparison between Meister Eckhardt and Mahayana Buddhism out of my back pocket and started reading. "That's a very good book," said my seatmate.
"yes," I said, somewhat startled, "I just found it in a box of books last night that had been donated to the homeless shelter."
"You were lucky!"
"I think so. I like Meister Eckhardt. Do you like him too?"
"Did you say what's my name?"
"No. But what is it?"
"My name?"
"Yes, what's your name?"
"Pietro."
"Pietro? Parli italiano?"
"Si, parlo italiano io. E tu, come parli italiano?"
"Ho studiato in Italia."
And so it went, for three or four minutes, a feast of reason and flow of courtesies, till Pietro got off the bus downtown--the memory of which, as I write, stings my eyes with happy, nostalgic tears. There is nothing ironic about compliments in Italian; they go right to the heart.