Where am I from?

 It is a sad fact for those of us as identity confused as myself that in this modern globalised day and age people still find the need to ask you: “Where are you from?” An ice-breaker, a simple brief question that the interlocutor will answer very easily – and from this brief answer the one who asked the question will be able to form a rapid sketch of the other's virtues and vices.

“So, where are you from?”, instead of with a shudder I have learned to accept this question with an automatic and deeply insincere smile. I mean, first of all the person is expecting me to mention a town or region in the country where this conversation is taking place, not a foreign land. Secondly, if I am to take the simple route and answer the question literally by stating my place of residence according to my identity card and my two passports (but not according to my English bank account or invoice for translations done for Italian clients), my parents could have picked a better place to give birth to me than humble little historically-limited Belgium. To give it more glamour however I do specify that I am from the capital. And this is usually how the exchange goes:

“I'm from Brussels.”

“Brussels?”

“The capital of Belgium...”

“Oh yes, Brussels. It's really boring isn't it? Sort of an administrative town, right?”

Because sadly that is all that people who have never been to Brussels know, at which point unless the interlocutor seems very interested I will not launch myself into a defense of my much appreciated hometown, first of all because having to make excuses would suggest that there is something to forgive and secondly, because a French person would laugh off the idea that that place with the funny accent could hold any serious attraction, an Italian person would pity anyone from a rainy country (or more precisely, anyone not from Italy, where the sun is warm, the food is tasty and the people are relaxed) and an English person might give us a colourful illustration of the effects of anti-EU propaganda.

The next inevitable comment once one has learnt that I am from Brussels, if I have not voluntarily touched upon the added detail of the two passports (either because I am too tired or the interlocutor is hitting on me and unattractive), is “You speak really good English for someone who is from Belgium.” At which point I am forced to confess that I am in fact English, and, if prodded the right way by the conversation or feeling that not completing this statement would be dishonest on my behalf, that I am also Italian. Confusion. This is preposterous. Indeed, people usually next ask me: “But why?!” Why? Because Brussels is the seat of the European Union. Because the European Union in order to function needs interpreters. Because my Italian mum who studied languages in Trieste and my English dad who studied languages at Oxford started their careers as interpreters in Brussels. Because they had a baby there and that baby was me. It's really not that upsetting! But because one from childhood onwards becomes aware of the frowns these facts can create, I find myself summing it up in an apologetic sentence: “I live in Brussels BUT my father is English and my mother is Italian.” -“Sorry guys!” my embarrassed smile seems to add as I look down at my drink. Then the person who has just had to deal with this information divides into two categories: the fascinated and the annoyed. The fascinated think I am an entertaining anthropological feat, ask more questions and smile. They usually are either into linguistics or into travelling. The annoyed think I am an unnecessary show off and that I could really have done what a normal person from Brussels does and just speak French and have a basic knowledge of Dutch. That is presuming they know those are the languages spoken in Belgium, even for that I am annoying: couldn't I have been born in a country where the language is given away by its name? (I do actually have a basic knowledge of Dutch as well as my English, French and Italian. No, don't worry: I do not speak German, the third official, if less spoken, language of Belgium.)

And one wishes the question: “Where are you from?” would resolve itself there: from Brussels BUT half English and half Italian. Sadly that is not the case, because a normally constituted person cannot tolerate the idea that one can be from several places at once. One must at least be “more from one place”. And so it is that since I have been able to speak I remember being asked: “Do you feel more English, more Italian or more Belgian?”.

Now, as a child this was quite stressful to hear not only because I held no answer, but also because choosing England over Italy or Italy over England would have meant offending one of the parents (Belgium having been ruled off the list by the diplomatic child I was turning out to be). And indeed, the grown ups asking me did usually have a spiteful glint in their eyes when they added the “or more Belgian”. When I was small the answer was “I don't know”, now I am older it is either “I am all of them” or “I am none of them” depending on my mood. Perhaps it is easier to let others answer for me, but even they contradict themselves. Some even add extra confusion: in England, Italy and Belgium I have been asked if I was French, so that now that I am twenty I have discovered that deep down I have a tortured relationship with the absent mother that is la France.

I have said that people contradict themselves when trying to tie me to a country. More on this subject. Friends will give me, and deprive me, of my nationality/ies depending on their ends. Usually it is an expression of endearment when one decides that I am from the same country as them. “I think of you as just English.”, “Only an Italian could have jumped off those rocks like that!”, “When I talk to you like this, to me, you are French.” Similarly, it is a sign of their superiority in some area of experience when I am not worthy of sharing their nationality. “No, I've never watched that: that's a thing foreigners are into.”, “But you don't have an Italian family!”, “Ah non! That must be Belgian, because I have never heard it in French.” The same person can in the course of the same day give to me and remove from me my citizenship without my being allowed to fight back: “Did you hear that Roman accent?” “That's not a Roman accent.” “I am Italian, I know what a Roman accent is.” “I go to Rome once a year and had a Roman boyfriend for a year and a half, if there is one accent I can recognise in a million it is the Roman one.” “Yes, but what would you know if you are not really Italian? Hm?” From the moment you “are not” any defense is worthless. (Unless presented by a lawyer of the nationality in question.) This inconsistency thus leads us to the answer: “I am none of them.”

“I am none of them” is a double-edged conclusion. On the negative side it can be associated to the thoughts: “I am from nowhere.”, “I never will belong” and, inevitably, “I will always be lonely.” Sad times. On the positive side it absolves you from all the flaws tied to a nationality. First of all anything to do with nationalism or jingoism I can laugh at in scorn. Guess what? I know neither the words to the British national anthem, nor the Italian one, nor the Belgian one (but then who does?) ...I do know the opening lines to La Marseillaise though – oh France, when will you cease to torment me?! From a purely English point of view I can tell you exactly where the Italian university system is going wrong and rant about corruption and Berlusconi and how these things would never happen in a civilised country. From a purely Italian point of view I can tell you how the English have a thing or two to learn about cookery, how holding in your emotions is deeply unhealthy and how people should relax now and then and enjoy life instead of working so hard. From a Belgian point of view I can tell you that the English are horribly right-wing and that the Italians have a lot to learn when it comes to social welfare. But there comes a time when people have had enough of hearing you criticising the hand that fed you and so I shall now tell you why I am “all of them” (ergo: a triply nationalistic monster.)

I have at this stage lived in Belgium, England and Italy. Upon returning from my year in Pavia all was Italy and the other two were rainy and cold and crap. Yes, one does go through phases. Right now the next step for me to answer the question “Where am I from?” is to have a go at living in France at some point so that I will have explored all the possibilities, for you see, it is possible to feel one completely belongs somewhere without being born there. And this is why: does it not make me a bit Italian, apart from the fact I have the passport and the vote, that my first babbled words were in Italian (for what else was I to begin speaking in than the language of my mother?), that I shudder when I see people cutting their spaghetti up with a knife, that as a child I watched on Rai Uno Solletico and L'albero azzurro and half of my Disney videocassettes dubbed in Italian, that I sing along to De Andrè songs in the car and that many an ancient aunt has patted me on the head calling me “creatura!” ? Does it not make me a bit English that in my last year of school I was Helena in an abridged version of a Midsummer Night's Dream, that as a child I watched Playdays and the Chuckle Brothers on the BBC, that when it's raining outside I smile to myself at the thought of “a nice cup of tea and a book”, and that I am studying at Oxford? Does it not make me a bit Belgian, even though I do not have the nationality, that (okay last children's tv show) I watched Ici Blabla, that I can sing to you “Eén, twee, drie, vier, hoedje van papier” and that I understand the sentence “Mais ça fieu, c'est parce que t'habites à Molenbeek!”? Does it not – aah, you treacherous land – make me a bit French that for my épreuve écrite de français of the bac I wrote a commentaire composé on an extract from Proust's Sodome et Gomorrhe, that I am “passé maître” in the art of complaining and throwing superior frowns, and that I use an annoying quantity of French locutions when writing in English? It is because of this mixed baggage of pop culture, knowledge of literature and culinary opinions; this converging of different educations (at home, at school and at university), vocabularies and accents, hand gestures and face expressions and even, call me vain, dress styles, all belonging to different countries or cities, that I am what I am: a mix of a bit of all of them.

Yes, I can honestly say that I feel Italian when, accompanied by a hand gesture, I reply to my mum: “E che ci vado a fa' ?” AND that I feel one hundred per cent Brussels kid when I sit at night on the 71 rocketing through deserted streets lit in yellow on my way home AND that I feel absolutely English when I burst out laughing at one of Wodehouse's dialogues AND, God damn it, that I feel French when I mumble “C'est pas pour dire, mais c'est un peu de la merde...”. I simply do, every single time.

Well, until one of my friends says that I am not.

Reg de Saint-Loup